In this sermon, the preacher discusses the story of the Israelites being led out of Egypt by Moses. The Israelites find themselves trapped between the sea and the mountains, with the Egyptian army pursuing them. They become fearful and question Moses, wondering if he brought them out to die in the desert. Moses reassures them, telling them to stand still and witness the salvation of the Lord. The preacher emphasizes the power of God, describing it as latent power, like a bulldozer waiting to be activated. He also explains the Greek word "dunamis," which means power, and compares it to dynamite. The preacher encourages the audience to understand and experience the exceeding greatness of God's power in their lives.

Good morning. Turn with me please to the book of Ephesians, chapter 1. First, I've studied with you a number of times now. The prayer of Paul to each in church. Let me start again please in verse 16, Ephesians chapter 1. I do not cease to give thanks for you, make a mention of you in my prayers. This is my prayer. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of himself. That the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened and that you may know, and then Paul gives three things, that he wants God by revelation to make known to the Ephesian people and to us. That you may know, first of all, the hope of his calling. And I've spent some time before speaking about Christian hope. An attribute of the mind, evidence in confidence, knowing that we know that we know the realities that God, the Holy Spirit has planted within us. Not a hope as the world has hope, a hope that has got negative possibilities, but a Christian hope, an absolute assurance of that which is certain. And secondly, as I presented to you last week, that you may know the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. We might know that we are his inheritance, the bride that he is to receive, after all the other great honor and riches and majesty that he has been given, exalted at the right hand of the Father, that he is now waiting for us, the bride, to be presented to him as his inheritance. So we might know the glory of that. Glory meaning God's presence evident among us. And today the third thing that he prays for, he says that you might also know the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power. Verse 19, what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power. It's important that I start by outlining for you the three Greek words that Paul uses here, because in different translations, they are translated in different ways, because really in the English, we do not have a vocabulary that explains these words as clearly as they would in the Greek. The first part of the verse says this, that we should know the exceeding greatness of his power. This word power, dunamis in Greek, from which we get the word dynamite, is a power that is latent. It is much like, you can see a bulldozer standing on a building site. And you would say what a powerful machine that is. Yet it is standing there, it is doing nothing at the moment, but the power is latent within it. We are all aware that it can be used to move great mounds of earth, and we say what a very powerful machine. And that is the word dunamis. It is a latent power. And here it speaks to us of God's latent power, his omnipotence, his great power. A power that Paul says is exceedingly great. The Greek word for exceeding is hyperbole, and it means surpassing all things. There is nothing in comparison with this power. So when it's exceeding, it's exceeding all things. And Paul says that we should know the exceeding all things, his latent omnipotent power of God. And there are all words that are excelling, exceeding, great, above all. Whereas the word power to us is power, we can think of power, he's got a powerful person. This is a power that is above all powers, exceeding power, it is the omnipotence of God. And Paul says that we can know something of this. I pray for you that God might grant you a revelation of knowledge, that you may know something of his exceeding omnipotence in operation. Then he goes on and says, this power which is to us who believe, the omnipotent God is exercising his power to we who believe. According to the work in, my King James Version, of his mighty power, we have this here. We have this, the latent power is demonstrated in doing something. Paul prays, I pray that you might know it, that you might know some of it, that you might experience it, because the word know in the Greek always speaks of experience, that you might know the hope, that you might experience the hope, that you might know the glory, that you might experience the glory. And here he's saying that you might know the exceeding power to us who believe according to the work of his mighty power, that we might experience it, that we might know it. That's his prayer. according to the working of his mighty power. Power here is the word, might here is the word kratos, and it's not might in the sense that we think of might, we think of two wrestlers, we think of one, two mighty men wrestling, we can picture this picture of, you know, sumo wrestlers, two