The Burden of God - Part 1 by Gehard Dutoit (Hungarian)

There are many of you who already know our brother Gerhard, who has been here several times in our community, in our gatherings, serving here and there. Our brother was born in Africa. His ancestors, at that time, were still among the Huguenots, who fled from France to Africa, to South Africa.

He was born there and spent the first 25 years of his life there. Then he moved to Canada and now lives there with his wife and a daughter, who is also preparing to become a missionary. Our brother was called by the Lord at a young age.

He called him to follow him, as his Savior, and he also called him to serve him. Our brother specializes in the field of worship, with the truths that we can learn from God's promise, and his desire is to go deeper and deeper into the worship of Jesus. God has entrusted this service to him, so that he can use it in many parts of the world, in Africa, in America, in South America, in North America, in England, wherever the Lord wants to use it.

We are glad that he can be here with us now. Our brother will be here next week, he will be here for about 10 days, and we are happy that he is here today, and we wish the Lord to bless his service to us. Now, preparing for the presentation, we will look for the 2nd book of Moses, from which we will read the first 14 verses of the 3rd part.

These are the promises of Moses, so we will read them from the first verse. And the angel of the Lord will appear in the flame of the fire, from the middle of a bush, and he will see that the bush is burning, but the bush is not burning. And Moses will say, I will go there to see a great miracle, why is the bush not burning? And the Lord will see that he should go there and look, and he will call out to God from the bush, Moses, Moses, and he will say to Him, I am the Lord, and He will say, do not come near here, take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you stand is a holy place.

And He will say, I am God to your father, God to Abraham, God to Isaac, and God to Jacob. And Moses will hide his face, for he is afraid to look at God. And the Lord will say, I have seen the misery of my people, who are in Egypt, and I have heard their suffering because of their persecutors, and I know their suffering.

I will go down to free them from the hands of the Egyptians, and I will take them from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land full of milk and honey, to the dwelling place of the Canaanites, the Kittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Kibbeites, and the Jebusites. For I have seen the suffering of the sons of Israel, and I have seen the suffering of the Egyptians. Now go down, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and bring out my people from the sons of Israel of Egypt.

And Moses will say to God, Who am I to go to Pharaoh and bring out the sons of Israel from Egypt? And he will answer, I will be with you, and this will be the sign that I have sent you, that when you bring out the people from Egypt, you will serve God And Moses will say to God, Now I will go to the sons of Israel and say to them, Your fathers sent me to you. If they say to me, What is your name? What will I say to them? And God will say to Moses, I am who I am. And he will say to the sons of Israel, If I am sent, I will be with you.

Amen. Let us pray together. Our Father, we are so glad this morning to be in thy presence.

And we have come together for these hours today. Not because we have a desire to see our churches full of people, but we want to see our churches that will be full of people, that will be full of God. We realize in our hearts that if we are not full of God ourselves, we cannot expect you to work in our ministries.

And I am so glad this day that in my own heart is there only one desire, is that you would come to meet with us. That you will come to give us a new vision of yourself. That the Spirit of God will come and so purify our hearts and so set us apart unto you.

That we will discover in our hearts that we are not only precious to God, but that you will give us a new unction and a new passion for revival and for purity and for prayer and for souls and for our country and so we confess to you today that five minutes of an outpouring of your Spirit will do more for us than everything that we have tried to do for you. And so we say to you this morning God, we really need you and our ministries need you and our families need you and our churches need God and this country needs you and so we ask you as we this day draw a circle around our own lives and ask you to come to this circle and to reveal yourself to us. Thank you for your word.

We realize in our hearts that we have nothing else but the word of God and we thank you that it is sharp we thank you that it's like a fire that breaks the rock we thank you that it cuts and we ask you that you give us a fresh hunger and a thirst for the Scriptures. Speak to us we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

