0:02 [music] To die for our sins to take us to heaven. That was certainly one purpose, but that was only the beginning of his work. In Matthew 16 and verse 18, Jesus said, "I will build my church 0:25 and the gates of hell will not overpower it." So, that's what he finally came for, the purpose of redeeming individuals from the grip of Satan and taking them out of Adam, putting them into himself. 0:44 The whole purpose of sending the Holy Spirit was not just to get our sins forgiven and to take us to heaven when we die. It was to build the church. And very few people have seen that. 1:02 If you look at all the hymns we sing, even in our song books, most of it relates to forgiveness of sins, God's love and how he's going to take us to heaven. You'll very rarely do you find anything concerning God's ultimate purpose 1:21 to build the church. And that's because of the immaturity of most Christians. Christians can be John says in 1 John 2:14, 12 to 14, 1:41 babes, young men, fathers. The three stages of spiritual growth he refers there in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 12 to 14, little children. Little children only know 1 John 2:12, your sins are forgiven. That's all they're happy with that. 2:04 Young men go a little further and says in the last part of verse 14, they overcome the evil one, the word of God. They [snorts] are they read God's word and they overcome the evil one. But the fathers, 2:23 says about the fathers, you have known verse 13 and 14, you have known him who has been from the beginning. So, we begin with just knowing forgiveness of sins and if that's all you know, you're a little child, even if you've 2:41 been born again for 50 years. And I'll tell you there are little children 50 years old in the church. All that they know is my sins are forgiven. But then there are others who say that's not all, we got to press on, we got to 2:57 overcome the evil one, the word of God must abide in us, they go deep into God's word to study it and they overcome Satan. They they could be they could be just 2 years in the Lord, 20 years old 3:16 and they could be ahead of these 50-year-old babies. But then there are others who press on beyond that and say, "We're not just to get our sins forgiven and overcome sin and the temptations of Satan, we got to go beyond that to see God's 3:34 ultimate purpose, him who was from the beginning. What was in God's mind from the beginning?" There are very few I have seen and I've been a Christian 55 years. A very few I've seen who even desire 3:52 to understand that. And I tell you you don't have to be an old man to understand that. You have to have a passion to seek God with all your heart and to determine that you will never settle for anything less than God's best 4:08 in your life very early in life. [snorts] You don't have to wait long. Let me [snorts] show you a verse in Psalm 103. You know, there was a distinct difference between Moses and all the other people in Israel. 4:27 [snorts] And you see that particularly when Moses went up to the mount for 40 days and got the commandments. He was the one who led the Israelites, one man. If If it was not for one man, the Israelites would have still been in 4:44 the wilderness. You know, God depends so much on one man. And I want to say to you, that's why we have men's conferences. So much depends on the male leadership in the church. And you don't have to be many. History records, I mean, Bible records 5:03 that God uses individuals. One man, Noah, saved the whole world. Remember, we're all children of Noah. If it was not for that one man, none of us would be living today. Abraham, one man whom God found who was 5:23 faithful, through whom he could begin the nation of Israel. One man, Moses, the only man fit to lead Israel out. And like that through the years, one prophet, one prophet at different times in the midst of hundreds of false 5:41 prophets. And the equivalent of those false prophets today are those who preach the health-wealth gospel and preach many other things which are not central to building the church. To think of the New Testament, if you 6:00 took one man, Paul, out of it, what would there be in the New Testament? Half the books of the New Testament would go. Just one man. And I want to say to you, dear brothers, God wants to use you in your locality. We God doesn't have thousands of 6:18 servants who are wholehearted. Very few and you must determine to be one of them. Particularly as we approach the end of time. The closing days of this age are something like the first days of Christianity. It's a great privilege. I mean, it would 6:37 have been a great privilege if we were living in the day of Pentecost, beginning of the church. The next best is to be in the last days before Christ comes again and those are the days we're living in. So, uh God found Moses and as I said, when 6:56 he went up to the mount just for 40 days, which is just a little over a month, all of Israel went astray. [clears throat] They went into adultery and immorality and worshipping idols and every imaginable evil 7:14 when one man out of 2 million [clears throat] went away for a little over a month. Even his second in command, Aaron, couldn't hold that crowd. But as soon as Moses came down and 7:32 spoke firmly, a man of God has to be very firm, whether in the Old Covenant or the New Covenant. Firm, not because he wants to assert himself, but because he's got a concern for the glory of God in the midst of his people. 