In His Presence: A Study of the Presence of God and a Fresh Insight into Worship and Music

By Byron Allen

WORSHIP is the SPONTANEOUS, HOLY SPIRIT""DIRECTED experience of the MANIFEST presence of God. This book begins with Exodus 33 as God tells Moses that he is not going to accompany him as he leads Israel to Canaan. Moses asks to be exempt from leadership if God is not present. God hides Moses in a cleft in a rock and lets him see the periphery of his glory. Included in the book is a careful study of the modes in which God makes himself known to people. The book also contains a study of all Bible words translated "worship." There is also a study of several failed attempts to worship. Also included in this study is a fresh and new look at the definitions of "thanks," "praise," and "worship." There is a study of ten events when God's manifest presence allowed the experience of worship. The use of music in God's house is also discussed. Further, the effects of God's presence are explored.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645156574

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In His

Presence

And a Fresh Insight into Worship and Music

A Study of the Presence of God

Dr. Byron Allen Jr.

ISBN 978-1-64515-656-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64515-657-4 (digital)

Copyright © 2019 by Dr. Byron Allen Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible (copyright: public domain). I have changed words from the Bible with endings such as est, st, th, etc. Also, words like thee, thy, thine, mine, thou, etc., have been changed to read you, yours, and my. There are no other changes in the text itself. These archaic endings have been changed to facilitate an easier reading and retention of the Scriptures. It is my prayer that the reader will find these changes helpful and beneficial.

Printed in the United States of America

When you said,

Seek you my face;

my heart said unto you,

Your face, LORD, will I seek.

Preface

The thoughts contained in these studies are the results of my meditations on the Word of God. They have been collected from my files of the past several years. The accuracy of the biblical interpretation that they contain is not something I put forward as final and/or indisputable. The Scriptures speak to, and minister to, the heart of individuals in various ways; and that is somewhat dependent upon the circumstances in which God places each person.

It will be observed, as you read these studies, that I favor a more literal translation and interpretation of the Scriptures like that of the King James. The New International Version, the English Standard Version, the New Living Translation, the Message, and other versions are more properly paraphrased editions than they are translations. It will also be noticed that I have included in parentheses the words of the earlier copies of the Bible (basically the Hebrew and Greek versions). This includes the anglicized word as well as the original language. The reader will note that ignoring these parentheses will not adversely affect understanding the thought.

The thoughts contained in the studies record what God said to me in the circumstances of my life and in the process of serving as pastor of several churches. They are put forward with the hope and prayer that they will minister to you who read them in a degree similar to that of which they ministered to me. May God bless each of you who read these devotional thoughts.

Your friend in our Lord Jesus Christ,

Byron Allen Jr.

November 7, 2018

Introduction: When Christ Came to Church

When Christ Came to Church

I stepped into the boiler room of the maintenance building on the campus of Howard Payne University, where I was a student. I had a part-time job with the campus maintenance department working my way through college. As I reported for work that afternoon, my supervisor said, Allen, there are some books lying on the floor near the incinerator. The college library is discarding them. You can have any of them you want. The rest are going into the incinerator.

As I began to browse through the pile, I saw a very small book with what I thought was a rather strange, but arresting title. That little book blessed my life more than any book in my library other than the Bible. I read and reread it. I am sad to say that the little book was destroyed by fire a few years ago when my entire library was burned. It was an out-of-print volume. I treasured it so much that I searched on Amazon.com and found one listed. It was much too expensive, so I did not purchase it. Later, my wife secretly bought it for my birthday present.

Oh yes, the title that caught my eye: How Christ Came to Church, the Pastor’s Dream: A Spiritual Autobiography.¹ The book was written by A. J. Gordon. Dr. Gordon was for many years pastor of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston. He became pastor of that church in 1869.

The contents of that little book included this: Dr. Gordon recounts an experience he had one Saturday night. He had worked late into the evening preparing for Sunday’s message, having returned late that day from traveling to speaking engagements. Wearied from the heavy schedule of the past week and the late evening work, he went to sleep. In a dream, he visualized a Sunday morning service at the church. A stranger entered the church just as he was standing to preach. The man walked down the aisle, looking to the right and to the left as if searching for a seat. In those days, the people owned the pew in which they sat. The stranger seemed to find no one who would offer him a seat on their pew. As he neared the front, a gentleman stood and offered the visitor a seat.

