#201 The Divine Journey (Part 2) "Embracing our Divine Purpose"

You know, in all these moments of revival in history, don't you know that God was seeing?

Don't you know that God was hearing? Oh, yeah. That God knew the state of the people. Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening. The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports. Welcome to One Cry Podcast. We say that every week, and we're excited to say it because we're thrilled that we get to come into your lives, into your homes, wherever you are.

You may be in a car, or you may be on some roller skates somewhere. I mean, who knows? Be careful. Yeah, right. So, but I'm Bill Elliff, and this is Kyle Reno. And we are in a little journey here with a guy named Moses. And I tell you, a big Mo. I mean, he was a dude, wasn't he? He was a dude. He was amazing. I think sometimes about sitting in heaven sometime and just, you know, talking off the cuff with these guys for eternity about these different moments they had.

What an amazing, amazing man of God. And he's teaching us about how we live in God's presence because that's what he needed. He didn't really know how to live there, did he, Kyle, at first? But then the Lord kind of began a journey teaching him how to come into God's presence and then what would come out of that, the purpose that would come out of that. So what are you seeing in there right now?

You know, Bill, walking with the Lord, the longer that you do, things become more clear, specifically as you get to know some of these characters in the Bible, man, and how they learned how to walk with the Lord. So last week... Learning how to live in his presence. I mean, Moses didn't know this moment was coming, right? But now it's here. And the Lord is telling him, come in, come in. That repetition of endearment. I want you, Moses, Moses.

But then, hey, Moses, when you get here, take off your shoes, son. I'm holy. And so there's the welcome, but there's also the acknowledgement that God is totally other. He is holy, holy, holy. It's going to continually call for sanctification and right confession and cleansing. You don't have to be afraid of God, but you do need to be aware of your brokenness and your sinfulness, which is, hey, learning how to live in His presence.

But then the other side of it is to know that you have a purpose and that Moses is about to find that out. And I love how God strings him along here. So let me give you a couple passages and we'll talk about it. Verse seven. So here he is face down in the presence of holy God. Then the Lord says to Moses in this moment, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. So catch these descriptive where I've surely seen the affliction of my people.

I have heard their cries because of their taskmasters and I know their sufferings. Man, this is such an encouragement to me when we're walking through hard seasons of life. So a few things that the Lord never lost sight of Israel. Never lost sight. There was never a moment in these 400 plus years, you know, where the Lord like turned his face away from their affliction. That he didn't see what they were going through. And not just that he saw them, he heard them. That God has been gathering all

those cries in those big old bowls for all these years. So I've seen you. I've heard you. I know. And man, the language, if you could really spend some time around it, it's not just a knowledge of. It's that God felt for us. So what it means is, hey, your suffering, God is saying, has broke my heart. God's leaning over it, which you got to think Moses is thinking, this is awesome to know.

For all these years, God has been seeing us. All these years, God's been hearing us. All these years, God's been feeling this before on our behalf. And Bill makes me think about, you know, in all these moments of revival in history, don't you know that God was seeing? Don't you know that God was hearing? Oh, yeah. That God knew the state of the people. When you think about it, does anything come to mind even looking back over revival history?

Well, and just, you know, what's interesting, Kyle, is if you study it, if you study just the five, what I'm hoping now is the sixth nationwide movement of revival, starting with the first great awakening, second great awakening. Revivals are movements like that happen in cycles. And so there's a period where a great revival comes. We're walking with the Lord and then we always fall away. And the reason we fall away is the world of flesh and the devil.

Right. I mean, it's a constant pulling us away from God. And then and then we, you know, in the next 30 years, 40 years, we will get to some dark places, dark places, governmentally and education. Education, our churches lose their fire and it grows cold. You know, this is a if you don't believe that's true, then just read the first four chapters of Revelation. Because Jesus is coming to the churches and saying, you guys have grown cold.

You left your first love. And so those periods, if you have a hot heart for the Lord and you want God's glory and you want his presence, you get really discouraged. And you think, man, I've been I've been praying. It will seem to you like your whole life. I've been praying for this my whole life. And yet I haven't seen revival of my day, you know. Well, you're just back the picture up. That's right.

And you're going to see that God is always hearing. He's always listening. And, you know, all those that beautiful picture in Revelation where the bowl that holds the prayers of the saints. Yeah. And it's just accumulating these prayers. And you just think, okay, one of these days, there's a prayer that's just going to tip that bowl over. And we'll see the glory of God come in an extraordinary way. So he is listening, and we need not to be discouraged.

