So, let's turn back to 1 Thessalonians 5
.23, which is the verse from which we've
been beginning each of our sessions yesterday.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you
entirely.
May your spirit and soul and body be
preserved complete without blame, the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he who calls you, and he
also will bring it to pass.
If you remember, we mentioned yesterday that this
was God's work primarily, but it required our
cooperation.
It required our submission to the promptings of
the Holy Spirit, whether in our conscience or
when he leads us on to some new
area of glory where our feet have not
trodden so far.
The land of Canaan was not possessed overnight,
but the Lord told Joshua, every place where
the sole of your foot treads, that I
give to you.
So, it all depended on how far they
allowed their feet to tread and possess the
land.
They could have gotten into Canaan and occupied
Jericho and stayed there for the rest of
their lives.
And it seems to me that sometimes Christians
have come into a deeper life or victory
in some area.
They've conquered some Jericho, and they got so
excited over that, crossing Jordan and conquering Jericho,
that they've settled down there for the rest
of their lives.
The Lord told Joshua, there remains yet much
land to be possessed.
And that's a word in the book of
Joshua which we could apply to many, many
Christians.
There remains yet much land to be possessed.
We can apply that to evangelism, but we
also need to apply that to our own
beings.
There remains much land to be possessed by
the Lord.
We saw that it's the spirit that should
come first in the world.
The order is the reverse of what we
see here.
Body, soul, and actually no spirit at all.
But a truly spiritual Christian has the order
right.
It's spirit, soul, and body.
We saw the importance of having a pure
spirit, of being a worshipper, of making the
Holy Spirit Lord in the sense of He's
the one who prompts us and leads us
in all of life's way to respond to
His promptings, to listen to His voice.
In my own understanding, a major part of
prayer is listening.
Many people think of prayer as speaking.
We need to speak.
Jesus spoke when He prayed.
But for many years, I used to think
prayer was speaking, speaking, speaking, speaking.
But over the years, the Lord showed me
that prayer was like having a telephone conversation
with God.
And if you were having either a personal
conversation or a telephone conversation with a person
who was even ten times more spiritual than
you are, I'm sure if you were wise,
you'd do a lot more listening than talking.
We talk more to people who are less
spiritual than us, younger than us.
When we are in the presence of mature,
godly people, we listen more.
Can you imagine what it is then to
be in the presence of God Himself?
How is it so many believers in their
times of prayer only talk?
There must be something wrong with their concept
of God.
For me, the major part of prayer is
listening.
God knows everything about my needs in any
case.
I don't have to give Him any information.
Prayer is an expression of my desire, but
it's listening to the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said that about Mary, this one thing
is needful.
And Mary has chosen that good part.
And what she did was listen.
She wasn't talking.
She was listening.
And Jesus said that is the one thing
needful.
And I wish I could go all over
Christendom and tell people there's one thing needful,
to listen.
It says in Isaiah 50 and verse 4
about Jesus' life, a prophetic reference to Jesus'
life, that every morning the Father would waken
His ear to listen.
And I believe there'd be tremendous changes in
our life if we develop this one habit
of listening, not just in the morning in
a half an hour quiet time or something
like that, but an attitude of listening throughout
the day to listen to the Spirit.
That is the way we give primacy to
the Holy Spirit in our lives.
When we don't do that, it's like I
said yesterday, then the wife has become the
boss in the home.
The soul has taken over.
And if we are gifted and educated and
intelligent and capable, there's a great danger of
our soul becoming primary.
The choice that Adam faced in the Garden
of Eden, I see in the light of
this scripture, is the two trees.
Do you want to live by the Spirit
or do you want to live by your
soul?
You want to develop your soul, the knowledge
of good and evil, so that that knowledge
is resident within yourself, so that you don't
need to consult God when you take a
decision, because you know so much.
You've got intelligence.
You've got right priorities.
You've got everything.
You don't need to wait on the Lord
to listen.
That's how Joshua got fooled by the Gibeonites.
But the other tree, the tree of life,
symbolized a life of constant dependence, like the
branch upon the tree.
I may have produced fruit, received the sap
for 50 years, but I still need to
depend on the Lord.
That is life in the Spirit, where the
Spirit is primary and the soul, very essential,
like a wife, very essential in the home,
but subservient to the Spirit.
This is what it means to walk in
the Spirit.
And it says that if we walk in
the Spirit, then we're free from the law.
Then we don't need rules and regulations, because
the Spirit prompts us, and we live at
a far higher level than the law or
rules and regulations.
So the Spirit is to control our soul,
and our soul consists of our mind, our
emotions, and our will.
And I spoke mostly about the mind yesterday,
because that is a primary part of our
soul, to change our way of thinking.
