We'd like to continue from where we left
off in our last study.
We were looking at Paul saying that he
kept his conscience clear before God and before
men, just like the two arms of the
cross.
We have a responsibility in the vertical direction
towards God and horizontally towards all our fellow
human beings.
Every sin we commit is a sin against
God, everything, because it violates the law of
purity and of love that God created us
to live by.
When we sin against a fellow human being,
we sin horizontally and vertically.
We have to confess it to God and
to men.
But if we have sinned only against God,
then we confess only to God.
For example, if I've had a dirty thought,
I don't have to confess that to you,
or to a priest, or to anyone.
I confess it only to God, because it
was a sin only in the vertical direction.
Sin must be confessed in the circle in
which it was committed.
If I have a bad thought, there's only
one person in that circle, that's God.
So I confess only to God.
If I lost my temper at somebody, there
are two people in that circle.
God.
God is in every circle, plus that person.
If I sinned against two people, then I
have to confess to two people.
If I sinned against the whole church, then
I must get up and confess in the
church meeting.
This is a principle that we must bear
in mind.
It's not enough to confess our sin to
God.
You remember when Zacchaeus, the Lord met with
Zacchaeus on the Jericho Road.
We read about it in Luke chapter 19.
And the Lord told Zacchaeus, hurry and come
down, for I must stay at your house
today.
And he hurried and came down.
And as they went to the house, just
in front of Zacchaeus' house, before the Lord
could enter his house, it says in verse
8 of Luke 19, Zacchaeus stopped.
He stopped in front of his house, and
if I were to paraphrase his words, what
he said was, Lord, you're a holy person,
but this house of mine has been built
with unrighteous money, money that's not lawfully mine.
So before you enter this house, I want
to tell you a few things that I've
decided to set my past life right.
There are lots of people I've stolen money
from.
All the people whom I know, I will
go to their homes and return four times,
verse 8, what I stole from them.
Four times because he must have stolen it.
He may have stolen it ten years earlier.
And ten years, money multiplies four times with
interest.
So he decided to return four times what
he had stolen, which is righteous.
You know, if I stole money ten years
ago, I can't return the same amount today.
I have to allow for interest and inflation
and everything else.
And Zacchaeus was a sharp man.
And he recognised that it was unrighteous to
return just the same amount he stole.
He returned four times.
And then, like is usual in such cases,
there were a whole lot of people whose
addresses he didn't know.
He didn't know where they were, who they
were, all these people he cheated in past
years.
But he recognised that just because he didn't
know their address or where they lived, he
could not conveniently keep that money, saying, well,
I don't know where these people are.
He knew that before God, he could not
keep any money with him which he had
unrighteously earned.
So he did two things.
Those whom he knew where they were, he
went and returned that.
He said, I promise to return that money
four times.
And all the other money which he had
stolen from, stolen means cheated, as a tax
collector, he had taken more from people.
And he didn't know where they were.
But he said, I can't keep that money.
And that totaled about half his fortune.
He said, I'll give it to the poor.
Because money essentially belongs to God.
And when I don't know the person to
whom I should return it, I should give
that money to God, either in the church
offering or to poor people, either of the
two.
And Zacchaeus decided to give it to the
poor.
So his conscience was settled, even though it
would probably take him another four or five
years to return all this money.
But as soon as he took that decision,
he was right before God.
It's a wonderful example here for us.
Immediately Jesus said, today salvation has come to
this house because he also is a son
of Abraham.
Why did Jesus call him a son of
Abraham?
I don't know whether you're familiar with Genesis
14, where Abraham came back after saving the
king of Sodom, who had been captured by
some other kings.
He defeated those kings, delivered the king of
And in those days, if you won a
battle, all the property that you won in
that battle was yours, legally.
That was part of the benefits of winning
a battle.
But Abraham told the king of Sodom, I
will not even take a shoelace from all
the things you have here.
They are yours, you can take it.
Here was another son of Abraham, Zacchaeus, who
said, I will not even take a shoelace
from anyone that is not righteously mine.
His conscience was clear.
And Jesus gave him a certificate.
This is another son of Abraham.
Salvation has come to this house.
Now today, preachers tell people, salvation has come
even before the man has decided to make
restitution.
That's wrong.
Notice when Jesus said salvation had come.
Not when he had made that restitution, that
may take another five years, but when he
decided to make that restitution, but not before
he decided.
It was not enough for Zacchaeus to confess
his sin to God.
It was also necessary for him to settle
with all the people whom he had wronged.
