Shaken By His Presence
Isaiah 64:1-3
Several months ago the Lord woke me up early in the morning around 3 am. When the Lord chooses to do something like this and I don’t push the snooze button, so to speak, it happens around the same time. This particular morning the Holy Spirit directed me to Isaiah 63 and I began to read through chapter 64. The verses that began to stick out and speak to me were verses 1-3 of chapter 64:
Isaiah 64:1-3
Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence— As fire burns brushwood, As fire causes water to boil— To make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence! When You did awesome things for which we did not look, You came down, The mountains shook at Your presence.
NKJV
From that scripture the Lord began to speak to me of a shaking of His Presence that was coming…. Even as I am thinking about it now I can see it like a movie preview that is fallowed by the words….Coming Soon!
When the Lord really began to speak like this He told me to release what He was saying.. In an effort to do that I started an online newsletter basically releasing what I heard in the spirit. The it has been offline for several months but even as I was preparing the word for today the Lord told me to get that back online.. One of the newsletters documented some of what I am talking to you about today…. It was called “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” and it spoke of the shaking that was coming in the spirit similar to an earthquake….It starts even before we can visibly see it with the naked eye…..The shaking I want to talk about today has to do with the Presence of the Lord….. (Ezekiel 37)
I prophesy to you this morning that there is a shaking that you will even witness with you own eyes that will be a sign of a spiritual shaking of God’s presence!
As we discuss His Presence today I pray that He begins to shake us…
I. Shaken by Purpose
One of our core values is “Intimacy with God” and that value will be woven in and through our message today like a piece of thread in clothing. If we go back to the Garden like we mentioned last week we read of the “Fallen State of Mankind” due to an act of disobedience that started with a moment of temptation. We know from first hand experience the fallen state and the will of the flesh is always combating against the will of the Spirit. The Bible says “If we walk in the Spirit we won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.” The key word in that verse is walk, you notice it is a verb which denotes an action. We also know of the “Blood” that has conquered that inherited sin nature for those who acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ and our atonement. That He has bridged the gap between fallen humanity and a Holy God. But something we don’t talk about much is the effect that this moment of weakness brought to our relationship with our creator.
Before this life changing event the Lord interacted with Adam on a whole another level. He involved Adam with naming every beast of the field and bird of the air. He showed Adam around the garden and told him to tend and keep it. God had done all the “hard work”, Adam was just supposed to take care of it and keep it. Of course we know the only thing he was not supposed to do, was eat of was the tree of “the knowledge of good and evil”. At this point in our narrative everything was good, it was all good. And when the Lord saw that there was not a helper comparable or compatible with Adam, He caused him to go into a deep sleep and we know how He took one of his ribs and from it created Eve. It is here that the institution of marriage came into being:
Genesis 2:23-24
And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
NKJV
It was all good….Adam and Eve in the garden without a care in the world.
Then the serpent tempted Eve and the fruit tasted good so she gave some to Adam. This is when the words of the Lord became a reality when He told them they would surely die….if they ate of that tree.
We know that this death resulted in the Spiritual Death of all mankind…
Adams assignment to tend the garden was now turned into toil. And Eve would now experience the pain of child birth among other things…..
But one of the greatest effects that this act of disobedience brought is found in chapter 3 of Genesis:
Genesis 3:8
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
NKJV
The snapshot of our core value “Intimacy with God” is “Pursuing Our Real Purpose In Life!” In our dialect/vernacular our understanding is limited just to one meaning of a word so today I would like to clarify what I mean by:
Purpose vs. Assignment
• Adams assignment was to tend the Garden but I believe his purpose was fellowship and intimacy with God.
They were once able to walk with the Lord in the Garden but now because of sin they hid from the Lord. Our real purpose in life is intimacy with our creator to passionately pursue His Presence not to hide from it or to have something separate us from it!
…shake us with purpose that ignites a desire for intimacy with you Lord!
II. Shaken by Desire
The heart to seek God is birthed in us by God Himself. Like all desires, it is not something that can be legislated or forced, but rather it grows within us as we become exposed to God’s nature. He creates an appetite in us for Himself by lavishing us with the reality of His goodness-His irresistible glory. God’s love for people is beyond comprehension and imagination. He is for us, not against us. God is good 100% of the time. These realities burn deep into the hearts of all who simply take the time to behold Him.
Paul describes this place of beholding:
2 Corinthians 3:18
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
NKJV
The impulse that drives the life of the believer isn’t the need to perform for God but to commune with Him. When we perceive that One that created us it will change us. When He infects us with His presence, we are drawn into an ongoing mission. The mission is to become more and more fit to see Him in His fullness.
The fact is to the degree we perceive the face of God corresponds directly to the degree we are willing to yield ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will take us from glory to glory transforming us into the image of Christ.
The question for every believer is whether we will be satisfied with only a partial transformation or whether we will be so captivated by who He is that we will allow Him to kill everything in us that would inhibit us from becoming a mature manifestation of Christ. The quest for His face is the ultimate quest. But to truly embrace such a quest for the face of God, one must be ready to die.