The Holy Spirit is trying to change our
way of thinking, so that we see everything
as God sees it.
We see money as God sees it.
We see people as God sees them.
And the more the Holy Spirit is able
to change my way of looking at things
and people, and the more the Holy Spirit
is able to give me that heavenly perspective
on earthly events and things, the more effective
my service for the Lord is going to
be.
That's the thing that's going to improve the
quality of my ministry and the quality of
my service.
I didn't say much about the emotions yesterday,
but that's also important, that our emotions are
under God's control.
The Holy Spirit is to control our emotions.
The Spirit of the Prophets, the Bible says,
is subject to the Prophets.
I can say a little more about that
when we speak about the body today, because
we express our emotions through our body, emotions
of anger, joy, etc.
But it's very important that our emotions are
under the control of the Holy Spirit, because
very often I find in a lot of
groups that emphasize the fullness of the Holy
Spirit, it looks as if their emotions have
got out of control.
People begin to parade their emotions to impress
others, and the whole thing looks so ugly.
It's not glorifying to Christ at all.
There's a lot of that in Christian circles
today.
Many Christians are deceived because the soul has
taken over, and immature, young Christians who are
not secure in God and who want to
be accepted in the club also begin to
do the same things or submit to that
type of psychological manipulation in order to be
accepted.
And then that has a domino effect.
One after the other, everybody begins to do
it.
And it's not spiritual at all.
And one hardly finds anyone who has the
courage to raise a voice against it because
they don't know God either.
But once we know the Lord and we
are secure in Him, God has given us,
it's different.
God's given us Jesus as a model, as
an example.
And for me, the salvation has been from
all this deception.
Salvation from deception has come through asking myself
four questions.
One, did Jesus do it?
And two, did Jesus teach it?
Three, did the apostles do it?
Four, did the apostles teach it?
Very simple.
And I say, if it fails on all
these four counts, then I say, you can
keep it if you want.
I'm not interested.
I'm not questioning whether your experience is genuine
or not, but I say it's not essential.
So that may be a helpful guide to
you.
I want to go on to, we spoke
about this pure spirit, and yesterday we considered
a renewed soul, and today I want to
speak about a disciplined body.
Entire sanctification, a disciplined body.
The body is God's creation.
And, you know, we can go to two
extremes.
I want to say three things in connection
with this.
First of all, that we need to respect
our human bodies because the body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit.
Just like even the worldly person would respect
a place of worship.
The body is the temple of the Holy
Spirit.
I want to turn you to a passage
in 1 Corinthians 6, where verses 12 to
20 speak about, there are a lot of
things mentioned here about the human body.
And I find in, generally speaking in Christian
circles, I've seen two extreme attitudes to the
human body.
One is an indulgence, and the other is
asceticism.
And both are not taught in scripture.
One is to indulge every whim and fancy
of the body, the prosperity gospel, the health
and wealth gospel is sort of an example
of that.
And the other is where the pendulum swings
the other way of an extreme position of
asceticism, which the last three or four verses
of Colossians 2 says has an appearance of
spirituality.
Asceticism has an appearance of spirituality in rigorous
treating of the body, but it doesn't make
a person spiritual.
We're not followers of John the Baptist who
wore animal skins and ate locusts and honey.
We're followers of Jesus who ate well.
He ate so well that he was accused
of being a glutton and a wine-bibber.
If you passed a second helping to Jesus
and he was hungry, he'd take it.
He wouldn't bother about whether you thought that
was spiritual or not, because he was not
out there to impress you.
But don't forget, this was a person who
could fast for 40 days as well.
That's the part of it which sometimes people
forget.
He was not an ascetic, and he was
not one who indulged his body.
There was a healthy balance in Jesus.
It's wonderful that Jesus had learned from me.
He's our example.
He's our dictionary, spiritual dictionary.
Just like if I don't know the meaning
of an English word, I'd go to an
English dictionary.
When I don't understand something about the Christian
life or walk with God, I go to
this dictionary.
The Word made flesh, and I have an
answer there for everything.
I find a balance there, whether it's the
fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of
the Spirit or the use of the body
or how to preach or how to help
others or anything.
This dictionary has the answer to everything.
So, 1 Corinthians 6 verse 12 onward speaks
about, if you see this in connection with
the human body, Paul says, all things are
lawful for me, but not all things are
profitable.
Apply this to the body.
There are a lot of things which I
can say, well, there's nothing wrong in my
doing that, perhaps, but is it profitable?
A lot of things are lawful for me,
but I will not be mastered by anything.
It's this mastery that Paul is speaking about.
The mastery of the body.
I mean, the body becomes my master or
I am its master.
And he speaks about food.
