Devotional Life — Gerhard Du Toit

It's wonderful to see you all back this evening. When we start with these conferences on prayer, time just begins to fly. This morning, probably around 9 or 10 of us as pastors and some of our wives came together and we just had a very precious time of prayer together.

And as Wally mentioned that tomorrow night at 6 o 'clock, if you would like to come and pray with us, it would be tremendous to have you with us to pray. God is a prayer answering God. And God does not answer prayer necessarily because we are praying, but God is a covenant keeping God.

And He must stay true to His Word. And so when this Word of God regarding prayer becomes part of our lives, then it makes such a difference. And the thing that has been breaking my heart today, because we are coming to grips with the need of this community and discovering the will of God for the lives of the pastors and their wives and people in leadership and our fellowships, and those of us who are part of the churches.

And the thing that has been breaking my heart today, I've come to a place where I've said to the Lord this afternoon that I feel if I can just climb underneath a blanket somewhere in a little tavern and spend a month underneath the burden of God for this Wayburn community.

And so we have a responsibility to pray for one another. Six times the Apostle Paul said, Brethren, pray for us. I work in Africa under a Scotsman in what is called Namibia today. Those days it was called Deutschles Afrika.

And I was an evangelist. And we started the year with 16 days of prayer. You say, how did you pray for 16 days? I don't know. I just know that we did it. Mr. MacLeod was a tall man, it was him and his wife, and I was just a young evangelist.

And we had evangelistic crusades all over Namibia. From town to town we would go, sometimes find a church, sometimes a hall, sometimes we had services in a tent. And so when I began to work under him, he took us to this campground with nine Christian farmers and their wives, he and his wife and myself, and we spent 16 days in prayer.

Three or four sessions every day. Get up in the morning, have our quiet times, have breakfast together, and then we meet for the first session, and study a passage in the Bible regarding prayer. And the first morning session was always a time of great soul-searching, as God was just working in our hearts and in our lives.

And I will never forget, then we prayed the afternoon and evening, but I will never forget, I think it was about the third or the fourth day of those days together when Mr. McLeod turned to us and he said to us, God has laid it upon my heart to pray for the town of Walthus Bay.

Now I knew that town existed, never been there before, and he said, we are going to pray for Walthus Bay. And for the next three, possibly four days, session after session, we climb underneath this burden of God for the town of Walthus Bay, and we pray as the burden of God came upon us, and pursue the will of God in prayer, and discover what God's Word is saying about His will as we pray.

And I think it was the fourth afternoon when he turned to us and he said to us, I believe that God has helped us to pray through for the town of Walthus Bay. And I didn't understand the depth of the concept of praying through.

And so he said, why don't we begin to thank God for what He was going to do. And so we continued and finished the 16 days, praying about other things, and when we came back into the town of the city of Vintook, he came into my room and he said to me, he said, Gerard, he said, I want you to go to the town of Walthus Bay, and I want you to do a series of evangelistic services.

So I said to him, why do you want me to do it? He said, because we prayed through for the town. And I said to him, where will I stay? And he said, I'm not sure, but there is a Christian couple who's got a trailer in the back of the yard, and maybe you can stay there.

And so I said, how many Christians are there? He said, I don't know. And I said, so, what do you want me to do? He said, I want you to go and preach the Gospel, and you're not going to come back until the Spirit of God broke into the meetings.

And he said, we have a faith mission, which means that when I come to a place like this, it's never a question of money, although we need to live, because of my preaching, but it's always a question, is it the will of God?

And so he said to me, I can't give you anything for gas, fuel. He said, I can give you a little Volkswagen, and he said, you need to go. And I would never forget, he turned to me the third time, and he said, I don't want you to come back until the Spirit of God has broken into the meetings.

