Preparing our hearts for a revival Numbers 13 Dr.John Ramana

You've tuned into a mega church. We are people hungry to

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page through the links below. Today you have me.

So yeah, I'm excited to to speak and share a little bit about

what I believe God is trying to speak to us in this coming

season. I'm preaching to myself 1st and

then to you second. So this is what the Lord is

speaking to me about personally. But I believe it is so relevant

for us as a church and where we're heading.

Cool. So there's something about

knowing the time, right? That changes how we behave.

If you know what time it is, you know what you're supposed to do.

So, for example, like you can drift through the day, but if

you have an appointment coming up in the evening and you've

kind of lost track of time, then you start, you start to quicken

what you're doing, you start to hurry and you get yourself

prepared to go to your meeting, to go to your date, whatever it

is you want to do. And so time has this element of

framing things for us. So Matthias, he's three years

old now, but say in in the evening when it's about four O

clock, he'll be playing in the other room doing his own thing.

And then he knows that Dadi and Sema and Ramana, Dadi and Dada

cook dinner. And so around 4:30, Mum will

almost be walking by and he'll say no, I want to play some

more. He knows what time it is.

He knows that dinner times coming.

He knows what that means. It means he has to pack his toys

up, He has to go sit on the table, right?

And so similarly, we just had Elijah and so we were in, in, in

the hospital going through labour.

And so the midwife comes into the room and the midwife says,

OK, it's time. She she thought Haley was fully

dilated. So she says now's the time, the

time to push is now. And so everything was all go.

Haley is getting her to push and push and push.

And an hour and a half went by and nothing happened.

And so then we had to get the doctors in.

And so the doctor comes in and takes a look and says you're not

fully dilated. It wasn't the time to push,

right? And so we need to know what time

we're in if we had to make the most in of, of, of the, of the

situation that we're in. The point is when you know what

time you have, you can behave appropriately.

The time to push wasn't the hour and a half the time to push once

you're dilated and then the baby comes, right.

In the same way, if we don't recognise what season we're in,

we won't be prepared for what God wants to do in our midst.

It's really important to be In Sync with where he's where we're

at and where he wants to take us for us to be prepared to take

it. And so the current context for

Omega is we've got so, and, and This is why I'm, I'm preaching

on this because I had this dream of, of, of, of this garage of

this barn shit of, of, of gathering.

And it was a double garage. But then it got made into a

quadruple garage. And so there's this expansion

and there are countless things dad has seen about a revival

that's going to come to Omega that the expansion of the house.

We're going to see people come to the Lord and and soul save.

And this is stuff that we as a church believe for, right?

This is we don't come here week after week just to do the

motions. We're contending for a revival.

We're contending for a move of God.

And so that's our context is that God has spoken.

We know these things are coming, but here's the tension.

The promise of God doesn't always promise of God doesn't

equal taking position of that promise.

There's this little thing in between.

And this morning I'd like to propose that that thing is

preparation, that we need to prepare ourselves for the move

of God that's coming. We need to prepare our hearts

for what God wants to do in our midst.

We can't just waltz into it and expect that and and God and the

sovereignty does do that. But if you and if you look at

revivals in the past, it kind of feels like God stands back with

a, with a, with a pen at a dart board and goes boom.

Oh, it landed on Azusa St. Let's let the revival break out

there. Oh, it landed in Wales.

That a revival break out there. But actually, if you look at

those stories, and we'll go on to it a bit more detail later,

there is years and years of prep work and intimacy that comes

from a few people that have given everything to see God

move. It's not just a a random

occurrence. And so that's our context.

There's a sense that something's coming.

And preparation, I think is what God is calling us to do, to take

hold of what he has for us. And so Numbers 13 is what Jaunty

read from. And this is a story and it's

really a tragedy of Israel not being prepared already for what

God had for them, right? And so the context of Numbers 13

is that Israelites have come out of Egypt, they've crossed the

Red Sea, they're into the they're in the they're at the

mountain, they've got the commandment, whatever.

