(Easter Convention 2008) the Public & Private Ministry of Christ - Part 2 — Gerhard Du Toit

I want to thank you for being back here this afternoon. How many of you were not here this morning? Can you please put up your hands? Ah, so where have you been this morning? Ah, sure, good excuse, isn't it?

You will say, well, none of your business and I won't be back, so I don't mean that that way. But you know, sometimes when we live in North, in Canada, and we often, when we speak to people about prayer in Canada, I tell them how we pray under blankets in Canada.

And so I, some place people didn't understand that, and one man came to me, and he said, so what is the old testament Hebrew understanding of the blanket? I said, it's got nothing to do with it. He said, so why do you pray under a blanket?

I said, because it's so cold in Canada. That's why you are doing this. But sometimes people say to me, well, I can't be here tomorrow night, because I'd be there, but I'd be there in my spirit. And so I would say, well, just tell me where your spirit is sitting, so that we could keep a spot open for intercession.

But be glad that you are with us. And the reason why I'm saying that to you is because, you know, in some of these days, and that's what we are doing today, and that's what we will do tomorrow, and God willing also on Sunday, because the subjects that we are dealing with, it's impossible to try to cover them in one session.

The Old Testament Theology of Prayer

And if you are free tomorrow to be with us, and we would love you to do that, we're going to look at the old testament in prayer in our sessions together tomorrow. And I don't want to make this too complicated when it comes to that, but in the old testament, there are 11 Hebrew words that are speaking to us about prayer.

I said last night that when you study those words in their context, in the old testament theology of prayer, that you will discover that three times in the old testament were the prophets so affected by the Messiah, or the life of the Messiah, the Christ that should come, or that was going to come, and they were so affected by His prayer life, that three times in the old testament, when they prophesy about the coming of the Messiah, that they use one of those Hebrew words, and they refer to Christ as a prayer.

And then on Sunday, when we will go into the new testament and our times together, and we mentioned this morning that in those 7957 verses in the new testament, when you study them as they relate to prayer, 248 passages are coming to the surface.

And those are just tremendous passages of scripture. I just came out of the land of Romania, because we are able to travel to quite a number of countries, and if you ever go to Romania, we were there for nine days, and I was teaching at the Emanuel University in the city of Oradea, and then in Emanuel Baptist Church.

It's a wonderful church with about 4 ,000 people in that beautiful country of Romania, and I discovered when you get there, these Romanians, you know, they think that when you come into a country, you haven't done anything for three months, and they think when you go leave them, you're not going to do anything for three months.

And so, in nine days, I was supposed to speak for 16 hours, and eight of those hours at the seminary of the university, but these Romanians come and they keep changing the schedule, and they keep saying to me, there's been a change in the schedule.

I mean, you know, they just about killed you when I was there, but we had 16 hours. I wish you know, I thought this morning when we began to deal with these concepts of scripture, because there's so much in the Word of God, and brother and sister, we know so much about the Word of God, and yet, you know, the scriptures know so little about us.

That's why God's Word needs to become part of our lives, because we are born with personality, but God is in the process of building our Christian character. And so, I'm looking forward to Sunday, and the problem what I'm saying to you, if you can only come to one session, then you are missing the rest of this material that we systematically would like to go through, but we would encourage you to do, if you can, to be at all the sessions.

If you've got a problem with your church, just bring the whole church on Sunday. I mean, you know, you can just trust God. Listen, we've brought quite a bit of material with us that we would like to put into your hands, and one of the things that we are doing in the countries where we are traveling, mostly working with missionaries and Christian leaders in different countries, but if you are interested in this, we would love to put this in your hands, because these are questions that I put together on the level of accountability.

Christian Accountability and Prayer

And you say, what is accountability? That's when I become responsible to another Christian. If I'm a Christian father and a husband, I need another father and a husband, and I say to him, can you and I spend time in prayer together?