When we give in to such a desire to see God’s face there are things we let go of, some may say things we give up. The fact is that in this exchange we receive something of much greater value that makes what we thought of as valuable seem insignificant. If you have seen the program deal or no deal then you know there is an exchange that takes place only with this deal you always win….You’ve Made A Good Deal!
If you choose to go on this journey everything that is inconsistent with the kingdom of God will start to die the moment you encounter Him, but at the same time the reality of the Kingdom begins to become alive…..It is impossible to encounter Him and maintain the status quo…
The journey is so sacred, so all consuming, that very few respond to its call. While the seeds of this quest are found in the heart of every man, woman, and child, most are numb to its existence. Many things work to stifle the desire in us to seek the face of the One in whose image we were created. Whether we are overwhelmed by the prevailing winds of secular reasoning or the pain of religious disappointment, such forces cause us to abandon the ultimate quest and give in to the other impulse that has infected man since the Fall- the impulse to hide from God…
Those who respond to the invitation find little else to live for. Those who say no spend their lives looking for an adequate replacement. And there is none to be found, anywhere.
Lord shake us with a desire and expose us to your presence.. so we can encounter you!
III. Shaken by A Divine Encounter
The Bible is full of examples of people who encountered the presence of God. Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and David to name a few but today I want to direct you attention to Daniel. Many of us know the story of the fiery furnace and how the Lord delivered Daniels friends. But if you study chapter 10 of Daniel you will read of a divine encounter he had with the presence of the Lord.
Daniel was “mourning three full weeks”, or in laymen’s terms he was praying and fasting for 21 days. He had set himself apart to seek the face of God and he had set himself up for an encounter with His presence.
In this story Daniel was confronted by an several angelic hosts. One of which is thought to have been Christ by the description he gives. Whether these beings were angels sent by God or Christ Himself are irrelevant because they at the very least represented the Presence of God. And as you read the Scripture there is a vivid picture of the awesome presence of God vs. the frailty of a mortal man. It is the picture of the supernatural invading the natural.
As Daniel lifts his head to behold the Lord those with him fled and hid themselves. The Bible says that “great terror fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves.” That sound familiar doesn’t it sort of like how Adam and Eve hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. Now in verse 7 of chapter 10 Daniel describes himself as being left alone when he had this encounter. It was so real and tangible that every once of strength he had in his body was zapped out of him. He was completely defenseless as his body fell prostrate to the ground. With his face to the ground he could hear the voice of the One speaking to him. Verse 10 reads:
Daniel 10:10
Suddenly, a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands.
NKJV
Daniel trembled or began to shake as he encountered the presence of the Lord. Daniel was literally picked up and put on his hands and knees so that he could bring himself to his feet. Then in this awesome Presence stood trembling.
If you read on you will find that Daniels strength would be restored to him but this divine encounter completely overwhelmed his natural man. Check out verses 15-18:
Daniel 10:15-18
When he had spoken such words to me, I turned my face toward the ground and became speechless. And suddenly, one having the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips; then I opened my mouth and spoke, saying to him who stood before me, “My lord, because of the vision my sorrows have overwhelmed me, and I have retained no strength. For how can this servant of my lord talk with you, my lord? As for me, no strength remains in me now, nor is any breath left in me.” Then again, the one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me.
NKJV
Daniel was shaken by A Divine Encounter!
Conclusion:
You may ask does the Lord still do that stuff, does He awaken a desire, and make Himself real like that?
On several occasions I have got to the point of the desire that accompanies purpose as we have discussed. Were nothing else seems to satisfy. The Lord has spoken through tongues and interpretation and said “While others are out doing things of the world be on your face seeking my face.” The truth is God desires these things more than we do….And on one occasion I dared to ask the Lord for more. I was driving to work early one morning praying and really just talking to the Lord. This had followed a series of days when I had really set my self apart to seek His face. So I was talking to the Lord and the conversation went something like this “Lord reveal yourself to me like you did Moses”. You know from reading your Bibles that Moses had several encounters with God. The one I was talking about was the one on Mt. Siani. It was when he came down after meeting with the Lord and his face was shining from the Glory. Anyway I went on my way to work and that was that.
Later that evening we made sure all the doors were locked, read a couple verses before getting too sleepy to read anymore, and went to bed. What I am going to describe now may sound a little crazy and some may have a hard time believing it. It was early in the morning again and the Lord would wake me up, but not in the usual way. I would wake up to what sounded like freight train barreling through our bedroom. I immediately yelled at the top of my lungs J E S U S ! Meanwhile my wife laid sound a sleep in the bed next to me and didn’t hear a thing. I didn’t have to guess or try and figure out what had happened. I knew the Lord had answered my prayer…I had a divine encounter.
Some may ask me to describe it further and all I can say to those people is go stand about 15 feet from R X R tracks and you’ll get a sense of the sound I heard that night. Others may say you’re crazy, I don’t believe it. To both of these people I would say…
Be shaken by Purpose & Desire and watch God invade your natural with His supernatural!
I leave you with this verse found I Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 33:3
‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
NKJV
Lord shake us with Your Presence.
