What His Presence Is Not: The Church Today - Part 1 — Ray Andrews

The Church’s Present Condition and the Need for God’s Movement

If they could take us somewhere, and see if we can move through some truth, which you may already be in possession of, or something that the Holy Spirit is quickening to our hearts right now. I don't know what you feel about what's going on in the Church, and what's taking place in the Church, but if I want to look at the Church, and now when I'm talking about the Church I'm not necessarily talking about denominations, but this I believe.

Now, what I want you to do, is just because I have come from Australia, doesn't mean you've got to believe everything I say. Isn't that wonderful? You can listen, and you can hear, and if it's what the Holy Spirit is saying to you, and you're buying into the truth of it, then Amen.

It's important. You've got to believe something. You can't be a vacuum on two legs. You've got to fill up with something. You've got to believe something. And so if you believe what the Holy Spirit is saying, and let's pray that the Holy Spirit is saying something.

Turner, how are you brother? Just shake my hand. It's lovely to see you again. Glad to see you. Welcome to Oklahoma. Thank you. Bless you. We're just getting underway brother, or at least I am. And when I look at the Church, there's one thing that is exciting.

Seeking God’s Presence by Examining Its Absence

And in this period of time in which we're going to be ministering, we're going to be talking some way about being in His presence. I would like to invert that, and look at some ways why we're out of it.

Maybe see something that's opposite to that. But let me share with you, and I'll go through some things first, and then we'll have a little stretch and a stand up, and then we'll come back to something else.

But one of the things that's been strong in my heart, and we've been sharing some of this through the day, is that I believe that God is going to move again. However we see it, whatever way we see it, there hasn't been a lot going on.

There really hasn't been a lot going on. The Church of Jesus Christ, from what we can see, has been fragmented. It's been pulled apart by divisions, and schisms, and strife, and trouble. And the Churches look nothing more than a body of people that are sniveling, wheezing, dying, giving up, bickering, and arguing, and contending.

With diverse doctrines on every hand. And what we would see from the Church, it is not exportable. There's some of what I see in the Church I wouldn't want to export. The Church from what I see, I came to know Jesus when I was a teenager.

We'd been brought up very strongly in the Presbyterian Church. Five elders, five uncles who were elders in the Presbyterian Church. And so our whole life was wrapped around the Presbyterian Church. Now, in different parts of our country, the Presbyterian Church was quite different.

You could get different ministers, and so you had a different kind of congregation, and you had a different kind of spirit, and you had a different kind of worship, and you had a different kind of message, and you had a different kind of everything.

Our particular minister was a modernist. So he never ever did talk about Jesus. He always got up with his gowns, and he used to have his fingers in the gowns here like this. He used to start off, Our Father who art in heaven.

And it was universal fatherhood, universal brotherhood. Everybody's in. We grew up with that kind of thing. And then I was on my way to a soccer match, and the Holy Spirit intercepted my life. I wasn't looking for Him.

I didn't want Him. I had been in Sunday school. My father was now an alcoholic, a pretty violent guy. And we grew up in a home where we never knew what it was like for somebody to put your arm around you, give you a hug, say they loved you.

We never knew any of that kind of lifestyle. What we did know was we knew how to run, and we knew how to run fast. If we did the wrong thing, my father would pick up whatever we grew up on a farm, and whatever farm implement he had in his hand at the time, you got it across the back of the head.

One of my brothers came on a surprise visit to the mountaintop this year that it was planned, which I didn't know about. And it was exciting. And he was saying to me, when we were just talking about some things, he was saying to me, You know, it's a wonder sometimes that we didn't get one of those forks.

You know, we had the big hay forks with a great big spoke, you know. And we used to get them around the back of the head. And he said to me, sometimes I look back and I think, isn't it amazing we never get one of them right through our head someplace, you know.

So we grew up in an environment, and my mother, I believe that my mother was a godly woman. I remember one night I was going out, and she knew that I wasn't up to the best kind of lifestyle. And I was going out to see a girlfriend, and when I was leaving I remember her coming to the door.

And she stood at the door when I was going out, and she turned around and she said to me, You know, Ray, one day you are going to be a preacher. And I could feel my hands tightening, and I looked at her, and only because I respected my mother, I just wanted to drop her right there.