This is a principle that we must bear
in mind.
And very often, we don't experience the fullness
of salvation because of something way back in
the past, which we have not settled.
I remember when I was converted, I told
you about the one letter of apology I
had to write.
The other thing God spoke to me was
about taxes that I had cheated the government
in, in my unconverted days.
And I sat down and totaled it up.
And it came to about four months' salary
of mine as a naval officer.
And I didn't have that much money, but
I decided that I was going to save
it and return it to the government.
Duties and taxes I was owing, which nobody
had caught me for, and there was no
possibility of my being caught.
It was just my conscience that bothered me,
that it was wrong.
The Bible says we must pay duty and
tax exactly like governments demand it.
It's part of our Christian testimony.
Jesus said, Render to Caesar what is Caesar's,
and to God what is God's.
I've often asked people this question.
Supposing you want to give an offering to
God, and you have to pay your taxes
to the government, which do you do first?
God first or government first?
Most people say God first.
I said no.
Jesus said, First render to Caesar what is
Caesar's, and then give to God what is
God's.
Have you seen that verse in Matthew's Gospel
chapter, if you're not familiar with it?
What did he say?
The way to life is narrow and few
there be that find it.
The way to destruction is broad, but it's
worth it in the end.
Matthew 22, 21.
He said to them, Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's, and to God the
things that are God's.
Who is first?
Caesar.
The reason being, God does not want Caesar's
money.
God does not want Mr. X's money or
Y's money.
God doesn't want Zacchaeus to put in the
offering box what he's stolen from X, Y,
and Z.
Or from Caesar.
Jesus said, Render to Caesar what is Caesar's.
What they were asking was this, Is it
lawful to pay tax?
We think Caesar is a bit unrighteous to
demand all this high percentage of taxes.
What do you think, Jesus?
Jesus said, Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.
Give to God what is God's.
You know, we can justify our disobedience in
101 ways, but I've discovered through the years
that if you honor God, he honors you.
I remember once when I was traveling back
to India from abroad, and those were days
when the customs duty in India was very
high, more than 100% of the value
of the goods, etc.
And the Lord said to me, Don't be
like these other Indian people who, when they
go back, hide all their things under their
clothes and here and there.
Put it on top, so that the customs
people can see it as soon as they
open the suitcase.
And the Lord said, If you have to
pay duty, pay duty.
And then the Lord said to me, I
have no shortage of money.
I can give you money.
I have a shortage of righteous people.
Don't add to that shortage by being unrighteous
yourself.
Do you know that the Lord has got
no shortage of money?
He's got a shortage of righteous people on
earth.
And I'm absolutely convinced that many, a child
of God, who could have had God's word
on their mouth, do not have God's word
on their mouth because there's unrighteousness in their
life.
Their conscience is not clear.
You know, I started preaching nearly 40 years
ago.
I sought God for the anointing of the
Holy Spirit then.
I started preaching as a very young man.
And one of the things I have prayed
throughout the years, because I've seen so many
people around me fall away, lose the anointing,
run after money, etc.
I said, Lord, there's one thing I don't
want to lose in my life.
I don't want to lose the anointing of
the Holy Spirit.
I don't care if I lose my health.
I don't care if I lose money, popularity,
reputation, everything I can lose.
But I don't want to lose the anointing
of the Holy Spirit.
My brothers and sisters, do you value God's
anointing and grace upon your life?
If you do, I'll give you one simple
bit of advice.
Keep your conscience clear.
It's a very simple bit of advice.
I'm not telling you never fall.
We'll all fall.
When you fall, confess it.
Acknowledge it.
Don't put the blame on somebody else.
Go to that person and ask forgiveness.
Humble yourself.
God gives His grace to the humble.
Why don't so many people get God's grace?
It must be because they're not humble.
They appear humble, but God doesn't think they
are humble.
So Zacchaeus, can you imagine?
Just picture this in your mind.
Zacchaeus going to somebody's house whom he's cheated
five years ago, and going with the money
and knocking at the door.
People inside scared, has this fellow come to
collect more taxes or what?
And he says, I've come to apologize.
And they can't believe their ears.
Isn't this the same man who cheated us
five years ago?
And he comes and gives them four times
what he took from them.
More interest than they would have earned in
the bank.
And they are amazed.
Zacchaeus, how did this happen?
He says, I met Jesus.
It's quite likely some of those other people
got converted too, as Zacchaeus went house to
house giving his testimony.
And that's what happens when we make restitution.
People don't forget.
