The Burden of God - Part 2 by Gehard Dutoit (Hungarian)

From the 5th verse to the end of the 13th verse, let's hear the prayers standing up. Does anyone among you suffer? Pray! Is anyone happy? Sing praises! Is anyone sick among you? Call to yourself the congregants and pray over them, in the name of the Lord. And the prayer from the cross will keep the sick, and the Lord will help him.

And if he commits a sin, he will be forgiven. Call to one another your sins, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. For it is useful indeed to weep bitterly for the truth.

And there was a man like unto us, and he prayed that it should not rain. And there was no rain on the earth for three days and six months. And he prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

Brethren, if anyone among you is misguided by the truth, and if anyone condemns him, let him know that he who condemns the sinner will be saved from the path of sin, and will be saved from death, and will be saved from many sins. Amen. Let's take our places.

This morning in our time together, I said to you that what we want to do was try to explore the burden of God. In the Prophets of the Old Testament, you often come across this statement, that the Prophet would say, the burden of the Lord was upon me. And that's what we are talking about.

So this Hebrew word, Masah, is a wonderful word in Scripture. And in the New Testament, we discover some wonderful concepts of that. Especially in the life of Christ, in the early Church, and in the epistles of the Apostle Paul.

And when you study that in the New Testament, you discover three aspects of this burden of God. So it's based upon revelation. The revelation of God, and the revelation of the need to the people.

And that's what happened to Moses. So Moses was caught between these two. And Moses had to respond.

And there is something that I want you to try and understand. Our effectiveness for God in the Christian life is always determined by the way that we respond to the brokenness of God. You understand that? Because ministry flows out of intimacy.

Intimacy with God doesn't flow out of ministry. It's always the other way around. Now in North America, where I live, 98% of the time they would say to me, intimacy with God flows out of ministry.

So I say to them, which Bible are you reading? Because that's not what I discovered. That's why E.M. Bounce, any of his books being translated in Hungarian, Andrew Murray, one of my heroes, is very strong in this thing that God is more concerned with the worker than he's concerned about the work. Because the effectiveness of the work is determined by the workings of God.

And that's why Andrew Murray, he wrote 48 books. And if I ever can help to translate books into Hungarian, these would be the books. First one, Absolute Surrender.

Classic. Second one, The Power of the Blood of Jesus Christ. Classic.

Third one, The Work of the Holy Spirit. Classic. Fourth one, With Christ in the School of Prayer.

Wonderful book. Fifth one, The Prayer Life. Sixth one, Abide in Christ.

Seventh one, The School of Obedience. Eighth one, Humility. Absolute classic.

Ninth one, The Quiet Time. Tenth one, Alone with God. And the last one, The Holiest of All.

Andrew Murray, if you read these 48 books, I have an iPod. I gave Adrian one. Tell him he can give it to you now.

You want to be my friend? Then maybe I can give you one. I think he's my friend. 27 books of Andrew Murray.

And I listen to them. They just break my heart. Because his whole emphasis is that the presence of God flows through a life that has been purified.

And cleansed. That's what we need in our Hungarian Baptist churches. Clean pastors.

Separated pastors. Spiritual pastors. Word-centered pastors.

Pastors who's got a passion for souls. So the burden of God, that's what it is. How does the burden of God affect us? Like you've sat here this morning, and you said, I want God to break my heart.

But the burden of God is doing a number of things. And if you study the Old Testament saints, and you follow this theological explanation, then you discover this is what happens to me. When this comes to me.

And we've dealt with that in a sense. What does he do? He brings brokenness. Now brokenness has got two parts to it.

A negative aspect, and a positive aspect. And if you study brokenness in Scripture, this term brokenness speaks of a goat in the Old Testament. Whose horns have been broken.

It speaks of a sheep that's gone astray. And sometimes the shepherd, in order to prevent the sheep to go astray, breaks the sheep's leg. And he will not go astray.

Now our problem is, we're saturated with the depravity of sin. And we come short to the glory of God. And in order for God to use us, and for God to deal with pride, God consistently needs to break us.

So there's a negative aspect, and there's a positive aspect. The negative aspect is sin. It's where the world is.

And there are three things that we need to understand. We need to have a right conception of sin. We need to see what sin has done to the world.

We need to see how sin has affected us. And as a Christian, you need to understand what the difference is between the guilt of sin and the pollution of sin. And you see, as a Christian, God is able to cleanse us from sin.

You say, which sin? Sin in my life as a Christian. You say, how far? How much? This is what you need to understand in Scripture. The sin that I'm conscious of.