I'll never be a preacher, I'll never be a preacher, nobody is ever going to get me. I'm out of church, I'm out of there, I'm finished, I'm on my way, I'm going for life. I want life, but I'm after life.

And so I was on my way to a soccer match, and the Holy Spirit ambushed me. When I came in, and Jesus found me, and I gave my life to Christ, I saw the move of God. I came in on the tail end of a time when God was manifesting His power in a dramatic way.

I saw so many people come into Christ. I witnessed and registered the power of God in my life. I saw almost every type of healing. Healing in my own family. I mean, not just emotional healing, I'm talking about physical healing.

I find healing taking place. And as a teenager, I was just, you know, wide out to it. And I heard some really goofy things that were going on, I heard about spooky things that were going on before I found Christ.

I remember standing with the guys down in the street, this was before I found Jesus. I remember standing with the guys just down in our village. Because when the Holy Spirit started moving in our family, one of our sisters got saved, and then another sister got saved.

And I remember I was standing down there laughing at them, you know, and mocking. I was mocking my own sisters for being Christian. They were telling me that she was going to this church, and they were doing all sorts of things at the church.

They were pulling demons out with fingernails. They told some stories. But you know, I really saw the move of God. Do you know something? When I knew least, I experienced most. When I knew least, I experienced most.

From Biblical Information to the Living Word

You know what would have been exciting? If we'd been born without the Bible. If we'd been born without the Bible. What if we'd have been born just after Pentecost? The Word's still being written. We don't have all the letters.

Isn't it this book that's caused all the problems? Boy, that changed your expression. I'll have a drink after that. Isn't it this book that's caused all the problems? One time I sat down, because when I knew least, I experienced most.

And then I got to know the Word, and then I became a theologian. They taught us Bible school can be a blessing or it can be a terrible curse. Seminary becomes more like a cemetery. There's lots of people who go into Bible school, fired up for God, and they come out dead.

I'm not saying there's something wrong with Bible school. This book has been the means in my life of causing so much division and so much contention and so much strife. This book. We use this book to defend everything we believe.

And you believe different to me about something. You believe different to me, and somebody else believes something different. So we sit down. No, but the Bible's saying this, but the Bible's saying this, but the Bible's saying this.

But I'm right, but I'm right, but the Bible's saying this. You know, one of the problems with that, I use it like this. It's a bit like, I'm outside the city of Oklahoma. The signpost says, 12 miles to Oklahoma.

So I think, great. So I hop over to the signpost, and I grab the signpost, and I just hug it and hug it and say, Oklahoma, 12 miles. Great, Oklahoma, 12 miles. Great, Oklahoma, 12 miles. And I hug the signpost.

You drive past and say, you can tell he's half Irish. He's crazy. The city is greater than the signpost. The signpost is only a pointer to the city. It hasn't got significance alone in itself. It points me to the city.

This book can bring me life, or it can kill me. The black print on this page. New people, I get my Bible marked everywhere. New people won't mark their Bible, because it's the holy word of God. Holy word, holy book.

This here is pages and print. That's a book. And it's in its book form that it's caused all its problems. For to many people, it's become the signpost. The word church. We are the word. We stand on the word.

We believe the word. We live in the word. And you don't need me to tell you how many divisions and strife and church breakups have come from the book. Yet I love this book. But this book is a pointer.

The Bible says the letter kills. The spirit gives life. This book does not give life. Something has to happen to the book or it can kill. And we use the book to kill. One of the things that I regret in my life is that after I started to know a lot of things, theologically, and study the scriptures, and learn how to preach right.

So if you're looking for me to get everything homiletically right during the time I'm preaching with you, you're wrong. I'll start anywhere. But we learn all that. Starting it right. Being right in the middle.

And putting the hook in at the end. So that somehow I can either emotionally move you if I can get you to your spirit. But I'll emotionally get you going. The success at the end of a meeting is how many people cry.

How many people are at the front line for prayer. How many people go out feeling like the devil. You see, this book, Jesus says to the Pharisees, he says, You search the scriptures, for in them you think that you have eternal life.