He's got two subjects here which are very
relevant to the problems that we face in
our body.
One is food and the other is sex,
verse 16 onwards.
First of all, food and sex are both
mentioned in verse 13 and he deals with
both of them.
He says, food is for the stomach and
stomach is food, but God's going to do
away with both of them.
You see, it's that context that he's saying
in verse 12, all things are lawful, but
I'm not going to be mastered.
I'm not going to let food be my
master.
There's a respect for our body.
We don't go to either extreme, but there
is a place for keeping the body in
subjection.
And that's the second thing I wanted to
speak about, keeping the body in subjection.
We respect our body because of it being
a temple of the Holy Spirit, as mentioned
here in verse 19, and also because it
says here in verse 15, an amazing word.
I don't know whether you've noticed it.
It's not just that we are members of
Christ.
It says in verse 15, our bodies are
members of Christ.
That means this physical body is a member
of Jesus Christ.
That's an amazing thing.
We thought it was only in our spirit.
It's more than that.
Our bodies, don't you know, he says, a
lot of Christians don't know that.
Don't you know that your bodies are members
of Christ?
And that's why we've got to treat our
body with respect.
Point number one.
Secondly, as I said, we've got to make
sure that this body does not become our
master.
I will not be mastered by anything.
Verse 12, I will not be mastered by
the desire for food.
Food is for the stomach, and the stomach
is for food, but God will do away
with both of them.
I will not be mastered by sexual desire
outside of the boundaries God has placed for
it.
It speaks about being joined to a harlot
in verse 16, how that makes my body
one flesh with a harlot.
The verse that is applied to marriage, verse
16, the two will become one flesh, is
applied to an adulterous relationship with a harlot
as well.
It's a serious thing.
And that's why he says adultery and immorality
is a sin in a special category by
itself.
This verse, verse 18, says, every other sin,
flee immorality, because every other sin is outside
the body, but the immoral man sins against
his own body.
So, God divides sins into two categories, one,
adultery, two, all other sins.
Do you know that?
One, immorality, two, all other sins.
It's in a special category all by itself.
That's what we read in verse 18.
It's a very serious thing, because I'm making
my body, which is a member of Christ,
a member of a harlot.
And that's why I've got to be very
careful with my body, because it's a temple
of the Holy Spirit.
So, continuing on this second point of subduing
the body, in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 27,
we read, Paul says, I buffet my body
and make it my slave, lest possibly, after
I have preached to others, I myself should
be disqualified.
Okay, question.
How could this wonderful apostle Paul, who did
so much for the Lord, who was so
wholehearted, who planted churches, did miracles, how could
he be disqualified, finally, when he reached the
end of the race?
You know how we hear sometimes someone reaches
the end of a race, 10,000 meters
or something like that in the Olympics, and
the referees say, sorry, disqualified.
It looks as if you've come first, but
you didn't come first, because somewhere along the
way you violated the rules.
Is that possible, that we can reach the
end of the race and discover there that
we're disqualified?
How could this mighty apostle Paul be disqualified?
Is that inspired scripture?
It is, if he did not make his
body his slave.
That's the plain meaning of 1 Corinthians 9,
verse 27.
If I allow my body, bodily passions and
lust to rule me and master me, and
I don't make my body my slave, I
can preach wonderful messages to others.
It says here, I can preach to others.
Tremendous sermons that move people and save thousands
and impress multitudes, and at the end of
it, when I come to the finishing line,
God says, disqualified.
It's a serious thing, and then he goes
on to say, he says, I'll give you
an example, think of all these people who
left Egypt, chapter 10, verses 1 onwards.
How they left Egypt, but God was very
unhappy with most of them, because they indulged
in their lusts.
They sat down, verse 7, chapter 10, to
eat and drink and stood up to play,
and the Lord destroyed many of them, verse
9.
These things happened to them, verse 11, as
an example, and they are written for our
instruction.
Verse 6 of chapter 10, these things happened
as an example for us, that we should
not crave evil things as they also crave.
Now, all this, we mustn't forget, is written
in the context of 1 Corinthians 9, verse
27, of the body not being brought under
subjection.
The Living Bible says, I make my body,
1 Corinthians 9, verse 27, I make my
body do what it should do, and not
what it wants to do.
Now, we all know what our body wants
to do, but to be controlled by the
Holy Spirit is to make the body do
what it should do.
That's a spiritual man, and that's part of
entire sanctification.
And I would say the two most important
parts of our body are the eyes and
the tongue.
Food is also an important thing, I want
to come to that.
But first of all, let me start with
the eyes.
Jesus spoke about the eyes.
He warned us that if I sinned with
my eyes, it was serious enough to send
me to hell.
I don't know how many of us believe
that.
