(Easter Convention 2008) the Public & Private Ministry of Christ - Part 3 — Gerhard Du Toit

Those of you who have been with us this morning and this afternoon, we mentioned to you about some material that we would like to put in your hands. Let me just see how many of you, this is your first session with us this evening.

Can you just put up your hands? There's a few, three or four of you. Those that were here this afternoon who were not here this morning, we're asking where they were this morning, but we're not going to ask you.

That's what we normally do. You say, well, there's a thousand and one reasons why I couldn't be here, but we're glad that you're with us this evening. But we have some wonderful material that we want to put in your hands.

And this is the first of a number of sheets that I would like to give you, questions on personal accountability. If you are praying as a lady with a group of ladies at your church, then I often give them this list and they ask one another these questions.

You know, I have 12 men that God has brought into my life in Western Canada where we live, and I've asked these men to hold me accountable. You say, what is accountability? That's when I meet with someone and they can ask me any question about any aspect of my relationship with God.

And so I trusted the Lord when we stepped into ministry and said, Lord, I need these men because of the situation that we find ourselves in. You know, Janice and Monica, my wife and daughter, I'm gone from them for six months of the year, traveling to 10 or 13 countries every year.

Sometimes when it's a safe country, I'm allowed to take them with us if the funds are available because we need to cast out for all our expenses. But most of the times, Janice stays with Monica at home, which means I'm two weeks home and two weeks I'm on flights in airports and different countries and sometimes very volatile and dangerous countries in the Middle East and in other countries in Africa.

But the Lord has given me 12 men, and I've asked these men to hold me accountable for every aspect of my relationship with God. Four of those men are theologians. They've got a deep understanding of Old and New Testament theology.

And so those men are helping me that when you deal with aspects of biblical truth that you will always interpret the Bible in the light of its context. And when you study the Scriptures in context, you never will be able to go right.

You know, the enemy of our souls, brother and sister, if he can't get us back, he's going to push us over the edge. And the secret of a Christian life, as far as my commitment to Scripture, has to do with balance in the totality of what God's Word is all about.

And then God has given me four men who have got a deep, intimate relationship with God. They are in their 60s, some in their 70s, and one is 88 years old, and they asked me questions about my relationship with God.

And so when I spent time with them, they said to me, you know, what is God doing in your life? And I've given them this list of questions. Which areas of your relationship with God do you experience resistance?

Are there any unresolved issues in your life? What are the general and specific things that you are praying about? What habits are you struggling with as a Christian at this time in your walk with God?

How are you doing in regards to your spouse and your children? You know, no ministry that we are involved with is going further than your family. And brother and sister, these are circles, you know. And the third circle is my relationship with God.

The next circle is my relationship with my wife and my children. The next circle is my relationship with my fellowship. And the next circle is my relationship with the world. And so I need to be accountable when it comes to these things.

My precious wife, you know, I so appreciate and love Janice. But I've asked her, I said, you know, when I preach on a Sunday, I don't want you to tell me Monday how it went on Sunday. And she said, why not?

I said, often on a Monday morning, the only thing that I feel I would like to do is to drive a bus in Bokobokoland where no one else is going to see me. Because that's what it means when you are in the ministry, brother and sister.

It takes absolutely everything from you. But I'm so thankful for that because this is the kind of accountability. You say, so how does it work with you? Well, let me just be transparent with you. We have a system where every day of my life, if it's possible to be in touch via phone, we talk to one another.

And if you live in Canada, there is a way that for $19 .95, Janice can phone me in 72 countries in the world and she can talk to me for a thousand minutes. And I can tell you she used every one of those minutes.

And so when I travel to a country, I said, OK, my darling, I said, we have 20 minutes a day. And when we talk to each other and we pray with one another. And this morning when I talked to her, she said, so what's it like?

I said, well, I'm staying in this little trailer that belongs to some Australians. And I said, you know, it's not the biggest of all. I said, if you're with me, we can't take to one another too far around because we bump into one another at night.

And so that's what we do. And we pray for one another. I trust you not that you pray with your wife. You know, I don't always find it easy to pray with Janice. You say, why? Because she knows me so well, you know.