But you won't come to me. And they testify about me. What a change comes when we find the living word behind the book. The signpost, I can hug this all day. If you go over to where I was brought up in Ireland, you can walk along on Sunday morning, and people come, and the bigger the Bible, the more spiritually local.

Get a big Bible. The book. I've got the book, I've got the Bible. But what we are looking for, is we're not looking for the book. This book tells me about him. It has a revealed will in it in which I walk.

But there's got to be something beyond the book. I was just saying, I was just saying last night with Bill and them, the older I get in my Christian faith, the less I read, and the less I pray. Now, I wasn't taught that evangelically.

I was, I have gone on fastings, I've gone on praying, I've gone on night, all night prayer meetings, I've done all of them a lot. But I don't do it anymore. I'm lazy now. When I look at this book, I want this book to speak to me.

I want this book to tell me something. I want this book to come alive. I am no longer reading for information. I think that after 30 years in pastoral work, I'm fairly well informed. And why I have been distressed in growing up, is because I've used this book, because I wanted to prove my doctrine, and prove that I was right.

And in doing so, I destroyed an enormous lot of relationships. That's a regret that I have. What's important to me now, is that when I'm involved with this book, I want to only find the man behind the book.

I don't want to become any more informed. One of our great problems is we're stuck in being informed. More, I want more, I want more. And we go back to the Apostle John's days, and we're snagged back in with Gnosticism again.

Knowledge. What does it do? What did it do for me? It puffs us up. Oh, let me tell you. You don't know, Jack. Well, I'll tell you. Now, you're wrong, Jack. I'll tell you the truth. It puffs us up. We get a lot of knowledge.

But we want something different to knowledge. Now, when I'm reading the book, I'm waiting for the book to speak to me. How do you read your scripture? What do you find in your word? I had a fellow come to me, and he said to me, he says, Brother, I just have my quiet time every day.

I always read so much to the word. He says, I'm just so dry. He says, I'm just so dry. He said, I wish I could have joy. I wish I could rejoice. I wish I could have something. Why am I so dry? Why am I empty?

Why am I dead? And I said, well, tell me about your word. Tell me about what happens to you. He says, I make sure I'm up religiously every morning. I spend time in the word. I seek the Lord for so long.

I pray for so long. And I do all that. So I said to him, okay. I want you to stop reading the word. And I want you to stop praying. No more praying. No more reading the word. We're having a month out.

If he dies in a month, I mean spiritually dies in a month, mustn't there be some terrible problem? A lady in India was contacted by some missionaries. And they were only passing through. They shared Jesus with her.

She gave her life to Christ. They didn't have anything because whatever they were carrying home was still going on through. And they only stopped off. And they had no material or nothing to give her. No Bibles, no nothing.

They came back 20 years later. And 90 of her village were converted to Christ. And she never had a Bible. I've got a bookshelf of them. How well am I doing? This fella looked at me as though I told him to go to hell.

Oh, you can't mean that. You're not serious. So that's what it's doing for you now. And you're dry and dead and empty. We've got to do something. I said what I'm going to need you to do is just forget praying, forget reading.

Get away with the whole thing. And for the next month I just want you to live relaxed. And stop being so religious. If you think you're getting brownie points with God because you read every morning and you had a quiet time every morning, there's nothing even in your book about it.

But that's the case. And I said don't worry. I'll be around to keep a check on you. So he did. And he came alive. He thought the quiet time and reading the Word, it had become so mechanical and so religious that he thought that that was making him spiritual.

When he didn't have those, he had to find out what was spiritual. And he connected with the man behind the book. He came alive in his spirit. And then he wanted the Word. He wanted to have the Word. Now we get to the Word.

And we read the Word. When I start off the Scriptures, I begin reading. And I'm looking for every word to speak to me. And if I read one verse and one verse has already spoken to me, that's it. That's it.

Now I'm probably not nearly as bright as you. Because I can only handle so much. And when Holy Spirit speaks to me through the Word, that goes down into my spirit, feeds my soul, energizes and motivates me and sends me on my way.

I don't read a passage to say I have now got it. Have any of you ever read the Bible all through? New Testament all through? I talked to a chap who'd read the Bible through twice. And I said to him, what was it like?

He said it was just as dry as chips. The Bible, in just reading it to say, well, I put my hand up. I've read it right through. Well, bless you. One word from God. One sentence can change my life dramatically.

