Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.

Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. When doing this series on Jonah, I made a statement that much of the theme of the book of Jonah is in the first couple of verses. And I felt like that there were some things left that I really would like to deal with about this particular subject.

Now I know I've confused you already. But in Jonah chapter one, verses one, two, and three, we find in verse two that God told Jonah to arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me. That was God's command. But then in verse three, it says this, but Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with him unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So we find numerous times that just in those first couple of verses that the theme of the book is the fact that Jonah fled, ran, rebelled from the presence of the Lord. Now we dealt with that much in our sermon when I began to deal with that all the way back to chapter one and we've mentioned that over a few things and a few different sermons. But I feel, and God led to my heart, I was planning on doing chapter four, but I really feel that we need to talk about this subject of leaving the presence of the Lord. Now I dealt with it very definitely and very hard I guess you would say, very emphatically, but I feel like there needs to be some explanation because I want to have a heart to heart with our church this morning if you don't mind.

Probably Sunday mornings a little bit of a different time and I want to talk about this thing of the presence of God, the presence of God. Now this brings us to Exodus chapter 33 and in a sense and a way to really do justice to the series on Jonah I have to share some things out of Exodus chapter 33. Look at verse one of Exodus chapter 33 if you would, and the Lord said unto Moses depart and go up hence thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt unto the land which I swear unto Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob saying unto thy seed will I give it. Notice that now that's what he promised in verse one unto thy seed I will give it look at verse two and I will send an angel before thee that's direction I will drive out the Canaanite that's protection the Amorite the Hittite the Perizzite the Hivite and the Jebusite unto a land flowing with milk and honey that's provision for I will not notice this for I this is God speaking for I will not go up into the midst of thee.

For thou art a stiff necked people lest I consume thee in the way. So God said I'm going to send you ahead I'm going to give you what I promised to give you and I'm going to make provision along the way I'm going to protect you from all those that would try to stop it I'm going to fulfill my promise God says but in verse three he says I'm not going to go with you. Because you're a stiff necked people and he basically says in the end of the verse that if I stayed with you I might be tempted to wipe you out. Look at verse four when the people heard these evil tidings they mourned that was very sad news now listen to me this morning do you know that worship we always hear this thing about worship worship is enjoying the presence of God. That's what worship is. Worship is not everything that you do.

Worship is us acknowledging everything that he did. Now listen to me some of the most frightening words in the Bible I believe we just read and it is where God told listen to me the children of Israel that I will give you protection I will give you provision and I will keep my promise but I will not give you my presence. That means I'm going to do all the things I promised you I would do and I'm going to provide I'm going to protect I'm going to keep my promise but I'm not giving you my presence. Now look at me folks I want you to understand something God has promised protection and he has promised a number of things to us and he has promised provision for us.

My God shall supply all my need according to his riches in Christ Jesus. There's a number of things he has promised but he never promised his presence. Now that statement brings up numerous questions in my critical mind. Now we just find out that Jonah fled from the presence of God. We find here that there's a group of people that were so rebellious and so stiff necked that God literally said I'm not going with you. You will not have my presence.

You'll have my protection you'll have my provision you'll have my promise but you're not going to have my presence. Now that is very confusing to me Kerwin Baptist Church. Is that confusing to anybody else? Because I got some other verses in the Bible that I got some questions about. Anybody else know where I'm going with this?

So I feel that this needs to be really explained and it took a lot of thinking and I have a lot of time to think. While Moses was gone Aaron led the people basically in a revolt against God. He gave in to the people. He did what they wanted and by the way that's where the church in America is heading. We are doing what people want. And I know it's not popular. It's popular just to change a church and to have the people want it. And Lord knows I'm the kind of person that man I want to please you.

You want to please people and you want to do things. We've tried to do things here just to make church as good as we can and upgrade and do everything we can do. But the trend nowadays is to turn church into what people want. But you cannot find that trend in the Bible. That's the problem.

Okay now listen to me. We're not here attacking religion across America. We're not attacking it. I'm just saying that's the trend. Not everybody else except us is doing that. There's a whole lot of people trying to do right.

I'm just saying that's the trend. Now listen to me. The people gave Aaron their bracelets, their earrings, their gold, all these things.

They melted it all down, made a golden cap. But you think after all that God had just done for them how could they go that far? Now listen to me. Due to their sin and because they rebelled God removed his presence he says from them. Now what does it mean to not have the presence of the Lord?

