Matt King ministry night

Welcome to His Story Our Story, a fresh podcast series

of interviews, testimonies, messages and anecdotes where a range of

people from all walks of life share their journey as

they've traveled with Jesus. Here at Southland Church and Pasaden Adelaide,

our heart and mission is to pursue the presence of

God through a Christ centered, Bible based, spirit filled church.

We disciple and equip people to make a positive difference

for the Kingdom of God and impact every area where

God places them. So sit back, grab a cup of

tea or coffee, unless, of course, you're driving where both

hands are needed on the wheel, and enjoy this episode.

We pray that you are blessed and encouraged as you

listen to His Story Our Story.

We're so looking forward to hearing from you. Can you

hear me there? We are Wow, Thank you so much, Hugh.

It's so good to be with you and Jane again.

And I'm so delighted to see you guys again. We've

been we've been in the presence, in the power and

presence of the Lord together in a special way, and

it's so good to be with you guys again. And

I'm so thankful that the Lord is using you to

pioneer something in this nation. I just see it as

this enormous watering hole that you guys are establishing here

in Australia, and I just think that you just need

to prepare the barn because I think there's going to

be a lot of people coming to feast and to

drink in the barn that you're building and establishing here.

And so I just from the bottom of my heart,

thank you for pioneering, for paying a price, and for

creating places and moments where the people can come and

be face to face with a good father and they

can drink and be filled and just be alive in

the presence and the power. So I just honor you

guys for what you're doing. I'm inspired, and I just

love what you're doing. So grateful for relationship with you,

and so appreciate you guys, and Gary and Sarah. I

delighted to know just be here and have you as

a new friendship for me, and I look forward to

getting you guys in front of my wife as well,

and so next time she hopes to be here, she

sends love. But yeah, I'm just so grateful for the

friendship that we're forming. And again I'm I'm just super

excited about these places where I can just see there's

emerging hot spots. There's a bit of the language that

me and some friends work with, there's these emerging hot spots.

And don't take that as you know small. I mean,

it's a place where I just see this growing fire

of the Holy Spirit. And I really feel like here

and Adelaide is becoming a hot spot, a growing sort

of bonfire for the presence of the Lord. And the

reason is that I think what's happening is is that

there's an altar being created through their value system. You See,

it's really important that our leaders in the Body of Christ,

their value system matters, and I think the Holy Spirit

is attracted to the altar of a value system that

puts Jesus right at the center. See, we can actually

put a lot of different things right at the center,

that's the truth. We can actually put church growth right

at the center. We can put excellence and flashiness at

the center. We can put you know, the desire to

have a big church at the center. We can have

put our ministry exploits at the center. But when you've

got church leaders that are willing to say, you know what,

it's Jesus. It's his presence and his power right at

the center. It's like an altar that just gets laid

before the Lord. And Leviticus says that it's the priests

that sorry, it's the Lord that lights the fire on

the altar, but the priests keep it burning. And so

you guys are just laying an altar here, and I'm

just encouraged because I just know the fire is going

to increase here. And as you guys are doing it

together in Adelaide, I just get excited. So I'm planning,

you know, to come back once a year, you know,

at the moment, because I can just see what's coming

down the road here. And when Hugh was sharing earlier,

I just felt in my spirit just something that Adelaide,

that Adelaide is being moved to the front in the

Nation of Australia. That's the sense I get. He said,

Adelaide's being moved out in front in the Nation of Australia,

because it's it's really interesting. Coming into Adelaide from Sydney,

I totally forgot until I got here that Adelaide's like

half an hour behind the East coast and so in

the natural you're sort of, if you will, behind the time,

you know, speaking like an arrogant East Coaster, and in

the natural you're kind of behind the time, but actually

in a spiritual sense, you're being moved to the front

of time, if that makes sense. That's my sense is

like you're not at all behind the time. You're actually

as a city, being moved to the front in our nation.

And I think what the Lord is going to do

is it's going to move in different regions of our

nation where I think again, these hot spots are going

to emerge. They're these places of the fire, of His

presence and his power where people like Hugh referenced, are

going to travel to go there. People are hungry and

they're going to travel to go there. And my sense

is that Adelaide and what He's doing through some of

you in this room, this is going to become a

hot spot and people are going to travel to be here.