We had a brother in one of our
churches.
He had got a job on the basis
of a degree certificate.
Which degree course he did because he did
a pre-university course in which he got
a degree, which he passed.
But that pre-university course, he had cheated
in one examination.
And therefore, he did not deserve to do
the degree course and did not deserve to
get the degree certificate and did not deserve
to get this job.
Then he got converted.
And he decided to make restitution.
He took that degree certificate and went back
to the college, to the registrar of the
university to tell him that I didn't deserve
this degree certificate.
And he was going to give it back,
which meant he would lose his job.
Because his job was dependent on his degree
certificate too.
And he went and told that man, I
cheated in an examination, I don't know, eight,
nine years ago, in one subject.
So I don't deserve this certificate.
Of course, that man had never come across
anyone come back like this in his life.
This was a strange experience for him.
So, he went completely prepared to lose his
degree certificate, to lose his job that day,
because he wanted a clear conscience.
He meant business with God.
But that registrar was merciful to him.
He says, you've played fair with us, I'll
play fair with you.
You can keep the certificate, we forgive you.
God honors those who honor him.
But I know, I've seen through the years
how that brother has developed spiritually.
Amazing.
One of the finest brothers I know in
India.
And I can see the reason for it
is that in little things, he sought to
maintain a very clear conscience.
He's not a very gifted person.
But I believe his reward will be great
in heaven, even though he's not a great
preacher, because he's kept his conscience clear.
It's so very important to make restitution.
Don't let the devil hold you back from
that.
Because then, it'll be blotted out from the
videotape.
You know, there are whole sections in our
videotape of our memory, which we are ashamed
of.
All of us, you and me.
How to erase them from the videotape?
Thank God, God's willing to erase certain sections.
If we confess our sins, that's the good
news.
That there are whole sections of your life
which will not be played back on the
day of judgment.
You will not be embarrassed.
You will not be ashamed, because the blood
of Christ will blot it out.
But there's a condition.
The condition is, you must admit that it
was your fault.
Confess your sin.
Go like Zacchaeus to those people you cheated
and return that thing you took wrongfully.
I remember when I had to return this
money, I think I took a whole year
to save that four-month salary I scrounged
and scrimped and finally saved that money and
emptied my bank account and gave it back,
and my heart was full of the joy
of the Lord.
The bank account was empty, but my heart
was full.
And I never regretted, because if I hadn't
done it, I'd have been dragging a chain
on my leg for 41 years, and it
would have slowed me down tremendously in my
spiritual growth.
I think a lot of Christians, their Christian
growth has slowed down tremendously.
They're trying to run a marathon race with
a chain on their legs.
You could have run much faster.
You'd have been way ahead of where you
are today.
If you had settled those things some years
ago.
But it's not too late.
You can settle it still.
The day of judgment hasn't come, thank God.
Settle it, because anything that's not settled on
earth will have to be settled at the
judgment seat of Christ.
There's no escaping.
We might as well settle it now.
You lose a little bit of money perhaps,
a little bit of your pride, which is
good for you, and what you gain is
God's favor and God's grace.
He gives his grace to the humble.
So I would encourage you to do that,
and don't let the devil try to change
your mind on that.
Now I'll tell you what's going to happen.
Right now, there are some of you sitting
here who are absolutely convinced that God wants
you to do something about it.
Tomorrow the devil will come to you and
say, well, think about it a little more.
Don't be in such a hurry.
And you say, yeah, that's a good idea.
I need to think about it a little
more.
I don't want to do anything hastily.
And by next week, you've forgotten it altogether.
That's exactly what the devil wants.
So be careful that the birds of the
air, which are all here, don't come and
take away the seed which God is trying
to sow in your heart.
You will not regret it.
My brother, sister, I do not regret it.
I stand here as a testimony to the
fact that God has given me a hundred
times more back than what I gave up.
A hundred times.
He is no debtor.
The silver and the gold are his.
And if you honor him, he will honor
you in ways you cannot imagine.
He will give you income that you never
anticipated, from sources that you never expected, because
you honored him.
He will prevent losses that other people have
from coming into your life.
I believe that.
Honor him.
Keep your conscience clear.
It's worth it.
And that whole section of that videotape will
be blotted out.
And when it's played back in the Day
of Judgment, and you're waiting for that terrible
thing to come, and it's not there.
It's not there.
That whole section, nothing's going to be shown
there.
And then all the good parts are going
to be left behind, by the way.
All the good things you did will all
be there.