I will never forget this. I was driving 450 miles to this town, with one little verse ringing through my heart, as the sheep he was led to the slaughter. I mean, that's how I felt. And I got into the town of Havasubayan, and you know, couldn't find this house, about 4 ,000 people in this community, right to the ocean, and I couldn't find the house of these people, and in my desperation, I just stopped and got out of the car, and knocked at the door of the house, and a lady opened the door, and I said to her, Madam, I'm an evangelist, and those were the days where you can still call an evangelist an evangelist, you know, because you were supposed to walk with God.

And I said, I'm an evangelist, and I'm coming to preach the Gospel of Christ in this community, and she just brightened up. She said, oh, I'm a Christian. And I said, oh, that's wonderful. And I said, what's your name?

And she said, my name is Lydia. You talk about the Bible, you know. And so I said, I'm looking for Mr. and Mrs. Newman. And so she said, oh, they just live around the corner. And so I went to this house around the corner, and got into this house, and I discovered that Hannah Newman, the lady of this house, and her husband, I discovered that she was suffering from a nervous condition.

And I trust I have a sensitive and a tender heart and spirit for people. And I sat in that house, and I thought, I can't ask him if I could stay in this trailer, because she's not well. And I was in this house, maybe five or ten minutes, when Lydia Phillips, the lady whose door I knocked, walked into the house, and she just said to me, she said, I just talked to my husband, and my husband is not a Christian.

My husband is a German, she said. And she said, we have an apartment in our yard, and my husband said, you can come and stay in the apartment. She wanted him to be saved. So I had a place to stay. And we got this school hall in this town, and with three little African boys, we walked through the town and invited people with notices to come to these services.

I still remember those notices. All time gospel meetings, I like that. So we were inviting these people to come. And so Thursday night was the first meeting. Now we spent 16 days in prayer. Thursday night was the first meeting.

And Thursday, I spent the day in prayer and fasting. God gave me a little message for that evening. The service started at twenty past seven, and I went to the service at the school hall about 6 .30 or so, and I put about 70 chairs out, and selling Christian literature, and so I was waiting for the people to come.

And so quarter to seven came, no one. Seven o 'clock came, nothing. I mean, not even a cat. Quarter past seven, not a soul. And twenty past seven came, and I did something which I've never done before in my life, and I've never done it since that day.

But I had a service, because God gave me a message. And it was burning in my heart. And I did everything. I made the announcements, sang, prayed, announced the books, and I preached my little message that was burning in my heart.

And I was not discouraged. Back up and went back to the apartment, and I was in the apartment. I don't know, a few minutes or so, and there was a knock at the door, and when I opened the door, this big German was standing.

He was a brilliant man. He fled out of Nazi Germany, worked under the great scientist, Werner von Braun. And he fled the country. And so there he was in South-East Africa. And he stood there, and he just looked down at me.

He said, my name is Fred Fritz. And he said, my wife said, you should come for a cup of coffee. And so I said, thank you, Mr. Phillips. And we were walking down the pathway, and as we walked down, he stopped.

And he just turned to me, and he said to me, by the way, how did it go with that service tonight? He knew there was a meeting. And just to be polite, he said, how did it go with your service? And I just turned to him, and I looked him straight in the eyes.

That's what you do with Germans. I looked him straight in the eyes. Now, I'm part of one. Straight in the eyes, and I said to him, Mr. Phillips, God was there. And he looked at me, and he said, how many people came?

And I looked him straight in the eyes, and I said to him, Mr. Phillips, there was no one. I thought afterwards, I should have said four. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and me. I guess I didn't have enough theology.

Maybe that was a good thing. I said, there was no one. And he looked at me, and he said, what did you do? And I looked him straight in the eyes, and I said to him, Mr. Phillips, I preached tonight that there were a hundred people.

And he just looked at me. I will never forget this. He swung around and didn't say a word. He just swung around. He kept walking, and as he walked, he shook his head. I could see him saying, he's got ants in the attic.

The elevator is not going to the top. You know what happened? That night, Fred Phillips couldn't sleep. Around midnight, he woke his wife up, and Lydia said to him, what is it? He said, I can't sleep.