great mighty strength men wrestling one another. In the Greek, the word might is not a relative word in the sense that he's might and he's a little bit less mighty, the winner. The Greek word translated kratos is always might as attributed to the victor. It has within its word, the meaning of one who overcomes. And so the loser is never considered to be mighty, even though he might be a great man and in the English term, we might certainly think of him as mighty. Might in the Greek is only applied to the victor. And here when Paul is speaking of according to the working of his mighty power, he's speaking about an overcoming power that overcomes all things. It is that of the victor. And never to the overcome, however strong you and I might think the overcome one to be. And the third word here according to his mighty power is a different word, it is iskos and it means the force being used, it is operative power. Whereas Dunamis speaks of latent, powerful potential, this is power in operation, the great force has been used. And so what Paul is saying here in, I guess the, I looked at so many translations to try to get a clear understanding and Phillips is one of the better ones. And basically when it comes down, this is how power renders it. How tremendous is the force, sorry, how tremendous power available to us who believe. It is God's strength activated on our behalf. Paul wants you and me to experience, to know God's tremendous power available to us. God's strength activated on our behalf. I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've heard of your love for one another. My prayer for you, Ephesian church, place where Paul himself passed it for three years. My prayer for you is that God would grant to you a revelation in the knowledge of himself that you might know, that you might experience this hope, that you might experience this glory in his inheritance of the saints, that you might experience the tremendous power available to you. God's strength activated on your behalf. I have the privilege of traveling quite a lot. I have the privilege of seeing firsthand many places God's power evident. Some of you have also experienced God's hand in what we often call as miracles. I've seen God's hand in miracles, in operation. I've seen God's hand in revival in countries. I've seen many multitudes of people coming to the Lord. And yet I must confess that most of the time I see a church that seems to be very weak, very fragile, and not displaying any of the evidence of the power of God that Paul is praying for us to know. This is his prayer. Now he's not praying a prayer in hope. He's praying a prayer because he believes it can be answered. He's not asking for you and me something, an experience of God that is beyond availability. He's speaking to us about something that we can experience. He goes on and explains a little bit about this power. He says, and he gives us two examples. The two greatest demonstrations, as far as Paul is concerned, of this power of God, this omnipotent power being exercised on our behalf. He shows us in two examples, that of raising of Christ from the dead. The great resurrection. When God, by his omnipotent power, raised Christ from the dead. And secondly, by bringing him up and ascending him to be seated at his own right hand in heavenly places. These are two examples, the resurrection and the ascension. This was the greatest outpouring, according to Paul, of divine energy in all the scriptures. Greater, you might say, than even creation. Yes, greater than creation. But if you want to see the evident power of God in operation, Paul doesn't point you to the creation, as Moses would, as the Old Testament writers would, as David and the Psalmist. Paul points you to the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus. You see, in creation, God brought all things into being without any opposition to overcome. But in the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus, he had to overcome all the forces of darkness and evil, death and hell itself. Death does not easily give up its prey. But God exercised his great power on our behalf in raising Jesus from the dead. He exercised his great power on our behalf by raising him up to be seated in heavenly places. The cross, the resurrection, the ascension, are one great act of God's mercy on our behalf, where he demonstrates his omnipotence in raising Christ from the dead, seated him at his own right hand. I heard an amen. We need to understand how great that work was. It was not a casual thing. It was not an easy thing for God to do. You see, until we get a grasp, a picture of how great the barrier of our sin was, how great the evil was, how great the chains were that held us in bondage. We sang one of the songs about breaking the chains. He rose from the dead, didn't just break the chains of death for himself, he broke the chains for you and me as well. Great chains, but they were broken by the omnipotent power of God acting on our behalf. No one else could have obtained salvation for us. It required all the omnipotence of God and the greatness of God. And Paul says that greatness we can experience and