And then comes to that other time in
your life when you did something terrible, and
you're all tense, and that's also blank.
Can you imagine how happy you'll be that
day?
Because you confessed your sin.
You took sin seriously.
You acknowledged.
You didn't put the blame on anybody else.
You acknowledged, Lord, there, there, there, those different
times in my life, it was my fault.
I acknowledge it.
Forgive me.
And to the best of my ability.
You know, some things we did wrong in
our life, there's no way of repaying it.
We've got to just forget it.
There are certain people we have harmed physically.
We don't know where they are.
There's nothing we can do about it.
So I'm not saying that we should be
paranoid about trying to set everything right in
my life.
Nobody can set everything that they did wrong
right in their life.
I settled only two things, because those are
the only two things God reminded me of.
So what I'm trying to tell you is,
none of us will be able to settle
all the wrong things we did in our
life, but think of anything particularly that God
reminds you of, and those are the things
that you probably need to settle.
It may be only one or two out
of a thousand wrong things you did.
Because God is not an unreasonable Father.
He understands there are hundreds of wrong things
we've done in our life, there's no way
we can ever settle it at all.
He accepts us, He forgives us, but He
tests us to see whether we are taking
advantage of His mercy, or whether we are
willing to humble ourselves and set right what
we can.
You know, I was so keen that I
should not have any unrighteous money with me.
Any money which was not lawfully earned.
I mean, even to the extent where if
I was ignorant of some law by which
I owed the government some money which I
was ignorant of, I say, Lord, even that
I don't want.
I don't want to take the excuse of
ignorance.
I want you to do something so that
even what I've ignorantly got from the government
will go back to the government in some
way, because I don't want a single cent
in my bank account which is not righteously,
lawfully earned.
Because I know the blessing of God can
come upon only money which I've lawfully earned.
What I unlawfully earn, there's a curse on
it.
A curse that can descend on my children.
That's a sad thing.
People fight and quarrel about property when the
family property is being divided and they cheat
their relatives and take some more property.
They brought a curse upon themselves and upon
their children because it's unrighteous money.
I mean, this is in India.
I suppose in other parts of the world,
I think of this example in the Old
Testament.
I want you to turn for a moment
to 2 Kings 5.
In 2 Kings 5, we read about that
very godly man, Elisha, who had just healed
Naaman of his leprosy.
In 2 Kings 5, Naaman was so grateful
that he came back with a whole lot
of money and clothes and everything else.
And verse 16, urged Elisha to take it
all.
But Elisha was a man of God.
He said, I don't want your money.
God's servants never take money from those who
do not love the Lord.
Naaman was a heathen.
Elisha would not take a cent from him.
He would bless him, heal him, but not
take any money from him.
I think Elisha would rather, would any day
have taken money from a poor Jewish widow
than from a heathen general of a Syrian
army.
That's why he sent him away.
He said, I don't want your money.
It's not wrong for a servant of God
to receive gifts from those who love the
Lord, but it is wrong for him to
receive from those who do not love the
Lord.
So the Bible says, even the early apostles
did not take any money from non-Christians.
So Elisha sent him back and said, I
don't want any of your money.
Naaman urged him, verse 16, he said no.
But Elisha had an assistant called Gehazi.
He was a bit of a crook.
And he said, my master is a fool.
We didn't even send out a report about
our work and here was this man giving
us this money freely.
We didn't ask for it.
The chap is offering it to us freely
and after all he got some benefit from
our God.
Why can't he pay up for it?
And Gehazi said, okay, if my master is
a fool, I'm not going to be a
fool.
I'll go after him.
And Gehazi, verse 21, pursued after Naaman, told
him a false story, said, you know, we're
building a Bible school here and we've got
some students coming from different places.
Can you please help us?
You know, the usual type of reports Christians
send to different places about asking for money.
Well, that's exactly what Gehazi did.
You read about it in verse 22.
That's exactly what he said.
Sons of the prophets means Bible school students.
And he said, we need some money for
them.
And Naaman said, sure, take all this.
And he took it and he went and
hid it in his house, verse 24.
And then he came and stood before Elisha
as if nothing had happened.
And Elisha said, where did you go?
He said, I didn't go anywhere.
He said, I saw everything.
God showed me everything.
I saw you going there after Gehazi.
God gave Elisha long distance vision and he
saw there.
He's collecting the money.
He said, I saw everything, Gehazi.
Don't fool me.
And now, you thought you got only Naaman's
money?
You also got his leprosy along with it,
verse 27.