And she said, why not? He said, this man. She said, what about him? He said, he preached when there was no one. So she said, what do you think? He said, I think we should go. On the Friday night, I had two people in the service.

On the Friday night, God came from heaven and saved him. Word got out in that town that Fred Phillips was saved. And eleven nights later, we had about 70 people in these services. And I'm not one that makes easy invitations when it comes to the concept of salvation.

But it was the 14th night when the Spirit of God broke into that service. And 35 people were saved, and I didn't counsel one single one. I'm speaking in that church in July. It's a Baptist church that seats around 250 people today.

And I don't think they will remember me. But you say, what will they remember? They will remember that they were a group of people that spent 16 days in prayer. But I've insisted, if we can't get through to God, we're not going to get through to people.

The Burden of Prayer and the Call to Pray Through

Isaiah chapter 50, and just for the sake of our time, just read a few verses from that great chapter. The prophecy of Isaiah has been called the miniature Bible. There are 66 books in the Old and New Testament.

And there are 66 chapters in the prophecy of Isaiah. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah is speaking to us about Old Testament events and prophecies. And there are 39 books in the Old Testament. And then from Isaiah chapter 40, in a very particular, specific way, the prophet Isaiah began to prophesy about the Messiah.

And so there are 27 books in the New Testament. That's why he was called that great evangelical prophet. So Isaiah chapter 50, verse number 4. The prophet said, The Lord God has given to me the tongue of one that was learning that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is tired.

The Lord God wakeneth me morning after morning. He wakeneth me, my ear to hear as one that learned. The Lord God hath opened my ear and I was not rebellious, neither did I turn away my back. You know, I will never be able not to remember the very first night when I went to study theology in my own homeland of Africa.

And as we met in this school, the president of the school came to spend time with us as students. And when he looked at us as students, he turned to us and he made a statement, and he said to us you did not only come to this school to get to know the word of God, but he said most of all you have come to this school so that you will be able to get to know the God to this word.

And in that school where I studied was there an expectation from our faculty because it was part of their lives. Was there an expectation that every morning at a certain time that the students would be up and about and that they would find themselves on their knees alone in the presence of God and they were involved in what we used to refer to as our personal devotional times or what some would refer to as their choir times.

The Discipline of a Consistent Devotional Life

And I have learned the last 26, 27 years of my life the tremendous value of what it means to meet your God on a consistent basis. For the reason that we said last night, that we cannot take people further spiritually than we are ourselves and that we can only impart to men and women that which we possess in our relationships with God.

And I began to study the Word of God and I began to ask myself is it possible to stand here this Monday night and this session together and is it possible for me to turn to you from a biblical perspective and to say to you as a Christian that there is the expectation from God in His Word that you and I would consider what I would refer to as one of the great disciplines of the soul.

The possibility of being fresh in the presence of God. The possibility of living a Christian life where my life demands a supernatural explanation. Where there is a transparency and there is a vulnerability and there is a vibrance and there is a consciousness of God in my life that let people stop and want to know why is it that my life as a Christian is so different.

And so I began to study the Word of God and I began to ask myself this question and I came across some amazing passages in scripture. In fact I came across this one in the prophecy of Isaiah where the prophet Isaiah was speaking about the coming of the Messiah and he referred to Christ and he made this statement he said morning after morning the Son of God who was sinless in His life and sinless in His birth and supernatural in His life morning after morning the Son of God at this time in His life would He spend time in the presence of His Father.

I came across a marvelous passage in the Gospel of Mark the Gospel of Mark is a Gospel that we find it very difficult to analyze because the key word in Mark's Gospel is the Greek word euses it's the word immediately and if you study the Gospel of Mark you will discover that event after event found itself taking place in the life and the ministry of Christ and if you study the first chapter and you look at incident after incident as God was flowing through the life of His Son manifesting the life in the names of God and as you look at that and you come to the end of the first chapter you stand back in absolute amazement and you say to yourself how is it possible that one individual one man with the name of Jesus of Nazareth would be able to survive a day like that.