Matthew chapter 5, that if my eyes make
me to sin, Jesus said, pull out your
right eye if it makes you to sin,
because it's better to lose one eye and
enter into life than have both eyes and
go to hell.
Those are His words, Matthew 5.
And what if I pull out my right
eye, and then I lust with my left
eye?
Well, give it the same treatment.
Pull out the left eye, lest I have
one eye and go to hell.
Better to be blind and go to heaven.
The point is, we know that it's not
a literal pulling out of the eye, but
it is when I'm tempted with my eyes
to be radical there and seek God for
grace and the power of the Holy Spirit
to be as a blind person.
What would I do in this situation if
I were blind?
What would I do when I'm tempted with
my eyes?
If I were blind, I couldn't sin there.
And that was what the attitude Jesus was
saying we should take.
This is so important.
I've met numerous fine young Christians in different
places who have admitted to me how they
had conquered.
They had been very careful with their eyes,
but once Internet pornography became more available, they
sinned and sinned and sinned.
It's a terrible snare for young people today.
And if you're not radical here, I believe
this is one of the methods the devil
is using to corrupt young people in our
day.
We really have to fight it and battle
it and make our eyes our slave, slave
of the Holy Spirit.
Not allow it to see what it wants
to see, but what it should see.
And the solution to all of this is
to have a passionate love relationship with Jesus
Christ.
That's the only way.
There's no other way of overcoming sin.
It's to love Jesus so supremely in our
hearts and our spirits that anything that displeases
Him, I don't want.
I mean, there are many reasons why we
can not lust with our eyes, not sin.
I can avoid sin of the fear of
getting caught.
Or, oh, somebody may see me.
Or I can avoid sin because I think
it may harm me in some way.
A person can avoid adultery because he's afraid
of AIDS, not because he's afraid of God.
There are many reasons we can avoid sin.
Or I say, if I sin, God won't
use me.
That's a better reason, but still not a
good enough reason.
The best reason is because I love Jesus
Christ and He's not pleased with it.
Therefore, however much my heart is drawn to
it, I'm going to avoid it.
It's like, you know, it's if we love
our wives deeply that we are protected from
other women.
It's when a man has a very shaky
relationship with his own wife that he's tempted
much by other women.
And that's why we have to, even if
you have a difficult wife, you have to
ensure that you love her like Christ loved
the church.
Christ, our love for our wives is not
dependent on what type of person she is.
It's only dependent on what type of person
I am, what type of person you are.
As Christ loved the church, we've got to
do it.
And if I love my wife like that,
that will be a protection from the snares
of other women.
We can apply that to our relationship with
Christ as well.
If I love Jesus supremely, I really want
to avoid anything that hurts Him.
So, the area of the eyes is a
very, very important area in subduing our body.
Apply that to 1 Corinthians 9.27. I
control my eyes and make them my slave,
lest if I don't do it, I preach
wonderful sermons to other people and they don't
know what all I'm doing with my eyes
in private.
And I continue with my wonderful ministry.
And one day, when I reach the end
of the line, I'm disqualified.
And the people who were blessed by my
ministry are surprised.
This wonderful man of God who blessed us
so much, how is he disqualified?
And God shows them the videotape of my
life and they agree that I deserve to
be disqualified because I was a hypocrite.
I was not faithful with my eyes.
It's a very serious thing to keep our
bodies disciplined.
We need the power of the Holy Spirit.
The passions in our body can be so
strong, particularly when we are young, that if
we're not crying out to God for help
and the power of His Holy Spirit and
grace, we cannot conquer, particularly in the day
and age in which we live.
There are unclean spirits abounding like frogs, it
says in Revelation.
Like the frogs in Egypt were everywhere.
There was a time when the frogs were
only in certain places in Egypt.
But when the plague came, they were everywhere.
And pornography was only here and there once
upon a time.
Now they're everywhere.
Frogs are everywhere.
We've got to be really careful.
And we can be protected like Israel was
protected.
There were no frogs where the Israelites lived.
And there need not be any frogs where
we live in our sphere if we seek
God for grace.
God's grace is sufficient to help us overcome
the tremendous temptations that face us in the
area of our eyes.
So there's a lot more to say on
that, but I'll leave it at that.
The other is our tongue.
The tongue is another part of the body
which we really have to make our slave.
When we think of a disciplined body, disciplined
eyes and a disciplined tongue.
Here is another verse which a lot of
Christians have never taken very seriously.
James chapter 1 and verse 26.
If anyone thinks that he's religious or we
would say spiritual and he's not able to
bridle his own tongue, he's deceiving his own
heart.
And his religion is worthless.
In other words, if I were to paraphrase
that, if I cannot control my tongue in
what I speak, all of my Christianity is
worth zero.
