The Burden of God - Part 1 by Gehard Dutoit (Hungarian) — Gerhard Du Toit

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

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

The Call to Serve God Through Worship

He was called to follow him as his Savior, and he was also called to serve him. In particular, our brother deals with the area of worship, with the truths that we can learn from God's promise, and his desire is to go deeper into worship, into the relationship with God.

God has entrusted this service to several parts of the world, whether in Africa, in America, in South America, in North America, in England, wherever the Lord wants to use it. We are happy to have him here with us.

Our brother will be here next week, he will be here for about 10 days, and we are happy to have him here today, and we hope the Lord will bless his service here. Now, preparing for the presentation, we will look for the second book of Moses, from which we will read the first 14 verses of the third part.

Let's listen to the reading of the promise of God. These are the promises of Moses, so we will read the promises from the first verse. Moses kept the garments of his father Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he threw the garments over the desert and reached the mountain of God, Horeb.

And when he reached the mountain of God, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the midst of the fire, and he saw that the fire was burning, but the fire was not extinguished. And Moses said, I am going there to see a great miracle, why is the fire not burning?

And the Lord saw that he was going there to see, and God called him out of the fire, Moses, Moses, and he said, Where am I? And he said, Do not come near me, or I will cut off your feet, for the place where you stand is a holy land.

And he said, I am God to your father, God to Abraham, God to Isaac, and God to Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. And the Lord said, I have seen the sorrow of my people, who are in Egypt, and I have heard their suffering because of their persecutors, and I know their suffering.

I will go down to free them from the hands of the Egyptians, and I will take them up from that land, to a good and spacious land, to a land full of milk and honey, to the dwelling place of the Canaanites, the Kittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Kibbeites, and the Jebusites.

For I have seen the sorrow of my people, who are in Egypt, and I know their suffering because of their persecutors, and I will go down to free them from the hands of the Egyptians, and I will take them up from that land, to a good and spacious land, to a land full of milk and honey, to the dwelling place of the Canaanites, the Kittites, the Amorites, and I will be with you.

And this will be the sign that I have sent you, that when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will serve God on this mountain. Moses said to God, I will go to the sons of Israel and tell them, Your fathers sent me to you.

If they tell me what my name is, what will I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And God said to the sons of Israel, I am who I am.

Amen. Let us pray together. Let us pray together.

Our Father, we are so glad this morning to be in Thy presence.

Our Father, we are so glad this morning to be in Thy presence.

And we have come together for these hours today.

And we have come together for these hours today.

Not because we have a desire to see our churches full of people.

Not because we have a desire to see our churches full of people.

But we want to see our churches that will be full of people, that will be full of God.

But we want to see our churches that will be full of people, that will be full of God. And we realize in our hearts that if we are not full of God ourselves, we cannot expect.

You to work in our ministries.

And I'm so glad this day that in my own heart is there only one desire, is that you would come to meet with us, that you will come to give us a new vision of yourself, that the Spirit of God will come and so purify our hearts and so set us apart unto you, that we will discover in our hearts that we are not only precious to God, but that you will give us a new unction and a new passion for revival and for purity and for prayer and for souls and for our country.

And so we confess to you today that five minutes of an outpouring of your Spirit will do more for us than everything that we have tried to do for you. And so we say to you this morning, God, we really need you.

And our ministries need you.

And our families need you. And our churches need God.

And this country needs you. And so we ask you as we this day draw a circle around our own lives and ask you to come to this circle and to reveal yourself to us. Thank you for your word. We realize in our hearts that we have nothing else but the word of God.

And we thank you that it is sharp.

We thank you that it's like a fire that breaks the rock. We thank you that it cuts and we ask you that you give us a fresh hunger and a thirst for the scriptures. Speak to us, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Revival, Brokenness, and the Need to Follow God

It's wonderful to be back here in this beautiful land of Romania.