And then what I'm really believing for is that as

these hot spots emerge around Australia, we're going to do

this thing called kingdom family, you know, kingdom relationship. Can

I even use the word covenant relationship. We're going to

do covenant relationship where your victory is my victory. Are

mourn with you in your loss. We're going to go through.

We're going to l relationship above a problem. We're going

to elevate relationship above you know, your success is bigger

than my success. We're going to elevate relationship above all

that stuff. And we're going to be committed to one another.

And as that's happening amongst hot spots in Australia, I

just believe that we're going to see a revival sweep

our nation. So amen, so yes to a hot spot

in Adelaide, and yes to revival in our nation? Can

someone say amen to that? All right? Maybe just say

one more time so I know you're awake. Amen? All right? Good,

it's not even come on, it's only eight thirty and

Collingwood's playing tonight, So who cares? Right, someone say who cares?

Don't even want to talk about the football. As a

Bombers supporter, it's been a difficult fifteen years. My name's Matt,

father of three, husband of one, and she's a Norwegian

Viking princess. I met her in California at Bethel supernatural

school of marriage, I mean ministry. And so we've been

coming up on twelve years of marriage, which is awesome,

and so yeah, glory to God for long term marriages.

So we are aiming for seventy years of marriage. That

feels like a good aim. It's a biblical number. Let's

go for seventy years of marriage. Yeah, coming up on twelve.

She's Norwegian and she's paying a price to be here,

which is amazing. She's left her parents and all six

siblings in Norway because God spoke to our family in

twenty twenty three and said it's time for you to

go to Australia. And we wrote down about seventeen different ways.

The Lord said you need to go from Norway way

back to Australia. It was just everywhere. And so here

we are in Australia, back in Australia, living in Sydney.

I have three kids. We got twins. We started with

two double for our trouble, and so the twins are

five and a half and then I have a three

year old. So we are a blessed hurricane. So wherever

we go, you know where they're You know, there's no

missing us, although there's a lot of noise, there's a

lot of joy and blessing. So I'm so thankful. And

they said to say hello, and they're very excited to

come visit. So they said, we want to come to

Adelaide next time, So maybe next time I'll bring them.

We are planting, as Gary mentioned, we're planting a church

in Sydney, so we will plant Bethel Sydney in Sydney,

and so we are in a building phase of that

right now. We hope to start having more kind of

structured meetings without We have like a team that's growing

and sort of a circle of friends and volunteers around

our team, and so we're building up. We're going for longevity.

We're not going for short up fast, but maybe risk

coming down hard. We're going for longevity, and so we

want to have health and strength and you know, a

great culture. Bill Johnson will say that many come to

School of Ministry in Reading because they want to see

signs and wonders and miracles in their life, but most

of them end up staying for two years or more

because of the culture. And it's really important that we

don't it's not just about having a great move of

the spirit it's about creating a culture that can sustain

that move of the spirit. You see how many revivals

have on on for six only six months to two years,

and then they just disintegrate because and oftentimes that's because

there was error in the culture or in the values

or in the priority systems, and the enemy came in

and was able to divide and tear down. And so

we are going for longevity and we're going for health

and culture. So we will definitely try to be open

by February next year when Bill gets here. Lord help

me before Bill arrives that we have it all together

before the bishop lands. So I'm just joking. He wouldn't.

He's very gracious. So yeah, so that's where we're at.

So pray for us. Yeah, appreciate your prayers. Yeah, we

could use all the intercession we could get. But we're excited.

I'm excited for the future in Australia. I was telling

Hugh Jane at dinner, like, we are directly, unashamedly intentionally

going after Revival in Sydney, and I won't apologize for it.

Revival is why I'm alive. It's God spoke to me

on the carpet in Toronto at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship

in two thousand and three, he spoke to me, He's

an eighteen year old about revival in Australia and I

just will not stop until I see it. And so

we're unapologetically going after revival as a church. I'm not

interested in having a quote unquote successful church. I'm not

interested in having a big church. What I'm interested in

is seeing revival in Sydney and then around our nation.

