Well, it's good to be able to speak
to you like this and I want to
share something from 2nd Corinthians and Chapter 11
2nd Corinthians 11 Paul says to the Corinthians,
I'm afraid verse 3 Lest as the serpent
Deceived Eve by his craftiness Your mind should
be led astray from the simplicity and purity
of Devotion to Christ When we look back
over the past years the many years in
which God has blessed us as a church
and And in many churches in our land
It's very easy to sit back and be
satisfied with what we have seen and The
various ways in which God has blessed us
spiritually Materially and What can happen is that
as a result of that type of You
know looking back with relaxation and satisfaction Is
that very subtly Satan can Lead us astray
without our knowing it not into sin.
I think most of us have understood how
to stay away from sin and Even the
sins that most other Churches don't even talk
about God's given us a lot of light
But what is it that the devil can
lead us astray from Paul writes to the
Corinthians that you can be led astray from
simple pure Devotion to Jesus Christ So when
we go back to Genesis chapter 3 and
see what it was That Satan led Eve
astray from He took her to the tree
of knowledge of good and evil But what
did he take her away from?
He took her away from the tree of
life The tree of knowledge of good and
evil is to me a picture of Living
under the law And those who seek To
be accepted by God by living under the
law it says it brings death Nobody in
the Old Testament and under the Old Covenant
could come to life the life that God
wanted man to have And that's why he
told Adam that if you eat of that
tree of knowledge of good and evil you
will die Because you will seek to live
by certain rules This is good and that
is evil and according to your own understanding
And that leads to death the whole world
lives by that principle Even people who steal
Feel that they're doing something right according to
their conscience there are people who murder who
feel that they're doing right according to their
conscience and And there are many other people
in the world who don't commit adultery or
don't steal and they live by a certain
certain principles of Right and wrong.
They don't cheat and they feel quite happy
and You know how people who live very
upright lives they find it very difficult to
come to God Because they say I don't
need salvation in Christ.
I'm good enough as I am that their
Knowledge of good and evil and doing what's
good has led them to death In the
sense that they never come to the life
of God Now that can happen to us
not in the sense that we are not
born again, but I find with many people
who are born again and Who have come
to a certain measure of uprightness in their
life?
There's a sense of sitting back and satisfaction
I've seen that in our CFC churches and
That's what makes them careless in reading the
Bible careless and seeking to commune with God
in prayer and Gradually they begin to become
a loose a little loose in their private
life To begin to watch movies that they
would never have watched when they first came
to CFC They were very strict in those
days But now they've sort of relaxed.
They can do a lot of things which
they would not have done in the earlier
days Because they they've become familiar with God,
it's unfortunate.
It's a wrong familiarity They like the saying
goes familiarity breeds contempt And it's not that
we have contempt for God, but we feel
that well God understands it's okay And this
is where I feel a lot of People
in our CFC churches have I believe it's
my conviction Have begun to love money and
that's taken them away from God So the
tree of life is Simple pure devotion to
Jesus Christ And anything that takes me away
from simple pure devotion to Christ We can
say is a snare of satan Now, I
don't know what it is in your life
But you can be led astray from devotion
to Christ by even your ministry there are
lots of people who For whom their ministry
Their eldership in a church and their preaching
regularly has become their idol Now, you know
i've been preaching for at least 55 years
now Or at least 53 and I can
say today honestly I'm burdened to share God's
word with people, but it's not my idol
I'd be quite happy to completely stop preaching
and never preach for a whole year To
me devotion to Jesus Christ is primary And
I've always felt that if my Service for
the Lord does not come out of that
devotion to Christ I have gone away from
the tree of life And that's what Paul
is saying here.
I'm the craftiness of satan.
Remember that satan is More crafty than all
of us put together And he's very Subtle
in the way he leads us astray very
often He can lead us astray by just
making us busy Busy with good things that
we do not bad things maybe busy in
the ministry and busy in Doing things that
prevent us from being devoted to Jesus Christ
from spending time with Jesus and telling him
How much he means to us and worshiping
him and praising him So remember this my
dear brothers That devotion to Christ is The
main thing that we need to preserve More
than anything else And we have to watch
it all the time This is why when
The pharisees came to Jesus once and asked
him what is the great commandment in the
law Matthew 22 they expected him, you know
for them the great commandment was the sabbath
And they were really tempting him to say
something which would give them an opportunity to
accuse him before others And so they asked
him what is the great commandment in the
law Matthew 22 and verse 36 And he
said You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart all your soul and
all your mind This is the great and
foremost commandment And the second is like it
you shall love your neighbor as yourself On
these two commandments depend the whole law and
the prophets So Jesus said it's not one
particular action i'm talking about As a commandment,
which is the greatest thing that God's looking
for It's like asking to ask which is
the greatest commandment in the Lord Law is
another way to put that question would be
What is the thing that God is looking
for most of all?
In human beings he has created What is
the thing that God is looking most of
all?
In believers who have been redeemed by the
blood of Jesus Christ and the answer is
That they will love him supremely That's the
main purpose with which God Created man, it's
the main purpose with which God redeemed man
That I can love him with all my
heart.
