Seeking the Manifest Presence – Ezekiel 48:35
Ezekiel 48:35 "The city shall be 18,000 cubits round about; and the name of the city from that day shall be, `The LORD is there.’ "
· These words may be used as a test as well as a text.
· They may serve for examination as well as consolation, and at the beginning of a year they may fulfill this useful double purpose.
· In any case they are full of marrow and fatness to those whose spiritual taste is purified.
· It is esteemed by the prophet to be the highest blessing that could come upon a city that its name should be, "JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH, The Lord is there."
· Even Jerusalem, in its best estate, would have this for its crowning blessing: nothing could exceed this.
· Do we understand the presence of the Lord to be the greatest of blessings?
· Doubtless many would be greatly pleased if there were no God at all; for in their hearts they say, "No God."
· God is not to them a father, a friend, a trust, a treasure. If they were to speak from their hearts, and could hope for a satisfactory answer, they would ask, "Whither can I flee from his presence?"
· If a spot could be found wherein there would be no God, what a fine building speculation might be made there!
· Millions would emigrate to "No God’s land," and would feel at ease as soon as they trod its godless shore.
· There they could do just as they liked, without fear of future reckoning.
· Now, friend, if you would escape from the presence of God, your state is clearly revealed by that fact.
· There can be no heaven for you; for heaven is where the Lord’s presence is fullness of joy.
· If you could be happy to be far off from God, I must tell you what your fate will be.
· You are now going away from God in your heart and desire, and at last the great Judge of all will say to you, "Depart, ye cursed"; and you will then be driven from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
· I know that there is a company who can truly say that they feel only happy when they are conscious that God is with them.
· The place where they meet with the Lord is very dear and precious to them, because of his unveilings.
· The memory of holy convocations is sweet, because the Lord was among them.
· They would not care to go where God is not. If there were a place forsaken of God, however gay and full of merriment men might think it, they would not be found among its guests.
· Where we cannot enjoy God’s company we will not go. Our motto is: "With God, anywhere. Without God, nowhere."
· In him we live, and move, and have our being; and, therefore, it would be death to us to be apart from God.
· Without God we should be without hope.
· My dear friend! whatever your difficulties, and trials, and sorrows, all is well with you if God is your delight, and his presence your joy.
· But, however high your temporal enjoyments may rise, it is all wrong with you if you can rest away from the God of grace.
· The child must be in a sad state of heart when he does not care to have his father’s approving smile.
· Things must be terribly wrong with any creature when it can be content to walk contrary to its Creator.
· Nothing but the corruption of the heart could permit any man to be at ease away from God.
· Will you permit these thoughts to saturate you for a little space?
· I have spoken them with the desire that each one of us may ask himself, "Is the presence of God my delight?"
· If so, I am his, and he will be with me.
· On the contrary, Is the presence of God a matter of indifference, or even of dread?
· Then my condition is one of guilt, disease, and danger. May the Lord, of his infinite mercy, set me right!
· Now kindly notice that, according to our text, THE PRESENCE OF GOD IS THE GLORY OF THE MOST GLORIOUS PLACE.
· The prophet Ezekiel has been telling us many remarkable things which I shall not attempt to explain to you; and my chief reason for not doing so is the fact that I do not understand them.
· If I could open up every dark saying, it is not just now the time to go into an explanation of all the sublime mysteries which were seen by the eagle eye of Ezekiel, for I seek present, practical edification; and this we can gain in an easier way.
· It is clear from the text, that when God shall bless his ancient people, and restore them to their land, and the temple shall be rebuilt, and all the glory of the latter days shall arrive, this will still be the peculiar glory of it all, that "the Lord is there."
· The prophet works up a climax, and closes his book of prophecy with these glorious words, "the Lord is there."
· What a glorious state this world was in at the very first, in the age of Paradise, for the Lord was there!
· Our glorious Creator, having taken the first days of the week to make the world, and fit it up for man, did not bring forward his dear child until the house was built and furnished, and supplied for his use and happiness.
· He did not put him in the garden to dress it till the roses were blooming, and the fruits were ripe.