7:52 Moses was not trying to get a name for himself and he didn't care one bit what people thought about him. When he said, as he came down from the mountain, you can read that in Exodus, "Who's on the Lord's side? Come and stand with me." 8:08 And we read there the sons of Levi, after all the 12 tribes, the sons of Levi decided to take a stand. That's why God gave them the priesthood. Don't ever forget that. God didn't take lots to choose which of the 12 should be the priests. 8:25 In a moment of testing, one tribe stood with Moses and with God and God said, "I've taken note of that. You will be blessed and your children." You know, it's amazing when you stand for the Lord, even our children are blessed, our grandchildren are blessed. 8:41 Right down through generations, the tribe of Levi was chosen by God to be his priests because right at the beginning they stood for God. So, when we stand for God, it goes down to our children and grandchildren. We must have faith for that. 8:59 If we stand wholeheartedly. And Moses was not afraid to let everyone hear what he told the Levites and he says, "Go into the camp and kill even your brothers and sisters, those who've been idol worshipers, get rid of them." 9:13 Imagine seeing those sons of Levi going in with a sword and killing people all at the command of Moses. What would you have thought if you were standing there in Israel in that crowd and saw this man who's supposed to be a man of God being 9:31 so ruthless? People who don't know God can never understand that. Even today people question, "Why does God slay I've learned through the years that many things which we think are 9:50 small and unimportant, God sometimes speaks to us through it. So, as I was saying, when that one man came down and he took a strong stand for the Lord Moses when he came down from the mountain, that was what saved the nation of Israel 10:05 from total destruction. Otherwise, there'd be nothing left of the book of Exodus or any of the other books. God would have destroyed that nation, but one man saved them and he pleaded with God. He said, "You can take away my life, but don't 10:19 destroy Israel." See, this is the type of man whom God uses. One with such a concern for the glory of God that he doesn't care what people think about him. He doesn't care if people think he's too strict or he's being ruthless. He doesn't live 10:37 before man's face. He lives before God's face. So, I want to show you this verse in Psalm 103 concerning Moses. Psalm 103 in verse 7, "God made known his ways to Moses, 10:55 but his actions to the children of Israel." One man in Israel knew God's ways, his purposes, his plans, his methods, 11:14 his purpose. The rest of Israel, they just saw the external actions of God. And we can divide Christendom into two two these two groups. And what you see in uh Psalm 103 verse 7 is two groups. On one side is just one man, 11:32 Moses. On the other side is 2 million Israelites. It's not a fairly even division. And it's pretty much the same today. [clears throat] What did all those people see? They saw the Red Sea split open. They saw manna falling from heaven every 11:51 day. They saw the rock being split and waters falling out and being healed of snake bites by just looking at a bit of bronze serpent and their clothes never wearing out for 40 years, their sandals never wearing out in the desert for 40 years. Those are 12:04 amazing miracles. In the history of humanity, no group of people has ever seen so many miracles as those 2 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. But, that's all they saw. And they perished. 12:24 The Bible says in Hebrews 3, God was angry with them. God was angry with people for whom he did miracles for 40 years. How many in Christendom understand that today? That a man who experiences God's miracles, God could still be angry with 12:39 him and send him to hell. And not only that, as it says in Matthew 7:23, many will come to the Lord in the final day and say, "Lord, Lord, we cast out demons in your name. We did many, many miracles in your name, not just one or two." And the 12:54 Lord will say to them, "I don't know you. I never knew you. Go to hell." How many Christians understand that today? Very few, but you can see that in the Old Testament. That these people who experienced fantastic miracles 13:10 perished and God was angry with them. And there was one man to whom he could show his ways and that one man saved that nation from total destruction that another generation could come up and possess the land and fulfill God's purposes. 13:27 Otherwise, what could God have done? Where would Jesus have come from if the nation of Israel was destroyed there in the wilderness? God would have to find another man like Abraham and start all over again. You know who saved 13:41 that situation from happening? Moses, one man. So, it's important for us first of all to understand that the importance of one individual man and you must see that yourself. In the midst of half-hearted, compromising, 13:59 Babylonian Christianity, God wants people who have a burden. And you know, Moses, he had a burden. And I'm relating all this to building the church because I believe the first who shall build the body of Who can build the body 14:17 of Christ? I'll tell you, the one who's got a burden. Which woman can produce a baby? The one who carries a baby in her womb. That's the only one. You can't just have a baby like that. You're going to carry that baby in the 14:34 womb for 9 months and then you have a baby and all the heartache and the pain and difficulty and uh vomiting, throwing up, and everything that the woman goes through is for the sake of a baby. Think of all the wives who don't have 14:52 babies, who long to have one. You can't have one without a carrying that in your womb and you can't give birth to a local church in your locality if you don't have a burden. I never saw a local church in my 15:10 hometown until I had that burden for 10 years and I'm not exaggerating. 