And right in the middle of that chapter Mark made this statement about Christ and he said early in the morning deep in the night he went into a solitary place and there he prayed. Dr. Campbell Morgan said regarding that verse it can also be translated as it was his daily custom and my brother and my sister if it was necessary for Jesus the Son of God to have his consistent times or discipline in his life where he sat in the presence of the Father, where he spent time at the Mount of Olives where he was able to say the Son can do nothing unless he see the Father do with it.

How much more is it vital for you and for me as a Christian to consider this discipline of the soul. I want us tonight to contemplate some of these great aspects. I want us to look at the reasons why you and I should consider this kind of a lifestyle.

I want us to look at the requirements if we will have time and I want us to look at the regulations and if not then you can in your own time at home just systematically work through that. You sit here in this Monday night session and you say to me Gerard what is the reasons why is it that as a Christian I need to look to my own life and ask God to search my heart and consider this possible lifestyle of walking with God.

The Spiritual Constitution of Body, Soul, and Spirit

The very first reason that I have discovered is simply this. God has given unto us a spiritual constitution that means that God has created us body, soul and spirit. We are of what theologians have referred to as a trichonomy.

God has given to me a body. And the reason why God has given to me a body is so that through the senses of my body He wants to make me conscious of this world and this environment in which I find myself.

And when I become a Christian the Bible says my body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. That means that whatever I watch on television I'm forcing the Spirit of God to watch it with me. Whatever as a young person I found myself being exposed to on the internet I'm forcing the Spirit of God to do it with me, whatever I allow to go through my mind as a Christian I'm forcing the Spirit of God to face it with me, my body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit of God.

But God has given unto us a soul. Now what constitutes my soul. It's the Greek word and if you study the concept of that word that you discover that my soul constitute my emotions my personality to a degree my will to a certain degree.

And God has given unto me a soul, my brother and my sister so that he will be able to make me conscious of myself. We speak about self-consciousness and the beauty of being a Christian and the Lord has got no duplicates.

My wife sometimes say to me oh daddy what a place the world would have been if everyone was like you. And I just laugh and I said I think we would have got somewhere. I often say to her you know my darling I think the only reason that Rome wasn't built in three days is because I wasn't around.

And then she said you need God. Which of course is true. God has given unto us a soul self-consciousness brother and sister. The beauty of being a Christian is that when I come to Christ I discover my identity in Christ.

I discover that my life is precious to God. I come to the place where the apostle Paul came when he said in Galatians chapter 2 he said I am crucified with Christ and nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of a son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And Paul made this statement he said I am crucified with Christ. The second aspect of the cross of Christ has become a reality in my life.

And he said the life which I now live I live it by the faith of the son of God. And if you study the word faith and the four gospels and discover what Christ said about faith. And now the new testament is speaking to us about faith.

You discover what the apostle Paul meant when he said the life which I now live I live it by the faith of the son of God who loved me and died for me. And you will only come to grips with the life of faith to the degree that you come to grips with this concept of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

And the more we see the depth of the price that he has paid for us when he died for us around the cross. To that degree I discover the depth of the life of faith. I know that I am precious to God that I am not just some individual that is floating in the ocean of God's love and a community like that God has got a plan for my life.

And that as a Christian if I have the responsibility that there is the possibility I need to face it to find the plan of God for my life. I need to follow God's plan for my life. And my brother and sister I need to follow God's plan for my life.

And one day outside of the will of God is wasted.

Time that means.

That I need to redeem the time 60, 96 slots of 15 minutes every day. I need to analyze time I need to maximize time. I need to utilize time because I need to give account before God for my life. God has given unto me a spirit.

So you say God has given unto me a body to make me conscious of my environment. God has given unto me a soul to make me conscious of myself but God has given unto me a spirit. Brother and sister why is it that God has given unto me a spirit.

It seems to us that God has given unto us a spirit so that he would be able to make us conscious of himself. We are speaking about God.