And so, you begin to meet for prayer, and then I give him a list of 20 questions that they ask one another. We've done this all over the world, brother and sister, and it's been a great blessing. And so, we ask one another these questions, and the first question that I ask him is, where are you presently in your relationship with God?

And so, we discuss it with one another. The second question that I ask is, what have you been reading in your daily devotions this last week? And so, because 75 of my growth as a Christian depends upon what I read, and so we discuss the passages that we have been reading in our times together.

What has God been saying to you during those readings? Are you making notes of what God has been saying to you? You know, for the last more than 30 years, I never studied the Bible without a notebook.

And my wife said to me some time ago, Daddy, when you go to heaven, what is it that you will miss the most? And without a moment of hesitation, I said, it's going to be my notebooks. You see, the places where God spoke to me, and where God ministered to me, and I wrote those things down.

Spurgeon, Prayer, and the Unction of Preaching

You know, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. I profoundly love Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Spurgeon was the man whom George Muller of Bristol taught how to pray. Spurgeon had a great struggle with personal prayer.

And so, Muller of Bristol, the man who had 85 ,000 answers to prayer, taught Charles Haddon Spurgeon how to pray. And Spurgeon became a great, marvellous biblical expositor. He had up to 6 ,000 people who would come in his church to preach, and he would speak to them on a Sunday.

And Spurgeon was an amazing man. In fact, they would say that there were times in the church of Charles Haddon Spurgeon on a Sunday morning, that when he would preach, and the Spirit of God would come upon the life and the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and the word that we refer to as the unction of God.

Something that you can't always explain or define, but you always know when it is not there. And this sense of God's presence would come upon Charles Haddon Spurgeon. And Spurgeon would make this statement, and he would say, I sense the wind of the Spirit of God in my wings.

And when this immense consciousness of God would come upon the exposition of God's word, as Spurgeon was preaching, 6 ,000 people would leap to their feet and just sit there in absolute awe. And they wouldn't move.

And when the service was over, and people would go to them and say, why did you rise to your feet in great reverence and respect as he was speaking? Did they make this observation? And they said that when the presence, and when the unction of God's Spirit came upon Spurgeon, we were so affected that we rose to our feet, because we were afraid that we would miss one word that would come from the lips of Spurgeon.

And you know, Spurgeon never had the difficulty to find a sermon. He would look at a passage, and someone said he had a golden hammer, and just struck it, and it fell open, and he had three points, and he was able to expound this passage.

In fact, he was 17 years old when he was supposed to go and preach for his father, who was also a pastor, and he was late at the service. And so his father began, he was speaking out of Ephesians chapter 3, and his father began to preach, and the young 17 year old Charles Sturgeon Spurgeon walked into the service in the middle of the sermon that he was supposed to preach, and his father just stopped, and he said, now my son has come, and he was supposed to speak on this passage, and he said to the people now, he said to his son, now Charles, this is my first point, this is my second point, and this is going to be my third point, and you're going to come and speak on that third point.

He just got up and preached, you know. And he was an amazing man. Do you know what happened to Charles Sturgeon Spurgeon, brother and sister? One night he couldn't get his sermon together. On a Saturday night, he just couldn't get it together for Sunday.

And it was getting late, and he said to his wife, my sermon is not coming together for tomorrow. And he said, I don't know what to do. And his wife said to him, Charles, why don't you go to bed? And he said, I can't do that, because my sermon is not ready.

And his wife said, I will wake you up early tomorrow morning, and you can work on your sermon. And so Charles Sturgeon Spurgeon went to bed, and his wife came to bed, and when she turned the lamp off, he fell asleep.

And do you know what happened? He began to preach in his sleep. And his wife listened to him, and she thought, now that's the passage that he wants to speak on tomorrow morning. She turned the lamp on.

She got a piece of paper and a pencil, and she wrote down his sermon. And she never woke him up the next morning. And so when he woke up the next morning, he saw the time, he said to her, why did you not wake me up?