Some year, a year and a bit goes by and God says, OK, now's the

time for you to go and take the land.

And as we see they send some spies out.

Sorry, I totally spaced this morning and I didn't bring my

Bible, so I'm going to have to use my phone.

But but we should all bring our Bibles to church.

Where are we? Sorry, Numbers 13, the Lord said

to Moses, send some men to explore the land of Canaan,

which I'm giving to the Israelites from each ancestral

tribe, send one of its leaders. So the Lord's command, so the

Lord's so at the Lord's command, Moses sent them from the desert

of Pran. All of the leaders of the

Israelites, these were their names.

There's a when you look at the passage in Deuteronomy, the

story gets replayed in the book of Deuteronomy and there's a

disconnect here. It says the Lord said to Moses

sent some meant to explore the land.

But in Deuteronomy, Moses said the people came to me.

Moses actually says the Lord has said go and take the land and

the people come to him and they say, can we send spies out to go

out ahead of us, Right. And so who?

Whose idea was it? Was it the people's idea or was

it Moses idea or the God's idea? Sorry.

And I think reading into it and looking through commentaries,

chatting with dad about it, I think what happened was it, it

was the people's idea, but God gave them permission to explore

their unbelief. He said, fine, like you have the

land, go and take it. But the people said, no, no, no,

we want to send spies out to make sure what it's like.

We want to, we want to see and, and the Lord said, OK, if you

want to do it your way, go ahead and do it your way.

Send people out with the 12 tribes.

And so God will give us the liberty to go our own way if he

wants. He is a gentleman.

He's not going to force your hand to do something that you

don't want to do. So if the Israelites wanted to

do things their own way and God allowed it to happen as a test

of their faith. So either way, this isn't the

plan of God. And God used this whole

situation as a test of Israel's faith.

Moses then says he sends out the people.

There's a list of all the people.

These are the names when Moses sent them to explore verse 17,

Canon said, go up through the negevant in the Hill Country,

see what the land is like and whether the people who live

there are strong or weak, few or many, what kind of land do they

live in? Is it good?

Is it bad? So at a first glance you're

like, OK, he's just telling them what to do.

But if you think about, if you dig deeper and you look at the

context, right, this was a subtle manifestation of unbelief

on Moses's part because did he really doubt that the land was

good or didn't even matter that it was good?

If God told you to do something, does it matter that you need to

do all these things? But interestingly, when God

first encountered Moses at the burning Bush back in the way

before all of us even started, that was one of the first things

he told him is that I'm taking to a land flowing with milk and

honey. It's a good land.

So in Moses commissioning was the promise and this was a

manifestation of unbelief where he he deliberately he knew what

God had spoken to him and in fact he'd relayed that to the

people of Israel as well. He said the Lord our God wants

to take us to a land of milk and honey.

And so here on the part of Moses and on the part of the people of

Israel is this little seed of unbelief that is crept in right

unbelief and to the promises of God.

And as I started to kind of as I was meditating on this whole

thing, it kind of took me back to the Garden of Eden where the

voice of the serpent says, did God really say this?

And I and I and it was that same voice that Moses heard that God

real that Israelites heard as well.

Did God really say he's going to take you to a land of milk and

honey? Is it really that good?

And so and again, talking with bouncing ideas back and forth,

Dad said we're we wake up in that garden every single day to

that voice and it's our responsibility to put it to

death. That voice of doubt, that voice

of unbelief. Satan hasn't changed since the

beginning of creation up until now every morning, unbelief and

offence are his key weapons and trying to get us to war against

the things of God in our life. Everything, yeah, everything

that happens is, is his poise to make you not believe that he's

finished his work on the cross. And when that doesn't happen,

it's offence. God, why did you not do this?

Why am I in the situation right now?

And so that is what was happening here.