10 years and I had a couple of miscarriages along the way as well. Ishmaels that I tried to produce on my own which didn't succeed, just fizzled out 15:25 in no time. I thank God they fizzled out in no time, so I didn't waste much time on it. But, I was determined. In fact, when I had those couple of miscarriages, I thought, "Well, I'll never see that. I'm probably not fit 15:39 to build a church." But, those miscarriages were necessary. Those Ishmaels were necessary in my life to show me that I couldn't do it. I was too full of myself. I was too confident that I could do it. I knew the scriptures. I could preach a 15:56 little. Therefore, I could build a church and I failed. And I failed again. Abraham had one Ishmael, I had two. And God showed me through that. I'll tell you honestly, my position way back in 1972 16:15 when the second Ishmael was died, thankfully. The Lord said, "You can't do it." And I said, "Lord, I'll never try again to build a church. I'm a failure." There is a purpose in failure. 16:34 You have to toil all night and see that you can't catch fish and acknowledge it, then the Lord will come and fill your boat with fish. [snorts] We could always think, "Why didn't the Lord come the previous evening? He knew 16:49 they wouldn't catch any fish. Why didn't he come the previous evening at 7:00 in the evening after they've struggled for 1 hour and say, 'Fellas, you're not going to catch any fish. I'll fill your boat right now.'" He didn't. 16:59 Because they hadn't learned that lesson. That they were totally incapable. And that's the lesson that every man whom God uses to build a local church anywhere has to learn. You are incapable. I think the only one 17:20 who could walk this earth without learning the lesson of failure was Jesus Christ. Nobody else. Peter had to deny the Lord three times and become a failure and give up 17:38 all hope of being an apostle before the Lord could commission him in John 21 and say, [clears throat] "You take care of my sheep." And that was his preparation for the day of Pentecost. He who thought he would never deny the 17:57 Lord in the very thing where he felt he was strong, God broke him. God has to break us in our strong points. The place where we think we're really strong, there he has to break us. And then Peter was ready for Pentecost. 18:11 Otherwise, he'd have thought he's a great guy. I imagine how you would feel if with one 15-minute sermon you brought 3,000 Jews to Christ. Jews to Christ. Imagine if you did that today somewhere. And not only they came to Christ, but 18:27 they were baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. Boy, your head wouldn't be the same size anymore. But, Peter's head remained the same size. You know why? Because he had failure in his memory. He knew what he had done 6 weeks 18:41 earlier. That was his preparation for Pentecost. Failure is the preparation for success in the Christian life. Failure and acknowledging it and not just failure, but learning a lesson from that failure. And really humbling yourself, saying, 19:01 "Lord, I'm really nothing." That's why I often say the three secrets of the Christian life are humility, humility, humility. You've learned that, you learned it. So, Moses, as I was saying, had a burden and you see that 19:19 in this verse in Acts chapter 7. We don't see that in the Old Testament. But, uh you know, Stephen uh spoke. Stephen was a man filled with the Holy Spirit and he says in Acts chapter 7 uh something about Moses that we don't 19:39 read in the Old Testament. You know, when Moses was 40 years old, verse 22, Acts 7:22, "He was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians. He was a man of power in words and deeds. He was exactly like Peter before Peter 19:56 was broken. Capable, great speaker, words, man of power in words, man of power in deeds, educated in the best academies and universities 20:12 of the one superpower on earth, Egypt. I mean, such a privileged person. And yet it says here at the word 23, when he was approaching the age of 40, it entered into his mind to visit his brothers, 20:32 the Israelites. Those are the slaves. He was a prince in the palace. Why does he go and visit them? Why doesn't he just conceal his identity and stay where he is? He could become the Pharaoh. He had a burden, which in the few years that he was with 20:50 his mother, his mother had drilled into his mind, "Train up a child in the way he should go and he's old, he will not depart from it." He drilled into his mind, "You're not an Egyptian, Moses. You're an Israelite. Don't forget that." 21:05 Day after day after day she drilled it into his mind and when he was 40 years old, he never forgot it. He'd been more than 30 years away from his mother, but he never forgot what was put into his head in those early years. 