I'm not ready for my sermon. And so she said, well, that's what you preached in your sleep last night. And he looked and he said, that's exactly what I was looking for. And he got up and preached a mighty sermon.

You know, the Bible says, God will give it to his beloved in his sleep. So you better just watch out there. But we've got copies of this, and we would love to put this in your hand. On tomorrow or Sunday, I would love to hand you this.

Scripture-Based Self-Examination

And it will be a tremendous blessing to you. Brother and sister, these are 23 passages of Scripture. And every one of those passages of Scripture have three or four questions that they are asking you.

For instance, Matthew 6 .33,. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Question number one, is there anything in which you have failed to put God first in your life?

And you need to answer yes or no. Have your decisions been made after your own wisdom and your own desires, rather than seeking and following the will of God? And you need to answer yes or no. Do any of the following in any way interfere with your surrender and service to God, your ambitions, your pleasures, your loved ones, your friendships, your desire for recognition, and for money and your own plans?

And you need to answer yes or no. You know what I do many times in countries where we go to, because sometimes we meet with 4 ,000 or 5 ,000 or 6 ,000 people who are in ministry. In Latin America, we are dealing with 35 ,000 missionaries and pastors.

And you know what I do sometimes to these people? I say, I want you to take this and go and find a place under a tree, and go and sit there for an hour, an hour and a half, and systematically go through this question.

You know what I do in my own walk with God? Because brother and sister, when we speak about prayer, as we will do in the next few days, you never get to the place where you really know how to pray, you know.

You always learn how to pray, and learn the language of prayer, and let it become part of your life. That's why we are saying to people, prayer is not everything, but everything should come through prayer.

And in my own quiet times, I often take these questions and just systematically would go through them. And so we would like to put this in your hands, if you will. We will spend some time in prayer together.

Small-Group Prayer and the Burden of God

If you've not been with us last night and this morning, one of the things that we do before we turn to the Scriptures is that we pray together. And so if you are new here this afternoon, what we are doing is that we break up in groups of three or four or five.

And then what I want you to do, I want you to turn to the person in front of you, and I want you to say to them, how can I pray for you? Is there anything that is upon your heart? Is there any sense of burden?

Or is there something that we can pray about? I want you to share it with them, and then we're going to climb underneath this, the burden of God. You know, tomorrow we're going to explore one of the words that we will explore.

It's this Hebrew word, Masah. It speaks of the burden of God, and how it relates to prayer, and what is the unfolding process as this becomes part of your life. In fact, if I can be honest with you this afternoon, if you don't have a burden, you shouldn't be a Christian.

Because when God gives you a burden, the burden of God brings brokenness, you know. And so when God brings to us a sense of brokenness, brother and sister, if you sit here this afternoon, and there is an area in your life where you don't know victory, it's because God has never broke you in that area of your relationship with God.

And so let's take some time, turn around and find three or four or five people, and let's spend some time in prayer together. So can we do that? Just turn around and find three or four or five people.

We can do it without chairs, and then I will bring our time of prayer to a close. ...for these glorious and precious and marvelous days that you have given unto us. And Father, I was reminded today of the possibility of the way that Jesus took those three disciples, Peter and James and John, and took them unto the Mount of Transfiguration, and how when you spend time with Elijah and with Moses in your glorified state, how those early disciples was overwhelmed to sleep.

And the evidence that they were asleep came from the revelation of their lips, that when they woke up, that they said, Lord, it's good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

Readiness to Receive God's Word

And Father, we accept today the principle that when we are not really sensitive and receptive, and do not have a sense of anticipation, and when our hearts is not being prepared for us to listen to the voice and the word of God, is the consequences always that the experience that we experience on the mountain do not last in our relationships with you.

And that we always think that I need to go back to that place. And yet, if we are open and transparent, and when our Christian lives are like a sponge that receives, and when we discover the sense of responsibility that you have sent unto us, as my Father has sent me, so sent are you, then, Father, it makes a difference.

