anything to do with us.
Do you care about us?
So he said, I believe you care about
my brothers.
So he said, you and I, we both
love my brothers.
And I said, yes, I do.
But I wish you'd stop being so nice
to me, because I hate everything you stand
for.
And my aim here in the world city
is to get all your brothers away from
you, so that they can follow Jesus.
And he said, well, he said, we use
different ways.
He said, I use this way, indicating power.
And he says, you use this way, indicating
the heart.
And he said, I beat them.
I have them beaten up when they're on
drugs.
And he said, I can't change them.
But he said, I've seen that Jesus can.
So he said, I'm going to give them
to you.
Now you can't do this in the triad
society, because you can't leave.
It's God oaths in front of demons, that
you can never leave.
And you'll be cursed if you do.
So this was extraordinary that he said he
was going to give them to me.
And I said, no, thanks, because I know
that you want them back when they've got
off drugs, because they're better fighters when they're
not taking heroin.
And I said, if they're going to follow
Jesus, they can't follow you as well.
So he said, okay, I'll give up my
right to them.
He said, I'll give you all the rotten
ones.
And he said, I'll keep the good ones.
I said, that's fine, because Jesus came for
the rotten ones.
So over the next few years, he used
to send along people.
And we tell them about Jesus.
And many of them came to live in
our house.
And we saw many delivered from the power
of drugs until we couldn't contain them in
our houses.
And last year, he came to know Jesus
too.
It was very exciting, because eight years before
that, when he saw an addict who had
been freed, he said, okay, he said, if
that man lasts five years, I've got to
believe, because if he's changed, Jesus must be
real.
And after five years, we contacted him and
said, now you've got to believe, because you
promised that if he stayed up for five
years, you'd believe.
And he said, look, I simply can't afford
to be a Christian.
He said, I've seen the way you live.
I've seen you Christians.
And he said, none of you have very
good jobs.
You don't have good places to live in.
He said, I've seen the way you work.
I've seen the way you live.
And he said, frankly, I can't afford it.
He said, because if I'm going to follow
Jesus, I'm going to do it good.
And he said, I have to lie.
I cheat.
I steal.
I take advantage of people.
He gets a lot of his money from
protection rackets and brothels, opium dens and so
on.
And he said, I need this money because
I have to support all my brothers.
You know, when they're murdered, he looks after
their widows.
He sends the children to school.
Funerals are paid for.
He's the sort of benefactor of the tribe
society.
And he said, I can't afford it.
And last Christmas, he wanted to give me
his children.
He said, because they're out of control.
He said, I'm going to give them to
you and you can make them into good
Christians.
And I said, nope.
What about you coming to Jesus?
And he said, can't afford it.
He believed, but he wasn't going to do
it until he did it well.
Well, it's a good story because a couple
of months after that, he was sentenced to
two years imprisonment for having a large amount
of opium in his flat.
And I prayed with him in the prison.
They gave me two minutes.
So I went in to see him and
I said, I'm only allowed two minutes with
you.
No time to talk.
We're going to pray.
He didn't object at all.
He just began to pray.
He said, Jesus, I want to give up
my whole life to follow you.
He asked him into his life.
He cried his way through a whole packet
of tissues.
He spoke in tongues.
He prophesied.
He spoke to me.
I mean, the whole thing was sent on
for an hour.
They never came back for an hour.
That was the best, I think, the best
time in my whole life.
You know, I've been waiting for him for
16 years.
And the next day, somebody came to me
and they said all that opium that was
found in his flat belonged to someone else.
Well, it's a long story, but we unwound
the case and he got freed and he
was baptized and he was freed.
And he had a really bad time.
All the way through his first Christian day,
everything went wrong.
His wife left him.
His brother was arrested for murder.
Ten of his gang brothers that were, were
arrested for murder.
None of none of whom were eventually found
guilty, but they had to spend eight months
in prison, which was frightening.
But through this, actually each one of the
ten came to know Jesus.
All except for this man's brother.
Now, this man used to be called Gogo.
Gogo means big brother of big brothers.
We now have renamed him New Paul.
And New Paul's brother was the only one
out of the ten who hadn't come to
believe in Jesus.
And I used to visit him in prison.
I've got lots of lovely prison stories.
You know, if you go to prison in
the name of the Lord Jesus, there will
always be miracles, because this is, this is
one of the ministries which we're supposed to
be doing.
It's an anointed ministry.
I've got so many prison stories, but, but
this one is the sweetest.
Ali couldn't believe in Jesus, you see, because
during the time that the murder had been
happening, he had been chanting Buddhist scriptures.
He was a Buddhist monk himself, learning to
be.
And so every time I went to see
him, he said he didn't want to talk
about Jesus.
So every time I went, I said that,
you know, there are people all over the
world, and some of you were here too.
I said, they're praying for you in America.
They're praying for you in England.
They're praying for you in Hong Kong.
They're praying for you in Australia and New
Zealand.
And we got all kinds of people praying.
And I said, on Wednesdays you fast, especially
Wednesday lunchtime.
So I said, be encouraged, because in Jesus
name we're praying for you.
Well, one day I went to see him,
and he believed.
And he said he wanted to pray to
receive Jesus, and he was baptized in the
spirit behind the glass.
You know, he couldn't talk to him direct.
And later on he got off the trial,
and they were all freed unconditionally.
And we went out for a celebration meal,
and I said to him, I just want
to know why did you believe that time,
and all the other times you, you didn't
believe.
Well, he said it was very strange.
He said the prison governor came around, and
he came with two guards on an inspection
of the jail.
And he walked past my cell, and he
said, what's that smell?
He said, there's a smell coming out of
your cell.
And I said, I can't smell it.
And he said, what have you got in
there?
And he said, I haven't got anything in
there.
And the prison governor said, oh hen, oh
hen, it's very fragrant, it's very sweet, and
went off.
And later on Ali spoke to the two
guards, and he said, what did he mean
my cell was smelling?
And they said, yes, can't you smell it?
They said, there's a real sweet smell coming
out of your cell.
What is it you've got in there?
And he said, there's nothing in there.
And they said, it's been smelling like that
all day.
And Ali went in, and then he remembered,
it's Wednesday.
And he believed.
He said, I remember, all those people prayed
on Wednesdays, all those people fasted on Wednesdays,
and I believed in the Lord.
I never heard of anyone being congratulated for
a smell before.
But he smelt the prayers of the saints.
He smelt those fragrant offerings.
That's terribly exciting, and I often pray that
prayer.
God, you know, St. Paul had a voice
and a light, and this man met someone
who told him a testimony, and that man
read a book, and this one had a
sermon, and you know the way to every
man's heart.
God in your spirit, find the way to
this man's heart.
It's a wonderful prayer to pray, and he
always does a different thing.
St. Paul to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 8.
He wrote, out of the most severe trial,
the Macedonian church, their overflowing joy and their
extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.
That was a poor church, but they gave
as much as they were able, even beyond
ability, for the privilege of sharing.
And he commended that church, because he said,
they did not do as I expected, but
they gave themselves first to the Lord, and
then to us, in keeping with God's will.
And this is the principle I want to
share with you.
Just in case you're going to get it
wrong, and think that you've got to give
something up to the Lord, it's not true.
You haven't got to give anything up to
the Lord.
Whatever made you think that, everything you have
was given to you.
That's the way round.
How could we think we have to give
anything up to the Lord?