And I trust that you are here this morning and that in your heart as a pastor or as a leader that there is still a passion and a fire and a brokenness that is burning for God. Because the problem is we cannot become great leaders unless we have become great followers.

And you know upon my own heart because we just came out of Africa a few months ago and I was amongst my own people in South Africa, the white people in South Africa. We saw something happen that I've never seen happen before in my life.

These are very conservative churches. People come to church on Sunday morning. Sometimes half an hour before the service starts. And they just come and they sit there and they pray. These are the people of Andrew Murray.

But many of them don't know any depth.

And from the first conference that we were involved with, it was just different. And when God began to work in those 24 places, we saw more than 500 of these people.

And these were services for Christians.

But we saw more than 500 of these people gloriously being converted. And you know there were moments when we were in a touch of revival. I remember in one church, the last night, the presence of God was so real.

And at the end of his service, I asked one of the pastors to come and just pray for us.

And this man, big man, got up to pray. And it's a tremendous thing when God comes, you know.

And he began to pray and suddenly God came and broke his heart. And he just fell on his knees, began to confess his sin before God. And he was weeping. And I opened my eyes and the whole church was just broken.

And I went to the minister and I said to him, when God is in a service, I never know how to close it.

And he just took me and he said, don't close this.

And you know, brothers, the burden for my heart, for Romania and some other countries, is that we will see it again. So this morning when we are together, in this first session,.

I want to speak to you about this subject.

What does it mean for us, for me as a pastor,.

To have this burden of God? Because that's what brought us into ministry. That's what keeps us in ministry. That's what will help us to finish well in ministry.

Four Questions About the Burden of God

In our second session, I want us to look at prayer.

And then in the last session, we're going to look at leadership. What is the burden of God? And there are four things that I want us to look at. I want us to ask four questions. What is the burden? Secondly, how does the burden of God affect me?

Thirdly, how do I systematically dissect the burden of God? In other words, how do we take it apart?

Because, you see, the burden of God is so immense.

That if God's burden for this country, or God's burden for your church,.

Or God's burden for your life will come upon you this morning, you know what will happen? Not one of us would be able to get out of this church today.

I mean, this is immense. And the last question I want us to ask ourselves is, when do I know that I've broken through.

And I've prayed through for the burden of God?

So we're going to take four Old Testament characters.

Moses, the prophets, Abraham, and then the fulfillment of the life of Christ.

What is the burden of God? Why is it that you and I, as a pastor, dare not to be involved in ministry if we don't know there's something? What was it that was in the life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon when he preached on a Sunday morning and Spurgeon made this statement?

And he said, I sense that the wind of God's Spirit has come upon my life and the unction of God would come upon Scripture and the presence of God would come.

And 6 ,000 people who came to listen to Spurgeon would stand up because they were afraid that they would miss one word that came from his lips.

You see, it was the burden of God. So what is this? Moses. You know, I love Moses in the Old Testament because I don't think that there is anyone in the Old Testament where on a systematic basis.

You and I will be able to discover.

How deeply God dealt with Moses.

In so many different ways. Now, do you remember Moses? 40 years.

He was a prince in Egypt he thought he had everything together and everything was going to be wonderful. And he probably had a hundred reasons why Moses could take the people of Israel out of Egypt.

And it didn't happen. 40 years he was in the desert he was a shepherd.

Looking after sheep and brothers, after 80 years God came to Moses and God revealed himself to Moses. Now, here's the burden of God. First of all, it was a revelation and it was a revelation of God. You know, we don't know one another this morning.

But I want to ask you as a pastor.

Because you know we get involved in ministry and I'm so afraid of this word ministry because you see, we live in North America and everything is ministry and virtually nothing is God.

And 95 of pastors that we work with.

You know why they try to walk with God? One simple reason because they are in ministry and if they leave the ministry everything is gone. That's what we deal with in North America and my greatest fear is that this will happen in other countries.

We just work with the land of Angola and Angola went through civil war and we met with the leaders of Angola godly men. They came out of a war. The country has many landmines still.

