The Presence of God - Ps Roley Thorndike

Welcome to Logan City Christian Church podcast where we bring God's Word to you weekly.

We pray what you hear will bring clarity to your situation and open doors in your life.

Enjoy the message.

I guess next Saturday is the big day for the Queensland voting day and there's been voting

this week and there will be next week with early voting and all that sort of thing.

And it's a great democratic thing that we have the opportunity to vote.

And I hope that you don't go into the voting thing and just put a line through it and walk

out.

Make a choice.

Make the right choice.

Pray about it and ask God.

But you know, I can say a lot of things.

But when Jesus comes in His second coming and He establishes the Kingdom of God on earth,

there will be no voting.

Hallelujah.

There will be no voting in there.

He will rule and reign for a thousand years and there will be no voting.

He is the boss.

The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

They couldn't get any better than Him so why vote anyhow?

There's no voting.

I think that's a wonderful thing.

But while we're here, that's our responsibility.

Pray about it.

Ask God about it.

If you don't know what to do, ask God.

If you don't know which way to go and there's more than one or two, I know that.

But if you don't know, check out the basics, what they believe, what their whole thing

is, where they come from, what their roots are and see if that's what you agree with

and that may help you.

But anyhow, that's next week.

I'm not being political when I'm saying any of that.

I'm just saying.

But I'm glad there's no voting in heaven or on earth actually when He comes.

Wonderful Lord.

You know, we could say the whole problem in the world is it all started in the garden.

We know that.

But I read a little thing the other day and I'll try and remember it.

It just said all the problems started in the garden because the computer that they were

using was an Apple.

Didn't have a lot of memory.

And he had one bite and when it crashed, everything went with it.

But true, that's where it all started, was in the garden.

And God has His hand on what's going on.

Ever since then, God is working out His plan.

And we know the story.

I know that.

But just to say and remind you again that what we are doing right now in this time,

in this age of grace, for grace will cease when no one can be saved.

But in this age of grace, our responsibility is to tell others about Jesus and tell them

the gospel and that they can be born again and be part of the church that will come back

with Jesus when He comes to rule and reign.

Unless we go, we cannot come.

And there will be a snatching away.

There will be that snatching away of the believers of the church will be taken to glory and in

that time, we'll be doing things in heaven.

Things will be happening on earth.

And when Jesus comes, we come back with Him.

Hallelujah.

He comes with 10,000 of His saints.

And that will be you and me and those that know God and trust God and believe God and

are born again.

That's an exciting thing.

And we will rule and reign with Him for that thousand years on earth.

That's a long time.

Anyhow, I'm not here to preach that this morning.

It's all good stuff though.

Hallelujah.

Yeah, I guess Rob is right in what he's saying.

We've done a few things and we've seen a few things, good and bad, in the church.

Seen some amazing miracles, seen some amazing things happen in people's lives.

And we've seen the opposite of that.

Where things go pear-shaped, where things go wrong, where people get hurt, where people

get upset and leave and people turn their back on God because something happened and

they can't handle it.

So they blame God and walk away from God and worse than they ever were before they were

born again.

Been to different countries, seen different cultures, all that sort of thing.

But I know and Claire knows that we are not perfect people.

We might have seen a few things, done a few things, but that doesn't make us any better

than anybody else.

It doesn't make us perfect.

It doesn't make us in some echelon of something or other.

It's not.

We're just ordinary people.

Like you and me, we're just ordinary, all of us.

And I just, I acknowledge God's goodness and what God has done in us and thank God for

it.

But that's all preparation.

What God is doing in me, what God is doing in you is preparation for that thousand years

ruling with Jesus.

Anyhow, as I said, I'm not here to talk about that.

Today, well last time we shared, if you remember, we looked at the children of Israel and how

their wrong attitudes hampered their journey into the promised land.

Do you remember that?

I don't know how long ago.

I looked it up actually.

I thought it was only a few weeks, but it was up in three months or something.

And how this hampered their journey into the promised land and their relationship with

God.

And then we related that to our own journey as we walk with the Lord.

And we highlighted things like being ungrateful, blaming the past, comparing ourselves to others

and being unteachable, feeling unworthy, impatience, pride, all those sorts of things.

And showing that that wilderness thinking can hold us bound in our spiritual growth.

I trust that you got something from that and that it helped you.

And that not only just in that next week, but in your ongoing thing.

Because that's what it's all about.

We are going from glory to glory.

