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9296--Tom Marshall--The land_128k
00:00:00 Speaker: Following message was given at the Arama Christian Fellowship Convention on Great Barrier Island in January nineteen eighty three. I'd like to turn in your Bibles tonight to the twelfth chapter of the Book of Genesis. Genesis chapter twelve. Now the Lord said to Abraham, go forth from your country and from your relatives, and from your father's house to the land which I will show you. And I'll make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This is the genesis of what is known in the Old Testament as the promise, or the covenant, or the blessing that found its fulfillment in the revelation of the kingdom that we've been speaking about here in this conference. And the blessing, the promise to Abraham consisted, you will notice of three components. God promised Abraham three things. He promised him a land. He promised him a seed, and he promised him a universal blessing. He said, leave what you know and I'll bring you to a land. He said, in your seed shall all families of the earth be blessed, a land, a seed, and a universal blessing? The land was a staging post towards the world. Paul tells us in Romans that Abraham was the heir of the world before Abraham could inherit the world, he had to inherit the land. The land was a setting for the kingdom you find in Second Samuel, chapter seven. A very important passage regarding the kingdom. The land is a setting for the kingdom. Now we know from the New Testament the significance of the seed that the promise speaks about. In your seed shall all families of the earth be blessed? Paul tells us the seed wasn't Isaac, the seed was Christ. And way back there God pointed towards the seed who would ultimately come, the seed of the woman who would be a blessing to the whole of the human race. We know what the universal blessing is. Paul tells us in Galatians chapter three. In actual fact, the universal blessing is the baptism in the Holy Spirit that the Gentiles might receive the Spirit of God by faith. That's the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that they might receive the spirit by faith. The universal blessing is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all mankind. Question. What is the land? It's one s. One feature of the promise that seems to have been neglected in our exposition of God's gift to Abraham. And yet there were three things there. There was a land, a seed, and a universal blessing. And I want to speak for a little while tonight about the land, because the land was tremendously important as far as the patriarchs were concerned. When they were in the land, God blessed them. When they were out of the land, they got into all sorts of trouble. In fact, as far as the Jews was concerned, history didn't run while Israel was out of the land. One of the difficulties in working out a chronology of the Old Testament stems from that fact that it almost seems as though even time didn't count when Israel was in captivity. Only when Israel was in the land were they the Israel of God. The land was a tremendously important thing. What is the New Testament Estimate significance of the land as far as the promise to Abraham is concerned. I believe the land, in terms of the New covenant refers to three specific things, and I want to deal with each of these quite briefly tonight, but I really would like to lay them in your heart to ponder on and reflect on. They consist of a macro truth. If you get hold of what God is saying concerning the land, it'll give you a totally new perspective into so many things, right? I believe the land in the in the scripture refers to these three things. First of all, it refers to the truth of God, the promises of God. Land was always linked with promise to such an extent that it eventually it became known as the land of promise land and promise land and truth always went together. And the land in Scripture refers to the revelation of the truth of God for God's people. I'd like you to turn to a very important chapter in this connection in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter forty nine. And we haven't got time to go through all this chapter. But again, it's a chapter that I'd like you to read while you're here and reflect on, because I believe it contains much of the understanding of what God is doing in our day and our generation. But I just want you to turn down to verse eight of Isaiah chapter forty nine. Thus saith the Lord in a favorable time I've answered you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you, and I'll keep you and give you for a covenant of the people. Listen to restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages. The Church of God has lost so much land. They've lost so much of the inheritance. That is their right. And we are living in these marvelous days of restoration, when God is restoring the desolate land and making the Church of God inherit truth of its this last verse nine, saying to those who are bound, go forth to those who are in darkness. Show yourself along the roads they will feed on their pasture will be on all bare heights. They will not hunger nor thirst. Neither will the scorching heat or sun strike them. For he who has compassion on them will lead them, and will guide them to springs of water. And I'll make all my mountains a road, and my highways will be raised up. We are living in a day when God is restoring truth, and in all sections of the Christian church there has been precious deposits of truth that have been lost to all except those in that particular, uh, inheritance. But in these days, God is bringing it all back. I can remember coming across a book some years ago called The Philokalia. It's a book of the writings of the fathers of the Greek Orthodox Church. And I discovered those old saints. They knew the gifts of the Holy Ghost. They knew the outpouring of the Spirit of God. It's a marvelous book that I fed on for years as all that truth been lost in that stream of the Christian church. But God is restoring it all back. And we're living in these marvelous days of restoration. In Isaiah forty nine. If you go on a bit, you'll find from verse fourteen, God starts to talk about Zion, about the church. Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me. It's not that the Lord has forgotten and forsaken Zion. Zion is forgotten and forsaken the Lord. Can a woman forget her nursing child? And I have no compassion on the son of her womb. Even these may forget, said God, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. It's almost as though Zion, the Church of God, is so precious that design is so important, the heart of God that the plan is on his hands. And it's there, and he looks at all the time. That's what I'm planning on the church. That's the pattern of what I'm producing in the church. Verse seventeen, your builders hurry, your destroyers and devastators will depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around. All of them gather together. They come to you as I live, declares the Lord. You shall surely put on all of them as jewels, and bind them on as a bride. The way, the church way God sees the church is very different from the way you and I see the church. Paul tells us in Ephesians, the church is the ultimate wisdom of God. When we see what God finally does with the church, listen, we will see that not even God could have conceived of something more wonderful, and not even God could have done it in a more wonderful way. The church is the ultimate wisdom of God. Now, it takes faith to believe that because when we look at the church, we were talking about it today and all the division and all the, the pettiness and and so on, you could despair over the church, but God says it's a bride. A bride adorned for a bridegroom. Then there's this passage here, verse nineteen, for your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land. Surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you will be far away, and children of whom you are bereaved will yet say in your ears, the place is too cramped for me. Make room for me that I may live here. When I come to conventions like this, I look around and I see so few who have a hairstyle like my own. You know, so few relatively of my generation. And I realize that in the church today in New Zealand, we're almost at the changeover of the generations. By and large. My generation, I fear, has missed the full purposes of God. It grieves me to admit it, but I believe it's so. Not everybody. There have been Calebs and Joshua's. Praise God for them. But by and large, I believe my generation have missed the full purposes of God. And today I'm looking for another generation. I'm looking for another generation to rise up. This generation that Isaiah speaks about here, who will come to the restored land, to the recovered truth, to the to the, the reinstituted heritages? Who will enter into that and who will say, this is not enough? This is too cramped for us. I love to preach to young people. Listen, I will tell you everything I know in God it's yours for free. I will share with you all I understand all I've ever discovered of the truth of God. On one condition. On one condition. That you begin there. That you start there. It will be tragic if. When you're my age, all you know about God is what I know. Listen, you need to build on what has been recovered. That's foundation. That's not the end. God has got much, much more to reveal. And I believe God wants to raise up a generation, a new generation that will enter into what has been restored and say, that's good for starters, but God, show us some more. Lord, reveal new truths. This is too cramped. Marvelous. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, marvelous healing, marvelous deliverance, all the rest of it. Marvelous. But that's not enough. We want more. All that God in this convention might put that kind of hunger in your heart for new things in God. That generation is coming. That's going to enter in or to all that's been recovered and is going to begin their beloved. That's what is on the heart of God concerning the land. Look, there's far more in this book than has ever been dreamed in the heart of man. Paul sits down and he dashes off a quick letter to Corinthians. Because they're making such a mess of things. For two thousand years, people have been filling libraries with what Paul said in that letter. I sometimes think of Paul up there scratching his head when the latest commentary comes out and said, I think of that. Did I dream about that? I believe he wrote more than he knew. Of course, he was inspired by the Spirit of God. He wasn't just speaking into Corinth. He's speaking to every church in every generation until Jesus comes again. And we're barely scratching the surface of the revelation that's here. And listen, the whole word of God, the whole word of God is not even locked up here. The whole Word of God is the logos, the eternal living Christ, who is an infinite person. And we will never, ever discover all the truth that is in him or that God. Young people and older people too. I've got a hunger in my heart for new things. When God shows me something new, I grab for it. I say, God, I'm running out of time. Show me quick I want to know more. Or that God will put that kind of hunger, that urgency, that eagerness in your heart to reach out for more. That's the land. It's a marvelous land. The land of God's truth. So big, so vast. There's room for you to spend all your life discovering new things. Mind you, don't throw away the things that you already