know. God has raised Christ, verse 20, from the dead. Listen, think of those words, Christ dead. The eternal one, the living word, who became flesh and dwelt among us, humbled himself to become man, even to die on the cross. One of the mysteries, surely, of all creation, of all time, is that Christ should be dead. Tis mystery all, says John Wesley. The immortal dies. Who can explore his strange design? Who can understand this, that he should die on our behalf? This is the mystery of Good Friday, the death of Jesus. But then the operation of God's power is in that he raised Christ from the dead, the miracle of Easter Sunday. And then that he set him at his right hand, the majesty of the resurrection. And there at his right hand in heavenly places, he set him up the magnificence of the ascension. Far above all, says verse 20, far above all. And there we have the list of the alls. This surely is the manifestation of Pentecost, when he was crowned king of kings, poured out his spirit upon his body, the church. For he is now king. Do you believe he's king of kings right now? Amen. I hear so many Christians are waiting for the day when Jesus will be made king. He's king right now. He's waiting for this world to be made his footstool. He's seated at the right hand of his father. His work is completed. He has given us the task to do. He wants to operate in us by his Holy Spirit. He wants the manifest power of God to be evident in his church, until the day when Jesus comes and receives us to himself. I'm excited about that. For my king reigns right now. This is surely the manifestation that we see at Pentecost. God has exercised his power in Christ, having raised him from the dead, setting him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principalities and power and might. Those, by the way, are names given to the angelic and demonic ranks of angels. We read later on in the same letter, we do not fight against flesh and blood, but our warfare is against spiritual forces in heavenly places. The same words used. But God has set Christ far, far above them in heavenly places. See them there. He's put all things under his feet. He's given him to be the head of all things to us, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all things. So how then? How then is this mighty power going to be demonstrated, effective, operative in us? Well, the first example is found in chapter two, verse one. The first operation of Paul's overcoming power, operative in our life and knowing this is the first example is that of the quickening of the new birth. And you, this omnipotent God, you, God has exercised this same power and authority, operative in your life by quickening you who are dead in trespasses and sins. Salvation is not a simple thing of simply saying, well, I raised my hand, I trust Jesus, hallelujah, it is done. God did a mighty, mighty work on your behalf. He broke the chains. He set the captive free. Let me use some metaphors from the Bible. He took us from the kingdom of darkness, transferred us to the kingdom of light. He brought us from death to life, all by the operation of his mighty power in us. By grace you were saved, says Paul elsewhere in Ephesians. By grace you're saved through faith and that not of yourselves is a gift of God. God did the work. Don't ever think that you were saved because of something you did. The picture we have in the Old Testament is that of the children of Israel, was it a million or so two-legged, bleating sheep being led by Moses out of Egypt through the blood upon the doorposts and God brought them out across the Red Sea. And as you follow the journey from their homes in Egypt, their hovels where they lived as slaves in the land, they come to the borders of the Red Sea. And while they come there, they kind of see a way across and the mountains that are on one side, they're trapped in the point of a cone, a triangle. The sea is on one side, the mountains on the other, there's no way across. And they begin to fear and as they look back, they see the clouds of dust arising from the, maybe sand dust arising as a pursuing Egyptian army are following after them and they're filled with fear. And they cry out to Moses, why have you brought us from our homes to die here? Is this been a trick so that you bring us out and we'll be killed, you're out in the desert? And Moses says, fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which he will show to you today. God is going to show, he's going to manifest to you his omnipotent power to you today. For these taskmasters you see today, these Egyptian taskmasters who have beaten you and forced you to work for them and with little straw, with little mud to build these bricks, these taskmasters you see today, you shall see them again, no more, forever. That's what salvation is. Then why do we live still as though we're under the laws of Egypt? Paul says you've been delivered from bondage to that law which kept you in bondage, the law of sin and death. You've been delivered from that. You're no longer subject to it. You're no longer in that land of Egypt where these laws apply, you're out of the land. So why do you allow yourself to