Thank you Lord, you're bringing your church back to the center where you are the focus,
where you are all in all.
And all we know, you say if we lift you up, you will do all the drawing, you'll draw all
men unto yourself.
So we would ask that you would grant us the great grace, the ability to lift you up in
our conversation, in our lives, that we would be lifters of Jesus.
People would see your life in my life, your life in our lives Lord, and that in this season
Lord, I know Lord, you're going to draw millions to yourself.
So we bless you, we praise you, we say this is your church Lord, have your way in this
house Lord, have your way, Jesus be the center here, Jesus be the center here.
And all the people said, Amen, Amen.
Good morning church, thank you, what a wonderful time of worship.
I really believe God is bringing the church back to a simple place where Jesus is really
the center.
And it's just tremendous to see what he's doing.
I'll just give a quick report before I preach today, we're heading off again.
You know it's because the evangelization of the world is so important to God.
He was speaking to me when I was in South Sudan that the Western church has often made
it too much about us, but we are called to mission, and it's not as though the church
has a mission, the mission has a church, that's the truth.
Jesus left heaven on a mission to save us, and then he said to the early church, go into
all the world.
Christ is all about the mission, and the mission has a church to support it.
So going into all the world and bringing in this harvest is so central to God's heart.
And I just went on a trip with a brother from South America and I met Pastor Akram who some
of us know in South Sudan, and the Bible says go to the ends of the earth.
I think like it was the, it's the last stop, South Sudan.
If you Google poorest nations in the world, this one often comes up number one.
It is a nation that's had 21 years of war, it's devastated, there's nothing there.
No infrastructure, children don't go to school, 90% of them.
It's nations, 7% of the nation has electricity.
So you know, and God had us arrange to go out into these remote villages, and I want
to tell you, people think the gospel's gone everywhere.
There are plenty of places who've never heard the gospel.
There are plenty of bishops who've never heard the gospel.
I was being hosted by these bishops, none of them had a Bible.
None of them had a Bible.
The Bible over there is $100, no one's got a Bible.
So I'm going to speak to the Bible Society and make them do a project over there because
it's, how can you not have a Bible?
But they don't have Bibles, they're so poor that half the children die in childbirth and
there's no hospitals, no medicine, it's just awful.
But you know what God was showing me over there?
Jesus said the poor you will always have with you.
And I thought why is that?
Why will we always have the poor?
And I believe, my wife was saying that it's because the heart of man is so corrupt that
corruption keeps these people poor in Africa.
That's what keeps them poor.
And that's what's going on there.
So it's, but you know, before there, and I believe this, we could give lots of money,
we could build hospitals and schools, but before there can be real change, I believe
that's to be spiritual change.
There has to be change in the heart, human heart and only the gospel can bring that.
Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can change the human heart.
So I was preaching and praise God, you know I had seasons, times there where entire villages
were saved.
Twice these two chiefs got saved at these big villages and one chief stood up and he
was, they're really hard people, the South Sudanese, but this guy was emotional and said
this morning I was going to sacrifice five chickens to my ancestral demons.
That's not what he called them, but that's what they were, but he said today I know this
man is speaking about the one true God.
And he said we will serve him.
And that means that village of 1500 people would now serve Jesus.
So you know, so in spite of all the difficulty sleeping in huts with 40 degrees, they're
still killing each other over there by the way.
That's how wild it is.
There are people who are displaced because another problem over there was the Ethiopians
built this dam and it's flooding parts of South Sudan, the Nile runs through South Sudan.
So there's 1.7 million people displaced and they've moved them on to other lands and the
people who don't want them there are killing them.
And there's no law, there's no government, there's no, so boy oh boy it's a difficult
place but you know I know God opened a door and if anyone wants to be a missionary I'll
support you.
It was just, think twice about that.
It was incredibly hard but incredibly fruitful.
I really believe God started something there and once, just one highlight, you know God
is sending you there.
I preach this message on darkness because a lot of the people there are still worshipping
ancestral spirits.
