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#215 God’s Perfect Timing for Revival · The OneCry Podcast

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  Music.
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  Well, welcome to the One Car Podcast. I've got the Mississippi,
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  well, I'm trying to think of a catchy phrase.
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  It doesn't go with SIP, does it? Yeah, it just doesn't go with Mississippi.
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  Mississippi mudcat. Yeah, that's yeah.
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  But anyway, the great man God's using in Mississippi, Kyle Reno,
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  I love him so much and so grateful that we get to do this little podcast together for one cry.
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  And we both have a kindred heart for revival and awakening.
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  And and Kyle, I know sometimes we long for revival.
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  We long for the movement of God in our day, in our city, among our people in
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  the next generation for Christ. And we don't see it in our time and our way.
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  And sometimes we think, well, God, it's just not going to happen.
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  But God is pretty faithful in this, isn't he?
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  He is pretty persistent in what he is doing and his timing.
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  And I know we want to look at that today. We've been looking for a few weeks
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  out of Exodus at the movement of God with his people. So talk to us a little
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  bit about about this from Exodus 40.
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  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm telling you, of course, you've done this preaching through the word.
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  And it's by the time you get to the end of it, you want to go back and preach
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  it again because you finally see things as they are.
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  Yeah. And that's going to be true till we finally get to heaven.
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  You know, you just get more of a glimpse, a little more of God's glory,
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  a bigger, fuller panoramic inside of it.
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  And so we just finished up in our church, but it reminded me in light of Revival
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  Awakening, the movement of God, some things.
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  When you get to 40 and you're finishing this story, if you just imagine,
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  you're talking about 400 plus years captivity.
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  You got Moses moment in there from when he, honestly, a little premature in
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  his trying to help people, the Israelites find freedom.
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  And he thinks, man, I must be done and goes off in the wilderness,
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  becomes a shepherd and God's making him ready 40 years.
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  All these different moments. And so it reminds us God's not in a rush.
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  To get us where we need to get to and that God's building a story that's going
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  to ultimately glorify him most
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  and bring about the most good on this earth and for human flourishing.
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  We don't always understand that.
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  And I would just say in light of where we land here in 40, I want to give you
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  a statement and then a few passages of scripture.
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  But the statement is God's timing is perfect.
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  It's perfect. God doesn't mind things building over time because he's doing
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  something that's going to bring him glory and ultimately more good than we can imagine.
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  And you get to chapter 40, verse one, it says, and the Lord spoke to Moses on
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  the first day of the first month.
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  You shall erect the tabernacle of the tent of meeting.
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  And you got to back up and remember, man, we're hundreds of years in the making
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  of seeing them from captivity into moving toward promised places.
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  You've got Moses that's had a 40-year hiatus to be trained as a shepherd,
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  and he didn't know why all these things have went the way that they've went.
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  You've got chapters that are dedicated to what the temple is going to look like,
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  what the tabernacle is going to look like, what the intricacies of every aspect of what it is.
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  And then God says, now it's time that you're going to establish this tabernacle,
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  a place where people can meet with me, a place that my glory is going to dwell in.
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  If you read to the end of it in a way that you're not going to be able to handle
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  a place of sacrifices can be made, all those things.
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  And it just so happens that the first day that you're going to really put it
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  all together is going to be the first day of the first month,
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  basically in the Jewish calendar.
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  You're going to do it on January 1st.
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  Let me play out my timetable here. This is a whole new start to a way that you
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  are going to commune with me.
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  And I knew it was going to land on this day the whole time.
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  And so God is flexing in this moment going like, hey, it might have seemed like
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  the journey wandered and changed and those curves in the road.
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  But I always knew where it was going to land.
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  I always knew what moment we were going to be. And so here's what I would say
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  to us in light of believing for revival, man, believing for awakening,
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  believing for a movement of God.
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  Don't don't be concerned. God's timing is perfect.
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  It's perfect for your church. It's perfect in your life.
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  It's perfect in our nation. And we got to cooperate inside of that.
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  We got to roll all those things play into it. But don't worry.
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  God's God's got a timetable and he's he's building something.
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  He's building a better story than we can imagine. When Moses thought that,
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  I don't know if this is going to play out. God was building a better story.
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  So first, God's time is perfect. Second thing is, obedience positions us for an outpouring.
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  Obedience does position us. So it goes on, verse 16. If you go into chapter
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  40, it says, This Moses did all the things that God told him to do.
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  According to all the Lord commanded him, so he did.
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  So here's what God says. God says, all right, now's the time.
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  Erect the tabernacle. Put it up.
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  Here's the things you need to know. Remember all the things I said inside of it.
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  And this is Moses' response with his activity. He did what the Lord said to do.
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  He did it. God says it. Now's the time.
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  Moses, do these things. And then Moses says, got it, God.