The Living Word. The Word that comes to life. And now when I begin to read, Father, open my eyes. I don't want this letter. I can turn to the Gospels. I can almost tell you they're word for word. One of the things the Presbyterian Church did for me when I was a child growing up in Sunday school, they made us study the Word over and over and over.

We used to have to say passages of Scripture. We would have the first Presbytery and second Presbytery exams. Where you would go before examiners, two or three examiners, and you would quote passages of Scripture, chapters, just off by heart.

Two of my sisters did Psalm 119 before three examiners and never missed a word. Do you know Psalm 119? A few verses in that. I just didn't feel I was up to that one. But I did set and do a number of them.

You know, in those days, those early days, that I thought, well, I'm just doing something. Because when the Presbytery would meet, they would meet in one of the big churches, and there's hundreds and hundreds of people there.

And of course, we were Presbyterians of high social standing. And, you know, we weren't too sure, if our marks weren't too high, that whenever we were getting our names called out in front of hundreds of people, and you walked up for your prize, you made absolutely sure that you were over 90.

You couldn't have five uncles, elders in the church, and then you were 80. They called out your marks. They told everybody, everybody heard what you'd done. So for us to keep our social standing, our social level right, we had to learn and learn and learn and learn.

My father didn't go along because he wasn't a Christian, but my mother went along. And that was the way to do it at the church. And so we did all that to try and learn that. Now, I thank God for those days.

Because when I became a Christian, I couldn't believe it. Scriptures had just poured out of me. The Word was just coming out of me. I didn't know that the Presbyterians had done such a good job. They were getting it in without me realizing it was getting so far in.

And it was coming out because it had been buried in there. So you see, now I want that Word to be converted from information and knowledge to be a living Word. A life-changing Word. A refreshing Word.

I know I sit in a desert in which I live, but the Word becomes alive to me. It's living in me. Jesus says, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. You either can live by a proceeding Word, which is a living Word.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. Or you can live by the proceed dead Word. It's either a proceed dead Word or it's a proceeding Word. What are you living by?

If I only get this here, it's a proceed dead Word. But when the Holy Spirit takes it, it becomes a proceeding Word. A living Word. When the children of Israel went out to gather their manna, the instructions were, you only take what you can eat for today.

And if you take twice as much so you're going to try and keep it over for tomorrow, what will it do? Just stink. Just stinks. If you're trying to live, and I say this in all reverence, if you're trying to live by a proceed dead Word, it just stinks.

You need manna for today. It's the proceed dead Word that's caused division. It's the proceed dead Word that's got brother against brother, church against church, denomination against denomination, move of God against move of God.

It's the proceed dead Word that's caused it. The proceeding Word. The living Word. It's what brings us together. It's what unites us. What takes hold of us. When you read the Word, I pray that this, that you're not doing what I see a lot of people do, what I have done.

I've hugged this book, the same as I hugged the sign post 12 miles out of Oklahoma. Hugged the Word. I'm a Word preacher. And I'm hugging the Word. But this has to point me to Him. It's got to point me to Him.

If it doesn't point me to Him, I've got to find out what's wrong. Am I just looking for my own information? Am I looking just for some knowledge? Do I want to just enter into Gnosticism? Or do I want to find life and find Christ?

Our Generation and the Call to Move Forward

This book is life. We open up and see what God wants to do in our lives and in our generation. And I'm excited. Because when I get around the world, I see so many negatives. And I see all this stuff that I was saying at the first.

But oh, glory to God. I think it's wonderful. We have come to the kingdom for such a time as this. The Bible begins in the first chapter of Joshua, and it says, Joshua, Moses, my servant, is dead. It's your day.

It's your day. David faithfully served his generation and slept with his fathers. This is our generation. This is our day. What's happening in our day? What's going on in our day? Why is the church discouraged and disheartened?

Why are we asking so many questions? Why are we looking to God for doing so many things? What's going on in our generation? Well, one of the things that motivates me, I love Jesus. I really love Jesus.

Do you love Jesus? That's my greatest motivation. If I didn't love Jesus, I'd be at home enjoying my wife. That I would count more important. I love him. I think Oklahoma is a great place, and everything that I see about it is wonderful.

