God's New Thing — David Legge

I want you to turn with me to Isaiah's prophecy, chapter 43, please. Isaiah chapter 43, and let me give a little bit of introduction to this message by saying that I believe with all my heart that God has been very real and very operative in this conference.

I know he has in my own heart, particularly today, but even leading up to these meetings as I sought God over messages, there are messages that I had in my heart that other men have preached, and this message that I'm about to preach I know has been in the heart of some of the other men.

Now that to me is a positive sign that God's spirit is at work. We're one body, and it is one spirit that indwells us. But this message is, and I don't like measuring messages, but as far as burden goes, and preachers here will understand what I mean when I say burden, as far as burden goes, this is the greatest as far as I'm concerned for me.

Now having said that, there may not be anything new that you will hear. I do hope you hear it in a new way, because I hope that the spirit of God will take it and bring it like a fire into your mind and into your heart, and that you will feel the burden, and this burden has been burning in my heart for months now, the burden that God, I believe, has given me.

And I want us to pray now that I will faithfully discharge the burden, and it will be released, and that you will have ears to hear what the spirit says to the church. Abba, Father, Holy Father, in Jesus' name, your holy child, Jesus, we ask for the unction to function in the power and demonstration of the spirit of the living God.

You are the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. You are the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. And oh, living God of the living, reveal yourself tonight.

You have called upon us and said, give me your heart. Lord, I believe that some have given you their heart, but Lord, could we be bold enough to say to you this evening, Lord, give us your heart. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Isaiah 43 then, and we're going to begin reading at verse 16, and I'm preaching to you on God's new thing. Isaiah 43, verse 16. Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters, who brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power, they shall lie down together, they shall not rise.

They are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick. Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. Nigh it shall spring forth, shall you not know it?

I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen.

This people have I formed for myself. They shall declare my praise. Amen. The term revival, I think, is often understood as a rediscovery of old truth. And I believe that is correct. And there are many examples from the scriptures and indeed from church history that would bear this out.

And perhaps the most obvious example, to my mind at least, is the rediscovery of the book of the law in the old temple in Ezra and Nehemiah's day. And when the people discovered what God's law actually said, they were broken and they were cut to their heart because they realized how far away they'd got from their God.

And there was a great move, a reformation, we would say a genuine revival, and people actually put into practice certain things that had never been fully practiced, truly, among God's people. And so a rediscovery of old truths brought subsequent repentance and obedience to the word of God.

And it is true that revival is when old paths of the word of God, the precepts and the principles of the Bible, that never change from generation to generation, are rediscovered. And as we've heard already, and repentance toward God is exercised in a new obedience to what God's word asks of us.

But, this is the emphasis of my message tonight, though that is the case, nevertheless, it is a grave mistake, I say again, a grave mistake to think that those rediscovered old truths will wear the same clothes of those who once espoused them.

1904, praise God. 1905, praise God. In Ulster we are celebrating this year the 150th anniversary of the 1859 revival that you enjoyed here as well, and we heard today America and Canada, and spread to many parts of the world.

And it is great, and I commend your celebration of God moving in the past. And there is from that a genuine longing for God to do it again, but I wonder, I ask my own heart, and I ask you tonight, if at times our reminiscences of past revivals are more of a nostalgic romanticism about how things used to be done, the good old days, old time religion, rather than a genuine longing for God to do something again, even if it may not resemble the thing that we loved him for doing in the past.

Now I hope you're getting this. Let me put it in a question to you. Are you ready and willing for God to do a new thing? Now if we are not, we may miss what God is going to do, or could I be bold enough to say what God has already started doing?

Now don't misunderstand what I'm saying. If anyone knows me, and I know most of you don't, but you will know that I stand firmly on the principles of God's word. And we do need to rediscover the same truths as were rediscovered in past revivals.

But let me be absolutely clear, it is wrong, wrong to expect God to revive in an identical manner. And also I think it is wrong for us to desire God to reproduce an identical revival. Now let me give you two reasons for that, at least.

One is from the human perspective and the other is from the divine. From the human perspective, it is wrong to desire God to reproduce an identical revival because what sufficed to revive in 1859 and 1904 and 1905 is not sufficed to revive the church and the world of the 21st century.

We need something new. We need something fresh. But from the divine perspective, God is the God of the original. He is the God of the new thing. And though obviously if you study revival you will know there are great similarities shared in every revival, not least the fundamental doctrine truths celebrated.

But each is original in its own right and each has had features and peculiarities that were special to it. Now we must face facts that our God is the God of the new thing. And I want to show you this from the scripture.