· When the table was furnished he introduced the guest, by saying, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
· The Lord put man, not in an unreclaimed plot of soil, where he must hunger till he could produce a harvest; but into an Eden of delights, where he was at home, with creatures of every sort to attend him.
· He had not to water dry lands, nor need he thirst himself, for four rivers flowed through his royal domain, rippling over sands of gold.
· I might say much of that fair garden of innocence and bliss, but the best thing I could say would be the Lord was there.
· "The Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day," and communed with man; and man, being innocent, held high converse with his condescending Maker.
· The capstone of the bliss of Paradise was this all-comprehending privilege—the Lord is there."
· Alas! that has vanished.
· Withered are the bowers of Eden: the trail of the serpent is over all landscapes, however fair.
· Yet days of mercy came, and God’s saints in divers places found choice spots where they could converse with heaven.
· In the first days our gracious God spoke with his chosen ones in their daily walk, as Enoch; or under the oak, as Abraham; or by the brook, as Jacob; or before the bush, as Moses; or near the city wall, as Joshua.
· Wherever it might be, the place became to them the gate of heaven, for the Lord was there.
· Amid a torrent of sin and sorrow, you may cross the stream of time upon the stepping-stones of the places marked "JEVOHAH-SHAMMAH.
· The Lord’s delights were with the sons of men, and to them nothing brought such bliss as to find that still the Lord would be mindful of man, and visit him.
· In the days when God had called out unto himself a chosen nation, he revealed himself at Sinai, when the mountain was altogether on a smoke, and even Moses said, "I do exceedingly fear and quake."
· Well might he feel a holy awe, for the Lord was there.
· I will not dwell upon the glory of the tabernacle that was pitched in the wilderness, with its costly furniture and its instructive rites, for after all, the glory of the tabernacle was that the Lord was there.
· A bright light shone between the wings of the cherubim, and so the Psalmist in after days spoke unto the Lord saying, "You dwell between the cherubim shine forth."
· Above the sacred tent was the pillar of fire by night, and the pillar of cloud by day—an emblem of the constant presence of God, for all through the wilderness His glorious marching were in the center of the armies of his Israel.
· The desert sand glowed with the blaze of the present Deity.
· No spot on earth was so like to heaven’s high courts as that wilderness wherein there was no way, wherein the Lord himself led his people like a flock.
· Holy was Horeb, for the Lord was there. Then were the days of Israel’s espousals, for the Most High tabernacled among her tribes, and made them "a people near unto him."
· In Canaan itself the days of sorrow came when the nation went after other gods, and the Lord became a stranger in the land.
· When he returned, and delivered his people by the judges, then the nations knew that Israel could not be trampled on, for the Lord was there.
· This was the glory of David’s reign.
· Then the Lord made bare his arm, and the enemies of his chosen were driven like snow from the bleak sides of Salmon, when the rough blast carries it away.
· This was the shout of the joyful people, "The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge."
· Never were the hills of Judah more fruitful, nor the vales of Sharon more peaceful, nor the homes of Israel more restful, nor the sons of Zion more valiant, than when to the harp of David the song was raised, "They have seen thy goings, O God; even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary.
· This is the hill which God desires to dwell in; yea, the Lord shall dwell in it for ever."
· You remember how, in after ages, when Solomon was crowned and his reign of peace had been inaugurated, he built for God a temple adorned with gold and precious stones, and all manner of cunning, work of the artificer; but it was not that glittering roof, it was not those massive pillars of brass in the forefront, it was not the bullocks whose blood was poured forth at the altar, which were the glory of the temple on Mount Zion.
· Beautiful for situation, it was the joy of the whole earth; but its glory lay in this—"God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early."
· The excellence of the temple was seen when, on the opening day, the Lord revealed himself, and the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord."
· Little remains for man to do when in very deed the Lord dwells in the midst of his saints.
· Apart from priests and ceremonies, that place is sacred wherein the Lord Most High hath his abode.
· Say of any place "Jehovah-shammah, the Lord is there," and be it tent or temple, you have spoken glorious things of it.