It's wonderful to be back here in this beautiful land of Romania and I trust that you are here this morning and that in your heart as a pastor or as a leader that there is still a passion and a fire and a brokenness that is burning for God because the problem is we cannot become great leaders unless we have become great followers and you know upon my own heart because we just came out of Africa a few months ago and I was amongst my own people in South Africa the white people in South Africa we saw something happen that I've never seen happen before in my life these are very conservative churches people come to church on Sunday morning sometimes half an hour before the service starts and they just come and they sit there and they pray these are the people of Andrew Murray but many of them

don't know any depth and from the first conference that we were involved with it was just different and when God began to work in those 24 places we saw more than 500 of these people and these were services for Christians but we saw more than 500 of these people gloriously being converted and you know there were moments when we were in a touch of revival I remember in one church the last night the presence of God was so real and at the end of his service I asked one of the pastors to come and just pray for us and this man, big man got up to pray and it's a tremendous thing when God comes and he began to pray and suddenly God came and broke his heart and he just fell on his knees began to confess his sin before God and he was weeping and I opened my eyes and the whole church was just

broken and I went to the minister and I said to him when God is in a service I never know how to close it and he just took me and he said don't close this and you know brothers the burden for my heart for Romania and some other countries is that we will see it again so this morning when we are together in this first session I want to speak to you about this subject what does it mean for us for me as a pastor to have this burden of God because that's what brought us into ministry that's what keep us in ministry that's what will help us to finish well in ministry in our second session I want us to look at prayer and then in the last session we are going to look at leadership what is the burden of God and there are four things that I want us to look at I want us to ask four questions what is

the burden secondly how does the burden of God affect me thirdly how do I systematically dissect the burden of God in other words how do we take it apart because you see the burden of God is so immense that if God's burden for this country or God's burden for your church or God's burden for your life will come upon you this morning you know what will happen not one of us would be able to get out of this church today I mean this is immense and the last question I want us to ask ourselves is when do I know that I've broken through and I've prayed through for the burden of God so we are going to take four Old Testament characters Moses the prophets Abraham and then the fulfillment of the life of Christ what is the burden of God why is it that you and I as a pastor dare not to be involved in

ministry if we don't know there's something what was it that was in the life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon when he preached on a Sunday morning and Spurgeon made this statement and he said I sense that the wind of God's Spirit has come upon my life and the unction of God would come upon Scripture and the presence of God would come and six thousand people who came to listen to Spurgeon would stand up because they were afraid that they would miss one word that came from his lips you see it was the burden of God so what is this Moses you know I love Moses in the Old Testament because I don't think that there is anyone in the Old Testament because I don't think that there is anyone else in the Old Testament who systematically you and I will be able to discover how deeply God dealt with Moses now

do you remember Moses forty years he was a prince in Egypt he thought he had everything together and everything was going to be wonderful and he probably had a hundred reasons why Moses could take the people of Israel out of Egypt and it didn't happen forty years he was in the desert he was a shepherd looking after sheep and brothers after eighty years God came to Moses and God revealed himself to Moses now here is the burden of God first of all it was a revelation and it was a revelation of God you know we don't know one another this morning but I want to ask you as a pastor because you know we get involved in ministry and I'm so afraid of this word ministry because you see we live in North America and everything is ministry and virtually nothing is God and ninety-five percent of pastors

that we work with you know why they try to walk with God one simple reason because they are in ministry and if they leave the ministry everything is gone that's what we deal with in North America and my greatest fear is that this will happen in other countries we just work with the land of Angola and Angola went through civil war and we met with the leaders of Angola godly men they came out of the war the country has many landmines still I sat for three days with these spiritual giants black African men and I said to them how many churches are there in Angola after the war and they turned to me and they said we've got about 600 churches and I said what's the best thing that could have happened to us you know what they said to me that the western world stayed out of Angola and I said what

do you mean they said the programs the methods the ideas the concepts they said we never had that they said all we had was God I don't know you this morning but I want to ask you a question when last did God reveal himself to you you see my brother if you can't learn the secret that it's not what I'm doing for God that is the most important thing but it's what God is doing for me and this is what happened here and I don't want you this morning to misunderstand me but if we are involved in ministry and we don't learn the secret that before anything happens God needs to come to me and if God doesn't come to me anything that I'm going to do is not going to be effective because God has not come to me Moses what happened someone said about Moses there was the birth of a vision there was the

death of a vision and there was the resurrection of a vision so I want to ask you because this is what we find in Moses' life the birth of a vision can I ask you a question? you remember when God called you? you remember how sacred it was?

I remember when we were in Bible college and we came to our last year in my second year at Bible college you know there were so many places where I wanted to go and then one morning a missionary came to speak to us and just a person who walked with God who knew the crucified life that Christ did not just die for my sins but he died on the cross for the self-life and if I go into ministry I need to be abandoned to God and I will never forget that morning that missionary spoke to us the Spirit of God came broke our hearts and we had to make a decision it's going to be everything for God or it's going to be nothing and I remember as students we were on our knees before God and the sacredness of the call of God began to burn in our hearts do you know what was my greatest fear? my greatest fear was that God was not going to call me my greatest fear was that the ministry was so sacred was so precious was so pure was so separated unto God that somehow I would never qualify for that can I ask you this morning? what about your own life? have you lost the vision?