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  Own it. Going to follow your instruction. And what it does is it positions them
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  as a people. And hear me now.
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  Not just Moses. Here's another truth. It takes help to position a people for a real move of God.
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  It took more than Moses for them.
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  Listen, what it goes on to say, verse 32, I'm giving you this highlight.
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  So we went verse 1, 16, verse 32, when they went to the tent of meeting and
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  when they approached the altar and when they washed as the Lord commanded.
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  So now he's got priests involved. He's got people involved. God had already
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  laid out all the instruction.
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  God's timing's perfect. Our obedience positions us for an outpouring.
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  And listen to me, and it takes more people, more than one, to really be positioned
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  for a real move of God, which my encouragement to us inside of this,
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  God's building something.
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  Do your part. Do your part.
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  Play your part. You don't have to be the highlight of the whole story.
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  You don't have to be the primary leader.
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  Your prayers matter. Your positioning matters. Your labor matters.
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  It says in verse 33, and he erected the court around the tabernacle and the
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  altar, and they set up the screen of the gate of the court.
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  So Moses finishes. I almost imagine like if you watch any of the fixer upper
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  things, so many people have labored and went into it. And then that last scenes,
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  Joanna's walking through and she's just putting things in place.
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  Yeah. Yeah. So here's all these people have done all these different things.
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  And Moses is walking through with that one last look over going,
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  OK, I think we did everything that God told us to do.
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  And you got to be thinking, if you're Moses, I wonder what's going to happen next.
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  I wonder what's going to happen next. Verse 34. And then I'm done.
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  Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Hmm.
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  God says, time is perfect, Moses. Do all the things I told you to do.
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  You're going to need some other people to help put it all in place.
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  Make a final run through it all.
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  Make sure everything's set up. And when it's ready, when it's ready, watch out.
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  And God's so filled. If you read on into the passage of Scripture,
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  it says that Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting.
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  Wow. Because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the Lord.
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  That filled the tabernacle.
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  I want you to think about this, man. I know, Bill, these thoughts consume you.
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  This is the guy that met with God in the tent of meeting face-to-face like a friend.
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  Like this is a guy burning bush. This is the guy that met with him on Sinai
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  again when the covenant's being renewed.
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  But in this moment, there was more of God than Moses could handle.
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  Which always tells us there's just always more there's just always more with
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  God and then the story in this sense ends in Exodus,
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  the book of Exodus with God making some promises throughout
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  all their journeys wherever the cloud was taken up and over the tabernacle the
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  people of Israel would set out but if the cloud was not taken up then they did
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  not set out till the day that it was taken up for the cloud of the Lord was
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  on the tabernacle by day and the fire was in it by night in the sight of all the Israel,
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  throughout all their journeys.
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  And so it ends with, hey, wherever you go, I'm going we. I'm leading you out.
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  For us as a new covenant people, it's a great commission. And lo, I'm with you always.
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  Even to the end of the age. So just to stop building back up and go, man, Yeah.
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  God's telling a story. You know, and he's, as you said in the last episode, he's relentless.
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  He's relentless. I mean, he knows what he's doing.
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  I always, when I sit with a couple that's going through trouble or they've had
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  a death, I always say to them,
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  you know, the Lord knew today was going to happen a million years ago.
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  And uh and and he's he's building
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  towards this day and yeah days in the future and he knows what and he knows
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  what he's about and he's he's building his kingdom and you know i i as i get
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  older kyle i just realized you know you're young and you're you're going to
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  conquer the world and all that kind of stuff and then you get older and you
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  realize you know i'm playing a part.
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  I'm a part, but I'm a significant part.
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  I'm a very important part in God's kingdom. And I want to play it to the fullest,
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  which comes what you talk about there with my full obedience and with recognizing
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  that he needs all of us. That's right.
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  And, you know, I couldn't help but think as you were talking there about the
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  end of his life and the end of this book of the final thing he does is he looks
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  at Joshua one day and he says, now, Joshua,
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  be courageous.
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  You don't fear anything. The Lord is with you. And by the way,
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  play your part. That's right.
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  No, don't let the book of the law depart from your mouth.
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  Meditate on it day and night and don't turn to the right or the left.
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  Just stay right after it and the Lord will prosper you in whatever you do.
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  Moses saw that probably better than he'd ever seen it in his life.
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  And now he's saying, okay, the next generation. Amen. Get your help.
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  And I want to give another exhortation to us about this, just from a historical perspective.
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  You know, God, I was a part of the Jesus movement in the late 60s and early 70s.
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  I didn't know what was going on. You know, I was just in college,
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  just living my life in my bell-bottom jeans and my wooden cross I'd made and
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  hung on a leather strap and put around my neck, you know.
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  But, man, it was just unbelievable what God was doing. It was atmospheric.
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  And then you could pick up a guitar and 200 kids would show up and 50 of them would get saved.
