Now, in Psalm 95, I'm going to use verse 2 this morning as our text. But I want to read from verses 1 through about verse 7 just to kind of get the context here of this psalm. And I want to use verse 2 as a springboard to begin our message this morning because he speaks of the presence of God. And that's the title of my message this morning. is the presence of God. This has been the meditations of my heart for many, many weeks. I started to preach on this a few weeks ago. And I just feel that it's time for me to go ahead and speak on that this morning. And the question that we must ask ourselves is that have we truly sought the presence of God or have we just sought salvation and the knowledge of God. Now, I want you to just think about these this morning as we go through this. I've got a three-point outline. We're going to be speaking this morning of the reality of God's presence, the pursuit of God's presence, and number three, the experience, or we could say the practice of God's presence. Now, you'll notice with me as we read from verse 1, He says, O come, let us sing unto the Lord, and let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth. The strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Oh, come and let us worship and bow down and let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand today, if you will hear His voice. Now, Lord, we thank You for this day and the privilege that You've given us again after another week to assemble together. Lord, we just pray this morning for Your anointing and blessing to be upon the reading of Thy Word. Lord, as I've been thinking about this subject for the last many weeks and been praying about it and studying about it and meditating upon it, Lord, I pray this morning that You'll help me to convey what's on my heart and mind to the congregation here. Lord, I pray that You'll just open our hearts and, Lord, our eyes this morning to truth from Thy Word, for it's in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. And you may be seated. A. W. Tozer, said in a book that he wrote, I believe it is The Pursuit of God, he said, I want the presence of God Himself or I don't want anything at all to do with religion. I want all that God has or I don't want any. And I got to thinking about that statement, and I was reading a little bit of his material this past week, and I'll say more about that in a few moments. I've got a chapter out of his book laying here that I'm going to give to you this morning. But I got to thinking about this as I've been studying and contemplating and meditating upon the presence of God. And when we come here and consider this, there's always two extremes when you come to this subject. There are those who believe that God is unapproachable, that He is too holy for you and I to be able to come into His presence. Then there are those that say that God is very accessible and say that, well, God is just one of the guys or He's my buddy or whatever. And both of those concepts are wrong. And I want us to bring a balance to this today. Now, as we come here, you'll notice with me, that this psalm begins, obviously, with dealing with the subject of worship. He said, O come and let us sing unto the Lord and let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. In verse 2, let us come before His presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise to Him with psalms. Verse 3, The Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods. And we find here in verse 6, "...O come and let us worship, and bow down, and let us kneel before the Lord our Maker." When we come to the Word of God, we must believe that it is the words of the living God. We find that as we come and consider this subject or any other subject that we may be studying, We must believe that when we open up this book, that God is speaking to you and I in the present tense. This is not just a book of records, a historical book of records. We must come to God and when we open up His Word, we must believe that He is speaking to us in the present tense. Until we can see this and understand this, we'll never know anything about the presence of God. Jesus Christ Himself in John 1 is called the Word, showing us the emphasis that is placed upon the Word of God. He was God incarnate, and we have the Word of God. Think about Him being called the Word, showing us the importance of God's Word. He brought God's Word. to this earth for mankind. This is a living book that we hold in our hand this morning, and we must expect that when we come to it and when we read it, that God will speak to us, and I believe that He will. Even in the Old Testament, when God had given Moses and the children of Israel, He had given them the tabernacle and the sacrifices and all the ceremonies He was trying to point them to a holy and righteous God. Everything that they did under the law, we said, well, all those ceremonies and all those things, all of that was trying to point His people to a righteous and holy God because they had come out of Egypt where there was much idolatry. And so God was trying to refocus their thinking, and so He gave them His commandments, His laws, His statutes, the tabernacle, the sacrifices, the ceremonies, all of these things God gave to them that they may point to the fact that God loves them and He's a holy and a righteous God. Now notice with me as we come back here to verse 2, and I want you to notice this again, and I wanted to start here this morning because it speaks of the presence of God. He says here in verse 2, he said, Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto Him with songs. So in this case, he's talking about coming into the presence of God to worship similar to what we've done this morning as we come to worship the Lord. Now, turn with me please to Psalms 139. We just sang a few verses from this psalm. Now, my first point this morning is this, and I'm really working my way down to point 2 and 3. That's where I want to place the emphasis at. But my first point this morning is the reality of God's presence that we see given to us in the Word of God. And it is mentioned many times in the Bible from the first book of Genesis to the last book in the book of Revelation. There are three dimensions of God's presence that we find in the Word of God. First of all, there is God's universal presence. No matter where you would go in this universe, you will experience God's presence. You can't hide from Him, and you can't get away from His presence. No matter whether saved or lost, every individual is influenced by the presence of God. And we're going to be reading here in this chapter. Even in Jonah 1 and verse 3, I went down to Tarshish, I forget the city there, but he went down and he tried to go out from the presence of the Lord. And he couldn't get away from the presence of the Lord. And Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 3 says, "...the whole earth is filled with His glory." Acts 17, 28 and 29, the Bible tells us that the Lord is very near all of us and we are His offspring. And so, first of all, when we talk about the reality of God, we find in the Word of God, we see that God's universal presence, omnipresent, God is a Spirit and He is not limited to space and time. Now, notice as we come to this passage, and by the way, let me just go ahead and give you the second area, and we're going to read this in just a moment. But we also find God's dwelling in the believer. We find God's dwelling in 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 16. God dwells in the believer. So there's God's presence. God dwells in you and I by the Holy Spirit. The Bible says we are the temple of God. So there's the presence of God. This may be a mystery to us. We may not understand it, but the Bible tells us that God dwells in us by His Holy Spirit. Now notice as we read from verse 7 here in this chapter, in verse 7, we're going to read through verse 7 through verse 12, we have these words. He said, Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? I'm coming back now to the thought of His universal presence. And he said, verse 8, "'And if I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me, yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day, and darkness and the light are both a light to thee." So no matter where you would go, you can go to the bottom of the sea, you can go into hell, you can go into heaven, you can get out and hide somewhere in the darkest night, and there's no way that we can escape the presence of God in this universe. Secondly, as I said, God dwells inside of every believer. Number three, and I want you to turn with me to Psalms 27. Number three, I'm still under the first point, the reality of God's presence. The third area is that God manifests presence. God's manifest presence. That is, God manifests Himself in particular ways at specific times to certain individuals. God will manifest Himself in particular ways in specific times to certain individuals or maybe even groups of individuals. And as we started in Psalms 95 and verse 2, we know that as we assemble ourselves together, we desire God's presence, do we not? We desire to come into His presence. And he actually said in Matthew 18 and verse 20, where two or three are gathered together, he said, there will I be. So we know that God throughout the centuries has manifested Himself in special ways to either individuals or even as a nation with Israel or as churches or groups of people. So the reality of God's presence exists in the Word of God in a universal way, in an indwelling way, and then in a manifested way. And now I want to come to our second point, the pursuit of God's presence. Now what we're going to see here is the psalmist, and especially David, pursuing the presence of God. Now, we pursue many things in life, do we not? I mean, you can just sit back and watch folks, and we're pursuing many things in life. But how many people do you know that are honestly pursuing the presence of God? I'm not talking about just the knowledge of God or the salvation of God. But how many people do you know personally that are truly pursuing the presence of God? Now, I want you to just think about that. Silence is not golden to many people in the world today. As a matter of fact, there is so much noise and so much things going on in our lives that if you put some people in the room with total silence for five minutes, they would be insane. And Hudson Taylor said it is the secret to spiritual living. silent with the Lord and allowing the Lord to speak to you. Most people have got to have something going, something listening to something, some kind of music going, some kind of noise going. I love this time of year and also the spring because you get down to the place where you don't have air conditionings and heaters and fans. and things like that running, and you can literally lay in bed at night and hear the birds or hear some noises and whatever, you know, the animals and those kind of things. I love silence. And many hate silence. They can't stand silence. And many cannot even sit down and be still for a little while. They're very impatient, and it just kills them to have to sit