And so I think that and the Lord's going to

just bring men and women into our nation, and he's

raising up the ones that are here unto revival in

our nation. And not only is it for our nation,

but I believe it's actually for nations of the world.

One friend of mine he had a dream. He's from India,

so he has no allegiance to Australia. He had a

dream where he said, Matt, I saw all these people

traveling with small suitcases. In the dream, he said, all

these people were traveling with small suitcases carry on luggage

and they were going to Australia for short trips because

there was a move of the Holy Spirit happening in Australia.

And so when I hear words like this, I just

scared excited. I get charged up. So it's revival at

any cost, Hey, at any cost? A man, all right,

if you have a Bible, just go with me to

Psalm forty two, Psalm forty two. I want to if

I had, like a thought or a guess, a title

for tonight, it would be there is more. There is

more would be my title. Psalm forty two. Let's read

verses one to four. As the deer pants for the

water brooks, so pants my soul for you, Oh God,

my soul firsts for God, for the living God. When

shall I come and appear before God? My tears have

been my food day and night, while they continually say

to me, where is your God? When I remember these things,

I pour out my soul within me. I used to

go with the multitude. I went with them to the

House of God with the voice of joy and praise,

with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. Let's just pray,

Holy Spirit, would you just come and come with your presence,

Come with your power, Come with your grace, Come with

your love, Come with your divine power to transform and

heal and deliver tonight and so, Holy Spirit, we just

welcome you, King Jesus, as we sang, King Jesus, we

declare that you are king in this place, in this

place tonight, we declare that you are king. And so

we just say, Lord, apart from you, we have no

good thing. And so we just put you at the

center of this meeting tonight. We put you at the

center of all we do. Tonight. We welcome your presence.

There is nothing greater than your presence. There is nothing

more wonderful, nothing more lovely, nothing more, nothing worth more

than your presence. That's Holy Spirit. We welcome you again,

and we turn all our affection and all our adoration

toward you. You are the desire of our heart. You

are the desire of our heart. Lord Jesus, so Heavenly Father,

We just ask, more than anything, would you come and

be the center of our affection and pour out your

spirit in this room tonight we pray with all our hearts. Amen,

what is the most precious thing to you? What is

the most precious thing in your life? In deep down

in your heart of hearts? What what is the most

precious thing to you? You see, in this moment of

seemingly being in a physical wilderness or a physical desert.

The psalmist is desiring here to be in the presence

of the Lord once again. He's he's likening it to

a moment of an animal, our dear in a dry

place longing for water. He's likening his desire for the Lord,

his desire to be in the presence of the Lord

as a dear desiring water. Is what is it that

you desire more than anything? What do we desire more

than anything? You know, that is a burning question that

I think we should all think about, and as a

burning question that every one of us should really take

take a moment to try to answer. And I would

say to you that the Lord himself, the manifest presence

of King Jesus, is the most precious, most desirable, most

worth thing, is the greatest treasure that we could long

for His presence. Again, the psalmis here is desiring to

be in the presence of the Lord more than anything.

He's looking back to when he was in the sanctuary

in the Tabernacle of the Lord, Tabernacle temple, looking back

to when he was in the Temple of the Lord,

and recalling those moments and longing to be back there

again with the multitude in the House of God. But

it's not the house that he was longing for. It

was the presence of the Lord that he was longing for.

Charles Spurgeon said this, the enjoyment of communion with God

was an urgent need of his soul. He viewed it

not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as

an absolute necessity, like water to a stag. The enjoyment

of communion with God was the urgent need of his soul.

It's like his soul is longing for nothing more than

that communion with God. And it's not just a nice luxury,

it's a it's a necessity. You know. The passage here

conveys this idea of I not only desire it, I

need it. Water to a deeer is not an option.