How fast we go from glory to glory depends on how much we are allowing God to do what

God wants to do in us.

So today, we're going to look at Moses and his relationship with God.

Because he faced great challenges.

So how did he do that?

What did he have that enabled him to do that?

What was the key to his success?

As I said last time, he was the pastor of some three and a half million people.

That's a big church.

They had no building.

They were wandering around in the desert and all that.

But he pastored those people.

He looked after them.

He went before God on their behalf.

And so, to pastor a church of a couple of hundred, three hundred, five hundred, a thousand,

ten thousand even, none of that is easy.

It's not easy to be a pastor.

I understand that.

It's not.

I'm not saying don't do it if God is calling you.

What I'm just saying is it's not easy.

Otherwise, everybody would be doing it.

But it's not easy.

And it wasn't easy for Moses either.

So what was it that was in Moses or Moses had that enabled him to do that?

And I trust that as we look at this this morning that this will be able to reveal some things

that would help us as we draw on what Moses had in his life.

But see, God had his hand on Moses from the time that he was born.

And you know the story, he was hidden in the ark in the bulrushes there and Pharaoh's daughter

came along to bathe and she saw the ark there and thought it must have been one of the Hebrew's

children because the Pharaoh had said he was going to kill all the firstborn of the Hebrew

children.

And so she got the...

Anyhow, you know the story.

She didn't...

Well, I suppose she adopted him but she took him and brought him up in the household of

Pharaoh and he was educated in that way and whatever.

But then he killed an Egyptian because he saw this Egyptian giving one of his Hebrew

brethren a hard time.

And so he fled to the desert, married Zipporah and had a son Gershom and became a shepherd

looking after his father-in-law Jethro's sheep.

Now that in itself is quite a story.

Miracles were happening at that time, even the fact that he wasn't killed.

But in Exodus chapter 3, this is where we're going to pick up today, Exodus chapter 3,

Exodus 3 · chapter mention Exodus 3 · chapter mention

we find that Moses, as I said, he's there being the...

He's married, got a family and he's looking after Jethro's sheep.

And he was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law and the priest of Midian and

he led the flock to the back of the desert and he came to Herob, the mountain of God

and the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush.

So he looked and behold, the bush was burning with fire but the bush was not consumed.

Another miracle.

Then Moses said, I'll now turn aside and go and see this great sight, why this bush is

going to burn.

So it does not burn.

So he was inquisitive enough to go and have a look, see what was going on.

So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst

of the bush and he said, Moses, Moses.

And he said, here I am.

That was another miracle.

Like he was just...

Like if you went to see a burning bush and you went up to that burning bush and it started

to talk to you, how would you feel?

The fact the thing wasn't burning would be one thing but then it spoke and knew your

name.

See, God knows your name no matter what the circumstances you are in, no matter where

you're at, no matter what's going on, God knows you by name.

It's a personal thing between you and God.

He knows you by name.

And not just because we are born again people but he knows the name of every person.

I've heard testimonies of people that have been living in sin and not people that you

want to bring home and meet your parents, you know, or come home and be part of your

family.

But their experience was that God called them in a dream and God spoke to them and called

them by their name.

That opened their eyes.

When God speaks to you and calls you by name, what an amazing thing.

And he said, do not draw near to this place.

Don't come any closer but take your sandals off your feet for the place where you're standing

is holy ground.

Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Moses

hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God.

The Bible says that no one has seen God at any time.

We know that Moses saw the hind part of God as he walked past and he hid him in the cleft

of the rock.

We understand that.

We've seen God face to face.

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt.

You see, God never forgot his people even though they were in bondage for something

like three, 5,400 years.

They were slaves in Egypt there.

He never forgot them.

And he always had a plan to do something.

But God's timing is different to our timing.

And so he said, I've seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard

their cry because of their taskmasters for I know their sorrows.

So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them

up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to

the place of the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Amorites, the Pezirites, the Hittites,

the Jebusites.

Now, therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me and I have also seen

the oppression with the Egyptians oppress them.

So he's really saying to him, I know what's going on, Moses.

I am aware of what's going on, Moses.

And I've come down to deliver them.

Listen to this verse, verse 10.

Come now therefore and I will send you to Pharaoh.

You can imagine Moses saying, but God, I thought you were going to do it.

I thought you were going to do it, God.

And God said, no, I'm going to send you.

You see, sometimes, you know, as Christians, as church people, we expect God to do it all.

