(Apostolic Vision) Seeking God's Face — Dale Heisey

In the name of our Lord Jesus, it is a blessing to be here, a humbling experience to be here in this house of worship with those who have gathered together to call upon his name out of a pure heart, a great joy to be with the people of God.

And the brother prayed this morning for God's people at other places, and there are people that are suffering this morning in the worship of Jesus, it's something we know virtually nothing about. We don't know how much it costs many people to be Christians, and how much it costs them to identify with him, and it should probably cost us more than it does, but it's a great joy to be in the house of the Lord this morning, and we want to see God's face together.

Seeking God's Face in Revival

I don't know if you have ever thought about that interesting phrase that's found in the classic revival formula, the classic revival verse that's recorded for us in 2 Chronicles 7, 14. Is there anyone here this morning that could stand to your feet and quote 2 Chronicles 7, 14?

Could anyone here quote that very, very classic, very well-known revival text, that revival formula? 2 Chronicles 7, 14, and everything that's in that verse, we easily understand what it means, and we could probably have no difficulty explaining to somebody how to do it, but there's one phrase in that verse that is not easy to understand, and not easy to explain to somebody else how to do it.

Now, we need first of all the verse, then we can look at this phrase. Does someone have the verse? Well, then someone stand and read it then. Thank you, brother. Thank you, brother. That's what it says.

It's very, very well-quoted, and we were already told this morning that we should humble ourselves and be given examples of revival characters who did, and we have been taught to pray, we know the importance of that.

And then it says there, and seek my face. And if you were to set out starting at 11 o 'clock this morning, and you made it your purpose to seek God's face, then what would you choose to do? And if you, obviously that means that you have not been doing it.

Obviously, when it says there, now my people must do something, and he's saying that they must do something that they have not been doing it. If we are needing revival, that means there's something we need that we don't have.

And if we don't need revival, then we don't need to do those things. But there's some change that must come to the people of God. If my people, which are called by my name, well, now they're my people, and they're called by my name, but there are some deficiencies here.

There's something wrong. They're called by my name, but they're proud people. Now, there's something wrong here. This is a contradiction. How can you be the people of God and be proud? Well, this can never be.

How can you be the people of a humble God and be a proud person? And so you must become like I am. You must be humble like I am. You must be humble. And you must pray. Well, they must not have been praying.

Well, of course they were praying. They were praying. They were avid prayers. They were certainly praying. They stood in the corners of temples to pray. They were well known for their prayers. They were a praying people, but they weren't praying to God.

One man stood and prayed with himself, the Bible said. And so there was something wrong with their prayer life. And then he said, and seek my faith. Now, Tony, if you're wicked ways, you know, you stop your gambling, and you stop your fornicating, and turn that television set off, and stop watching those videos, and change your music you're listening to, and stop that radio programming.

We can turn for the wicked ways. We can forget this divorcing and quit this adultery. We can let this stealing go and stop saying those bad words. We can turn from our wicked ways. But what does it mean to seek my faith?

Have you thought about that? We want to think about that this morning. Seeking God's faith. Something has come between us. When we must seek God's faith, something has come between us. Something has created an eclipse.

We've had a spiritual eclipse. Something has come between us in the face of God. And all kinds of things can come between us in the face of God. But there's something that has come between. And it was never God's intention for us, for any of His people, to live apart from Him.

To live in a broken relationship with Him. This was never God's intention for His people, that we live in a broken relationship with God. It was His will for us to live in conscious communion with God.

Conscience of His presence with us. Not where is God? Not what has happened to God? Not where is the face of God? Not where did God go? What has happened here? But living in the conscious presence of God.

This is the sweet privilege of the child of God. To live with Him. To know Him. And so revival in one sense of the word is returning to God. And if we don't return to God, we cannot have revival. And there's no revival apart from returning to God.

Now, if we don't need to return to God, then probably revival is not necessary. Everything is alright. We're in God's presence. We're living with Him. God is with us. But revival is returning to God. And God said, seek My face.