down. Well, if you can never get quiet and never have silence and can never just sit down for a while, then how in the world can God speak to you? I want you to think about this morning. I've been meditating upon this for weeks. And how many do we know today that are pursuing the presence of God? to practice or experience the presence of God as we're going to get into in our third point. How many do we know that this is their number one desire? There's been a number of times in my life that I've felt very near with God. There's also been those times I've felt very distant. Can I get an amen? There's times that you feel distant from God and you desire that closeness, like being away from a spouse or someone for a period of time. But there have been times in my life where many times that I have experienced that unique presence of God. And I'll be honest with you, as A.W. Tozer said, if I can't have that, I don't really want much of anything, because that should be the desires of our heart. And as we come to the Bible, we're going to focus in on the psalmist, but we find it here as we're going to read in the book of Psalms in just a moment in chapter 27, that especially with David, his whole heart was centered around the presence of God. Now here's a few other verses I'm going to give you before I read here. But in Hebrews 10.22 it says, "...let us draw near with a true heart." Psalms 34 and verse 18 said, "...the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart." Genesis 3 verses 8-11, the interesting thing is that Adam and Eve walk in the presence of God, and then after they sinned, we find that they ran and hid from the presence of God. You see, piety prepares us for God's presence, and sin hinders us according to Isaiah 52 and v. 8 and Psalms 66 and v. 18. In Genesis 4 and v. 8, the Bible says that Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. In Genesis 28 and v. 16, Jacob said, God was in this place and I knew it not. And Philippians chapter 3 and verse 8, the apostle Paul cried out and he said, that I may know Him. Read the text there and look at that. That I may know Him. In Exodus chapter 33, we're going to turn there later, Moses cried out, O God, show me Thy glory. Deuteronomy 4 and verse 29, God reveals Himself to those who earnestly seek Him. In 2 Chronicles 15 and verse 2 it says, "...the Lord is with you while you be with Him. And if you seek Him, He will be found of you. But if you forsake Him, He will forsake you." And 2 Chronicles 16 and verse 9 says, "...the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him." So we find many times in the Word of God, the believers, those who are trusting the Lord, that they feel a distance from God and we see them pursuing a holy and a righteous God. I'm saying to you this morning that our chief concern today should be is to ensure God's presence with us. whether it be as an individual, as our family, or as our church. The presence of God is more than just a Sunday experience. And I'll explain that a little bit more later. We ought to be seeking God's presence, enjoying God's presence, desiring God's presence, and the fear of losing God's presence. David cried out in Psalm 51, verse 11, and there was a fear that he would lose the presence of God. He did not want God's presence to be taken away from him. Now notice as we come to this passage, we read here in chapter 27 and verse 4, the book of Psalms, chapter 27 and verse 4, We have these words. Now notice this, "...one thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." Notice he said, "...one thing that I desire." This one thing that I want, this one thing that I desire more than anything else, he said, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, that I may behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. He said this one thing, this is all I want. Notice with me as we come down to verse 8. He said in verse 8, He said, When thou saidest, Seek ye My face, My heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Turn to Psalm 16 and notice here. I'm going to go through four or five different psalms and just point out. I want you to see that David was a man that sought after God. David was a man that pursued God. He wanted God's presence in his life. Notice in Psalms 16 and verse 11, he said, "...Thou wilt show me the path of life, and Thy presence is fullness of joy. At Thy right hand there are pleasures evermore." Notice that he said in verse 11, "...In Thy presence is fullness of joy." There is no true joy, no peace, no calmness without the presence of God in our lives. Turn with me please to Psalms 42. As I said a moment ago, there's been a number of times that I have felt distant from God. And those are times that you don't really enjoy. And there's times that I've felt very near to the Lord. And also, I've had God to speak to me. Now, I'm not talking about in an audible way. There's one time in particular that I've set aside three days by myself just to pray and to seek God, and how that God just overwhelmed me with His presence and His love and His mercy. Sixteen years ago, I spent one summer in this sanctuary on my face for three and four and five hours a day, praying and seeking God and spending time in the Psalms and God coming and speaking and leading and guiding me through those months, some things that we were going through in the ministry. I remember one time years ago when I was in construction work, I began to be bothered thinking that I was not doing enough for the Lord, or I needed to be doing something else for the Lord, and maybe there's something else that