Water to adea is not a luxury. Water to adeer

is not a nice thing on the side. Water to

ad year is a fundamental, essential necessity. And I would

say to every believer that is born again, that is

in fellowship with Jesus Christ, that the veil of sin

and death was torn from top to bottom. And that's

what the veil represented, That veil of sin and death

that was torn. Why so that we could have that fellowship,

that communion with Him, that we could live and dwell

and be in the very presence of God. And for

us as the New Testament Church, not just in the

House of God, the Temple of God, but in His

presence all the time, all the time, when I wake

and when I sleep, when I arise, and when I

lay my head down at night, that I could live

and dwell and enjoy the manifest presence of Jesus Christ

all the days of my life, every waking hour of

the day. You see, it is as natural for us

to long for God as it is for an animal

to thirst. Now just stop there for a second. Let

me say that again. It is natural for you and

I to long for God as it is for an

animal to thirst. I would argue that as a Christian,

it's not normal or not. It is should not be

expected that we should lack desire for Him. It is

an outlier if we are not desiring Him. It is

abnormal for a Christian to not deeply long for more

of God. Actually, the expectation for us is that we

are longing for more of God. Think of it as

that's your natural condition, your natural condition as a child

of God, with no hindrance. Boldly, now we can approach

the throne of Grace. Now there's no the veil was torn,

there's no obstacle now. So the veil was torn, the

obstacle of sin and death was removed. There's now no

condemnation for us. Boldly we can approach His throne. So,

the natural condition or the natural state for you and

I as a believer, if you're in this room tonight

and you're a believer and you've given your life to Christ,

and you've confessed his name and received his forgiveness and

received a new heart and a new life, your natural state,

your expected state, is to be longing for God. So

if you're here tonight and you're not longing for God,

and you maybe feel dry, or maybe you feel a

numb or maybe you feel just spiritually tired or apathetic,

here's the good news. That is not your normal state.

That is not the normal condition that you should find

yourself in. That is not the expected condition that you

should find yourself in. Actually, the grace of God is

working to shift you every day into a place where

you are like a deer panting for water. You are

like a child of God that is longing for for

more of what more of Him? You see, there's a

greater experience of Him available for you than what you're

experiencing right now. There is a greater experiential knowledge of

Him available to you and I than what we're experiencing

right now. We will always live in this tension of

there is more of Him available to me than what

I'm walking in right now. That is awesome. Like the

other day, I just had the most phenomenal I had

the most phenomenal meal at this restaurant, Like it was

just off the chart good. And it was like, you know,

as you just go into the deeper and deeper into

the meal, it's like it just gets better and better

and better. And it was like I would taste and

I'd want more. I'd taste and I'd want more. I'd

taste and I want more. And it was like, may

this meal just never end? You know, I just God

just freeze this moment. May this meal never end? And

it's like that walking in the spirit, in relationship with

God is meant to be like that. I'd taste and

I want more. A taste and I want more I taste,

and I want more. And the normal state for me

and for you and I is to long for more

and more of him. And if you find yourself here

tonight and you're like, I don't really feel like that,

and my experience of that is right now is not

like that, and I feel a bit dry, or I

feel a bit exhausted. Here's the good news is that

you don't have to stay where you are. You don't

have to stay there in that place tonight, you don't

have to stay there, And the grace of God is

working to move you into that place, glorious gift of

hunger for him. You don't have to stay there. And

even just me saying that is warring against lies in

your head. You see the enemy he can't touch. The

enemy works with lies. He worked with lies from the beginning,

Jesus said, He's the father of lies, and he always

will lie. He's been a liar from the beginning, and

so he works with lies. And so if we just

you hearing these words tonight is helping to set you

free and believe, and I declare in the room tonight,

there's breakthrough even for people that are feeling like that,

even in this room tonight. There is breakthrough for you

to shed that skin, for you to shed that condition

in the room tonight where you are going to take

a big drink in His presence, and you are going

to be returned to that state of health, which is

you have hunger, you have an appetite, and you have

thirst as in the natural. So in the spiritual a

sign of health is I am hungry. I'm thirsty as

in the natural. Same in the spiritual you are being

returned to health tonight where you are going to hunger

and thirst for the Lord in Jesus' name, Thank you Lord.