Not the sin that I'm not conscious of. You see, that's why in 1 John 1 the Apostle John said if we walk in the light as God is in the light what happens to us? We have fellowship one with another and we have fellowship with God. And when that happens the Apostle John said the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son and the structure of the language it's ongoing.

It keeps us cleansing us from sin. So here's the issue. As a Christian I don't know about you.

I want to walk with God. And I don't want you to misunderstand me but I often say to my wife the day when I know that I'm walking with God it's a very dangerous day because I would not realize how much I need God. But you see, Jesus said every branch in me that is bearing fruit He said, I purify it I cleanse it Why am I doing that? So that it will grow and bring more fruit.

So brokenness we need to see the awfulness of sin and see what sin has done and then there is the positive aspect of brokenness. You know, my father-in-law and mother-in-law are wonderful people and I deeply love them. And my father-in-law for 25 years was standing in the corner of a street in the city of Vancouver every Friday night and he preached the Gospel.

And I love that but he is very strong I don't know if there is a word like that in Hungarian Hellfire and brimstone is there a word like that? It doesn't sound right. That's my father-in-law Just You can't say that now can you? Just very strong And so we were together a little while ago We talked about theology and my father-in-law said to me Do you preach about hell? I said, yeah, I do He said, how do you preach about hell? My heart is broken I said, do you really want to know?

He said, yes I said, Dad I preach about hell with tears streaming down my cheeks I don't want to see people going to hell Do you know brokenness? It's got a positive aspect to it People need to see that they are lost I just led a man to Christ in South Africa He was a German 89 years old He was in the Second World War He was shot three times He was a machine gunner 350 Russian soldiers were storming And all his platoons were shot And Hans kept firing And they called him Uncle Bell And everyone was killed And when the Russians came on him He died underneath dead bodies For hours Lying under the blood So my wife and myself were walking down the road And this little car came And here was this German He opened the window And he said, who are you?

And I recognized the German accent I said, I am Gerhard The Germans like Gerhard And he said, I am Bell, I'm a German You know what I said to him? I could smell you We got to talking He has not been to a church since 1964 I talked to him about God All nonsense He said, I want to marry my wife She was my girlfriend Went to the Lutheran church We said to the priest Will you marry us? And the Lutheran priest said Are you practicing Lutheran? And he said, yes And he said, are you a paying Lutheran?

He said, no He said, no And the minister said, I won't marry you So he just walked out If he had a machine gun He would have shot the minister Since 1964 Nothing to do with God And so we talked And I said, I'm preaching He said, in a church? I said, no In the town And Christians are coming together Oh no We talked and talked And I said, just come And he said, ok And that night we picked him up He sat in the service He didn't understand a word Nothing We drove back I said, how are you doing?

Not good he said I said, why not? He said, I wasted my time I said, why? He said, listening to you He said, German you see You know what happened? Next morning We walked There is his little cottage I said to my wife I want to go and pray with him And I walked in the cottage And here is uncle Bell 89 years old He said, Gerhard I said, what is it? He said, I want to talk I said, why do you want to talk? He said, I couldn't sleep last night I said, why couldn't you sleep? He said, I was trying to remember what you said He said, say it again So I said it again And when I was finished He said, you have a service tonight?

Yeah He said, can I come? He said, yeah He said, do I need better clothes? I said, no He came that night I dropped him off He said, Gerhard Tomorrow morning I want to talk Next morning I came He brought a picture of his wife And he began to cry I said, what's wrong? He said, she prayed for me Oh I said, what did she pray for? He said, she prayed that I would be converted She was a Christian So I said, so? He said, do you think God could save me? I led him to Christ Do you know what happened?

He got through to God I mean, really through He got up He went into the room He opened a safe And he brought cyanide capsules That Nazi Germany gave him To take his own life He said, what do I do now? I said, you can throw them in the toilet Because God saved him It's the most wonderful thing When we can lead someone to Christ And you see, when we speak on brokenness It's not just the sin But there's the positive aspect of brokenness You say, what is it? It's the life of Christ You know how you'll discover brokenness?

Because there is a balance God needs to deal with us And God wants to work with us And here is the life of Christ You say, where will I discover The positive aspect of brokenness? Go to the Gospel of John 879 verses 19,900 words Go to the life of Christ See what he said about the Father See what the Father said about Him And right in the middle You discover the beauty of brokenness And this is what he said The son can do nothing If he doesn't see the Father doing it You know what he said?

My Father worked up to this point And he said, so do I And you discover this oneness Of the surrender of his life So what is brokenness to you? Purity 99 passages in the New Testament Speaks of purity The blood The effect of the blood upon my life It's beautiful, you know What else happens When God purifies us And you see the Holy Spirit He is so precious You know, when I was memorizing Ephesians Because it's so precious Because you remember in the book of Acts Paul came to Ephesus With 12 disciples And he said to them Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believe?