Such was the case in Isaiah's day. Now look with me please at verse 16 and 17 again. Thus says the Lord who made a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters, who brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power, they shall lie down together, they shall not rise, they are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick.

Do not remember the former things. Now what Isaiah is saying there is simply that the past can teach us. And we must study the past. But we must not be bound to the past or bound by the past. We must always be looking forward to what God is yet to do.

And the Lord in Isaiah's day wanted them in the present to live in the reality of the past. And the incident that he is referring to in verse 16 and 17 is the exodus of the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt towards the promised land.

Now you must understand the Hebrew mind. The exodus was the greatest miracle. And is still regarded as the greatest miracle among the people of the Jews. And yet God is saying in Isaiah's day, verse 18, remember not the former things.

Now that's staggering. In verse 9 he says the same concerning former things. And he's referring to the exodus acts of God once again. And in verse 19 he says, behold I will do a new thing. Literally it could be translated, I am going to do a new thing.

Now what is the new thing that God specifically is talking about here in Isaiah's day? Well the children of Israel are in bondage to Babylon. And God is telling them that there is going to be a national liberation.

And it will be patterned on the exodus. And it will spring, it will sprout like a seed which is germinated and its time has come. And God is saying, shall you not see it? But I think that could be translated, do you not see it?

And the reason why he's saying do you not see it, the import of it is you can't miss it. You can't miss what I am going to do. But wait, here's the point. They were missing it. They were missing it. And God's people often do miss what God is doing.

And we might well ask the question why. And we're going to get the answer. But before that, look at verse 19, the second part. Speaking of these great acts of God that are going to happen in Isaiah's day, deliverance from Babylon.

I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field will honor me. The jackals and the ostriches because I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

To give drink to my people, my chosen. The acts of God are going to bring the whole world into harmony for the children of God. Now this ultimately will not be perfected until the messianic day. When, as we read in chapter 11, even the animal kingdom will come into the great benefits of what it is for God to rule and reign in his universe.

And ultimately many of these events that we read of in Isaiah will not be fulfilled in completeness until our Lord's return. And then they will surpass the exodus. Hallelujah. But what I want you to see tonight is, and this is my point, in some immediate sense.

These journeying people of God in bondage in Babylon. God says you're going to be met by a transformed world. It shall spring forth. You will not be able to miss it. I will make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

And this was Isaiah's emphasis. You are in danger, children of God, of missing what God was doing there and then and is about to do. Why? Because you are focusing on what I did in the past. God says, do you not see what I am about to do?

Now there are many lessons we can take out of this tonight, but one of them is this. God is always doing something. Always. And I emphasize this in my last message about having a perception of God. He who comes to God must believe that he is.

And that is means, can mean, active. We must believe that he is instrumental in our universe. And even when it looks as if nothing is happening. And there are times when we would be forgiven would we not to think that God is doing nothing.

Especially when we compare what's happening now with what happens in the past. But we need to rediscover this knowledge that God is doing something now. In the book of Habakkuk, the prophet was told, Look around you, Habakkuk, among the nations and see and be astonished.

Astounded, for I am putting into effect a work in your days such that you would not believe it, though you were told it. And the tense is right in the amplified version of the Bible. I am working a work in your day.

I'm doing it now and you cannot see it. But if you were told it, it would blow your mind. Now in Habakkuk's day, he was raising up the Babylonians. That's a strange work in itself, is it not? It was unexpected.

Think of it, God chastising his people for wickedness. And how is he doing it? He's raising up an even more wicked nation to rebuke his own people? Incidentally, Paul, when he was in Pisidian Antioch in Acts chapter 13, when he was in the synagogue, he quoted that verse from Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 5.

And he applied it to the judgment that was coming on Israel because they had rejected God's Messiah. And was that not a new thing because what was God now doing? He was turning to the Gentiles. He was leaving the Jews in blindness for a season.

But nevertheless, it is the rebuke of God upon them because they did not recognize his new work, his new thing. And God is working today. God is working in Wales. God is working in Scotland. God is working in England.

God is working in Ireland. Jesus said, my father has been working until now. And I have been working. But here's my message, brothers and sisters. If we have a preconceived idea how he must work, we might miss him.

God's new thing was in Isaiah's day. But secondly, I want you to see that God's new thing was in Messiah's day. Probably the dominant theme of the gospels is Christ's rejection by the Jews. He came on to his own things.

And his own people received him not. Why? We could give many reasons. But if I could give one, it would be this. He did not live up to their expectations. Right? It was a new thing that threw the scribes of scripture off the scent completely.

And the biggest opponents to the new thing were the Pharisees. Now please hear me. The Pharisees were a revival movement. Did you know that? Did you know that? You see, great liberalism had come into Judaistic theology.