The exact same thing from the garden was occurring in the camp

of the Israelites. And what unbelief and offence

does is it shifts us from a position of standing with God to

then standing against him and saying, why is this happening?

Right. It it changes our posture toward

him. And one of the steps to the

preparation of revival then becomes to stand strong in what

the Lord has promised you to keep, to keep what he said in

the forefront of your mind, the promises of revival and renewal

for this church, for the promises he's put on your life

is to keep them close to your heart.

And I again, as I was mulling over that, that verse from when

the Angel encounters Mary came to my mind, right?

And the Bible said, what does the Bible say?

The Bible says? But Mary treasured up all these

things and pondered them in her heart and she kept them close.

She locked up everything that God had told her, regardless of

what other people were saying, and kept them in her heart and

continued to ponder them. And so when God says something,

this needs to be our responses to lock it up in our hearts and

continually ponder it. Say, OK.

And in Psalm 119, that's the exact same kind of phrase that's

used in it. And that says, I have hidden

your word and my heart, that I might not sin against you.

And so entertaining unbelief is sin in our lives.

When we entertain the thoughts of the enemy that cause us to

doubt God, that becomes that takes root and bears from the

fruit of sin. So when God speaks, it's our job

and our responsibility to treasure what he said and to

keep his words safe within us, Right.

And so we go on the, the Israelites go out.

I mean, the spies go out and they come back with the report

that the land truly does flow with milk and honey.

What God had promised about the land was indeed true.

And then they say, nevertheless, meaning despite all of the good

things that we've said, they've just undercut all of the

positives. It's it's got giants.

It's got the people are too great, their traps all through

the land and so on and so forth. And so they've completely

undermine everything. The positives God had said

Significantly though, Caleb, that's right, Caleb and Joshua,

two men saw the exact same things that the other 10 spies

did. The same grapes, the same men,

the same land, the same cities, the same giants.

They came away singing in faith and the others were filled with

a sense of fear, right? There's a disconnect.

You two people can see the exact same things and have a

completely different response to what they see.

And ultimately, faith or unbelief does not spring up from

our circumstances. Then two people can be in the

exact same circumstance, have the same things in life happened

to them. But faith and unbelief stems

from the heart, right? Which God must change.

It can't be a circumstance. You can't say, oh, he's just

like this because he's had a good life and he's easy.

Whereas I've had a really tough life.

No, circumstances don't dictate our responses.

A heart does. And a heart can only be changed

by the Lord. So you can stand in front of the

move of God and still miss it, right?

Us as a church, like we, we could be right on the cusp of

something and still miss what's happening.

Not because God didn't move, but because our hearts weren't

ready. Like the 10 spies, they weren't

ready for what God is about to do.

But why were they not ready? They had seen God, but they

didn't know Him. And this was a representation of

Israel as a whole. They had seen the miracles, they

had seen the plagues, they had seen the Red Sea part, but they

didn't know him personally. Only Moses knew him.

And back when they first arrived in Mount Sinai, the invitation

was there from the Lord to to to know them and to meet with them.

And they said, no, we don't want it.

We don't want anything to do with him.

Moses, you go, you go and intermediate for us because we

might die. We don't want anything.

We don't want to have an encounter with this God.

And so they distanced themselves from him.

But Moses didn't. And more importantly, Joshua

didn't because Joshua's assistant was with him the whole

time. But I'll come to that in a

minute. But the key point being, just

because we're around miracles or an environment where where faith

is high and that we believe and contend every morning here for

healing, for deliverance, Just because you're in this

environment doesn't necessarily mean that we have that you can

you, you have that same faith we need.

It's important to expose. It is important to expose

ourselves. Don't get me wrong, it's

important to be in this environment, but we need to

actively participate to share in the benefits of faith.

We can't just passively come and kind of like expect it to.