21:20 That's how we should bring up our children. Put it into their heads early in mind, "You're not part of this world. We don't belong to this world. We belong to another kingdom. Don't ever forget that." And that's why at the age of 40 it 21:36 entered into his mind. Who told him? He felt, "I got to go and see my brothers." And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, verse 24, he defended him. He took vengeance and killed that Egyptian. He was a really mighty man. 21:56 Imagine killing a man with one blow. He must have been really strong. And this is the verse I wanted you to see. He supposed, verse 25, that his brethren would understand that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not 22:14 understand. So, there you see, he had a burden. He had a burden at the age of 40, "I got to deliver my brothers from this slavery." Do you have that burden? When you look at God's people in slavery to sin, 22:33 most believers that I've met are defeated by sin. So many young people say they are born again and they watch internet pornography. What's that? That's the slavery in Egypt. That's not Canaan's land. Not at all. They're under the whip of the 22:52 taskmasters. Come on, watch that pornography and they go and watch it. It's like you're making bricks in Egypt. But do you have a burden? Husbands yelling at their wives and wives yelling at their husbands and coming on Sunday morning and praising 23:06 the Lord as if they're praising the Lord the whole week. They're not. They're fighting with each other. Do you have a burden to deliver people from slavery? It's only where people have a burden that you can build a church and you have a 23:21 have a burden for yourself first to be free. God gives grace to the humble. That's why I said humility is the secret. And anyone who gets grace in its fullest meaning, Romans 6:14 says, 23:39 "Sin cannot have dominion over a person who's under grace." So, every time I fall in my thoughts or words or deeds, I have to say, "I'm not under grace right now." Grace is not over me. 24:02 And why isn't grace not over me? Cuz God gives his grace only to the humble. So, in some area, I'm proud. I'm conceited. I think too much of myself. And so grace has departed and that's why I fell into this sin right now. 24:19 That's why I couldn't fight this giant in my body, this lust. That's why I couldn't fight this temptation the devil put into my mind right now. Dear brothers, if you take these little things seriously before God, God can use 24:35 any one of you. There is no partiality with God. Who can build the body of Christ? You. If you take sin seriously, if you're honest with God, and say, "Lord, I want to I want to really be a serious Christian. 24:53 I hope this weekend will make you one if you're not one already." He was concerned that they should he should deliver these people. Many times when I speak to people, the Lord tells me, "Here are people sitting in front of you 25:10 who should be kings, but they're slaves." They're in prison when they should be conquerors. Deliver them. Jesus came to set the captives free. He came to open prison doors. 25:28 He was anointed with the Holy Spirit. We read in Luke 4:18 onwards, to set the captives free, to open blind eyes, to release the captives. And we need the anointing of the Spirit to release people from bondage. To 25:46 preach sermons, anybody can do it. You don't need to be You don't need to be converted to preach sermons. The devil knows the Bible better than anybody else. But to set people free with his word, you need the anointing of the Holy 25:59 Spirit. Even Jesus needed it. He didn't dare to preach without the anointing of the Spirit. The very first sermon he preached in Nazareth was, "The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to set the captives free." And Moses needed to learn that lesson. 26:15 But we have to have a burden. That's what I wanted to say. Burden, burden, burden. Think of um the situation in Israel. You know, Israel went into the land of Canaan with great power. These Old Testament examples are a 26:33 challenge to us. We're in the New Covenant, but we can learn lessons from these uh principles and types and symbolism in the Old Testament. By the time, uh you know, when Joshua went in, it was like the Acts of the Apostles. Mighty power they came into 26:50 the land of Canaan. Joshua is like the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. But when you come to the Book of Judges, it's like Revelation chapter 2 and 3. Uh the church in Thyatira and the church in Laodicea and the Lord is not there with the church. 27:08 And like it says in the Book of Judges in the last words, everybody did what was right in their own eyes. That's how it is a lot in Christendom today. Everybody does what is right in their own eyes according to their own 27:19 interpretation of scripture. They find some words to support all the foolish things they do and ungodly things. And it was a terrible state of affairs and it says in 1 Samuel chapter 3 and verse 1 that there was 27:38 no word from the Lord. It was so rare in those days to get a word from the Lord. 1 Samuel 3:1 and visions were infrequent. I mean, people didn't hear from the Lord. Was it because God had stopped speaking? Was it because God had forsaken his 27:55 people after bringing them into the land of Canaan? No. But God doesn't force people if they don't want him. He won't force you to build a local church in your locality if you're not interested. You'll just drift along as an ordinary 28:12 believer and probably get to heaven. But you may not have an abundant entrance there. And it'll be a sad day when we stand before the Lord and the Lord shows us plan for our life. You know, many year year when I was a 28:32 young Christian, there was a little poem I read about when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ and he shows me his plan for me, the plan as it might have been had he had his way 28:51 with me and I see how I blocked him here and I checked him there and I would be I would not yield my will. Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes? Grief, though he loves me still. That's something I've thought of for 50 29:15 years. Lord, I don't want to have a regret when I stand before you in the final day. That's what's driven me all these years. When I stand before you, when I was 21 years old, I got baptized and the Lord told me 29:32 told me means I had this in my heart, that he had a plan for my life, like he has for everyone. Like he told the Israelites in Jeremiah 29 and verse 11, "I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare, to give you a future and a hope. 29:50 Not for calamity. And I realized then that the plan I had made for my life could never be anything compared to the plan God had made for my life. He had taken every factor into account. He knew my personality. He knew what I was 30:06 capable of. He knew all the pitfalls and the snares in front of me. He knew all that the devil had planned for me. He knew everything. And he says, "Taking all that into account, I made a plan for your life. Will you choose it?" 30:18 I said, "Yes, Lord. Whatever it is." I was in the navy those days in India. My plan was to go ahead there, but God changed it completely. And I believe you need to recognize, my dear brothers, God's got a plan for your life. 30:36 And that plan was made long before you were in your mother's womb. And he knows that for many years after you came out of your mother's womb, you went your own way. I went my way. God knew that Paul would go his way for about 30 years 30:55 after he was born. And yet at the end of Paul's life, he could say, "I finished my course. I've kept the faith." That's the thing that encouraged me. I wandered for about 19 and 1/2 years 31:13 before I was born again. And after I was born again, the initial few years I was very zealous, but not much wisdom, but a lot of zeal. But I never knew the never knew what real brokenness was. And that took me 16 years. 31:31 It took Jacob 20 years. It took Moses 40 years. It took me 16 years. Till I had come to the rock bottom of total failure in my life as a Christian. Then God began to fulfill his plan. And I thought, "Lord, so many years. I wish 31:48 I'd known all these truths when I was much younger." But you know, God makes allowance for those years of ignorance. There's a great verse in Acts 17:30 which says, "The times of ignorance God overlooks." It's a tremendous comfort to me. The 32:03 ignorance means ignorance of God's ways. And it's a great It was a great comfort to me to discover that Paul, who was ignorant of God's ways for 30 years, in the remaining 37 years of his life, he died at around 67. 32:21 He could still fulfill God's plan. You say, "How could that be? Can a man make a mess of the first 30 years of his life and then still fulfill God's plan?" Sure. Cuz God makes allowance for the fact that this guy's ignorant. 32:35 He's still not serious. And that's an encouragement to all of us. Maybe you haven't been gripped by the truth of building the body of Christ, of living an overcoming life, of delivering other people from bondage. Maybe you're just drifting along in your 32:51 local church doing something just to ease your conscience. Just sort of keeping your head above water. Not drowning. God doesn't want you to be like that. He wants you to walk on water. Not just somehow stay afloat. 33:10 Christian life is a lot more than that. To say, "I'm not drowning in sin." No, I should be walking on water. Sin shall not rule over you. Everything's going to be under your feet. Money will not have a hold on you. It's under your feet. 33:26 And so once you recognize God's got a plan for our life, we must be gripped by that and say, "Lord, I want to fulfill that. And I'm not going to be discouraged by the fact years were wasted in ignorance and maybe rebellion, maybe disobedience." 33:44 But God can still start now. So, there was a days where really there was no vision from the Lord. And you know how You know how God rectified that situation? By the birth of one child, Samuel. And how was that child Samuel born? 34:04 One woman had a burden. Hannah. And she had such a burden. It says she would go into the temple and weep there. And she came once into the temple and 34:22 she was weeping before God. And uh it was in the first Samuel chapter 1:12, the high priest thought she was drunk. Imagine a person praying without a voice. Her voice was not heard. It says in 1 Samuel 1:13, she was speaking in her heart. Her lips 34:41 were moving. You know how you pray silently without any voice. And praying with such burden that somebody who looks at you thinks you're drunk. Such a burden she had. Eli says to her in word verse 14, "How long you're going to be drunk? Put 34:59 away wine from you." She says, "No, my lord. I'm not drunk. I was just pouring out my soul before the Lord. I want a child." That type of burden to build a local church. Lord, 35:18 you placed me in this town. I want to build your church. Because there's no word of the Lord here proclaiming the whole counsel of God, the whole truth of God. There's a lot of dead churches. 