That's a very strong word.
James is a very strong person.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he says, all
your Christianity is worth zero if you cannot
control your tongue.
A lot of preachers don't speak about that
because they cannot control their own tongues at
home.
However, wonderfully, I may preach in the pulpit.
If I cannot control my tongue in the
way I speak to my wife at home,
if there's not graciousness in my speech, my
Christianity is worth zero even if I'm considered
the world's greatest preacher.
It's a deception.
And everybody may think the world of me
till I reach the finishing line and the
referee disqualifies me.
And then I discover the truth.
But I don't have to wait till then.
I've got the Bible to tell me right
now.
I often think of that passage where Jesus
said about the rich man who went to
hell and he told Abraham, please send Lazarus
to tell my brothers, Luke 16, the last
few verses there, tell my brothers to repent.
He knew white people go to hell because
they don't repent, not because they don't believe,
but because they don't repent.
And he knew that repentance was necessary.
And he said, tell them to repent, lest
they come here.
And you know what Abraham said?
There's no need.
They've got the Bible.
No need for anybody to go and tell
them anything.
They've got the Bible.
They've got Moses and the prophets.
So there's no need for an angel from
heaven to come to us and say, listen,
if you keep losing your temper, you will
be disqualified.
Your Christianity is worth zero.
No need for an angel to tell us
that.
You've got the Bible.
It's written in James 1.26, which we
profess to claim to be the inspired word
of God.
It is.
We're deceiving ourselves.
I find in this matter of losing our
temper, an uncontrolled tongue, most Christians I have
met excuse it in some way or the
other.
And that's the reason they never get victory
over it.
They call it a weakness.
They take it so lightly.
It's like someone saying, oh, well, I got
a little AIDS.
What to do?
It's one of my weaknesses.
And then a week later, yeah, I sort
of went and fell into adultery again and
got a little more infected.
What to do?
It's one of my weaknesses.
My dad had it.
My grandfather had it.
It's part of our temperament.
We never say that about AIDS.
Why do we say that about anger?
Why do we excuse it?
There's a verse in Romans which speaks about
seeing the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
I believe we need to see that.
The exceeding sinfulness of sin.
Christendom in general has seen Jesus as their
substitute on the cross, but has not seen
Jesus as their example and forerunner to follow.
And this is where the failure has been.
And that's why we have made much of
him as our substitute as necessary.
There's no way of salvation other than he
being our substitute on the cross.
That takes care of our forgiveness of our
sins.
It takes care of our past, but it
doesn't take care of our future.
We need to see Jesus as our substitute
to deal with our past, but we need
to see Jesus as our forerunner and example
if we want to deal with the future.
And this nature we have inherited from Adam.
And Christendom has not emphasized that sufficiently.
And when you present that to most Christians
and you say, well, Jesus didn't lose his
temper like that.
Their immediate response is, but he was the
Son of God.
And that's why I believe one of the
greatest needs in Christendom today is to understand
the humanity of Jesus Christ.
And boy, you begin to preach on that
and the devil will attack you left, right,
and center till you either give up or
you tell him to his face, I couldn't
care less what you're going to do.
I'm going to proclaim what Christians need to
hear.
Have you understood the humanity of Christ?
Have you understood that he emptied himself, not
of deity.
That's impossible for God to seize being God.
He was God on earth.
That's why people worshiped him and he accepted
it.
But he emptied himself of the powers of
deity.
That's why he had to come near a
fig tree to see whether there was fruit
in it.
That's why he didn't know the date of
his own second coming.
The powers and resources of deity, he emptied
himself of so that he could be exactly
like us.
He had to be made in all things
like his brothers.
And then when we look at him and
say, Lord, if you could live on earth
without with a controlled tongue, without losing your
temper, it must be possible for me.
It brings faith.
That's why the Bible says great is the
secret of godliness, the mystery of godliness.
What is it?
Christ came in our flesh, was tempted like
us in all points and yet did not
sin.
For myself, this has been not only the
challenge that has helped me to a more
godly life, but it's also been the secret
that that is possible for me.
It's possible for me to control my eyes.
Jesus lived on earth with a body like
mine, tempted like me and did not sin
with his eyes, did not sin with his
tongue.
And if I keep him as my example
and say, Lord, that is the standard to
which I'm going to strive, I'm going to
press on to perfection.
And I'm not going to allow myself to
sink to the level of Christendom around me.
You'll find that the quality of your ministry
improves amazingly.
The rivers of living water that flow through
us will not be polluted like they're being
right now.
The control of our tongue, it's so important,
particularly because the tongue is the most important
member that God is using in this day
and age.
