Our Guest John Bevere

He said, “But then you changed your prayers and you said I want to know you, I want to know you intimately. And He said, “You had sorrow, but your sorrow was worldly when you opened up with Dr. Sumrall.” He said, ‘nine months later your sorrow was godly because your heart was breaking because you knew your sin was breaking My heart.” So if you look at the difference you can see it in two kings. Saul says, “I’ve sinned, I’ve sinned.” But he’s embarrassed, so he says ‘now honor me by worshipping with me in front of my elders.”

You’ve embarrassed me in front of my elders. David, when he gets nailed, falls on his face and said “I have sinned and against You only I have sinned.” He couldn’t care less what his elders thought. So that’s the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow.   Godly sorrow the focus is on Him, worldly sorrow the focus is on what’s going to happen to me. And when we pray that we can know Him intimately, that we can please Him the best a man or woman can please Him, now it’s all about this relationship over everything else and that’s what pleases the heart of God. See Psalm 89, verse 7 says: “God is to be greatly feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those who surround him.”

So you’ll never find the presence God in an atmosphere where He’s not held in the utmost of respect. I remember when I learned this experientially. Back in 1996, I was asked to speak in Brazil, the nation of Brazil. There were thousands of people at this conference, it was a national conference. I’m the Friday night speaker. They drive me to the auditorium. There’s cars parked everywhere. And as I come into the auditorium I can hear the worship coming from the inside of the building. Because in their big auditoriums down there, if they have a ceiling on it, there’s like a six foot gap between the upper wall and the ceiling, and it’s for air ventilation but you can hear what’s going on inside.

So they walk me in, they put me on the platform. There’s not a seat open anywhere. Thousands of Brazilians, right? So there’s no presence of God. There’s no presence of God in the whole auditorium. Now when I say this Sid, as we know there are 2 types of the presence of God. There is the “omnipresence” of God. That is where David said “where can I go from your presence? If I go to the highest mountain you’re there, if I make my bed in the lowest valley you’re there.” That’s the presence of God that says “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.” That’s the omnipresence of God. The other presence of God the Bible speaks about is the “manifest presence” of God. “Manifest” is to bring from the unseen into the realm of the seen, the unheard into the realm of the heard, the unknown into the realm of the known. It’s when God reveals Himself to our senses. Okay? That is a very real experience in Christianity.

Jesus said, “I will manifest Myself to you,” right? So that presence was totally void in that— and I’m sitting there going ‘this is a believer’s conference.” Place is packed, best worship leaders in the nation, why is there no presence!? So I asked the Lord, I said, “God, why is there no presence?” And all of a sudden God open up my eyes and I’m looking at the people. And they’re standing there with their hands in their pocket looking around like this, they got their arms crossed looking down like this, they’re whispering to one another, they’re fumbling through their purses, and they’re walking in and out of this auditorium getting concession stand stuff, okay—