And I sat for three days.

With these spiritual giants black African men. And I said to them how many churches are there in Angola? After the war. And they turned to me and they said we've got about 600 churches. And I said, what's the best thing that could have happened to us?

You know what they said to me? That the western world stayed out of Angola. And I said, what do you mean? They said the programs the methods the ideas.

The concepts they said we never had that they said all we had was God. I don't know you this morning but I want to ask you a question.

The Necessity of a Fresh Revelation of God

When last. When was the last time? that God revealed himself to you.

You see my brother if you can't learn the secret that it's not what I'm doing for God that is the most important thing but it's what God is doing for me and this is what happened here. And I don't want you this morning to misunderstand me but if we are involved in ministry and we don't learn the secret that before anything happens God needs to come to me and if God doesn't come to me anything that I'm going to do is not going to be effective because God has not come to me.

Moses what happened?

Someone said about Moses there was the birth of the vision.

There was the death of the vision and there was the resurrection of the vision. So I want to ask you because this is what we find in Moses life the birth of the vision. Can I ask you a question? You remember when God called you?

You remember how sacred it was? I remember when we were in Bible college and we came to our last year and my second year at Bible college. You know there were so many places where I wanted to go and then one morning a missionary came to speak to us and just a person who walked with God who knew the crucified life that Christ did not just died on the cross for my sins but he died on the cross for the self life.

And if I go into ministry I need to be abandoned to God and I will never forget. That morning that missionary spoke to us. The spirit of God came broke our hearts and we had to make a decision it's going to be everything for God or it's going to be nothing.

And I remember as students we were on our knees before God and the sacredness of the call of God began to burn in our hearts. Do you know what was my greatest fear? My greatest fear was that God was not going to call me.

My greatest fear was that the ministry was so sacred was so precious was so pure was so separated unto God that somehow I would never qualify for that. Can I ask you this morning? What about your own life?

Isaiah's Vision of the Lord's Holiness

Have you lost vision? I mean you know that great passage in the Old Testament.

I'm sure you know that wonderful passage from the Old Testament the great evangelical prophet.

The theologians come to us and they say Isaiah it's the miniature bible 66 chapters 66 books in the scriptures 39 chapters 39 Old Testament books.

27 chapters. The Messiah is coming Isaiah 14.

To Isaiah 66. And you remember what happened? He was a prophet he knew how to preach he knew how to say to the people, woe! He knew how to preach condemnation. And suddenly in the sixth chapter of Isaiah something happened.

You see five times in the first five chapters.

He said, woe to the people.

And suddenly in chapter 6 something happened and you remember what he said? He said the year when king Uzziah died what happened? You see he was the chaplain to the king he was comfortable everything was great.

And suddenly the king died and the prophet Isaiah was standing on the little carpet and God came and he pulled it from underneath him and Isaiah said the year when king Uzziah died.

He said, I saw the Lord.

I want to ask you a question this morning and I don't want you to misunderstand me. When last did you see the Lord? You know my wife. And we have one daughter Monika. And my daughter is going to go into the mission field in January.

And the beginning of this year I had to go for surgery. And so the doctor said five weeks you can't do anything. I said, can't preach? Can't work? You just need to recover. So my wife came to me and she said, Papa what are you going to do?

And I said, my darling that's what I'm not going to do. And she said, what will you do? And I said, I'm going to take Ephesians the Himalayas of the New Testament. I'm going to ask God to help me to memorize it.

And brother morning after morning you know what happened? Oh, God came to my heart those words. They were just burning when Paul came in Ephesians. And you know when he said, I pray the Apostle Paul really prayed.

And when he said, I pray for you that Christ may dwell in your hearts. And he said, I pray that you will be rooted and grounded to great words in the Greek New Testament. And morning after morning my wife would come in and she would say, you've been here for five hours now.

And I said, oh yeah. I said, it felt like one hour because the vision became fresh. Can I ask you a question this morning? In your own life in your own times with God. As a pastor do you meet with God?