They're still in witchcraft.
And I preach this message that Jesus said I'm the light of the world.
He who follows me will never abide or walk in darkness but have the light of life.
That's his presence.
And I preach that, as I was preaching that, one of the bishops who was hosting me fell
on the ground and started to writhe like a snake.
This is the bishop.
So the bishop needed great deliverance but many of those bishops heard the gospel, became
so joyful and then were filled with the spirit.
And so I believe a great seed has been sown.
A great seed has been sown.
And I think God sent me there for the bishops.
I think that, I do.
I think he sent me there for the bishops.
So I do ask you to pray for me.
I want to ask you to pray.
I want to go to Pakistan now.
I'm believing, this is a nation God's called us for.
I'm believing for tens of thousands of salvations on this trip.
Tens of thousands.
I think the meetings are going to be amazing.
But I want you to pray for me that the Word from heaven is given to me in every meeting.
That the Word that God wants will be whispered into my spiritual and I'll have the right
Word every meeting.
Please pray for me that because that's important.
It's important that God just speaks that Word to you for every meeting.
If you have a Bible you can open to Psalm 68 today.
Father I ask today that we would not leave here unchanged.
That your Word would inform us and it would transform us to the glory of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Psalm 68, when you're there, you're there.
Okay.
Let God arise.
Let his enemies be scattered.
Let those also who hate him flee before him.
The smoke is driven away so drive them away as wax melts before the fire.
So let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
Sorry, I forgot.
I'm out of practice but you can sit.
I'm done.
I should have asked you to stand for the Word of God.
It's just if you're new to this church, I think it's great to honor the Word of God
and have a high version of the Word so we stand for the reading.
As smoke is driven away so drive them away as wax melts before the fire so let the wicked
perish at the presence of God.
I believe that this psalm speaks about powers, spiritual powers of wickedness that are always
fighting against God's people.
You'll always have, when you become a Christian, you'll always have spiritual powers that Satan
assigns against your life.
And when you get promoted, I always say new level, new devil.
God has promotions and then in the spiritual realm, the devil sees that and says, well
that one didn't work.
He assigns a more senior prince to oppose you.
So we have spiritual enemies and our battle is not against flesh and blood but it's against
spiritual powers in high places and demons.
And this passage speaks about in the midst of that battle, God arising, the enemies being
scattered as smoke is driven away, melting before the fire.
And the reason these enemies are being driven away, these spiritual powers of wickedness,
they are perishing, it says, at the presence of God.
And I believe at the moment that the spiritual powers of wickedness, they're rising.
You can feel in all the, particularly the Western world, you know, all this LGBT stuff,
there are demons behind that agenda.
All the, you know, aborting, there are demons behind all of that.
And all the things that are trying to destroy children with this transgender nonsense and
all this stuff, there are demonic powers behind all that.
And these demonic powers are trying to destroy the family, they're just trying to destroy
you corporately, they're also trying, they're opposed to you individually.
And what we need in the midst of this battle that we're constantly in, more than anything
else, is the presence of God in our life.
The abiding of presence of God in our life.
Now when I say that, not every Christian even understands the abiding presence of God.
The abiding presence of God is what the Old Testament used to call it, the shekinah glory.
It's tangible.
When you know the presence of God, it's an experiential knowledge that I am not alone,
that God is with me.
And it's, the manifest presence of God manifests in the form of the Holy Spirit.
And in this time, what is most needed for every believer is to know the manifest presence
of God.
So let the wicked presence, let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
And I often see, you know, people when they're actually, they know they're under attack or
they know there are powers of darkness attacking them, they'll say, you know, my words are
powerful.
I've just got to speak my words.
And if I speak it in faith, I want to tell you, if you haven't got the presence of God
in your life, your words mean nothing.
God is sovereign, not your tongue.
What you need in your words are only powerful when combined with the presence of God in
your life.
And if you don't have the presence of God in your life, the enemy is not concerned with
you.