Or He could have said, return to Me, as He said to many of the other prophets. Hosea said to them, return to Me, and I'll return them to you. Malachi, we need to return to God. Now, I thought that probably to start us thinking this week about how we stand with the Lord God, I would take you to a very, very interesting passage of Scripture, yet one that is not very well known to us.

The Song of Solomon as a Spiritual Allegory

And I suppose that this passage of Scripture might be one of the least known parts of your Bible. In fact, this book of the Bible might be so strange to you that when you read over it, you might not understand what you're reading.

You might have a strange sense, a feeling that maybe this passage of Scripture shouldn't be written in our Bible. It shouldn't be included in the Bible. And maybe you have never heard a sermon from this passage of Scripture in your life.

It's certainly not a very well-known portion of Scripture. But I'd like you to turn your Bibles this morning to the very first chapter of the Song of Solomon. And if this Song of Solomon does not teach us anything else, it teaches us the need to live in the presence of God.

And would teach us something about seeking the face of God. And if it has no other purpose for being in our Bibles, then may this suffice as its purpose to help us know what the relationship is that God intends for us to have with Him.

I'm going to read the first eight verses of this chapter this morning. And I might just ask you a question to stimulate your interest as you are hearing these first eight verses read. I'd like you to answer a question in your own heart as you're listening to these verses.

The question is, would I be satisfied this morning if I would have a relationship with the Lord Jesus like this lady had with her boyfriend or with the bridegroom? And we can ask that question another way.

Would our Lord Jesus be satisfied with us if we had the kind of relationship with Him that this bride had with her bridegroom? And that is not intended to be a trick question. It's intended to be a devotional question.

And I want you to read carefully and see just what kind of relationship she had with Him. Verse 1, The song of songs which is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine.

Because of the Savior of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth. Therefore do the virgins love thee. Draw me. We will run after thee. The King hath brought me to his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in thee.

We will remember thy love more than wine. The upright love thee. I am black, but comely. O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.

My mother's children were angry with me. They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest? Where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon?

For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? If thou know not, if thou know not, O thou pharise among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

Now maybe you consider that to be a strange reading for the first day, first sermon of revival meetings and a strange place to start to read, a strange place to stop. I thought maybe a few words of explanation might help you understand why we read what we did here and help you understand why we chose those eight verses.

The Song of Solomon is not a love song as it is considered today, although it is a story of love. But being a story of love, it is not a story of sex. In Latin America where we live, it's difficult for the people to know the difference between those two words.

And they think that the one means the other. It's not true. There's a difference between love, which is agape, and love which is eros. This is not a story of eroticism. This is a story of true love. And if we don't understand that as young people and as fathers and mothers, as Christians, if we don't understand that, then we're going to get the physical mixed with the spiritual in this story.

This is not a story of physical relationships. It's a story of spiritual relationships. And although there are graphic terms of physical activities involved in this story, even as verse 2 would suggest to us, yet the spiritual meaning is the important thing here.

Nor is this Song of Solomon a mere story of a love affair between Solomon and a poor country maiden who would never have had the opportunity to ascend to such kind of regalism or such kind of palace living.

It's a very strange thing how these two found each other. Although that's included in the graphics of the story, the drama that unfolds here, that is not the purpose for the Song of Solomon. I believe the Song of Solomon is far more than a mere example of a pure and healthy marriage relationship between a man and his wife.

Yes, I think you can go through the Song of Solomon and find there teaching, instruction that should build Christian marriage, but I don't think that's the purpose for the Song of Solomon. I don't think that's the main reason why it is in our Bibles.

But I believe deeper than all those things, it is probably a spiritual allegory of the true relationship that may and must exist between a Christian and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a story of that spiritual relationship that we have in Him and have with Him and have because of Him.

It is the story this morning of the relationship that you as a person, I have with our Lord Jesus. And not only the relationship that we corporately have with Him as we are met together, but the story of the relationship we should have personally with Him.

Public Religion and Private Communion

Now someone told me that there was a marriage here in October. Someone got married in October of last year. And so I don't know who those people are. I have not met them yet. But they got married in October, I was told this morning, and went to church in the car.