And that's why on the day of Pentecost,
it's not only that they spoke in other
tongues, but it says there were fiery tongues,
tongues of fire on top of each of
those 120 heads over there.
There were 120 tongues of fire, not legs
of fire or arms of fire, but tongues
of fire indicating that this is the main
instrument in the body, the main part of
the body that I'm going to use in
this new covenant.
And that's why we've got to be very
careful that our tongue is under the control
of the Holy Spirit.
That's what it means to be a tongue
on fire.
Because James 3 speaks about our tongues being
set on fire with the fire of hell.
It's another type of fire.
And that's the fire which produces anger and
bitterness and curse words and all types of
things.
And we have seen that and experienced some
of that in our unconverted days.
And even after we converted, that fire of
hell has now got to be replaced with
the fire of the Holy Spirit.
We don't just cast out a demon and
keep the heart empty for eight more demons
to come in.
No, we cast out the fire of hell
and fill our hearts now with the Holy
Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit has got total control
of our tongue.
I believe this is the deception that there
is in a lot of charismatic circles concerning
the control of the tongue, the Holy Spirit.
Now, I speak in tongues myself, so I'm
not against that gift.
But it's a great tragedy when people can
praise the Lord Sunday morning in other tongues
and then go home and shout at their
wife in their mother tongue Sunday afternoon.
There's something wrong there.
I mean, does the Holy Spirit only control
other tongues but not mother tongue?
Well, that's not the Holy Spirit then.
That could be another spirit.
How do we know that's the Holy Spirit?
I myself have heard other tongues spoken by
demons.
When the demon is cast out, person stops
speaking in other tongues.
So demons can duplicate that.
But demons won't help you to control your
mother tongue.
So to me, the test of the Holy
Spirit is speaking in my mother tongue more
than speaking in other tongues.
Under the control of the Holy Spirit.
A tongue under the control of the Holy
Spirit.
A tongue on fire.
And that's a pretty good test because that
accords with James 1.26. If a man
cannot control his tongue, his entire Christianity, no
matter how much he preaches, no matter how
much he knows, no matter how much he
thinks, he's better than the liberals.
His Christianity is worth zero.
We think our Christianity is better than the
Christianity of the liberals because their doctrines are
wrong.
But if he cannot control his tongue and
I cannot control my tongue, as far as
God is concerned, we're both in the same
category, even though our doctrines are different.
That's very serious.
And Jesus said we're to be his witnesses.
So whether we preach in the pulpit or
not, we're all to be his witnesses.
We talk to people in our homes and
when we meet, we seek to be witnesses
for Christ wherever we are.
And we all know that the most important
part of our body in witnessing is our
tongue.
And can God use my tongue in private
conversation or in a pulpit to proclaim his
word if part of the time that tongue
is loaned out to the devil?
For him to use?
Not possible.
We need to take this much more seriously
than we have done so far.
Jeremiah 15 and verse 19 is a word
that the Lord spoke to my heart many
years ago concerning becoming God's spokesman.
I had a tremendous desire as a young
Christian not just to be a preacher.
I'd heard many preachers.
But among the multitudes of preachers I heard,
very few were God's spokesmen.
Very few.
One in a hundred thousand preachers would be
God's spokesmen.
And I had a great longing as a
young Christian not just to be a preacher
but to be God's spokesman.
I hope you have that longing too.
It's not a carnal longing.
It's a truly spiritual longing.
Even if you're not a preacher.
To be God's spokesman when you sit at
home, a mother sitting at home talking to
some visitor who has come to your home.
To be God's spokesman.
I'm not talking just about the pulpit.
To be God's spokesman.
And Jeremiah 15, 19 says, the Lord says,
the middle of that verse, if you extract
the precious, let me read the whole verse,
if you return then I will restore you
and you will stand before me.
See, that's important.
I stand before God.
To be God's spokesman I have to develop
the habit of standing before Him in everything.
I'm not standing before people.
I've tried to consciously practice that when I
preach to people.
Imagine that Jesus is sitting there in that
front seat.
You know how when you have somebody you
really want to impress sitting in a meeting,
you often look at him.
See, what does he think about it?
Jesus is there.
I want to stand before Him.
What's he thinking about what I'm saying?
And then he says, if you extract the
precious from the worthless, let me add these
words, in your conversation.
If you extract the precious from the worthless
in your conversation, you will become my spokesman.
So, how do I become God's spokesman?
By getting rid of all the worthless in
my conversation and keeping the precious.
In other words, to be extremely careful about
my speech in private.
To be careful that I don't pass unnecessary
opinions.
I've done a lot of that in my
younger days.
I've gone the foolish way that all most
young people go, of zeal without wisdom.
But as time has gone on, I've learned
to be more careful in the use of
my tongue because I want to be God's
spokesman.