I get inspired by these stories of people's hunger for

the Lord. I escially when I was in Bersism in

the school of ministry at Bethel Church, Like I just

got exposed to all these great autobiographies and stories of

men and women, you know, over the centuries that just

had these hunger for the Lord, this insatiable hunger. And

then what often happens is the insatiable hunger leads to

an encounter and an experience of the Lord that is

just beyond you know, your dreams and desires. And one

of those people was a guy called Evan Roberts. And

Evan Roberts was known from the Welsh Revival. He's known

and we can read his journals and books about him

going back to the Welsh Revival which happened from nineteen

oh four to nineteen oh six in Wales. And if

you read Evan Roberts's journal, I've watched documentaries on this,

and what basically you see is is you see Evan

Roberts as a teenager with this ferocious hunger for God,

like this unbelievable desire for the Lord. And so you

read in his journals how this teenager is up at

night praying and praying for revival in his nation. And

he's saying in his journal he's saying, I was thinking

over the failure of Christianity in my nation, and oh

what a failure it seemed. Indeed. What kind of a

teenager thinks like that? Like how many teenagers you know

think about the failure of Christianity and their nation. It's like,

who is this guy? And he writes in his journeys,

in his journal, I was thinking over the failure of

Christianity and my nation, and oh what a failure it seemed, indeed.

And then he writes, but I prayed and prayed and

prayed for revival. And then we see through his journals

that for ten or eleven years he prayed and prayed

for revival in his nation. And then I think he

was around like twenty twenty one, somewhere around there. The

Lord appears to him in the night, he says. He

describes it was like this presence came into the room.

This light literally shone in his room, and the Lord

visited him in the middle of the night. And the

Lord begins to speak to him, and the Lord begins

to speak about how he's going to move in the

nation of Wales. And then you'd think, wow, he's just

enjoyed and had this unbelievable, indescribable experience of the Lord

for a few hours. You'd think that would be enough.

But what ends up happening is is that go go

on for a few months. For a few months, the

Lord comes into his room in the night and speaks

to him, he says, and he writes in his journal,

and I had this, he writes words to the effect of,

and I enjoyed this indescribable communion with the Father. And

then he says, and then it would seem like I

would return to Earth, you know, as the sun would

begin to rise, he says, and it would seem like

I would then return to Earth again. And then he said,

but it went on for months. And during these months,

he says, it was this un I forget the adjective

that he uses, but it's something like this indescribable, and

he calls it communion with the Lord. He has this

unbelievable communion with the Lord for months in the night,

for hours every night, unspeakable joy that he talks about.

And this shape the rest of his life and ministry.

You see, this season shaped the rest of his life

and ministry. And so when he's later, when the revival

had started, he would sit down on the front row

and he wouldn't get up to speak until the presence

of the Lord had kind of rested on him and

the Lord had spoken to him and said, now you

can get up to speak. It was like he's not

getting up to speak when the pastor invites him. He's

getting up to speak whenever the Lord says to him,

now you get to get up and speak. And sometimes

he would he would always enter from the very back

of the room because he never wanted the people in

the building and in the church and in the congregations.

He never wanted the people to think of it as

anything about him. He wanted because people were probably coming

to hear him speak, and he wanted the people to

know he didn't want anyone coming to hear him speak.

And then sometimes he'd get up in the pulpit and

he'd stand in the pulpit in Wales, in the church

and the place to be packed, and he wouldn't speak

for thirty minutes, forty minutes, fifty minutes, an hour. The

reports are that he would sometimes stand there for up

to an hour and not say a thing. You imagine

if I did that tonight. You imagine I just stood

up here and just looked at you, said nothing. What

would you do, Gary, I'd probably be as awkward as

you like. But he would stand there and he would

say nothing because it was there was a priority system,

there was a value system inside of him that probably

had been shaped by those years in his teenage years

and by that communion with the Lord over months, to

the point where he was I am not going to

get in the way of his presence. And if this

becomes about anything more than his presence. Then I'm out

of here. What a value system like? What hunger?

What?

Like? He just wanted God? And I would add he

just wanted more of God whatever was available. It's like

his heart says, whatever's available, I just want it. I

hunger and thirst for you. You see verse two, It says,

my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When

shall I come and appear before God? Another Hebrew manuscript

translates it this way, When will I When will I

go and appear to the face of God? Isn't that beautiful?

When will I go and appear to the face of God?

I love what Mary read tonight from the stage. When

she read that scripture. You said seek my face. My

heart said your face, I will seek. I believe the

pursuit of the presence of God is the same as

seeking his face. They are one and the same thing.