Sometimes it does and a little bit does, but I think it needs

an active participation on our to partner with the things that

are happening with God and we need to personally cultivate

that relationship with Him. And this is where Joshua comes

in right now. Joshua was exposed to something

different. He would linger in the tent of

meeting after Moses would leave. He was up the mountain with

Moses while the Israelites were down there building the golden

calf. And So what happened is I think

it it it cultivated something and it built a hunger in him to

know God, to seek him to be in his presence that the rest of

the nation didn't have. Like Moses had it.

And I think Joshua had it. He wasn't just seeing God move.

He was learning who God was and was developing a hunger for his

presence as he saw his mentor Moses do right as a man speaks

face to face. He had was exposed to something

and said, I want that and I want that relationship with God that

Moses has. So when the giants appeared, the

nation, which was not rooted in the presence of God, saw

obstacles, but Joshua saw opportunity.

He knew that God could take down this giant.

And so this is where that personal cultivation to the

presence of God becomes really important to how we see

problems, to how we encounter and take hold of the promises

that God has for us. And as I was meditating on that,

the Lord brought to my mind David, right?

David and Goliath, really similar situation.

So we all know the story. David is a little shepherd, not

a little. He's a young man, a little, not

a little shepherd. He's a shepherd.

We're looking after his father's sheep.

And so his brothers are out fighting the war.

And interestingly, again, the Goliath was taunting the armies

of Israel for 40 days. That's the same length of time

the spies had gone to see the land. 40 days.

He comes to the army camp to give his brothers food and bring

things from home. And then he obviously asked saw

what the reward is. And he's dissatisfied that this

Philistine is, is is mocking the Lord.

So he goes up to Saul and says I've killed lions and bears.

And I will do the same to this heathen Philistine who has

defied the armies of the living God, the Lord who saved me from

the poor of the lion and the poor of the bear.

He will save me from this Philistine.

So David's confidence was built not in front of the crowds or

the stage. His confidence was built in the

field, in the secret place. His confidence and trust was in

the Lord who saved him from the lion and the bear could save him

in from this giant Joshua's confidence.

The Lord who brought them out of Egypt, who did this, this, and

this, could save them from that, would deliver them into this

promised land. And so David grew in the secret

place. He trusted God because he'd

experienced the God of deliverance.

Like, right? That was his experience of God.

And so when he saw a giant, he could respond in faith.

I'm sure his brothers were aware of all the things he was doing,

that he was fighting beers and he was fighting lions, keeping

his dad's sheep. They probably knew what was

going on in the field, but just because they know something's

possible doesn't allow them to respond in faith, right?

Just like the Israelites knew God can do these miracles, they

couldn't respond in faith because their hearts weren't

aligned at that level. And so Israel saw public

miracles but private distance from God.

David private intimacy, but showed public authority in front

of two entire nations to take down the giant.

Faith is not built in the moment of crisis or when it's needed,

but it's revealed in the moment of crisis.

It's not when you not when you need it is not when faith comes.

Faith is already built. It's already there, but it's

shown when that moment comes. And so if we had to possess the

move of God, it needs to be bought with the price of faith,

right, of intimacy, because intimacy develops faith, and

faith is the currency which heaven responds to.

Look at all the reviles in the past.

Look at all through the Bible. God responds to faith, and faith

is cultivated with intimacy and trust.

It's what pulls on God. If you're gonna step into God,

what God's doing, we need to increase our intimacy with him.

Intimacy produces trust, Trust produces faith, and faith

positions us to respond. And of course, the Bible says

without faith it's impossible to please God, right?

So, So yeah, let's look. So it's really, so I guess the

key thing for me is our intimacy with the Lord, like we need to

know him so that when the time comes, we can step

forward-looking at revivals in the past, Azusa St. revival,

right, didn't start with crowds. It didn't start with a big

church. It started with a handful of

people praying in a room and consistently praying to seek the

House of God, to seek the face of the Lord.

It was. Consistent, it was persistent

and it was unseen prayer. It wasn't a big thing.

And then slowly people started, it started to gain momentum.