And God brings opposites together, you know. I'm a morning person. My wife, Janice, she's an evening person. And so if I would wake her up at 7 o 'clock in the morning and say, you know, come and watch the sunrise with me, she will turn to me and she'll say, Daddy, if God wants me to see it at 7 in the morning, he will schedule it much later.

She's not a morning person. But I am. And so, you know, I want to be in bed at 10 because I need six hours sleep. If I get in bed at 10, then I can be up at 4 o 'clock in the morning. But Janice and Monica are evening people.

And so in the evenings, you know, when they come sometimes to try and pray with me at 10 .30 at night, I'm just at it. But some time ago they came and prayed with me and I was just half dead and I was so tired.

And I said, so let's pray together. And before I knew what I did, I said, Lord Jesus, thank you for this food that is in front of us. And they just shook me and said, that is no food. And I said, man, you know, I'm so tired, I can't keep my eyes open.

But you know, we need to pray together. I once stayed in a house and it was great playing with the children. And I turned to the little boy and I said to him, is your daddy a Christian? Oh, yes, my daddy is a Christian.

And I said, how do you know that your daddy is a Christian? You know what he said? He said, my daddy prays with me on the carpet and he said, my daddy plays with me on the carpet. He said, that's how I know that my daddy is a Christian.

And so the little girl was around and I said to her, so is your mommy a Christian? Oh, yes, she said, my mommy is a Christian. I said, how do you know that your mommy is a Christian? You know what she said to me?

I know that my mommy is a Christian because when she makes a mistake, she comes and tells me she's sorry. You know, these children, you know, they could be fools, but they're not stupid. I know they know exactly what is going on.

So I trust you. You know, I don't have time to tell you tonight, maybe tomorrow at some point, but twice a year I'm in the most amazing circumstances in North America. You say, what happened? I find myself amongst about 2000 people that have come to Christ after the Old Order Amish.

You know, those people in North America that go in those horses and buggies, the Amish and the Mennonites and the Hagarites, and twice a year I find myself amongst those people. And these people are unbelievable when it comes to the Christian family and the commitment to our children and to pray for our children.

And so what we want you to do tonight, make sure you take some of these sheets. And even I sometimes do it with my family. I sometimes do it on my own. And when I meet these men, so I meet the four men who are theologians, four of them are deeply spiritual men with great prayer lives.

And then I meet the four men who are in the medical field. You say, what are they? They are doctors. They've met with God in meetings that we have had. And Dennis often said to me, well, I guess they are helping you to keep your mind straightened out.

I said, no, they just want to make sure that you don't burn yourself out. You know, God doesn't want us to burn out, brother and sister. God wants us to burn on in our relationships with him. And we have a responsibility towards our bodies because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.

And if you kill the horse, you can't get to the next point. And so we need to be accountable on what we do. So I want to encourage you. You're going to put this at the back of the table. And tonight when you go home, please make sure that you take one of these sheets.

The Call to Corporate Prayer

I want to remind you of tomorrow as we are going to contemplate the next two days exploring the subject of prayer. And it's going to be wonderful. And then let me just mention to you, if you are interested, it will be good for us to know if you are going to come or if you are able to come to those sessions next Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening at Southwest Baptist Church.

Because what we are doing in the mornings, if you have an interest in prayer, we are going to go into some very deep aspects of what the Bible is saying to us about prayer. And so we meet from 10 o 'clock to 12.

I'm going to take about an hour to speak to you. And then we spend an hour or so in prayer together. And then in the evenings, of course, we will deal with different subjects. So if you are in the Adelaide area or you're not too far away, we would love to have you part of those gatherings.

We're going to spend some time in prayer together this evening again, as we have done. Now, maybe some of you, when we say that we break up in groups and we pray, maybe you feel threatened and you say, you know, Gerard, this is not something that I'm used to.

And when I would say, if there's something that you have in your heart to share, if it's a family member or if it's a burden that you are carrying, if you don't have a sense in your heart to feel, I want to share that because it's so personal and so private.

