A Prepared Bride 3 - Manifest Presence

I have written two other articles about the prepared bride which can be read here:

A Prepared Bride 1 - Rev. 19:6-8

and

The Prepared Bride 2 - Revelation 21

which explain in better detail that the bride of Christ, being the church, the body of those who have accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord is the New Jerusalem, that this Holy City of scripture is not a place but a people.

In Revelation 21:8-21, we can read a description of this great city which, we must remember, is a people not a place.

Peter also wrote about this spiritual building.

As you come to him, the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5 NIV

Paul spoke of it as well.

Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 1 Cor 3:16 NIV

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." 2 Cor 6:16 NIV

And then we have this proclamation recorded in Revelation,

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God (the dwelling place) is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. Rev 21:3 KJV (emphasis mine!)

We must recognize that, though God's presence was manifested in the Ark of the Covenant inside the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and the Temple, He cannot be contained in human structures only in His creation - man!

Even we cannot contain Him.

Their is a phenomenon in the Pentecostal and Charismatic circles know as "being slay in the Spirit" or "falling under the power". I, personally, have seen much abuse of this, mostly because people have been taught that this manifestation is a necessary evidence of a powerful move of the Spirit. It would be interesting to note that this never happened under Jesus' ministry with the twelve. However that doe not negate the experience. It just highlights that Jesus never felt the need to "push" the manifestation of the Spirit.

That reminds me of a story from Bible College. I attended Elim Bible Institute in Lima, NY, just 20 south of Rochester. They get summer there around July 4 or 5! It is a cold part of the country. I digress from digressing!

It was a three course in 1974. We had Seniors who had been tested in the fire and generally didn't put up with much weirdness, freshmen who were all zeal and no direction and Juniors who were in the process of working out their salvation with fear and trembling! It seems that there arrived on campus, a freshman who would not smile or laugh. It did not take very long until the Seniors were fed up with this super-silliness and confronted the individual.

When asked why he would not smile or laugh, he replied that he could find no recorded occurrence of Jesus either laughing or smiling. Therefore, he was going to follow his Lord's example. One of the Seniors, obviously full of the Holy ghost and wisdom, turned to this student and quietly stated,

"There's no record of Him going to the bathroom either. What are you going to do about that?"

The freshman stood stunned and, as the truth of, not only, that statement but the profoundness of his stupidity hit him, he began to laugh. And he laughed and he laughed and he laughed. So liberated was he that his entire ministry from that day forward was characterized by the joy of the Lord. He was being robbed by the enemy.

Let us be careful to not build a doctrine around the silence of scripture. There is an entire denomination built on the absence of any mention of instruments in the New Testament. They use no guitars, no pianos, no instrumentation of any kind in worship just because they are not mentioned. They will play secular music though. I knew one minister-in-training that was a pretty good jazz pianist but he could use his talent to glorify God.

As Col. Sherman T. Potter from M.A.S.H. would say, "Horse puckey!"

Anyhow, back from an other rabbit trail and returning to the manifest presence of God, we find in scripture a number of instances of this presence overwhelming a human body.

Ezek 1:28-2:2 This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking. He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you." As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. NIV

Ezek 3:23-24 And the glory of the LORD was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown. Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. NIV

Dan 8:17-18 As he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. "Son of man," he said to me, "understand that the vision concerns the time of the end." While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep, with my face to the ground. Then he touched me and raised me to my feet. NIV

Dan 10:8-10 So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision; I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless. Then I heard him speaking, and as I listened to him, I fell into a deep sleep, my face to the ground. A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. NIV

Rev 1:17-18 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. NIV

In some of these examples, they fell down as dead men. In others, they went into a deep sleep. It is my belief and my experience both in having folks "fall under the power" while I ministered and "being slain in the Spirit" while being prayed for, that the mortal human body, at tmes, cannot adequately deal with an intense manifestation of God's presence resulting in a collapse. This is not unconsciousness nor it is irrisitable. A person is both aware of their surroundings and capable of either refusing the experience or ending it at their discretion.

We neither want to refuse this work of the Spirit nor end it prematurely. I see it as kind of "spiritual anesthesia" wherein we are so surrendered to the will of the Father that we completely yield our selves - spirit, soul and body - to the Spirit's work. In the same way that much brain surgery is done with the patient awake, so here does the Spirit work within our minds, souls and spirits in a concentrated and miraculous way.

At other times, we will want to yield ourselves to the work of the Spirit in order to receive revelation, to see visions or dream dreams,

I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. 29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. 30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth...Joel 2:28-30 NIV

The conclusion to all this is that God tabernacles, dwells with and in men. He is preparing a place who are His people. We must also participate in this preparation by practicing His presence, His righteousness, His holiness by doing, by action which flows out of a heart sold out, a heart of integrity, a heart of worship!