David Diga Hernandez - Experiencing God's Presence

Today we’re going to talk about experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit. I want to specifically look at four men: Enoch, David, Moses, and Peter. We’ll examine something from each of their lives to understand what it was about their experience in the presence of the Holy Spirit that helped them cultivate an atmosphere around themselves, enabling them to walk in that presence. Before we delve into each of these biblical characters, I want to clarify what I mean by the manifested presence of God.

You see, there is the indwelling presence of God, which is the Holy Spirit in you. This occurs the instant you give your life to Christ. Once you’ve opened your heart to Jesus, the Holy Spirit takes up residence within you. The Scripture says your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Then we have the omnipresence of God, meaning God is everywhere. There is also the manifested presence of God, which is when God’s presence becomes a tangible reality we can experience in our immediate lives, such as through emotions.

Sometimes, people feel the manifested presence of God while watching this program. We often receive comments from viewers who say they felt the warmth of the Holy Spirit come upon them or that they felt electricity moving up and down their bodies. Some people describe a weight coming over them while watching these clips, especially during our services in the United States and around the world.

So, we have the indwelling presence of God, the omnipresence of God, and the manifested presence of God. The indwelling presence of God is the expression of the Holy Spirit; the omnipresence of God is the expression of the Father; but the manifested presence of God is the expression of the Son. As a believer, you will never walk in a place where the presence of God does not follow you. Even as an unbeliever, to some extent, God is aware of all things at all times, and no matter where you go, the presence of the Holy Spirit or the presence of the Father is there. As a believer, the presence of the Holy Spirit is in you; as an unbeliever, the omnipresence of God the Father is everywhere at all times.

So, what I’m discussing today is the manifested presence of God. There are times in our lives when we can sense the manifested presence of God lift from us. King David wrote about this when he said, «Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from within me.» David was talking about a sense of God’s presence that is in addition to the awareness of God being everywhere at all times. You may experience seasons in your life when God’s presence seems to lift away from you, and I’ll touch on that a little more today.

When you sense the presence of God lifting or distancing itself from you, it is not the indwelling presence of God because He never leaves you. It’s not the omnipresence of God, either, as He is aware of all things at all times. When you feel that distancing, it is the manifested presence of God that you sense lifting from your emotions or from your body.

Today, I’m talking about experiencing the manifested presence of God and walking in a posture that allows you to cultivate experiences where God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are manifested before you.

Now, number one, we are going to look at Enoch. Turn to Genesis chapter 5, and I will read verses 21–24. It is a very interesting portion of Scripture. In Genesis 5:21–24, the Scripture says, «When Enoch was 65 years old, he became the father of Methuselah. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters.» Verse 23 continues, «Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared because God took him.» The King James Version phrases verse 24 like this: «And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.»

Think about that: Enoch walked in such a close relationship with God that one day he was not; he simply ceased to be because God took him. What we can glean from Enoch is this idea of surrender. When God created man, He endowed man with dominion over the Earth. It was God’s intention from the very beginning that man should have authority and rule within this world. As the Scriptures teach us in the book of Genesis, Satan deceived man, and man rebelled and fell out of that state of authority. Man lost his dominion when he came under the subjection of sin and the kingdom of darkness.

When we are born again, we reclaim this dominion that God intended for us to have. We reclaim our rightful authority and God-given power. When we reclaim that, we become carriers of God’s glory here on Earth. As man walks about this Earth, he becomes the agent by which either God’s dominion can be established or Satan’s dominion can be established. God rightfully gave man dominion; both God and the kingdom of Hell need a human agent to interact within the earth and grant dominion to either one of them.