We want to respect and we want to appreciate that. But I want to tell you, it's a wonderful thing for us to pray together. That's why the Bible is saying to us, we're two or three are gathered together in my name.

There am I in the midst of them. That's why we read in the fourth chapter of the book of Acts, when those early disciples came together after the day of Pentecost and they were full to the spirit of God on Pentecost.

And then 3000 people came to Christ. And in Acts chapter three, there was terrible opposition. So why did the opposition came? Well, you remember Peter and John, the apostles went up to the temple at the hour of prayer and the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

And so as they came to the temple, nine o 'clock in the morning, it was there was a man sitting at the gate to the temple. It was lame. And the Bible says he was asking for alms. Dr. Graham Scoggy in his commentary said he wasn't in need of alms, he was in need of alms.

But he sat there and he wanted money. And you remember what Peter and John said to him, they turned to him and they made this staggering statement. Every time when I see that statement, it breaks my heart because he turned to them.

They turned to him and they said to him, look upon us. It's an amazing thing, you know, look upon us. And so the man looked upon them, expecting to receive something from them. And they turned to him and they said to him, Sovereign God have we none, but such as we have in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

You know what's our problem today? We are able to say, Sovereign God we have, but we are not able to say in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk. And you remember how God touched this man and he was miraculously healed.

And an unbelievable opposition came upon the early church. And they were trying to do everything to stop the preaching of the gospel of Christ. And just they threatened those early disciples. And when they were threatening him, what did those early disciples do?

The Bible says in Acts chapter 4 that they went to the same place where God met with him. So you say, Gerard, where did they go to? They went up into the upper room. What was the upper room? It was the place where the Spirit of God was poured out on the day of Pentecost.

What kind of a place was it? It was the house of Mary, the mother of Mark, who wrote the gospel of Mark. And so they went back to the place where God met with him. Secondly, they went back to the word of God.

And as they were praying, all they did was quoting the scriptures. And brother and sister, when they got those two things, when they went back to the place where God met with him, when they stood upon the word of God and they prayed and they said to the Lord, Lord, behold their threatenings, they were threatening those early disciples.

And they said, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that they may speak your word with boldness. And the Bible says, as they prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were all full to the Holy Spirit of God.

And they spoke the word of God with boldness. They prayed together. Do you remember in the Acts, in the 12th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, Peter was thrown in prison. And so while he was in prison, what did those early disciples do?

They came together for prayer. And this is what the scriptures is saying to us. And prayer was fervently made for the apostle Peter while he was in prison. And brother and sister, as they were praying, it's amazing passage from the New Testament because Peter was in prison.

He was in chains. And as they were praying, the angel of the Lord came, God came to Peter. And what happened? The chains fell off and you come across the first remote control in the scriptures. You see what happened?

The Bible says the gates open of their own accord. You know, when God gave us our house, one of the things that we got with our house, when Janice and myself stepped out into faith, was a garage door opener.

And, you know, I sit there day after day playing with this thing. And I said, you know, and she said, what are you doing? I said, this is in the Bible. And she said, what do you mean? I said, you remember Peter was in prison and the Bible says the gate open of their own accord.

Isn't that wonderful? Brother and sister, you said, where was the button? The button was in heaven. It was high. It was fast and it was powerful. And the gates open. And you know what the Bible says? God is amazing.

The Bible says when Peter came to himself, you wonder where he has been all this time when Peter came to himself. And so what did he do? He went to the place where those early disciples were praying. And brother and sister, you know, sometimes we pray and God answers prayer and we pray right past the answer, right past the answer.

You say, why do you say that? The Bible says when Peter was praying or rather when the early disciples were praying, Peter came and he knocked at the door. And as he was knocking at the door, this young girl with the name of Rhoda came and she she opened the door and as she opened it, she didn't open the door.

She opened a little latchet, as it were, and saw Peter and she ran back. Can you imagine? Yes, Peter is coming out being released. And you don't know these guys are after him again, you know, and they wouldn't let him in.