Through the Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection, did not believe in the spirit realm, did not believe in angels, and so forth. And other influences. And so, the Pharisees grew up as a sect who wanted to revive the Torah scriptures.

And they wanted to bring every facet of Jewish life into harmony with the law of God. And it might surprise you even further to know that our Lord Jesus sided with them often theologically. He said, in Matthew 23, verse 1, Listen to the Pharisees, for they sit in Moses' seat, do what they teach, but not what they do.

In Matthew's gospel and in Luke's gospel, he agreed with them on what is the substance and great law of God, to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Paul the Apostle, when he was before the Sanhedrin, you remember what happened there, don't you?

He sided with the Pharisees over the issue of the resurrection. Now he had a reason to do it, to get them at one another when they were against him. But nevertheless, theologically, he stood on the same ground.

Tragedy was for the Pharisees. They had the letter of the law without the power of the Spirit. Do you know that a back-to-the-Bible movement can be as dead as the Pharisees? The Pharisees knew their Bibles, but they did not know their God.

They recognized false doctrine a mile off, but they did not recognize their God when he showed up in the flesh. In fact, the Lord Jesus said, You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they which testify of me.

You know the Bible inside out, back to front, and yet you've missed me, whom the Bible is all about. It is amazing how it can often be the most biblically literate who oppose an obvious work of the Spirit of God, and often they oppose it on doctrinal grounds.

That is what happened to our Lord, to the point that they actually accused him of demon possession by Beelzebub, and ultimately it led to his crucifixion. To a large extent, legalism motivated Christ's rejection.

Legalism is manifest in self-righteousness, an over-obsession with tradition, and a very overt and acute judgmentalism. But do we understand that it was the spirit of legalism that motivated the unpardonable sin?

What I believe the unpardonable sin was the witness of the Spirit to Messiah in Jesus Christ. Unbelief on the part of the Jewish nation at that time was the unpardonable sin. Revival movements, and I love this movement, and I love this convention, and all these conventions, but they must beware because it is not the biblically illiterate.

It is not the half-hearted or the spiritually lazy who struggle in this area. It is often the highly motivated that will do everything correctly and biblically, who often confine God to their understanding, and who often miss God when he reveals his arm.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. We need discernment more than ever in this day and age. But understand this, that legalism is equally as dangerous as any false doctrine. And the poison of legalism is that it confines God to work in a way that I am comfortable with.

Legalists' God is too small. God is neither predictable nor controllable. And that was the offense of Christ. He broke the mold. His disciples were a new breed. And the old wineskins of the religious forms of Judaism were bursting under the pressure of the exuberance of the new wine.

Now, I have to say, sadly, and I know very little, but I feel this in my heart, that this very same thing may be true of movements that have grown out of revival. Let me quote you an author. He says, Most significant movements start by being a little wild, settle down to a respectable middle age, and then, rejoicing in their respectability, relax into a creeping death.

Now, you can think of many a denomination, many an institution, a parachurch organization, and most of them started out from a move of God. But where are they this evening? But even those who still, in a measure, are on fire for God, do they not expect, or even, God forbid that we should say it, require God to do it the same way again?

And that in itself can be a hindrance. And it may be such groups that will oppose the new thing when it comes. Listen to the same author. The hostility to revivals is never to the idea of revival, which is ardently prayed for, but to God's answer to our prayers and the unexpected form it may take.

To recognize a divine visitation, we must view it through twin lenses of discernment, yes, amen, and humility. It is easy to recognize it in books or in retrospect, since we are usually accepting the view of the writer of a particular history.

To recognize it when it occurs is more different. During the revivals of the past 300 years, many Christians were too confused by their wrong expectations to perceive what God was doing. Vance Havner put it like this.

Evangelicals have all the answers, but they make the wrong conclusions. Evangelicals have all the facts, but they make the wrong conclusions. Look, whenever we think we can second guess God, I find in my own experience, and I think it's the same with revival, he scraps the blueprint and surprises us again.

We know from creation that our God is a God of ultimate variety, and I believe that he is the same in revival. He did a new thing in Isaiah's day, he did a new thing in Messiah's day, and let us see he did a new thing on the days of Pentecost.

Turn with me to Joel chapter 2, please. Joel 2, verse 28. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

And also on my menservants and on my maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.

This is the last days. These are the days we are living in, and half of these words were fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, God's new thing, and many of them will be fulfilled when our Lord Jesus returns.

So let us turn to Acts chapter 2, please, to see the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy. Acts chapter 2. God's new thing. Verse 1. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, divine men from every nation under heaven. Now see the response, please, to God's new thing. Verse 6. Utter confusion. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

Verse 7 and 8. There is utter amazement, marveling, and indeed questioning. Verse 7. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born?