And there's always a preparatory, about a 10-year period right before most Great Awakenings, where all of a sudden we see this desperation that comes. Yeah. And then this prayer began to come and increase measure. And then the glory of God comes. Yeah.

Yeah, man. 100%. And I'm looking at this and this is this statement God put in my heart in light of this moment in the lives of the Israelites. And now he's sharing it with Moses that God wants them to know that he is keenly aware and deeply cares about their pain. And I would just I would say to us, even those that have been waiting for God in a personal way or on behalf of your church or your area, it's just that, listen, God has been keenly aware of everything that we've experienced,

felt all those things. And he cares. He deeply cares about that. And in light of that, this is the next thing that he says. I mean, the part that cracks me up, Bill, is here's Moses listening to God saying, he's like, man, that's some great news. Yeah. Appreciate you sharing that with me, that this is how you feel about that. And then he says this, verse 8, and I have come down.

To deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them out to the land, to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, which is, man, take some perspective. Here he is, he's going, Moses, I've deeply cared. I've been absolutely aware. But now I've come down. Now, hey, what he's saying is, let me give you a few promises. My presence is about to be made known.

I've been everywhere. I've not lost sight or not been a part of, but now I'm coming in power. And I got some awesome promises for you. I'm going to lead them out of this captivity to a broad and beautiful land, a land flowing with milk and honey. You know, later, as Moses is writing this, I'm the Holy Spirit's inspiration. And he's promising them, I'm walking you right into enemy territory. I'm walking you out of bondage and slavery. And I'm walking you into conquest.

I'm walking you into the advancement of my kingdom in a powerful way. But don't worry, I've come now. Which a few things that I think, Bill, you've said this so many times about God's promises. He's giving Moses promises to believe for the journey ahead. He's like, son, take note of what I'm saying. I've seen, I've heard, you know, I've been aware of all the suffering I felt for you. But now something's changing. I've come down and I've come down to deliver you, deliver.

Yeah, to take you to this right toward it.

So you need to lay hold of this. And I think how many times, Bill, do we need to lay hold of a promise from God about where we're going? Well, and I'm telling you, the promises of God, we kind of throw that phrase around. It's a big deal. In fact, I remember so vividly, Kyle, early on in my Christian life, when I realized there were 7,000. You know, I'd heard that, but then I studied it, and it's true. There are 7,000 promises in this book right here, this Bible.

This Bible, mine is, this one happens to be 1,000 pages long. So just do the math, right? I mean, that's the equivalent of seven promises per page on average. And when I saw that years ago, I realized, you know, this is God's operating system. God says, I'm going to tell you something, and it's something I'm going to do for you and promise to you. And by the way, I'm God. But then I'm going to see if you will trust me. That's exactly right. Because I'm trying to bring you back to faith.

I'm trying to make you a man, a woman of faith, but this is the way we're going to do this. And if we don't choose to believe him, then we'll never see those things the way some things God's going to do, whether we believe him or not. But most of the promises are conditional. And they were here with Moses. You know, if Moses shrugged his shoulders and just walked away from the bush and said, well, I'm not going to cooperate with that. Right.

Then we wonder what the rest of this story. Well, one thing we know, Moses wouldn't have been used. That's right. He would have been somebody else. Right. So how beautiful. And he and he leads him to trust him through these promises. Now, on the front side, which is just it is the operating system of God that God lets us know to the extent he wants to. You know what I'm about to do. Will you believe me for it? Will you believe me for it? Will you cooperate with where I'm taking you?

And then he comes back to, and I want to get us somewhere. Verse 9, he says, and now he comes back to this, like he wants us to know this again. He could have just said, I heard their cries, but he comes back to this again. Verse 9, and now behold the cry, which is, hey, by the way, this whole thing's called one cry. The cry of the people of Israel has come to me. And I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

And here's the statement that's just in my, our collective cry matters. Yeah. And I'm telling you, Bill, I believe this more and more and more and more. One person praying can change the world, no doubt. And one person's prayer matters. So I'm not underestimating that at all. Like, there's no way of measuring the power of even one person praying. But I'm trying to find the best way to say this. But more people praying matters, too. Like, he says, the cry of the people of Israel.