And she ran and she said, Peter is at the door. You know what they said to her? I wish I could read you the Greek New Testament. They said to her, you're totally off your mind. It's exactly what they said to her.

You see what happened? They were praying for the release of the apostle Peter. And yet, brother and sister, when he was standing at the door, they didn't believe it. And, you know, sometimes and I'm looking forward to us to explore prayer.

Sometimes we pray right past the answer. And there are ways for us to discern when we have prayed through. When the witness of the Spirit of God comes, I touch the throne of God. Now I need to begin to thank God for what he's going to do.

And you know what happens sometimes? God answers prayer and the answer is delayed. He's answered the prayer, but the answer is delayed. And, you know, she said, why does it happen? There's numerous passages of scripture that we're going to explore as we relate to these 12 aspects of New Testament prayer.

But when the answer is delayed, there's something that God needs to do for us, you know, because he can't entrust unto us the greatness of the answer of prayer. So we're going to spend some time in prayer together.

You know, when I went out into ministry for the first time after a year, I came back to the school where I studied theology. And they gave me a group of students to take into the land of Namibia. And I said to them, if you're going to work with me, there were eight students.

I said, one thing you need to know is that we're going to spend extended times in prayer. And I said, if anything is going to happen, it's going to come through prayer. And so those students were with me for three weeks.

And every morning we spent about three, four hours in prayer and every afternoon about two or three hours. And often I had half nights of prayer. And we were doing evangelistic services. And when they went back to the college, the president of the school met with those eight students and he said to them, what was it like to work with Gerard?

And how did you find it? Every single one of them said, he prayed us to death. I thought, well, that's great. You know, at least they can say we spend time. So this is maybe after this we're going to say, you know, we prayed ourselves to death.

But this is what I want us to do. I want us to spend time in prayer. So, Brethren and Sisters, find three or four or five people and find people that you haven't prayed with already. If you want to come and you say, no, I don't want to pray with you, I've prayed with you already, no, I don't mean that.

Find three or four people that you haven't prayed with. Turn around. You can ask Him how I can pray and we're going to spend some time. We've had some great times today as it relates to prayer. We're going to do the same now.

So can we do that? Turn around and find three or four or five people, please. Our Heavenly Father, we want to thank You so deeply tonight for these wonderful times that we have been able to spend in Your presence today.

And Father, it's so precious for us to recognize that when we pray together like this, that there is a sense of unity. We're sharing the burden of one another. And we were reminded again today that six times the Apostle Paul said to us, Brethren, pray for us, pray for one another.

And what a tremendous encouragement to know this evening that the God that we are serving is a prayer answering God. Father, that prayer is initiated by You, that You are the one that creates in our hearts a desire and a hunger and a thirst after the things of God.

And we want to thank You this evening for ways that You have answered prayer today. And Lord, we know that we in these days with this Easter convention, that there are many of us that somehow we have not seen our way open to be campers.

And some of us, we are nearby and we are able to drive in and out to be at these gatherings. And yet, our God and Father, we want to pray that You will not allow us to miss anything that You have in store for us as we gather these days together.

We thank You for the blessing of Your presence. We thank You that maybe some of us, we have never prayed so much as we have prayed today. And yet, our God and our Father, we have not even scratched the surface.

And You have given us another day tomorrow, which is Saturday. And then You have given us a full day on Sunday. And Father, we have, if we tarry till Monday morning, that after this evening do we have six marvelous opportunities.

Not just to be exposed only to the work of God and the wonders of Scripture, but that we can be exposed to the need of one another. And Father, it is the burden of my heart that somehow in these days as we spend these extended times and lingering in the greatness of the presence of God, that You will help us to cultivate a life of prayer.

That You will help us to cultivate a spirit of prayer in our relationships with You. And that in our relationships with our wives and our husbands and our children and those of us who are single, God that You will bring into us this sense of unity.

That as families we will pray together and we will seek the face of God and we will wait in Your presence. And the church will be looked upon as a house of prayer. And Father, the only way that we are going to see God pouring out His Spirit in this Adelaide Valley and this community of Adelaide upon the churches is when we come together to pray and we come together to seek the face of God.