And if my wife was here, that would make everything right. I don't go half way around the world to inform someone. I've come because I've got a message. And I've got a message, I believe, that I'm God's messenger.

Otherwise there's no good in speaking, talking, doing whatever we're doing. So I see in this first part of what we're talking about now, is we want to get close to Jesus. But let's knock aside some of the things that's prevented us to get into Jesus.

The Inner Witness and Experiencing Christ’s Presence

And I'll tell you, one of the things, which is probably a big question mark for some people that would relate with me with this. And that's why you've got to witness for these things yourself. Because remember this, the witness of the Holy, Jesus said every man is this witness in himself.

The witness is not in the lips of a preacher. It's not in the strings of a guitar. It's not in a hymn sheet. You've got the witness in your own heart. You know if it's right or wrong. You know what I'm saying.

One of the greatest problems that has prevented people from coming to find Jesus has been the book itself. Do you know the book has stopped people coming into his presence? Isn't that amazing? We never look at that.

We might never think about that. But we stop coming into his presence because we become theologians. When I knew least I experienced most. Because when I got saved I just fell in love with Jesus. I just fell in love with Jesus.

All I wanted was Jesus. I remember we lived in a farm and I would sleep up in the loft. I would never allow anybody else up there. Mom was never allowed to clean up. Because when she cleaned up I lost everything.

She never could come up there. And we didn't have spares. We only had an old ladder that went up there. So it wasn't the best way for her to get up. You know I used to go up there. I might go and see my girlfriend one or two nights a week.

And every other night I would go up as soon as I'd get from work. And I'd go up there maybe to one or two in the morning. I just sat in the presence of God. I can live, relive those days as I tell you now.

When Jesus was so close. When God was so near. When I felt that I could sit in my old farm loft. And I could just put my arms around him in a tangible way. I could hold on to him. The presence of God was pregnant in the room.

I could feel it. I could touch it. It was alive. And sometimes I wish I had never learned what I learned. Know what I know. But one of the things that's happening to me in these last ten years. God did a tremendous change in my life through a whole lot of events.

I probably went so far down. And so many things happened to me. That I was so low that I was reaching up touching the bottom. And God started doing something with me. Now I'll tell you something. I don't ever want to live through that again, ever.

I went through, David said, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. I went through that same passageway. That same hallway. I had such a change in my theology. That God just about tipped everything out.

And in the end, I came right down to this place. That all I knew was that Jesus loved me. And knew where I lived. That's about as far down as I came. I grabbed at some theology that I had understood. That I had known.

That I had learned. That I had been taught. That I had gone through ministry school. All the stuff that had been there. And God just tipped the whole thing right out. And I was left with nothing. I can look back now.

And I can say, praise God. It's always easy to praise God after the event, is it not? You've found that, haven't you? But one hallelujah before the event is better than ten afterwards. All can praise God.

It's like one guy who went through a really bad time in his life. And he looked back and he said, when I look back now, he said, I can see the fingerprints of God all over it. It isn't so easy to see the fingerprints of God all over it when it's taking place.

I thought I was in hell. But now I look back, and these ten years, the last ten years of my life, has been more fruitful, more productive, more in touch. And I'm delighted. Just delighted. I'm not a theologian anymore, so please don't argue with me after the meeting.

You've already gathered that from my message. The Holy Spirit began to do something with me, which is bringing me back to where I was at the beginning. Now I'm not saying that information is wrong. I'm not saying that theology is wrong.

It's important. I believe. I have strong convictions about things that I believe. But I tell you, that's not the most important. And if we're titling something about this few hours that we're going to be spending together, the greatest thing in all the world is to be in His presence.

Just to be in His presence. That's not a quiet time. I've known people having quiet times. And that's the extent of being in His presence. Fifteen minutes in the morning, He walks with me. He talks with me.

And He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we carry the air, none other has ever known. Jesus is a lifestyle. He comes to live in me. Now, when I see where I have been, and I know what's happened to me, and see where I've come to, that is the kind of impartation of truth and revelation that I want to share with you during this time.

And I believe that the Church is going through a transition. I believe we're going to see a move of God like the world has never seen. Let me tell you what I'm supporting that on. God has moved in some dramatic ways.