live as though you're still under the bondage of those laws? You've been set free, the taskmasters who you see today, you shall see them again, no more, forever. That's the first great work of omnipotent God on your behalf. To you, it might seem a small thing, but to the angels of heaven, it is an eternally glorious and great thing. How great is this salvation? Right, the Hebrews said, how shall we escape if we ignore or neglect? So great is salvation. First spoken to us by the prophets, then proclaimed to us by Jesus. Great because of the one who planned it, God himself. Great because of the one who came and purchased it, Jesus himself. Great because of what it's done, it set man free. Great, great, great salvation. All done because of the omnipotence of God being manifested in you and me. Do I hear another hallelujah? Secondly, chapter two. Not only has God quickened us who are dead in trespasses and sins, but hallelujah, verse six, he has raised us up also to be seated in heavenly places in Christ. Is that simply a metaphor? Is that simply a little picture that we can hold on to? Or is there reality here? Are we truly today seated in heavenly places in Christ? Are we truly today clothed in the righteousness of Christ so that God looks at us and accepts us fully in the beloved one? Is that true? Is that what he's done? Absolutely true. And he has set us, says Paul, to make us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, beneath whose feet are all the principalities and powers and taskmasters that would hold us in bondage. And he wants you and me to experience the reality of this power that enabled us to be seated in this world yet in heavenly places. I have spoken to you from this pulpit over the recent months on many different topics. Among them has been the tactics of Satan. I've talked to you about the monkeys that jump on our shoulders that would rob us of victory, the offenses we so easily have. I've talked to you of the roaring lion whose roar affects our emotions. I've talked to you of the fiery arrows that are fired, the defense against witches that we realize we sit in heavenly places. I elevated high castles so we can quench the fiery arrows. But we begin to live in the reality of what God, by his omnipotent power, has done in us. We begin to overcome us. We begin to know the kratos, the overcoming strength and might of God in our own lives. He calls us to be overcomers. We're not gonna be overcomers in our own strength. But we're gonna be overcomers when God begins to work in us, the outworking of his mighty power. There is no excuse. Oh, I know in the natural way can say, well, you don't know about my background, my childhood, I was brought up badly and the father didn't love me. I had a wife who badly treated me. And all the things that cause wounds, absolutely true, and I deal a lot with people with wounds, but I believe in the word of God that is healing for the wounds. When the power of God is allowed to operate in the life of the believer. And the bottom line comes, brothers and sisters, there is no excuse for us not to walk in the victory that Christ has purchased for us. Because God has given us all things in Christ Jesus that pertain to righteousness. Do you believe that? That's what Paul is praying for, that you and I might begin to experience that power operative that enables us to walk with heads held high in a world of bowed shoulders. I do not have to conform to this world. I do not have to walk with my bowed shoulders as everyone else is. I can walk with my head held high, not by my own power, but because of God's manifest power operative in me and in you. So God wants to demonstrate his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power. He does it first by quickening us. He does it secondly by raising us up to be seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Then Paul continues. He does this so that he might show the exceeding riches of his grace to all of mankind. For by grace we are saved through faith. It is the gift of God, not by works. He continues to speak of our workmanship, that we were without Christ, strangers from the commonwealth of Israel, but God has brought us into Christ. Praise his name. He is our peace. God begins to manifest his character to us, begins to manifest his glory, his inheritance in the saints. This is what Paul is longing for. We are a people who live and rear and walk in this reality, that he might reconcile us to God by the cross. Christ has done this. He came and preached peace. We are no more strangers, verse 19, and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints of the household of God. We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, upon Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth to become a holy temple in the Lord, in whom we are built together for a habitation of God through the spirit. The third evident manifestation of his power working in us is that of becoming temples of the Holy Spirit. God wants to make his presence known, his power known in us, by us being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. In the adult Sunday school class, I've been teaching from