This sermon emphasizes the importance of maintaining a close relationship with God, seeking forgiveness, and experiencing His transformative power. It shares stories of individuals who found solace and strength in God's presence, highlighting the significance of prayer, repentance, and faith. The speaker encourages continuous growth in intimacy with God, acknowledging the process of spiritual development and the power of persistent prayer for loved ones' salvation.

He was a vegetable, but his brain was clear. When he was 18, they led him to Christ, and they baptized him, and six months later, he died. He's blind. He said, I have no bitterness against him. Of course, I've discovered the efficacy of the blood. Brethren and sisters, if God can keep us keen for a minute, isn't it possible that he can keep us keen for more than a minute? If we walk in the light, see us in the light. Have you learned to keep these short accounts of God? Think of my friend who's in heaven in Africa, went on a mission. He went one morning to go and get the mail. And before he went to the town to get the mail, he made a statement to his wife, and he knew he hurt her. She became very, very quiet, and our wives are so sensitive, became very quiet. And he went to the town, and he got the mail, and he bought her these beautiful flowers. And he came home with the flowers, and came into the kitchen, and he said to her, my darling, he said, I brought you these beautiful flowers. I bought it in the town. And she took the flowers, and she said, thank you, daddy. But she kept crying. And he said, why are you crying? And she said, I don't want the flowers. I want you to say that you're sorry, because you know what you get. You need to love the black, you know. Fancy. Purified. I'm new in the living way. He said, how does it work with you? I don't have this thing together, you know? I don't have this thing together. But I don't want to go through a day without meeting with God. I don't want to do that. And I want to tell you something this morning. It's possible that God can meet with us every single day. And it's possible for us to know it. It's possible. The only reason why it sometimes doesn't happen is not being with us. Now I'm speaking to myself. I'm new in the living way, which He has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say His flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God. Wow. Let us draw near. A high priest over the house of God. Listen to the way He has prepared us. Let us draw near. Now this is the way He has prepared us. Let us draw near with a true heart, full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Now listen to what Paul said in Ephesians chapter 5. He said in Ephesians chapter 5, be not drunk with wine wherein there is an excess, but he said, be full to the Spirit. Now it's in the present imperative word. He said, be being full to the Spirit. And then he made this statement. He said, now the spiritual life, and I want you to remember, if you remember anything about this morning, I want you to remember this. The spiritual life, brother and sister, is not a goal, it's a gateway. And when he said, be full to the Spirit, he said, here are the consequences. Sing unto yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. He said, Gerard, what is that? That's spiritual worship. Then he goes further, and he said, why submit yourselves to your husband as unto the Lord? He said, what is that? That's spiritual submissiveness. Then he said, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved a church. Now listen to this. Love your wives as Christ loved a church. And he gave that wife, because he gave himself to the church. Why? So that he might sanctify it through the washing of the Word. So he said, what are we talking about? Haven't I preached over the house of God? Let us draw near with a true heart. Huh? True heart. Conscious clean. And so we serve in God. Can I tell you something? If you are now going to do that in your life, and you say, you know, how does it work? Is it an instantaneous thing? No. It's a crisis that leads to a process, that leads to a crisis, that leads to a process. A crisis that leads to a process. It's not brokenness. You start slow and you grow. Ah, you remember David? You remember what was it? Yeah, it was David, wasn't it? He said, I killed, what was it first of all? I killed, he killed the bear, and then he killed, was it the lion? Yeah. And then he killed? The lion. The lion. I once said that in a conference, and I was so tired, and I said, David killed the bear, then David killed the lion, and before I knew what I said, I said, then he killed the elephant. And people said, whoa! Which translation of the Bible is that? I said, it's the one I woke up this morning, you know? You see, brother and sister, you know, the opposite of it, God said, I will not give them the land at once. He said, I'll give them the land portion by portion. I'm a slow grower, you know. Can I be absolutely transparent with you this morning? There is a seven percent growth in my understanding of developing intimacy with God over every 12 months of the year. I'm a happy camper. I don't want to go back. I don't want to take these huge leaps, because