(The Sermon on the Mount and Prayer - Session 1) - Part 6 — Gerhard Du Toit

Faith's Unnamed Heroes and God's Unashamed People

It's what we read about in Hebrews chapter 11, that when He speaks about the heroes of faith, and they spoke about those that we don't know their names, but we can guess in the Old Testament and say, maybe they were speaking about Isaiah.

Maybe they were speaking about the prophets. And they said, God was not ashamed to be called their God. And some of those people were sawn asunder. And that same word in the New Testament, they were cut to the heart.

Let me ask you a question tonight as a Christian. My brother and my sister, we carry with us a fragrance, you know. It's a fragrance in the Christian life. You remember what Paul said about this fragrance?

He said to some, it was the fragrance of life. And he said to others, it became the fragrance of death. Can I ask you tonight, if someone asks myself this question, because you see, we need to live a Christian life, brother and sister, that is intoxicated with the presence of God.

A Christian Life That Demands a Supernatural Explanation

We need to live a Christian life that demands a supernatural explanation. It's not the words that we say. It's not what we do for God. It's who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it cuts into the hearts and into the lives of men and women.

Conviction, Sanctification, and Reconciliation in the Church Service

I was speaking in a church some time ago. And the Sunday morning, that morning service, the Spirit of God broke into that service in the most very precious and wonderful way. I don't know how we can survive the Christian life and ministry if there are not times when God breaks into our hearts.

Listen, brothers, you cannot become a great leader unless you have become a great follower. And the effectiveness or the secret of our effectiveness in the presence of God is always being determined by the last fresh encounter I have with the Lord Jesus Christ.

There came a Sunday morning and God broke that Sunday morning into that service in the most wonderful way in this little church in Western Canada. There was a man that Sunday morning that came under tremendous conviction of sin.

I did not know what was going on in all of the hearts of the people. There were people at the altar of his church, and when the service was over, people met with God, and God sanctified them and filled them with the Holy Spirit.

And there were things, and people reconciled with one another, and they put things right between them and God and other Christians. And I got into my vehicle, and I was driving back to the motel where I was staying, and as I was driving back to the motel, there was a man in front of me with a little truck.

Great Leaders Must First Become Great Followers

And as I was coming down the road, he was in front of me, and he was very disorientated. And so I look at this man, and the truck was doing this, and he came to the stop sign, and he jumped on the brakes of this little truck, and then he just put his foot down on the accelerator, and he went flying, and the carrying on, and I followed him, and I said to myself, there's something wrong with that man.

And so I came to the next stop sign, and he was erratic, and he was uncontrolled, and I thought, is he drunk? Is he on drugs? What is it? What's going on with him? And he followed, and then he turned to the right, and I was supposed to turn to the left, but for one reason I was so captured by this, I found myself taking the wrong road, and I turned to the right.

And so I was following him, and suddenly he stopped. And there was a dirt road, and he just turned into this dirt road, and he went flying down this dirt road with his little truck. So I kept driving, and God began to speak to me, and said, you need to speak to this man.

And so I kept driving, and then I turned around, and I thought, well, maybe, you know, there's something wrong, maybe he's on drugs, maybe he's in a terrible state, and I thought, what's wrong? And I came back, and I was coming back, I drove past again, and he sat there in the field, just behind the steering wheel of his little truck, and God spoke to him again, and said, I want you to go and speak to this man, and I turned around, and I came, and I parked behind him, and he was just sitting like this behind his steering wheel.

Tears were streaming down his cheeks. I knocked on the door, and I didn't know if he had a gun, or what he was going to do. And I knocked on the window of this little vehicle, and he looked at me, and he turned the window down, and I said, what's wrong?

You know what he said? I just came out of the meeting where you preached. I said, what is it? He said, I'm under the conviction of sin. And I led him to Christ.