know. That's foolishness. You've got to climb up a ladder. And every rung you get, you say, well, I don't need the one below. Kick that out. You know how far up you get before things start to fold up on you. We'll never get past the cross of Jesus. We'll never get beyond the blood of Christ. We'll never get past the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We're all beloved in God. There's much, much more. There is much, much more. And I believe God is raising up. God is raising up a generation that's going to realize that it's going to start where we are now, and going to enter into truth that we've never even dreamed of. The Bible says eye has not seen nor ear heard. Neither has entered the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed those things to us by His spirit. All right. The second thing that land refers to in the Bible land refers to lifestyle. Land and lifestyle always went together because the land belonged to God. Israel knew that a particular lifestyle went with life in the land. That's why when Israel sinned, the prophets used to say to Israel, look, you've polluted the land, your idolatry and your adultery and your iniquity. They've defiled the land because the land was holy, because it belonged to a holy God. Therefore a particular lifestyle went with the land. And beloved, one of the things that God wants to impart, impress, stamp on us today is that sense that we live in the land. Therefore, a particular lifestyle goes with life in the land. Peter tells us in his epistle that we are a holy nation. We were singing one of the songs. We are God's movable treasure. That's what the words mean. We are God's chosen possession and we are a holy nation. Do you know what a nation is? Do you know what nationhood is? A nation is a group of people who are numerous enough and have enough in common to have their own ethos, their own lifestyle, their own culture, their own way of doing things. If you go to a foreign land, they have a different way of speaking, a different way of relating. And if you. They even have different ways of using our English language. I can remember a friend of mine went to America to do part of his training during the war, and he was invited out by very gracious American couple who entertained him and made him feel very much at home. So when he was going out, he said to his host, you know, your wife is so homely. And he wondered why he got a frosty stare. See intentionally, his heart was right. But homely to America means you're very, very plain. He meant to make you feel at home. You see, like any sensible Kiwi, that's a nation has its own way of doing things. Listen, beloved, we are God's holy nation. We are not like the world out there at all. We are different. We ought to have different stamped all over us. We have a different way of relating. We have a different value system. We have a different culture than the world out there, and it ought to be manifest. And I believe what God wants to do in the kingdom is to bring to birth that kingdom lifestyle. The first name for the church wasn't the church. The first name. The church wasn't even Christian Center. It wasn't even fellowship. The first name for the church was the way. The way there was a distinctive way of living. If you were a Christian, that everybody knew a different lifestyle, land and lifestyle go together. And beloved, what God wants to do. I believe in our communities in terms of the kingdom is demonstrate a lifestyle. As I said the other night, devil doesn't mind if you get saved too much. He doesn't mind if you get healed. He doesn't mind if you live a holy life. He doesn't mind if you eventually go off to heaven out of his reach, as long as as long as you just do it on your own. And beloved, that's part of our problem in the church today. In the days of the early church, they faced a society with a society. That's why they turned the whole world upside down. They faced a lifestyle with a lifestyle. They faced a Roman empire out there with a kingdom and the Kingdom of Christ. Of course, it overcame the kingdom of Caesar. Then we face a society out there with a bunch of individuals, and we wonder why we have so many casualties. I think Christians in the community like a mirror that's got shattered. And there's slivers of glass all over the place, and there are flickers of light. People say he's different. She doesn't live like everybody else. There's something odd about him, something different here. But nothing is focused. People can't see any focus. Listen, beloved, there are thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people in New Zealand totally discontented with their lifestyle. But they cannot see a viable alternative. That's the tragedy. There's not presented to them a total lifestyle that says this is an option. You don't need to live like that. You can live like this. Beloved, that's the land. That's the kingdom and God wants to bring to birth. Bring to pass amongst us that corporate expression of his life where suddenly something's focused and people can see, well, I can abandon all that, and I can take over all this, and I can live in that kind of lifestyle. They may accept it or reject it, but they know there's an alternative there. So many people today don't think there is any alternative. They are trapped, but they can't see any way out. And it's not enough to preach a gospel that consists of getting your sins forgiven. That's not enough. See? Land and lifestyle. The third thing that land refers to in the promise it refers. We've seen to the truth of God. It refers to a lifestyle. The third thing it refers to is land, i.e. dirt, real estate, property, geographical locations. Israel knew that the land never belonged to them. It was always God's land. Therefore, a Jew could not alienate his