35:36 Like one family I met a little while ago who said, "Brother Zac, my husband and I and I We both together The sister was saying, 'I've gone with our teenage children to 11 churches in this town. We don't feel like They all speak about 35:55 being born again and all, but I don't want my children to grow up in that atmosphere with the worldliness in the young people there who claim to be born again." Do you have a burden that there should be a pure testimony? 36:12 It's a burden. Let me show you another example. In the book of Daniel in chapter 9, Daniel was probably about 17 years old when he went to captured by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to 36:33 Babylon. And he lived there through the entire period of the 70 years of captivity. And he was 87 years old now. 87. Daniel chapter 9 in the first year of Darius. Nebuchadnezzar has been overthrown. A new Babylon has been 36:53 destroyed. The kingdom of Medo-Persia has taken over the world of that region. And he says, "Then" This is in Daniel, 87 years old. He read the book of Jeremiah verse 2. And he realized that 70 years were now complete. Cuz he knew, "Hey, I knew when I came 37:12 here, 70 years are up." And God promised Jeremiah very clearly in the prophecy of Jeremiah, "In 70 years I'll bring them back." So, when God promises something, what does a lazy Christian do? He says, "Lord, you'll fulfill it." 37:27 We sit back and wait for him to fulfill it, but that's not Daniel and that's not any man of God. He says, "When I discovered that, I gave my attention to the Lord, to seek him with prayer and supplication and fasting and sackcloth 37:40 and ashes." Why do you need to do all that when God's promised to bring his people back after 70 years? God promised through Jeremiah that he would bring Israel back in 70 years. Because when God looked into the future, he knew he 37:55 could find one man there at the end of 70 years, Daniel, who would be praying and fasting and making sure it happens. That's why he made that promise. As if Daniel had come 20 years later, it would have been 90 years. Yeah. 38:13 God waits for a man. Even in the case of Moses, um See this. In Genesis 15, the Lord told um Abraham, 38:32 Genesis 15:13, we read that God said to Abraham, "Be certain of one thing. Your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 38:51 years." Okay? God, who knows the future, said they'll be enslaved for 400 years. But if you turn to Exodus in chapter 12 and verse 40, this is the Israelites were delivered from Egypt at this time. They were just 39:10 getting out of the land of Egypt. That In Exodus 12:40, the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. Did God make a mistake in that prophecy he made to Abraham? How come this gap of 30 years? 39:28 Was God giving a rough figure? I believe it was more than that. Here's my explanation. You don't have to accept it. But this is how I have understood it. 39:44 God's plan was 400 years. When 390 years were up, Moses was 40 years old. And that's when news got around that he killed this man, this Egyptian. 40:04 And he had to flee for his life into the wilderness because God had to break him, just like he broke Peter, etc. [cough and clears throat] And God's plan was in 10 years I'll break this man 40:21 and prepare him to be the leader. And so, he humbled him, this mighty prince of Egypt, made him a shepherd, which we read in Genesis the Egyptians despise. 40:40 And he he had to do this job that Egyptians despise, being a shepherd. And on top of that he had to live in his father-in-law's house for 10 years. That's enough to break anybody. But he still wasn't broken. He was a tough guy. 40:57 400 years were up. And the angels say, "Lord, 400 years up, time for the Israelites to get out of Egypt." God says, "My man is not ready. I got to wait. Another 10 years, still not ready. Another 10 years, still not ready. 41:16 Finally, at the age of 80, Moses 80, 430 years were up, the man is ready. And God says, "Okay. Now I can send my man in." And you know the story. What I learned from that is, you know, 41:36 in heathen religions, there is a teaching uh whatever is God's will will happen. Man has no part in it. What's going to happen is going to happen, whether you do something or don't do anything, it'll still happen, whether you pray or don't pray, will 41:55 happen. That's not what Jesus taught us. Some things happen when you pray and it won't happen if you don't pray. We don't have this heathen fatalism that says, "Oh, whatever is will happen will happen." And 42:14 when God has said something, it will happen. If God has said after 70 years he'll take the Israelites back, he'll do it. I don't have to do anything. It doesn't happen like that. If Jesus has said, "I'll build my church," it'll happen. I don't have to 42:25 do anything about it. If God has said that after 400 years the Israelites will come out of Egypt, it'll happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen for another 30 years because God's man was not ready. Is it possible, my brother, sister, 42:43 my brother, I mean, that in your town God wanted to start a local church some years ago, but you were not ready? Not because you didn't know the Bible, but because you're too strong. You're not You're not broken. You're seeking your own honor. 