And sometimes there, God is saying, no, you do that.

When God said feed the hungry, clothe the poor, God is not going to drop it out of heaven

on them.

He raises up people to do that.

It might be helping your neighbour or whatever it might be and giving them something when

they're sick or whatever it might be or raise up an agency that delivers food.

I don't know.

But we don't see God doing it.

We see God's people doing it.

And so God is saying to Moses, I'm going to send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my

people, the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Can you imagine Moses' brain at that time?

Can you imagine his mind?

It's just going round and round.

Here I am standing in front of a bush that's not burning.

It's talking to me.

God's telling me what he's going to do.

And now he wants me to do it.

I haven't got a clue.

Sounds like being a pastor, doesn't it?

This is the most clueless pastor I've ever met.

I don't mean that.

But I mean there's a lot of times he stands up here and says, well, I don't know what's

going on or whatever.

No.

You're a good man, Rob.

You're a good man.

And I think it's so good just to be so relaxed sometimes that we just go with the flow.

I've seen the other side of that when people are so uptight about everything, got everything

organized to a tee, and it still goes wrong in here.

So here's Moses thinking all these things.

And Moses said to God, well, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?

That I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.

And remember, he ran away from Pharaoh because he'd murdered an Egyptian.

So he wasn't in the good books, though he knew Pharaoh.

But he also knew how strong Pharaoh was, how dangerous he was, if you like, how angry he

could get.

So he's saying, no, no, no, no, no, not me.

Not me.

So God said to him, but I will certainly be with you.

Verse 12, I will certainly be with you.

And this shall be a sign to you that I've sent you when you've brought the children

of Israel out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

And so there was this dialogue between God and Moses.

And Moses trying to wheel his way out of it and God strengthening this all the time.

No, this is what you're going to do.

God, didn't you have any mercy on Moses?

Yes, he did, because he said, I'll be with you.

I'll be with you.

Friend, let me say this.

All you need is a word from God.

Now, I say this carefully, you need a word from God.

Not a friend, not the government, not a prophet even.

You need a word from God in your own heart.

And any prophetic word you get should confirm that word to you that you've got in your heart.

Not news that you've never heard before.

I know that it would have happened in other churches, but I know in COC, you know, it

was, Clark heard from God in a way that he did things on just that thing of three or

four words that God might have spoken to him.

I will be with you.

I know that happened on numerous occasions.

Most likely it happened with Pastor Reg in AOG at Mount Gravatt.

Just a word from God, you see.

It's a word from God we need.

We need to hear from God for ourselves.

So in this burning bush experience, God spoke to him and called him to work with him.

He didn't just send him out on his own, like wind him up and set him off with a commission

to do something.

But he called him to work with him.

I'll be with you, Moses.

I'll be with you.

We'll do it together, Moses.

I've come, but I'm sending you and I'll be with you.

You see, when you have a face-to-face encounter with God, you're never the same.

Now he may not have seen God's face there, but I tell you what, if ever there was a face-to-face

encounter, I think that was one of them.

A burning bush that spoke and Moses was there.

But you see, when we meet with God, when you meet with God in your private devotional times

or wherever it might be and God's presence comes and touches you in a real way, you'll

never be the same again.

I'm not talking about an emotional experience, although emotions come into it, but that presence

of God, that literal presence of God that you feel, that you even fear to a degree,

but once you know it, you don't, that changes you.

And when you're touched by that presence, nothing ever satisfies ever again.

You see, Moses was changed from being unwilling to being willing or more willing.

So you received instructions and assurances from God, but he was a changed man because

now he was God's man.

So he went with God and God was with him.

There was major miracles that happened in Egypt then.

Went to Pharaoh, let my people go, no way.

So then the plague started to come.

There were 10 plagues, weren't there?

Flies and you know them all.

I'm trying to save time because I want to get to what I want to get to.

But there were those major miracles.

River turned to blood, flies and all that sort of thing.

And Pharaoh still did not let the people go because God hardened his heart and here's

a bit of a paradox sort of thing.

I'll be with you Moses, I'll help you, but I'm going to harden his heart.

God, I thought you were supposed to make this easy for me.

God, you're making it harder for me.

Ever felt like that?

I have, my goodness.

And all you can do is say, God, you said you'd be with me and I believe you.

So then we know that there were those miracles.

And the last one, he was going to kill the firstborn of the Egyptians, God said.

So the Passover was instituted and they, you know, well we know the story of the Passover.