Look at verse 11, the second half, and verse 12. People are perplexed. We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, Whatever could this mean?

Look at verse 13. There is ridicule, misunderstanding, and mockery. Others mocking said, They are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, Men of Judah and all who dwell in Jerusalem, Let this be known to you and heed my words, for these are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.

But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. And we read it together. And the authorized version says in verse 16, This is that. This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel. Now this is the point of Peter as he preached to these Jews.

You're familiar with the prophecy, but you have failed to recognize the fulfillment. This is that God's new thing in Isaiah's day, in Messiah's day, in the days of Pentecost. But come with me again to the apostolic day in general.

The first Christians were Jewish. You do know that. And at the beginning it was assumed that the special character of their ceremonies and their identity uniquely would continue. And there was great confusion when Gentiles started being born again.

A new thing. And it challenged them. And it raised questions like, Must these Gentiles become Jews and observe Judaism if we are to accept them? Or how should we as Jews relate to Gentiles because we have strict social and dietary laws?

And God spoke. Thank God he still speaks. God spoke to Peter. And he was on a housetop in Acts chapter 10. And God gave him a vision in a place called Joppa. And he saw a sheet falling down from heaven of unclean animals.

Unclean in the dietary laws of Judaism. And God said to Peter, Kill, eat, do not call anything that God has cleansed impure. You remember, don't you, that Peter had been given the keys to the kingdom.

And it was Peter who was going to open the kingdom of God to the Gentiles. And Peter reported back to the Jews that according to the circumstances regarding Cornelius, Peter said, I saw the Holy Spirit fall upon them as he did upon us at the beginning.

But what happened? Judaizers entered into the church. We read about them in Galatians. And their message is found in Acts 15 verse 1. And they said that the Gentiles had to be circumcised if they were to be saved.

And this is the tragedy of that matter. Peter who was so involved as an instrument in ushering in God's new thing. Peter himself stumbled at the offense of it. Turn with me to Galatians chapter 2. Verse 11 of Galatians 2.

I hope you don't mind reading the Bible. Galatians chapter 2 verse 11. Now when Peter, Paul says, had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face. Imagine, because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles.

But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite. They followed his example. So that even Barnabas, son of encouragement, Barnabas was carried away with hypocrisy.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, if you being a Jew live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews?

We who are Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentiles. Now listen carefully to what I'm saying. Peter was the instrument to open the kingdom of God to the Gentiles. And yet he stumbled at the offense of God's new thing.

And revival always upsets the status quo. Now we must understand the hurdle it was for the Jews to accept Gentiles. But this was God's new thing. In fact, more accurately, it was God's new man. For he himself is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in the flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in the ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from two, thus making peace.

Jonathan Edwards, the great Puritan theologian of revival, said this,. A work of God without stumbling blocks is never to be expected. God is always pushing our boundaries. Do you remember the onslaught of that terrible war in Iraq at the very beginning?

Do you remember? Do you remember watching the television or reading the newspapers? And I was astounded that first night when they started bombing, wasn't it, Baghdad? One after another, big bombers and the fire and the cracks.

Do you remember what they called it? Shock and awe. That's what God does. Shock and awe will always play some part in what God does. And we must not confine God to our sphere of knowledge of him or our expectations from him.

Our convictions ought never to become restrictions of what God does in our lives and in our churches. God was the God of the new thing in Isaiah's day, in Messiah's day, in the day of Pentecost, in the apostolic day, and in the historical revival days.

One author says from a safe distance of several hundred years or several thousand miles, revival clearly looks invigorating. But when we actually look at revival, whether through close historical study or first-hand investigation, we find something not nearly so clear as we imagined.

There is sin and infighting and doctrinal error. And if we find ourselves in the midst of revival, rather than being invigorated, we may be filled with skepticism or disgust, anger, or even fear. Why?

Because we fear what we do not understand. Why does our expectation not match the reality? Why is revival sometimes so messy? Because revival is war. Of course, it's the Lord that has the victory. But that's why it's so untidy at times.

And when there is unusual emotion expressed, and when there is, there was a question about this on the panel, where there is apparent disorder, we start to fear. And some of the phenomena we do not understand, we fear.

And much opposition to revival is based on a wrong notion of order. Someone has said, if we insist that revival must be decent and orderly, as we define those terms, we automatically blind ourselves to most revivals.

Revival stares our hearts when we read about it, but would we perceive it as of God if it broke out noisily in one of our own services or meetings? The revival that we've heard so much about these couple of days, that accompanied Evan Roberts, was denounced by a congregational minister, Peter Price was his name, as a sham and a mockery.

