The Disturbing Presence of Christ

I was bringing a message to a group of teenagers at chapel time at a Christian high school and I fear I didn't do a very good job at reaching those kids because they just sat there and stared at me like I was an oddity. A couple kids were making fun of me the whole time I was preaching and after I was through the pastor who had invited me approached me with the following remark he said he could remember a time back in the early 1970s when God was moving in the churches and back then the presence of God was so thick and overwhelming that you could not drag the teenagers away from the church. Then he looked at me with sadness in his eyes and said I wish those days would come again.

These poor kids don't know a thing about the power of God and a meeting and I agreed with that pastor for I myself have felt the disturbing presence of Christ in meetings before but it sure been a while. Years ago I remember one meeting in particular where God was at work and the disturbing presence of Christ was in our midst and after I preached the Sunday morning service I gave an appeal for those interested in getting serious with God to come forward and the elders would pray for them but no one moved. I thought they'd misunderstood me so I gave the appeal once more and I spoke more clearly and I said God's dealing with some of us this morning and it's time to get serious with him and those of you who wish to get serious with God please come to the front of the church at this time and the elders will assist you.

Elders please come forward at this time but no one moved so I sat down and I bowed my head in prayer. In a little while I heard the rustling of feet in the aisle and I looked up and saw people coming forward and falling to their knees. One man came running down the aisle and great excitement jumping up and down and claiming he just got saved.

Later on I asked one of the elders why they did not get up and come forward when I asked them to. He looked me in the eye and said we could not move. The power of God was so strong we just stayed in our seats.

Oh dear friends how I long for those days to come again in our sanctuaries where we feel the disturbing presence of Christ where we are like the old prophet Isaiah who stumbled into the throne room of heaven and fell to his face in humility and prayer crying out oh woe is me for I'm undone. Listen friends the missing element in our churches today across this land is the disturbing presence of Christ where God shows up by his spirit and all our human props and resources are kicked out from beneath us and all we can do is sit back and bask in his glory as we sit in the presence of a holy God and tremble that we won't be sent to hell. The title of my message today friends is the disturbing presence of Christ and my text can be found in the book of Isaiah in chapter 6. You can turn in your Bibles there now friends.

We will be in verses 1 through 5 and I will read us a striking passage of scripture at this time as we peer into the portals of glory and see a holy God seated on a heavenly throne of majesty. Here now is the Word of God and may the Spirit of God attend the reading of his holy word. In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up and his train filled the temple.

Above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings with twain he covered his face and with twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly and one cried unto another and said holy holy holy is the Lord a host the whole earth is full of his glory and the post of the door moved at the voice him that cried and the house was filled with smoke then said I oh what was me I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts. I will stop there.

Here friends we have a vivid portrait of a holy God and all his regal majesty and authority and a mere man stumbles in there and is confronted with Almighty God in eternity. There have been times in the country of Wales. There's been times in the country of Scotland.

There's been times in England and in America and in America during the Great Awakening where men like Jonathan Edwards and Gilbert Tennant and George Whitfield preached with such power that the disturbing presence of Christ filled the meeting houses until men and women and boys and girls cried out in conviction of sin and felt their faces as if they were pierced through by a double-edged claymore. I have had the privilege of visiting those scenes revival through the years and I've sat in some of those old churches where these great men preached and as I sat there in those old pews my mind would go back to the thoughts of a holy God invading the very atmosphere of those meeting houses with his disturbing presence. When Jesus preached he divided his crowds.

He had those who wanted to follow him and cling to him and sing unto him and he had those who wanted to take him and throw him off a cliff and stone him and eventually crucify him. Listen to me young preacher boys if you want immediate success and crowds and preach nice little messages that soothe your hearer's minds and satisfies their hearts and you'll have your success for sure while you'll be in a building program before you know it. But if you want to see souls saved from a burning hell and if you want to see backsliders reclaimed to an almighty God then preach the message that Jesus and John the Baptist preached and the early church preached and that message is repentance.

But we live in a day friends where our pulpits refuse to call sinners to repent because if we did that then we'd have to preach on sin and that would disturb the good deacons and we can't have that so we don't do it and if we preached on sin then we'd have to preach on hell and its fires and that would disturb our choir members too much to where they couldn't sing with a smile on their face and if we preached on hell and its fires then we must confront folks with a holy God who must punish sin at a future judgment for all mankind and that upset the rest of our congregation. But that's just what we need friends. We need to preach up the great doctrines of the gospel once again which are ruin, redemption, repentance and regeneration and if we did that well maybe just maybe God would show up by his spirit and attend that kind of preaching with his disturbing presence and upset the whole crowd of unconverted church members who need to repent and be saved.