They took the sacrificial lamb, they put blood over the doorposts and lintels.

The angel of death passed over them.

It saw the blood, it passed over those who were under the blood.

There's the gospel right there.

And finally the Exodus when Pharaoh just said, just go, just go, just take, just go.

So when they went, they took all, they plundered the Egyptians.

They just didn't walk out with their own gear, but they walked out with all the gear of the

Egyptians.

They took all their jewels and they took all their goods and all the things that they wanted.

And can you imagine?

All these ones that have been taskmasters over you, you know, now you've got the permission

to go and you go and say, oh, I'll have that, thanks very much, keep that in my bag.

Walk up to the other one that used to punch you and knock you around with a whip, you

know, and say, hmm, I'll have that, thank you very much.

Took his watch, sundial if you like.

They plundered the Egyptians, the Bible said.

They probably got 400 years' wages in one day.

They came to the Red Sea and they crossed the Red Sea.

Pharaoh's pursuing army was drowned and they were then free.

And they were then rich.

You see, we need to understand here right at this particular point, as I said before

really, that Moses embarked on a faith journey with God.

A faith journey.

Not just a task to take people from A to B, but it was a faith journey.

So how do we, and so do we, when we are saved, we embark on a faith journey with God.

And we're called to trust God in every situation in that journey.

It's faith all the way every day.

That's it.

Everything is faith.

Can I just refresh your memories, because Hebrews says, in Hebrews 11, which is the

hero's chapter, verse 23, by faith Moses, when he was born, he was hidden for three

months.

This is a synopsis of his whole thing here.

He was born for three months, he was hidden by his parents because he was a beautiful

child and they were not afraid of the king's command.

And by faith Moses, when he became of age, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's

daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures

of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ's greater riches than the pleasures

or the treasures of Egypt rather, for he looked to the reward.

And by faith he forsook Egypt by fearing the wrath of the king, not fearing the wrath of

the king, for he endured and seeing him who is invisible.

By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he be destroyed, who destroyed

the firstborn should touch them.

By faith they passed through the Red Sea on dry ground, whereas the Egyptians attempting

to do so were drowned.

So it was a faith journey and that was the only part.

They were then free but it was still faith up to then, did faith stop then?

No, it was faith all the way.

Now this was a massive undertaking for Moses.

Can you imagine being responsible for three million people, over three million people,

three and a half some say, plus their animals and all their goods and to take them from

A to B. Supposed to be ten days journey, ended up being forty years or something for different

reasons.

But that would be no easy task even for ten days.

So can you imagine the logistics of that?

Just to put this into perspective, we've read the story, we know the story, we've seen the

movie Ten Commandments, it was a great movie, we've seen it all but to really say, hey that

was a big deal, to really realise that, that's bigger than I thought.

Because I heard this when I was a little one in Sunday school, how did Moses cross the

Red Sea, you know all that sort of thing and all the thing came down on them and they were

all drowned and we all laughed and everything, that's a big deal.

So can you imagine the logistics, water for the people?

How long do you live without water?

How long?

You can go for twenty something days I think it is, forty days without food or water but

any water for the animals as well.

Feed for all the animals, food for the people, camp hygiene, toileting and all that sort

of thing.

Three million people, I could say more.

But Moses had a big God, you see he, God said I'll be with you and Moses said I don't know

how, where am I going to get the water from, where am I going to get it from, then he remembered,

I'll be with you.

That's the thing you see, if you know that God has spoken to you when the time is tough,

that's what you're going to draw on, God you said you'd be with me.

If he didn't have that, he'd just say, I've got no idea, I'm going home.

You see, Moses, the God of Moses if you like, our God, he is a big God, capital G God, capital

O D God, big God.

He's not just another God, he's not just average God, he's not just a bit bigger than the devil,

he is a big God.

He's a powerful God.

You see he was a God that could lift three and a half million people out of slavery in

one day.

They'd been there 400 years.

That's a big God.

They had seen him open the Red Sea wide enough for them, for the children, three and a half

million, that's a lot of people to walk through in a short space of time.

A God who could supply all the water needed for the people and their animals, that's a

lot of water.

Friends, let me just give you a few statistics here.

We know that the 1 Corinthians 10, 4 says that they drank from the spiritual rock that

followed them and that rock was Christ.

He watered them.

Literally, the water flowed from him and that was enough water for them to bathe in, to

drink in, to toilet in and do all those things, wash themselves in and water their animals

every day.