But we really need to understand the importance of hosting and carrying the presence, the
manifest presence of God in your life.
Whenever God had called a man in the past in the Old Testament and guaranteed that he
would be victorious, the guarantee was this.
He said, I'll be with you.
That's my presence.
He said to Joshua, you don't have to worry about it.
I'll be with you.
Moses, you don't have to worry.
You're going to win because I'll be with you.
And so we have to be zealous in this hour to host and to carry and to have the abiding
presence of God in and upon my life because that is what, when I have that, the wicked
will be, they will perish simply because the presence of God is abiding in me.
I don't have to worry about the enemy.
I don't have to worry about what I'm saying.
If I am a carrier of the presence of God, every demon will just perish.
I hope you get an understanding of this because there are many people don't.
And let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
And you see this all through the scriptures.
You see people like the apostle Paul.
And you see he was so, he met Jesus and he was a man of prayer and he was so pressed
and he spent so much time in prayer and the presence of God was so real in him that you
could see people saw the abiding presence of Christ in him.
That's what God wants for your life.
He wants people to see Christ in you.
The only way they do that is if you're a host of the presence of God.
And Paul was a host.
He carried the presence of God.
And because he carried the presence of God, his ministry was very much like the ministry
of Jesus.
There was a girl once who came to him, she had a spirit of divination.
People who do fortune telling, that's a demon of divination that's enabling them to do that.
Athena the star woman and all that sort of stuff.
That's a spirit of divination.
She was following him and she had one of these demons working through her.
And these demons knew who Paul was.
And they're actually following her and following Paul and they're actually saying to everybody,
this guy's the great power of God.
And Paul gets tired of it and just says in one word he just says, in the name of Jesus
out.
And this demon just left this girl.
Just like that.
This strong power that was in her just left her like that.
And that happened, that enemy perished simply because Paul carried the presence of God in
his life.
And it's significant because Paul carried the presence of God.
But there was another character as you read a couple of chapters after this in Acts 19
called the sons of Sceva.
And they had seen Paul work, they'd seen their disciples work and they were copying their
formula.
They were chanting the mantra and they knew all the words and they said in the name of
Jesus every demon come out.
But these demons looked at these sons of Sceva and said Paul we know and Jesus we know.
But who are you with all your babbling?
And they beat them up and they left bloodied.
Why?
Because they had the mantra, they had the words but they didn't have the presence of
Jesus in their life.
They didn't carry the manifest presence of God over their lives and the demons knew it.
But when you carry the presence of God, see Peter also says Peter was with Jesus all the
time and he would walk down the street and they would lay the sick and the tormented
and Peter's shadow would pass by them and heal them.
What is all that about?
There's no power in a shadow but it's about the manifest presence of God that was in and
over his life.
That sickness and torment was simply destroyed.
The enemy was perishing, wicked powers were perishing because of what he carried, the
presence of God that was over his life.
And this is what we need to know, we actually need to know and be hungry, not just for theological
knowledge and to know the mantras, we actually have to know the value of hosting the presence
of God on our life.
See David failed with Bathsheba and he had an adulterous affair with her and then he
killed her husband.
But when he repented in Psalm 51, he didn't cry out to God and say, don't let me be an
adulterer anymore, take this spirit of lust from me.
He actually said, he said, because he understood the source, he said, no matter what happens,
no matter what you do, no matter how you chase me, take not the Holy Spirit from me.
In other words, whatever happens, don't take your presence from me.
And the reason he said that is he saw King Saul start well.
King Saul was, he was winning battles, he was chosen by God to be the king.
But then because he didn't value what he carried and he didn't want to obey God, he ended up
losing the presence of God.
And Samuel came and said, God's left you.
And then Saul said, I don't hear the voice of God anymore.
And before you know it, he was going to a witch.
And this is what's important.
David saw this and he realized that once you lose the presence of God over your life, the
enemy can come in.