He wants Our love more than all our
service and anything else And especially those who
have got any responsibility of leadership in a
church is very very important That they themselves
live in a fervent love for Jesus Christ
and are seeking to lead others Into a
fervent devotion to Christ, how do we know
whether a church is Spiritual or not?
How do we know whether our church is
spiritual or not?
It's not by how active we are or
how many people come for our conferences.
These things count for nothing before God There
are mega churches that have many more people
than us and who satisfy themselves in their
numbers There is only one test as far
as I can see and that is the
people in our church Have got a fervent
devotion to Jesus Christ If that is not
there We're not a church that God approves
of Where Jesus Christ means more to us
than Anything on this earth and that's the
thing which I want to say to all
of you We've got to keep on checking
ourselves I would say every day is there
anything That means more to me than Jesus
Christ Is my heart devoted to him as
it was the first day When I was
gripped by the truth that he loved me
and gave himself for me The son of
God who loved me and gave himself for
me that truth If it ever becomes cheap
and familiar to us We have gone astray
So here is the test by which I
test myself And I would encourage all of
you To test yourself in the days that
lie ahead Never to evaluate ourselves by any
other standard Except this because as I see
in this verse in second Corinthians 11 3
Anything other than this Means I've gone astray
There is only one way.
I know I have not gone astray From
the truth And that is My devotion to
Christ is fervent And Jesus said If you
love me, you'll keep my commandments.
You know the big difference between The law
the way the law commanded and the way
Christ commanded is this The law gave commandments
and Jesus gave commandments.
Well, there's a big difference in the way
it was given In the law, it was
thou shalt and thou shalt not it's like
a master Telling his slave go and do
this don't do that Whereas Jesus you never
see him saying thou shalt thou shalt not
that's the language of the law And when
preachers speak like that they are old covenant
preachers Jesus always gave freedom.
He said if You love me Keep my
commandments.
Otherwise don't keep them.
I'm not interested I'm not interested the Lord
saying in a person keeping my commandments if
he doesn't love me It's back under the
law.
It's going to the tree of knowledge of
good and evil You know doing the right
thing but not out of love for Christ.
In other words the motive with which we
do something Is much more important to God
Than what we actually do we can find
a satisfaction In what we have done The
Lord does not find satisfaction in that if
it doesn't arise from a right motive and
the motive must be that I love Christ
more than Anything else on earth or anyone
else on earth where?
I can lose everything And if I don't
love Jesus if I don't lose Jesus Christ,
I'm happy So each one of us is
good for us to evaluate ourselves like this
not whether we are doing certain things and
congratulating ourselves that we've Kept New testament commandments
or are accepted in the church as good
brothers and sisters.
It counts for nothing In the day, the
Lord comes the bible says he's going to
bring to light the things that are hidden
And what's the primary thing he's going to
bring to light is the motives of men's
hearts That's what we read in 1 corinthians
and chapter 4 That don't judge anything.
It says Until the Lord comes verse 5
don't judge anyone or anything till the Lord
comes 1 corinthians 4 5 Because when the
Lord comes he will bring to light The
things hidden in the darkness and that is
he'll disclose the motives Of men's hearts and
then each man's praise will come to him
from God.
Do you know that verse?
What the bible said this is how God's
going to judge in the final day in
other words when I stand before him The
Lord's not just going to see what I
did and what I said Of course, he's
going to evaluate that but behind that What
is the motive?
Did it come from a fervent love for
Jesus Christ?
Is it because I love the Lord?
That I came to the meetings is it
because I love the Lord that I read
his word Is it because I love the
Lord that I did anything for him?
Is it because I love the Lord that
I wanted to stay away from the love
of money?
Is it because I love the Lord that
I stayed away from?
Lusting after women or losing my temper or
is it because I love the Lord that
I took up the cross?
Otherwise it's worthless So when you think of
our access to the tree of life today,
which we've seen tree of life is this
fervent devotion to Christ Before Adam sinned He
could access The tree of life easily he
could just walk up to it But we
know in Genesis chapter 3 after he sinned
God put a flaming sword that Genesis 3
24 that went in every direction around the
tree of life Teaching us that now You
can't come to the tree of life without
that sword falling On us before we reach
the tree of life So ever since Adam
sinned There's a thing which we have called
our self-life And what I learned from
that picture is it is impossible to have
a fervent devotion to Christ without the sword
of God falling and slaying killing my self
-life Here is where we can deceive ourselves.