You're not going to get that in 44 gallon drums.

The logistics of this is absolutely amazing.

When I was in the army, there was another unit that a guy that I worked with, it actually

was part of this other unit.

I was in an engineering unit and he was in this unit called movement control.

I thought, what unit would that be, movement control?

They did all the logistics of moving an army from A to B. They had to organize where they

get water from, they had to organize food, they had to organize their ammunition, they

had to organize the whole deal, petrol for the vehicles, whatever.

That was what they did and I thought, how boring would that be?

Then I did at that stage think, but I've heard of this story before about logistics for a

big move and that's where this is coming from.

This is an amazing thing and God did it.

Was a miracle.

It was a miracle.

It wasn't done by the movement control, I tell you.

Just to get this into perspective, because I thought this was rather interesting, you

got three and a half million people, let's say about 270 liters a day.

Let's just take that for a figure.

That's the national average of daily use for water per head in Australia, 274 liters per

head per day, national figure.

Some states vary, whatever.

Let's just take that figure anyhow.

That's not just enough for per head.

I'm talking about per head for them to water their animals, to bathe into the whole thing

in.

That's 959 million liters of water.

959 million liters of water or 959 gigaliters, a million liters is a gigaliters.

Per day.

Now Sydney Harbour has a capacity of 500 gigaliters.

So two Sydney Harbours per day is what they needed for water.

That is a lot of water and that is a major miracle.

Can you imagine?

The water in Sydney Harbour.

Oh dear me.

How big is God?

Now if you multiply that's only per day.

So you multiply that over 40 years, my calculator went up in smoke, I just tried to work that

one out.

But that's still a lot of water.

What about the manna?

See, he had a mighty God there with him who provided fresh manna every day for 40 years.

He never failed them.

40 years.

How many loaves?

How many loaves was that?

I have no idea.

But God knew and he provided it.

You see these were major miracles that God did.

Not that Moses did, but God did.

But Moses trusted God.

Moses had confidence that God would do these things for 40 years.

And Moses knew that it wouldn't be easy and he knew that there would be danger in this

whole thing.

He knew there would be obstacles.

He knew people enough to know that they would rebel and complain.

And the people were rebellious.

Because in Exodus 32 we read that while Moses was coming down from the mountain with the

tablets of stone that God had written with his finger, the Ten Commandments.

They built themselves a golden calf and they started to worship this golden calf.

And when he saw what they were doing, he was angry and he broke the tablets and the stone

and the ground.

Can you imagine it?

You're just doing the wrong thing.

Here I am talking with God, getting all this and now you're going and worshiping some created

thing that you've all thrown in the gold that God gave you and fashioned this calf

out of it and now you're having a good time and worshiping this calf.

He was angry.

I tell you, God was more angry because he just wanted to kill them.

Verse 10.

He just wanted to kill them.

Wipe them all out.

Start again.

Moses pleaded with God not to kill them and the Lord relented from harming them in verse

14.

I tell you what, that is a great pastoral act.

God's going to kill them and Moses said, no, hang on Lord.

If you kill them, what are the other nations going to say?

You brought them out into the wilderness to kill them?

They know that you brought them out to set them free.

That's not going to look really good.

And he talked with the Lord and changed God's mind.

I think that's very interesting.

Now in Exodus 33, we read here and this is where we're coming to.

God had instructed him, Moses, now to leave Sinai and lead the people on to the promised

land.

And God said that as we read before, he'd drive out before them the Amorites, the Canaanites,

the Hittites, Perizzites, Hiveites, Jebusites and any other that was around, he was going

to get rid of them and go up to that land that flows with milk and honey, but I will

not go in your midst.

God now is saying, you go and do it, but I'm not going to be there.

And he was withdrawing himself now.

And the bell started to go off in Moses' mind.

Hang on, hang on, if you're not going to go and be with us, we're going to be in bigger

trouble than we're already in.

Because he knew that he couldn't do it without God because he knew he couldn't do it.

God said he'd be with him.

Now God's saying, I'm not going to go with you.

Moses is left there hanging.

Big trouble.

But you see, Moses and God had a special relationship.

He was a chosen vessel of God from when he was born.

God had his hand on him.

In Exodus 33, 7 to 11, it says here, Moses took the tent and pitched it out outside the

camp, far from the camp, and he called it the Tabernacle of Meeting.

It came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the Tabernacle of Meeting,

which is just outside the camp.