If you don't have the presence of God in your life, the enemy can just come in.
As soon as the presence left Saul, this demon, this spirit came into him.
And then he used to run around the palace like a madman, shouting about David and throwing
spears at him, completely tormented.
And then David realized who had the presence of God now in his life.
When he walked into Saul's presence, that all those demons quietened down.
That he changed the atmosphere because of the presence of God that was on his life.
And he said, this is the key to spiritual victory.
So when he failed, he said, I don't care what I've got to go through, but do not take the
presence of God away from my life.
I want to ask you, do you value the presence of God?
Do you value the presence of God like David valued the presence of God?
I'll say personally, it's the most important thing I do.
And you know, the presence of God will become so real to you.
I don't like to just talk about myself, but I'll do it now.
In the morning, I'll get up and when I say I spend time with God, I spend time in the
presence of God.
And it's so real and it's so sweet in his presence, his fullness of joy.
He says, you have made me glad in your presence.
But sometimes I'm in that place and it's so real that I'll get up and I'll say I've got
things to do and the Lord will say to me, not yet.
Not yet.
I'm not finished with you.
It's like having a little chuckle.
You go back in and you just spend time with him in his presence.
Now that should be the priority of every believer.
It should be the priority to love being in because when you're in that secret place,
this is how you become a host of the presence, a carrier of the presence.
You know, osmosis or what do you call it, marinating.
When you sit in the presence of God like that, the presence of God gets in you.
It gets upon you.
Your nature marinates in the presence of God.
And when you come out, my wife knows when I'll be in the presence of God.
Your character is different.
Devils can't defeat you.
Zechariah chapter 2 says this, then I raised my eyes, verse 1, and looked and behold a
man was a measuring line in his hand.
So I said, where are you going?
And he said to me, to measure Jerusalem to see what its width and what its length.
And there was the angel who talked to me going out and another angel was coming out to meet
him who said to him, run, speak to this young man saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as
towns without walls because of the multitude of men and livestock in it.
For I, says the Lord, will be a wall of fire around her and I will be the glory in her
midst.
This is speaking about spiritual Jerusalem, not physical Jerusalem.
And what it's saying is that when we have the presence of God in our life, just look
at spiritual Jerusalem, that's you.
When we have the presence of God, the presence of God functions as a wall of fire around
your life.
A wall of fire.
And when you have a wall of fire around your life from the presence of God, you don't have
to depend upon a physical wall.
You don't have to worry about physical things.
When you may come under attack, God's presence manifests as a wall of fire around you.
That's why, you know, maybe people think we're going to a place, Pakistan might be tricky.
I want to tell you, there is a wall of fire around people who carry the presence of God
and it's real.
A wall of fire and I will be the glory in her midst.
This is speaking about the Shekinah glory, the manifest presence of God that surrounds
you like a wall and the devil cannot get under it and he cannot get over it.
You are secure when you carry the glory, the presence of God.
It is a wall around you.
And Jesus said this in John chapter 14 verse 21.
He said, He who has my commandments and keep them, it is He who loves me and He who loves
me will be loved by my Father and I will love Him and listen to this, and I will manifest
myself to Him.
So what that means is that if you love Him and you obey Christ, the time that is needed,
Christ comes in the form of the Shekinah presence and the glory and He manifests Himself as
this wall of protection around your life.
And you may not feel anything but His presence, it's like a flash of lightning comes or something
just manifests, a burst of light comes when you need it.
And you can see this a time where many times in the scripture, but for instance these three
Hebrew boys Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they are men who are sold out to God in the
midst of a wicked and corrupt generation and people are compromising but they won't compromise
and they're told to bow down to this demonic idol that the king has made and everyone else
is bowing down but these boys say, we are not going to bow and they just, you know,
the music is played and the pressure is ramped up and they're trying to put fear and intimidation
on them and they say like, we are going to stay loyal to our God no matter the cost,
we will not disobey the Word of God that says no idols.