Like, there was power in that more people were praying. He wants to make sure. And so I'd say to us, if we want to see a real move of God, a real deliverance, man, a real setting us free from cultural, societal issues, all those things, that one way God, one thing that moves the heart of God is more people praying. More prayer. You know, one man said a little prayer, little power, more prayer, more power. Great prayer, great power. And I'm just sitting here thinking about your five kids.

You know, if one of your kids came up to you and said, Daddy, I want some ice cream, you can blow that off. You know, you can. But then two. And then the girls. I mean, you know. It's over then. And if all of them jump all five of them jump on you and you have only got five now right? I do, that's five and they're screaming ice cream ice cream, we all scream for ice cream you know, where are we going?

They get ice cream bro it's happening they can never listen to this podcast because I don't want them to know that but think about why it's the heart of their dad Right. It's just the heart of their dad. And there's something about when God's people pray collectively and cry. And then even that word cry, Kyle, you mentioned there is a different word than pray. Right. Cry means desperation. You think about these Israelites in bondage for

400 years. They are, at the end, they are desperate for deliverance. And they cry out to God, and God hears and says, you know what? Their cries come up, and I'm coming down, and I'm going to take them out. And it's on. Yeah, and I just I'd say to our listeners again to that represent churches and regions and like the collective cry of your church matters. So so help help lead people to pray. The collective cry of your region matters. Find as many ways as possible.

New wineskins of prayer, new ways to get more. I'm constantly asking on behalf of our church, how can I get help empower more people to pray? I'll use any tool, any way, just to get more people vertical because I know that that collective cry matters. So all that and then we'll land here. This is awesome. So you got to think, I just, I'm visual and I'm thinking about if I'm Moses, I'm face down for the Lord. The Lord's sharing all this stuff. Like, hey, you need to know this.

I've seen, I've heard, I cared about it, I felt it. Man, their cries have been coming up before me. I have come down. I'm going to deliver them, bring them to promised places, all that.

To which, if you're Moses, you're like, hallelujah, amen. Like, Lord, man, wait till Pharaoh finds out what you're saying to me. He's toast. And then verse 10, and this is the thing that we need to embrace. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. To which, you know, Moses said, of course, we're not going to get into it all day. He's going to struggle with us with this thought big time. Big time. Big time.

But it's teaching us something that is from front to finish in Scripture, that God will so many times promise us his presence, promise us what he's going to do, what he's going to accomplish. And then he's going to look to us and say, so come play. Mm hmm. Come be a part. You got a role. You know, Moses, you're so happens to be this role pretty distinct, but there's going to be so many others that are going to have a role as well.

And so I would say to our listeners and to each one of us, if you're a part of God's family, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, the Lord is promising so many things. Hey, you can't name a zip code on planet Earth that the name of Jesus is not going to be exalted in. He's going to glorify his name, that he's going to advance his kingdom, that he's going to build his church, that he'll never leave us or forsake us, all these different things.

And then the Lord is going to look at each one of us in the eye individually and say, son, daughter, now I'm sending you. Now I'm sending you. It reminds me of John 20, 21, when Jesus says to them again, peace be with you as the Father has sent me. Even so, I am sending you. God has a plan. God has a plan. God has a redemptive plan. God has a waking, revivalistic plan, desires and stuff. But this is the part that's hard. And you have a part.

You have a part. And at some point, you've got to embrace that. You've got to embrace that. You've got to cooperate. You know, Kyle, I've been studying for several years and writing this book we've talked about here. We're all the present-centered life. And one of the things that I saw is that God, everything God has done in the scripture is to invite us into his presence. And one was the way he made us. And look at this. It says, God said, let's make man in our image and let him rule.

In other words, what he says is, and let them multiply and subdue the earth. So what he says is, look, I want you with me. Yeah. And I want you, I made you like I am so you could join me in what I do. Right. And I got stuff to do. Right. So that means, and every time I think about this, I'm maybe talking to a group or something. Right. I just think, man, if these people only knew how each one of them has been fearfully made, and they have a domain.

They have an area that God has given them to rule and reign and to be a part, a mighty instrument in the hands of God. But they just don't think that's possible for them. They think, well, that's for the Kyle Rinos of this world. That's for the, you know, the pastors or somebody else. No, no, everybody's got their spot and everybody's got their place. And most of the time, it takes a lot of time. Chipping away by God to get us to the point where we're ready for that took Moses 80 years.