So it was, whenever Moses went out to the Tabernacle, that the people rose and each

man stood in his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the Tabernacle.

And it came to pass when Moses entered the Tabernacle that the pillar of cloud descended

and stood out of the door of the Tabernacle, stood at the door of the Tabernacle, and the

Lord talked with Moses.

The people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the Tabernacle door, and all the people

rose and worshiped each man in his own door.

So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

So Moses desired to meet with God.

He wanted to talk about this.

God, I don't understand.

I don't understand.

You said this, but now you're saying this.

I don't understand.

Just a little aside here.

Bible says here in verse 11, the Lord spoke to Moses as a man speaks to his friend and

he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not

depart from the Tabernacle.

Just a little aside, this is Joshua who 40 years later led the children of Israel in.

He lingered.

Just another little aside, in the hero's chapter of the Bible, Hebrews 11, Joshua never even

got a mention.

You can write that one down if you like.

Never got a mention.

I never knew that before.

Then he left until the other day.

So Moses now is wanting to talk with God.

He had reason with God before.

He changed God's mind before because God was going to kill all the people of the children

of Israel and he said, no, no, no.

And then God relented.

So verse 12, Moses said to the Lord, see you say to me, bring up this people, but you've

not let me know whom you will send with me, yet you have said, I know you by name and

you have also found grace in my sight.

You've said all this.

I don't understand now why you're doing this.

So now therefore I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way that I

may know you and that I may find grace in your sight and consider that this nation is

your people.

They're not my people.

They're your people.

That's your responsibility.

It's interesting that in Psalm 103 verse 7, it says there that he made known his ways

Psalms 103:7

unto Moses and his acts unto the children of Israel.

Moses wanted to understand God.

He wanted to understand how God thinks.

What is his process in doing this?

How does this work?

How do you work God?

How do you?

What do you?

He just wanted to know God.

Nothing wrong with that.

How much do I want to know God?

How much do you want to know God?

Do you want to know God to that extent?

I must say this at this point.

Well, I want to say this at this point.

Clark was one that always asked the questions, God, how did you do that?

How do I do that?

How do I do that?

You haven't seen Clark move in the Gifts.

If you haven't seen it in church, you'll see it on YouTube or whatever.

But Clark would say, how did I do that?

I started to ask God these questions too.

God, I pray for someone over here and they get a miracle.

I pray for someone over here, exactly the same one and nothing seems to happen.

Why God?

Now, I haven't really got the answers for all that.

But there's nothing wrong with asking the question.

But I think that that, well, I've got some answers, but you know, he made his ways known

to Moses.

God shared his ways with Moses, the Bible says.

The children of Israel just saw what God did.

They were the spectators.

Whoa, that's good.

I've got water again today.

Yes, I've got the bread there again today.

Oh, I'm sick of it.

But there it is.

My clothes are not wearing out.

My shoes are not wearing out.

All that.

That's all wonderful.

And, you know, they still complained.

But I believe that Moses knew how God did it.

Just total miracles, of course.

In Philippians 3.10, it says that I might know him because that's what Moses wanted

to know God.

And Paul's saying, God, that I might know you and the power of your resurrection.

I might know you.

Friend, that's the cry of our heart that we might know God more.

We might know God in a more intimate way, in a closer relationship, day by day.

So God, Moses is asking God, show me your way.

Show me your way.

Tell me your way.

Tell me what's going on.

He didn't demand it of God, but because of his position and responsibility, he certainly

had the right, I believe, to say, God, you said this and this.

I don't understand this.

You've got to show me because I've got to do this thing.

I'm the one that is responsible here under you.

And if I don't know God, how's it going to work?

You know, I think that's a fair enough thing.

In verse 14, God says to him, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest.

My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.

In other words, God's saying, I'll be there and you can rest in that, that I am there.

My presence will go with you.

And this was Moses' response in verse 15.

If your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.

In other words, God, if you're not coming with us, I'm not going either.

You see, I believe this is the key to understanding Moses, to have the promise of his presence

as they move forward, he rested in that presence.

He trusted in that presence.

You might say, well, that's okay for Moses, but it's okay for us too.

Matthew 11, 28 to 30, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will

give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you shall

find rest to your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

God wants us to come into his presence.

In church, yes.

Every day, yes.

There was a, it's a good, well, I might preach it one day, I don't know, but anyhow, just

practicing the presence of God.

It's a good sermon title and there's a lot in it.

But practicing the presence of God.