God would have me to do. And this was a few years back before God had called me to preach. And I remember being near the foot of a mountain there in Evansville, Tennessee, and out in the field praying, and God come to me. It was so real. Now, I didn't hear bells, and I didn't hear whistles, and I didn't see lights flashing, and I didn't hear an audible voice, but God spoke to me there in that field seeking Him and pursuing Him. and asking Him, what is it, Lord? What do You want me to do? Do You want me to do something else? And I loved being a brick mason. I loved being my own boss. I loved getting out and doing that type of work. And the Lord spoke to me and He said, You are in My will. Keep doing what you're doing. And you know what, from that day forward, I got such a satisfaction and peace, I got up every morning and I left in every brick I laid for Christ's sake. And that was just as good as somebody preaching the Word of God. I felt like I was in the perfect will of God. But I had to pursue God and had to get that peace and had to experience that presence. And there's been many other times in my life that these things have happened. Has God revealed Himself to you and give you perfect peace and joy in your heart about what you're doing, the direction you're going, what vocation you should be in, where you should be, all those kind of things? Have you really pursued God and asked God about these things? Many times we make decisions and then ask God to bless it, do we not? We go and make our decisions and say, God, would You sanctify this? Would You bless this? Because this is what I'm going to do and this is what I want to do. Notice as we come to Psalms 42, and I pray this morning that you'll be blessed by this. I pray this morning that you'll get out of this what I've got out of it for about six weeks, and praying about this and studying about this and meditating upon this, that it will be our vocation that we will pursue the presence of God. Not just His salvation, not just His knowledge, but that we will desire to experience His presence. In Psalms 42, the Bible says here, notice with me, and I'm not going to read the entire chapter, we could, but in verse 2, he says here, My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? I challenge you to read the surrounding verses. Now, this is a man that is saved. This is a man that knows God. This is a man that's walked with God. And here he's crying out and he said, My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before Thee? He said in verse 1, As the heart panteth after the water broke, Sol paneth my soul after thee, O God." Here's a man that is in pursuit of God. Here, in effect, here's a God chaser. Can I use that word? Here's somebody that's chasing God, pursuing God. Here's somebody that's desiring God and seeking God. He not only wants to know about God, but he wants God's presence in his life. Turn with me to chapter 62 and notice here. In chapter 62, notice here. Let me come to chapter, you can write down verse 1 and verse 5, but come to chapter 63. And notice what I mean in verse 8, and I challenge you to read this entire psalm this week or this evening. But notice what it means when we come here. He said in verse 8, now look at this again, I believe this to be David. And it says here in verse 8, it says, My soul followeth hard after thee, thy right hand upholdeth me. Here's a man chasing God. Here's a man desiring to be in the presence of God, to be in the perfect will of God. And he said, my soul followeth hard after thee. Notice with me one other time in the book of Psalms. I'm going to be reading in Psalms chapter 84 this time, verses 2 and in verse 5. You see, the Bible said in Psalm 46.10, we sing that psalm, it says, Be still and know that I am God. The majority don't know how to be still. The majority don't know what it means to be still. The majority don't know what it means to get rid of the noise and the distractions in their life. They've got to have some kind of game, something to look at, something to listen to, something always has got to be going on. But the Bible says, Be still and know that I am God. God cannot speak to us with all the distractions that we bring into our lives. We live in a noisy world. Notice he says here in chapter 84, and I'm going to be reading two verses. Verse 2, he said, yea, even fainted for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." Notice in verse 5, he said, "...blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, and whose heart are the ways of them." We find here in these verses again somebody pursuing God. Turn with me to the book of Exodus now, and notice with me in Exodus chapter 33. In Exodus chapter 33. Now notice carefully as we come here to Exodus chapter 33. Now, let's come to our third point this morning, and that is the experience of God's presence, or many would say, the practice of God's presence. Now, we see that God's presence, number one, is a reality. God is everywhere in the universe. Amen? God also dwells inside of the believer by the Holy Ghost. And also, God has manifested Himself to individuals or groups or even a nation at different times in their lives, and so we know that God is present in this world and working in the lives of individuals. And we also can see by the verses we read and many other verses, there are those who their life's goal was to pursue the presence of God. They wanted to walk in God's will. They wanted to be in God's presence. They did not want to be out of God's will at all. And they wanted to experience God in a very unique and a special way. They wanted to be with God. This should be our goal. It should be our chief aim in life is that we would experience the presence of God. Now what do I mean when I use the word experience? That is, the personal experience to enjoy God and to practice His presence. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, there's things that accompany the presence of God. We're going to read of three different things here in this passage. There are things that accompany the presence of God. I could give you a list of eight or ten things. You could write down probably fifteen or twenty more. We know that peace and joy comes along with the presence of God. We also know that contentment, you go through the Bible and read the different times that covetousness and discontentment is compared with contentment and peace and joy. We know that contentment comes along with the peace of God. We know that satisfaction, delight, rest comes along with the presence of God. We also know that with the presence of God, we have power over sin. We also know that when the presence of God is true in our lives, we have no fear of man. We only fear God. We also know that when we are in the presence of God, that there is courage and that we are calm and that we are confident. We have confidence in what God has called us to do. And again, you could add to that list. So there's many things that accompany the presence of God, and we're going to look at three different ones right here in this particular chapter. We need to live, we need to walk, we need to abide in God's presence. Listen to this, church. We need to be conscious of God's presence when it is there. God came near many holy men and women in the Old Testament and the New as well. God came near to them when their heart was turned toward the Lord in a special way. When they pursued Him and they desired Him more than anything else. Now notice, as we come to chapter 33 in the book of Exodus, and first of all, let me read verse 14 and verse 15. He says here in verse 14, and he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up fence. This is Moses and God having a conversation. And Moses is saying, it sounds like A.W. tells you, he's saying, Lord, if your presence is not going to be with us, we're not going. I don't want to go. I don't want to go alone. I don't want to do this alone. Now, turn with me in this chapter to verse 11 and notice. Moses' request is very unique. He's wanting the presence of God. That's all. Israel had just sinned a great sin with the golden calf in chapter 32. God killed 3,000 and then plagued others. And so what Moses did in verse 7, he carried the tabernacle. This was not the tabernacle they built later, but probably a tent they used for worship. But he carried this tabernacle outside the camp in order to worship, and it was a visible display that the presence of God is no longer with the camp of the nation of Israel. And those who desire God and desire His presence were to come outside of the camp. The book of Hebrews talks to you and I the same way. Coming outside the camp in order to experience the presence of God. Now notice what we read in verse 5. And it came to pass that when Moses went out into the tabernacle, that all the people rose up and stood every man at his tent door and looked after Moses until he was gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass that as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses, and all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose up and worshiped every man at his tent door. And the Lord spake unto Moses..." Notice, face to face. "...face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of none, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle." Now notice in verse 11, God comes to Moses and speaks to him face What do we mean by that? Moses experienced the divine presence of God. The face of God here is a sign of God's presence. Where your face is, is where you're at. Am I correct? You see, I look out at this congregation this morning and I know that you're here because your face is here. You are present. And God came and spoke to Moses face to face. He revealed His divine presence unto Moses because Moses sought that more than anything else in life. You say, well, you don't know the responsibilities I have. Have you considered Moses? Anywhere from a million to three million people trying to lead them? They just rebelled on him, built a golden calf. God had to kill some of them. And Moses saying, Lord, all I want is Your presence. He didn't ask for anything else. He said, I want Your presence. Now notice as we come down in chapter 33, I want you to notice three things in this chapter that accompany God's presence. Now first of all is divine guidance. Notice with me as we read from verse 13. He said, "...now therefore I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight," look at it, "...show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people." In verse 16 of this chapter he says, For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us, as so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth?" Moses is saying, Show me Thy way. Separate us from the peoples of this world. Lead us in Your way. Show us the will of God. You and I know that there's many decisions in life, and the farther we go along in life, and the more technology and the complication life gets, there's more decisions that have to be made. And Moses is saying here in the desert, all I want is that I want divine guidance. So this is one thing that accompanies the presence of God. When we experience, and