boy, the balloon can explode and you'll really come down hard. I love to take these little steps. And as I take these little steps, I look back and I know I never have to go back again. Intimacy with God. Our time is gone. What happens in the inner chamber? I learn the language of prayer. Why do you think in the world Jesus would have said to them, when you learn the language of prayer, enter into the inner chamber, here's the revelation, this is what it looks like, here is the experience of it, here's the experience of it, now Christ comes and he says, here's the application. You say, what is the language of prayer? Let me tell you what you find in the whole fullness of Scripture. When he gave us what we call the Lord's Prayer, I'm going to insist, if I may say this to you this morning, I don't think he gave us the Lord's Prayer just to repeat it. You say, is it wrong? No, I didn't say that. I'll tell you why. The Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6 is not the same as the Lord's Prayer in Luke chapter 11. And when he gave us what we refer to as the Lord's Prayer, to me, it's the indwelling ingredients of the life of Christ in my relationship with him that takes me to exploring the language of learning the language of prayer. And you say, how is this going to happen? Let me just give it to you and then we talk. He said, I'm going to introduce you to the Fatherhood of God, the paternity of God. You're going to say, I'm a father. And you're going to discover the essence of the Fatherhood of God as a relationship. You know, the most wonderful thing for me in this school of prayer where God is dealing with me in my life, where many times in my own life, if I can say this to you, it's like running into the ocean. And I got to the place where I feel I've run so far into the ocean. I can't go any farther. And it's so immense. And it's so overwhelming. And then brother and sister, I stopped and I look back and the water is just down to the ankles. The Fatherhood of God. Wow. You see, the Jew could have never called God the Father. No. I mean, the word Jehovah is a word that didn't even exist yet. The first name of God is the Hebrew word Jabesh, four letters. The second name of God is the Hebrew word Adonai. You say, wasn't God Father? Yeah, God is Father in Isaiah and the perception of the nation. But they would never call God Father. Christ came and introduced the Fatherhood of God. And so what did the Jews do? The scribes, those early scribes, they took the word, they took the word Jabesh and the word Adonai and they took some vowels and consonants and they brought those two words together and that's where the word Jehovah comes from. That word never existed. And here came Jesus Christ and he said, Our Father. And he introduced us to the Fatherhood of God. You know, we spend time amongst the Germans every year and I love the Germans and the Germans find it difficult to follow me because they're very structured. Oh, you know. Just like this man. Because he was in teaching too long. And the Germans say to me, Gerard, you never give us structure. And I said, OK. They said, this is how you do it. You come in circles. And they said, you come to us and you come to us and you come to us and you come to us and when you get us in the middle, we date. And then you came and you resurrect us and they said, why do you think like that? I said, I'm an African. Think like that. Ask this guy. And because we're Africans, if we drill and we find oil, we don't stop it. We just keep drilling. But I love the Germans, you know. And I was out in Germany and we had three days, four days of prayer, 60 pastors and their wives in Germany and I wanted to speak to them in the fatherhood of God. We started the afternoon and I just poured my heart out and you know, brother and sister, everything felt flat, you know. Everything felt flat. I felt I'd never want to speak again. In fact, we stayed in the castle that Adolf Hitler used and so I was in this room, I thought maybe I need to cast out all the evil spirits out of this room before I even stay in this room. But I went back to my room that night and it was just a disaster where I'm not communicating to these Germans and I got on my face before God. I never slept that night. I said, God, I'm trying to communicate about the fatherhood of God and something is not right. It's probably me and all these pastors are there. And brother and sister, God ministered to me and said, you don't understand. Most of these pastors never really had fathers. You see, most of the German families lost their husbands. You go to villages in Germany and there are 60 houses and in 40 of those houses there are widows. And if the father survived the war, he came back and he was in emotional, mental basket case and he wouldn't say a word for months. He sat in the middle of the night, sat up and screamed because all he could see was body parts flying because of the war. And God said, you don't understand. They have no concept of the father. And I took my Greek New Testament and I popped into the Gospel of John and for the next nine hours I was lying on my face in a blanket. And all I did was to say, speak to me about what did Jesus mean when he said, my father. What