the book of Romans on sanctification, the work of the Holy Spirit in transforming us into the image of Christ. And we've come to realize as we come into Romans 7 how much we try in our own strength to be the kind of men and women we think God wants us to be and how we fail so miserably. Because our strength is not Kratos. Our strength is not an overcoming strength. Our strength is that of weak people. But God, says Paul, wants to make his manifest power, his omnipotence evident, demonstrated in our life. The working out of this power, he wants it to become an overcoming victorious power operative in our lives by the indwelling of the spirit of God who alone is the one who can make it manifest to us. Oh, wretched man, how shall I overcome? I thank God by his spirit. And habitation of the Holy Spirit. I want my life to be all filled, my Lord, with thee. I want my life to be a dwelling place where you, oh Lord, are pleased to dwell. I want my life to be so emptied of self that you have no barrier to manifest it in and through me your omnipotent power. That's what Paul is praying. It's not a horizontal prayer. You ever heard of horizontal prayers? Oh, Lord, bless Denzel. Let him know how much you love him, Lord, and how much we love him, what a great guy he is, Lord. I might as well open my eyes and say to Denzel, hey, Denzel, you're a great guy. I don't need God to make him make that known to him. That's a horizontal prayer. And so often we pray horizontal prayers. You might as well open your eyes and talk to the people. But Paul is not praying here a prayer in the scriptures in this letter to Ephesians. I pray this for you so that you might know this. Are you really listening to me? Now, brothers and sisters, you know, get steady in the word of God, get to know somebody. He's not praying that. He's actually praying a vertical prayer because he believes that God is able to answer that prayer. Now, we are privileged to be able to read the prayer, to hear the prayer. Those from Paul, he's writing a letter to Ephesians, but his prayer is vertical. His letter is horizontal. So he's praying it because he believes that God will answer such a prayer. He believes that God wants to demonstrate the greatness of his power to us. He believes that God wants to do it by the working of his mighty power, to use my King James Version. He believes what he's praying. Do you believe what he's praying, that God wants to do this? To his disciples, Jesus said these words, tarry in Jerusalem till you receive God's power. In the upper room, having just conquered death, having ascended to his father, coming back, he finds his disciples in a locked room on the first day of the week. They're full of fear. They anticipate that the Roman soldiers might next come and take them and crucify them. And suddenly, in the midst of them, Jesus appears. Now, I don't know if you realize that's a miracle. Not just a miracle that he comes through a locked door. That was very easy for him. Not just a miracle in that he who is dead, a ghost, can now be seen by them. That's not the miracle. Most wonderful thing of this is the evidence that by appearing in the midst, it is sure proof to them and to you and me that the father has accepted the sacrifice. You see, just a day or two before in the garden, when Mary Magdalene would cling to him, when she saw him having risen from the tomb, when she would cling to him, she said, Mary, do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my father. The high priest coming to bring the offering of the shed blood of the lamb on the day of Pentecost, coming into the Holy of Holies, had to make purification for himself first, he had to come into the presence of God wholly, untainted by the touch of woman or of anything else that would taint him. And so he comes into the presence of God with that bowl of the lamb's blood, he sprinkled it upon the mercy seat. All of Israel waited with bated breath to see if he would return, listening to the bells on the hem of his garment ringing to show that he was still moving about. And when he came out of the Holy of Holies, all of Israel celebrated because God had accepted the blood of the lamb to cover their sins for an hour. But in this room in Jerusalem, on the first day of the week behind locked doors, when Jesus appears to his disciples, he is none other than the great holy priest who has taken the lamb of the eternal sacrifice of himself into the presence of his father. He said, Mary, don't touch me, I've not yet been to my father. And yet now he returns to his disciples and says to them, touch me, see the hands, see my feet. What is he saying? He is saying, I've been to the father and the blood is accepted, hallelujah. Hallelujah. That's the miracle of that room. And he comes in and he says to his disciples, as the father sent me, I'm now going to send you. And he breathed upon them and said, receive the Holy Ghost. And they were born again. I was 16 years of age coming into 17, kneeling in my bedroom in Wales, and I prayed to a Jesus I did not know. And I said, Jesus, if you're real, come into my life. And he breathed upon me and I received eternal life. Hallelujah. That's