possessions. And if he did well, at the end of fifty years, a year of jubilee, the land came back to its rightful owner. He knew that all the land belonged to God. It was God's land. It was his land, and Israel was there by their covenantal relationship with him. I asked this morning in this community, this, uh, conference here, how many of you are were born in the towns or the communities you presently live in? Hardly anybody. I remember being at Bible Chapel, uh, a year or so ago at their opening, and there were perhaps four hundred people there. I said, how many people here were born into into attitude? There were two. Two out of four hundred people there would actually be born in that place. Beloved, God wants to give us a burden for our communities. God wants to give us an understanding that we are committed to take back that community for Christ. I want to share something with you. Up until the Christmas before last, I never, ever had a burden for New Zealand. I now realise I was actually born in Scotland. I came out here when I was four, under five years old and years of age, and I grew up in this country. I never, ever had a sense of being a New Zealander. So believe it or not, when the All Blacks got beaten, I never have ever shed a tear. I really haven't. Sometimes I've laughed. I've never, ever had a burden for New Zealand Christmas before last, or might have been the one before that. I wasn't here. I was over at a conference in Brisbane and I was singing a song, a song for Australia. I asked for Australia. I call her by name. I lift her to the father in Jesus name. And I realised I'd never, I could never sing that song about. I discovered, actually, that the song was written in Israel. The Australians typically had pinched it so so so I pinched it and brought it back here. And last conference we sang it and Alan Langstaff pinched it, and he's taken it off to America one morning in that tent. God did something in my heart. I got born in New Zealander For the first time in my life, I was burdened for our nation. For the first time in life, I could say it's my nation. I could weep for New Zealand. I could do it now. I've got a burden on my heart for this land. Up until then, I was separated from it. You see, now we're such a moveable people that it's very difficult for us to put our roots down in the community where we live. And the only permanent resident that ends up by being there is the devil. So Christians come and go, and we move in and out of a community, and we never make any positive dent in it because we've never, ever had a burden for it. God's after the land, God's after those geographical areas in which you live. They actually belong to him. They do not belong to the devil at all. And he's set on getting it back. When Israel crossed the Jordan and went into Canaan, the first thing that Joshua had to do was he had to marry Israel to the land. In actual fact, the name they gave, one of the names they gave to Israel, you know what it was? They called it Beulah. And Beulah means married. We sing it Beulah Land. It would actually means married. Israel got married to the land. That's why I can understand modern Israel, even that their relationship with the land is a deep, mystical, God implanted thing. That's right in the consciousness of the race. They've been out of that land for thousands of years, but still, it's their land. Every Passover, every Passover in every Jewish family up until now, always finished. Next year, Jerusalem. Next year. Jerusalem. They're in Jerusalem now. Joshua had to marry Israel to them. They had to see the value of the land. When God called Abraham out of his father's household to the land, the land was a very vague big thing. Abraham didn't really know where he was going, but when he got there, he got started to spell it out with great detail. He said one time. Abraham. Now look north and east and west. All you can see. That's all your land. Rise and walk through the length and breadth of it. From the great river of Egypt to the river of Euphrates. That's the land. God spelled it out in great detail. Abraham knew the boundaries of the land that God had promised. The land is a very specific thing. It's not a vague generality. It is a very specific area. But before we can take the land, we have to get a passion for the land. I think it's no accident that these days there are people passing through New Zealand telling fantastic stories of what the Spirit of God is doing in other lands. For example, I was hearing that the church in Korea is increasing. The Christian church in Korea is increasing four times faster than the birth rate. The Church in Korea has committed themselves by the year two thousand that in eighteen years time, they will have taken the gospel to one thousand people groups in the world today who have never heard the gospel. They've committed themselves to that. Kenwright was telling me a while back that when he was in Africa, he came across a Pentecostal denomination, African Pentecostal denomination, and the year before they had had an Easter convention, and at their Easter Convention, they had two million three hundred and seventy five thousand people. And I've been listening to these stories. Henry, out of open air campaigners travels overseas a lot. He was telling me, in the Philippines, there's a Baptist church that opens a new church once a month. They train up a young pastor he sent out. He's allowed to hold one open air. Only one and one hundred people or so they know are going to get saved at that open air meeting. That's his church. See, countries in the world today are in days of harvest. There is a fantastic harvest coming in. But what is God saying to us in New Zealand? I believe God is saying in New Zealand that the richness of this land is as great as that. What had