Why not?

Why not have God with you in all that you're doing, talking to the Lord about everything

that you're doing.

When you're driving your car and you're coming to a red light or coming to an intersection,

Lord, is it going to go red or green?

I first heard that said, I thought, do I really need to know that?

I just got to stop whatever it does or go when it says green.

But this is the thing of practicing the presence of God.

And I've done that and I've, amazing the number of times.

Amazing the number of times that I've got it wrong too.

But it's practicing, you see.

Having the presence of God there with you.

Ladies, when you're cooking and when you're doing your household duties and your wifely

duties there and all that, why not have God with you doing that?

This ironing, that's creased, not too bad.

Goes in the back and tucks in.

That doesn't matter.

It does matter.

Clay's a good ironer.

She never complains.

Clay never complains.

I never complain.

But you may as well have God there with you doing it while you're hanging out the washing,

while you're doing the ironing, while you're washing the dishes, whether you're stacking

the dishwasher men or whether you're making the bed or whatever you're doing.

Why not have God with you rather than say, well I don't need God with me to do that?

That's silly.

Practicing the presence of God.

It's all that Moses wanted, just to know that God was with him and that God would remain

with him and stay with him and help him and do the miracles that needed to be done.

So much so that he said, well if you're not going God, I'm not going either.

God take us anywhere if you're not coming with us.

I believe in the times of his going into the tabernacle, it wasn't only to receive instructions

from God but just to be there with him and enjoy the presence of God.

Psalm 1611 says, in your presence is fullness of joy.

In your presence is fullness of joy.

Why wouldn't we want to then be in his presence, remain in his presence, be conscious of his

presence?

So Moses and God talked together and they fellowshiped, they enjoyed that intimacy and

we can do that as well.

Because when you spend time in the presence of God, what happens?

Now at times, at different seasons, we've seen a few things and whatever but 1990, what

is it?

I don't know, 1993, 4, 5, somewhere around there, they called it the laughing thing,

the presence of God had come down and people would start laughing and slithering off the

chairs on the floor and rolling around on the floor laughing and it was a worldwide

thing.

When I first saw this, when I backed up to the wall, I thought, whoa, how about this?

I've seen a few Pentecostal happenings but I've never seen anything like that before.

Seeing on the floor laughing my head off.

I've seen it in those times when there's been a lot of laughter and a lot of joyous

expression and I've also seen it when it goes deathly quiet, absolute silence, like thick

silence when you've got maybe 500 people, it's just nothing.

I've seen people lie on the floor at a conference for hours on end, completely quiet, being

in the presence of God and then later on hearing the stories of what God shared with them,

what God spoke to them and God commissioned some and all this sort of thing and others

just said, I didn't tell anything, I just went to sleep.

Well in the presence of the Lord is fullness of joy and if being asleep and being peaceful

and everything else and you went to sleep, I'm not pointing the finger at that.

But you can see the difference, there's the noise and then there's the quiet.

You see the presence of God changes us, that's the thing.

Can I just say this?

If you come to church and you go home the same, not good, not good.

There can be reasons, I understand, we're all human and whatever and we've got worries

and why.

But friend, why even come if you don't expect to be different when you walk out?

Expect to be different, want to be different, desire to be different.

Because if you allow the presence of God to touch you, let me put it this way, you can

be in the presence of God in a meeting and not be touched by the presence of God in that

meeting.

You've got to open your heart to receive that, you've got to open your heart to want that

and you see when we do that, the presence of God changes us.

We said it before, when we have that face to face with God, when we have that encounter

with God, we're different.

Can't be the same again.

I heard it said this way, going to church is going to change you more, being in the

presence of God at church and going to church is going to change you more than hours of

counselling.

Now we don't counsel anymore.

Used to have appointments, diaries full of appointments, day after day after day, tiring.

We don't counsel anymore, we just give godly advice when it's asked for.

Different thing because you've got a bit of paper to say you can counsel now.

Anyhow, that's what the government does.

So friend, I'd rather just to touch from God to deal with the things that I need dealt

with in my life than have to talk to someone about it because that to me is just embarrassment.

And if God can do it like that, if God can do it so quickly, friend, why would we want

to go through the processes of other things?

Now if that has to be the case, fair enough.

But I tell you what, I've seen more people's lives changed instantly on a prayer line than

I have in counselling.

So it changes you.

You see, this presence of God that I'm talking about, it not only changes you but it spoils

you for anything else.