the first great outworking of the omnipotent power of God operated in my life because he set me free, brought me out of Egypt. The taskmaster is no longer of any authority over me, except what I give him and I refuse to give him. And then he said to his disciples, tarry in Jerusalem till you receive Dunamis power to be my witnesses. How tragic it is when we try to be his witnesses without his power. Oh, they had power. They had power. Sure they had power. In John chapter one, it says to those who believe in him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God. The Greek word is exousia. It literally means in our English, a better word is right. To them he gave the right to become the sons of God. But the power that operates, should operate in the life of the believer and impact as witnesses of the Dunamis of God, which he gives to those who hunger and thirst after him. On the day of Pentecost, they received it. And brothers and sisters, we need to receive that power. For that is what Paul is praying here. That we might know the omnipotent power of God manifested according to the working of his mighty power. We're all aware in Paul's letter later to Ephesians, he said, do not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit. If you want to live a holy, overcoming, victorious life, demonstrated in the power of God, we need to be filled with the spirit. The Holy Spirit has come into us to give us Zoe, light, but he wants to come upon us to give us power. All the prophets of the Old Testament, everyone received the power of the Holy Spirit. They spoke in the Holy Spirit. All the people that were operated were men filled with the Holy Spirit. The Chinese believer goes back to China and he's asked about the church in North America and he said, I'm amazed how much they can do without the Holy Spirit. That's not dunamis power, that's not the power of God in operation, that's the power of intellectual minds operating under the business principles of this world, building bigger and bigger churches with no power and having Christians in the churches who are defeated day by day in the Christian walk. How then can we be filled? On the day of Pentecost, when Peter stood up before the crowds, he spoke to them in Aramaic, the language they understood, and he said to them all, that Jesus whom you've taken and crucified, God has now exalted him. And Peter preached that old uneducated fisherman preached one of the greatest sermons in the Bible. And then he said, there's brothers and sisters, believe me, this promise is for you and for your children and for the children's children and for all those as far off who will come to believe in him. Does that mean it's for the people of Departure Bay Baptist Church? Of course it does. The promise of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Lord, I want to be filled with the Spirit. I want to know this power operative in my life. How Lord, can I be filled with your Spirit? Well, I think there are clues in scriptures. When it's well known is that in Chronicles 2 Chronicles 7, if my people will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I'll hear their prayers and I will come down and be among them. Do you want to know the glory of God, come down and be among you? As individuals, as a church, as a city? Then there's a pretty good precondition right there. Humble yourselves and pray. What are the words that Jesus says? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Do we truly hunger and thirst for righteousness? Or is there a Sunday morning one hour thing? Do I truly thirst and hunger for righteousness? Or do I find myself so easily diverted by the latest novel or television program? I remember being in a pastor's meeting in Victoria and a man that we were talking about revival and my passion is to see God come down among his people. I want to see revival. I long for revival. I've tasted revival. I long to see revival, sovereign work of God. Some years ago, apparently, you had the story of the Sutera twins here in Nanaimo, two men that God mightily used in Saskatchewan. I think one of the only revivals on record in Canada was in Saskatchewan. Was it in the 60s? Some of you know better than me. And then four or five years ago, there's another great move of God in Nunavut, up in the east, the Arctic Circle. Did you hear about that one? Mighty move of God about five years ago. I long for revival. I long to see sovereign God come down and manifest his power in a city where people become so frightened by the presence of God that sin is dealt with. People are quick to ask forgiveness of those they've wronged. People are quick to seek righteousness and holy walk before God because God the Holy Spirit is present. I was visiting my brother-in-law and sister-in-law in Wales a few years ago and I've told this story I know before. And Vivian, my brother-in-law, is the grandson of a man who came to Christ in the 1904 revival in Wales, a mighty outpouring of God's spirit where well over 100,000 people, I say it again, 100,000 people came to Christ in a three-month period in my country which has only got one and a half million people altogether. And