It doesn't happen overnight, but if you work
at it, it can get better and better
and better.
When we say, get rid of the worthless,
when I'm a young Christian, I don't understand
everything that's worthless.
As I grow in maturity, I discover, oh,
even that I now see is worthless.
You know how we grow, just like as
children, once upon a time when we were
children, we thought toys were very important as
we grew, we got rid of childish things.
So, as we grow in maturity, we discover
a lot of things which we once considered
precious are worthless now.
So, we should be growing.
Speech becoming more and more pure because God
needs spokesmen in this day and age who
can represent him.
Those who have made their tongue their slaves,
not become slaves to their tongues.
So, I want to say, my brothers and
sisters, I don't want anyone to feel condemned,
but don't ever take losing your temper lightly.
It's a very serious sin.
Why have I mentioned anger and lusting with
the eyes?
There's a reason.
I don't know whether you've noticed it.
I want you to turn to the Sermon
on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, and these
words of Jesus, verse 20.
I say to you, Matthew 5, 20, unless
your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and
Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of
heaven.
He's talking about disqualification.
Remember the word disqualified from 1 Corinthians 9?
You shall be disqualified to enter the kingdom
of heaven if your righteousness does not exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
And having said that, he explains what he
means in the following verses, and he speaks
about two things, anger and lusting with the
eyes.
That's why I've spoken about those two points.
First of all, anger in verse 22, then
lusting with the eyes in verse 28.
There's a lot more.
He speaks about being truthful in verse 37,
and so on.
It's another important aspect of the use of
our tongue, being always truthful.
Our yes is yes, and our no is
no.
I want to move on to a third
point, and that's food.
Eve was tempted through food and fell.
Let's not forget that sin came to the
world through the temptation of our physical appetite,
food.
And the first temptation that came to Jesus
in the wilderness was also related to food.
Turn these stones into bread.
And Jesus replied, man shall not live by
bread alone, by food, but by listening to
every word that proceeds from God's mouth.
There again, what I spoke about listening.
That's how we are to live.
So, we saw also in 1 Corinthians chapter
9, how food is for the stomach, the
stomach is for food, but God's going to
destroy both of them.
And if a man doesn't have control over
his appetite for eating, he can be disqualified,
doesn't matter how much he preaches.
And that's one reason why Jesus spoke about
fasting.
In Matthew chapter 6, there are three things
that Jesus said we must do in secret,
giving, praying, fasting.
Giving and praying, all Christians will accept and
talk about, write books about, emphasize, particularly giving.
But fasting is not so much emphasized.
Why is this among the three things that
Jesus mentioned in Matthew 6 verses 1 to
18?
Why is that third one left out?
Is it any less important?
Jesus did not give commands saying, thou shalt
give, thou shalt pray, thou shalt fast.
No, he didn't come with the spirit of
the old covenant, thou shalt, thou shalt not
like the commandments.
He came with a completely different spirit.
He didn't even say, thou shalt not lust
with your eyes.
Have you noticed that?
He spoke in a different way.
He says, if any man lusts with his
eyes, he is committing adultery.
In the same way, he said, but when
you give, he said, give secretly, when you
pray, do it secretly, and when you fast,
do it secretly.
I find that a true disciple of Jesus
must have a place for these three things
in his life, secret giving, secret praying, and
secret fasting.
All of them fulfill a function and says
in relation to all three, it says, notice
this, secret giving, verse 4 of Matthew 6,
your father who sees in secret will repay
you.
Secret praying, your father, verse 6, who sees
you praying in secret will repay you.
Secret fasting, verse 18, your father who sees
you fasting in secret will repay you.
He doesn't repay those who haven't done those
things in secret, whether it's giving, praying, or
fasting.
How can we expect God to repay us
if we haven't done it?
Have we missed something in our Christian life
by overindulgence in food, by not allowing the
Holy Spirit to control our appetites?
Is it enough to keep a pure spirit
and not a disciplined body?
As I said the other day, truth is
truth when it's held in balance in relation
to everything else.
Food is a very great craving in our
body, hunger, and God provides us food.
In fact, Jesus taught us to pray, give
us this day our daily bread.
So, it's perfectly right to pray for food.
But have you noticed in that prayer that
we've got to see everything in context.
What is the request immediately before that?
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name, thy kingdom come, and then thy
will be done on earth as it is
in heaven, give us this day our daily
bread.
Paraphrasing it, I would say it's like this,
Father, I want your will to be done
on earth in my body exactly like the
angels do it in heaven.
And in order to have strength in this
body to do your will on earth and
finish your task on earth, please give me
food every day.
So, the two are connected.
That I ask God for food, not to
indulge my lusts, but to have strength to
do God's will on earth.