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  And I just thought that's the way it was always going to be.
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  Well, it was a season of revival. And as you know, Kyle, really well,
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  that the Lord has given us those moments in American history every 30 to 60 years.
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  In the 1730s, Jonathan Edwards, the first Great Awakening,
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  just extraordinary movement where 15% of the whole population of America came
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  to faith in Christ in a brief period of time.
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  You just think about, you know, 350 million people now, what 15% of the population would mean.
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  And then, though, revival is always in a cycle. And so we fall away.
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  And this goes to the character of God we've talked about here in Exodus.
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  And God keeps pursuing us and he brings us to desperation.
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  People begin to cry out and God hears and answers that cry out.
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  And he sends a second great awakening in the early 1800s.
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  And that was an extraordinary movement of God, shaped our nation,
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  some men say more than any other historical event.
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  That began to wane, 1857, the Great Prayer Revival, in which in New York City,
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  10,000 people were coming to faith in Christ every week for years.
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  Just think of that. That began to wane. The 1904 Welsh Revival happened,
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  right, that literally extended around the world.
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  And then in 1960 and 70, the Jesus Movement. Well, I've been looking for that ever since.
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  I mean, and all of us that were in the Jesus Movement, when we matured a little
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  bit and we saw, oh, wait a minute, that wasn't normal.
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  What happened was the manifestation of the presence of God came through prayer
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  and surrender and pursuing God.
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  And all of a sudden we've fallen away from that. And so in the late 70s,
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  in the 80s, in the 90s, 2000, 2010,
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  2020, we're just looking and we're praying.
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  And you wonder why some old buzzards like me are so adamant about revival.
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  It's because we saw the manifest presence of God, and we know that there's no
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  substitute for his presence.
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  Now, all of a sudden, God has opened a window again.
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  It's been 50 years since that happened.
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  And in his grace, all of a sudden we're seeing, particularly among students
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  and college students and high school students, we're seeing a movement of God
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  that we haven't seen in 50 years.
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  Now, I say all that to say this, boy, we better not miss it. That's right.
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  Because I watched with my own eyes in the 70s, churches ignore or even resist
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  the movement and the activity of God, particularly among the next generation.
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  They didn't want hippies. They didn't want guitars. They didn't want this new
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  wineskins, whatever, you know. They didn't like praying all night.
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  They didn't, you know, whatever. And I watched God just write Ichabod,
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  the glory of God has departed over churches that are dead now or just a shell of a church.
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  Let's cooperate with the Lord so we can see what Moses saw in his day.
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  And you know what? Just like Kyle was talking about, it takes you.
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  Everybody has a part to play.
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  You know, Kyle, I just, I'm an older guy. I don't know how many,
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  I could have five years or 10 years or 20 years.
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  I don't know. I may have 20 minutes more of life, but I want to play my part all the way to the end.
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  I just don't want to sit down and give up, number one, in hopelessness,
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  or just kind of give out in selfishness and sit down and watch a gun smoke the rest of my life.
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  I just want more than that. And I hope our listeners do, too. I know they do.
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  Oh, man, I believe that, Bill. And I believe even that story,
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  the conclusion in Exodus 40, just reminds us of what you just shared,
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  the redemptive cycles of God that you see throughout redemptive history.
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  So I'd love to pray, man, if we can, just to end this time up,
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  that the Lord would help us be aware of what he's saying and doing. So, Lord, we love you.
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  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you that you chose to make yourself known
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  to us in a myriad of ways, but one through your word,
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  that we can learn the nature and character of our God and how you work in the
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  world and your faithfulness and goodness and how our opportunity to obey matters.
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  So I pray for every person listening today that, Lord, you would let them know
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  that you are building a story and that you want to unleash your redemptive work,
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  your renewing work, Father God, your restorative work in their church and their lives, God.
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  And so I pray that today that we would all position ourselves and say,
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  Lord, here are our prayers.
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  God, help us to pray them. See our labor, our work. Help us to do it.
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  God, would you go beyond what we pray and beyond what we position and just pour out your power?
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  How would you pour out your manifest glory, Lord God, in such a way that the
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  world would say their God is leading them?
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  Their God is leading them.
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  And it would rightly exalt you. So we love you. Thank you. I agree with Bill.
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  Thank you for what you're doing right now.
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  Lord, do not pass us by. I pray each one of us would get the sails up and would catch the wind.
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  So, Lord, we love you and trust ourselves to you today. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
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  Well, thanks for joining us today. And I pray the encouragement of this passage
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  and this truth will cause you to say, OK, Lord, what's my part?
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  And how do I cooperate with you today? And your obedience really matters.
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  You may not think you say, well, nobody knows about me. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
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  It matters because your obedience brings in the power and the presence of God for you all. Right.
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  So get after it and let's see what God will do. And we look forward to seeing
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  you next time. Thanks for joining us.