· I almost tremble while I remind you of the truest temple of God—the body of our Lord.
· The nearest approach of Godhead to our manhood was when there was found, wrapped in swaddling bands and lying in a manger, that child who was born, that Son who was given whose name was called "Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
· As for thee, O Bethlehem favored above all the towns of earth, out of thee he came, who is Immanuel, God with us!
· Verily thy name is Jehovah-shammah.
· All along, through thirty years and more of holy labor, ending in a shameful death,
· God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. In the gloom of Gethsemane, among those sombre olives, when Jesus bowed, and in his prayer sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground, he was "seen of angels" as the Son of God bearing human sin. Speak of Gethsemane, and we tell you God was there.
· Before Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas, and on the cross—the Lord was there.
· Though in a sense there was the hiding of God, and Jesus cried, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" yet in the deepest sense Jehovah was there, bruising the great sacrifice.
· The thick darkness made a veil for the Lord of glory, and behind it he that made all things bowed his head and said, "It is finished."
· God was in Christ Jesus on the cross, and we, beholding him, feel that we have seen the Father. O Calvary, we say of thee, "The Lord is there."
· Here I might fitly close, for we can mount no higher; but yet we could not afford to leave out those other dwellings of the Invisible Holy Spirit, who still by his presence makes holy places even in this unholy world. We have to remind you that God is the glory of the most glorious living thing that has been on the face of the earth since our Lord was here.
· And what is that? I answer, Jesus is gone: the prophets are gone; and we have no temple, no human priest, no material holy of holies.
· And yet there is a special place where God dwells among men, and that is in his church.
· He has but one—one church, chosen by eternal election, redeemed by precious blood, called out by the Holy Ghost, and quickened into newness of life—this as a whole is the dwelling place of the covenant God.
· Because God is in this church, therefore the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.
· "The Lord is there" might be said of the church in all ages.
· I have seen the crypts and underground chapels of the catacombs, and it made one feel that they were glorious places, when we remembered that the Lord God was there, by his Spirit, with his suffering people.
· When holy hymn and psalm and solemn prayer went up from the very bowels of the earth, from men who were hunted to the death by their foes—the Lord was there.
· In those dreary excavations, unvisited by sunlight and wholesome air, God was as he was not in the palaces of kings, and is not in the cathedrals of priests.
· In this land of ours, when a few people met together, here and there, to hear the gospel and to worship, they made cottages, caves, and hollows in the woods, to be holiness unto the Lord."
· Ay, and when crowds met beneath your gospel oaks, or gathered together by the hillside to listen to the pure word of grace, the Lord was there, and souls were saved and sanctified.
· When the Puritans solemnly conversed together of the things of God, and held their little prayer meetings for fear of their adversaries—God was there.
· Throughout the age of the church, there have been many visitations where God’s manifest presence came down and the church was blessed, the people were changed, and revival blazed as fire across the landscape
· In the Welsh Revival, the Presence of God came down so that entire townships were converted and the mines were shut down – because the horses no longer understood the workers who quit swearing with profanity!
· In the Great Awakening, the Presence of God came down so powerfully that men gripped their pews until their knuckles were white in fear of His Holiness.
· In the Cain Ridge Revival, the Presence of God came down in such a way that hundreds of people lay on the ground, prostrate and quaking under the control of the Holy Spirit.
· In the Prayer Revival, the Presence of God came down so that entire towns were emptied for prayer meetings.
· In the Holiness Revival, the Presence of God swept from the north to the south on the eastern seaboard bringing repentance to our land.
· In the Azusa Revival, the Presence of God came down in a way where people wept and spoke in a heavenly language until missionaries were launched into every continent around the world
· We need to seek a manifestation of the Presence of God in our city.
o We have the blessing of His abiding Presence
o He is omnipresent
o We need HIS MANIFEST PRESENCE – If God tangibly shows up in Lexington, who knows what He will do!
o We must not be content with what we have, we must seek MORE
o SEEK the PRESENCE OF GOD
o HONOR the PRESENCE OF GOD
o EMBRACE the PRESENCE OF GOD
o