The pursuit of him seeking his face, that is one

and the same idea. It is, I am pursuing a person.

I am pursuing a man. I am pursuing the presence,

the manifest presence of God, the person of the Lord.

I am pursuing a person. I am not pursuing an outcome.

I am not pursuing a cool experience. I am not

pursuing an atmosphere. I am not pursuing my growth and benefit.

I am not pursuing becoming a better leader. I am

not Those are all some of that's okay, But my

supreme pursuit, and I believe the supreme pursuit of the

Psalmist is the face of God, the presence of the Lord,

the person of the living God, the God that is

fully man and fully God. I am in pursuit of Him,

and I believe that as the Church of Australia, this

must become our pursuit. As the Church of Adelaide, this

must become our supreme pursuit. I am in pursuit of

knowing Him. There is more of him available, and I'm

longing for more of him. I want to know him.

So if I'm elevated and promoted in the eyes of

man great, or if I'm stuck on the back row

and no one knows me, it doesn't matter, because He

knows me and I know him. If I'm elevated to

a position of prominence, great, If I am kept in

the corner and no one knows me, it doesn't matter.

He knows me and I know him, and that's all

that matters. Does anyone know what I'm doing? Does anyone

know what I'm achieving? Doesn't matter. Does he know me

and do I know him? That's all that matters. The

Psalmus thirst is not merely for the temple and the

commands of the Lord, but it's the fellowship with God himself.

And it's interesting because we see in verse four it

says I used to go with the multitude, went with

them to the House of God with the voice of

joy and praise. Hold the phone. That's what church should

sound like, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. Hallelujah.

I like the word feast. So here the Psalmist is saying,

I used to go with the multitude. I went with

them to the House of God with the voice of

joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.

If corporate worship and fellowship was such a time of

joy in prayer, such a time of joy and praise

in Old Testament times, how much more should it be

that now in the New Covenant, under the blood of Christ,

as the justified and redeemed, with no hindrance and nothing

separating us from His love and presence. How much more

now should it be joy and praise in him? His

presence at his right hand is pleasures forevermore? How much

more now should there be extreme joy in his presence? Now?

How much more? And that was what he was longing for,

that joy and communion with him in a company of

the believers at the time in the temple. But how

much more for us should there be that pursuit of

I want I get to be with brothers and sisters

in the Lord, in his presence. And so now again

I say, that is what the Church of Adelaide order

look like, the Church of Australia order look like. Unspeakable

joy and praise and feasting on Him in his presence.

That is what our churches should look like. And together,

that's what we're going to see in our nation. You know,

I have these memories that will forever ever define and

mark me and and I just want to share a

couple of with a couple of those with you I remember,

And Hugh and Jane will appreciate this because of some

mutual friends. I remember just this day in when I

was a pastor in the School of Ministry at Bethel.

We had this day where Heidi Baker was visiting and

very very wild Bulgarian man named Georgian Banov was visiting

and just you know, it's like sixty years old, but

the energy and the joy of like an eight year old,

you know. And so Georgian was visiting with with Heidi

Baker and and just it's just like the presence of

the Lord just starts to calm as they're ministering and

praying for people, and it just it just was built

in the room. I don't even remember how it started.

All I just remember is like suddenly there was just

this breaking through of the presence of the Lord in

that School of Ministry meeting that day. You know, it

was just worship and into the word and ministry, and

then they were just praying for people and just declaring

the heart and words of the Holy Spirit over people,

and it was just like, oh my goodness, it's like

the water level in the room is just rising. And

then and then we just sort of like it's almost

like sometimes in these moments, you just let the meeting

go and it's just like you just it's like whoever's

on the stage just get off the stage, like just

just let go. And it was one of those days

where you just you just if you're where I'm standing

with a microphone, you just need to get off and

just let the meeting go. And they just let it go.