You say, do I have to spend time with God? No God wants to spend time with you. That's the difference. You know the Puritans. Robert Murray McChain Rutherford J .C. Ryle. They lived 200 years ago, you know.

But there's something about them.

They knew this thing of the revelation of God.

And brethren, here is ministry. Ministry is when God comes to me. Ministry is when I become broken. Ministry is when the Spirit of God flows.

And so Isaiah said I saw the Lord.

You know people often say to me, who did he see? I think it's the Lord. I think I'm right to tell you this morning he saw the Lord Jesus. You say, how do we know that? How do we know it was a Christophany of Christ?

How do we know that it was the second person of a trinity? The apostle John came to us.

And he said in the 12th chapter he said Jesus or Isaiah.

Saw Christ and I've always wrestled with this, you know here in the Old Testament yes, the prophet Isaiah. He's going to become the prophet that will say so much about the messiah and when the messiah comes he's going to say much about the prophet and much about Moses.

And when he saw the messiah and this was in the Old Testament.

What did he see? Because he changed his life. He said, I saw the Lord. You know what happens to us? When God comes to us. Because you know. Paul said in Colossians the fullness of God dwelleth in Christ.

There's nothing out of the Son of Christ that we need. You know what he saw?

The Holiness of God and the Supremacy of Christ

He saw the purity of God. He said, brother Chirag, why do you say that? Listen to what Isaiah said. He said, when I saw the Lord.

He was high and lifted up. He said, he was high and lifted up.

In the old King James translation that I use he says, he strains for the temple. He said, they were the seraphs. He said, they were crying. Wonderful word in the Hebrew text. Kwadosh kwadosh kwadosh. What did he say?

Holy holy holy. Is the Lord God Almighty. Can I ask you a question this morning? The holiness of God. Do we still love it? Is it still precious? Is it still sacred? You know, this year I tried to take time in my own heart to memorize Hebrews.

I couldn't memorize Hebrews. You know why? Because Hebrews memorized me and I saw right through those chapters.

I saw in those chapters the supremacy of Christ. Everything was about Christ better than the angels.

Better than Moses better than the high priest better than the old testament's offerings.

Better than the old testament's offerings.

And suddenly everything became Christ. And the writer to the Hebrews would come right at the end of chapter 11 because in chapter 10 he comes and he said, here is your inheritance. And he said to us in chapter 9 how much more shall the blood of Christ purify your conscience through the Holy Spirit.

Why should he do that? What is my conscience? You know what Andrew Murray said? He said my conscience is not just a judge that bears down upon my actions but in my conscience it bears testimony with my relationship with God and God's relationship with me 32 times.

In the Greek New Testament it speaks of the conscience. 10 different kinds of the conscience in scripture. And here comes Christ. Do you know what he said? How much more shall the blood of Christ.

Purify my conscience. And then he said in chapter 10 here is my inheritance it's the holiest of all the sacredness the purity of the presence of God. Have you seen Christ?

Have you seen him entering to the holiest of all? Have you heard the epistle of the writer to the Hebrews saying we don't have a high priest that cannot be tempted to the feeling of our infirmities but one who was tempted in all points like us.

We are without sin he said. Now here is the secret we've got freedom to come to such a high priest. And then you know what happened in chapter 12 he said looking unto Jesus the author the finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame sitting at the right hand of God.

And here's another Greek word.

Consider him. Have you ever discovered the difference? Because you know these are two words in the Greek language. Looking considering sometimes a crisis which becomes a process. And Isaiah said I saw the Lord.

Let me ask you when last did God come to your heart?

High and lifted up holy.

And what did he say? He said woe to me. You see when we speak of what is the burden of God you know Moses when God revealed himself to Moses.

The Burden of God: Revelation of God and Revelation of the People

And here is the Hebrew word Masa that's the word burden.