This is why I'm confused. Romans chapter 8 verse 38 beginning there says this. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That verse just says there ain't nothing gonna happen gonna separate us from the love of God and then we're told that God removed his presence from people. Then we're told that Jonah because he rebelled went away from the presence of the Lord. But the Bible says that wherever we go he goes. The Bible says he is an ever present help in time of trouble.

Do we have a conflict here? So what does it mean to have the presence of the Lord and what does it mean to not have the presence of the Lord? Now the Bible just says that nothing can separate us from the love of God. It just said Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord. It just said that God removed his presence from a group of people and now it says that nothing can separate us from that. But then I find in the book of Amos it says can two walk together except they be agreed. Maybe I ought to just close everything down and let's just go home forget church. Forget God's word. We got conflict. We got a problem. I don't want to deal with it.

Listen to me. I want to make this very very clear because if anybody in the world wants the presence of God at Kerwin Baptist Church it's me. And I trust that more than anything you want to come to a church where the presence of God is evident. But as your pastor I want you to know the presence of God will only be evident here if it's evident in your house before you come. You don't live out of the presence of the Lord and then show up and enjoy the presence of the Lord.

This is just a building. So for us to enjoy the presence of the Lord here we have to be enjoying it during the week. And we have to have the presence of God on our marriages, on our kids, on our life, in our families, even at our work.

You say but you don't know some of the junk I deal with. Listen to me dear friend I understand all that. But the Bible never says that the presence of the Lord hinges upon whether you got problems or not.

So what is he saying here? Now listen to me very closely. You lose the presence of God when you leave the will of God. It doesn't mean you're not still saved, the Holy Spirit resides in us. It doesn't mean that God's not there. It means that God will continue to do the things that he's promised to do for you. But when you leave the will of God you leave his blessings. When you leave the presence of God it means this that now you lose his control, you lose his closeness and you lose his comfort.

Look at me dear friend. That means this God is always with us. But when it comes to his presence that describes his total control of your life.

And when you leave the will of God you leave the presence of God. You say preacher I don't really understand. Look at me dear friend. You and I should not settle for God's protection, for God's provision and even for God's promises. What ought to only be good enough for you and me is to enjoy his presence.

Listen to me dear friend. If God's as close to you as he's ever going to get why does the Bible say you draw nigh to him he'll draw nigh to you? That means there can become a distance. It means that he might live in you.

But it means that there might not necessarily be a closeness between you. And dear friend you and I I don't know about you but I need the closeness with God. I need his help.

I need his guidance every step of the way. But when I step out of his will then that means I'm leaving his presence. And dear friend I'm here to say that our church will only enjoy the real presence of God when we act according to his will for our church. And you will only enjoy God's presence in your life when you are acting according to God's will for your life. You say preacher I think I need a little bit more explanation.

Well I'm glad you asked. In Exodus chapter 32 the chapter before we are told what happened that ended up making verse 1, 2, and 3 happen in chapter 33. What did the people do that got God to the point in chapter 33 where he says you go ahead I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to give you all the promises I promised but I'm not going with you. By the way dear friend I want you to know something it ain't worth going ahead if God's not going with you. It's not you know excuse the word ain't but it ain't worth going anywhere if he's not with you. And when I mean this is he's going with you he lives inside of us but what I'm saying is this I don't want to go anywhere unless he's in control. I don't want to go anywhere unless I am submitted to him because then I know he'll guide me in the right way.

But as soon as you and I leave his will then we leave behind his presence. Look at verse 4 of Exodus chapter 32 the Bible says and he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool. After he had made it a molten calf this is obviously where Aaron and they turned in all their gold and they wanted to make an idol to worship. And they said these be thy gods oh Israel which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

No they didn't. They just took a bunch of metal made a calf a cow of all things and they made this golden image and then they began to shout this is our God that brought us up out of Egypt. How dumb can you be that calf wasn't anywhere in existence when God brought all them out of Egypt out of their bondage out of their slavery and God did all that. Now they're giving credit to some piece of metal or gold that God did.

You say how ridiculous can that be? Look at verse 5. And when Aaron saw it he built an altar before it and Aaron made proclamation and said tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And the Lord said unto Moses go get thee down for thy people which thou brought us out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

Look at verse 8. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. Number one. How do you lose the presence of God? Number one is direct disobedience.

This is what he said. They have gone out of the way that I commanded them. They have corrupted themselves. God said I told them what to do, I told them where to go, I told them what was expected and they purposely chose to disobey. Direct, listen to me, now the Bible gives you a clear path how to figure this one out. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 30 says grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. When you're saved the Holy Spirit moves inside and resides in your body.