that's what I'm talking about, the experience of God's presence, when we're practicing God's presence, when we're conscious of God's presence, then we have divine guidance. And we need that in our society. Because every day that you get up, there's new decisions that you have to make, new problems that you will face. Amen? A wife or a husband, there's always decisions and problems and we need divine guidance and it comes from one place and that is abiding in the presence of the Lord God. How many by just raising your hand could say, Preacher, I have experienced and enjoyed God's presence? Can I see your hand? You really enjoyed it and experienced it and felt it, and you say, well, I thought you didn't believe in feelings. Well, if you don't have feelings, you're dead. And you have felt and enjoyed and experienced and knew that when God was speaking, that when God was leading, you just knew that in your life. Now, we're not talking about anything outside of the confines of the written Word of God. We're talking about what lines up with the Word of God. Now, the second thing that comes with God's presence is divine rest. And oh, Lord God knows we need this. He says here in verse 14, and he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. You know what that is that's peace? That's harmony. That's tranquility. That's a quietness from restlessness that is in the world that we live in. They're in the wilderness and there's many dangers, and still yet going through these dangers and following the Lord, God says, I'm going to give you rest. Jesus said in Matthew 11, 28, He said, I'll give you rest for your soul if you respond to My invitation. He said, Come. And Psalm 37 and verse 7, it says, Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. He says, fret not. And then in Jeremiah 6 and verse 16, it says there, he says, there is rest in the old past. We've talked about the old past. That is God's way, not leading. But God says in the old past, He said there's rest for the soul there. A lot of people want to get away from the old past. They want to do it their way. We live in a technological age, you know, today. And everything's advancing at a fast rate and whatever. And God says, go back to the old paths, He said, because there's rest for your soul. Notice with me as we come to verse 18, there is also something else that accompanies the divine presence of God, and that is divine glory. being able to see His majesty and His power living in His presence. And I'll challenge you to read chapter 34 through 5, verse 8, but notice in chapter 33, verse 19, notice this carefully. Well, verse 18, and He said, I beseech thee, show Me thy glory. And He said, I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And He said, Thou canst not see My face, for there shall no man see Me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place for Me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. And He said, and it shall come to pass. And of course, we know that God's glory was there in that place. You can read that later. God's glory was in this place. Moses desired the presence of God, and with this presence of God, he got guidance, he got rest, and he got glory, to experience glory, because he wanted the presence of God. Turn over to Joshua, and notice what we mean in Joshua chapter 1. And let me give you a list of other verses as well while we're turning there. Let me give you Genesis 21, verse 22 and the story of Abraham. Well, the Bible says there, God is with thee in all that thou doest. Gideon in Judges 6, verses 12 and 14, the Lord is with thee. Jeremiah chapter 15 and verse 20 says, I am with thee to save thee and deliver thee. And Isaiah 43 and verses 1 through 5, the Lord said, I am with thee. And He's basically saying, I'm with thee through the flood and through the fire, through all the things that you go through. The Lord is saying, I'm with you. And what about Daniel chapter 3, and I can't remember the exact verse, but what about the courage and the confidence of the three Hebrew children. They were in the midst of adversity. You think about that. They stood while everybody else was sitting. They practiced and experienced the presence of God, and in my opinion, the victory of the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego was not coming out of the fire. The victory was going into the fire. Because their minds were made up. They said, we don't have to think about this. They did not have to make a decision. The decision had been made years ago. They would stand for God and they wouldn't worship idols. There's many idols in the world in which you and I live. Did you know that? There's many idols around us. Covetousness is idolatry, the Bible said in Ephesians 5 and also in Colossians chapter 3. And I'm simply saying to you, is that the three Hebrew children, when you read the story there, again, the victory was if they were standing when everybody else was sitting. And they would not compromise. Why? Because they knew something about the presence of God. In Jeremiah chapter 1, you'll notice as we read from verse 5, And there shall not any man be able to stand before thee, God talking to Joshua, as he would lead the children of Israel in. He said, "...there shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life." Now notice this, "...as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." And he goes on to encourage him. He said, be strong and be of good courage. In verse 6, he said, I'm going to divide the land unto you. And he again comes back and places the emphasis upon the Word of God in verse 8 and verse 9. Now again, is the Bible just a historical record book to you? Or is it a living book? Is it something that only worked for somebody in the past? Or is it something that when you read, I don't care if it's the book of Psalms, Paul's letters, the Gospels, or the book of Revelation, when you read, do you see it as God speaking to you on a daily basis and leading and guiding you? Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. I'm going to read verse 31. Now notice in verse 31, he says, "...whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God." About three years ago, I preached a message in this church on a Sunday night titled, Sacred Music. I'm going to talk about sacred things just for a moment. And I preached a message titled, Sacred Music. Now my whole point in that message was to say that you and I that are sanctified and are set apart for the glory of God, that the only music that we should sing listen to or play should be music that glorifies God. The Christian has no business fooling around with any secular music. Now, I want to just take some thoughts from, again, A. W. Tozer and his book, The Pursuit of God, chapter 10 titled, The Sacrament of Life. I'm going to give each one of you a copy of chapter 10. And I want you to listen to just a few thoughts. He talked about the philosophy of sacred and secular. Now, I'm not going to quote him verbatim, but these are thoughts gleaned from this chapter that I'm going to give to you. And he talked about the philosophy of sacred and secular, and he said this should not be in a Christian's life, and I have to agree with him. He said we divide. We are crossing back and forth between two worlds. And we become frustrated, we become confused, because we're always trying to divide the secular from the sacred. Now, if you follow what I taught you three years ago in music, you don't have to cross back and forth. Amen? You understand what I'm saying? If you're following what I taught you about music, you're not crossing back. In other words, everything you sing, play, or listen to is sacred. There is no such thing as secular as far as the music is concerned. Many times we divide it up this way. Sacred is what? Well, we say, well, sacred is worship. It's going to church as we are here this morning. It might be taking the Lord's Supper. It may be Bible study. It may be prayer. It may be my meditations. We say that's secular. I'm sacred rather. And then on the other hand, we say, well, what is secular? We may say, well, eating and drinking and sleeping and working. We'd say that's secular. And then we divide it all up And then we get confused and we get frustrated. Can I get an amen? Can I get a witness this morning? And we get frustrated as we're divided up between these two worlds. And as we come to church, we try to make it all sacred. As we leave here, then we figure, well, that's the secular world and things don't matter quite as much. Am I telling you the truth? He makes a statement in his book. He said in John 8.29, He said, our perfect example, Jesus Christ, made no distinctions between the two. And for the Lord said, for I do always those things that please Him. Jesus Christ lived in a real body as you and I live in. And at the same time, He never performed a non-sacred act. Now, I'm taking it slow with this. I want it to sink in. You and I live in created bodies. Jesus Christ lived in a real human body. And He never performed a non-sacred act. Amen? Now, what does our text say here? Our text says, verse 31, "...whether therefore ye eat or drink." Or whatsoever you do. He even comes down to the little things that we would consider eating and drinking. You say, how can you make that sacred? Anything can be sacred. Marriage is sacred. The marriage bed is sacred. Everything is sacred if we want it to be sacred. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost. And even down to our eating and drinking should be to the glory of God. Every act of life should be sacred. Every daily duty should be sacred. Our labors, our job, our eating, even planting a garden can be sacred if it's done for the glory of God. Whatever that we do should be a sacred act, and it should be a sacred act of worship whereby God accepts that. God accepts the things that are done to His glory. God accepts acts of worship that are done to His glory. And I'm saying that instead of being frustrated all the time, switching back and forth between the secular and the sacred and whatever, why not just live to the glory of God? Just live to the glory of God and consider every act of worship, every duty as being sacred and being acceptable to God. I have to agree with this author in this because we have come to the place that we've separated secular and sacred to the point that the only thing that matters to most people is a little church during the week and maybe a little five-minute quiet time that they may read a proverb or something and the rest of their life is secular and it's not sacred and it's not acceptable to God. Notice in verse 31 one more time before we turn away. He said in verse 31, "...whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God." Do all to the glory of God, whether we eat, whether we drink. I hear people laugh and joke about things. I had somebody say to me not long ago, God wanted me to be sweet, so He gave me diabetes. You've got to be out of your mind. God wants us to live for Him. He wants us to eat for Him. He wants us to drink for Him. God wants us to be as healthy as possible. This temple that He gives us