Dr. Gordon relates that during the sermon, his eyes were riveted on the visitor. He resolved that after the service, he would make it a point to meet and become acquainted with the guest. However, after the message, Dr. Gordon was detained by many people wanting to speak to him. When he finally made his way to the member who had given a seat to the visitor, he discovered that the man was gone. Dr. Gordon asked the member, Can you tell me who was that stranger who sat in your pew this morning? In a matter-of-fact way, the member replied, Why, do you not know that man? He was Jesus of Nazareth. With a sense of keenest disappointment, Dr. Gordon said, My dear sir, why did you let him go without introducing me to him? With the same matter-of-fact air, the gentleman again replied, Oh, do not be troubled. He has been here today, and no doubt he will come again.

Dr. Gordon said that the vision caused him to begin thinking and examining himself and the church. He asked what he was preaching about in that service. Did it glorify Christ? What did Christ think about the choir and their highly trained and salaried voices? (Many churches had paid choirs in those days.) What did Christ think of the beauty of the church building? Other such probing questions filled his mind and searched his heart. This led to a radical transformation in the life and ministry of the church and its pastor. The church began to experience a long period of spiritual awakening and revival.

That little book gave birth to several series of sermons I preached in churches where I was pastor. One of those series was based on events recorded in the Gospel of John. John details several times when Christ visited the temple or a synagogue in Jerusalem. I tried to analyze each of these events and learn something of what happened when Christ came to church.

Some years later, while I was reading and meditating on Exodus 33, I remembered that little book and its account of what happened when Christ came to church. I began to study and meditate on the story contained in Exodus 32 and 33 and what those chapters say about the presence of God. The result of that study is the content of this book, which is a rather detailed study of the presence of God as described throughout the Bible.

A main part of the study of God’s presence is a careful analysis of the subject of worship as we know and practice it in churches in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I present this analysis of worship, praise, and thanks with the prayer that you will read it with a willingness to understand a fresh concept of worship and praise. Search the Scriptures with me as I do an exegesis and exposition of the many passages to which I refer. After this study of the Word of God, you may classify this approach to God’s presence and praise. The concept may be to you only a novelty, unworthy of serious consideration. But I am thoroughly convinced that the concept of worship and praise presented here can and will revolutionize our attendance of the services in God’s church.

I present this study to you with the prayer and hope that we all, individually and collectively, will become keenly aware of God’s presence. And that the heightened realization of God’s presence will translate into praise and worship. I also pray earnestly that this book will accomplish the greater work of glorifying our great God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

---

¹. A. J. Gordon, How Christ Came to Church (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1895).

PART ONE

A General Survey of the Presence of God

As the hart pants after the water brooks,

so pants my soul after you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God:

when shall I come and appear before God?

—Psalm 42:1–2

Chapter One: God’s Presence

God’s Presence

And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, you and the people which you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swore unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto your seed will I give it: And I will send an angel before you; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of you; for you are a stiff-necked people: lest I consume you in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on him his ornaments.

—Exodus 33:1–4

He was just a little boy and on a Sunday morning was wandering home from Sunday school. As usual, he was dawdling on his way. He scuffed his shoes into the grass; he found a caterpillar and then a fluffy milkweed pod and blew out all the filler. A bird’s nest in the tree overhead, so wisely placed and high, was just another wonder that caught his eager eye.

A neighbor watched the boy’s zigzag course and spoke to him from the lawn, asking the boy where he had been that day and what was going on.

Oh, I’ve been to Sunday school, he said as he carefully turned the sod and found a snail beneath it. I’ve learned a lot about God.

M’m, a very fine way, the neighbor said, for a boy to spend his time. I’ll give you a brand-new dime if you’ll tell me where God is.

Quick as a flash, his answer came, and his accent wasn’t faint either. I’ll give you a dollar, mister, if you’ll tell me where God ain’t.