Consciousness so you say what happens when he speaks of himself.

Or regard himself. He always brings us back to the word of God and he always brings us back to the life of Christ. And when I receive the Holy Spirit of God into my life I receive the Spirit of God as a person.

The Spirit of God. And forgive me for saying this because it can be misunderstood. The Spirit of God is not an.

It the Spirit of God.

To a degree is not a manifestation it can be part of what the Spirit of God is about. But one of the greatest deficiencies that I find today in North America is that there are so many of God's people and they move from experience to truth and the consequences is that they interpret the word of God in the light of their experience and sometimes they isolate scripture and somehow their experience or the word of God does not fit into the experience.

They allow things to come in brother and sister that can destroy the relationship with God. So you say what is the alternative. God wants me to move from truth.

To experience the Spirit of God.

Would become the sanctifying agency in my life and the totality of what scripture is about bring into my Christian life balance and consistency and determination because I'm born with personality but God is in the process of building up.

Christian character. So when.

He comes into my life. He comes into my life as a person. You say how do I know that. Listen to what the Bible is saying to us. The Bible is saying to us that the Spirit of God be a witness of my spirit that I'm a child of God.

You remember the apostle Paul in Ephesians six times he referred to the Holy Spirit and he said in the first chapter he said you will see into that Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance.

The Spirit of God be a witness of my spirit that I'm a child of God. And I wonder this Monday night if you would allow me to suggest to you maybe you will not appreciate me saying this but my brother and my sister when I had the privilege of seeing come on someone coming to Christ or pointing them to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if I can be absolutely honest with you this evening sometimes in today's society because there is such a lack of depth and there is such a lack of the understanding of what God is saying to us in His word.

And today's society it sometimes takes me two three hours to sit down with someone that wants to be saved to say why is it. Because my friends we can't anticipate someone to respond to the gospel of Christ unless their intellect is satisfied by that which God is saying in His word.

So once the intellect is satisfied by what God is saying in His word you know what is the consequences when my intellect is satisfied by the depth of scripture it brings me to the place where it stirs my heart.

And the combination between an intellect that is satisfied by the word of God and my heart that is stirred by the spirit of God brings me to the realm of my.

Will and the decision.

To become a follower of Jesus Christ is taking place in the realm of my will. You say why do you say that you know. I say that I've seen. And I don't mean this in the wrong way. I tell you it breaks my heart.

I've seen poor people walking down the isle of large evangelistic crusades to give their lives to Jesus Christ with a smile upon their face. And you think that they were doing God a favor. You say why does it take you so long.

We sit down with two Bibles and we systematically go through God's plan of salvation. We look at man's condition that it is lost. I let him read what the Bible is saying. We discuss the fact that man was born in sin.

And that's not just the acts of sin but my brother and my sister. It's the state of sin. And we systematically go through the scriptures and we read it through and we discuss it. And I ask questions until they understand.

And once we look at the condition of man we look at God's provision. And you say what is God's provision. The fact that Christ came. And passage after passage for the word of God. You see the Bible.

Speaks for itself what Christ has done for us.

And when we see my condition and we look at what Christ has done we come to man's responsibility. And you say what is man's responsibility. Man's responsibility brother and sister is to repent. You say what is repentance.

It's that I come to the place where I 100 agree with God about that which is wrong.

In my life. Pastor said.

To me some time ago a very dear friend he said to me Gerard why do you have to spend so much time with people that want to be saved. And I turned to him and I said to him I said you know what John I said it saves me so much.

Time in the future and I.

Wonder tonight and I don't want this to be dropped as a bombshell. But my brother and sister whenever I have the joy of pointing someone to Christ I never say to people that they are born of the Spirit of God.

You say why not. I don't know if I'm in a position to do that.

As a counselor you say.

Why. Because the Spirit of God bear witness with my spirit that I'm a child of God. We have the joy of seeing them come into Christ. We can explain to them everything we can kneel and we pray with them.