Normal Christianity is just out the window.

You're ruined for normal Christianity because you just want this presence of God, this power

of God, this anointing, this cloak, this...

You might say you're going a bit off the deep end.

No, I'm not.

I'm talking here from experience as well.

And not only my experience but a thousand.

I trust that you have experienced that.

If you haven't, you can.

You can.

Desire it.

We'll get to that in a minute.

You see, if you spend time in the presence of God, it helps you to love people more.

Marriages start to change.

Then people say, you know, since you've been coming to church, you know how marriage is

different.

So it should be.

Because God is now working.

Relationships change.

Friendships change.

Church will be different.

Because you'll be different.

I've got a reference here.

Oh yes.

In 2 Chronicles 5, 13 and 14, we read there that when they had the presence of God and

they brought the Ark of the Covenant in, you know, the presence of God so filled that place

that they couldn't stand to minister.

The people just fell over.

The power of God and the presence of God is an amazing thing.

And friend, I want to see it more and more and more and more and more.

Throughout the church.

The church worldwide.

The church in Brisbane, if you like.

Every church.

Not just the charismatic churches.

But let God be God in all the churches.

Because it's His church.

Now unless there's some changes that go on in there, apart from it being a sovereign

thing, some will never see it.

And you see the presence of God literally will change society because that's what happened

with Moses.

Released them out of slavery.

Look at Wales.

You've heard the story of the revival in Wales.

The Welsh revival.

Because people came into the presence of God and they prayed and they were in the presence

of God and people's lives would change.

The atmosphere over the place was changed.

All the pubs closed.

And when the miners went back to work, when they're pit donkeys down in the dark, they

walk around in the dark there.

And they would operate by command and sometimes it was commands that were colourful language

commands and because they weren't hearing this colourful language command, they weren't

doing anything.

Because God had changed the miners and they weren't using that language anymore and the

pit ponies didn't know what to do.

See God changed that place.

You see, let me close by saying this, the presence of God is powerful and it's wonderful.

It's wonderful when God, see because God is a wonderful God.

His name shall be called wonderful.

It's wonderful.

Full of wonder.

So Moses learned to trust the presence of God.

He wanted the presence of God with him.

And I trust that you want that as well.

You want the presence of God not just for yourself but the presence of God building

in church, building in our society, that the presence of God, you see, anyhow.

How do I develop that in my own life then?

This is where it comes down to it.

How do I do this?

Well Christ in me, the Bible says, Galatians 1.27, Christ in me, the hope of glory.

He is in me.

Realise, God that we're talking about is in me.

Jesus is in me by his spirit.

He is in me.

He is in you.

The same one that the water flowed out of to feed the children of Israel lives in me.

The same one that part of the Red Sea is in me and is in you.

When we start to realise these things, think about these things, it lifts us from our,

the scales from our eyes that were, from our earthly thinking to heavenly thinking, spiritual

thinking if you like.

You see the Bible says that the spirit of Jesus is joined to your spirit.

When we're born again, our spirit is joined to his spirit.

1 Corinthians 6.17.

And all that Jesus is, is joined to you, his character, his nature.

It's in you.

He is in you.

He is in me.

I don't have to go and find him.

He is in me.

I just need to realise that he is in me.

1 John 2.27 says the anointing, the presence that empowered, that realised presence of

God is in me stays there.

It abides there.

Friend, how do I do it?

I need to hunger for his presence.

Moses hungered for it.

He said, God, we need you.

If you're not going, I'm not going either.

God, I want your, show me your way.

Show me how you think.

Lord, show me.

Can we talk to the Lord like that?

Yes, we can.

Yearn for it.

Want it.

Linger in it.

Meet the wonder and that intimacy between you and God.

That's the wonder of it all.

That he would love us, that he would care for us, that he'd even want to live within

us.

That's the wonder of it.

The presence of God.

Wonderful thing.

Wonderful thing.

I trust that you would be encouraged today to take another step in that direction and

let God be God in whatever way he needs to be for you.

Father, we thank you for your presence and your blessing upon every person here today.

I ask you, Lord, that you would just touch every heart, minister to every life, meet

every need, Lord.

Lift the burdens.

Lift the heaviness.

Father, release your presence more and more and ask God we desire to know you more and

more.

We love you, Lord.

We love you.

Help us, Lord, to be doers of the word not here is only.

We ask your presence and linger with us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for joining us.

We pray God's richest blessing on your life.

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See you next week.