to be impressed on Israel before they could take the land was the richness of it. When the spies went in, they came back. They said, it's flowing with milk and honey. They had this huge bunch of grapes that they'd found grapes of. It took two men to carry it on a pole. They said it's a rich land, a land that God looks on from one year's end to the other. Land of flowing, fantastic land. Beloved spiritually, this land that we live in is a fantastic land. Do you believe that it's possible that in your community, in your town, in your suburb, there could be a Bible study group in every street? Do you believe that it is possible that in your community, in your town, in your suburb, there could be a Bible study group in every street. Do you believe it's possible that time could come when every other household in your community is a Christian one? I want to tell you the land has got that potential. It really has that kind of richness. I believe that's what God is saying to us. And until we see the potential in the land, we'll never be willing to commit ourselves to recover the land. The great lack in the Church of God today is commitment to a goal. Commitment to a goal. We are an uncommitted generation. And it's not just the Christian churches everywhere. It's a day of hang loose. Don't get involved, don't get committed, don't tie yourself up. Keep free. It infects the whole of our generations. And I believe the world is ripe for a people that will rise up and commit themselves to something. W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet of a generation back, wrote a fantastic poem about the Second Coming, and two lines have struck and stuck in my head because they describe so much the society we live in today. This is what he said. He said the good lack all conviction, while the best rather lack all conviction, while the worst are full of a passionate intensity and beloved. If you look around, there is more often more passion in the promotion of evil than there is in the promotion of good. There is more commitment to the spreading of error than there is commitment to the spreading of good. There's more people willing to give their lives for nothing, for an emptiness, for a lie, for something that God condemns and God will judge. Then people are willing to spill their lifeblood for the truth of God. The world is the world we live in is wide open for somebody who's committed to something. And I believe God is calling us to be committed to his purposes, to take that land back, because it does not belong to the devil. It belongs to him M in Israel every year there was every fifty years there was a year of jubilee. And in that year of Jubilee, the land went back to its rightful owner and beloved. That land of ours, that territory. You live in that town, that village, that part of the city. It belongs to Christ. God wants to give this nation a year of jubilee. But before he can do that, there's got to be a people who wants the land. Do you want the land? Do you want the community you live in? We talk a lot these days off and on about spiritual warfare. I've done a lot of pondering in these days about what went on during the Second World War, and some of the things that have struck me have some relevance. I can look back, for example, and realize now, and I'm sure those of my generation here will remember, well, know what I'm talking about, that in those days you were locked in to the concept of war. I can remember vividly several times during that time, sitting down and trying to imagine what it'd be like to live in a world where there was no war and it was unimaginable. I really couldn't conceive of what it would be like if there was no war on. Now, at this distance, it seems ridiculous. But then it was the truth. You were locked into that kind of a mentality. Listen, beloved, if we're really going to recover this land for Christ, we've got to be locked into that kind of a thing. The war has got to take priority. What would it have been like if, when the second front was about to open, a general of one of the armies had sent a message to Eisenhower saying, look, could you put it off for a couple of weeks? And we've got this big football game coming up. And most of the guys want to go off for holidays. Is it all that important that it happens right now? You know, it's laughable even to conceive of it. But we say we committed to spiritual warfare, but we're actually does it lie in our time priorities? The other thing about the war is this we now know that the war was actually won by late nineteen forty two or early nineteen forty three, after Stalingrad and Alamein and Wake Island, midway, those battles, the war was won. There was no possibility that could ever have gone other than the way it did. The ultimate issue was settled. But listen, the continent still had to be invaded. France still had to be liberated. Italy still had to be liberated. Country by country. There had to be liberated. The islands had to be taken one after the other. As far as the war for this world is concerned, the victory has already been won. Christ has settled forever, the ultimate end upon the cross. But listen. Unless the second front had been opened, the Germans would still have been there. The Japanese would still have had the islands of the sea, even though the war was won. And although the devil knows that the battle, the war has been lost, he believes that he can postpone the end indefinitely, generation after generation after generation. And, beloved, we let him do it. We still have to set these cities and towns and nations free one by one by one. And if we don't do it, they will still remain under bondage. Lives will still be destroyed and Jesus will not come back. I said before, as far as I'm concerned, all my end time theology literally is up for grabs. I