And so they get put into the fire and what happens at the exact right time, Christ is
true, Christ is favourable, there's a burst in that fire, there's a burst of light in
that furnace where Christ manifests His presence.
He manifests it because they love Him and they obey Him and nothing can touch their
lives.
No fire, there's not even a smell and this is what happens.
This is what the presence of God does in our life and the king was amazed.
He said, I see that light in there, I put three people in there but now the fourth is
the presence of God, the presence of Jesus Christ came at the exact right time and this
is all we need in this season is to know, know if we obey Him at the exact right time
that Shekinah glory will come and manifest in every trial, in every test, in every situation
that we need Him.
It will make our enemies perish and it will put a wall around us.
You may think you've got a lot of problems and Moses had a lot of problems as well.
Moses was trying to lead these rebellious people into the promised land and when he
got to the promised land, right at the cusp of it, he said, well, how am I going to get
in there?
Who are you going to send with me?
And God answered him in this, He said, listen, He says, you're going to go in there because
in the wrong chapter, Exodus 23, He said, my presence will go with you and I will give
you rest and Moses had come to know the value of God's presence so much that he said, if
your presence do not go with me, don't bring me out from here.
So the presence of God is protection, it is also the source of God's peace and His rest.
You can't know God's peace and His rest if you don't know the presence of God, just a
theory.
You can't know the joy of the Lord unless you've got the presence of God in your life
because the Word said, in your presence is fullness of joy, Psalm 16 verse 9.
So you can't have peace, you can't have rest apart from the presence of God.
Even if you just got a head full of Scripture, that's not going to help you without the presence
of God.
Now I'm for Scripture, I'm all for it but it will never surpass or supplant Him, Christ
in His presence.
So Moses goes, that's okay, if your presence goes with me, I will have rest, I will know
peace.
David said, in your presence is fullness of joy.
Now some of us have lots of challenges, this is my favourite Scripture, I know I've got
a lot but in all of the Bible this is my favourite verse.
And it's in Psalm 73 and it's about a Psalm of Asaph who I believe saw the tabernacle
in its peak under David and now he's actually seeing things change, maybe under Solomon
it was, this was written but he's seeing things change and he's seeing corrupt men come in
and he's seeing men who are compromises and they've just not got the same heart that David
had and he's starting to get really troubled because these people seem to be, they seem
to be doing well, they seem to be prospering and they're not godly and so he's watching
these men and the Psalm starts by saying, you know, these people, they're boastful and
I started to, my foot nearly slipped when I became envious, verse 3, of their prosperity
of the wicked and he says these people, their pride serves as a necklace, their violence
covers their garment, their eyes bold with abundance, these people coming into the temple,
they have more heart and he says, they're ungodly, verse 12, they're always at ease,
they increase in riches, surely I've cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence,
all day long I've been plagued and he's saying, I'm a godly man and my life's hard and then
he says, you know, I'm godly, I'm doing it well, I'm walking with God, I'm having a hard
time and he says in verse 15, if I had said I will speak thus, I would have been untrue
to the generation of your children, when I thought how to understand this, it was too
painful for me. So he's trying to figure this out in his head, how come living righteously
and my life's hard and how come they're cheating, they're murdering, they're doing all these
things and their life seems easy and he said, when I thought how to figure it out just with
my brain, it was painful but the whole Psalm turns on Psalm 17, it says, until I went into
the sanctuary, what's in the sanctuary? Presence of God, then I understood and the second part
of the Psalm after verse 17, it's all about how he gets this fresh perspective, he says,
oh surely you set them in separately places, they're going down to destruction and he goes,
you know, my heart was bereaved, I was vexed but nevertheless I'm continually with me,
you hold me by my right hand and afterwards you'll receive me in glory but not these people,
these people are going to be here like that and they're not going to make heaven and he
says, now I understand, now I'm at peace again but he said, what happened, what changed me
from being, you know, vexed and being troubled by what I saw to actually gaining perspective,
eternal perspective on my problem was when I went into the sanctuary and encountered
the presence of God, you know why? Because when you sit in the presence of God, you receive
the mind of Christ, you have problems, you can't figure them out but when you're in the
presence of God, he imparts his mind to you and when he imparts your mind, his mind, then
you understand, see there's a peace that transcends understanding, it's beyond the mind but you
