Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #200 "Moses, Mountains, and Miracles: The Divine Journey"

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#200 "Moses, Mountains, and Miracles: The Divine Journey" · The OneCry Podcast

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God's not wasting seasons. He's redeeming them.
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And so what you might think is
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flippant or lost on God is actually preparatory for what God wants to do.
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Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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Welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Bill Eliff, and this is my dear buddy and pastor and friend, Dr.
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Kyle Reno. He's not really a doctor. He's not. I've been to one.
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I'm handing out honorary degrees today, so we just give one to him.
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But we're so glad. Kyle, great to see you, man.
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And by the way, we haven't talked about this on the One Cry podcast,
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but Kyle, you've been involved in an extraordinary movement that's happening
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among men and the Better Man movement.
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And I think not too long ago.
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In your hometown, there were, what, 3,000 men that gathered?
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Yeah, man, 3,100 men in the presence of God.
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Yeah, and it's happening everywhere. I think we could take a whole other episode,
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Bill, and talk about all the activity of the Lord right now in our mission.
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But we had a moment, 3,100 men in God's presence, life's changed.
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380-something groups have been started since March 1st. That's so crazy.
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And let's do that.
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I mean, we love to report. So maybe we can spend a whole day just reporting
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on what's happening on men.
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You know, we remember back to the promise keeper movement and how God moved
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in such an extraordinary way.
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And I believe he's on the cusp of that again in this moment of revival that we're seeing.
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But today we're going to take a little journey with Moses. You know,
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back in the Jesus movement, there was a kind of a wild man that used to sing Jesus songs.
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And I remember Larry Norman was his name. I remember he had one song about Moses.
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It was called Take Another Lap Around Mount Sinai.
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It was just great. But today we're going to start, I think, in Exodus chapter three.
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Is that right? We're going to look at this passage.
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And I know, Kyle, have you ever been surprised?
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Just ever been, God just ever surprised you with anything?
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Yeah, I found it's like a normal part of God's journey that he takes us on.
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He just shows up and surprises us.
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Yeah, I had, you know, one time years ago, I was, my brother and I,
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when we were both young, We were ministering out in Seattle for a summer,
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and this youth pastor followed us from one city to another city and came to the services.
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And somehow he and about three of his kids snuck into the house.
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The house was empty, but we were staying in it and hid.
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And we came in weary at night and he jumped out behind a door and I fainted. I just went dead out.
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And this was not so bad except earlier in my life,
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my sister and brother-in-law had come home from their honeymoon and snuck into
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the house and we came in and I was younger and he jumped out from behind the door and I fainted then.
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And those two things together never happened.
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Made my wife feel real secure.
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Nobody's ever waiting for us in the home. Yeah. I mean, sometimes a surprise can really mess you up.
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And sometimes it's God has purposes in that that you just don't know.
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And we have to learn how to recognize those things, don't we?
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And deal with them properly.
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Yeah. Yeah. I think that you look at in many ways in the next couple of weeks,
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we're going to journey with a man.
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Named Moses, and see some moments where God has in his heart things Moses doesn't know yet.
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And just to give us a little context here, and Bill, you've preached this so
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many times, but Moses has this very unique journey with God.
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And in many ways, when we find him here in chapter 3, you've got to think that
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he believes he's missed his moment.
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He anticipated God had rescued him from the Nile in amazing ways,
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brought him into Pharaoh's home.
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He becomes aware of his heritage and lineage, and I think that he senses that
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he has some calling to be a deliverer, but then goes about it in a way that's
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not best and ends up having to leave,
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run out of town.
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And you meet him about 40 years later, you know, and you're in this moment.
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And three, that he's got a family, that he's passed his prime in his mind,
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you know, and wouldn't anticipate God showing up, which is so encouraging.
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You know, then about the time we think we're done, God's just getting started,
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you know, and he's bringing about purpose.
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And what I want to talk about today is a little bit.
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Is to learn to anticipate God's presence.
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And so when he does come, you're ready to hear. So I love what it says, verse 1.
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One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian.
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So here's Moses out there doing what he doesn't know is helping prepare him
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for what he's about to fulfill in purpose, that God often uses where we've been
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to prepare us for where we're going.
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Moses would probably think this is wasted time, that he's been 40 plus years
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shepherding a few sheep on the hillsides out here, but God's actually using
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it to make him ready to move millions,
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to move millions into promised places.