Go around this town. I have gone around in traveling along with Bill, and I've gone around this town. And as I've gone around, I see this church, and that church, and this church, and that church. And there's churches with names you wouldn't believe.

Everywhere there's churches. And what's the problem with all these churches? In Matthew, the Bible talks about pouring new wine into old wineskins. You know the passage of Scripture. What has happened in Church history, which you would already know that in Church history, the wineskins have never been able to handle the new wine.

They haven't been able to take it. We have seen the move of God, and it's like the sea. We live by the sea, and there's the flow, and there's the ebb. And then there's the flow, and then there's the ebb.

And we have seen the flow and the move of God, and then there's the ebb. And then there's the flow, and then there's the ebb. And the Spirit of God is coming. And we can go back to the breaking out of the dark ages.

And we see the revelation that Luther got in coming out into the just shall live by faith. And we move on that. And then the next thing we have found out, we have got Lutheran churches everywhere. And what has man done in the past?

He has built an institution and a denomination on a revelation. God has revealed, and he continues to reveal. And as we're going looking through this time together, we're going to look at the continuing revelation that comes.

And what we have seen is we have seen that God is bringing us continuous revelation. And there's a move of God. And the next thing, there's a flow, and it's wonderful, and it's beautiful. And we see souls getting saved everywhere.

And then somebody's botched it up. They have done exactly like Peter did when he was on the mountain. The revelation comes, the transfiguration takes place. This is absolutely a magnificent place to be with Moses and Elijah.

Lord, let's institutionalize this thing. We're going to build a tent here. The transformation tent. The transfiguration tent. What are we going to call it? We'll get a name for it. Jesus says, you don't know what you're talking about.

And the move of God down through our generations is we have watched God move. Now I know that a number of you that are here now will have read church history. You'll have gone through all that. You'll understand what I'm talking about.

That there has been a move of God. And then somebody comes along and does like Peter and says, that's what we want. Wesley's revelation is right. We're the Methodists. And so we have had it over and over.

And we drive along and we see. Now I don't want you to get this wrong. I'm not. Now because I mentioned different denominations. I'm not knocking any denomination or pushing any denomination down. I want us to look at something.

But when we move along and we look at those churches. What are we seeing? We're seeing a denomination that has been built to a revelation that's taken place. And we institutionalized the move of God. And we call it something.

And do you know one of the interesting things? That the last move of God always persecutes the next move of God. We're the first Baptist. No, we're the second Baptist. We're the third Baptist. One church starts off and there's about five breaks away from the church.

Now, we're not saying God's not using any of those people. Not at all. We're not saying none of that. What we have done is we have got a revelation and God's put us there. But I'm wondering. And this is my heart.

I don't want to stay where I am. I don't want to. I'm enjoying where I am. But because I know that revelation is progressive. I want to move on. I want to move on. There's a lot of people move without moving on.

The children of Israel showed us a good example of that. They went round and round in the wilderness and they never went anywhere. They moved but they never moved on. And you can move without moving on.

I want to move on. So we have denominations set up and denominations set up. And they register for us a revelation of a move of God in a time. And praise God. And every one of them has got something to contribute.

And I preach in all sorts of different churches. And that's why I feel the liberty to do that because I go through all strains in different places. So it doesn't make any difference to me. But now how many of us in this little gathering can put our hand up and say I know what you're saying when you're talking about a move of God.

The church hasn't looked too healthy. And we haven't seen a real move of God. And when I go some places people are despairing. Oh so bad. Oh they're crying like. Oh Jesus come back. Please come back quick.

Get me out of here. I just not necessarily want to get to heaven fast. I just want to get out of this hell. Get me out of here. Become a suicidal rapturous. Just go. I want to get out of this place. But oh no.

This is a great day. The church has gone through what I would see as a winter experience. And what I understand about the winter. As much goes on in the winter as it does in the summer. Spring. You just don't see it happening.

And if you look at the scriptures. In the scriptures it talks about some active times of God. When God is really doing something. And then there's passive times. God doesn't seem to be doing anything.

The church has been in a transition. It's been in a passive time. And we haven't seen God doing anything. But you know what's happening? I know this personally for me. And when I'm traveling I'm seeing this happening.