I'm quoting him now, a sham and a mockery, a blasphemous travesty of the real thing. What made this all the more sad was the fact that Price's own church had been blessed with revival. And the additions of hundreds of converts a few months previously in 1904, were to his church.

Now, Price clearly objected to some of the style of Evan Roberts, and I'm sure all would agree that Evan Roberts was not perfect. But unfortunately, Price overplayed his opposition and could not see the hand of God in what he disagreed with.

Warren Wiersbe once said, it never ceases to amaze me that God blesses people I disagree with. Dr. Forbes Winslow, who was a psychiatrist in Evan Roberts' day, took a different line of attack against Roberts, and I'm quoting him.

He said, I would have men like Evan Roberts locked up as a common felon, and their meetings prohibited like those of the socialists and anarchists as being dangerous to the public. Even though four doctors had signed a certificate of Roberts' physical and mental health, it was jibes like those and the cruel attack of his brother in Christ, Peter Price, that broke the evangelist.

And by the spring of 1906, he began to retire from public life. There are stories about Whitefield and Wesley 200 years previous to the Welsh revival. They were opposed because they preached in the open air and not in the church building.

And Whitefield, in a place called Cambuslang in Scotland, where there was a great move of God, Whitefield had tracts written against him, and he was accused as a limb of antichrist for being in the Church of England.

In the 1940s, Duncan Campbell was accused of hypnotizing people in the Scottish islands, and he was opposed by other ministers because of his teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Listen to what Arthur Wallace says.

If we find a revival that is not spoken against, we had better look again to ensure that it is revival. God did a new thing in Isaiah's day. He did a new thing in Messiah's day. He did a new thing in the days of Pentecost.

He did a new thing in the days of the apostles. And he did a new thing in the days of historical revival. Oh, he wants to do a new thing today. And I believe that he has started a new thing. But someone will ask, how do we know the genuine article?

Oh, that is a question. Not everything that is new is true. Jonathan Edwards, in a paper entitled, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, expounds 1 John chapter 4 and verse 1. And I'm almost finished.

Please turn with me to it. 1 John chapter 4, verse 1. The great Puritan theologian on revival said in that paper, how can one spot a genuine as from a false prophet? How do you distinguish between a genuine and a false prophet?

And I believe the distinction is the same with genuine revival and false so-called moves of God. Verse 1 of 1 John 4, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

And Jonathan Edwards expounds 1 John chapter 4, the whole thing. And we haven't got time to read through it. You can read through it when you go home. But here's how he differentiates between the genuine and the false.

1. Does the preaching in the movement affirm the historic Jesus as the crucified and risen Messiah? Is it Christ-centered? 2. Does it oppose sin and worldly lusts? 3. Does it awaken respect for Scripture by affirming its truth and its divine source?

4. Does it awaken an awareness of the shortness of life and the coming of judgment? 5. Does it awaken genuine love both toward God and one's neighbor? 6. Does it produce converts with good fruit in their lives?

Someone has said it will be from such an orchard, the orchard of 1 John 4, that the fruit of any new thing will come forth from. But ultimately, time and truth go together. Time will tell. But these timeless truths will be evident.

Now that said, with all the scriptural knowledge, with all the discernment that we can get, when God does a new thing, His new thing, it will be new. My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord. My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith the Lord.

I have discharged the burden. Do we need not for God to do something new? Do we not need for God to do a new thing? In our day and generation, but saints, beware. Revival movement, beware. That when it comes, lest you be found, or I be found to fight against God.

Let us pray. While all our heads are bowed, please, we are in God's presence. And I felt God's presence near to me today. And I think I ever have. While your head is bowed, ask yourself, are your expectations on the altar?

Your expectations of what revival must be, should be, and will be. Now I am a grasshopper in the presence of giants here tonight. Giants of men in the spirit who have experienced revival. I have not, but I trust I am in the spirit when I say and ask, if it might seem bold to ask it, are you restricting God to what he did before?

Are you limiting God to something that he has done in the past? Will you hear his voice? Remember not the former thing. You can't miss what I'm doing now if you would look at it. Father, I'm sorry that I'm so weak and just maybe not getting this across the way it should be or it must be.

Oh God, oh God, you're doing a new thing. You're calling a remnant of people from many lands, and you have a burning in their heart from the Holy Spirit. And oh God, there's something new that we believe is going to happen.

And we don't want sham, we don't want false fire, we don't want counterfeit, we want the real thing. And yet Lord, let none of us limit you. And oh God, let us not miss it. Pass me not, oh gentle Savior.

Hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.