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And I would just say even to our listener, God's not wasting seasons. He's redeeming them.
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And so what you might think is flippant or lost on God is actually preparatory
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for what God wants to do, that God's getting him away long enough to get him
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ready for what he's about to burst. But then this first one, it just blows me away.
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He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God.
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Now, there's many reasons why it's called the mountain of God,
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that this seems to be a place.
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And now you've got to remember, Moses is writing this looking back and knowing
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that this is a place where God has made up his mind to make his presence known.
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That there was something, I would say to us, there was something special about Sinai.
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That there was something special about this place that God would mark with his
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presence. Bill, we've talked about this often, that there seemed to be something
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about Sinai where there just wasn't much distance between heaven and right there.
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That there was something that God has set apart in that place to move in the heart of this one man.
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But he'll often, I can go through a whole history lesson of how many times God
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decides to make his presence there known at what Moses declares as the mountain of God.
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And I love Nathan Lino, our buddy, has said when he was talking about this passage,
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he said, Moses found himself at God's house, didn't know it, and God was home.
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He found himself at God's house and God was home.
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And so what I would love to say to our listeners is to believe for distinguished
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places here on planet Earth where God makes his presence known.
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And I don't think that that's contrary to what God's done in his plan across human history.
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Matter of fact, we're going to move to a moment here where they're going to
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establish places like tents of meeting,
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a place where they can meet with God, that they're going to establish places
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like tabernacles, that they're going to establish places like temples in the Old Testament.
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We're going to see if you fast forward, and I'd love to talk to you about this,
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Bill, that you see this in places fast forward. There's going to be upper rooms.
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There's going to be synagogues and so forth. And I would even say to us,
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to the listeners, that there's been no such places in revival history.
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There's been Moriah chapels. Come on, right? Where God in the Welsh revival
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makes a holy visitation that sparks a national revival,
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that they are metropolitan tabernacles, you know, where men of God have prayed
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and fasted and sought God's face and are preaching the gospel,
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where God distinguishes that place as a place where he makes himself at home.
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A place where He makes His presence known. Man, we've been all moved by the
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Jesus movement, you know, and we were looking back and even the movie Jesus Revolution spoke to us.
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But I believe that Calvary Chapel became one of those places.
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And even on the West Coast in that season just seemed to be a place where God
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was very near, very known.
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And you're going to see, we'll look at this even in the weeks ahead,
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moments where God's presence is so prevalent and so real that it unlocks purpose,
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that it unlocks desire in a nation and in a generation and what God wants to unleash.
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I mean, one of those, and Bill, you've been there several times.
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One of those places I think in more recent times has been Brooklyn Tabernacle,
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a place where God has made His presence known.
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Well, Moses wasn't necessarily anticipating it. God had decided that he was
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going to make his presence known to Moses in this moment, but he had drawn him.
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Moses has found himself a little
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bit further away than normal and found himself in the presence of God.
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And so when you find yourself on a journey and find yourself in the presence of God, stop.
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I recognize the other side of it is I'm praying.
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I'm praying for places that God would find us longing for him to make himself known.
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So verse two, it goes there. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing
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fire from the middle of the bush.
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Moses stared in amazement, though the bush was engulfed in flames.
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It didn't burn up. The angel of the Lord is best translated, the angel is Yahweh,
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meaning this is a theopony moment where I believe that Jesus is making himself
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known that the bush wasn't on fire, per se, like burning, but the fire was in the midst of the bush.
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You say, Kyle, explain that. I just sort of did. That's all I got.
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That God is making His presence known in the midst of one of the most common things in the region.
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A scruffy, common bush that God is making Himself known, which beckons a few questions.
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Why is God doing it this way? Well, one, because God wants to meet with Moses.
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And I would just say to our listeners, I hope you'll come to believe this.
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God wants to meet with you.
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God in this moment is wanting to meet with Moses in a personal way.
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And he's deciding to make himself known in this very supernatural, very specific way.
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Also, I believe that God's wanting Moses to see what's true in this common bush,
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like one of the most easily recognizable thing in that region,
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that God can make his glory known in something very common, that God's wanting
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Moses to see what's true about this bush is going to be true about you.
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That I'm going to make myself known through you, Moses.
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If I can make myself known in such a profound, beautiful way through this common,
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scruffy little bush, just imagine.
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Which is going to be true. Fast forward, I'm getting ahead of myself.