And the sad part is, that leprosy is
going to cling to you and to your
children.
This is what I said earlier.
You get money unrighteously from somewhere and it's
going to bring a curse on your children.
And Gehazi became a leper.
And I can imagine Gehazi one day, his
little five year old boy comes to him
and says, Daddy, I've got a little white
spot on my hand.
What do you think it is?
Gehazi says, let me see it.
Do you have any sensation there?
No, Daddy, I don't feel anything.
How do you think I got it, Daddy?
What's he going to say?
Son, it's because I stole money.
Don't bring a curse on your children.
It's better to be poor and righteous and
upright and have the blessing of God upon
our lives, upon our families, than to pass
on to our children an inheritance unrighteously earned.
It's not worth it.
So many children of God's people, believers, have
gone astray from the Lord because their parents
have put money above God.
Are you like that?
Well, it's not too late.
Thank God many of us, our children are
still small.
We have still an opportunity to set right.
I want to urge you, put God first
in your home.
Teach your children the value of keeping their
conscience clear.
It's better to be poor and righteous.
Teach them not to cheat in their examinations
in school.
To be upright and honest even if they
fail in an examination is better.
I used to tell that to my children
regularly.
I said, I don't care if you fail,
but I don't want you ever to cheat
in an examination.
Never.
How are they going to learn if we
don't teach them to keep a good conscience?
Do you want them to have things on
their videotapes which they are ashamed of in
the final day?
We've got to help our children to understand
the ways of the Lord.
Many parents today are not teaching their children
all this.
We can tell the children the stories of
Joseph and David and Goliath and Daniel and
the Lion's Den and all that, and you
don't teach them the more important things like
not telling lies and being upright.
That's more important than just knowing the Bible
stories.
So this matter of keeping our conscience clear
is so very vital.
And then we and our children will have
a joy in the final day of seeing
our videotape cleansed, erased in certain areas because
we have confessed those sins.
The blood of Jesus has blotted it out.
Praise God for that.
Now that's not the only problem we have.
I want to say a little more about
the conscience before we go on.
Our conscience, we can say, fulfills the same
function in our spirit.
The conscience is part of our spirit.
And the conscience fulfills the same function in
our spirit that pain fulfills in our body.
Now how many of you believe that pain
is one of the greatest blessings in the
human body?
It is.
In case you didn't know, I'll convince you
about it.
You know, people who have leprosy, if they
lose sensation in their feet, leprosy takes away
that sensation.
They don't feel anything.
They can trample on a nail and a
nail can go into their feet and they
won't know anything about it.
And they can go to bed with a
nail inside their feet that's getting infected and
they walk, go for a walk tomorrow and
come back and still haven't taken the nail
out of their foot and it gets infected
and finally they lose their feet.
Not because of leprosy.
The leprosy only removes the sensation.
But because of the infection that came because
they did not know that a nail had
got in.
They can put their hand on a hot
stove and keep it there.
They don't feel a thing.
And their hand gets burnt, destroyed.
How is it with us?
You can't put your hand on a hot
stove even for a few seconds.
You can't get a thorn in your foot
without it disturbing you.
Do you know that that's what saves your
foot?
That's what saves you from losing your hand
and losing your feet?
Pain is one of the greatest blessings in
the human body.
When you have a stomach ache, it's telling
you something is wrong.
If it continues despite you're taking some medicine,
it means you must go to the doctor
and get a check up and he'll probably
show you there's something wrong and you can
get some treatment for it and be healed
by it, healed from it.
But how did you detect it?
Pain.
Think if you didn't have pain.
All of us would have died long ago
if we didn't feel pain.
When you've lost the feeling, sensation, it's leprosy.
It's already begun.
It's a very serious sickness.
Now apply this to our conscience, to our
spirit.
Conscience is the thing that pricks you when
you've done something wrong.
Have you ever seen a three-year-old
telling a lie?
Did you eat that cake I told you
not to eat?
And he says, no mommy, I didn't eat
it.
Did you not eat it?
And the way he looks at himself, you
know he's telling a lie.
He's not too smart at telling a lie.
But wait till he becomes twenty years old.
He'll tell you a lie with a straight
face and you won't even know that he's
telling a lie.
How did that happen?
At three, his conscience was sensitive.
By the time he's twenty, he's told so
many lies that he can tell you a
lie with a straight face.
He can become a bank robber, a white
collar thief, all types of things.
So gradually, through the years, the sensitivity of
the conscience gets eroded.
