Exodus chapter 20
Today we are walking in: Characteristics of Principles!!! Part 3!!!!
Today we look to the word PRESENCE-- H6440 paniym-- the face, accept, before time, beseech, countenance, edge, employ, endure, enquire, face, favour, fear of, for, forefront, former time, from, front, heaviness, him(-self), honourable, impudent, presence, prospect, was purposed, by reason of, regard, right forth, serve, shewbread, sight, state, straight, street, thee, themselves, through-out, till, times past
The Torah testifies...............
Genesis 4:16
And Cain went out from the presence H6440 of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
The prophets proclaim..................
Jeremiah 23:39
Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence H6440:
The writings bear witness...........................
2 Kings 13:23
And the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence H6440 as yet.
Sinners Are Malfunctioning Citizens
This condition of a heart and spirit that are not right with The Most High has been man’s plight ever since the first man and woman chose disobedience over obedience.
Adam and Eve certainly appeared to be functioning fine after they left the Garden in that they lived to be more than 900 years old. In truth, they were malfunctioning fine. Adam was still working the ground and having kids as The Most High had intended when He first created man. Nevertheless, Adam was completely malfunctioning because nothing outside its intended environment can function properly. Adam couldn’t function like he’d been designed to do because the absence of The Most High’s presence made it impossible for him to live like The Most High had planned he would live.
This is why Adam is said to have died when he sinned. Although his physical being didn’t die immediately, Adam did die spiritually in the exact moment he was cut off from The Most High’s presence because death is the absence of the presence of The Most High in a man or a woman’s life. So we see that the man The Most High had pronounced to be “very good” (see Gen. 1:31) became very wrong because he had lost his ideal environment. He was a good creation in the wrong place and thus began to malfunction (sin).
Death is the absence of The Most High’s presence in your life.
This is the whole problem with our world today. Men and women are malfunctioning (sinning) because they cannot function properly apart from The Most High. This condition of malfunction would have continued indefinitely had The Most High not intervened to rescue the human beings that He had created with His image and likeness. While we were yet unable to return to His presence because we were contaminated by sin, The Most High died for us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Maschiach died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But The Most High demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Maschiach died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from The Most High’s wrath through Him! For if, when we were The Most High’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! (Romans 5:6-10)
The Most High came to our rescue because He wants His family back. He knows that sin is the malfunctioning of a citizen, and that citizens who are in the wrong environment are incapable of functioning correctly, so He sought to restore us to our right environment.
Since The Most High’s work of restoration is a work in process, the evidence of man’s estrangement from The Most High because of his lost holiness is a constant refrain throughout the history of The Most High’s dealings with His people. Indeed, no generation escaped this slavery to sin as “again and again they put The Most High to the test [and] vexed the Holy One of Israel” until The Most High dealt with them because of their sin (see Ps. 78:41). Moses and Aaron, who lost the opportunity to lead The Most High’s people into the Promised Land because they neglected to honor the Most High’s holiness before the people, are but an example of the many who have suffered because of their unwillingness—and indeed their inability because of their separation from The Most High—to be holy as The Most High is holy.
But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in Me enough to honor Me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.” These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord and where He showed Himself holy among them (Numbers 20:12-13).
Before the fall it was easy for man to get to The Most High—The Most High’s presence was where he spent every moment of every day—and to be holy as The Most High is holy—that was man’s innate nature. Once man sinned, however, things changed because he lost the right to be with The Most High every day.
Now The Most High has to deal with all our sin, iniquity, and rebellion before He can let us get near His holy place. And even when we get there, we will find cherubim and seraphim hovering around The Most High to prevent us from approaching Him before our sin is atoned for.
Restoring you to your garden home has been The Most High’s plan all along. You are valuable to The Most High despite your sin. Your only problem is that you are in a bad environment, an environment that is something other than where The Most High created you to live. So Yeshua paid the exact price you are worth. He laid down His image to buy you back because He knows that although you are a sinner, you still retain His image. In other words, your value didn’t change when your environment changed, so The Most High devised a plan to redeem you and to restore you to His presence.