But I could imagine something about that courtship that happened before the marriage. Now I was not here, and I don't even know you people, and I was never in the state of Oregon in my life, and so I am not guilty of anything I am going to say.

But I can just imagine that young man, there was a young man and a young lady involved. I am going to suppose, and I am going to think that the only time he ever would have been, that is to say, that the only time he ever would have spent with her is, you know, she sits over here, and he sits over here, and we are all together, and she sings soprano, and he sings bass, and we are in this church service, and we all kneel to pray, we all get up, walk out the door together, and go home, and she goes home.

I don't suppose that that courtship would have resulted in marriage if the only relationship they ever would have had with one another would have been public. But there was an effort made, I am going to suppose, and I wasn't here, but I am supposing there was an effort made in a private way, in a personal way, in a very close way, without others shadowing, and others interfering, and others taking the place, and others using up the time, and others becoming involved.

Just the two of them. I am sure something was done to bring those hearts together in something that resulted in the commitment of marriage. Now, let's just use that illustration and apply it to our relationship this morning with Jesus Christ.

And what is our relationship with Him? And is it basically a public relationship? And that is the way many Christians live today. Their relationship with Jesus is a public relationship. If you would take away from their lives the public expressions of Christ, the public relationships with Christ, the public worship services, for example, there would be very little private relationship left with Jesus.

Very little time we alone. Very little time secret place. Very little time the door shut. Very little time only us. Very little time the inner secret relationship. And that is why revival is needed. That is the very day revival service needs to be born.

Right there. You know, we kind of run through the daily strains and activities and assignments of life. And kind of come exhausted, you know, into God's presence. Kind of come exhausted into the worship service.

Kind of come exhausted into the church building if you want to call it that. Church is not a building. It is a meeting house. And in Costa Rica, the song leader has a pencil, has a pen. This should never happen in Tangent, Oregon.

I suppose it doesn't happen here. It should never happen here. In Costa Rica it happens. The song leader has a pencil, has a pen. And he comes into church and grabs a song book. Grabs a song book and takes his pen and writes one number down on the palm of his hand.

And he pages through that book and rips through that book and writes a number down on the palm of his hand. And comes right to the front of the service and looks at his hand and gives these numbers out.

That song leader looks at his hand again. Very, very common. People down there write on their hands. They write all kinds of things on their hands. You shouldn't do that. But who took the time to prepare in the private, in the personal way, the intimate way, the secret way for that public work?

Too much of our church life, too much of our Christian life is public life. We take the public service out of it. Take the public service out of it. Maybe that was a beautiful devotion that you had. Maybe it was a beautiful reading of the Word.

Maybe it was a very edifying thing. But listen, did you prepare that devotional for the church service? Are you listening this morning? Or was that devotional prepared for yourself? Or was that just one of the fruits of the time you spend alone with God?

If you would not have had that public responsibility, would there have been that same diligence in the seeking out of spiritual truth? And for those of us who need to periodically stand before God's people to bring a sermon, are we as diligent in searching the Scriptures and searching the truths and searching the heart of God just because we wish to know Him?

As we are diligent to try to find those thoughts that could feed God's people on that public occasion. I'm asking us, what is your relationship with Jesus like? And God said, seek my face. God said, seek my face.

And it's good to seek the face of the people. It's good to be with the people. We need to be with the people. The ministry takes us out to the people. He said, go out to these lost sheep. Find them. You have to make contact with the people, but it all begins with that relationship with God.

Seek me first. So I was trying to explain to you this morning that this is an allegory of that true relationship that must exist between each one of us in our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a spiritual thing.

It's not a physical thing. And this story becomes physical. I'll show you maybe one aspect of that later on here in these verses that we read. But there is a spiritual message here. What is a spiritual life like?

Interpreting the Characters of the Song

Now, to help you understand the Song of Solomon a little bit, and I'm not going to... I thought about doing it. I thought about preaching through the Song of Solomon this week and then leaving you here in the congregation.

Leaving you. And I guess I won't do that. I might bring several messages from this book. I'm not sure. But to help you understand and interpret and get a hold of the story that's here, there are several ways we could look at this story.