And I remember we were over like this side of

the room and and I was like supposed to be

like kind of looking after helping look after Heidi a

little bit, like making sure like a bag didn't get

stolen and things like that, you know, just kind of

look after because people just, you know, really wanted to

pray for her, and they grab her and and all

this kind of stuff because they know that she's got

such an anointing on her life. And so I'm kind

of supposed to be kind of just making sure she's

okay and just looking after her a bit. And and

but I'm just like I am getting like, like genuinely

I'm getting filled with the Holy Spirit just trying to

look after her and just being in the metron of her,

and the presence of the Lord is just increasing in

the room, and I'm just starting to feel a bit

like I feel a little bit drunk, to be honest

with you, And I'm not trying to get drunk. But

it's just the Lord was there, and I'm just starting

to kind of feel a bit like I just want

to lie down and just laugh, honestly, and I'm just

getting filled with the presence. And then and then they

can spot when you're getting like that, and so Georgian's

praying for me, and then heid He's praying for me,

and just I don't know how to describe it, but

it just turned into holy chaos. It's just the best

way I could describe it. It was just holy chaos.

It's just people are I think people are getting delivered

of demons and people are getting filled with the Holy Spirit.

And all I remember is were over this side of

the room and we're just people. There's just people lying down,

there's people laughing, as people crying, there's snot, there's tears.

It's just beautiful, just what, you know, just what church

should look like. Hey, and why do we need the

smoke machines when we got the tears and the snot? Hey,

And so more tears and snot and less smoke machines,

I say. And so we got all these tears and

snot on the ground. And then Abby gets up on

the microphone. She's like, hey, guys, I know this is

like bad timing, but we really need to be out

of the building at six pm, so we've got to

be out of here in ten minutes. So I just

need everyone out. And she said it in a really

nice way, like she's kind of telling the School of Ministry, like, guys,

you got to just get out of the building. I

know this is amazing, but we just got to take

it out of the building because they need the building

at six o'clock. And so they end up just opening

the side doors over here. Well I don't even remember,

like I don't even remember some of these moments, but

I just remember somehow, within a space of three to

five minutes, suddenly the pile that was down here is

now outside the doors there, and it's in the adjacent

car parking lot. So we're on the concrete out in

the adjacent car park just doing what we were doing

a moment ago in the room. And I'm telling you

we were not. I am not a hype guy, Like

I'm Australian, Like we don't do hype, and so you know,

we're not into that hype stuff. I'm not hyping anything.

I'm just telling you the presence of the Lord was there.

We were just being felled. There was joy, I was laughing,

we were laughing, just being filled with the spirit. We

ended up in the car park for probably like thirty

to forty minutes, and it was just amazing. There was

just thirty or forty of us in the car park

just being filled with the Holy Spirit on the concrete.

It didn't matter. God was there and was just filling us.

And I just remember that night I had a meeting

at a house because we were about we were like

three or four weeks away from going on our mission

trip to India, and so I had to drive Georgian

back to the other campus and then go to my

meeting for my India mission trip. And so I'm just like,

oh man, I'm like a leader. I need to be there.

And so anyway, I ended up my friend Ben in

the front seat I'm driving and Georgians in the backseat.

And let me tell you, if we had have been

pulled over by the police, I reckon we would have

spent the night in jail for sure. Like it was

it was like it was just like it was in

our car and Georgian's just praying for me while I'm driving,

and I'm like, Georgian, You've got to stop that right now,

Like I just need to get you safe to the

other campus. I and so, you know, anyway, we drop

off Georgian and then I just think I just went

straight to the meeting. But the thing is a lot

of the team that was there they weren't in that

meeting that I was in, and so they're all very

balanced and even keeled, and I just got in there

and I am just like, I just can't stop laughing.

It's still going on and on. I tell you, I

could not stop laughing for hours and hours. This just

went on to the point where I just was like,

you know what, I'm not going to fight it anymore.

Like I was genuinely trying to keep it in and

I just couldn't stop laughing. I just couldn't. And that

is not you can ask my friends. That is not me.

I'm a private school, socks up boy from you know,

I went to Canberra Grammar School. Like I'm a I'm

a I would like to think of myself as a

very dignified individual, and I just I'm just like an

embarrassing mess. I'm just crying and it's just not stopping,

and to the point where it just it actually just

started to spread in my mission trip meeting and suddenly

these people are laughing, and these people are laughing, and

it just it ended up just spilling over into our

mission trip meeting and I tee, we just had a

wonderful it was. It was probably not very productive, but

it was a wonderful mission trip meeting, just full of

the joy and the pleasures of the presence of God.

