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Sermon #5799

The Presence of God

A Sermon on 1 Samuel 4:21-22

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Scripture

1 Samuel 4:21-22 ESV KJV
And she named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel!” because the ark of God had been captured and because of her father-in-law and her husband. And she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.” (ESV)

Sermon Description

What has gone wrong in the church today? In this sermon on 1 Samuel 4:21-22, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that the answer is found in the church’s loss of the sense of the glory of the presence of God. The church is like God’s ancient people, the Israelites, who often strayed away from God. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that when the Israelites lost the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines, this was because they failed to look to God’s glorious presence. They became enamored with the trappings of religion and missed what it means to know and love an awesome God. The church today is often no different. For when Christians look to institutions and politics to reach the world, they lose sight of the very God they say that they seek to proclaim. When the church has been the most impactful in the world it is when they were overcome with a sense of God’s glorious presence. This recognition of God’s glory ought to transform all believers and empower them to take the gospel to the whole world. For the church is at its weakest when it is concerned with itself and its own glory. But Jesus Christ shows us that we are to seek to glorify God and know Him truly and only then can the church serve as God has called it.

Sermon Breakdown

  1. The most vital and important thing in the life of the church is the realization of the presence of the glory of God.
  2. The church has tried many methods to attract people like drama, pop music, entertainments, etc. But the position continues to deteriorate. The question is what can we do? We must discover the cause of our troubles.
  3. We must not put our emphasis either entirely on men's actions or entirely on God's actions. We need both. We need to do the work God has commanded us to do and pray for His presence.
  4. We can have everything man can do yet miss the glory of God. The glory of God is the most important thing.
  5. The glory of God in the Old Testament was visible. The Shekinah glory was a visible representation of God's presence. For us, we know the glory of God through the Holy Spirit.
  6. The most important thing for us is to be sensitive to the presence of the glory of God. Nothing is more important than this.
  7. The first effect of realizing the glory of God is to fill us with fear, awe, and a sense of unworthiness. Men who came near to God in the Bible were humbled and alarmed.
  8. To know the presence of God, we must be humbled. We must undergo deep conviction of sin. There are no shortcuts to blessing. We must do the work God commands and wait for His presence.
  9. We must return to God's Word, the Bible. We must learn it, know it, preach it, and obey it. But we also must pray for God to return among us.
  10. We need to pray for revival and the manifestation of God's glory. We need to pray like William Cowper, "Return, O holy Dove, return, Sweet messenger of rest."
  11. God does not change. His way of dealing with His people does not change. He works the same in all ages. The idea that God's Spirit has forsaken His ways is false.
  12. We need to realize the presence of God Himself. His glory fills us with awe and fear and a sense of unworthiness. Do we know what it is to be humbled under God's hand?

Sermon Q&A

What Did Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Mean by "The Glory Is Departed from Israel"?

In his sermon, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explores the profound biblical concept of "the glory departing" based on 1 Samuel 4:19-22 and Exodus 40:33-35. Here's an explanation of this important spiritual principle.

What does "the glory is departed" mean in biblical context?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones explains that when the wife of Phineas named her son "Ichabod," saying "the glory is departed from Israel," she was referring to the Shekinah glory - the visible presence of God that had departed from Israel due to their spiritual declension.

"The glory of God was to be seen there. It was known as the Shekinah glory. There was a kind of light, a kind of luminosity," Lloyd-Jones explains, describing how this visible manifestation of God's presence filled the tabernacle in Exodus.

How do we recognize when God's glory is present or absent?

According to Lloyd-Jones, the first effect of experiencing God's glory is always:

"The first effect of a realization of the glory of God is always to fill people with a sense of fear and of awe and of alarm, indeed of terror."

He gives biblical examples including: - Moses being unable to enter the tabernacle when the glory filled it - Jacob exclaiming "how dreadful is this place" when encountering God - Isaiah crying "woe is me, for I am undone" when seeing the Lord - John in Revelation falling "as one dead" in God's presence

Why has the glory departed from many churches today?

Lloyd-Jones identifies several reasons why the glory of God may be absent in churches:

  1. Misplaced focus: "The church has forgotten God. We've put our emphasis on what? Well... it was an emphasis on scholarship."

  2. Overemphasis on externals: "People have said that if only you have a new translation of the Bible, the problem is going to be solved... but the position seems to be deteriorating."

  3. Using God as a convenience: "If you use the Ark of God to suit your own convenience and regard it as a mascot, if you think you can take up God and put him down when you want to, you will have the most terrible defeat you've ever known."

  4. Loss of sensitivity to God's presence: "The most important thing for us is that we should be sensitive to the presence of the glory of God."

How can the church recover God's glory in modern times?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones offers a two-part solution:

  1. Return to God's Word: "What is God's command to his people? It is to return to his word. This is the first command. Nothing else. We must return to the plans and the specifications."

  2. Earnest prayer: "Having come back to the truth we must pray without ceasing. We must plead with God, the God of our fathers, to come back amongst us."

He concludes: "Without the glory of the Lord, we are helpless. We can do nothing. We are even weaker than other people. But with God we can be mighty and triumphant."

Itinerant Preaching

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was a Welsh evangelical minister who preached and taught in the Reformed tradition. His principal ministry was at Westminster Chapel, in central London, from 1939-1968, where he delivered multi-year expositions on books of the bible such as Romans, Ephesians and the Gospel of John. In addition to the MLJ Trust’s collection of 1,600 of these sermons in audio format, most of these great sermon series are available in book form (including a 14 volume collection of the Romans sermons), as are other series such as "Spiritual Depression", "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" and "Great Biblical Doctrines". He is considered by many evangelical leaders today to be an authority on biblical truth and the sufficiency of Scripture.