I'd first like to read a verse in
Matthew chapter 16.
In Matthew 16 it says in verse 3,
the middle of that verse, do you know
how to discern the appearance of the sky?
But you cannot discern the signs of the
times.
So in that day, if they had studied
the scriptures, they would have known that the
coming of Christ was near because even the
exact time was prophesied in the book of
Daniel in chapter 9.
And so they were the experts at knowing
when it's going to rain, what the weather
is going to be like tomorrow.
And we are also like that.
We read the newspaper and the news here
and there, and we know what's happening in
Ukraine and we know what's happening here and
there, but we may not know the signs
of the times in which we live.
So let me turn to another verse in
Matthew chapter 24.
In Matthew 24 and look at verse 37.
Matthew 24, 37, it says, the coming of
the Son of Man will be just like
the days of Noah.
In those days before the flood, they were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage
until the day that Noah entered the ark.
And then suddenly the flood came and took
them all away.
It will be like that.
Verse 40, when two men will be in
the field, one will be taken, the other
will be left.
Two will be grinding at the mill and
one will be taken and one will be
left.
Therefore, be on the alert for you don't
know which day your Lord is coming.
And if you turn to Genesis in chapter
6 and see something about the days of
Noah for a moment.
In the days of Noah, we read in
Genesis in chapter 6 that the earth had
become corrupt.
Genesis 6 verse 5, it says, the Lord
saw that the wickedness of man was great
on the earth.
This is very true today.
With all the type of evil, not only
wars, perverted sex, homosexual activity, transgender and all
types of things that are going on today.
And verse 5 says, the Lord saw the
wickedness of man was great on the earth.
And every intent of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continued.
We must be alert to these.
We must not be like the Pharisees who
are ignorant of what's happening in the times
in which we live.
Because the times in which we live are
sort of very close to the coming of
the Lord.
And it's an amazing word.
It says in verse 6, the Lord was
sorry that he made man on the earth.
You know, here God is speaking like a
man.
God knows the future.
He knew everything that was going to happen
in Noah's time.
But he's speaking in a human terms to
the old covenant people did not understand like
we know.
And he was saying how it grieved his
heart to see man like this.
And we say we want to be in
fellowship with the Lord.
A wife must be in fellowship with her
husband.
And if you are in the bride of
Jesus Christ, your heart should be in fellowship
with the Lord's heart.
If he is grieved, not angry, grieved at
the condition of man's wickedness, you know that
you're the bride of Christ with one test.
Are you grieved also when you see what's
happening in the world around?
Or you say it doesn't bother me, I'm
earning enough money in the Gulf, and I'm
educating my children well, and they're going to
get good jobs.
That's all you're worried about.
You're no different from all the other heathen
who work in the Gulf.
The difference between us and all the other
heathen, our non-Christians or nominal Christians or
worldly Christians should be the difference between light
and darkness.
When you come into a room, you know
immediately whether there's light or darkness there.
And my dear brothers and sisters, when people
around you, your relatives, your unconverted relatives, and
a lot of people in your place of
work and elsewhere in the Gulf, when they
see you and meet with you and talk
with you, they must see that you are
different from the average Christian.
I felt that very strongly when I was
working on the ships in the Navy.
There were many nominal Christians, but I wanted
people to see that I was different, not
just from the non-Christians, I was different
from the other Christians, because I believed God's
word, and I was not ashamed of Christ,
not ashamed to be a witness.
And I would stand up for the truth,
even if it meant I would lose my
job.
And two or three times, my senior officers
really made life difficult for me because I
said I would not do something unrighteous.
There were many temptations.
People in the Navy would do so many
unrighteous things, write wrong statements, and especially in
money matters.
And I would say, sorry, sir, I'm a
Christian, I can't do that.
And once I was transferred, within half an
hour, that's fine.
But I remember those years when I was
just 23 years old and 24 years old,
and the Lord tested me to see, is
this man fit to serve me?
Not just does he know the Bible, but
is he willing to stand up for me
when others around are compromising and corrupt?
And I want to ask you a straight
question.
If you believe the coming of the Lord
is near, and you're going to stand before
him at his judgment seat and give an
account of every single thing you ever did,
every single account you ever wrote in your
office or in your home, and every single
word you ever spoke, are you ready to
meet the Lord and say, Lord, I'm ready
right now.
My account is clear.
My life is clear.
There's nothing I have not confessed, nothing I
have done wrong that I have not said
right.
And wherever possible, I'm trying to make it
known that I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Not necessarily with words and preaching.
I know you're not allowed to preach over
there.
But your life, Jesus didn't say, let your
words be like the light.
Matthew chapter 5, he said, let your light
shine before men.
And our light is the light.
And I discovered that in the days when
I worked with 200 unconverted people in a
ship, not one born-again Christian there, I
said, Lord, I'm going to let my life
shine here.
And because some of them would make fun
of me and laugh at me, laugh about
me behind my back, that's fine.
They killed my Savior.
What is the matter?
I'm disturbed by somebody laughing at me.
I'm not fit to be a disciple of
Jesus.
And I want to say to all of
you, I want to challenge you, as if
you believe that these days are like the
days of Noah, let me read to you
from Genesis chapter 6 again.
It says here, the Lord was so breathed,
verse 6, but then it says in verse
8, but Noah found favor in the eyes
of the Lord.
What did we read in Matthew 24?
The last days will be like the days
of Noah.
That means the world will be like Noah.
And the main sins in the time of
Noah, if you read earlier on, was, first
of all, sexual perverted, perverted sexual sin.
It says here in verse, chapter 6, verse
1, that beautiful daughters were born to men.
And verse 2, the sons of God is
referring to the angels, the angels.
Can the angels lust?
I don't know fully, but when they possess
a man, they do lust.
They certainly, demons are the ones who provoke
you to lust with your eyes and look
at pretty women and look at pornography.
Who do you think is tempting young men
and even Christians to watch dirty movies and
have pornography on their phone and laptop and
all, and still sit in church as very
holy people?
That's demons, 100%.
Those demons love it when you're watching pornography.
And it says here, they looked at these
beautiful daughters of men.
Now they don't have any bodies.
So these demons couldn't have sex directly with
these women, but they possessed men in those
days.
And through those men, they would marry these
women and many, many women.
It says they took wives for themselves, whomever
they chose.
And the demons got some secondhand pleasure through
these men.
That it is sexual sin, promoted corrupt sex.
And that's exactly what we see in the
world today.
It's never in the history of man, in
all the 6,000 years of man's history,
it has never been so perverted.
Sex has never been so perverted as in
our time.
And even in Noah's day, it was bad,
but this is 10 times or a hundred
times worse today because Noah's time, there was
no internet.
There was no news going around.
There were no videos, sex videos and all
that type of stuff.
It's all there today.
We're living in a very perverted age and
the world will be like that.
They'll be corrupt.
It will get worse and worse and worse
and worse and worse.
But if any one of you brothers sitting
in a CFC church are looking at all
these corrupt pictures, you should go and hang
your head in shame and say, Lord, I'm
ashamed to be a part of a CFC
church.
I'm claiming to be very holy and this
is what I do in private.
You may close your door and think nobody's
watching.
I tell you there are a hundred demons
inside that closed room who are looking at
you when you watch pornography.
Steer clear of it.
Hate it.
You will not be able to have a
satisfying, loving relationship with your wife if you
watch all that rubbish.
Why do I mention this?
Because Jesus said, the last days will be
like the days of Noah.
Young men, old men, married men, they're all
doing this type of stuff.
And it's a time of rebellion and wickedness.
It says in verse five, the wickedness of
man was great.
But praise God, it says here there was
a man called Noah who found favor in
the eyes of the Lord, verse eight.
And do you want to be that man
in whichever town you're living in, in your
office?
Do you want to be that man about
whom the Holy Spirit can write this person
and your name, found favor in the eyes
of the Lord?
I tell you that is a million times
better than any good recommendation your boss can
give you.
I felt that.
I said, I don't care what my bosses
in the Navy ships and all would give
me.
I mean, my promotion in the Navy depended
on what recommendation my commanding officer in the
ship gave.
But I said, Lord, if I have to
compromise to get that good recommendation, I'm not
going to do it.
I don't want a good recommendation.
I will remain as a lieutenant all my
life and never be promoted.
It's perfectly okay.
Let the others become admirals around me, but
I will remain a low rank because I
stood up for Jesus Christ.
Are you willing to suffer financial loss, loss
of promotion, and loss of popularity, and loss
of everything else because you stand up for
Jesus Christ?
It's very dangerous to live in a society
where everybody is so wealthy like you are.
It's not like living in some village in
Kerala.
You're living in one of the wealthiest places
in the world where people glory in the
fact that they don't pay tax.
I know believers from CFC churches who go
to other places, and I've heard them boast,
oh, we don't pay any tax in the
Gulf.
Aha.
When they consider marriage, they want to promote
themselves like that.
I was so ashamed that a CFC believer
would ever talk like that.
You may not say it, but it can
be the back of your mind.
You keep counting how much money you have,
and that's fine, but make sure that you
don't miss out when the Lord comes.
It's wonderful to have all these Bible studies
about the second coming of the Lord and
know all about the signs and all that,
but the important thing is to be ready.
Let me turn back to Matthew 24.
Matthew 24.
It's good that Jesus told the Pharisees, you
must know the signs of the times, and
it's good for us also to know the
signs of the times in which we live.
Matthew 24, verse 6.
You will hear of wars and rumors of
wars, and we hear plenty of that.
Let's be, I mean, for the last so
many years, we've heard it here, there, or
everywhere.
Make sure you're not frightened, but those things
have to take place, but it is still
not the end.
Nation will rise against nation, verse 7, kingdom
against kingdom, and there will be famines and
earthquakes, and all these things are only the
beginning.
A new birth is going to take place
of the earth.
The earth is going to be changed, and
Jesus compares it to a woman giving birth
to a new baby, the new world, the
new earth, the new heavens and the new
earth, and, you know, a woman goes through
a lot of pain before the baby is
born, and it says all these problems that
are happening on the earth are the birth
pains of a new world that is going
to be born, and then this hasn't happened
yet, verse 9.
They will deliver you to tribulation and will
kill you.
That's not happened to any of us in
CFC churches so far, but we must be
prepared for it, and some of our brothers
in North India have already suffered that, being
killed for the name of Christ, and you
will be hated by every nation because of
my name.
It's not just that you won't be allowed
to witness like there in the Gulf.
You'll be hated.
Right now, some of you may be quite
popular in your place of work, but here
it says you'll be hated by all nations,
and when that happens, what's going to happen
in verse 10?
It says here, many will fall away.
How do you feel it when you read
that, that as we approach the end, many
believers are going to fall away?
You just read that and go to the
next verse?
I don't want to read that and go
to the next verse.
I don't want to pretend, oh, I'm so
strong, I will not fall away.
Well, you know what the Bible says, let
him who thinks he stands take heed lest
he fall.
The humble person will take that warning of
Jesus and say, Lord, I will not be
able to stand if you don't keep me.
I want to cling to you.
I want to use everything that happens to
me to draw me closer to you.
I want to read the word and let
it challenge me to cling to you just
like the branch in the tree.
Always the Lord gives me the picture of
the branch in the tree in every situation
because that is the most perfect example of
faith that I have found personally in the
words of Jesus.
As the branch abides in the vine, or
perhaps you're not very familiar with vines, in
the tree, so you must remain in me.
Why is that a picture of faith?
Because that branch is helpless without the tree.
Even if it's been in the tree with
50 years of experience of producing fruit, if
it's cut off today, it is as useless
as on the first day.
It was in the tree.
Experience doesn't help.
50 years of walking with the Lord and
you can fall away today and have no
more fruit in your life.
So anybody who thinks, oh, I've been a
believer quite a long time, so I'm pretty
safe.
You're not, brother.
You're more in danger if you're proud of
it.
Or if you are one of those conceited,
proud people who are always comparing yourselves with
other people in your church and saying, I'm
not as bad as them.
How do your sisters feel?
Do your sisters feel you're better than some
of the other sisters?
And you have thoughts that I'm not so
bad as them and you speak evil about
some of them and backbite against them because
you're not so bad as them.
I'll tell you, you're more in danger than
those people.
Remember in the prayer, the two people who
prayed in the temple, the Pharisee said, I'm
not so bad as that man over there.
And the Bible says that other wicked man
is the one whom God accepted, the Republican.
And the Pharisee who thought he was better
than the others, he got thrown out.
And I believe that's really going to happen
when Christ comes again.
A lot of people who sit in churches
and speak evil about others saying, I'm not
as bad as them.
I'm not very good.
They're going to get a big surprise when
Christ comes.
So it's good for us to walk in
humility.
The Bible says in second Corinthians 10, I
think it's verse 12, those who compare themselves
with each other are foolish.
It's a paraphrase, unwise, foolish.
Anybody who compares himself with another believer, the
Bible calls them in second Corinthians 10, a
fool.
I don't want to be a fool.
I want to be wise.
And one way of wisdom, there are many
ways of wisdom.
One way is don't compare yourself with other
believers in your church or with other believers
in other dead churches.
Let them go their way.
If you get the opportunity, witness to them,
but don't compare yourself with them.
Be thankful for God's mercy.
There are many things.
These are the words I say to the
Lord.
Luke's gospel and chapter 17, Luke's gospel and
chapter 17.
When you have done everything you have been
told, how many of you have obeyed all
the commands of Jesus?
Have you tried to?
I think some of us are really trying
to obey all the commands of Jesus.
I believe that if you have responded to
the messages you've heard in the dark for
many years from me and others, I'm sure
you are one of those really trying to
obey every command of Jesus.
I thank God for that.
Okay.
Well then here is a word for you.
Luke 17 and verse 10.
See what it says.
When you have done everything commanded, okay, maybe
you think you've done everything God has commanded
you according to the light you have.
Great.
If you have done everything you're commanded, what
should you, you get a certificate then?
What is the certificate you get from God?
Say, we are unworthy servants.
That's a certificate.
And you don't get it until you obey
everything the Lord has commanded.
And if you haven't obeyed everything, then wait,
you can't get that, even that certificate.
Then your certificate is I'm a useless servant.
But if you're obeying everything God has commanded,
then you say, I'm an unworthy servant.
I've been promoted from useless servant to unworthy
servant because I've only done what I should
have done.
Dear brothers and sisters, I'm very thankful that
very early in my life, I began to
take God's word very seriously because I believed
this is the only book that God has
given on earth.
That's why one of the first things, you
know, I was born in an Orthodox Syrian
Jacobite family.
I was baptized as a baby when I
was a few weeks old and I grew
up there and I was not born again
until I was 19 and a half.
My father was born again.
He never sent us to Jacobite church, but
we went to a Sunday school in a
brethren assembly.
So I heard the gospel from a young
age.
Many times I said, Lord Jesus come into
my heart, but I was never sure until
one day when I was 19 and a
half and I was sitting in the navel
base in my room, I read the Bible
in John 6, 37, Jesus saying, the one
who comes to me, I will never cast
out.
And I said, Lord, I've come to you
many times.
And the Lord said, I never cast you
out.
That day, I got assurance of my salvation.
64 years ago, I dropped an anchor and
my ship has never drifted in 64 years.
I'm not saying I never failed.
I made a lot of mistakes, but my
ship, my assurance that God has accepted me,
I've never lost that assurance.
I was absolutely sure.
You must be absolutely sure.
But then after that, I began to take
the Bible seriously.
And I realized that in 19 and a
half years, calling myself a nominal person, I
had never read the Bible even once.
Did I really believe that there's only one
book on earth written by God?
I would say yes.
So why don't I read it?
Oh, well, it's boring.
Or I don't have time forever.
Something else things to do.
I've got to study for my exams.
I've got to prepare for my job.
Promotion in my job is very important.
If I read the Bible or not, it's
not so important.
And you know what the result was in
all those 19 and a half years?
I was up and down and up and
down and backslidden and good for nothing, useless
to God.
But when Christ came to my heart and
I had that assurance and I began to
take the Bible seriously, and I said, Lord,
I believe there's only one book you have
written.
Imagine, dear sisters, or if you're, or your,
your husband is away in a far country,
and you haven't seen him for a long
time, because he's working.
And he sends you a long 10 page
letter, which he's taken a long time to
write.
And you get that letter.
And you read one sentence here and there,
page one, page four, page six, a few
sentences and leave it on the table for
months on end.
You say that you love your husband?
No.
I'd say you're an unfaithful wife.
Your husband is working there so hard to
send you money and take the trouble to
write a 10 page letter.
And you read only a few sentences here
and there and page three and page five
and page six.
That's how people read the Bible.
They don't read the whole thing.
And yet they say, Oh, Jesus Christ is
my bridegroom.
Really?
Well, he sent you a letter with 66
books in it.
How much of you have you read?
Don't ever say Jesus is your bridegroom again,
until you read the Bible.
The one letter that he sent from heaven.
I'll tell you what I did.
1959.
I got converted in July.
Assurance of salvation.
And in the next six months, six months,
I was working.
We had a very busy life in the
naval base in Pochin.
But I finished reading the whole Bible in
six months.
I just cut down a little bit of
my sleep.
That's all you got to do.
Cut out half an hour of your sleep.
You won't die if you cut out half
an hour of your sleep.
And say, Lord, I'm going to start tomorrow.
And I'm going to finish the Bible in
six months or less.
Cut out a half an hour of your
sleep.
In fact, you'll be healthier if you cut
out half an hour of your sleep and
start reading the Bible.
I didn't get sick.
I was healthier.
And at least I knew what it is.
I didn't understand it all.
But there began in my heart that day,
a passion to know what is God speaking
to man and what is God speaking to
me.
And if you don't listen to God's word,
it's no use saying I'm ready for the
coming of the Lord.
I'm not ready for the coming of the
Lord.
Do you know the first words that Jesus
spoke in his ministry?
The first words Jesus spoke in his public
ministry.
It's important to know it.
If I say it, you will know it.
But those are the first words Jesus spoke.
And that was in the temptation when Satan
tempted him to turn stones into bread.
He said, man shall not live, Matthew 4,
4.
Man shall not live by bread alone, by
food alone, but by every word.
The important word there is every.
Okay, if you're not sure of that, go
to Matthew 4, verse 4.
Some of you may not even know that
verse.
Matthew 4 and verse 4.
Man shall not, absolute, shall not is a
clear word, live on food alone.
There are three things man, God has created
desire in man.
Food, sleep, sex.
Okay, you have all three.
That's not enough.
You need every word that proceeds out of
the mouth of God.
75% of the words, no.
If you want to live, you must live
by every single word that's proceeded from the
mouth of God.
And there you have it in print.
Do you know that for 1,500 years
nearly, Christians did not have a printed Bible?
Printing was discovered only in the 1400s.
I think the first printed Bible was printed
around 1460 or something like that.
So if you were living in the first
1,500 years of Christianity, you wouldn't have
had a Bible.
We're so privileged today to have the Bible.
So in those days, Matthew 4, 4, how
did they obey it?
Every word, listen carefully, that proceeded from the
mouth of God and they didn't have a
Bible, but God was speaking to them every
day in their conscience.
So Matthew 4, 4 primarily refers to the
conscience, even if you don't have a Bible.
And when you have a Bible, then of
course, you read the whole Bible and your
conscience becomes more sensitive.
But even if you don't have a Bible,
like many of our poor sisters in the
Tamil Nadu villages, I've met some of them
who cannot read or write, but they've got
a conscience.
I'm talking about CFC believers today in some
of our poor Tamil Nadu churches.
I wish some of you would visit them.
It would be a tremendous blessing if you
don't just go to the rich people in
Kerala and visit some of the poor believers
in the Tamil Nadu churches.
Spend three, four days of your holidays like
that.
It will really bless you.
I encourage my children to do that.
And I saw there sitting with those poor
people.
The Bible says very clearly, James chapter two,
that God has called the poor people of
the world rich in faith.
Why not spend a little time with the
poor people in the world who are rich
in faith?
I've been tremendously encouraged in my faith by
going there.
Yeah, I have to sacrifice something.
Sure.
I like to always be with my relatives,
but if I love the Lord, I have
to sacrifice some of that in order to
be more effective for him.
So conscience is very, very, very important.
Every word that proceeds from the mouth of
God proceeds means present tense.
That means it's God is speaking even now.
It's not just in the past and he
speaks to our conscience.
And that's the only way to be ready
for the coming of Christ.
Because Jesus said, turn with me to Luke's
gospel chapter 12.
It says in verse 35, be dressed and
in readiness and keep your lamps lit.
Verse 34, where your treasure is, there your
heart will be also.
And verse 36, be like men who are
waiting for their master when he returns from
the wedding feast so that they may immediately
open the door to him when he comes
and knocks.
I want to ask you whether you're in
readiness like that.
And you know, Jesus said that all that
we speak comes out from our heart.
And he said, every idle word that men
speak, they will give an account on the
day of judgment.
That's something we have to be very, very
careful about because when Christ comes again and
he's going to set up a judgment seat,
we're not just going to give a general
test of whether we are born again or
not.
Everything we have done and everything we have
spoken, how can God expose every single thing
you've ever done and spoken?
Let me show you that verse.
Matthew chapter 12.
Please, I don't know how many of you
know this verse.
Matthew chapter 12 and verse 36.
Jesus said, I tell you, whenever Jesus said,
I mean, everything is what he said, but
when he emphasizes something, he knows that some
people don't take it seriously.
I tell you, every single careless word that
people speak, believer or non-believer, they will
give an account for it in the day
of judgment.
I'm absolutely convinced that 99.9% of
believers don't believe that much.
Because the way they speak carelessly, they speak
so carelessly to their wives, to their husbands,
they speak so carelessly to each other, they
crack dirty jokes to get a reputation for
humor, all kinds of things.
Do you think they believe that every word
they speak, they're going to give an account
in the day of judgment?
Definitely not.
I mean, the way I hear believers speaking
backbiting and speaking evil of others and all
that, you should write Matthew 12, 37 on
a little cardboard and put it up on
your table.
Matthew 12, 36.
Print it out on a card and put
it on your table and remind you every
day, every careless word you speak today, you
will give an account in the day of
judgment.
We need to be reminded, you know, because
we are such forgetful people.
You keep on reminding yourself, reminding yourself that
it sticks in your mind.
It's like the multiplication table.
When we were in school, we were taught
the multiplication table from 1 to 12.
And even today, I remember it.
You know, 12 ones are 12, 12 twos
are 24 and so on.
It's by the constant repetition that we know
it.
And if I keep this before me, constantly
reminding myself, it'll stick to you.
And then you'll become very careful in the
way you speak to your wife.
You'll be very careful in the way you
speak to your husband.
What will be the result of that?
Your home will become like a little foretaste
of heaven.
And you know who'd be blessed?
Your children.
Your children would have grown up in heaven,
in a heavenly atmosphere.
And they'll go out and get married.
And they will want to build a home
like that themselves.
See, I'm so happy as I visit the
homes of my children today.
It really thrills my heart.
I brought up my four sons very strictly,
using the rod where they needed discipline, very
strict.
And I don't regret it, because I see
the result in all four of them today
serving the Lord, building the church.
And the thing that excites me is, I
find them bringing up my 17 grandchildren in
the same way.
I'm just excited that families do it in
different ways.
For example, one family is getting their children
every day to listen to this 10-minute
daily devotions that is on CFC.
Every morning, CFC puts out a daily devotion.
It's only 10 minutes.
Very little time, maximum 12, 13 minutes.
I'm so happy that my grandchildren are listening
to it.
Every day, it will have an effect on
them in the long term.
What does it mean to bring up your
children in the discipline of the Lord?
Some of you have got grandchildren.
Tell your children to bring them up in
the discipline of the Lord from a very
young age.
The Lord does not have many faithful servants
in the world.
We want to increase that number.
And God has raised up CFC churches so
that we can increase the number of faithful
disciples on earth.
And my dear brothers and sisters, you are
part of that.
You have a responsibility to increase the number
of faithful believers on this earth.
Begin with your children.
Teach them to read God's word.
I was so happy many years ago when
I saw in the front page of one
of my sons, in the front page of
that Bible he had written, he was just
about 16 or 17 years old, completed reading
the Bible today.
Oh, I was so excited.
The 16-year-old boy has completed reading
the Bible.
I gave him a Bible as a gift.
It was a living Bible.
It was easier to read.
He wrote in the front of that, completed
reading the Bible today.
Please, please encourage your children to read the
scriptures.
And if they don't understand something, tell them
to come to you and encourage them.
And you start reading it yourself.
Be an example.
I remember another son of mine telling me
many years later, he said, Dad, there's one
thing I can never forget.
In the years I was at home, you
know, whenever we got up 10 years old,
11 years old, 12, 14, 13, we had
to get up in the early morning to
get ready to go to school.
And I would come into the sitting room
and I would see you sitting there with
the Bible.
Every day when I woke up.
And he says, that image I can never
forget in my mind.
See, there are images that remain in the
mind of our children.
They see you, maybe reading the Bible.
Maybe they see you kneeling in prayer.
They see you.
And that has such a powerful effect on
them.
More than all the sermons you preach to
them.
That will prepare them for the coming of
Christ.
So I'm talking about something practical.
I pray that you will take these things
very seriously.
Let me turn to 1 Thessalonians.
1 Thessalonians in chapter 4, it says, when
the Lord comes and the trumpet of the
Lord sounds, 1 Thessalonians 4, 17, then we
who are alive and remain will be caught
up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air.
That is what we are looking forward to.
We are not looking forward to death.
I'm older than all of you.
I'm 83 years old, but I'll tell you
before God, I am not looking for death.
I will not look for death even if
I live to be 100 years old.
The sky is my goal, not the grave.
There's a song we sing like that.
The sky, not the grave is our goal.
So we should be as people who are
waiting to be caught up.
And when we are caught up, we stand
at the judgment seat of Christ.
And how is the Lord going to bring
out every word that we spoke?
Yeah, I thought about that.
There's a little track that I wrote.
You'll find it on the CFC website.
It's called the videotape of our memory.
It's only a two page track.
You can read it sometime.
The videotape of our memory.
It's in one of the small articles there.
So go to cfcindia.com, resources and books.
Down there you'll find it.
Anyway, and what I said there was in
our memory, it's like a videotape.
You know how a videotape, you switch it
on and it's running all the time, recording
everything, words spoken.
But this memory videotape can even record our
thoughts.
It can record the attitudes we have towards
other people.
It can record any grudge or any good
thought we have about people.
Everything is being recorded in our memory.
And you can't stop that tape.
It's just recording all the time.
From the day you were born, it's been
recording good and bad and everything.
Now there are a lot of bad things
in all of our videotapes.
Now foolishness, we have all sinned.
But every sin that you honestly confess to
the Lord, not where you blame other people,
where you take the blame yourself.
Confession means you take the blame yourself.
You don't say he did that, therefore I
did this.
That's like children.
He hit me, so I hit him.
No, no, no.
Just say I hit him.
Never mind what he did.
Take wherever you have honestly acknowledged and taken
the blame yourself and said, Lord, I don't
want to do that again.
That is repentance.
That part of your videotape is blotted out,
blank.
Thank God.
All the evil parts in our videotape can
be blotted out completely if you honestly take
the blame.
If you blame somebody else, it will not
be blotted out.
Anything wrong that you did in the past,
which you blamed your wife or you blamed
your husband for it or blamed some relative
for it or your brother-in-law or
mother-in-law, that will not be blotted
out from your videotape.
It will remain there.
Confessing sin means you take the blame.
Repentance means, Lord, I want to turn from
what I did wrong.
Forget about how my mother-in-law treated
me or how my brother-in-law cheated
me of the family inheritance.
That's unimportant.
What is my reaction?
What did I say?
What did I do?
What did I think?
What is my attitude?
Did I wish evil for him?
Did I forgive him?
Then it's blotted out.
And in the final day of judgment, all
that the Lord has to do is press
the rewind button in my memory and wish
to go back to the day I was
born.
And then the Lord plays it.
Now, this is actually going to happen because
we've got all eternity before us.
The Lord will play back that videotape for
everybody to see right from the day you
were born, every idle word you spoke.
That's how it's going to come.
He's not going to ask you what you
spoke.
He's not going to ask you anything.
He's going to play it back.
And then he'll ask you, what do you
feel?
Do you feel you reserve a reward or
a judgment?
You yourself can answer in that day when
you see the videotape of your memory.
The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin, but only if you repent, not
if you confess.
Repent and confess.
The last message of the Lord to the
church is not, I'm coming soon.
It is Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3.
To five churches, the Lord says, repent, repent,
repent, repent.
That is the last message in the closing
book of the Bible.
Turn around from sin.
One final word, 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is
speaking here primarily in connection with the Lord's
table.
And it says here in connection with the
Lord's table, that we must examine ourselves 1
Corinthians 11, 28, and then eat the bread
and drink the cup.
But it's good to do that every day,
not just once a month.
And verse 31, this is the verse I
want to point out.
We're talking about the final judgment.
If we judge ourselves rightly today and every
day in the final judgment, we will not
be judged.
But what a wonderful promise.
I've taken that verse very seriously.
And God is my witness.
God is my witness that I judge myself
every day and many times a day, because
I want to be totally pure inwardly, not
just to get a reward.
I don't want any mansion in heaven or
crown or any such thing.
I just want to be close to Jesus
for all eternity.
The reason I want to be like this
is not to get a reward, but out
of gratitude for all that the Lord did
for me.
And I say, Lord, how much you suffered
for my sin to be crucified and killed
and face being forsaken by the Father for
three hours on the cross.
I don't want to take my sin lightly.
I want to take my sin very seriously.
That's how I keep myself ready for the
coming of the Lord.
And so I want to do what it
says here.
Judge myself rightly.
Verse 28, examine myself not only at the
breaking of bread, examine yourself every day.
And if I judge myself rightly, let me
read verse 31 again.
If you judge yourself rightly, the important word
there is rightly, without putting the blame on
others in the final judgment, your judgment will
be zero.
Oh, what a promise.
You mean when my turn comes, I stand
before the Lord and the Lord says, there's
nothing to judge you, Zach.
You can go.
You're free.
You're blessed.
Nothing to be judged in your entire life
on earth.
Can you believe it?
I believe it.
But it says there, you will not be
judged if we judge ourselves rightly.
That's why I judge myself every day.
That doesn't make me miserable.
People say, oh, if you judge yourself miserable,
you'll be unhappy and gloomy.
Not at all.
I was unhappy and gloomy when I did
not judge myself.
I can say before God for the last
so many years in my life, I'm never
discouraged.
I've never been discouraged for many years now.
I don't live in self-condemnation since many
years now.
Before that, as a believer, I was full
of discouragement and gloom and self-condemnation and
all that.
It's gone.
Because of one habit, I decided to examine
myself and judge myself every day.
I recommend that to you.
So when you hear about being ready for
the coming of the Lord, don't just think
of the wars and earthquakes and pandemics and
all religious and science.
Lord, I want to be ready.
If I've spoken strongly, it's because I love
you all.
You're like my children.
For many, many years, I've come there seeking
to build you up in the faith, and
I don't want to let you down.
At the same time, I have a responsibility
before God to make sure that I speak
the truth.
I know that every sermon I preached in
my life, a lot of them are on
YouTube, but I'll hear all of them when
Christ comes back.
And the Lord will ask me, when I
spoke the truth, did I say anything to
please anybody?
Did I preach something to get money?
Did I preach the truth?
Did you live the truth before you preached
the truth?
I want to live like that.
Many of you get the opportunity to share
the word.
Dear brothers, be faithful.
Be faithful in your life and let your
words come out of your life and speak
and build up the body of Christ.
There's a great need in all those places
you live in, Dubai, Sharjah, Doha, Bahrain, Muscat,
Saudi, every place.
There's a need.
There's a great need.
There are many people all around you.
Say, Lord, make me a light.
Even if I cannot openly, boldly preach, let
me be a light that I can draw
people to you.
God bless you all.
Let us bow our heads in prayer.
Please take a moment to think about what
you have heard.
And the stronger the word, the more God
loves you.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts and see
if there be any wicked way in me.
Lead me in the way everlasting.
Or as another translation says, Lord, show me
anything in my life that is making you
sad.
Show me anything in my life that is
making you sad.
I want to get rid of it.
Make that a prayer every day of your
life.
I'm saying this as one who tries to
live by that every day.
God bless you all.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for these very
precious brothers and sisters in all these Gulf
countries who've been such a tremendous support to
all our CFC churches through the years.
And I pray that above all, Lord, you
protect them from the dangers of the love
of money and the dangers of a comfortable
life and many other dangers they face there.
We pray that you save them from the
dangers of taking an easy way through life,
have them to really seriously examine themselves, judge
themselves, and become purer and purer every day,
that the churches in all these places will
become stronger and more bright lights shining for
you in those needy countries.
Fill them with the Holy Spirit.
Baptize them in the Holy Spirit and fire.
Give them a hunger for that baptism in
the Holy Spirit that will never stop until
they are actually filled and the rivers of
living water flow out from them.
Help us, Lord, we pray.
Bless the word.
Let it remain in people's hearts and bring
forth fruit.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.