And two things happened the revelation of God and the revelation of the people. That's the burden of God. And you see what happens to us. We are caught between the revelation of God.

And the revelation of the people.

And so here we are in Romania you know I think the first time or the second time when I came to Romania because in my heart there is a passion for revival. I was so surprised this morning.

When Paulus Fischer walked into the office up there.

Because I was thinking about him so much the last few days and I wasn't even sure if he was still alive you know. Well he's alive but he was the one that told me about Romania years ago we were together in Albania and God used him to allow me to go to Albania and some other countries Switzerland but he told me about Romania and something got a hold of my heart about this country and I kept saying to him brother Paulus maybe God would allow me to come to Romania and so when I came to Emmanuel Church.

And Adrian allowed me to come to First Baptist and brother Simon.

There was still something. There was a time in the history of Romania that God was working in revival and I wanted to know about it and maybe many of you know about this. You know the church in Kamar Felix Pardo that was one of the places where God came and when I was preaching for Felix and he told me about what happened and how God visited that area.

And I said to him Felix I want to meet the people.

That were in the revival because I always want to listen to those people and the Saturday night.

There were about I don't know four or five or six people and they were on in years somewhere in the 80s.

And Felix said to them you see this foreigner he's an African but he's got a longing for revival and he wants to ask you questions. And so I began to ask questions and she told me what happened. And they told me about the people that prayed.

And they told me about the drunkard and how he was converted and how the spirit of God came. It was all wonderful. But about 11 o 'clock that night I turned to them and I said to them what is the greatest desire of your hearts?

There was one old man I mean he must have been in his 80s and he just sat there and the tears began to strip down his cheeks and he said brother Gerhard all that we would see at the game.

May I ask you a question?

Do you think this can happen to you? You see we are so influenced by and I don't want you to misunderstand me because I live in North America but we are so influenced by what is happening as far as crowds of people and they say it's wonderful.

Listen when you go in there and you get to the depth of what I see in my country what is happening there in our country. We say it's very wide but only this deep.

But we are here today and I would like to ask you a question. Do you think it's possible that God can come to your heart and take your circumstances and take your church and your life and say to you I'm coming to break you.

You say what will it cost? It will cost you everything. Absolutely everything. That's what we are speaking about. Do you know what Moses said? Nine reasons that he couldn't go. That's ministry. Do you know what happens?

Moses, Brokenness, and the Death of Self-Reliance

Brokenness stopped. And when Moses said I can't do this God said you're not broken Moses. I'm going to break you. I'm going to break you. And when Moses said.

I can't speak God said I'm going to break you and when Moses said I don't know what who will I say will save me God said I'm going to break you I'm going to break you Exodus.

Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy. 104 times God spoke to him you know how many times he spoke to God? 25 times. I like that you know. So let me ask you you're going to take a break but I just wonder if there are some of us and you are here this morning and you're saying to God in your heart can you just come to my heart fresh?

A Fresh Revelation, Purity, and Infilling of the Holy Spirit

Fresh revelation fresh purity fresh commitment to scripture fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit.

Fresh unction fresh Kenneth fresh humility fresh availability fresh abandonment. God just come to me. God, just come to me. Let's stand up to pray shall we?

Father we thank you this morning. We could be in a gathering like this and we can have great theological discussions and we can know so much about God's word but sometimes God's word knows so little about us.

And I just pray this morning because it needs to be God that when we spend time in prayer just come fresh to our hearts. My brothers I want to ask you something as we bow before God. I want us to spend some time in prayer on our own.

No one else is going to pray with you. You just want to come to God. And I'm going to ask you something big. I'm going to ask you if you would like to slip out and somewhere here at the front just come and find a spot where you on your own can spend time alone with God and say to God my own relationship my relationship to my wife, my children my relationship to your word my relationship to the Holy Spirit my people.

I want to come to you. And God, I want to ask you come and break my heart. Would you like to come right now? Just step out and find a little place here and we're going to spend time in prayer. I'm waiting for you to come.