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What are people going to say about Moses? They're going to be like, Moses, put a veil on.
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There's too much of God in your face.
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He's radiating out of you. So God has already given a little foreshadowing of
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what's going to be true about him,
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which just reminds me that God wants to meet with his people,
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that God wants us to experience his presence, that James 4, 8 is true.
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Draw near to God and he'll draw near to you.
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Moses didn't even make the step this time that God had always,
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which is always true, always makes the first step toward us.
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But we do have a decision to draw near.
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So you've got this very specific place, man. and where God is making His presence
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known to a specific person in this moment.
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And this is Moses' response. This is amazing, Moses said to himself.
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Why isn't this bush burning up? I must go and see it. Well, I laugh,
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boo. You've heard me talk about this several times.
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I love that the Lord knew how to get a guy's attention to you.
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I'm going to set something on fire that doesn't burn up, and he's going to do
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what every dude would do. Man, I've got to go see that.
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He had his Gomer Pile golly moment. Like, I got to draw near.
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And what I think Moses doesn't know yet, that he's about to know even more fully,
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is every one of us is longing to experience the presence of God.
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And he's seeing something that's awakening something deep within him, a longing.
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I know this guy named Bill Eliff that's got one of my favorite quotes about
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the presence of God that when he said,
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his presence is our greatest need and our presence is his greatest desire. Fantastic statement.
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Like God's presence is Moses's greatest need.
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And listen, in Moses' presence, is God's greatest desire.
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Like, and when those things come together, watch out.
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Watch out. So we're seeing that in this moment.
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And then I sort of end here, and Bill, let's banter back and forth some,
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man, because there's so much that we've already covered that I don't think we've quite captured yet.
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And then this moment of endearment really blew me away in a fresh way.
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When the Lord saw Moses take a closer look, God called to him from the middle
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of the bush, Moses, Moses.
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And here's the thing that I learned studying history here a little bit more,
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that in the Semitic culture, that that's a repetition of endearment.
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What it meant saying his name twice was expressing affection.
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Like that he didn't just say Moses and that Moses fell flat,
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but that he said it was beckoning, Moses, Moses.
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Like he would have known from his upbringing, his Hebrew culture,
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that that was God saying, come here.
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Like, I want you near me. and that he would have heard a father's tone to how he had said his name.
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And I think that what I would hope that our listeners would believe about God
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wanting us to be near him is that
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God calls us by name, that the Lord is lovingly calling us to himself.
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And then the last thing I would say, really, and then I want to talk a little
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more about this. But Moses has to respond.
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And Moses' response to God calling his name in an endearing way is, here I am.
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That at some point when God is making himself known to us in everyday ways,
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but also in special ways and seasons, like his invitation has to become our surrender.
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Like at some point, God's invitation to come close has to become our surrender
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to whatever he says, whatever he wants. I'm coming.
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Here I am laying it on. And you're going to have to stay surrendered,
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which Moses is going to struggle with. We're going to see in a moment.
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But it starts with surrender and then it has to be a sustained surrender.
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I remember old Blake Hudsbeth, our buddy said in a season personally with him,
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he was wrestling with the Lord.
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He had to come to realize this about surrender, that surrender to God isn't
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an acknowledgment of defeat, like some dictators come and it's taken over.
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It isn't an acknowledgment of defeat, but it's an act of trust.
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By coming to the point, surrender, going like, I am fully surrendered because I can trust you.
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I can say, here I am, no matter what's coming next, because you're trustworthy.
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So, Bill, I know, man, your life has been marked by moments in God's presence and revival.
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Just looking through this story, I know I just covered a bunch of ground in
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a long time, but what things just awaken in your heart when we're thinking about it?
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Well, that passage, Kyle, which was a real moment, right? I mean,
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it's not a passage in the Bible.
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Right. It was a real moment in a guy's life that just, it was a guy just like us.
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Yeah. And it is just so full of so much for us because, you know,
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Moses was on the ash heap at this point.
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I mean, he just got to think, like you said, that he thought,
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man, it's, you know, it's a nice ride.
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And he had he had so much more, I'm sure, growing up in Pharaoh's court and
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thinking, OK, now, why is this so?
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And, you know, there's always something in in in most of us that we think there
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should be more. There just should be more.
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And Moses would have particular reason to think that, particularly with his
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mom whispering in his ear, you know, You know, as his nursemaid over those years,
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just saying, don't forget who you are.