And that's why I need to be wise
and disciplined in my eating habits.
If I were to ask you, what was
the sin of Sodom?
Every Christian would, well, most Christians anyway, would
say, we know what that is.
Sexual sin.
Okay, let's turn to Ezekiel 16, verse 49.
Ezekiel 16, verse 49.
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom.
She and her daughters had arrogance, plenty of
food, careless ease, and they did not help
the poor and the needy.
Their sexual sin came out of abundance of
food and careless, lazy lifestyles.
There's a close connection between overeating and inability
to control our sexual passions.
Fasting in one area gives us greater control
in the other.
We see that from the example of Sodom.
Yeah, let me move on to a third
point, and that is health for the body.
I believe a lot of Christians are sick,
who should not be sick.
Now, there are sicknesses for which, you know,
which come because we live in a sin
-cursed earth.
Thorns poke our feet and there's flu in
the air, which we can pick up.
And I'm not talking about all those things.
I'm talking about sicknesses that are the direct
result of sin.
Proverbs chapter 4, verse 20 to 27 reads
like this.
Proverbs 4, verse 20.
My son, give attention to my words, incline
your heart to my sayings, your ear to
my sayings.
Don't let my words depart from your sight.
For they, verse 22, are life to those
who find them and health to their whole
body.
God's will for us is not sickness.
It's health, basically.
Now, Christendom, generally speaking, has a tendency to
go to two extremes.
And we see both these extremes in this
matter of health and healing.
There are some who say, if you're sick,
it's because you don't have faith.
To me, that's not true.
I wouldn't say that.
And there are others who swung pendulumitis.
You know, this is a very serious sickness
among Christians, pendulumitis.
Swing to the other extreme and you say,
when you're sick, the only person who can
help you is a doctor.
Of course, we nominally pray because that's the
spiritual thing to do.
We pray, but of course, we don't believe
that Jesus is going to do anything unless
we go to the doctor.
See, this is pendulumitis.
If you were to search your heart, of
course, we all pray when we are sick.
I want to ask you to be honest
with yourself and ask how many of you
really believe that the Lord will answer that
prayer?
Does God have some interest in our body?
I want to show you two verses.
John chapter 9, to prove that all sickness
is not due to sin.
John chapter 9, verse 2.
Disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man
or his parents, that he should be born
blind?
Jesus' answer, neither this man nor his parents.
There are a lot of sicknesses which have
nothing to do with sin.
It's because we live in a sin-cursed
earth.
There's a curse on, we perspire, we die.
It's because we are living in a world
under the curse and sickness is part of
that.
Some of it can't be escaped and we
trust God to be merciful, to help us.
But then, there's another type of sickness.
John chapter 5, where this man was in
the pool of Bethesda for 38 years and
he was not healed.
And Jesus came to him and said, do
you want to get well?
And healed him.
And then, it says in later John 5,
14, Jesus found him in the temple and
said, listen to these words, you become well.
Don't sin again, lest something worse happen to
you.
So, that man was sick for 38 years
because of sin.
So, there are sicknesses which are in the
John 9 category, not due to anybody's sin.
And there are sicknesses which are in the
John 5 category, which are due to sin.
There are sicknesses among believers due to bitterness,
jealousy, hatred, anxiety, unnecessary stress, tension.
Things which can easily be resolved by confessing
and following the commands of scripture to love
others.
And where we can be healed from ulcers
and migraines and arthritis and numerous things.
If you read that book, None of These
Diseases, by Dr. MacMillan, an excellent book, where
he says so many cases.
He lists there in that book of people
who could not be healed with injections and
tablets and pills and all types of things,
who were healed.
And he says that as a doctor, not
as a preacher.
By teaching them to follow the laws of
scripture.
God wants us to be healthy, to serve
him.
So, let's give our bodies to God so
that he can use them for his glory.
We're not commanded to hate ourselves, we're commanded
to hate our self-life, which we received
from Adam.
Distinguish between these two.
When my child is sick, I don't hate
my child, I hate the sickness.
I'm not to hate myself.
There's no verse in scripture that teaches me
to hate myself.
There are people who think that spirituality is
to hate myself.
No.
You get sick if you hate yourself.
You've got to hate your self-life.
This terrible sickness we got from Adam.
And God will give us health to do
his will.
Let's take wise care of our bodies so
that our lives are not shortened by overeating,
by laziness, or by not following God's laws.
Psalm 119, 73.
The Living Bible reads like this, Lord, you
made my body.
Give me wisdom to take care of it.
A good prayer to pray.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, you created our spirit, soul, and
body.
Help us to present these back to you
in gratitude so that you can use these
for your glory.
We pray in Jesus' name.