receive that in the presence of God, presence of God. If you're going to have the presence
of God in your life, if you're going to know the presence of God in your life, I want to
tell you conditions because there's conditions, everything, you know, some Christians today
they got like a Father Christmas faith, it's this greasy grace thing, they've convinced
themselves that you can have all the blessings of God, all the riches of God without any
effort, without any sacrifice, without having to do anything that, you know, God's just
like Santa Claus, it's not like that and in Zechariah 2, I just said God's presence will
be a wall around her and then in verse 6 he speaks about this, he's up, up, flee from
the land of the north, verse 7, up, Zeon, escape you who dwell with the daughter of
Babylon. What does that mean, what is Babylon? Babylon is the world, Babylon is always a
spirit of the world and if you want to have the presence of God as he says here, he says,
up, escape from Babylon, you have to have made the decision to come out of the world,
to be separate from the world, to be removed yourself from the values of this worldly system,
to value the presence of God and consider yourself a citizen of heaven but not to be
part of this world system. Touch no unclean thing, come out and your Father will receive
you, the Word says. So we are going to be people who if we're going to have the presence
of God we actually have to be separated from the things and the values of the world and
sometimes you know I get troubled when I hear, I was speaking about one Christian really
and I was speaking about the Kardashians and I was sort of like, you know that Kardashian
show, I've only ever watched it when I've been on holidays, it's just so ridiculous
but Christians are sort of like, when they're worried about their physical appearance and
all those things those people are worried about, that's not our game. We're not part
of this worldly system, we're part of another system, we have eternal values. So there has
to be a, if you're going to host the presence of God you've actually got to see this world
is not my home. I'm a sojourner, I live in it to affect it but it's not my home. I don't
embrace its values, they're not my values. Christ's values are my values. So we've got
to come out of Babylon. And then in chapter 3 Zechariah goes on to say, it's about Joshua
the high priest and we're all priests and kings and he's a brand plucked from the fire.
And so this is a picture of someone who's being saved, plucked from the fire but Joshua
was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel in verse 3, then he answered
and spoke to me who stood before him saying, take away the filthy garments from him, see
I have removed your iniquity from you and I'll clothe you with rich robes. What are
the rich robes you're going to be clothed with? It's the presence of God. But in order
to be clothed for Joshua the high priest to be clothed with the presence of God, in order
for him to be clothed the filthy garments have to be removed. So this means that, that's
why Paul speaks about put off the old man. What are the filthy garments? For me, filthy
garments was pride. You've got to put off your pride. Whatever it is, whatever the Holy
Spirit is saying is an issue in your life, you've got to put it off so that God will
clothe you with the rich garments which is the presence of God, the power of God, the
anointing of the Holy Spirit. So in order to host the presence of God, you've got to
come out of the world and you've got to put off, you've got to get rid of the habits,
the unclean things, the dirty things in your life that God is telling you to get rid of.
Take away the filthy garments from him and I will clothe you with the rich rags. There's
one other thing that will stop you from hosting the presence of God and I've preached on
this many times but I have to make mention of it because it's just, it's so serious in
our day and age. Ezekiel 44 speaks about two types of priests. That's a vision and you
and I are called priests and kings under the Lord. What a beautiful description and this
passage speaks about two types of priests and he said, the Levites who are the priests
who went far from me when Israel went astray, who strayed after their idols, they shall
bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary as gatekeepers of the house
and ministers of the house and they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice
for the people as they shall stand before them to minister to them. Because they ministered
them before their idols and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore
I have raised my hand in an oath against them, says the Lord God, and they shall bear their
iniquity and they shall not come near to me to minister as a priest, nor come near any
of my holy things, nor into the most holy place, but they shall bear their shame and
their abominations which they have committed. Nevertheless I'll make them keep charge of
the temple for all its work and for all that has to be done. But the priests, the sons
of Zadok who kept charge of my sanctuary and of Israel, when the children of Israel went
astray, they shall come near to me to minister to me and they shall stand before me to offer
me the fat of the blood. What's he speaking about? He's speaking about idols and he's
saying those priests who when the nation went after idolatry, they went after the same idols.
