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Why God Withholds Presence
00:08:48
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| May I just read the back of this real quick, Jim? | |
| Okay. | |
| Honor, glorify, and love God by learning to dwell in his presence. | |
| R.T. Kendall invites you to discover what it means to be in the presence of God. | |
| In this flesh, new look at God's presence. | |
| Kendall explores everything from omnipresence of God, which means he's everywhere. to the tangible manifestation of his presence. | |
| You will discover why God might at times withhold a sense of his presence. | |
| I think all of us have experienced that. | |
| While at other times you might experience an acute sense of awe or reverence of God that drives you to your knees in prayer, leads you into spontaneous worship of him or brings about healing and miracles. | |
| Kendall teaches you how to develop a sensitivity to his presence so your love for him and relationship with him will deepen and grow. | |
| And I think people are hungry for that. | |
| Very hungry for it. | |
| Page seven, you say, we must honor him when we feel nothing. | |
| We must worship him when we are tired and afraid in our weakest moments. | |
| Yes, even in our most embarrassing moments when we feel we have done everything wrong and nothing right. | |
| God is absolutely there. | |
| I will never leave you nor forsake you, he promises. | |
| Or as Jesus put it, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. | |
| And then you go on to say, can you accept this? | |
| Do you believe this? | |
| It means that God is with you, whether or not we feel him, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. | |
| Can I share with you something that I do every day? | |
| Yes. | |
| This is taking you right in to my personal, most intimate life. | |
| This is it right here. | |
| Many years ago, I discovered a verse. | |
| I've read it a thousand times, as probably you have. | |
| Psalm 16, verse 8, where David said, I have set the Lord always before me. | |
| I've checked the Hebrew, I've checked other theologians. | |
| Is that actually what David said? | |
| Yes. | |
| I have set the Lord before me. | |
| Now, when you do that, you don't make him happen to be there because he goes on to say, because he is at my right hand, I will not be moved. | |
| So you don't make it happen. | |
| But here's what David is saying. | |
| And I do this myself every morning. | |
| I did it this very morning. | |
| I picture Jesus right here at my right hand, like he's about two feet away. | |
| I just picture him here. | |
| That doesn't put him there. | |
| He's there anyway. | |
| I'm just affirming what's there. | |
| That's where he is. | |
| David said it, because he's at my right hand. | |
| So I just kind of position my body. | |
| Here he is. | |
| And I start talking to him. | |
| It's the most wonderful thing in the world. | |
| You talk about intimacy. | |
| You've got his undivided attention. | |
| In the same way as St. Augustine put it, God loves every person as if there were no one else to love. | |
| So when we pray, he listens to you as if there was no one else he's listening to. | |
| You've got his full attention, and you just talk to him. | |
| Now let me tell you, on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, verse 35, Peter, Peter, quotes that verse. | |
| Psalm 16, verse 8 says, I've set the Lord always before me. | |
| But when David is quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost, Peter changes the word. | |
| It says, I saw the Lord always before me. | |
| With David, I've set him before me. | |
| Peter, I saw the Lord. | |
| I think, why did he say it like that? | |
| I think I know. | |
| Jesus said to the disciples, a little while and you will see me no more. | |
| And yet again a little while, you will see me. | |
| And they didn't have a clue what that meant. | |
| And Jesus turned to them. | |
| He said, are you asking about that verse or what I just said? | |
| A little while, you won't see me. | |
| A little while, you will see me. | |
| And they said, yeah, we don't know what that means. | |
| A little while, you won't see me. | |
| A little while, you will see me. | |
| He couldn't figure it out. | |
| Well, later, he dies on the cross, raising the dead, goes to heaven. | |
| They don't see him now. | |
| They don't see him. | |
| And they were so upset that he said, I'm going to go away. | |
| Another will come along, paraclete, one who comes alongside, comforter, helper. | |
| They said, we don't want him. | |
| We want you. | |
| We want you. | |
| No, says Jesus, it's in your interest that I go away so that the comforter, the advocate, the helper will come. | |
| Well, they didn't like it. | |
| Lo and behold, Pentecost, 120 there. | |
| Holy Ghost comes down on them. | |
| Peter preaches. | |
| Instead of saying, I've set the Lord before me, he says, I saw the Lord. | |
| They got him back. | |
| Jesus was as real to Peter and the 120 on that day as he had been at the natural level. | |
| They saw him in the natural, but now by the Spirit, he was as real as he'd ever been. | |
| They got him back. | |
| A little while, you won't see me. | |
| A little while, you will see me. | |
| That's why he quotes, I saw him. | |
| And so, the way I pray, I set him before me. | |
| There are times when it's just almost like you can touch him. | |
| You can just see him. | |
| Greatest spiritual experience of my life, years ago, driving my car in Tennessee. | |
| Wasn't expecting this. | |
| As I'm driving, kind of right over here to my right, there's Jesus. | |
| He's interceding for me. | |
| He's praying for me. | |
| I mean, he was praying for me. | |
| I couldn't tell what he was saying. | |
| It's like you can hear another person talking in the next room. | |
| You can hear them talking, but you can't tell what they say. | |
| He was talking to the Father. | |
| An hour later, as I was coming through Smyrna, Tennessee, I heard Jesus say to the Father, He wants it. | |
| Father replied, He can have it. | |
| At that moment, a surge of warmth came into my chest. | |
| I never had such peace in all my life. | |
| And for about 30 seconds, there he was, looking at me. | |
| I saw his face. | |
| If I were an artist with perfect recall, I could tell you exactly what he looked like. | |
| This part of his face. | |
| Looking at me. | |
| Looking at me. | |
| And that's why I know that's what Peter met. | |
| I saw him. | |
| They got him back. | |
| And it's through the Holy Spirit that Jesus becomes real. | |
| But then there are times when he's not real. | |
| He wants us to love him when he's pleasing us. | |
| He wants us to love him when he's not pleasing us because he doesn't answer our prayer. | |
| He hides his face. | |
| So this is, you ask, what can one expect? | |
| Read this book. | |
| These are things that I hope to make clear that make you want to pray more. | |
| Make you want to read your Bible more. | |
| Any book that doesn't make you want to pray more or read your Bible more, I wonder whether it's a good book at all. | |
| Exactly. | |