And do you remember what they said? They said, we did not even know that there was a Holy Spirit And so the Bible says Paul prayed for them And in Ephesians In every chapter There are two references to the Holy Spirit And it's wonderful And when he said to them After you believed He said you were sealed With that Holy Spirit of promise Which is the earnest of your inheritance Then he said to them In chapter 4, grief not the Holy Spirit It's a wonderful verse Because the context Is speaking about the deity of the Holy Spirit He said the Holy Spirit is God And in chapter 5 He said you must be full to the Holy Spirit And in chapter 6 He said put on the armor of God And he said when you put on the armor of God He said now this is what's going to happen The only way you're going to move forward And here comes the Holy Spirit With prayer and supplication In the Spirit of God And here is this reality Brokenness Purity The life in the Spirit And so the Spirit of God He becomes precedent in my life I want to ask you this morning Are you hungry for God?

You know I showed Adrian And his wife and daughter last night Some pictures of my family We have a beautiful place there In Canada That God gave us In a big backyard My wife and myself We love flowers And plants And fountains And water and birds We have many different kinds of birds coming to eat In Canada We have a little bird It's called a chickadee Do you have them here? Oh, poor Romania We have a chickadee, just a small little bird So we make little nests And when the spring comes I put some things out there They pick it up and they build nice nests And then they lay the eggs For 17 days They sit on those eggs And we watch them When the babies are born Oh, you should see this Hour after hour after hour All that mother and father does Is picking up food Feeding the babies And I look in there You know what I see?

Food And I say to my wife What's wrong with the church? What's wrong with the church? We see people coming to Christ And they're hungry And we're not giving them food I mean, you should see those birds They're just giving food And then suddenly one day We sit there Something happens And there's a little one And he comes out Because his mother has been feeding him You see, this is the thing And now here is brokenness The Spirit of God He takes me to the Scriptures He makes me hungry He makes me thirsty He wants to walk in my life He wants to break me And you know what he does?

He gives me a spirit of prayer And he makes me hungry for God And that spirit of prayer You know what it's doing to me? It's taking me to the will of God That's when prayer becomes effective And so when we pray in the will of God You say, where do I discover the will of God? Right here The will of God for my life As a husband The will of God for my wife As the woman The will of God for my children The will of God for my church The will of God for the ministry The will of God for my country This is where it is And so I discover it And it becomes part of my life And as it becomes part of my life I pray the Scriptures And I bring the Scriptures to God And I pray his word back to him And I pray for the church You know, I mentioned this morning this name Robert Mary McChane He was a pastor In Scotland And he used to spend about 8 hours every day 5 days of the week In the place of prayer I don't know when he prepared But he went into his church He was in a village in Scotland About 1100 people in the village And about 900 people came Sunday morning after Sunday morning This is what they say about McChane In the mornings He would go into the church And he would kneel where the people sit And he would pray the Scriptures And he would claim God's word For these people And he would pray them through to God And Sunday morning When he get up to preach The people would say When he stand in the pulpit And he opened his mouth And he looked at the people You know what they said?

They said we felt so vulnerable We felt that he knew us so well That everything That we were thinking about this last week That he must have known about it He didn't But he knew God Have you ever asked God to give you a spirit of prayer? Have you discovered the spirit of prayer In the life of Christ? Have you discovered the spirit of prayer In the life of the Apostle Paul? When Paul said Pray without ceasing He was doing it And when he said to the church at Ephesus He said I pray That you will be filled With all the fullness of God He really meant it you know He said what was it?

It's a spirit of prayer You know I just talked to a man a few weeks ago A very godly man God has given me a group of men That challenge me They ask me questions And this man Is 78 years old And I asked him We talked about prayer And he said to me I will never be able to tell you That I spent hours and hours in prayer And he said even if I do that He said Gerhard I won't tell you that I said so what will you tell me? He said I will tell you That I seldom go through an hour Without praying I said really?

I said I will not say I spent hours and days in prayer But he said God has worked in my life That there seldom goes an hour by That I don't become quiet And I spend time alone with God Can I ask you? Have you ever asked God for a spirit of prayer? You see it comes to rest upon us You know I've got a book I wish I can get this book to be translated in Hungarian You can't, it's out of print And there's a chapter there On what does it mean To wait upon God And the man who wrote this book Was in Scotland And when I was teaching in Scotland We asked him permission Because he was a scholar of languages Theologically he was very deep But spiritually He was always fresh And we went to him We said Dr.