is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and we can joke about what's going on in our country. We can joke about the obesity and the garbage and whatever, but I'm telling you something, it's not a joke in God's eyes. We treat our cars better than we do our own bodies. We'll put the best gas in it and the best oil in it, and then put junk in our bodies. I'm saying that everything that we do in life can be sacred and we don't have to be swapping back and forth and back and forth. It can be sacred and it can be an act of worship and it can be acceptable to God even down to planting a garden. or working your job for the glory of God, raising your children for the glory of God, all of these things can be classified in the arena of that which is sacred, and if it's sacred, then it is an act of worship, and it is acceptable to God, and God will reward us one day for that. Turn with me to 1 Peter 3. The Bible says in Psalm 15, who can dwell? I believe it's in the tabernacle of God or the presence of God. And He gives a list of things. Here's a few. He said, He that walketh uprightly, He that worketh righteous, and He that speaketh the truth. In Jeremiah 29, verse 13, He says, And you shall seek Me and find Me when you shall rather search Me with all your heart. He said, you shall seek Me and you'll find Me when you search Me with all your heart. In 1 Peter 3, notice here. In 1 Peter 3, I'm going to be reading in verse 15. Now, as we bring this near close this morning, the Bible said in Philippians 4-5, the Lord is at hand. He's not talking about the Second Coming. He's talking about the presence and nearness of God. And in that chapter, he speaks of peace and power and the presence of God. In 1 Timothy 6, verse 6, godliness with contentment is great gain. James 4, verse 4, he said, draw nigh to God and God will draw nigh to thee. That's what he says. He says in Hebrews 13, verse 5, I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee. And in the context, he's making a contrast between covetousness and contentment. Now, as we come here to our last passage this morning, how many of us truly are hungering and thirsting after God to the point, and pursuing God, and desiring these things of the presence of God, that we're willing to come in ourselves to that? Notice as we come to this last passage, I've shed many tears. in the last six weeks over this, thinking about it. Thinking about the times when I have not been near to God as I should. Thinking about the times that I've made decisions on my own without having the peace and joy and the presence of God Almighty in my life. And I'm telling you, this ought to be a vocation to us. This ought to be number one priority in our lives. that we would desire, that we would pursue the presence of God, that it would become more important to us than anything else in life. I believe that it would radically change our lives. It would change our families. I believe it would radically change our church. You don't need programs and props and gimmicks when you have the presence of God. You don't need those things. You don't need any put on. You don't need any of these things when you're walking and living and praying and breathing in the presence of God. And I pray that we as the psalmists, that we would cry for this. That we would plead for this. He says here in chapter 3 and verse 15, "...to sanctify the Lord, God, in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that answers you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." I believe this. I believe that if you'll let a man or woman sanctify the Lord in their heart, nothing is a common act anymore. Nothing will be a common act. And to sanctify the Lord in our heart is to give Him His rightful place. We seek a lot of things in life. We seek security. We seek job security. We seek to secure a home. We seek retirements. We seek a lot of things in this life. But I believe with all my heart that we need to seek not just the salvation of God that we have, and not just the knowledge of God of filling our head with more facts, And I'm not against understanding the knowledge of God, but I think that we need to seek the presence of God, that He would be real in our lives. Shall we come this morning and pray? I pray this morning that you would shed just a few of the tears that I've shed in the last six weeks of thinking about this subject, wanting this to be true in my own life, and to have the ability to be able to present this to you in a proper way that it would be meaningful, that it would never be forgotten. And I know we're preparing a meal back there, but I told my wife, I said, I want everybody in the service, I want them to see these verses. I want to read these. Pour my heart out to you. The presence of God. I challenge you to study on this yourself. And seek His presence with your whole heart. Father, we thank You for this day. We thank You for Your love and kindness and mercy to us. And Lord, we're so blessed, Lord. We're so thankful to You that You have loved us. Lord, You've not only saved us, You've not only given us life, but given it to us more abundantly. Lord, You not only call us Your children, but Lord, You've given us the privilege actually walk in Your presence and by Your side. God, I pray this will be the pursuit of each and every one in this assembly. Lord, that we will desire You more than anything else in this world. Lord, we praise You for Your love and mercy and kindness to us. Lord, we just ask now that You be with us, Lord, as we continue to sing For it's in Jesus Christ's precious and holy name we pray, Amen and Amen.