believe we have been locked in the church with much of our end time teaching into a kind of fortress mentality that says, hang on guys, it doesn't matter much what happens, because soon Jesus is coming and he'll fix it all. And I don't believe it will happen like that at all. He will not come to be king over the world until he comes to a church that recognizes kingship. in a war. You're not called on to win the whole field. Listen, you are given a specific local objective. You are sent to go and destroy that bridge. Take that house, shift people out of that place. That's your objective. And you go and do it whether you like it or not. You go and do it whether you're scared or not. You don't go and do it whether you think you can do it or not. You just have to go and do it. And beloved, I believe we have to get to grips in terms of the kingdom with that similar attitude, in terms of spiritual warfare in your church, you are not called on to win the war. Jesus has won that your church, your fellowship, your prayer group. You have a specific local objective in your area. There's a bit of territory. If you don't take it, nobody else will. If you don't take it, it'll still remain under the power of Satan. If you don't take if you don't displace the powers that are there, it'll still be a a place of darkness. No matter what happens elsewhere, nobody else will come. That's your responsibility. If we don't do it, nobody else will. When I say we, I don't mean our church. I mean the Church of God. All the Christians in that area. I've come to understand. God has given us there in that coastline a specific local objective, and we have to go and do the job. One of the things I've discovered in the Christian life is this no matter what your problems are, there's still vast areas where you can be of use to God while you're fixing up your problems. No matter if you're scared, you can still fight. Or for all the people in the war who are afraid, packed up and went home, there wouldn't be any war. If you're afraid, you can still fight in Nehemiah. Nehemiah was speaking to the people who were under pressure, under attack in Nehemiah chapter four. And he said, remember two things. And these were the two things. These are what the two things were. He said, remember, God, who is great and awesome, is for us. And he said, fight for your wives and children. In other words, remember who is for us and remember what's at stake. Beloved, when you go back to your community, when you go back to your church, you go back to the locality from which you've come. I'd like you to remember this. Remember what's at stake. The lives of those people. The recovery for Christ of land that belongs to him. And remember who is for us. I believe God is looking for people who will rise up and repossess the land. I was in, uh, in our church service a little while ago. And, uh. In the prayer meeting just before the church service started. And I was sitting in the prayer meeting, and I was thanking God for all that I'd seen him do in the lives of our people. So many people who are becoming very serious about God's purposes good people, godly people, earnest people, but somehow getting beyond the need syndrome and really getting gripped with the purpose of God. I think God is marvelous and God spoke very clearly into my heart. You know, sometimes you say, God told me. And what we really mean is, I had this neat idea, but this time it was something more than that, something clearer than that. And what God said really took me by surprise. He said this. He said, prepare for a new Pentecost. Prepare for a new Pentecost. I thought we'd had Pentecost, but God said, prepare for a new Pentecost. And I went back after that night and I thought, you know, if God is preparing for us a new Pentecost, then in the Scripture, surely the important areas is what happened between the resurrection and the Ascension, when Jesus was preparing for that first Pentecost. And I started to look. And God quickened to me four specific areas. And I want to share with them with you tonight, because I want you to see that God will begin to do something in these four areas. One was the area that we touched on the other night, the area of our relationship to the world. Jesus appeared to the disciples in the upper room, walked through the walls and said, As my father has sent me, so have I sent you. John seventeen says, we are sent into the world, and I believe one of the things that God is beginning to do and will increasingly do, will challenge us in this whole area of our one hundred hours. We're talking about the other night, our relationship to the world. Secondly, you remember how when Jesus was on the road to Emmaus, He spoke to the disciples, and he met there. And it says, he opened their eyes that they might understand the scriptures. And they said afterwards, did not our heart burn within us when he spoke to us on the way? I believe that God is going to bring a totally new discovery, a rediscovery of this word in New Zealand. There are great areas of the Charismatic Renewal that currently are in deep trouble, because they come from churches that do not have a tradition of scripture teaching, and there are many people who have come into the baptism of the Holy Spirit and an experience of the Holy Spirit, and they're running out of experience, and they don't know where to turn anymore because it's not been grounded on this word. I believe the church is going to discover again the fantastic power and glory that is in this book. I was talking to a woman in our church some years ago. We were speaking about her daughter, whose marriage was in real trouble at that time. And she said a very interesting thing. She said, of course, my daughter and her husband. Their trouble was that when they were courting, they were