We sometimes can teach them the sinner's prayer but I never say to people no you are born of the Spirit of God you say why not. I think it's the work of the Spirit of God. I was involved in an evangelistic crusade years ago in my own homeland of Africa and we had services sometimes in tents and I remember there was a lady and her husband who came to these services and God was dealing with them and we very seldom sometimes maybe the 14th or the 15th night we would make a public invitation and allow people to come and see Christ because by that time they know what this is all about and I would never forget.

It was a Friday night and this lady and her husband was sitting in the back of a tent they were in every night and she sat there and she wept through the whole service as she was sitting there and I knew she wanted to be saved.

And Saturday morning I was just a young fellow out in the ministry and Saturday morning I went to the little house and you know when I came to this little house I knocked at the door of the house and she opened the door and invited me in.

Unfortunately her husband was out but she stood there and she said please come in and I and I had to go in and as I came into this little house the first thing that struck me was the condition of the house and forgive me for saying this but the house was an absolute mess.

In fact I remember I stood there and I said to myself well my boy thank God he didn't send you to clean this house he sent you to share the gospel so we sat at the kitchen table that morning and I began to share with her the gospel of Christ and oh you know it's wonderful when you see real conviction of sin and there she sat at the table with my bible and I just systematically went through God's plan of salvation and she was so ready she was just like an apple ready to drop from the tree and after I shared with her the gospel and I said to her now madam, I said now this is between you and God I'm not going to force you into this, I said you have time to think about it or you can come to Christ now and I'll never forget.

She just said I don't want to wait any longer. We got on our knees and she trusted God to save her and I didn't have to teach her a prayer, she knew how to pray because she wanted to be saved and after she prayed we sat down and I went through passage after passage about the assurance of salvation and after I'd gone through all of it I said now madam I said I can't say to you that you are born again, I said God needs to witness of your spirit that you are the child of God.

Three days later I went back to the.

House, knocked at the.

Door of the second house and she came rushing to the door of the house and opened the door of the house and as I stepped in the first thing that I discovered the house was clean, in fact I remember I said to myself well my boy if nothing has happened to the woman thank God nothing has happened to the house but you see when God touched the lives of people brother and sister, God God touched their circumstances.

We sat down at the table and I said to her, I said madam has God given to you the witness of the Holy Spirit that you know Christ and I would never forget it, she turned to me and she said to me, she said young man, she said when you said that the other day I did not really understand it, but she said three o 'clock this morning she said I was awakened and I was lying next to my husband and she said these words came to me, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become as.

White as snow, though.

They be red as crimson, they shall be as wood. And she turned to me and she said I can't get away from those words where can I find them, I mean you know they are in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 18 the witness of the Spirit of God.

The Spirit's Witness and Assurance of Salvation

You see maybe you sit here this Monday night in this session and you don't have the witness of the Spirit of God that you are born from the Father. You say pastor, what is the witness of the Spirit of God.

My brother and my sister the witness of the Spirit of God in salvation is like a scale, on the one side of the scale, there is my experience, so you say what is my experience. It's the place where I listen when someone shared with me about Christ, it's the place where I was convicted of my sin, because Jesus said when the Spirit of God comes he will convict this world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, it was the place where I became maybe affected and broken up by God and I got onto my knees and I trusted him and I said Christ I realize that you died for my sin and I want you to come into my heart and into my life and that's my experience but my brother and my sister my experience as a Christian is going to be affected by where I am physically and emotionally and spiritually and mentally to a degree and psychologically for that matter and all these factors will affect.

My experience, but on the other.

Side of the scale is the Word of.

God and you see the reason.

Why there are so many of us as Christians who has never found the consistency of growing and developing in our relationship to God, it's because we are inexperienced but we have never been established in the depth of what God and his Word is about.

Maybe you sit here tonight and say well you know I'm just a young Christian what is the Word of God saying to me? Listen to what Peter said, Peter was a family man, he was the one that said that you were born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible through the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever for you have not been redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold but through the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot.