Guidance in the Presence of the Holy Spirit Exodus Series #18

In what seems to many scholars to be an interruption or a parenthesis, Exodus 13 is actually a real clarification about a principle: when God brings deliverance to our life, He reorders our life and gives us Himself in the Word. This isn’t man’s idea, but God interrupts this wonderful Passover and ultimately the Red Sea, which completely gets Egypt or Israel out of Egypt.

But He teaches in this 13th chapter that as a result of Passover, there are some things that have to be walked out in our lives. And, of course, although the effect is very specific to Israel, first, all the first fruits of their lives now belong to the Lord, and that’s a very clear and distinct principle: if we’ve had deliverance and we’ve truly been delivered, then there is a sense in which unalterably the fruit of our life will be marked for the Lord.

It will go in an entirely different direction than it would have gone before. Here again is the mistake of people who are not really set free from materialism, and then when the blessings of being in the Lord come, they do not commit to the principle of the fruit of their life being changed as a result of God’s intervention in their life and experience.

Um, there’s no question about this. Evangelicals are just as wasteful, and we’ve certainly seen it even in leadership in these last few years. The absolute wastefulness of great mansions and homes, and all of this sort of thing done in the name of honoring God’s servants. What a rebuke that has been to our, it should be, to our own spirit.

And true also for you. So the fruit of our life is to be changed. Then the appetites of our lives are to be changed by God. And again, the principle is so clear. It’s much easier for us to come to a legalistic definition of what this means than it is to walk out God’s principle, which is at any time, for my sake, I will put my finger on something in your life and say no more, for a period of time, you need to set this aside. God has a way of proving to us whether or not something has become a bondage to us. Many of you in this church have walked out various things in reference to this. And we honor each other in distinct places here. This is where you know the, the, uh, Israelites, some of the carnal Israelites got to the place where they would tease the prophets, those who had made Nazirite vows. You remember, a Nazirite vow means basically that they would drink no wine, they would have, uh, basically have a celibate position in life and so forth. They made several very critical decisions. And some of the carnal Israelites got to the place where in their quote freedom, they would tempt the Nazirites to abandon their vows and to drink wine with them, to celebrate with them in their manner. Here is where a church must walk sensitively before the Lord, you know. There can be no legalism here; that’s right. But on the other hand, there cannot be a kind of use of our freedom against another individual’s not only right but necessity before God, to lay aside some things in his life. I had a terrible experience with this one time in Mobile, Alabama when I was a young evangelist. Now, I’ll never forget this because on the first night of the meeting, or the first several nights of the meeting, I saw a young man coming in, and he’s one of those guys who walk in late, and the whole youth of the church, which was really the emphasis of that meeting, well, you could just tell when he walked in, he had control of that whole group. I later found out he was a young man who had really known the Lord and had so, had backslid and had moved away from the position of Christ. About the third night of that meeting, he gave his heart to the Lord in a very startling kind of conversion experience.

He and I became friends. He’d come over, we’d play football at the motel in the afternoons before the evening service. Went out several times with other young people in the, in the, uh, that were coming to the services at that point. And, uh, I at that point was just beginning to love bowling. I was just really getting into bowling. It was something I had never done, and the lady in Memphis Youth for Christ, who was so instrumental in my life, her husband owned a bowling alley, and so she got me a bowling ball wholesale, what was drilled to my fingers, and I tell you, I was really a star at that point, in reference to that. And, um, so I wanted to go bowling, and, uh, I, in fact, I had gone several times with other people and I asked him to go with me, and I remember so distinctly him saying, “No, I really can’t do that.” I can’t do that. And I remember my response, which was something like, “What could it, what could be wrong with bowling? I mean, what could be wrong with bowling? This is, you know, we’re just gonna go and bowl a couple of lines and, and come back, and we’re gonna have fun and, you know, what could be wrong with this?”

And he went with me. Now, I’m not going to tell you the end of this story as though I feel responsible for it, but I don’t. However, later on that evening, we sat down, and he said, “Rick, you don’t understand something, and I want to tell you this,” he said. “Bowling to you is something you do a couple of lines and enjoy; it’s good recreational exercise.”

He continued, “Bowling to me is idolatry. I will steal; I will do anything to have the money to bowl. I’ve been doing this since I was about 14 years of age. By that point, he was almost a semi-professional bowler, but it was an addiction of the worst nature.” And, by the way, subsequently, that young man…

He fell back into the world. This was many months and a year or so after I had been there. We had written and corresponded, and he ended up in prison for a robbery at a bowling alley in which a man was killed. Although he was not directly responsible, he was sentenced and spent many years in prison.

You need to understand the principle: God knows who you are, and God says, “I want to change the appetite of your life so that you are in control of this thing.” That means we have to be distinctly aware of what other people are doing. We need to be careful that we’re not taking our liberties and making them an occasion of stumbling for other believers.

So the answer isn’t some legalistic definition, but the answer also isn’t a kind of liberty that makes us careless in reference to God’s control over the appetites of other believers. Thirdly, of course, is this business of personality. We spent Sunday night two weeks ago on this subject.

God wants the eye, the hand, the mouth, the personality to be conformed to His purpose. He wants to cast down the imagination that the enemy is wreaking havoc against you. It was interesting. I felt led because I had been so moved myself in the sharing of that. I felt led to share that one night during my time in Florence this past week.

This businessman, a very successful businessman, whose wife is a multimillion-dollar producer in real estate every year, the largest real estate person in terms of turnover in her field in ministry. But her husband, in the last year, has been released to minister at the church.

Jerry feels so inadequate, so unprepared, yet he knows this is what God is telling him to do. He was right in the middle of that very thing where Satan was erasing his identity and replacing it with inadequacy. “I can’t do this; I’m not called to this; I don’t have the formal training.” The very thing that God, his wife, his pastor, and the other elders in leadership were confirming to be true, Satan, in just a few of those skillful, little, logistic manners in which he develops an argument and reasoning against Jerry, was absolutely blotting out his ability to do what God had called him to do.

So we need to be changed in our personality. I wonder if you’re willing to give up that sense of argument, of “Well, this is the way I am, and this is the way it’s always going to be.” And to really believe what God says: “I want to mark you in such a way, on the basis of deliverance, on the basis of a new you. I want to mark you in such a way that the world will see the difference in your personhood and your personality.”

Then, of course, this morning, we looked at this principle of radically changing and affecting the direction of our lives. I can’t tell you how important that word is and how much you will live it out, whether or not you understand it and thus are freed from the anger, resentment, and bitterness of the barred path. But if you understand and release unto God’s direction this, how wonderfully God wants to provide for you.

Finally, this evening, the fifth of these imperative principles has to do with God’s guidance in our lives and in the presence of the Holy Spirit. I’m not going to take a long time on this, but it is very critical, and I want to give you what I believe is God’s desire to teach us in response to this and what it means in very practical language. Here are the words from Exodus 13, 20 through 22. It’s the principle of confidence and assurance through continual guidance from the Lord.

So they took their journey from Etham at the edge of the wilderness. The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. So, as to go by day and night, he did not. These are very interesting words. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the Lord or from before the people.

Here is the principle in this passage of God saying, “Now, if you’ll let me reorder your life, if you’ll accept my direction, if you will conform to what I am doing, even in terms of blocking paths, I’m going to give you a promise. And that promise is that as you walk out this direction before the Lord, you will never be without a sense of my presence.”

So you see, my friends, it isn’t just the fruit of our lives and the appetites that are changed, and this new word and personality, and radically altered choice and direction, but it’s also this living presence of God. And this is a point I need to spend some time with you on this evening because it’s a very important principle.

I have quit trying to convince people that they are saved. I remember in the days of Youth for Christ, and I remember coming to this church and certainly being so radically upset at a kind of Pentecostal doctrine that had people up and down and wanting to make sure that they had confidence and assurance.

Many people came to me and said, “Well, I just don’t know.” And I would give them the words, “Well, you know, ‘Whosoever believeth in him shall not be condemned.'” And here’s what the scripture says, “That if you believe, and you believe this scripture, and thereby you are saved.” And I would walk people through that scripture.

But God really rebuked me at a point, and I began doing a lot of study in the Word, and so clear are the scriptures that say the Spirit of God testifies with your spirit. There must be! No preacher can give you this, and no one can give you that assurance. It must be in that testimony of God’s Holy Spirit within your own life.

And if that hasn’t happened, it’s facetious and dangerous to try to convince people that they have a relationship if there is no testimony of the Holy Spirit in reference to their life. The point is, God was saying, as a result of our new relationship, you’re redeemed, you’re set free from Egypt, I’ve made a covenant promise that there’ll never be a moment in which the cloud of my presence is not with you in the daytime, and the fire of my presence here at night.

My Shekinah, my glory. And by the way, of course, that continues in Israel. Because it eventually comes, what, over the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle and then in the temple. And there is constantly, until the backsliding of the people, drive that from God’s presence. There is always, even in the so-called modern Israel, the Israel in Canaan, the Israel in development, there’s this sense that God’s presence must be here. That was the longing of David when he came to the kingship, and the ark had been in a barn, and he risked his life and his family and everything else to say, “This must be again in the center of our hearts, and it must be again in the center of our lives. The Shekinah glory of God. I hear us say a lot about power and sing a lot about these things, but there is such an intense difference between that resting, residing, knowable presence of the Holy Spirit.

I’ve often prayed Psalm 51 on my knees. I don’t know of any believer who really knows God, who hasn’t prayed Psalm 51 a lot of times on their knees, and sometimes flat on their faces. And particularly this section in verses 9 through 13. “Hide your face from my sin, and blot out my iniquities, and create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me by your generous spirit. And then I will teach transgressors your way, and sinners will be converted to you.” Particularly that verse. The verse that stands out has been uniquely emblazoned on my heart from the time I was first committed to Christ.

“Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.” Now here is David. In this very ejaculatory prayer, and that’s what it is, immediately after Nathan has walked in and confronted him with sin. The thought through prayer in the dealings of God is the 32nd Psalm out of that same experience. But the 51st Psalm is just this outpouring of David’s heart.

And what is the thing that David fears most? Losing his kingship? Losing his family? Destroying his authority? The thing he fears most is that the thing most precious to him will be absent from his life. And when he finally works together that extremely detailed teaching psalm, the 32nd psalm, about the same experience.

He says, when I hid my sin, he said, my, my sap dried out, like a drought, referring to the issues of his life, his songs, his ministries. Why? Because the Spirit of God could not flow in his life in the hiddenness of his sin. David had that same kind of a cry. Don’t take your presents from me. I want you to look at the Living Bible’s translation I read in the message.

As it translates this, don’t look too closely for blemishes. Give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me. Shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Do you see that phrase? What an incredible phrase. Shape a Genesis life for me out of the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash or fail to breathe holiness in me.

Bring me back from gray exile, with a fresh wind in my sails, and give me a job teaching rebels your way, so that the lost can find their way home. I want to say this to you. This doesn’t fit with some people’s theology. I’m sorry. But the Holy Spirit is a gift to us. It is a precious, he is a precious, unaccountable gift of God’s grace, his presence.

To have his presence has nothing to do with legalism or works or church membership; it’s a grace of God. That’s why the old Calvinists used to say, some people are damned, some people are elected, because they based it entirely on whether those people had a sense, in fact, that’s what they referred to, of the presence or awakening or alerting in their heart that was brought by the Holy Spirit.

And they basically said you have it or don’t, or you don’t have it. But his presence is a gift. It’s like a relationship. And when that presence becomes the most important thing in your life, then you’re going to know immediately when it’s off balance in any way, just like a good relationship when it isn’t working out.

And that’s a horrendous payment for your willfulness. It’s a horrendous payment for your rejection of God’s ways. To have that power of presence. And I’m not talking about standing in the church and dancing or singing or groaning in the Lord. I’m talking about that consistent knowledge that’s absolutely undeniable when all hell breaks out and the Spirit of God is living and abiding in ample quantity in your life, in ample quality in your experience.

Now, this is what Holy Ground is, and I’ll be very specific in the next few moments. Because all of this focus of God, the unaltered, unalterably affected fruit of our lives, and the radically changed appetites that God asks for to be surrendered, the whole redirection of our sight and our words and our personality, this totally changed concept of choice and direction, willingness to go where God leads us, that makes no, absolutely no sense.

On which, unless in the midst of that, there’s this incredible sense of God with us, God in us. In fact, I cannot imagine a more uncomfortable Christian in this place who would set out to try to do these five things. If there was not that overwhelming sense that he’s with me, he is before me, he is directing me, his presence in my life is the experience of this.

And of course, the whole focus of this in the Word of God, and I’m not going to make a whole study of this tonight with you, but it is this holy ground experience. Moses had his holy ground experience in the Midian Desert when the bush burned, and it was not consumed. And God spoke from the bush, and he said, and this is in Exodus 3, 5, and we studied it.

He said, don’t draw near this place, but take off your sandals from your feet. For the place where you stand is holy ground. And Joshua had his personal experience in chapter 5, verses 13 through 15. By the way, it’s one of the funniest conversations in the Bible. Joshua’s got his head up against the wall of Jericho.

He’s saying, My God, what are we going to do? How is this immovable object going to change? How can this ever be altered? And suddenly the angel, who is called the Captain of the Lord’s Host, is there. And I know that’s Jesus Christ himself. I’m not to argue with other commentators on this. But I believe, indeed.

The captain of the Lord’s house, of the Lord’s host, completely furnished with equipment with a sword in his hand, that this is Jesus Christ. And Joshua says, Are you for us or our enemy? And the Lord says, No. I love that answer. That’s all God says. Are you for us or against us? No. Did you hear the question?

God is saying to Joshua, you’re asking the wrong question. The question isn’t whether I’m your enemy, the question isn’t, Am I for you or against you? The question is, Are you on my side? And then he commands Joshua, and this is in Joshua chapter 5 and verse 15, The commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, Take the sandal off your foot.

For the place where you stand is holy. And the next word says, and Joshua did so. I just want to be very specific with you. God always picks the ugliest places in the world to reveal himself. He picks the most uncomely places. And I want to just say this to you, fight with me if you will. There’s never a holy ground that doesn’t come in the wilderness.

That’s where it happens. Why? Because that’s where the ground meets ground, the issue meets the issue of your deciding whether you’re going God’s way or not. If you’re going to conform to the food and appetites of your life and accept His will to direct your life in another way or not. That’s where it comes.

Mother Teresa is one of my contemporary heroes. I think I have almost everything that’s ever been written about her, including two brand new books. Several years ago, Mother Teresa was at Harvard University. I don’t know if you’ve heard this story, but I know it’s true because I had a friend who was there.

She was asked to go to Harvard on a panel of evangelical scholars who were to present the evangelical position on sexual fidelity and birth control, and so forth. Here’s a whole panel of these evangelical scholars, and this little Mother Teresa. Have you ever seen her? I mean, she is so diminutive.

You would think she’s about a 12-year-old child. She is so small. So, she was to speak first, and she toddles up to the microphone and says, “Boys and girls.” And I had a friend who was there, and he said, when she started, when she just said that, “Boys and girls,” you could just see all these evangelical scholars dropping their heads.

And then her second line was, “Boys and girls, I understand some of you are sleeping together before you get married.” My friend said you could hear a chord, a kind of “ta-ta-ta” in her voice. Then she went on, she said, “God doesn’t want you to do that. And I understand some of you have aborted babies. God loves you, and God loves life, and God doesn’t want you to do that.” My friend said, at this point, the whole panel of evangelical scholars had their hands in their heads, thinking, “Oh, this woman has blown this whole thing.”

Then she said a couple of other words, and she ended by saying, “Boys and girls,” again. Can you imagine addressing these Harvard students? “Boys and girls, God loves you, and He has a plan for your life.” She turned around and sat down. And the students of that university stood up and applauded her for five minutes. Because it was a message from a woman who understood love in the stinking, gutter-ridden streets of Calcutta. It’s always a crisis.

Holy ground is an ugly place. But it’s always a place. It’s always a wilderness place. And it’s in that kind of confrontation with truth that comes. And I’ve always wondered and asked myself about this thing of removing your sandals. And I want to just ask you a couple of simple questions and give you a couple of very specific things that I believe as we close this tonight.

Number one, what do shoes speak of? What is the whole issue of sandals? They always speak of that which isolates us from the world. If any of you have ever gone out barefoot, now I know some of you walk enough barefoot that you’ve built up calluses, but the average person walks out barefoot, even in a relatively safe place, and they return real quickly to put on some sandals.

Because just walking across the driveway, and you are so bruised, your feet are so bruised and hurt, you’re running for the nearest thing you can find to put on your feet. Why? Because you need something to isolate you. And sandals represent our isolation against the world. So sandals speak to us, first of all, of sensitivity.

Most of us play at being professional Christians. We don’t understand that you can only win when you’re vulnerable. We don’t understand the truth of the Incarnation, which is that nobody changes anything as long as they have their shoes on. It’s not possible. It’s sensitivity that God is asking for.

Years ago, a friend of mine, and I can just relate this story very quickly, in Seattle, Washington, he has now become one of the most famous pastors in America. At this time, his church was just beginning, and I used to minister there on occasions. A member of his congregation came down with AIDS, the leprosy of this generation.

Doug went to visit him, and in that particular Seattle hospital, visiting this AIDS patient, he had to put on the boots and the complete garment and the isolation mask and everything else, which they were doing in those early days. And you’ve seen people in a total isolation experience, I’m sure. Doug went into the room, and he saw this young man in the bed across the room, and the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, “Doug, I want you to pray for him.”

And Doug said, “Sure, God, I’ll just stand right over here and I’ll pray. There’s no distance in prayer. Boy, do we love certain scriptures. That’s one we especially love. There’s no distance in prayer. You just, you know, I’ll pray with you over the telephone.” God said, “No, I want you to touch him.” And as Doug started, because he’s a very obedient man, he started moving across the room, and the Holy Spirit became very specific to him.

And this four-square pastor ended up taking this young man in his arms and holding him and praying for him. You take your shoes off because it’s a sign to God that you’re going to be sensitive to his movings, to his dealings, to the areas in which he wants you to move. Do everything he wants to speak to you.

You take your shoes off to say, in this holy encounter with you, I don’t want anything to isolate me from everything that moves you, from everything that moves your heart, from what you feel and what you wish me to know. That’s exactly what shoes off means. But secondly, shoes off speak of submission. We conquer by being surrendered.

And you take your shoes off because you’re a captive. There’s an interesting revelation of this in Isaiah chapter 20. I’m not going to ask you to turn to it, but I’m going to read it for you. At this time, the Lord spoke to Isaiah, the son of Amos, saying, “Go and remove the sackcloth from your body and take the sandals off your feet.”

And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And then the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years as a sign and wonder, so shall the king of Assyria lead the Ethiopians as prisoners, and the Ethiopians will be captive, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.”

Now, it’s an interesting thing with that passage. First of all, it’s interesting that God orders Isaiah to walk around in a jockstrap for three years. Now, that’s basically what it says. Naked is a word in the Hebrew that doesn’t imply no clothes, but no outward clothes. Nothing to really cover him. And probably just a modesty cloth of any means.

Now, that’s at least my interpretation of the Hebrew. That’s why jockey shorts to me is the best illustration I can give you of what God asked him to do. Taking your shoes off speaks of submission. And we’ve talked about these five principles, and I’ve so often heard people say, in this church and other churches, “God will never embarrass you.”

Yeah, what God? What God is it that never embarrasses you? You plan for a perfect service because you know a very important visitor is coming, and everything breaks down. The sound system goes berserk, the lights don’t work. Somebody throws a fit. We used to have a man in church, every time it was a very important service, he’d throw a fit.

Not an epileptic fit, just a plain old personality fit, a fit of his own creation. God, I think, loves that. I really think God loves to see us in all of our humanism, in all of our efforts to make everything right. And God likes to put that purple-headed punk rocker right down the middle aisle in the middle of the service.

We’re the guy who… I never will forget this. I had had a kind of knock-down, drag-out with the chief usher in the church. Not because he was doing anything wrong, he was doing what he had been told to do. And that was not to let anybody come into the church unless they were properly dressed. Someone had told me, this was, of course, in the ’70s, and I went back to him and I said, “Is this true? Is this what your orders are?” And, uh, Scotty said, “Yes.” He’s a good marine man. He said, “Yes, sir, that’s the orders. We don’t let anybody in unless they are properly dressed.” And I said, “Well, buddy, that’s changed at this point because I’m telling you as pastor of this church, nobody will ever be refused entry to this church because of what they wear or I’ll have your job.”

And he just said, “Yes, sir, change of orders.” He understood that, made the change. The first person who was, the first person who came in after that change of orders was Dennis McIntosh. He came in barefoot, um, no shirt, um, bib overalls, sat over here in the back, gave his heart to Christ that first Sunday. Eventually redirected the whole way in ministry that God had started for us. But about two months after that, this guy came in in the middle of a Sunday service. I’ll never forget it. In those days, we had three sections of seats. They were all chairs. There was no center aisle, so it was a big set of pews here.

And there were two aisles with two small sections of seats on the other side. I, you know, that’s one advantage of being in the pulpit. You see what’s going on. I saw this guy come in the lobby. This is before we remodeled, and you can see through the windows as you do now. And I saw this guy come in.

He came in with an Indian sarong, just wrapped around his waist. A rather short one, I must add. He had a very unkempt beard. His hair was disheveled. He was one of these hairy creations, like my son. I don’t know where these people come from, but he had hair everywhere. Literally everywhere. And when he walked in, Scotty, this usher, literally took him by the arm and walked in those centered aisles and stood there for a few moments to get my attention.

I could just see written all over Scotty’s face, “You wanted it, you got it.” And there were dozens of seats in the back, but Scotty ushered him down this aisle and sat him about the third seat over there, and as he did it, it was the most dramatic thing you can imagine. I mean, everybody looked. It was not a matter of just a few people who normally are looking around.

Everybody watched this guy get in and sit down. Now his name was Rainwater. That’s all we ever knew about him. I’m not convinced to this day that he wasn’t an angel. I don’t know if he exists. I’ve never heard from that day. He came for about two months until he shook out a whole bunch of people from the church, and then he left.

They left first, and then he left.

You know, it’s very interesting, isn’t it? God wouldn’t do that, would he? God didn’t arrange that. Yeah, he does. I don’t think I’ve ever told this story, maybe once. I think on one Sunday night I shared it. I’ve told it around the country. We had a wonderful elder here in this church, Jack McKinstry, wonderful. I loved having him here.

I’ve enjoyed him just as much in Arizona, I must add, in certain issues, and this is one. Jack was always coming up with directions that God had given him, which were just… Incredible. I mean, he’s one of these spiritual people, like my son-in-law, who sees something spiritual in everything that’s going on.

We had bought the property in Farm Hill, but we couldn’t get a loan to do the very radical work we needed to do in order to keep our building permitted. And nobody would loan us the money, though we had all these assets. It was just a time… Plus, it was the very opposition to the internet.

Jack came in and said, “I think I have an answer to the property situation.” He came in early on a Sunday morning before the service began. He said, “I think I have an answer to the property situation.” I said, “Great, what is it?” And he said, “I believe the Lord has told me that we’re to go around the property blowing a trumpet.”

I said, “That’s interesting, Jack. I didn’t know any of the elders played trumpets.” And he said, “They don’t. I’ve checked. There’s no elder that plays a trumpet.” He said, “That wouldn’t matter anyway because it’s not a regular trumpet. It’s one of those special shofar horns that Israel used.” And I said, “You know, that’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve seen one of those shofar horns in years.” He said, “I’ve found two.” And I knew I was losing the battle and I said, “Well, Jack, it must be something God would do. And I’m sure you’ve planned a time that won’t be offensive to anyone.” Jack said, “Yes, I think the Lord gave me a time.”

I said, “When would that be, Jack?” And he said, “This afternoon.” I said, “That’s interesting, that’s just like God. Why don’t you take a couple of elders and go up there? I think it’s an excellent idea. Go ahead and do it.” And he said, “Well, you see, you’re to be involved in this. In fact, God was very specific.”

I said, “I’m to be involved with you. In other words, I’m to go up there with elders blowing horns on Sunday afternoon on Farm Hill Boulevard, Freeway 280, across from Kenyatta College, with thousands of vehicles passing by, and that’s what we’re going to do.” He said, “Right.” I said, “Okay.” And we got to the property.

I’ll never forget this because Jack always has perfect words about anything. I said, “Well, what’s to happen?” He said, “Well, you’re supposed to stand in the center of the property and just worship and praise the Lord while we go back to back around this property, blowing shofar horns.” I tell you, friends, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard someone try to play a shofar horn that’s never put their mouth to such an instrument before.

It sounds a bit like a sick cow. You know, that’s about it.

So, Jack and Gordon McAllister, back to back, started playing shofar horns and walking around the property, and I was to praise the Lord. Well, it was an interesting afternoon. Motorcycles stopped, little kids gathered; it was… And I was in the middle saying, “Praise the Lord. Praise God. Isn’t this wonderful?” I want to tell you something else about that afternoon.

Because it involves a principle. I didn’t like what this word was. I wasn’t comfortable with that kind of an experience. I never have been comfortable with that kind of an experience. But I knew this was holy ground. Not because the place was holy. I knew that event, that moment, was holy ground. And so before we could ever start, I had to take those two brothers and say, “I have some things I need you to pray with me about.

I don’t want to be someone standing in the way of this thing God wants to do. And I need to share some things with you. I need to get some things before you as my brothers in Christ.” And I did some confession, and I cleared my spirit, and we knelt on the property and cleared some things before we ever began.

And I want you to know. You can say whatever you want. The next Monday morning, the next day, I received a phone call concerning the means of financing that from the very people who had said they would not work with us in this situation. When you take your shoes off, you’re not just sensitive to feel everything, but you’re submitted.

You’re saying God has a right to do whatever he wants to do. I’ve heard people say, “God would never ask me to write a check for this amount because he knows what my bills are next month.” That’s not true. What kind of a God do you serve? God would never ask me to do this because I’m uncomfortable in that situation.

That’s a part of the reason. Why God has you. You remember Billy saying the night of the 25th anniversary, “Rick Howard takes great pleasure in the social discomfort of other people.” I believe that’s what God does. I think he takes great comfort in getting us to the edge of our social comfortability so that he can begin dealing with us deeply in our spirits.

But there’s a third thing, because when your sandals are off in the presence of God, you’re speaking about submission, and you’ll study in the scriptures the Ruth and Boaz story where Boaz knew that if he was to marry Ruth, he first had to have the renunciation of the first elder who really should have, the closest relative, who should have taken responsibility, and you will see there that when he would not redeem, the elder had to remove his left shoe.

as a symbol of that substitution which was going to take place. You redeem it because I can’t was the issue. Redemption is meant to lead you to purpose, and purpose is manifested in all the arena of your life and choices and appetites. But ultimately, it’s in this manifested, viable presence of God, and God says, “If you’re going to come and live in my presence, then you have to have your sandals off, because you have to understand the totality of my substitution in reference to your sins.”

One of the things that keeps most of us is not a matter of what we don’t do, it’s a matter of how actively we are involved in the process of condemnation and judgment on ourselves. You know, this night I can have a blessing because I did this and this yesterday. This night, God can’t work with me because of what I did last night or what happened in my life last week.

It’s just exactly the opposite. Not because God wants to condone sinfulness, but because God wants you to stand at the place where you realize if anything good happens now, it’s because of God. Where you realize totally that you are unworthy, and there is nothing about standing before God that you’re prepared to do.

And it’s in that moment that substitution begins to be a totally understood principle. It is Jesus Christ for us, not just God, with us. And the process of sandals off our feet is this sign of understanding that completely and totally. We are before the Lord. Now, I want to review that with you, just as we change the order of the service.

Now, I’m going to suggest that in a few minutes, if you feel comfortable doing this, certainly don’t want to bug anybody to do this, but if you feel comfortable in removing your shoes, and I suggest removing your socks as well, because that’s, that’s another form of, that’s just another form of isolating ourselves.

But the point is, there’s no value in doing this, and that’s why I suggest you don’t do it unless you understand and want to say to God, this is the level at which I want this to be understood in my life. Number one, I remove my sandals because I want to be absolutely sensitive to every breath of God.

I want to tell you this, I’ve said it to you before, I’m going to say it again, I want you to hear me. Most of the Church of Jesus Christ is setting itself up to reject the next move of God. We’re already preparing our rationalizations. We’re already setting ourselves up. And those of us who have walked through the last two rejections of the Church, the most recent ones, which were, first of all, in the Jesus People Movement, an illustration I’ve just used earlier in the message, and then secondly in the charismatic movement when God was bringing in a lot of people who had lifestyle issues that didn’t fit into our conformity, and the Pentecostal Church rejected them.

The simple fact is… Having walked through those two rejections and having seen the results of churches that would not enter into what God was saying, I want you to know that some of us have already got the arguments ready, we’ve already got the principles drawn up, we’ve already got the idea ready. And when I take my sandals off, I’m saying, “What?”

I want to be so sensitized to your Holy Spirit. Nothing. No insulation between me and the world. No insulation between me and hardness. No insulation between me and the needs of people. No insulation between me and the movings of your spirit. I want to sense every rumble. I want to know everything that happens.

I want to have the most sensitive placing I can possibly be in. And then secondly, of course, to be saying, “Lord, I want to be totally submitted.” And we talked about that this morning and tried to end the service with a little bit of an understanding. I don’t think that’s so difficult to do.

To bring a corporate group of people to a principle like that and then say, “Let’s surrender to this, and let’s all say we’re going to accept this.” It’s almost dangerous to do that kind of thing. But that is the second issue: submission. I’m a captive. I don’t belong to myself. Nothing I own belongs to me.

Either in terms of the possession of people or the possession of things. I am the captive of the Lord. If God wants me to walk around in a jockstrap for three years, I’ll do that. See, I’ll be what God needs me to be. And you know, I am, of all people probably, more sensitive to those kind of issues than most of you are.

More insecure in my personhood than most of you probably would ever believe unless you’ve been very close to me. And yet I don’t think I’ve ever failed when God has brought an issue and said, “I know you’re not going to like this, Howard, this is against your personality, but this is what I want you to do.”

I can’t say I’ve never failed. But certainly in so many times, I’ve bowed my head to something that seemed absolutely unlike my character, unlike my personality, unlike my choices. And that’s what submission is. What is submission to you? And if it’s not God’s right to embarrass you from your standpoint, if it’s not God’s right to order you into situations that you’re uncomfortable with because he wants to perfect in you the principle of submission, it’s bowing to the bar.

And we can spend all of our time singing choruses about this, but until God brings us to the holy ground, where it’s God saying, “Get your sandals off because I want you to understand submission.” And then, of course, substitution. So totally, and we are a religious people, at the best of us, and thank God many of you have not had the exposure to the religious kinds of stuff that some of the rest of us have in years and lifetimes of walking in institutional kinds of situations.

But all of us are religious. And when God says, “You take off your shoes so that there’s nothing between you and God. There’s no, ‘I wrote these books, I did this, I preached to these people, I pleased you in this and this and this.’ No. When a man takes off his sandals, he says, ‘If the righteousness of Christ does not cover me, I’m damned.’

When he takes off his sandals, he says, ‘Absolutely, I understand the principle that there’s no redemption in me. I cannot redeem myself. Unless I’m redeemed.’ And sometimes, the example of that, certainly in my life, I’ve known Saturdays when, because of family conflicts or something else going on in my life, it was just an absolutely abysmal day.

And the next Sunday morning was communion. I’ve known the times of walking in this church and saying, “God, I can’t do this. I cannot go through with this.” And God has said very clearly to me, “What’s the basis of it? Do you think the basis of what I’m going to do this morning is how well you’ve performed? Do you think I’ve got a sheet up here ticked off as to how this week went?”

And on the basis of it, I’m going to bless you. If you think that, Howard, get out of the ministry. And I have seen marvelously, and again, the principle’s not blessing my weakness, but I’ve seen marvelously time and time again in those moments with shoes off, saying, it’s only God anyway, and there’s nothing that God has moved in a way that he had not moved in my moments of perfection when I came to the pulpit with everything together.

That’s a principle of taking your shoes off. I want you to stand with me, please. Lauren’s coming back to the piano. The worship group’s going to take their place. And we’re going to just begin singing the song we did this morning. And then as they lead you, uh, I think Jeff is going to have a time as he feels led.

The prayer. People are ready, and I think after this morning, there’s a lot of work to be done, but maybe that’s not what needs to be done. I don’t know. Maybe you have to deal with issues this morning out of Exodus 13. Maybe there’s not that issue at all. Maybe what God is saying to you is the message of this fifth point.

I want my presence to be with you, but my presence involves holy ground, and holy ground involves that place in the wilderness where I say, take it off. Take off the sandals. I want to re-involve you with sensitivity. I want… I want to re-involve you with the principle of submission. I want to re-involve you with the principle of substitution.

I want you to understand this. I want you to stand solidly in this place. And I just suggest we sing, we move as God would lead. Jeff, I want to give you freedom to move in this point as God would lead you. Let’s just begin singing it together, shall we?