And I'll never forget that day forever. That day has

just marked me. It's just forever marked me where I

just was like, God, I tasted something in you that

I just want more. It was, I tell you, it was.

I was free. I don't care what people think. Here

you are and here I am with you, and here

is joy and peace and pleasures in your presence. And

I'll never ever forget that. But you know, I can

also think of times where it was like the holiness

of God in the room, the holiness of the Lord

was in the room, and it wasn't a laughing It

was more of a I just want to be on

my face right now before you because you're here, and

it's like like the twenty four elders around the throne.

Just face down, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

who was and is to come. There was a season

where at Bethel where the presence of the Lord just

started to increase in the night meetings. And it started

actually started with this Open Heavens conference where John and

Carroll Arnott came and visited. And what ended up happening

was again just the presence of the Lord just began

to build and build and build, and then suddenly there

was just gold dust in the room. And I apologize

if this offends you, but I'm just telling you what

my eyes saw. There was gold dust in the room.

It was not coming out of the air conditioning events.

It was just in the room. And I have no

explanation for it, but there was gold dust in the room.

But more importantly, he was there. And then the days

and weeks went on afterward, and it would happen night,

not every single night, but there'd be like a Friday

night service and it had happened. There'd be like a

Saturday night, a Saturday morning event, and it would come again,

and a Sunday night, a Sunday night meeting that would

end up going for five or six hours because the

Lord's presence was coming. But it was actually even like

a physical manifestation of like what looked like a gold

dust in the room. And you know what was happening

is that when that was happening, it was like nobody

was talking. There was no worship leader singing, there was

no one prophesying, there was no one. There was no

evangelist preaching the gospel. There was no bible teacher teaching Bible.

It was just we just need to just stop and

just be. And God is here, and His Holiness is here,

the Holy One is here, and it was just these

moments of just WHOA here he is and I don't

know what I'm seeing, but it's like there's a dust

in the room and I'd have no explanation for it.

I don't understand that, but that's okay. That's often how

it is when God comes. We don't quite understand, but

we can recognize when it's him, there's nothing anti biblical happening,

and so we go, okay, there's nothing antibiblical happening here.

He's here. We can recognize it's him. We just need

to be. We just need to stop. Like when you know,

Peter starts on the amount of transfiguration. Peter's like, God's here,

the Father Son and Holy Spirit are here, like, you know,

let's build a booth. And God's like stop, listen to

Jesus and Peter, stop your building booth idea. And it

was like one of those moments of like stop building

your booth and just be just be there and be

in awe. That's what it is. Just sit there, lie there,

face down, whatever, stand there, just be in awe. And

these moments I are for me there they're tastes of

what is what can be of. They were tastes of

what I can have more of in the future. I

just want to invite if the worship team wouldn't mind

just coming up, They'll be really good. We're going to

go into a time of ministry. But these moments they

look different. But there what the common thread to put

it in a trivial way, in these moments, is the

common in the common thing or one is him? There

is more. And when we say there is more, what

we mean is there is more of him, There is

more of Him available. There is more of Him available

to me and to you than what we think there

is a greater experience of Him available to us now

than what we're can currently experiencing. And what the Lord

does is he works to bring us into greater places

of first and hunger. As the deer longs for water,

so my soul longs for you. God is in his grace,

He's working to bring us into first and hunger. It's

a gift. Why is he doing that? Why would he

do that? The reason he brings you there is because

he wants you to hunger so that he can feed

you with precisely what he wants to feed you with,

and that's him. He wants you to He wants to,

in his grace, bring you and I into first and

hunger so that we ask for precisely what he wants

to give. So we seek for precisely what he wants

to give. And what is that the veil was torn.

We can come and have that, commune in with him,

know him, experience him, the manifest presence of King Jesus.

Thank you for joining us today for his story, our story.

We hope you've enjoyed this episode and have been encouraged

and uplifted. If you would like to learn more about

walking with God or Southland Church in Pasadena, Adelaide. Please

visit our website at www dot Southland Church dot com

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