The Nearness of God in Revival
Dr. John Snyder is the pastor of Christ Church New Albany, director of Media Gratiae, host of The Whole Counsel podcast, and author of multiple multimedia Bible studies including the Behold Your God series, Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges, and Behold Your God: Seeking Him Early.
As we examine the topic of revival on The Whole Counsel podcast, we pray this study of God’s presence beckons your heart to a deeper longing and pleading for revival among our souls and in our day.
This post is excerpted from Week 12, Day 1 of Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically: “The Biblical Description of God’s Presence”.
THE ESSENTIAL PRESENCE OF GOD
God is everywhere, always.
“Am I a God near at hand,” says the LORD, “And not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?” says the LORD; “Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD.—Jeremiah 23:23–24
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!—1 Kings 8:27
We have already studied the fact of God’s omnipresence. How does this affect our understanding of revival? If God is everywhere at once, then there is no place that He is not. He is in our churches on Sunday; He is at the same time in the Muslim mosque and the local bars. God is everywhere, filling all places with His essential presence. It is part of Who He is. But this presence is not always noticed. This is not the presence for which Moses pleaded. This is not the presence that Christ procured by His victorious ascension to heaven. All created beings—demons, angels, Christians, and atheists—are surrounded by this presence. Surely, the believer can enjoy more of God than the atheist. Let’s continue our look at the biblical account.
THE MANIFEST PRESENCE OF GOD
There is another type of God’s presence. At times He chooses to make that essential presence obvious, or manifest, to people.
The manifest presence of God in revival is accompanied by an intense awareness of God’s glory. The human response to God’s extraordinary nearness often includes a terrible sense of His purity and man’s sinfulness. We should not necessarily believe those who claim to have extraordinary experiences of God’s nearness while lacking a sense of His holiness. People involved in true revival often lose track of time while prayer meetings or services last for many hours. Eternal matters take precedence over all things temporal. One minister during the First Great Awakening said that he had more people come to talk to him about their souls in a matter of weeks than in any one year prior to revival. He was not a supporter of the revival and was upset at the amount of work it was sending his way! A concern for holiness of life accompanies real revival. Even the lost man will attempt to clean up his life. Revival is a time when the ordinary work of God is multiplied and intensified. He has come near.
Doesn’t God always give His church His manifest presence? The biblical records are clear—God often withdraws His noticeable presence in order to discipline His drifting people. Below is a passage that speaks of God withdrawing His presence and His purpose in doing so. After devoting the first four chapters of Hosea to describe the unfaithfulness and idolatry of Israel, God says:
I will return again to My place
Till they acknowledge their offense.
Then they will seek My face;
In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.
—Hosea 5:15
God temporarily turns away from Israel so that they will feel the misery of their sin and turn back to Him. It is a gracious judgment, meant to lead them to repentance rather than to destroy them.
THE CULTIVATED PRESENCE OF GOD
In revival, the manifest presence of God is evident to all involved regardless of their response to it. However, the cultivated presence of God may be enjoyed by an individual or group while others are unaware of His nearness.
The cultivated presence of God is perhaps the most encouraging of the three descriptions of God’s presence. Most of us have never experienced a widespread revival where the presence of God was manifested in the way that we discussed above. It is a heartening truth that even when an individual or a church lives in a time when God has withdrawn His manifest presence from the land, they may cultivate the kind of life to which God delights to draw near. Most of the Old Testament saints lived this kind of life. Surrounded by spiritual darkness and compromise, they were careful to walk near God. They enjoyed the nearness of God even in a time when others did not. Their lives became shining lights in a dark period. This has also been true of many of the great Christians that we read about in church history. Few of our spiritual heroes lived in times when the manifest presence of God was commonly enjoyed in the churches, yet they cultivated the kind of life to which God was pleased to come near.