The Most High WANTS HIS FAMILY BACK.
Truly every act of The Most High since man’s fall from His presence has been done to restore the relationship that man severed through sin. The entire Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, is the story of The Most High’s efforts to put man back into the garden environment that he lost.
Please note that the Bible is the story of The Most High’s efforts, not man’s, to restore things to the way they once were. Man cannot accomplish this task alone. He cannot regain his proper environment without the help of his Creator. Truly he cannot even know what is his proper environment and how he was made to function unless The Most High provides the way to bring him back. Man cannot overcome his sin apart from his Savior.
Man’s inability to restore the communion with The Most High that was broken by sin has not stopped him from trying to reestablish this connection. The many religions of the world and the increased interest in spiritual things in our generation show just how hard man has tried and still is trying to become reconnected with The Most High. Man, when he is living apart from the presence of The Most High, knows that he is lost and empty, with no anchor or foundation for his soul. Whether or not he understands the reason for this void in his life, he feels the effects of it and often spends much time, effort, and money trying to fix his problem.
Nevertheless, none of our self-help books, spiritual exercises, or occult rituals can fulfill our spiritual need. The Most High’s prescription for our sin is the only one that works. The only way we become reconnected with The Most High is to accept His gift of salvation through Yeshua HaMaschiach to cleanse us from all sin. The only way we can stay connected is to practice His presence on a daily basis. Sadly, our refusal to accept The Most High’s prescription for sin is quite evident in our sin-filled world.
Do you know why you keep sinning? You sin because you stop, or have never started, practicing the presence of The Most High. It’s tough to sin and fellowship with The Most High at the same time. This truth is why you must practice the presence of the Most High all day long.
“How do I practice the presence of The Most High?” you may ask. “Through praise and worship” is the answer. When you are at your job, just hum a song. It’s hard to cuss, to gossip, or to complain when you’re humming a song. When someone does something to hurt you or to make things difficult for you, just start praying or singing. You can’t get angry when you are talking to The Most High and singing His praises.
This is quite different from what people used to say when I was growing up, “Look, I can put my religion on the side for a minute or I am going to put down my clergy. ” What they meant was, “I’ll stop worshiping, I’ll stop practicing the presence of The Most High for a minute so I can curse you. Then I’ll pick it back up again when I’ve finished taking care of you.” The Most High doesn’t intend that we live like this. He designed us to always be with Him. He planned that we would never have to function without Him. He wanted us to know the joy, peace, and power of living with Him: “In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11b KJV). Joy and pleasures are The Most High’s gifts for His children when they stay in the environment He planned for them. So if you stay in The Most High’s presence, you will always please Him. Then you won’t have to fight anybody, because He’ll do it for you. Indeed, He will make your enemies your footstool (see Ps. 110:1).
MANUFACTURER’S PROGRAM TO PUT US, HIS PRODUCT, BACK INTO OUR IDEAL ENVIRONMENT.
Praise and worship are The Most High’s solutions to get us back into His presence. We must be clear, however, that praise and worship don’t put us back into The Most High’s presence; they bring The Most High’s presence to us. That is, they are but the means that provide the conditions that invite The Most High to come to us as He came to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. They are the tools that set the stage for The Most High’s arrival.
All salvation history is the story of The Most High’s efforts to do just this: to reestablish the conditions where He can live with His people as He did in the garden. He is our Source and our Manufacturer. Therefore, He is the only One who knows both what He created us to do (our purpose) and where He designed us to succeed (our ideal environment). He is also the only One who can help us regain all that we lost through sin.
PRINCIPLES
Everything in life was created to function within a specific environment.
Man’s ideal environment is the presence of The Most High.
Man’s sin has separated him from his ideal environment.
Sinners are malfunctioning citizens. Therefore, all our problems stem from the fact that we have lost our ideal environment.
The Most High is holy. He cannot allow sin to enter His presence.
Salvation through Yeshua HaMaschiach is the only means by which we can return to The Most High’s presence.
Praise and worship are The Most High’s gifts to restore His presence to man.
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