We believe that. The Bible says that Jesus when he left the earth said I'm not going to leave you comfortless I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit. And from that point on any person that gets saved the Holy Spirit moves in to us and he is our conscience.

That is what tells you I'm doing wrong and I shouldn't do that and that's not right. Because the Holy Spirit is constantly making intercession with God on our behalf. And so he is the in between that is his ministry.

He's the comforter, he's the helper, he strengthens, he does all that work. And the Bible says that we can grieve him. Now in 1 Thessalonians the Bible says quench not the Spirit. That means this dear friend that when you and I directly disobey God we grieve the Holy Spirit of God. And when we grieve him then we quench him. That's why an individual can start doing wrong things and they feel bad at first.

But then after a period of time they can do those same things and they don't even feel guilty for them anymore. What has happened? What has happened is they have grieved the Holy Spirit so long that now they have quenched him.

Now he has no control in their lives. And dear friend look at me when you and I directly disobey God we grieve the Spirit which quenches the Spirit. And in turn now the Spirit has no control in our lives and now we have lost his presence. If you kind of understand would you say Amen? You say but preacher I don't understand we've lost his presence but we have his presence. Listen he lives inside but we've lost his presence. Means we no longer have his control.

Let me illustrate it this way. My mom died a year ago this coming Friday. This coming Friday will be a year that my mom died. My mom's not the Holy Spirit. My mom doesn't indwell anybody. Thank God she's dwelling in heaven right now.

That's where she's at. Now look at me. My mom had such an influence on my life.

Look at me. It's in here. There are things she's taught me things that she did that just made me the person that I am that I learned from and influenced me. But she is not here now. I have things inside of me that she did for me. Listen I'm here now because she birthed me because she took care of me because she provided for me and she did all those things. But because she's gone I don't have her daily presence. I can't call her on the phone right now and say mom you know what do you think I ought to do about this?

What do you think I should do about this? That is gone. Now I can take all the things that she's done for me and I can use that resource to try to figure it out.

But that presence that I had every day is gone now. And what the average Christian is doing they're trying to get through life on all the things that God's already done for them. But they don't have the daily guiding of God. Because they are directly disobeying. They are out of his will. Now they would have access to that. They have given that up because they're disobeying his will. Does that make sense to you? So direct disobedience.

Listen to me. In chapter 31, 32, 33 of Exodus we find that God provided the children of Israel a pillar of cloud by day. And a pillar of fire or cloud of fire by night. Do you know the Holy Spirit is to us what that pillar of cloud was to them? It guided them. It protected them. That's the Holy Spirit.

The same thing that they got, we get now. But when you disobey God, you still get the provision, you still get the protection, you still get the promises. You're still going to go to heaven when you die if you've been saved. Why would we want to give up the daily presence of God? Direct disobedience number two, I want you to look at verse four.

The Bible says that he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool after he made it a molten calf and they said these be thy gods. What we find here is that they had a real god and out of disobedience to that god they set up another god, an idol. And so we find that they lost the presence of God because of this. So what does that mean for me preacher? It means direct disobedience, direct disobedience can make you lose the presence of God. But second we see divided devotion.

Divided devotion. It's well God did this for me over here but this calf, I'm going to worship it over here. Now I hope that none of us have a big old gold molten calf sitting in your front yard.

If you do, you got some serious bling in your residence there, I'm going to tell you that right now. We do good if we got a gold tooth or something like that, you know. You got a gold calf, then just disregard this for you, okay.

But I hope nobody's got a gold calf sitting out in your front yard and you probably don't go bow to that every day. But look at me dear friend, you and I can set up idols in our life. And what is an idol preacher? It's anything that takes the priority away from God.

That's an idol to you. Anything that takes that priority away from God. And when you have divided devotion dear friend look at me, when there are things in our life that are more important to us than God.

We're going to lose his presence. It can't be divided. The Bible says you can't serve God and mammon. Because you will cling to the one and you'll let go of the other or you'll cling to the other and let go of the one.

But you can't serve both. And dear friend I'm here to tell you I believe that our churches across America, our Bible believing churches, do not have the power that we used to have because we are full of individuals and preachers that have divided devotion. We have preachers that are more concerned about their retirement program and their salary than they are about people dying and going to hell. And we have members more concerned about because they didn't get asked to do such and such and nobody came and was friendly to me and nobody has reached out to me and I don't have any little friends around here and everybody that just jumps all over me and makes me feel comfortable. Listen to me, church is not about you and it's not about me. And we're not to complain because we don't think that people are very friendly to me.