Vivian's grandfather was one of those. Vivian's father was brought up with all the stories of the revival and so Vivian, my brother-in-law, knows them too. And I said to Vivian, he was telling a young American friend of mine who was with me, telling her the stories. And I said, Vivian, what was the main characteristic of the Welsh revival, 1904? He said, oh, Gareth, he said, and his wife joined him in his chorus, they said, the awesome presence of God. Both sinner and saint said, God is here. Would you like to come into your church one Sunday and find the gossiping talking, the chatting talking, the fellowship talking, and people on their knees maybe because God is here. That's what I long to see. But do I hunger for it? Do I thirst for it? Do I hunger and thirst that I might have revival in my own spirit? That I might know the fullness of spirit? So as Paul sang, there must be a waiting. Jesus said to his disciples, tarry, wait in Jerusalem until you be filled. Maybe there's a need for a waiting whereby it becomes priority. Maybe there's a time when the church maybe needs to close down all its programs so we just get together and wait on God. You notice I'm saying maybe because God is sovereign. I do not know what the formula is. I'm just saying I hunger to see God move. Maybe there's a waiting. Maybe there's a confession of sin needed. Maybe there's a humbling needed. Certainly there's a hunger and a thirst needed. In the same verse in Ephesians where he said about being filled with spirit, the next three verses I've taught you, I think are the evidences of a spirit-filled life that we will be worshipers, that we will be thankful, that we will be submitted people. Maybe we need to put these three into operation in our lives as people who lay down our lives as a reasonable sacrifice and determine that we're going to become worshipers. We're going to become thankful. We're going to become servants. Maybe the prerequisites of revival is that the fruits of revival are at their abode. Because should revival come, should the Holy Spirit come and move sovereignly in your heart and in this church, you won't have to worry about dealing and loving brothers and sisters. You'll find it is natural for you to love them. You'll want to be with them. You'll want to encourage them. You know about those words of Jesus? Ask shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. If a man asks, if a son asks of his father for bread, will he give him a stone? If he asks for a fish, will he give him a scorpion? How much more will my heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask for it? Are we asking? Are we seeking? Are we knocking? Are we persisting? Do we really want to be filled with God's Spirit? Do we really want Him operative in our life? Do we really want to see the greatness of His power to us who believe according to the working of His mighty power? Do we really want to see that? That's what Paul's prayer is. Maybe Paul's prayer is that God would reveal something to each one of us that we would taste just a little bit. But when we taste a little bit of His glory, nothing else satisfies. And I've tasted. I saw God move in my town in Wales in 1970, saw 100 young adults come to Christ. Saw God move in Brazil in 1980, where I saw 45,000 people come to Christ in a crusade. I've seen people healed. I've seen people miraculously raised up. I've seen God's operation in small touches, in small places. But I've tasted, and nothing else will satisfy. I find it very, very difficult being back home so often in Victoria, don't know what church to go to, but I go, and all we are so satisfied with crumbs. I do not want to be satisfied with crumbs when God has promised us so much more. He demonstrated in power. Do you want power to overcome the struggles you're going through right now? Do you want power to be released from the taskmasters that have held you bondage for so long? Do you want power to be a better witness? Jesus said you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Brothers and sisters, I'm utterly convinced there is a filling for the people of God. I think it's time we got out to the wilderness and crossed over into our inheritance, which is in Jordan, a land of promise, where giants will fall and walls will fall before the people of God because God will demonstrate his exceeding power through us. The walls that hold you captive, maybe hold your family captive, your sons and daughters captive. Do you want to see those walls come down? God wants to see those walls come down. And Paul's prayer, I would repeat, is my prayer. I want to know him. I want to see his power operative in my life. I long to see him operative in your life and in this church's life. This church can have an impact. If God came down to this church, though you're a handful of people, you will change Nanaimo. Paul's cry, Paul's dying prayer was this, oh, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. Dear people of Departure Bay Baptist Church, may we come to know him in the full revelation of his glory in our lives. Might know his power operative in us and through us to a very desperately needy world. Amen. Amen.