did the father mean when he said, my son. And I don't know, maybe 40 pages of material in those nine hours just began to flow through my heart. And that next morning I got up and there were 60 pastors and their wives and I just said to them through my translator, I said, gentlemen, I need to say something. They were sitting there and I said, I'm going to need to ask your forgiveness. I spoke to you about something that I had no comprehension of where you were coming from. And I just took my Bible, I can't speak from notes, and I had all those 40 pages there and I said, let me tell you what happened to me last night. And I began to share with them. And we were 20 minutes into that session when suddenly God came. And I saw this thing and I said, we just need to get on our knees. And these German pastors, you know, Germans are different, they sit there like a bunch of lollipops, they don't move. And these German pastors just got on their knees and we were being broken and sobbing. My translator was standing next to me and he said to me, dear heart, and I said, what is it, Dion? He said, what's happening here is not part of the German culture. I'll never forget this. The talk I described to you, I said, Dion, this is part of God's culture. Amen. They asked me this morning, the fatherhood of God. And they said, there are ingredients, you know, the priority of God. I found you out in heaven. The plan and the program of God will all be done in earth as it is in heaven. The provision of God. Give us this day our daily bread. Brother and sister, I don't think we're dealing with material things necessarily, it can be part of it probably. No, no, no, you see, I'm the bread of life. If you eat this bread, you'll never hungry or thirsty. The protection of God. Lead us not into temptation. You know the word temptation in the Greek text is the word paraso. It means five different things. It means processing suffering and persevering through what suffering is. Do you remember Fanny Crosby, the blind singer who became blind when she was six months old because the doctor prescribed wrong medication to her eyes and she never became a Christian when she was 15 years old. Wrote these incredible beautiful poems. At the end of her life when she was in the process of dying, her pastor came to her and said to her, What is the greatest desire of your heart? And he anticipated her to say, because she was blind all her life, he anticipated her to say, Oh, that I will be able to see Psalm 19 speaks of God's revelation in Scripture and God's revelation in nature. She thought, I just want to see this before I die. And there was the blind Fanny Crosby lying in her bed. And she said, Pastor, you want to know what's my greatest desire? He said, Yeah. And he wanted her to say, Oh, that I be healed. And then she said, Pastor, my greatest desire is I would stay blind until I die. And the poor guy said, What? Why would you say that? You know what's going on with you? And Fanny Crosby said, Pastor, you don't realize my advantage over you. You know what I mean? She said, The first one I'm going to see is Jesus. Now we're real. Ah, brethren and sisters, we've been closed. Can't we ask God that he would help us to move on? I closed last night with this Andrew Murray. I mentioned Andrew Murray a couple of times. 83 years old. He was crossing a street in Cape Town, South Africa. It was called Avalanche Street. This man was used to God's revival. The Wellington Revival in South Africa. To such a degree that one morning when he went into the pulpit and before he got into the pulpit he stopped to pray. And the hush of the presence of God fell upon that church in Wellington. A church of about 2,000 or 3,000 people. And the hush of God fell upon it. And the little girl was standing next to her mummy. And began to pull in the dress of her mummy. Because the whole church stood up in awe of the presence of God in the life of this man. She began to pull in the dress of her mummy. And her mummy didn't want to be distracted. And she kept pulling. And then her mummy bent down and her mummy said, What is it? What is it? What is it? And the little girl said, Is that the Lord Jesus? General Andrew Murray had six children. God had him promises that those six children would live for him. You see, God didn't give us children to populate hell, you know. Five of those children got into the ministry and became missionaries. I preach in Oatswood two years ago in the church where George Murray, the son of Andrew Murray, used to be the minister. They had 16 children. I didn't know how to stop, I think, those guys. I mean, the Boshness was like a boarding school. But those six children, five of them, got into ministry. And the youngest one was an absolute rebel. Never got saved. And Andrew Murray and Emma Murray prayed for their children. And God gave them promises. And as they prayed for those children, And there was the youngest one. And the war broke out. In southern Africa, the Boer War. And Andrew Murray's son went to the war. And he wasn't saved. He wasn't born again. And they were in agony that God was saving. And one day a telegram came to the Boshness. And the telegram just said, Son killed in action. And they just sank the