Presence is just about everything. One cannot talk to a God who is not present, nor can one fellowship with a God who is absent. Above all, one can worship only when God is present. I believe that the local church exists to do what the individual believer should be doing on a personal basis—and that is to praise God.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

In current-day church services, we are repeatedly told that we are saved to serve or to minister. The service then becomes a motivational seminar. We are made to feel good, charged up with positive thinking and energized to go out and serve. All of this may be well and good. But the truth is that we are saved to praise God. We are not accustomed to hearing this in our Christian fellowships. Peter, in the verse quoted above, reminds us that we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, [a] holy nation, a peculiar people. Let us not be afraid or ashamed of our uniqueness as believers!

Whatever a person does as unto the Lord (pray, praise, sacrifice, worship), it must be done with an awareness of his presence if it is to have any real effect upon the individual or if it is to be a sacrifice with which God is well pleased. That which is done otherwise will be mere form without any redemptive or restorative power. It will be a mechanical, outward performance that benefits neither God nor man.

At first glance, these statements seem too general, too dogmatic, too limiting. But the activities of our lives as believers are actually based upon our concept of God’s presence or absence. Adam and Eve assumed God’s absence, and they disobeyed his command. Cain assumed God’s absence and killed Abel. Noah assumed God’s absence and got drunk. Israel assumed God’s absence while Moses was on the mountain and made a golden calf. Lot assumed God’s absence and got drunk, committed incest, and produced a line of descendants who troubled Israel for centuries.

To whom then will you liken God? or what likeness will you compare unto him? The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot; he seeks unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. Have you not known? have you not heard? has it not been told you from the beginning? have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in: That brings the princes to nothing; he makes the judges of the earth as vanity. Yes, they shall not be planted; yes, they shall not be sown: yes, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will you liken me, or shall I be equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who has created these things, that brings out their host by number: he calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one fails. Why say you, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Have you not known? have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:18–31)

It appears that we have three options in this matter: Option 1, we can assume God’s absence and do that which dishonors him. Option 2, we can assume his presence and carry on our activities in a perfunctory and meaningless way. Or option 3, we can cultivate an awareness of his presence that motivates and prompts us to obey and honor him through our lifestyle. In any of these choices, the rightness or wrongness, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of what we do, at least in our own minds and hearts, is really determined by our concept of God’s presence or absence. I want to strongly encourage you to develop a mighty longing after God. The lack of such has brought us to our present low spiritual estate. The stiff wooden quality of our spiritual lives is a result of our lack of holy desire or spiritual hunger.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42:1–2)

Acute desire must exist, or there will be no manifestation of God to his people. He waits to be wanted. It is too sad that with so many of us, he waits so long, so very long, in vain.

You may be countering this line of reasoning by saying, God is always present everywhere. My response to which is, In what sense is he present?

Three Modes of God’s Presence

God’s Continual Presence

There are three modes, or levels, in which God can be described as present with mankind. First, there is the continual presence of God. Our theological term for this is omnipresence.

God is above all things, beneath all things, outside of all things, and inside of all things. God is above but not pushed up. He is beneath, but not pressed down. He is outside, but he is not excluded. He is inside, but not confined. God is above all things presiding, beneath all things sustaining, outside of all things embracing, and inside of all things filling.²

We tend to understand this level of God’s presence as if God were present within each person. While this is true, it is not the best way to think of God’s presence.

Listen again to the words quoted above. They address this concept. God is within but not enclosed; without but not excluded. Perhaps the best way to view this is to think of the atmosphere that surrounds this planet on which we live. That atmosphere is always with us, and we live within it. It is also within us as we inhale and exhale. The New Testament describes it like this: For in him we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). Everything we do is within that atmosphere while that atmosphere is also within us. Everything we do, everywhere we go is within the presence of God. And all the while, God is present within us. Therefore, when we speak of the omnipresence of God, we need to understand that God is present both within and without. We are in him, and he is in us.

God’s Cultivated Presence

Second, there is the conscious, or cultivated, presence of God. In this form, God’s presence is significant to an individual in a way and at a time when others might not recognize his nearness. For example, in a church service, one or more persons might sense the awe of God’s presence when others attending the same service might have no awareness of such. And also, God’s presence may be cultivated by individuals to the extent that there is an awareness of his presence during their day-to-day activities.

A. W. Tozer, in his classic book about getting to know God, The Pursuit of God, writes, "Modern scientists are losing God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored."³

"The presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His