I can deceive myself saying Yeah, yeah I
love Jesus I really believe I love Jesus
with all my heart And if your self
-life is not slain and killed You're deceiving
yourself That's not the tree of life you
came to you came to an emotional experience
The tree of life you can come to
only if the sword has fallen On your
self-life in other words If i'm still
Disturbed and upset when somebody provokes me And
i've not put myself to death there I'm,
not really devoted to Christ I can feel
very emotional in a meeting when i'm singing
this phrase, but i'm not really devoted to
Christ So there's a close connection between taking
up the cross and devotion to Christ You
know when Jesus Went to the cross He
said i'm going to the cross to prove
my love for my father That's what he
said in the gospel That the world may
know that I love the father I'm going
to the cross So it was The his
devotion to his father was proved by his
going to the death on the to the
death on the cross And it's exactly the
same for you and me I cannot come
to the tree of life without that sword
falling on me And if I think I
have come to the tree of life without
that sword falling on my self-life That
is not the tree of life I say
that because I find a lot of people
deceive themselves that they love Jesus when they
don't Ask yourself my dear friends whether you
have really allowed The sword to fall on
your self-life and whether in the daily
temptations and provocations of life That sword has
fallen on you And you die In every
temptation as you face it You say i've
got to die here That's how you prove
your love for Jesus as you die.
You reach the tree of life Any tree
that you access without dying is not the
tree of life So I hope you got
that clear because there's so many people I
feel today are deceiving themselves about devotion to
Christ We can say the serpent has deceived
them How does the serpent deceive them second
corinthians 11 3 I fear that the serpent
will by craftiness will lead you astray to
some other tree And make you think that
is the tree of life make you think
that is devotion to Christ and you're Emotional
and you're excited and you love Jesus and
you sing some wonderful songs And the devils
led you astray because there was no sword
that fell on your self-life in that
process So for myself it has become very
clear That I cannot say That I have
a fervent devotion to Jesus Christ if i'm
not daily Taking up the cross That is
why you've often heard me say that God
listens to our praises on sunday morning If
he saw us taking up the cross right
through from monday to saturday He's not listening
how good our music is and how well
we sing.
No Those are all for worldly choirs and
it's possible that some people here in cfc
also think that The lord appreciates them because
they play music well or sing.
Well, I want to tell you you're deceiving
yourself You're deceiving yourself It's very clear to
me that some folks who sing Are conscious
that they're singing well And imagine that the
lord accepts their singing Just because they sing
well, i'm not saying we shouldn't sing well
But I want to say the lord accepts
your singing praise to him if he's seen
you take up the cross monday to saturday
Before you come on sunday and sing to
the lord then it has come out of
devotion to christ So I want you to
be gripped by one thing that's the main
thing i'm trying to emphasize here devotion to
christ comes out of Taking up the cross
every day That is proved by the fact
That there's a sword in front of the
genuine tree of life and any Way in
which satan can lead us astray from that
death of the cross from the slaying of
the cross He will seek to do This
is why you read in Matthew's gospel chapter
16 The strong rebuke That jesus gave to
peter When jesus for the first time Matthew
16 21 for the first time he told
his disciples That he would have to suffer
and go to the cross and die And
peter said no lord that will never happen
to you Immediately jesus turned around and said
get behind me satan There are only two
occasions where jesus said that once was directly
to the devil When the devil told him
to fall down and worship him he said
get behind me satan And the other is
here to the peter when Peter told him
not to go the way of the cross
Do you see the connection there the way
The devil was coming through peter To lead
jesus away from the way of the cross.
It was the voice of the devil And
jesus recognized it.
He was not going to be deceived by
the schemes of satan But very often we
are Think back over your life in the
past Two three months And ask yourself as
far back as you can remember The occasions
where you had the opportunity to die to
yourself And please the lord And you didn't
take it You spoke back in anger when
somebody spoke to you in anger You reacted
without dying There are many situations like that
In situations where you were seeking god's will
You didn't die to the pull of self
Which usually comes through money and honor and
position You didn't say lord.
What is your will for me?
What will glorify you most?
Instead You sought the things that the world
seeks after Money honor position and took your
decision did a sword fall on yourself like
there No But you imagine that you love
jesus this is the deception of satan So
it's my duty to warn you and I
believe that Many many people sitting in our
cfc churches Have lost their devotion to jesus
christ I don't say that to scold anyone.
I don't say that to rebuke anyone But
I do say dear brothers that I feel
that We have missed out on something if
we have not been gripped by the way
of the cross How much do you hear
the word of the cross?
Being preached in cfc churches today like it
was in the early days Have you missed
out on something there?
There's a only one thing that jesus said
I have to do every day of my
life And that's to take up the cross
Because that's the only way to the tree
of life That's the only way I prove
my devotion to jesus christ as we look
into the future And as we seek to
share god's truth with other people I Need
to ask myself Am I going to be
gripped by this?
Have I been trying to get to a
some tree, which I think is a tree
of life devotion to jesus But i've missed
out on the cross And that's not the
tree of life That's not real devotion to
christ satan has led me astray Not into
gross sin.
I may not be I may I may
be much better than most believers around me
But I missed out on god's will So
may god help us To take this one
matter seriously.
I don't want to say about talk about
anything else.
One single thing is enough Fervent devotion to
christ Is the tree of life and the
only way to get there Is through allowing
the sword to fall on myself life Anything
other than that any other Tree, which I
think is a tree of life is not
the tree of life There is no devotion
to christ except through daily dying to myself
May god help us God bless you