I was sitting with my dear friend Richard Owen Roberts at his home in Wheaton, Illinois and I asked him the following question. I said why is it that we preachers don't preach the Sunday evening message on Sunday evening instead of preaching it on Sunday morning and he knew what I meant. That we preachers preach a more acceptable message on Sunday morning because there's more visitors then and on Sunday evening it's mainly those who are serious Christians so they can handle a tougher message but it should be reversed.

I asked Richard Owen Roberts about that and he agreed that the order should be reversed but he commented if you preach the harder message in the morning your love offering will shrink and that answered my question as to why we have so much comfortable preaching today. We want our love offerings to be generous and you get that by pleasing folks and not disturbing and upsetting them but listen to me dear friends I would rather upset you and get you under conviction of sin so God can deal with you and risk my love offering and give you a then give you a nice pleasing message and let you go on to hell. I was thinking back in my mind years ago to when I first heard Dr. Stephen Oldford preach.

Here was this small man a small man in stature but when he entered the pulpit and began to preach the very atmosphere of the room was altered and you were suddenly convicted of sin and confronted with eternity and the God of eternity and you had to do something about it because he challenged you at the end of his message to get serious with God and I would sit there and listen to Dr. Oldford preach and feel the awful disturbing presence of Christ who was seated high and lifted up in all his authority and we need more preaching like that today friends but I fear most pastor search committees have gone out and got themselves a polished man pleaser to keep the chairman of the Deacons happy and not make any waves but with that kind of preaching we are sunk we need men to shut themselves up to God until they get a message hot from the heart of God and then with the anointing of the Spirit of God go preach that message fearlessly before men. Old Isaiah said that the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried and the house was filled with smoke and we need the doors in our sanctuaries to move and shake with the disturbing presence of Christ once again whereby we preach that sin is black and hell is hot that there is a future judgment for all mankind and that true salvation means you turn to God in repentance and faith and that if you want to get in heaven you must be born again you must be washed in the blood and born from above. I fear many in our churches today friends are sincere in that they believe the text and think they are saved they honestly believe that Christ died for sin but they don't savingly believe on the Christ who died Oh if I could just get the disturbing presence of Christ among us here oh what a difference it would make for eternity if a holy Christ would show up and reestablish his prominence and preeminence in our midst what a difference it would make in our spiritual lives we'd all be on fire for God we'd all be sold out for God we'd all be living on the out-and-out for God and out witnessing to every person we met on the streets because the tears and her eyes would plead with them not to go on to hell that we cared about their souls but when the church is backslidden evangelism is on the back burner and I fear that's where many of our churches are today friends in a backslidden state far from the heart of a holy God you see we preachers have gotten out our meat tenderizer and have softened up the gospel to where it has no teeth in it to where the Spirit of God can't even bless the paltry messages we preach because they are void of the great doctrines which God has blessed in former times in revival times it'd be different if I was preaching to nice people but you are not nice people you were ruined sinners with a depraved nature that is bent towards sin there were some of you here who hate all things holy and you refuse to allow Christ to be Lord in your life because you're staring at that you're sitting on the throne of your own heart and you're ruling there instead of letting Christ rule there and there's a place in your life where you have told God to keep his hands off that you're willing to give him this and you're willing to give him that but you refuse to give him the thing that brings you the most pleasure there's a dividing line between you and God and you are telling him to back off and leave you alone I remember playing golf with a man years ago who cussed and cursed God every time he missed a shot and I finally asked this man on the next tee box the following question I said tell me friend how is your relationship with God and he smiled a big grin and replied fine just fine me and God have a great relationship I leave him alone and he leaves me alone and that man spoke truth friends because the best way to go to hell is to have God leave you alone leave you alone to die on your sins and drop into a devil's hell listen to me friend you don't want to die and go to hell I get shut up in that prison and be surrounded by demon entities there are no exit doors in hell once you shut up in hell once you shut up in that prison you can never get out the darkness of that region is so terrifying the shrieks of the dam is so deafening the crying and the weeping and the screaming and the swearing is non-stop in hell every minute it's a fiery pit of noise and the worst element of mankind is shut up in there serial killers and rapists and murderers and perverts who will rub up against you in hell you can't do anything about it you can't get away from them demons will tear at you in hell and torment you endlessly your tears will burn your face as you cry out for a glass of water just a drop to place on the tip of your tongue like the rich man asked Lazarus for a drop of water to cool his burning tongue but there's no water in hell friend only pits of flames and everlasting burnings don't go there don't go there friend I beg you don't go on to hell but turn from your sins and exercise repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ and seek God for mercy right now I seek him become a seeker listen to me friends the gospel is for the hungry the weary and the thirsty let me ask you a question are you hungry for God are you weary of your sins are you thirsty for Christ then come let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon let us pray