43:00 You're seeking your own glory. And all that God's been trying to do to you, whether putting you with your father-in-law, whatever it is, hasn't succeeded. So God's work has to wait. I say, "Lord, I wasted enough years of my life. 43:20 I don't want to waste any more. I want to fulfill your purpose in my life. I want to learn the lessons of failure and brokenness as soon as possible. This is the most important thing to learn. God has a plan and a purpose. 43:34 It's not having high thoughts about ourselves to think that God has a purpose to fulfill through me. Not at all. You're not the only person. God has got a purpose to fulfill through hundreds of people. But he's dependent on man's cooperation. 43:50 Take my yoke and learn from me, for I am humble. What if you don't take his yoke, don't learn from him humility? How is his purpose going to be fulfilled? We We're not heathen who believe in fatalism and the automatic accomplishment of 44:06 God's will whether man cooperates or not. That's not what we believe, but some Christians act as though it is like that. They talk about prayer. I tell you most of the talk I've heard about prayer is a lot of garbage. Prayer has two requirements, 44:24 and it's not length of time. Let me tell you that. The prophets of Baal prayed for hours and nothing happened. Elijah prayed for half a minute and the fire fell. It's not time. Prayer has two requirements. One is a burden from God that he puts in our 44:40 heart. That's one half of the circle, but prayer is not complete till the other half of the circle of faith [snorts] based on that burden goes back to God, then the circle is complete. I've learned through the years that it's not 44:55 a question, you know, you read these stories about men who spent 2 hours in prayer every day and 4 hours in prayer every day. I used to read all that and I used to get discouraged. It never encouraged me. First of all, I want to know how did 45:07 these people know this man was spending 2 hours in prayer? He was not supposed to tell anybody. [laughter] I I don't judge them, but maybe his wife told others, I don't know. And let's give credit to these men of God. But the point is not how many hours you 45:25 pray, brothers and sisters brothers, it is have you got a burden from God? And if your hands are full of other things on Earth, he won't be put a burden in your hands. The Lord said, "I can't give you a burden because your hand is full of so 45:37 many other things. Get rid of it and I'll give you a burden." And then that burden is expressed back in faith to God. That's how God's purposes are accomplished. 45:53 Now, let me show you the example of um turn to the book of Ezra. It's another example, you know, we saw Daniel and Moses. These These Old Testament examples are examples for us because you know, God used Moses to build the tabernacle, which is a 46:11 picture of the church. So that's why I took the example of Moses. And God used Ezra and Haggai and Zechariah at that time to build the temple, rebuild the temple, to move God's people from Babylon to Jerusalem. And that is the movement God is doing today 46:31 in the world, moving Christians from religious Babylon to Jerusalem, the bride of Christ. So that's why some of these Old Testament books like Ezra and Daniel and Nehemiah and Haggai and Zechariah have got a very relevant message for our 46:48 time. And if you're interested in a study on that, if you go to our CFC India website, we have a whole series of studies on from Babylon to Jerusalem on these books, verse by verse. Now, [clears throat] here it says in Ezra chapter 1, 47:03 "In the first year of Cyrus, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus." So here you see the Lord stirring up the spirit of even a heathen king to accomplish his purpose. 47:19 But it's not only that. [snorts] He in verse 5 it says the heads of the fathers of household of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and Levites, those [snorts] whose spirit God had stirred to go up and rebuild the house of the 47:35 Lord, which is in Jerusalem, which was in a damaged, destroyed condition, they went. And they all traveled out together, you know, with sometimes you read Ezra chapter 2 and you wonder why all these numbers of people are mentioned there. 47:52 Ezra 2, the sons of Parosh, 2,172 and not 2,171. Because God keeps an exact number of the people who leave Babylon and go to Jerusalem, even today. From this group, from this group, from 48:08 this group, it's not 2,171, 2,172. And from the next group, not 371, but 372. That's what I learned from chapter 2 of Ezra, this complete list of you think it's a waste of time writing all this, but it's to impress upon us this 48:25 principle that even today God sees exactly in each area, in each town, who are the people moving out of Babylon into Jerusalem. [snorts] God's doing that today. But it's the people whose hearts God has stirred. And when they were stirred, I'm 48:42 sure there were some other people whose hearts God had stirred, but those guys said, "Hey, we're living a comfortable life here in Babylon. We don't want to go to that deserted Jerusalem and start life building all over again." 