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That's right. And where our people are.
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And so for God to call his name. Yeah. Yeah.
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And you're right about that term of endearment.
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You know, same thing in the New Testament in Luke 10 with Mary and Martha,
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when God and Jesus says to Martha, Martha, Martha. Right.
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That wasn't an angry thing. That was an endearing term. That was the way you said that.
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And for him to say, Martha, Martha, you're worried and bothered about so much.
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And there's one thing necessary, and it's my presence.
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Yeah. It's my presence. And you've walked, you let other things pull you away from that.
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And here God is saying that to Moses, you know, Moses, Moses.
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And I, this little verse in my Bible, it said when, when Moses went over the
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bush, it said when the Lord saw that he had gone over to look.
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I know there's something that triggers things in God about his presence that, you know,
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when we show up and God is in a service or God is in a place or God is in a
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moment and we just kind of glance over there and we don't have enough desire or spiritual.
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We've been so distant from the Lord for so long that we don't see it and recognize
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it. We can just go right on.
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And God is not going to just give himself to us if we don't want him, right?
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But when he saw Moses turn aside and go over to where he was,
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you've got to think of that verse.
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It's repeated three times in the Bible and then many other times in different forms.
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It said, God says, draw near to me and I'll draw near to you.
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What a promise, Kyle, that God wants to do this.
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And we know that his presence is everything. I mean, we have his presence.
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We've got everything we need and we don't have it. We've got nothing. Yeah.
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And so here he enters into the presence.
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Yeah. Well, it just blows me away. You know, my, for my faith for our people
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and for what God's doing in our area and in our state, nation, all those things.
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Like you look at it and say, I love this as the mountain of God.
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You look at a place, say the house of God, you know, it's even to us.
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The people of God, you know, like that, but what distinguishes us,
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which you'll talk about, you know, in a future time, what is his presence?
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You know, what does distinguish this mountain in this moment where God has shown
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up? Like what's distinguishing?
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Well, I would hope for us, like what distinguishes your church gathering?
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Well, I would hope God, I would hope that it's, it's that first Corinthians
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moment that God is truly among them.
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Like, and so Moses is traveled a little further out than normal.
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And he finds himself. So I said, I love Lino's quote.
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He found himself at God's house and God was home.
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And in that moment, now we've got some decisions to make.
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Like, what are we going to do when God makes his presence known to us?
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Like he said, we've got to make a decision to look more deeply into this.
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We've got to lean into that. We've got to surrender fully.
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We're going to get, you know, in this moment right here, the Lord's going to
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say, Moses, Moses. And then he's going to say, now hold up.
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Take off your shoes. Right. You're on holy ground.
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We've got some business to do right here, and it's going to take a pathway of
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dealing with some things.
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But he had come to the place where that was about to happen.
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And, you know, you've got to think about when you were talking just a moment
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ago about these places, because you and I both, we've talked about this.
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We both have places. I mean, I wrote a little book about this in my own life,
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just about these high water moments and the places where each of those things
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occurred. And they're sacred to me.
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I mean, they're precious to me. There's some places.
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A few weeks ago, I was at a meeting down at my alma mater, Washtenaw University here in Arkansas.
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And I was meeting there and I
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intentionally walked by Berry Chapel because
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it was there in that room in a 15 minute service in 1970 that God just stepped
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in and a 15 minute service lasted three and a half hours and shut down all the
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campus classes and everything.
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And it's the first time I saw the manifest presence of God.
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I mean, I love that place. I love that place. And it's sacred.
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And then I just think, you know, if my home is not a place like that.
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If my church is not a place like that, why not?
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Why is it? I mean, I know God chooses to do what he wants to.
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But I mean, if I'm not preparing the way,
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building a highway for my God
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to come in, then maybe that's on me a little bit and pursuing the Lord.
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So I just also was thinking about what's happening across our country right now.
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And just a few weeks ago at Baylor
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University, hundreds and thousands of students set up a massive tent.
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And for 72 hours around the Fountain Mall, they just met with God.
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That's all they did. They just met with God. They prayed. They sang.
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They worshiped. This has been going on for several years, FM Fountain Mall 72, they call it.
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And it's growing, and I don't have time to tell all that happened.
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But this is happening on college campuses.
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This is happening in churches, and that's the sign of real revival.
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Hallelujah. Amen. Hallelujah. I heard David Jett, our buddy,
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said this one time about Crossgates, the church we're at, and we're praying.
