The Presence of God
13th December 2024
This week, I would simply like to share a quotation with you. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Thursday 9th April 1891, that great church leader Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached a sermon entitled, "Is God in the Camp?" He spoke of the vital importance of the manifest presence of God in the church. In this sermon, he said:
'We must also be very careful in our lives. God will not come to an unholy Church. The sacred Dove will never come to a foul nest. There must be a purging and a cleansing, or else He will not come.
'Moreover, there must be a conscientious obedience to His Word, a strict adherence to His Truth, His Doctrine, His Precepts — to the whole of Christ's Rule and Law. He will not prosper us unless we are careful to follow every step that He has taken. God help us to have this conscientious care, this coming out from those who may not be thus careful, according to His Word, "Come out from among them, and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
'If we desire this special sense of God's Presence, there must be unbroken union. The Spirit of God does not love fighting. He is a dove and He will not come where there is constant strife. We must be as one man in our love to one another. It was when the disciples were "with one accord in one place" that the Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost - and thus it is in all our Pentecostal seasons. Often a stone seems to lie at the well's mouth of our choicest blessings - and it cannot be rolled away "until the flocks are gathered together."
'To crown all, there must be a hearty reliance upon God and a childlike confidence in Him. I would recommend you either believe in God up to the hilt, or else not believe at all! Believe this Book of God [the Bible], every letter of it, or else reject it! There is no logical standing place between the two. Be satisfied with nothing less than a faith that swims in the deeps of Divine Revelation! A faith that paddles about the edge of the water is poor faith and is not good for much. Oh, I pray you, do believe in God and His Omnipotence!
'Such are the conditions of obtaining the blessing of God's abiding Presence.'
England needs revival. This means the English church needs revival. This, in turn, means we need the manifest presence of God in the church. As we pray for revival with increasing desperation, these words from the 19th century provide us a focus for our prayers. They may also call us to repentance.