He said they can still minister and carry on their priestly function but they can't
come near my presence, they can't know my presence, I will hide my presence from them
because they kept their idols. But he said the priests that remove the idols, they can
come near me. See God will draw near a man or a woman but he won't draw near a man or
a woman and their idol. So what are the idols we have today that keep the manifest presence
of God from being a reality in our life? There's many things, the idol can be anything that
you place before God, that you find that's a greater priority in your life than God.
Can be a job, can be sex, can be money. I think the biggest idol in this generation
is self. People are worshipping themselves. They're just in love with themselves. They
love self more than they love God. Click. So it's so important in this generation because
the enemies of God's people, they're multiplying spiritually because Satan knows the time is
short. But God says the enemies God will arise, he will scatter his enemies. How? The wicked
will perish at the presence of God. You don't need a million things, theological knowledges,
concordances, memorize a million scriptures to be spiritually victorious. What you need
is the manifest presence of God in your life. When you carry the manifest presence of God,
every power of wickedness that comes against you, the presence of God takes care of it.
The presence of God becomes a wall around you so you're not afraid. Demons can't get
under and over it. That's what happens when we host and carry the presence of God. Presence
of God gives you rest, gives you peace in his presence, his fullness of joy. Because
I know God is with me not just as a theory, but I know his presence. I enjoy his presence.
And it saddens me that there are many Christians I know today, they don't even know what the
presence of God is. When I speak about it, they don't know what it is. And if that's
you, I want to say examine yourself. Could it be, one, because you've never become zealous
for the presence of God? Or two, could it be that you're worldly, that you still hold
to the values of this world? Could it be because you have something that you need to get rid
of in your life? Some garment, unclean garment you've got to get rid of. Pride, gossip, something
the Holy Spirit's been putting his finger on so that God can close you with the true
riches. Or could it be that you have an idol, something more important to you than God?
This is a season where God wants us to really know what it is to say, God is with me. I
fear nothing. His presence will deal with every spirit of wickedness. His presence will
surround me like a wall. If I get in trouble, his presence will manifest like a flash, like
it did for Shaddach, Midrach and Abednego. His presence will turn up when I need it.
Totally, always deliver me. That's what it is to know that God really is with you. So
I want us to pray, I believe in this hour, the glory, the Shekinah glory, the presence
of God which David knew, if I have the presence of God, I may lose everything else, but I'm
still good. I'm still good. That's why I said, take not your Holy Spirit from me. So I want
to pray today before I go that we as a body will be zealous for the presence of God. We'll
understand the presence of God. We'll experience the presence of God. We'll receive peace from
the presence of God. We'll receive joy from the presence of God. We'll have a place where
we know we go and not just do a devotional, but actually we go and sup and meet with the
very manifest presence of the Shekinah glory of God. Father, I pray for every person here
today that they will know your presence, that they Lord will host your presence. And Father,
if there are things that we have in our life which prevent you from clothing us with the
riches of your anointing, your glory, your presence, if there are things that are stopping
us receiving the true riches, Lord, I don't need to convict them, but you need to convict
them. I ask that you Holy Spirit will just put your finger on the thing that displeases
you, that we may turn from it and you may come. You may come right in. You may come
right in with the glory. Surround us. Lead us. Enthroll us. It's you that we want, Lord.
It's you that we want. Let there be testimonies, Lord. Great change that's come in this house.
In the mighty name of Jesus. And all the people said, Amen.