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And he said, I pray for Crossgates to be a place where God's presence is so
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strong that we would take our shoes off because of his holiness.
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And he would take off his shoes because he's home.
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Wow. That's good. Yeah. But here's the thing.
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But God's looking to the heart. Do we really want that?
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We want you more than anything else, Lord. And we're coming on your terms,
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coming through your blood.
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And I think, and like you said, and even looking at revival and awakening and
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a real move of God, You know, it's not like we pull the mechanisms and all this,
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and then we force God to make himself known.
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But man, but boy, the Lord seems to show up where he's wanted.
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Yeah, he's not playing games, is he? I mean, he's not like he's capricious and
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say, well, I'm really hidden from them now.
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I can't, you know, they can't find me now. This is great.
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No, God wants us in his presence. Yeah. He longs for that more than we do.
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And if we just give him half a chance, he will make himself known in extraordinary ways.
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Well, Kyle, we're going to walk through these next three or four sessions on our One Cry podcast.
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And we're just going to journey. We're going to stay on the heels of Moses for a few miles here.
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And because he was a man of God's presence. He knew how to follow the Lord.
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He knew what it was like to see the presence of God and how to capture that.
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And I think we need to learn some things from that, don't you? I agree.
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Let's pray that in a little bit. And so we always like to spend the last part
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of our time just praying together, Not you listening to one of us pray or something like that,
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but you joining in with us wherever you are, sitting in your car or at home or wherever you are.
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And we have people literally around the world who will listen to these podcasts and who will join us.
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So in your language, in your spot where you are, join with us in crying out
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to the Lord for his presence.
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And Kyle, why don't you begin that? And then I'll close us here in a moment.
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Everybody will join. Yeah.
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Let's pray together. So, Father, just this in my spirit, I pray,
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Lord, would you surprise us like you did Moses with a season of our life that's
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going to shape the rest of it?
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So, Lord, would you surprise us that we just entered into a moment in our lives,
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but also a moment in our nation and among the nations where you have decided
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to make your presence known?
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Where you have decided to manifest your glory in,
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To let us be overwhelmed by your awesomeness, God, your holiness, Lord.
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And so we're just saying out loud to you, if you're looking for a people that
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want you, Lord, we want you.
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If you're looking for people that are saying we're desperate for you,
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we are embracing our desperation and our need right now.
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Right now, Lord God. So would you please, would you please choose to show up
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in this season and mark specific people and places all over, Lord,
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just places where the presence of God is made known in ways that only you are
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glorified, only ways that you, Jesus, are exalted, we pray.
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And, Lord, Moses turned aside.
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And when you saw that he turned aside, you called him my name and you took him where you needed to go.
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And so, Father, may we be today, today, Lord, the people who turn aside.
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Lord, I pray that today we just turn aside looking for you. We turn aside when we see the slightest.
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We're in a grocery store and we overhear somebody saying something.
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And we sense that you want us like Philip in the Ethiopian to step into that
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moment and see your glory come. I pray that we would just boldly turn aside. Yes.
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And Father, then you would speak to us. You always will, if we seek for you,
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we'll find you if we search for you with all our hearts.
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So, Lord, as we draw near, Lord, you draw near, you've promised it.
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And we thank you for that and make yourself known.
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And we thank you for what you're doing around the nation.
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But we don't want to settle for just this, Lord. We want more.
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And we just ask for more so the world can get a right opinion of you,
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how glorious you are, how beautiful, what a great God you are,
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how wonderfully you lead your children along.
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Lord, what a provider you are.
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And, Lord, we look at the Israelites and we see you giving them bread every
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day and protection from their enemies and all of that. And we see that now, Lord, what you are like.
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And we pray in our day, Father, we would see that just more and more and more.
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And Lord, would you just send a mighty spiritual awakening and not even just
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across our city or across our nation. Lord, we pray around our world.
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You would just send a mighty movement of God.
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And thank you for the privilege of being a part of it. And we pray your precious name.
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Amen. Amen. Amen.
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Well, thanks so much for joining us today on One Cry.
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And I hope you'll tell your friends that could get in on the beginning of this
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podcast and catch up on this one today.
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And then the next two or four weeks, we'll be sharing kind of walking with Moses.
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And you didn't know you were going to go on a walk with Moses this next month,
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but I think it'll be really helpful for all of us.
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So we look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks again.