People would come, that experience, the outpouring of

the Holy Spirit, and then people said, hey, I want that and more

people would come. And that's how it gained

momentum. The Welsh revival.

This is one of my favorite revivals just because, you know,

in the book of Acts it talks about there's a small revival in

the city and it says the currency of what is it?

Hell no. The current or like the currency

of hell like fell in that city in the sense that like people

making idols were out of business, stuff like that.

So in the Welsh revival, Evan Roberts was the man who ushered

it in. And when that revival broke out

in the city of Wales, the police had nothing to do like the

police stations would have they there would be no crime in the

streets. Bars went out of business

because people wouldn't drink the coal miners the way that

they would treat the donkeys and the coal mines.

When they encountered the Lord, they would they'd be swearing

and hitting. And then once they encountered,

once they encountered God, the whole language would change and

the donkeys wouldn't respond to how they would talk And the coal

mines, right? Complete and utter cultural

shift took place in Wales. The police had nothing to do.

So they would actually go to these revival meetings and have

choirs and sing in the worship teams because their job was to

be where crowds were. And they said, well, the crowds

are at these meetings, so that's where we're going to go.

And if we were going to go, they got saved.

They got saved. They joined the choir, right?

Like, it was such an complete transformation of a city.

But it started with this man, Evan Roberts.

He was only 25 years old when the revival broke out.

And people say that's young, but if you actually look into his

life, it was when he was 16-10 years before that he encountered

God. And God put something in his

heart. And so he would pray for

revival. He would pray for the city

country of Wales. And this he would talk with his

friends and say, hey, do you think God could save 100,000

souls in Wales? Is it possible?

Let's pray for it? And so all of this he would they

sowed prayer for 10 years and then right before the revival

broke out, he would have encounters with God every night

for a month, every single night. And he described it as seeing

God face to face. Every night.

His face would glow like Moses did.

I want that each and every one of us needs

that. It's not about the church.

It's not about the structure. It's not about who preaches.

It's not about the programs we have during the week.

It's about the secret place to see God face to face.

And what he preached at those meetings was a very simple

sermon. He wasn't a great preacher.

He wasn't a pastor. He didn't have the skills

required to lead a church. But his his sermons were based

on these four things. One, confess all known sin to

God. Everything in your life that you

know is a sin. Confess it, repent and put it

behind you. 2 put away all doubtful habits, but something's

interesting. Anything that you're not sure

about like, oh, could go either way, but my conviction is this

put it aside. It's not worth it.

It's not. That's the price of revival is I

want to do this, but I'm not. I have 1% of doubt that this is

right or it's causing me to do this.

Put it aside. You're not going to get revival

unless you clear your heart of doubt, Obey the Holy Spirit

promptly. Was #3 and #4 confess Christ

publicly. People won't know about Jesus

unless we talk about Him outside these four walls.

It's as simple as that. However you choose to do those

things, I think we need to do that.

And then in the Bible also we this whole confession of

repentance is so important because when Solomon is building

the temple, the Lord says, if my people who are called by my

name, what is it? Humble themselves next and pray.

Yeah, yeah. And so I don't know that's what

it's about. We need a move of God.

It needs to be birthed not on the stage, not in front of

crowds. It needs to be birthed in the

secret place to be sustained in front of people.

Like I said, that's what God has been talking to me about.

That's what I want. And I believe that's what the

call for this church is to do. As I was continuing to meditate

on this throughout the week, actually, yeah, that gave me a

thing, he said in Judges chapter 2, verse 7, it says the people

Judges 2:7

served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the

elders who outlived him and who had all seen the great things

the Lord had done for Israel. In Judges chapter 2, verse 10,

Judges 2:10

after that whole generation, another generation grew up who

knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel.

Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

One generation saw a move and the next didn't even know,

didn't even know him, and ushered in this whole era of

idolatry that can that plagued Israel for forever.

And so revival cannot be sustained on borrowed faith.