And in spite of where we find ourselves, that which you've taught us on the mountain becomes a reality because we were transparent and open. And God, you know, the concern upon my heart for this weekend is that there is the possibility that we can just come to these gatherings for the sake of coming, and that our hearts are not really fertile and prepared for the seed of God's word.

And then it becomes just another Easter convention. And we sit with churches that are full of people, and yet they are not full of God. And we are involved in experiences that is a mile wide, and yet they are an inch deep in our relationships with you.

And Father, the burden and the passion and the brokenness of my own heart is that somehow during these sessions, this weekend, that God will plow deep into every aspect of our relationships with you. Lord, I was reminded of that Old Testament passage that is saying unto us, it is time to seek the Lord.

Break up your fallow ground so that we can see God. And this Hebrew understanding of fallow ground in the Old Testament, that this is not ground that has never been plowed. It's ground that has been plowed, and the rain has come, but it hasn't been freshly tilted.

God, I pray that somehow that you will so plow and work in our hearts and in our lives that this Easter convention will be something that will stand out to us as a place where we were able to say that God came, and I was able to raise up even an Easter, and I didn't have to go back.

But when we will do something on prayer and the ministry of the Holy Spirit again, if it's five or ten years down the road, that we will be able to look back and say, I don't have to cover old ground again, because God has helped me to move forward.

And Lord, that's the burden of my heart, because we know in our hearts that life never becomes static, and we know that life is an ongoing process, and that we want to grow in our relationships with you.

And Father, I thank you for the sense of burden in my own soul for these gatherings. I'm so grateful that you didn't allow me to come back to Australia because we have nothing else to do, but that we simply came because we want to meet with God, and we want you to change our lives.

And I'm so thankful this afternoon that that's not the work of the one that is communicating the exposition and the truth of Scripture. But Lord, we can't change one another's lives, but Father, that's the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

And we want to pray this afternoon in Jesus' name, that this campground will become a sacred place over this weekend, that in every one of these sessions, that you will crown them with an incredible consciousness of the presence of God.

And Father, that even these people who are permanent campers and who pass this building, that as you pour out the consciousness of your presence upon us, and as you purify us and cleanse us and break us and fill us with the Holy Spirit, and Father, as you come and pour out upon us a spirit of prayer and a sense of transparency, that that fragrance, that aroma of the greatness of the presence of God will be able to flow into this camp.

And Father, we only have this one life to live, and only that which is done for Christ is going to last. And so we pray again this afternoon, bring us into the grip of a consciousness of eternity in our relationships with you.

Thank you for visitors that have come to be with us, and Father, I pray that it will be in their hearts that they have been with us from this first session of last night when we gathered together. Thank you for your work now.

We love this book. Oh God, you said unto us, is my work not like a hammer that breaketh a rock? Is my work not like fire? Is my work not sharper than any to which it is sought, cutting through the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and bone and marrow?

And we pray that as we expose ourselves under this wonderful work of God, that the Spirit of God, who witnessed to the work and witnessed to the efficacy of the blood, will find a resting place in our relationships with you, because we ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen. I want you to open your Bible, if you will, again at those passages that we began to look at this morning. You just turn your chair around and find your Bible. I encourage you to bring a notebook in these other sessions that we will be.

Jesus' Teaching on the Holy Spirit in John 14–16

And turn with me, if you will, to John chapter 14, 15, and John chapter 16 in your Bible. We have been sitting so long and we are going to change our positions and just stand for the reading of the Word of God.

John chapter 14 and John chapter 15, John chapter 16. Let's stand to read. John chapter 14, verse number 13. Jesus said, Whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give unto you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.

But ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and he shall be in you. Verse number 26. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Chapter 15, verse number 26. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me. Chapter 16, verse number 7.

Jesus said, Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.