Two ways that I have noticed, and I'm not sure if I can tell you which of these two is correct. But if I bring you these two views, at least help you to focus and understand better. But we begin with at least two people.

There's one view of the Song of Solomon that says that there are two people involved and one that says that there are three. And I'll take the three first. There is this little maiden, this country maiden.

She lives about 100 kilometers north of Jerusalem, 65 miles north of Jerusalem. And she's working up there in a vineyard. A vineyard that is not her own. She is an employee working in a vineyard. She has a responsibility there along with many other people taking care of it.

And these here are the royal vineyards. These vineyards are the vineyards of the king. He owns these lands up here. He has these servant workers. He has these peons. He has these workers there taking care of this vineyard.

This girl is in there. She works out under the sun and under the rain day and night. There she is. And she works up there. And this girl is in this story. There's another person in the story, a king. That king is Solomon.

And we have him in this story. And there are those in the field. The third person in the story is a shepherd boy. A peasant shepherd. Now, if that is true or not, I'm not sure. But let's look at the second way that the story is interpreted.

We have the same girl we mentioned before. But the second person then is the second and third person is the same one. It's Solomon. And the thought was that one day Solomon was in his carriage and he went north to check out his vineyards.

And while he was up there, he saw this peasant maiden working in his vineyard. And as he saw this peasant maiden, he said to himself, Listen, I've got 300 wives and 700 concubines. Or was it the other way around?

700 wives and 300 concubines. I'm not sure which one it was. I think it was 700 wives and 300 concubines. And this one right here would certainly make one more. But what do I do? This is not Pharaoh's daughter.

I know how to handle that. I know how to deal with royalty. But what do I do in a case like this? And so the thought was that he decided he's going to get some sheep and put them over here in this pasture right beside the vineyard.

He's going to tend these sheep over here. And maybe that will give him some contact to kind of get in here and get to know this young lady. And maybe she won't feel so strange to relate to this fellow who's got a crown on his head and got this fancy white horse in front of a carriage.

And he'll just kind of come in here as a shepherd boy. Now, whether that's true or not, I don't know either. But there are figures here that make him at times a shepherd and figures that make him at times a king.

And in either case, it is perfectly symbolic of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our shepherd king. There are times when she is talking in the story. And there are times when he is talking in the story. She talks more than he does.

And there are times when someone else is speaking the story. That is that there are daughters of Jerusalem who are watching this whole thing happen. It's as if they were kind of observing this relationship developing between these two.

And they look on and watch this. And every once in a while they make comments as they did in the 8th verse, the last verse I read. Was the daughters of Jerusalem speaking. At times they are identified as they speak.

At times they are not. But if you understand the story, you know that they are here referring to the cry of the heart that came from the bride in verse 7. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth without fetus.

For thou makest thy flock to rest at noon. For why should I be as one that turns aside for the flock of thy companions? And then they ask her, the daughters of Jerusalem ask her, If thou knowest not, O thou first among women.

And when they are speaking to her, now obviously this is not the woman speaking. She is being addressed. Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherd's tents. And so they speak at times in this story.

And if you can identify the speakers, you have a good key to understanding the message of the song of Solomon. So then we have the bride here. That is symbolic of us as the Christians this morning. You and I as Christians in the bridegroom is Christ, our shepherd king.

And if we can understand that, then we can begin to understand the story of the song of Solomon. But I ask you already, would you be satisfied if your relationship with Jesus this morning was the relationship she had with her shepherd king?

Would you be satisfied with that? You might say, well I don't know if I understand it well enough to know if I can answer the question. I'd like to hear a little more. I'm not real sure that if I'm understanding everything that you read there, it sounds like things are going pretty good here.

It's better than wine. It says thy love is better than wine. It talks about the Savior of thy good ointments. Thy name is ointment poured forth. It sounds like it's going pretty well. It sounds like they've got a pretty good thing going here.

But I want to ask you a question. Where is the bridegroom? Where is the shepherd king? And I want to answer that question. The bride does not even know. Something is seriously wrong. Yes, they have known each other.