I mean, you know that great passage from the Old Testament it's the prophet Isaiah the great evangelical prophet and so theologians come to us and they say, Isaiah it's the miniature Bible 66 chapters 66 books in the scriptures 39 chapters 39 Old Testament books 27 chapters the Messiah is coming Isaiah 14 to Isaiah 66 and do you remember what happened? he was a prophet he knew how to preach he knew how to say to the people go! he knew how to preach condemnation and suddenly in the sixth chapter of Isaiah something happened you see, five times in the first five chapters he said woe to the people and suddenly in chapter 6 something happened and do you remember what he said? he said the year when king Uzziah died what happened? you see, he was the chaplain to the king he was comfortable everything was great and suddenly the king died and the prophet Isaiah was standing on the little carpet and God came and he pulled it from underneath him and Isaiah said the year when king Uzziah died he said, I saw the Lord I want to ask you a question this morning and I don't want you to misunderstand me when last did you see the Lord? you know, my wife and we have one daughter Monika and my daughter is going to go into the mission field in January and the beginning of this year I had to go for surgery and so the doctor said five weeks you can't do anything I said, can't preach can't work you just need to recover so my wife came to me and she said, Papa what are you going to do? and I said, my darling that's what I'm not going to do and she said, what will you do? and I said, I'm going to take Ephesians the Himalayas of the New Testament I'm going to ask God to help me to memorize it and brethren morning after morning you know what happened? oh, God came to my heart those words they were just burning when Paul came to Ephesians and you know when he said I pray the apostle Paul really prayed and when he said, I pray for you that Christ may dwell in your hearts and he said, I pray that you will be rooted and grounded to great words in the Greek New Testament and morning after morning my wife would come in and she would say you've been here for five hours now and I said, oh yeah I said, it felt like one hour because the vision became fresh can I ask you a question this morning? in your own life in your own times with God as a pastor do you meet with God? you say, do I have to spend time with God? no!

God wants to spend time with you that's the difference you know the Puritans Robert Murray McCain Rutherford J.C. Ryle they lived 200 years ago, you know but there is something about them they knew this thing of the revelation of God and brethren, here is Manasseh and brethren, here is the ministry the ministry is when God comes to me the ministry is when I become broken the ministry is when the Spirit of God flows and so Isaiah said I saw the Lord people often say to me who did he see?

I think I'm right to tell you this morning he saw the Lord Jesus you say, how do we know that? how do we know it was the Christophany of Christ? how do we know that it was the second person of the Trinity? the Apostle John came to us and he said in the 12th chapter he said Jesus or Isaiah saw Christ and I've always wrestled with this, you know here in the Old Testament there is the Old Testament here is the prophet Isaiah he is going to become the prophet that will say so much about the Messiah and when the Messiah comes he is going to say much about the prophet and much about Moses and when he saw the Messiah and this is in the Old Testament what did he see? because he changed his life he said I saw the Lord you know what happens to us? when God comes to us because you know Paul said to

Colossians the fullness of God dwelleth in Christ there is nothing out of the Son of Christ that we need you know what he saw? he saw the purity of God he said brother Gerard, why do you say that? listen to what Isaiah said he said when I saw the Lord he was high and lifted up the old teacher's translation that I use he says he trains for the temple he said there were the seraphs he said they were crying wonderful word in the Hebrew text kadosh what did he say? holy is the Lord God Almighty can I ask you a question this morning? the holiness of God do we still love it? is it still precious? is it still sacred? you know this year I tried to take time in my own heart to memorize Hebrews I couldn't memorize Hebrews you know why? because Hebrews memorized me and I saw right through those

chapters the supremacy of Christ everything was about Christ better than the angels better than Moses better than the high priest better than the old testament's offerings and suddenly everything became Christ and the writer of the Hebrews would come right at the end of chapter 11 because in chapter 10 he comes and he said here is your inheritance and he said to us in chapter 9 how much more shall the blood of Christ purify your conscience through the Holy Spirit why should he do that? what is my conscience? you know what Andrew Murray said? he said my conscience is not just a judge that bears down upon my actions but in my conscience it bears testimony with my relationship with God and God's relationship with me 32 times in the Greek New Testament it speaks of the conscience 10 different