But what was fascinating, Kyle. Is that the very ground that he drug those sheep around on for 40 years was the exact ground that he was going to leave the children of Israel on. That's so right. Exact ground. And so God, God just, I mean, God's so smart. He just knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly what he had to build into Moses, what he had to chip away from Moses.

And he's doing that with you. And every one of our listeners, you are to be a mighty instrument of God's presence and power in this world. But you've got to see that and embrace it, not in a proud way, but in a humble way. and say, here am I, Lord, send me. Wow, isn't that, you know, something the Lord over time has put way down deep in me is, one, you know, God's never been looking for a capable person. Yeah. He's looking for a usable one. Yeah.

And, but I have a responsibility in that, that I have to allow the Lord. I do, we do, to break us of all pride and desire to be known, all those things, and get to the place where you're going, like, Lord, I don't want to be known, but I do want to be used. And if you can get to sincerity in that place, there's this awesome right confidence that comes with, you know what, God don't have to use me. But here's the thing, in humility, He's choosing to right now. He's choosing to.

And like nobody else can be you where God has placed you like you. And so there is that in humility, there is embracing also that God has given me the authority to stand in this moment, to be used as a vessel. And so this ain't about me, but I'm here right now. I'm here right now. And so, Lord, use me. And that's the most liberating thing in the world to get to the point where you're like, Lord, here I am. Use me where I am as long as you want to in a way that glorifies your name.

And then I'll just be grateful that I get to be a part of this thing.

And there's what you said, and we'll pray here, but I think... What you said is so important, particularly for young leaders and stuff. You know, there's this process we all have to go through to be broken of our will, to be broken of our pride, to be broken of our desire for fame and reputation, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's just it's in all of it. And we have to go through that breaking and developing process.

But if we will, the quicker we cooperate with God about that, he is just waiting to use us in extraordinary ways. And then we can step into that, not with pride. And you just said it with authority, with spiritual authority. It's like, I'm not, I'm a nobody. I'm here by the grace of God, but I am here and I've been fearfully and wonderfully made. The other day, I was going to minister at this particular place. I have never had this thought in my life. And I've been thinking about all this.

And the Lord just said to me, Bill, this place where you're going right here, that's your domain. Go for it. Go for it. I've made you to rule and reign right here with this particular gift that I've given you. And it's been shaped through the years. But this, I do want you to stand up and realize this is your spot and this is your gifting and go for it. You know, just go for it. What a liberating thing. And God wants to use us all there, doesn't he? Sure does.

Sure does. Well, man, let's pray for, I would say, man, Bill, why don't you pray for our listeners, you know, and that each of us individually would have those moments in God's presence where we embrace our purpose.

Yeah. God's got a way that he wants to use this in us. So lead us in that. Father, we're so grateful for the Bible and that it's a living word. It's not some dead history book. But, Father, you're talking to us. And your spirit takes your word and speaks to us. And, Lord, like this morning, you come to us and say, look, I had a purpose for Moses. And I was preparing him for that purpose. And it had to be in my presence. He had to learn how to live in my presence and to walk with me.

But in the right time, I said, I'm going to come down to take my people out and deliver them. And I need Moses. I want to use Moses. And Moses finally said, Lord, here I am. And so, Lord, I pray for every one of our listeners. They would we would just all realize God's called us to something great. I don't care if we're Lord, if we're throwing papers somewhere or we're the CEO of a company or we're out in a rice field or whatever we're doing.

Lord, you have a domain for us and you have gifting you've given us. And then you fill us with your Holy Spirit if we'll let you. And Lord, you give us the power of your presence. And the whole purpose of that is because you have sheep that you need to seek and save and bring home. And and help them realize their purpose, their destiny, their calling. So, Lord, help us just to I pray that that would just rumble around in our soul and we couldn't get away from our calling and our purpose.

And, Father, it would begin to be a new day for some of our listeners in a very significant way. We love you and we thank you for this time together in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Well, as always, thank y'all for time today. Man, it's so privileged to be a part of this. Bill, it's fun doing this with you, man. And always encourages you. If it's a help to you, man, send it to somebody. Take a few seconds and say, hey, listen, I just listened to this.

And maybe share something that spoke to you that y'all can start a conversation around and encourage. Because revival and the real move of God, even in you, is never intended to stop with you, but spread to others. And we look forward to that. Music.