darkness. I said, God. We prayed for him for years. He gave us promises. He's gone. We don't know. Six months later, a knock at the door of the Boshness and Graf Riening came in. Andrew Murray opened the door. And when he opened the door, a man stood there, a complete stranger. And he said, are you Dr. Andrew Murray? And Murray said, yes. He said, can I come in to talk to you? And they said, please come in. And he sat down. And they said, who are you? He said, I've come to talk to you about your son who was killed in the war. And they just sat there and thought, no. And he said, I was in the trenches right next to him. And he said, I heard when the bullet locked into his chest. And so I saw the blood. And he said, as he fell back in the trenches, he fell into my arms. And he looked at me, and he lived for a minute or two, whatever it was. And he looked at me, and he said to me, will you point me to Jesus Christ? I'm dying. And I turned to him and said, I'm a born-again Christian, and I led your son to Christ. In Libra. You see, you're sitting here this morning, and you've got children, family, friends, lost. Don't you ever give up? See, why do you say that? God is a God that answers prayer. Amen. Amen. Can't you ask him, and say, can you come and break my heart? I don't want to see people in trees falling. I want to see them coming to Christ. It's praying. Our time is gone. You know what? I'm going to ask you to do something. And I don't know if you can do it. If you can't do it, don't do it. But I just wonder if it's possible, if you can. Can we get another mace before God? If you can't kneel, you're actually better just sitting. But if it's possible, can you just give me a mace before God? Thank you, God. I'm going to spend some time in prayer here, and we'll see some of this morning to a close. And I want to be someone here this morning, and you want to pray, you've got a loved one, and your heart is broken. We want to pray with you. So I'm going to ask you, when you pray, lift up your head so that we can hear you, so that we can pray with you. And stand with you. And I wonder if there's someone, and your heart is just burdened, you want to pray. Can you pray? Anyone? I want to pray for my mom right now, that she's going to see a house for us, and I hope that it goes good, and there's problems with us right now, and we want to fix. Thank you. I'm going to pray for my brother, John, and you will probably do it. Thank you. Father, I pray for you for the inheritance that you have given us through Jesus, that we are employers with him, and that we are in your grace, thrown in by his blood, and that you are happy to reveal your heart to us, that you love our loved ones more than we do, that you created each one for yourself. And we just thank you that you have given us the power and authority of Jesus' name to pray to the Lord of hosts, Jesus Christ, and his angels, to cast down the powers of darkness that have hindered and imprisoned our loved ones, that they must bow down, and that the words and the curses that have been spoken over our loved ones that are not life are broken by the name of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. That your arm is not too short to serve, that you are opening their eyes and their ears, that you are softening their hearts, because we pray, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, that they are stealing from you. We have stolen from you, but we have experienced your mercy, that every day that we live for ourselves, that we are stealing from you. But you are merciful, and we praise you, that you are reaching down to these loved ones. You saved me, God. I know you can save anybody. And we just pray the bloodline around them, we pray that you are a victory banner over them, Jesus, fighting for their souls, because we have entered this battle with you for these lives. And we speak that whatever the enemy has tried to do for you in these lives, that you can turn it around for good. And you want to be freely chosen by these loved ones, but it will not be because they are blinded or in captivity. We are praying that they have clear vision of your love, that always love them, never give up on them, and that they will see you for who you are. And we thank you. We thank you that you are the author and finisher of each person's faith, that you will finish what you have begun. In Jesus' name, amen. Someone else who wants to pray? Don't want you to miss the opportunity. Amen. We have a daughter that has wandered from you. She was a wonderful Christian at one time, but she has turned her back. And we would love to see her come back. Thank you. I think of Pastor Edward's son. I think of Shalisha's mother. I think of Norman, who is under a very heavy burden of bondage to drugs. I think of my co-worker Francois and his family. I think of one of my bosses, Byron. I lift these names to you for salvation. Father, I lift my husband Jack to you now, and our gals to you as well. We have been such a part of your life and have run the detour path. Just pray, Father, that the detour will come to an end. And they will come back to you. Jack will come to you for the first time to know that you are such a loving, graceful God. Amen, Father.