48:54 Like Abraham could have said, "Lord, I'm living a retired life here in Ur of the Chaldees. You're going to take me I don't know where." But they stepped out in faith and those are the men who accomplished something for God. 49:05 And these people who are living willing to leave the comfort of Babylon and the acceptance they had in that society to go as it were into a desert. Jerusalem was a mess. So we got a burden to build the temple again according to God's word. 49:21 You turn to the book of Nehemiah. We read there that he was uh verse 2, in the middle of that, he says, "I asked Hanani, who came from Judah, concerning the Jews. He said, "What's the condition there of 49:40 these who come back from captivity?" He was a man who had a concern. What's the condition of the church? And they said to me, "The remnant that survived the captivity, verse three, are in great distress and reproach, even 49:53 though the temple has been built. The walls of Jerusalem are broken down." The walls speak of separation from the world. There is no separation from the world in most churches. The walls are broken down. People can jump over this way, 50:06 that way, and go from the church to the world, and the world to the church, in and out every week. And this man had a burden. He says, "When he heard that, verse four, I sat down and wept. I mourned. I was fasting and praying." 50:21 You see how all these people they had a burden. They weren't just routinely praying. They had a burden, whether it was Moses or Daniel or these people in Ezra's time or Nehemiah, they had a burden. And 50:41 the other thing that happened in those days was prophecy. Ezra chapter five, [snorts] verse one. Ezra five, verse one, "The prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, prophesied in the name of God of Israel, who was over them. 50:59 Then Zerubbabel began to arose and began to rebuild the house of God." See, it's prophecy, prophetic word, that brings God's word from heaven, that rebuilds the house. There must be a burden of prayer, and I don't mean length of time, burden, 51:15 burden, and faith, and fasting if necessary, and the prophetic word that God will give us. Or chapter six, and verse 14. [clears throat] Ezra six, 14, "The elders were successful in building through the 51:33 prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah, and they finished building according to the command of God." So, you see this burden of prayer, God stirred up some people's hearts, and there were these people who waited on God to get a prophetic word from him, 51:49 not just a Bible study. Bible study is good. The scribes in Jesus' time were great at Bible studies, but the prophetic word was missing. This is not Bible study, this is a prophetic word, waiting on God, saying, 52:08 "Lord, what is your word for your people at this time?" And that's how they built. Let me Let me give you one example of that prophetic word in Haggai. It's pretty strong. Haggai, chapter one. And this is how he prophesied. 52:27 "Thus says the Lord," verse Haggai chapter one, verse two, Haggai chapter one, verse two, "Thus says the Lord, This people say the time is not come." "And the word of the Lord came by Haggai, saying," Let me paraphrase it. "You fellows, 52:46 you sit in your comfortable houses, your luxurious houses, you spent millions of whatever currency there was at time and built your house, and the house of the Lord is lying desolate. What do you think about that? Is You've sown, and there That's why 53:04 there's so little spiritual profit in your life. You sow so much, verse six, and you harvest so little. You eat such a lot, you got such a lot of Bible knowledge, but you're still unsatisfied, etc., etc. Now, consider your ways, you who are 53:18 taken up with your own houses and your own buildings and your own families, and you're not concerned about the house of God. Consider your ways. Go up to the mountains. Seek God. Pay the price. Spend your money. Bring wood and rebuild 53:31 the temple, that I may be pleased and be glorified with you. Otherwise, you look for much in your life, and behold, it comes, and the Lord says, "I blow it away." You know why I blow it away? You know why there's frustration in your life? Because my 53:43 house is lying desolate, and each one of you runs to your own house. That's pretty strong preaching, but that's how prophetic preaching is. It's not just as a simple Bible study, where everybody uh feels very happy at the end of the 53:54 study. They're challenged. And that's what we need. And my brothers, these were ordinary men. Amos says, "I was not a prophet. I was just plucking fruit from trees, and God said, 'Hey, go and prophesy.'" Elisha was just plowing the field, an 54:14 ordinary farmer, and God said, "Get Get rid of that and prophesy." God picks up ordinary people, fishermen who were by the lake of Galilee, who thought they'd live and die as fishermen. God picks them up and says, "Go and prophesy." 54:27 And why not you? Seek the Lord, my brothers, and uh say, "Lord, let [clears throat] this weekend be a time when my life is changed." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we bow before you, 54:48 we want to accomplish your purpose in our earthly life. We know you have a plan for each one of us. We want to fulfill it. Help us, we pray, Lord. Help us to be gripped. Pray in Jesus' name. Amen. 55:06 [music]