Of sin, because they do not believe on me. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and you see me no more. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.

Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. And he will show you things to come.

He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and he shall show it unto you. You may be seated. Those of you who were not with us this morning, we mentioned in our opening session of this day, as we spend these three sessions in the Gospel of John, that there are two wonderful possible ways for us to explore these marvelous 879 verses in the Gospel of John.

Christ as the New Testament Tabernacle

And if you take time to explore them, you will discover that there is the possibility for us in the Gospel of John to see Christ as our New Testament tabernacle. And we said it this morning on the basis that when you study the first chapter of John's Gospel, that the Apostle John made this statement, and this is what he said, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we the Elf is glory.

The glorious are the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth. And if you have an interest in languages as it relates to the Elf in the New Testament, you will discover that this little word, dwelt, is the word in the Greek language for the word tabernacle.

And when you follow that word in the New Testament, you will discover that it is the same word that we come across in the book of Revelation, when the Apostle John said, the tabernacle of God was amongst his people.

And so when the Apostle John came and he said, the Word was made flesh and he tabernacled amongst us, my brother and my sister, one of the most fascinating studies in the New and the Old Testament, because of the fact that the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament, and the New Testament lies hidden for us in the Old Testament, when you study the Old Testament tabernacle, you come to this amazing understanding how Christ became our New Testament tabernacle.

And as you systematically would go through it, you will discover the fulfillment of this beautiful picture of what the Scriptures is saying to us about the life of Christ. We also mentioned this morning that there is another way for us to be able to come to grips with the gospel of John, and that's by looking at this gospel and discover within this gospel, the different ministries of the Lord Jesus.

We refer to his predestined ministry when the Apostle John in his gospel said, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and nothing was made by him that was not was made.

And as he would continue in that, we discover this ministry of Christ in the Old Testament. What we would refer to as Theophanies, or rather Christophanies of Christ in the Old Testament, that when you study the Old Testament, and you discover the second person of the Trinity, that he walked through the Old Testament in one of the most amazing ways.

And my brother and my sister, if I would be allowed to say this to you again, you will never come to grips with the Christ of the New Testament, and all his glory, and his centrality, and his majesty, if you have not seen the revelation of the Christ of the Old Testament.

That was the reason why God said in the book of Genesis, let us make man of... and he mentioned the plurality of the greatness of his Trinity. We mentioned this morning in the time that we were together, that there was a second aspect of the ministry of Christ, from chapter 1 to chapter 12.

And we discover the public ministry of the Lord Jesus, that in those chapters he manifests himself to public. He did that through eight miracles that he did, and the reason why he did those miracles is because they became signposts towards spirituality.

In other words, he did a miracle, and the consequences of that miracle became the opportunity for him to reveal unto them the greatness of God the Father. He was not just involved in eight miracles, but Christ also had eight personal conversations.

And in those personal conversations, he revealed to us another aspect of the life of the Father, because you see, he was God in the flesh, and he had to manifest himself. And in those personal conversations, we discover that in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, he became the divine teacher.

In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, he became the divine soul winner. In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John, he became the divine physician. And you discover in those miracles this amazing manifestation of the life of the Father through God the Son, as he did this in public.

Christ's Public and Private Ministry

I'm concerned this afternoon and tonight, and the time in which we are living, and you know it's amazing, this country of Australia, you're not only just a day ahead of all of us in the rest of the world, but time runs twice as fast when it comes to this.

And our time is so limited, and the scriptures are so full. And I often say to my wife, you know, I wish I could get people who can listen faster, and I'd be able to say things as twice as fast as possible.

But you know, we are feeble human beings, and some of us, we don't have enough brains to give us a headache, and I'm one of those people. And so I'm trying to share with you as much as I possibly can.

But brethren and sisters, in fact, if you can't, if I'm too fast, just listen faster, get the CD. If you can't pay for them, we, my office, will pay for them. But let me explain to you something. When you come to John chapter 14 to 16, you'll discover that we are dealing now not with the predestinate ministry of Christ.