And we confess tonight again, Father, in Your presence that there is nothing spectacular about prayer. That no one is going to come to us and pat us on our backs and say, Isn't it wonderful that God has given you a life in the ministry of intercessory prayer and that you spend these extended times.

Lord, they simply are not going to know about it. Because You are going to wake us up in the middle of the night and 1 or 2 or 3 o 'clock in the morning and suddenly the burden of God is going to settle upon our relationships with God and we will experience that sense of the spirit of prayer and ours will become like minutes as we prevail and agonize and persevere under the greatness of the burden of God.

And Father, this is why we have come together. And Lord, we ask that You will create in us a hunger and a thirst after You. That our hearts will become so thirsty for us to be able to learn the greatness of the language of prayer.

Just as we bow in our little groups, my brother and sister, I just want us to have one more little segment of prayer. And this is what I want you to do. I want you to pray for your own relationship with God.

That somehow that which God has planned these days in your heart, oh, that you will not miss it. And secondly, I want you to pray for some of your family members, people that you know tonight that do not know Christ.

And then thirdly, I just want us to pray for visitors who are going to come on Saturday to be with us. We don't want these people to walk in as strangers because they bring with them an atmosphere of their own.

But we want them to come into this sense of a sense of prayer and an expectation. So why don't we just take one more little segment and just in our little groups, just one after the other, we spend some time in prayer.

Let's do it right now. Heavenly Father, we want to thank You again this evening that for many of us, this has been a long day. And yet we can testify to the greatness of kinds of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.

We thank You that as we ponder upon Your Word and allow Your Word to become part of our relationships with You, that somehow, Lord, when You allow us to saturate Your Word in the place of prayer and allow us to prepare our hearts for the seed of God's Word, that somehow it falls onto fertile ground and the Spirit of God is able to fertilize the seed of God's Word so that it will be able to bring forth the manifestation of Your Word in our lives.

And Father, we are so grateful that over this Easter weekend, that this is not just an Easter weekend, but this is a prayer weekend for many of us when we learn to spend time with God in more deeper ways and we learn to climb underneath Your burden and we learn to what it means to prevail within the greatness of the presence of God.

And yet, Father, we are just touching the tip of the iceberg and we are scratching the surface because there is so much in Your Word. And as we read the life stories of men and women that are snow in the secret of what it means to really pray through, and men and women who have sought the face of God for revival, and men and women that have prayed people through to God and saw them gloriously being saved, do we confess tonight, Father, in Your presence that we have no understanding of the depth of what the agony of prayer, Lord, is all about.

And yet, we are at Thy disposal and we want You to teach us how to pray. And we want You to work in our hearts. And Father, the greatest blessing that You can bestow upon the inadequacy and the insignificance of my own simple relationship with You over this weekend is that we would go away on a Monday morning or lunchtime by Monday and we will become different men and women because God has poured into our hearts the reality of a life of prayer.

And in the days to come, we will be able to seek You in the way that we have never sought You before. Father, we thank You this evening that this life of prayer can become one of the most sweetest, one of the most encouraging, and one of the most blessed experiences in our walks as Christians.

And Father, it's the burden of my heart that somehow here in Australia, over these days that we will be together and next week as we spend those four days in Southwest Baptist, that somehow that God, the Holy Spirit, will take us into this life of intercessory prayer and that we will become great men and women who will know the secret of what it means to touch the throne of God as it relates to prayer.

Now, Father, many of us, we feel the face of today. And I pray that in the closing moments of this evening, as we just take a few minutes to ponder upon Your Word, just give us the freshness, mentally and emotionally and physically, but most of all, give us the keen spiritual sensitivity to be able to grasp the wonders of what Your Word is about.

And Father, I pray that we would be like those disciples on the way to Emmaus, that when You have spoken to them, the Law and the Prophets and the Writings, that when You departed after their presence, that they turned to one another and they made this marvelous statement and said, Did not our hearts burn within us when He spoke to us on the way?