Yes, there has been love there. Yes, there has been good times together. There have been pleasant moments spent. Yes, there has been some relationship developed. Yes, she knows him. And in fact, she can go on for a long period of time expressing his characteristics and talking about his fame.

And the expressions of her heart are very lofty. She can go on describing him for lengthy periods of time. But there's something wrong. I asked you this morning, where is that shepherd king? And she did not know.

And God says, seek My face. Now you understand how it's beginning to tie together, can't you see it? And she did not even know where to look. She did not even know where to look. If I had asked you this morning to seek the face of God, where would you start hunting?

Where would you go to find the face of God this morning if I had said to you, seek the face of God? And this girl, were she given all the airplane tickets and train tickets and all the things she would need to go any place she wanted to go, she would not have known where to look.

She wouldn't have known what port to make for. She would not have known where to go. So far was she from Him at this point in her life. That brings us to an important point in our meditation this morning.

The Unsatisfied Life and the Absence of God

The dilemma of a young, satisfied life. Something wrong with the relationship. Something missing. Something here, a vacuum, a void that cries out and says, where is, where is thy God? Where is thy God?

The question that Psalmist asked in the 42nd Psalm. The heart was panting after the water brooks. And the heart will do that. That's like a deer. It will pant for that water. It will go running and springing to find it.

Sniffing the air to find it. So panteth my soul to thee, O God. My soul searches for God, for the living God. Thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me, where is thy God?

And how would you answer that question this morning? Where is your God? Where did you leave Him? Because He did not leave you. And every time we have this relationship broken in the Song of Solomon, it is she that has done it.

It was never He that did it. And every time that there was an absence between them, it was her fault that it happened. The dilemma of an unsatisfied life. Something else has come in here. The bride knew her lover.

She could speak volumes about him. But they were not together. Now it was to her credit. And I will tell you this. I think it was to her credit that she desired him. It was two things to her credit this morning.

First of all was that she desired him. Though he was not there, she desired him. And secondly, it was to her credit that she realized that he was not there. And that is further along than what some Christians are.

They have not realized that something has come in between. They have not sensed the absence. They were not even aware that it was missing. They were not aware of the fact that they were living this life without him being present there.

They thought that this is what the Christian life consists of. They thought that I am living the normal Christian life. They thought that what I am doing is the way all people do it. They thought this is the way Christians normally experience it.

But this woman was aware. This bride in this story was aware of his absence. And she desired his presence. But he was not there. That is a tremendous... That is actually spiritual maturity. When we get to a place in life where we can understand that my relationship with him is not what it should be.

Something is wrong with my relationship with my Savior. It is to her credit. She had that discernment. She noticed that he was not here. We need revival when he is not here. When we notice that he is not here, but we need far more revival when we cannot even notice that he is not here.

And that person is in serious spiritual condition. Though things look outwardly very good, that person is in deep spiritual difficulty that does not sense his absence. And I will show you that before we sense and feel and long for and feel the intolerable weight and burden of his absence, before we get to that point, a lot of revival has happened already.

A lot of stirrings of God have happened already. If we sense that he is not here and I wish he was here. I cannot live any longer without seeing him. Dear brother and sister, there should be nothing more intolerable in your life than my life.

There should be nothing more intolerable in your life than my life than the sense of the absence of God. There is nothing that should be more intolerable for us than that. I don't sense that God is with me.

And I heard someone say in the Sanskrit class this morning that we don't need to have flames of fire coming out of heaven or lightning bolts to strike us down in order to convince us that God is real and that God is here.

But he said at times people who pray to the Lord have sensed very, very visible, perceptible manifestations of God's presence. But I would want to tell you that you do not want to live without that clear assurance and clear evidence that God is with you.

Guarding the Presence of God in a Corrupt Culture

Now, you might say that Brother Dale, this was completely happenstantial. That was completely chance. That was just simply a fault in the VCR machine on the airplane. You might tell me that and I will say fine.