We are here because God is God and we want to worship him in spirit and in truth. Dear friend I'm here to tell you we're not here for anybody or anybody thing. If you come in with expectations that people need to do such and such for you or I'm not going to be happy here you might as well go on somewhere else because I'm going to tell you people will always disappoint you. And people will always disappoint me and I will disappoint you.

I would give everything, I would almost be willing to lose a limb not to disappoint you. But I'm going to. Because I'm flesh, I'm human and if you're depending on a person then you're going to be disappointed. Divided devotion. Dear friend when God sees that you've got some things and I've got some things that are more important to us than him we're in trouble. You agree with that? Say amen. Number three. And by the way, look at me, let me just say this, this is a freebie.

This is where we've gotten, I guess it's all free because you didn't have to pay. There's a little pet peeve of mine in our circles I guess you would call it. Over the years, you know we talk about this divided devotion and different things and over the years I think we preachers have just absolutely harped on, basically we are telling people what they're devoted to more than God. Let me tell you something, it's between you and God. You know what's in front of God and what's not in front of God. It's not for me to tell you. I'm not going to get up here as a preacher and say well bless God you do such and such I guarantee you that's going to get in the way of you and God. That's between you and God. I'm just here to tell you that you know what, we can't have anything in our life that becomes more important to us than God. You agree with that?

I've told this here before, I know it, this is about the best way I could illustrate this. I had a friend in college, brother Jack, many of them would know him and his name was Greg, he's a missionary to this day. And I enjoy playing golf. And I was in the dorm room there one time and I didn't get to play golf hardly anyway through college but we were just sitting around talking and we were talking about playing golf and he said I used to play golf because I'm familiar with golf and play golf a lot I know how golf works and the junior system and all those things and he had won some junior tournaments.

He was in the national junior things. He was a very, very extremely good golfer and had at one time intended to do that for his life and he got saved. So he is here at Bible College studying to be a missionary and different things and I was talking to him about it and I was a student body president and we were having a golf tournament, it's a fundraiser. And I said why don't you come play and he said no I don't play golf anymore. I said well I know you're not as good as you used to be and all that stuff kind of a thing I said but you know come play and he said no you don't understand I don't play golf anymore.

I said well what do you mean? He said listen, he said I love golf. And he said when I say I love golf he said I loved golf. And he said I determined a long time ago, he said it might be too tempting for me if I went out and started playing golf again it would consume me.

And he said I know that it would begin to become a priority over church and bus route and different things that I have. He said so in my life I don't own clubs anymore. He says I won't go to a driving range. He says I won't swing a golf club anymore. He says because it was that important to me I'm afraid it would take precedence.

Now I look at that and say that's ridiculous. But guess what that man's doing right now? He's on the mission field serving God. Seeing people saved. Let me tell you something dear friend. It's between you and God. You know what would take priority over God and what doesn't.

Number three is this. I want you to look if you would at verse seven and eight again. It says and the Lord said unto Moses go get thee down for thy people which thou broadest out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a molten calf and have worshipped it and have sacrificed there unto and said these be thy gods O Israel which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Isn't that interesting? Now look if you would at verse nine. And the Lord said unto Moses I have seen this people and behold it is a stiff necked people.

Number three I want you to notice this in verse seven and eight. Displaced dependence. Not just divided devotion hey we're going to worship this cow but displaced dependence.

What did they say about that cow when they created it? Oh this is the God that brought us out of the land of Egypt. So now we're going to depend and put our dependence on this gold chunk of metal. And the whole time look at me they should have been 100% totally completely depending on God. You say well that's ridiculous preacher look at me dear friend I want to encourage you this morning.

We do that. We depend on a paycheck more than we depend on God. We depend on things and materials and what this world has to offer many times and we're so consumed with that and trying to get that and there's nothing wrong with any of that. But when we begin to become dependent on that instead of on God we're in trouble. We've got to have some faith in our life.

Faith means I trust God. Hey if God chooses to give me a paycheck and provide those things I want to be wise with it and a good steward of it. But dear friend you're not depending on that job you're depending on God. God gave you that job and God can help you keep that job. And if you lose that job God can help you find another. It's not the job it's God. So many times we depend on what God gave instead of the one who gave it. Oh dear friend if I can encourage you this morning the only thing you've got to depend on is Him. That's it. Quit going through your whole life scared half to death that something's going to happen and it's going to take this job and this income and this that and this that. Let me tell you something dear friend you just settle down and trust God. God bless you. you