And our God and our Father, we pray this evening, give us the burning heart. And if You want to wake us up in the middle of the night or two or three or four o 'clock tomorrow morning and bring to us this reality of the burden of God, then we want to ask You that You will just help us to submit to it so that we would become men and women of prayer.

Father, we long for an outpouring of Your Spirit in the Revival in the Adelaide Valley, but You need to begin it in our lives as we wait upon You. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Thank you so much. I want you to turn around with your chair, if you will, and I want you to open your Bible.

Christ’s Private Ministry in John 14–17

And our time is gone. I'm just going to take about 15 or 20 minutes of your time, if you would allow us to do that. So, open your Bible, if you will, again at John 14, 15 and 16. We're not going to read those passages, but I'm simply going to quote them to you, because this afternoon we began to spend time in what we would refer to as the private ministry of the Lord Jesus from John 14 to John 16.

Now, I want to encourage you tonight, you know, if somehow you have developed the ability in your relationship with God to be able to memorize Scripture. And it's one of the greatest encouragements when you and I memorize God's Word, and it becomes part of your life.

You know, one of the greatest blessings of my own relationship with God since the beginning of this year has been just to allow God, as you spend time with Him, to allow God to let you pray through the Scriptures.

And one of the most wonderful things in my own times alone with God is that when I go into expressions and we get involved in these aspects of prayer, which one of them is what we would refer to as routine praying, when you pray about the same things every day, that God will bring Scriptures to my heart and to my mind.

And I would just allow those Scriptures to come and just wash through my life and pray through the Word of God, and so let God's Word be able to become part of your life. But if you have learned the secret of memorizing Scripture and the consistent repetition of what that is all about, and you come to the Gospel of John, there are a number of chapters that you will be blessed by, is to memorize John's chapter 14, 15, 16, and 17.

And so those chapters are dealing with what we would refer to as the private ministry of the Lord Jesus. You see, my brothers and sisters, what has happened in those chapters is that Christ turned away from this world.

And for a period from what we can gather in the New Testament of approximately something like maybe 48 hours, do we see the Lord Jesus moving from one place to the other as He was opening His heart to those early disciples?

Now, why was He doing that? He was preparing them for the coming of God the Holy Spirit. Because the Bible says the Spirit has not yet come because Christ was not yet glorified. And so what He was doing, He was dealing with a work of preparation.

Now, one of the most fascinating studies in the Scriptures is that if you study those passages, or rather those chapters, and you go to the Acts of the Apostles, you will discover that whatever happened in the Acts of the Apostles, that the basis of what took place in the book of Acts was found in John chapter 14 to 16.

In this preparation ground for Christ, for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Now, we have been focusing, not on all those other passages in those chapters, but we have been focusing on that which the Lord Jesus said about the Holy Spirit.

Because He was referring to the Holy Spirit of God as a person. And when He referred to the Holy Spirit of God, this is what He said to the early disciples. He said, it is to your advantage that I go away.

Because He said, if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit cannot come to you. But He said, when the Holy Spirit will come, He said, you will do greater things than Me. Why did He say that? Because He was speaking of the omnipresence of the Spirit of God.

You know, it is a wonderful thing this evening, tonight we are meeting here in Australia. Brother and sister, if I can take you to the land of China, where in the underground church in the last 12 months, they are telling us that something like 680 ,000 people have come to Christ.

Just in the underground church in China. And so, the Spirit of God is omnipresent. If you and I are praying for people in Eastern Europe, as we are praying, God is in the process of answering our prayers.

And when Jesus turned to those early disciples and He said to them, you will do greater things than Me. He was speaking not just about the ministry of prayer, but He was speaking about the ministry of the Spirit of God.

So, what did He say about the Holy Spirit? He mentioned a number of things about the Spirit of God, and I am just going to touch on those things in closing this evening. He said to those early disciples, when My Spirit comes, He said, My Spirit will be with you, and He said, My Spirit will be in you.

He said to those early disciples, when My Spirit comes, He said, My Spirit shall testify of Me. He said, when My Spirit comes, He said, My Spirit will become your teacher. He said, when My Spirit comes, My Spirit will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.