We cannot inherit intimacy from our parents, from our

grandparents, from the people we see, our pastors, or we can.

We cannot live on yesterday's encounter.

So it's really important that we ourselves are changed so that we

can change our children. Our children watch us really,

really closely when we don't even think about it.

They're always looking at how we behave, how we respond.

And So what we don't build into our lives now, we can't pass on

to the next generation, right? Like, and it's simple things

like, do you value money over over God?

Like is, is how much of is your attention solely faced on like

on finances or it's visible, it's visible in the home.

Like it's, we had to make a conscious decision like, OK,

we're not gonna like, it's good to pay down the mortgage and all

that stuff, but a whole life doesn't have to be centered

around finances. Like God will take care of that.

That's OK. Like we're so loose with that

now because gods in charge of that area of our lives.

So again, like we can't build into our lives and what will

pass on to the next generation. So how Yeah, they, they all I

can say is they watch, they notice and down the track when

when push comes to shove, all those things kind of add up.

Oh, it's OK to kind of skip church every now and then you

need a break. Like it's OK.

Like I don't need to do my quiet.

All that other stuff they see and it'll be picked up on.

And so generational warning, like we need to pass on revival

to our kids, to the other people.

And it's not just kids, it's the other generation in the church

as well, right? Like we have the privilege of

having really mature Christians, youths, really young children.

And so I encourage you, like encourage people from across

generations like revivals, not just for the the young ones

coming up. It's not just for the old ones

that have prayed and contended for it their whole lives.

It's for everyone. And so it's not gonna happen

until we all kind of build it together.

And so coming back, bringing it back to Omega, if Omega is on

the edge of revival, the question isn't will God move,

It's will we be ready for when he does?

Have we put aside the things that are hindering us in our

pursuit of him, in our relationship with him, so that

when he says it's time to take hold of the promised land, we

don't shy back. We go full forth.

And so preparation looks like prioritizing time with God.

It looks like learning to hear his voice.

We need to be a people that move based on his voice.

It can't just be out of a good plan.

Like the the thing of sending one man from each tribe was a

good plan. It was it was a plan given by

man, but we need to hear the voice of the Lord dealing with

fear and sin in our lives and building a history with them

before God does something through us.

He wants to do something in us. We need to be prepared to carry

his presence into what he's called us to do.

Yeah. And if you look at us, the

brothers hate the evil have done a belief and they intent True.

Yeah. So these are spiritual sort of

principle in there as well. So yeah, yeah.

An evil heart of unbelief stops you entering the promised land.

Yeah, absolutely. An evil heart of unbelief stops

you from entering the promised land.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, in that story, don't

the Israelites also turn against Caleb and Joshua when they say

we can do it? Yeah, exactly the same thing.

Yeah, yeah. That evil heart of unbelief

turns against the people of God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No cool. So be encouraged.

The Lord is doing something in our midst.

It's not numbers that are going to usher in the revival, but

it's going to be intimacy, and it's going to be how much of A

cost are we willing to pay to bring it in?

Right? I'm just gonna pray and finish

it up. Lord, thank you for your

promises. Thank you for your faithfulness

and your goodness. All the wonderful things you've

said over each and every one of our lives, all the promises

you've made to us as a church family.

God, I pray help us to prepare ourselves to take hold of the

promised land that you've given us.

Help us to prepare ourselves to take hold of the promises in

each and every one of our lives that you've given to us before

the foundations of the earth. God, when that time comes, let

us not be found lacking. Let us not be found in a place

of unbelief, in a place of fear. But God, let us be found ready,

waiting to take hold of everything that you have for us.

God, I pray, help us to develop that trust, that history with

you in the secret place, Praise Lord, so that when it's time we

can exercise that faith in public.

God, Lord, I pray, yeah, help us crucify the flesh with Christ

and know what it is to be made new with you in Jesus name I

pray. Thanks for joining us at Omega.

If you need prayer for healing or breakthrough, or simply to

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