never apart from one another. I'm not going to preach another sermon to our young friends tonight. But she said, when I was courting Peter, it was during the war, and we never saw one another for two and a half years. And we did most of our courting by letters. And she said, I learned more about Peter from his letters than I would ever have discovered from him face to face. And when I thought about realize that's true, very often you can express your heart in a letter in a way you hesitate to do verbally or orally. But when she said that, something went off in my heart and I realized, beloved, that there is in this book, God took a long time to put this book together. It's important to realize that because what God has put in this book, he's not about to change his mind about. Remember that. But I believe there's a revelation. There is a disclosure Closure of the heart of God in this book that is more complete, more living, more relevant, more wonderful than if God in person sat down with you and I and started to try and share it in any other way. So don't underestimate or don't underestimate this fantastic book. I believe there's going to be a rediscovery of this book, right? The third area that I believe God is going to touch. Remember when Jesus met the disciples at the Lake of Galilee after his ascension and they were out fishing? It's one of the most mind boggling pictures of Jesus you could ever imagine. Here he is, the risen Lord, the victor over death and demons, the one to whom all power in heaven and earth is given. How do you see him? You see him actually with a frying pan in his hand, cooking up some fish for the disciples. And you remember that interview that he had with Simon Peter? He said, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? I believe there's going to be a new challenge to every one of us. And Jesus is just going to challenge us on this direction. How much do you love me? Simon, son of Jonah. Do you love me? Simon, do you love me? Simon, do you love me? Simon, do you love me? God spoke to me a little while back in a meeting one time, and I really haven't come to terms too much with this, but I just pass it on to you because it suddenly comes to my mind. What Jesus said to me was this. He said, if I was to promise you a totally new revelation of myself beyond anything you've ever understood before, what would you be prepared to give up in exchange for that? What would you be prepared to give up in exchange for that. Somehow that cast an awful vivid light on my priorities and my value system. Beloved, I believe we're going to be challenged. Every one of us in that whole area. How much do we love Jesus? The only adequate motivation for our Christian life is love for Jesus. Nothing else. No blessing, no power. No meeting of needs, no ministry. Nothing will last except that one thing. That's the eternal motivation. Love for Jesus will drive us every day of our life. It will drive us for all eternity. It will never come to an end. That is the only power that's in the gospel. The only thing that will motivate the church. That's a personal love for Jesus. I believe the Spirit of God is going to face us up. Every single one of us in that area before very long. And the final one is in Matthew twenty eight. Go you into all the world and preach the gospel to all nations. Make disciples of all nations. I believe there is going to be a challenge to the church in Jerusalem, in New Zealand in terms of world evangelism. When I look back over the past twenty years, I marvel. I honestly marvel at the way in which God has ploughed teaching into this country. I don't know any place on the face of this earth where teaching ministries have tramped in one another's feet and poured all the richness of God's heart into this land, year after year after year. God is looking for a harvest. God is looking for a harvest from this, this country. We are on the borders of Southeast Asia, and every indication is that the coming centre of world attention and world development and world commerce and everything is going to centre in Southeast Asia. We are on the on the on the edge of a huge populations like Indonesia, one hundred million people. I was speaking to a missionary from Indonesia a little while back. He said to me this. He said, the average believer in Indonesia is born into a level of faith you wouldn't understand. He said Indonesia doesn't need evangelists. They can evangelize far better than anybody we could ever send them, but they desperately need teachers. And beloved, I believe God wants to a crop of of New Zealanders to thrust out into these areas. And I believe we're going to be faced with the challenge of world evangelism and our world responsibilities towards these nations as part of the new Pentecost. It's part of the land. The land is a staging post towards the world. Do you understand that the land is a staging post towards the world? If you recover the bit of land God has given you, God will give you a bigger bit of land to go after. Kingdom and land go together and or, you know, the burden on my heart is, is for is for us to respond to what the Spirit of God is saying. Above all, I believe God is looking for people who've got a goal big enough to commit their lives to a goal that will call out everything we've got, because I believe the world's an oyster for a people who are committed. I think the world has run out of heroes. They've run out of solutions. They've run out of causes. There's nothing out there for them to live for. And we have the greatest thing on earth to live for, greater even than the earth, the kingdom and the King of that kingdom, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Hallelujah! I think we should stand up and sing this song again. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.