kinds of the conscience in scripture and here comes Christ do you know what he said? how much more shall the blood of Christ purify my conscience and then he said in chapter 10 here is my inheritance it's the holiest of all the sacredness the purity of the presence of God have you seen Christ? have you seen him entering to the holiest of all? have you heard the epistle the writer to the Hebrews saying we don't have a high priest that cannot be tempted to the feeling of our infirmities but one who was tempted in all points like us we are without sin he said now here is the secret we've got freedom to come to such a high priest and then you know what happened in chapter 12 he said looking unto Jesus the author the finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the

cross disguising the shame sitting at the right hand of God and here's another Greek word consider him have you ever discovered the difference? because you know these are two words in the Greek language looking considering sometimes a crisis which becomes a process and Isaiah said I saw the Lord let me ask you when last did God come to your heart? high and lifted up holy and what did he say? he said woe to me you see when we speak of what is the burden of God you know Moses when God revealed himself to Moses and here is the Hebrew word Masa that's the word burden and two things happened the revelation of God and the revelation of the people that's the burden of God and you see what happens to us we are caught between the revelation of God and the revelation of the people and so here we

are in Romania you know I think the first time or the second time when I came to Romania because in my heart is a passion for revival I was so surprised this morning that when Paulus Fischer walked into the office up there because I was thinking about him so much the last few days and I wasn't even sure if he was still alive well he's alive but he was the one that told me about Romania years ago we were together in Albania God used him to allow me to go to Albania and some other countries Switzerland but he told me about Romania and something got a hold of my heart about this country and I kept saying to him brother Paulus maybe God would allow me to come to Romania and so when I came to Emmanuel Church and Adrian allowed me to come to First Baptist Brother Simon there was this something

there was a time in the history of Romania that God was working in revival and I wanted to know about it and maybe many of you know about this you know the church in Camar Felix Pavlou I think Mr.

Pavlou that was one of the places where God came and when I was preaching for Felix and he told me about what happened and how God visited that area and I said to him Felix I want to meet the people that were in the revival because I always want to listen to those people and the Saturday night there were about I don't know 4 or 5 or 6 people and they were on in years somewhere in the 80's and Felix said to them you see this foreigner he's an African but he's got a longing for revival and he wants to ask you questions and so I began to ask questions and I said tell me what happened and they told me about the people that prayed and they told me about the drunkard and how he was converted and how the spirit of God came it was all wonderful but about 11 o'clock that night I came to them and I

said to them what is the greatest desire of your hearts there was one old man I mean he must have been in his 80's and he just sat there and the tears began to stream down his cheeks and he said brother Gerhard oh that we would see it again he asked you questions do you think this can happen to you you see we are so influenced by and I don't want you to misunderstand me because I live in North America but we are so influenced by what is happening as far as crowds of people and I say it's wonderful listen when you go in there and you get to the depth of what I see in my country it's very wide it's just that deep and here we sit this morning and I want to ask you a question do you think it's possible that God can come to your heart and take your circumstances and take your church and your

life and say to you I'm coming to break you you say what will it cost it will cost you everything absolutely everything that's what we are speaking about do you know what Moses said nine reasons that he couldn't go that's ministry do you know what happens brokenness stopped and when Moses said I can't do this God said you're not broken Moses I'm going to break you and when Moses said I can't speak God said I'm going to break you and when Moses said I don't know what who would I say will save me God said I'm going to break you Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy 104 times God spoke to him do you know how many times he spoke to God 25 times I like that you know so let me ask you you're going to take a break but I just wonder if there are some of us you are here this morning and you're

saying to God in your heart can you just come to my heart afresh a fresh revelation fresh purity fresh commitment to scripture a fresh fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit fresh unction fresh humility fresh availability fresh abandonment God just come to me let's stand up to pray shall we Father we thank you this morning we could be in a gathering like this and we can have great theological discussions and we can know so much about God's word but sometimes God's word knows so little about us and I just pray this morning because it needs to be God that when we spend time in prayer just come afresh to our hearts my brothers I want to ask you something as we bow before God I want us to spend some time in prayer on our own no one else is going to pray with you we just want to come to God and

I'm going to ask you something big I'm going to ask you if you would like to slip out and somewhere here at the front just come and find a spot where you on your own can spend time alone with God and say to God my own relationship my relationship to my wife, my children my relationship to your word my relationship to the Holy Spirit my people I want to come to you and God I want to ask you come and break my heart would you like to come right now? just step out and find a little place here and we're going to spend time in prayer I'm waiting for you to come