We are not looking at his public ministry. But my brother and my sister, something significant has happened. You say, Gerard, what happened? Well, you see, Christ has come to the place where he has turned away from this world.

The end of the 12th chapter of John's gospel has come. The last supper has taken place. There was a moment when Jesus turned to those early disciples, and he said to them, one of you are going to betray me.

And those early disciples in the insecurity of the relationships with Christ, because of the lack of the indwelling of the Spirit of God in their lives to the fullness of that degree, they began to wonder who it was that was going to betray the Lord Jesus.

And you remember how the apostle Peter, because of the impulsiveness of his temperament and his character and his personality, made that bold statement and he said, Lord, if anyone else is going to do it, I will not do it.

And how Jesus faced him up with a reality and said, Peter, before the talk is committed, you are going to deny that you even know me. But there was one that was close to Christ, and it was probably again the apostle John.

And so the Lord Jesus gave him more bread and asked him, put it into the hands of Judas Iscariot. He said to him, what you do, go and do it quickly. You know, people often ask me and say, what is the difference here between Judas Iscariot and the apostle Peter?

Because the apostle Peter denied the Lord Jesus, and the Bible says that he wept and he received forgiveness. And the Bible says Judas wept because of the fact that he betrayed Christ, but he hanged himself.

Peter's Repentance and Judas's Remorse

And they say, can you explain to me the understanding of that? And I say, you know, it's so simple when you study it with the understanding of the Greek New Testament. Because the word for repentance comes from the root word matah and the Greek language.

And in the case of Peter, you come across a Greek word that is amazing, that is distinctive from Judas, although the words are connected with one another. You say, what is the difference? Oh, you see, when Judas wept or when Judas repented, the Bible, the word in the Greek language is the Greek word metalomai.

And so when Peter wept, which is the word for repentance in the Greek language, which is the word metanoia, those two words, brother and sister, has two different meanings. You say, what is the difference in their meaning?

Metalomai, or rather in Peter, metanoia means that he was sorry for what he did, but he was deeply sorry, not just because for what he did, but also because of the condition of his heart. Now, when you came to Judas, he studied it.

And the Bible says he repented and he was sorry for what he did. It's the word metalomai. You say, what does it mean? He repented because of what he did, but he was not concerned about the condition and the state of his heart.

That's the distinction. And so you say, what happened? Well, let me explain to you what happened. There was a moment when Christ gave Judas that mortal beat. And, brother and sister, there was a moment, there was a moment when Jesus said to him, what should you do?

Go and do quickly. And that moment when he stepped out, the New Testament is saying unto us there was darkness. And can you imagine the darkness in the soul? You know, I was in Romania in November of last year.

And if you have no idea about communism in Eastern Europe, I tell you, it will blow every second in your mind and it will break your heart. And when I was speaking in Oradea, in Emmanuel Baptist Church in the city of Oradea, 17 years ago, communism fell apart.

And when communism fell apart prior to communism, you know what happened in Romania? Every pastor in the Monday morning had to go to the police station. He had to tell them what he was speaking on. He had to tell them how many people were in the service on a Monday morning.

He had to tell them what happened in the service and he had to give an account because it was under the awful and brutality of Francesco and communism in Romania. And so when communism fell apart 17 years ago, six months ago in the land of Romania, they said to the pastors in Romania, we are proud about you.

When I spoke at Emmanuel Baptist Church, the president of the university, Dr. Paul Magrath said to me, you have no idea what it was to live under communism. I said, what do you mean? Well, he said, you know, we were never, we had Christian music in our homes 24 hours of the day.

I said, why? He said, because everything in our homes that we see, they were microphoned, they recorded. He said, every telephone conversation, the children say to me, we whispered in our homes. You know, we have no idea here in Australia and the other countries.