Thompson Can we print your book? And he said no So every country I go to I try to find this book And last time in New Zealand I found six You say will you sell this for $1000? No, $2000 No, it's so precious And there's this one chapter On waiting upon God And you know what he does? He takes eight principles That comes out of the teachings of Christ As it relates to prayer And he takes you to the Old Testament And he takes you to what we call The Canon of Scripture That is what Jesus said About the Old Testament Every time when Christ spoke And he brought an Old Testament passage of Scripture And when he brings all those passages together He said there are eight principles That came from the lips of Christ That spoke about prayer And he takes you to eight Old Testament Hebrew words And it all has to do with waiting upon God Oh, it is so deep I want to tell you something this morning Brother, I don't want you to misunderstand But you know the greatest thing In my simple Christian life Is to get up in the mornings Take a shower Make sure you're awake Go into my corner And I wait upon God And I just want him to come He said, has there been a morning That he didn't come?

No Has there been a morning That you were not conscious of that? Yeah Where was the problem? The problem was me You see, he wants to come And I want to ask you today Have you got a place like that? Brings a spirit of prayer Leads me to the will of God in prayer But you know what happens to us When we are there And it's such a sacred reality That God speaks to us You know that passage this morning On the prophet Isaiah When the seraphim came from the altar And took the coals from the altar And touched the lips of the prophet Isaiah So God purified And the Bible says In the next verse Isaiah said Now I heard the voice of God And the voice of God is saying Who will I be able to send?

And who will be willing to go? And Isaiah said God, here I am Do you know what Oswald Chambers said? That voice of God It was there all the time Day after day It was there Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And he couldn't hear it Until his lips were clean And his heart was cleansed And he said, now I can hear I love his statement Jesus said My sheep hear my voice And he said, I will give them eternal life And he said No man shall pluck them out of my hand And we say, that's wonderful Do you know what the Greek New Testament says?

My sheep They are in the process Of listening to my voice Present tense When I was in England I used to run a lot On the country roads In the winter it's dark And there's many sheep And so they would hear me And they think I'm the shepherd And so as I would run I would hear them coming And they're all running down the hill Because they think I'm the shepherd And then I stopped And I whistled And when I whistled They all stopped Because they know I'm not the shepherd You say, what do they say?

They say he's a dumb African He's not our shepherd You lot, let me ask you Where's the shepherd? Where's the voice? Where's the speaking word of God? Where is the breaking voice of God? When does a passage of scripture come? Grabbed you by the throat Advanced upon your soul Tear you apart And say to you I want to come and sit in your life I'm through Last thing What is the burden? What does the burden of God do? We don't have time How do I step by step Systematically break it apart?

Because this is what needs to happen Christ did this Last thing How do I know When I prayed for you? It's so wonderful today Because some of you have come And said pray, pray for me And it's wonderful to pray for one another And someone asked me How does this work? And I said My understanding is God needs to come Because it's not the time we spend with God It's the time God spends with us So God needs to come And give us breakthroughs And I said my Christian life Is based upon breaking through And they said how does it work?

I said the burden comes The vision comes The focus comes And understanding comes And so we began to seek God The promises come And so we're waiting upon God He said what does that mean? We're climbing a mountain So we climb and we climb and we climb And then suddenly We break through Answer has come God has put us on the top of the mountain Is that the end? No, now we need to conquer the land Now we need to take big steps forward And so you say what happened? Three things It's reflection And the climbing What it has taken from me Secondly It's an insight Of what God has done in me Thirdly It's a fresh vision And preparation So that we can climb So let me ask you in closing Are you stuck?

I can't remember if I ever told this here Maybe I have But you know in Canada You've got a beautiful fish Called pacific salmon You see that? They're born in the river 1500 miles up And when they are born God put something in their minds And they say If I want to grow I must go to the ocean And the moment when they were born They try to get to the ocean Millions to them And when they get to the ocean Just little fish like that Four years They become 40, 50, sometimes 65 pounds In four years After four years Something happens And they say We must go back to where we were born There we're going to die There we're going to lay eggs And there the young ones are going to be born But you know what happens?

When the young one is born He needs to come down the river 1500 miles Through lakes Some of them are 90 miles long So this little fish Is trying to get to the ocean Do you know what happens? Some of them, they get lost Because the lake is very big They get lost out of the school And they get lost in the lake They never get to the ocean They only become about that size We call them kokoni Very nice to eat But you know what? They never able to produce Do you know what happens?

They got stuck in the lake Brother Joseph, I don't want to get stuck in the lake Just that size And his brother? Just that big And his brother is going to have many children But his brother is going to die So that he got many children But he? He got stuck in the lake Do you know what breaks my heart? I need thousands and thousands And thousands of Christians They got stuck in the lake They never got to the ocean Come to class with us, Ibrahim Imam of Ayaz Ibrahim