And you just go ahead and believe that. But we were riding to Atlanta, Georgia. And they have these videos on these screens. And you have to put them things in your ears to hear what they're saying. And I don't ever put them on.

I don't ever do that on an airplane. And there's enough of difficulty to keep your mind pure, keep your thoughts in order without hearing all those bad words and listening to that terrible drama and following those evil and suggestive and provocative movies.

But you cannot help riding an airplane with that many screens in front of you. And this was a great big one right in front of my face there on that plane. It was one of those little tiny boxes. It was a big, large screen.

And right in front of my face. It's impossible to not know what's going on in that. And it was a diabolical presentation in which it turned religion into a form of saint worship. And I could tell you the title of the movie and you would recognize it as being a very, very popular thing that people are reading today.

But this thing got more and more filthy. And you know that as a movie comes to an end, the worst of the drama reaches its climax. The worst of the gory. The worst of the violence. The worst of the sexism.

The worst of the sadism. The worst of it is at the end. And my spirit was becoming increasingly aggrieved. Now the question is God's presence. And the question is seeking His face. And the question is being aware whether God is present or not.

And the point is that there should be nothing more intolerable in our lives than to sense the absence of God. That should be the most intolerable thing in our lives. The most intolerable thing is not the Wall Street crashing.

The most intolerable thing is not the price of gasoline going up. And you have cheap gasoline in the state of Oregon. Our gasoline costs us $3 a gallon for regular gasoline. The high test is more than that.

You can be glad for the price of gasoline you have here. And that is not the worst thing for gasoline. They said if this war starts in the country, the gasoline will double in price. It will be $6 a gallon for regular gasoline.

That is not the most intolerable thing that happens. The most intolerable thing is not a death in the family. The most intolerable thing is not an audible accident or being discovered to have cancer. That is not the most intolerable thing.

That can be the most beautiful thing. There is nothing wrong with going home to meet your Savior. There is nothing wrong with you being united forever with the beauty of the Lord. There is nothing wrong with that.

There is no problem there. The problem is absence from God. But you need the presence of God with you. And so I was watching this thing or seeing this was going on. And I just could tell it was getting worse and worse and worse.

And my spirit was deeply grieved. I started to pray. I said, Lord, do something about this music. I said, these people. Look at all these people in this airplane. 767, a 767 Boeing. And all the people in this airplane watching this filthy thing.

Filling their hearts with filth. All these earplugs in there. Hearing this stuff. And they are going to believe it. They are going to be convinced that this is life. They are going to be convinced that this is the way the universe is controlled in these days.

They are going to be convinced that this is the only power that is out there. I said, Lord, I was in response to this terrible movie. And shortly after that, that movie came to a stop. The screen just got a blank, a bunch of dots on the screen.

Everything stopped. I don't know what to do. I don't know if you can still hear those sounds anymore or not. I don't know. And I heard people in the airplane start telling the people working the plane.

The movie. The movie. Make that movie go. And so someone made another mistake. Put the movie back on again. Put it on the beginning. Put it on the fast forward. Imagine this movie. That movie took an hour and a half to get to that point.

And now in about ten minutes time it does the whole thing. These people are jumping and running. It's going real fast. Real fast. Real fast. Like a fast forward. There it goes. And there's all this crazy kind of thing that you saw before.

Happening three, four, ten times faster than before. And this movie went on and on until it came down to the very place where this thing had quit before. And then they slowed it down. Now it's going regular speed.

It got to the exact same point. It quit again. And the people again began to put up a fuss. The boys came in the last three and said we're very sorry and we cannot seem to fix the movie. And I said, thank you, Lord.

You've got with you in your life. How far away is he? Who is in control? Who are you walking with? Who are you living for? See my face. It wasn't anyone in the airplane seeing God's face. These people were seeking something else.

If God would just during this week want to show us what we are seeking, then what would he say? God would have the opportunity to put on the walls of this church building, this meeting house. Write it on the walls here.

Shoot it up there with a projector on the walls. What you are truly seeking in life. Would you be satisfied for the rest of the congregation to see what is written there? This woman was experiencing the dilemma of an unsatisfied life.