Have you ever compared the sole of your
feet with the sole of a baby's foot?
It's quite a difference, I'll tell you.
Ours is hard.
A baby's foot is so sensitive, if you
touch it with a pin, you pull it
back.
Have you tried putting a pin into the
sole of your feet?
You don't even feel it, till it penetrates
to a certain distance.
It's become hard.
And that's what's happening to our conscience.
Same way you had tender feet when you
were a baby, it's become so hard.
That's what's happening to our conscience.
And the good news of the gospel is,
you can become a child once again.
Unless you're converted and become like little children,
you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
The good news of the gospel is that
this hardened conscience, like the hardened soles of
my foot, can become sensitive like a baby's
foot once again.
That is part of the good news of
the gospel, that this pain that I was
not feeling, I can feel it once again.
Do you know that's one of the best
news that a leper can ever hear?
That this patch where you're feeling no sensation,
you can feel sensation once more.
That the sole of your foot, where you
could get a nail inside and not even
feel it, can be healed.
Now, in people of leprosy, it doesn't happen.
If it's gone, it's gone.
But the miracle of the gospel is, it
can happen.
That sensitivity which is gone can come back.
You know what the bible says about Naaman
in 2nd Kings 5?
His flesh became like that of a little
child.
Imagine this man, his leprosy disappeared like that
and he began to feel pain.
He was so delighted that he could feel
pain once more in his body.
And that's the message of the gospel, that
you can feel, you can sense once more,
you can be sensitive to little things wrong.
A little word that was spoken rudely, it
bothers you now.
Thank God.
Think of the years when it never bothered
you.
You could keep saying it and go to
bed at night peacefully.
You could lust after a woman with your
eyes and sleep peacefully at night.
But now you can't sleep peacefully at night.
You can't sleep peacefully at night because it
bothers you the way you lusted with your
eyes.
Thank God the leprosy is getting healed.
You lost your temper at your wife during
the day and you just toss around in
bed till you wake her up and say,
I'm sorry, please forgive me.
Praise God.
Something's happening.
Salvation has come to this house.
That is the message of the gospel.
Keep your conscience sensitive.
I believe that as we grow in the
Christian life, I was born again 42 years
ago.
I'll tell you my testimony.
There are things I see today as sin,
which I did not see as sin 3
or 4 years ago.
Now I see it as sin.
Your conscience becomes more and more sensitive.
This is how we progress towards Christ-likeness.
We become more and more aware of un
-Christ-likeness in different areas of our life.
Now if you're not serious about progressing towards
Christ-likeness, of course you'll never become more
sensitive.
It's like people who join school and they
study up to the 4th grade and say,
that's enough for me.
But a lot of other people are not
going to be satisfied until they get a
Ph.D. We're not satisfied 4th grade or
10th grade or A-level or a degree
course or post-graduate.
They say, we want to go to Ph
.D. and there are some people who go
for post-doctoral studies.
That's how I want it in the Christian
life.
I want to go on to the ultimate
possible for a human being on this earth
to be as Christ-like as possible in
our speech, in our thoughts, in our words,
in our attitudes.
That depends on how serious you are about
your Christian spiritual growth and education.
But the way to that growth is through
our conscience becoming more and more sensitive to
sin.
You know there are a lot of things
which we don't often recognize as sin.
There are obvious sins which even the worldly
people consider as sin like murder, adultery, theft,
telling lies.
These are obvious sins.
But there are other things which the Lord
has to show us as we grow spiritually.
I remember once many years ago visiting a
home of a very good sister in one
of our churches.
We sat in her home for one hour
and she spoke for about 54 minutes and
her husband spoke for about 2 minutes and
I spoke for about 4 minutes.
She didn't talk anything sinful.
She talked about her testimony and about this
scripture and the other scripture and what God
spoke to her.
She just dominated the conversation, that's all.
Now, was there anything sinful about what she
said?
Well, no.
Was there anything un-Christ-like?
I think yes, certainly.
You're not supposed to dominate a conversation like
that, anybody.
And I went to that same home years
later and it was different.
She had developed a meek and a quiet
spirit.
I didn't tell her a word.
It was the Holy Spirit.
I was so delighted when I saw that.
So, you see, there are things which the
Holy Spirit tells us which nobody else can
tell us about.
Not obvious sins, but little un-Christ-likenesses.
Even an uncultured person, a barbarian, when he's
filled with the Holy Spirit, will become sensitive
to sin.
You know how an uncivilized person or a
person who's not cultured would go to somebody
else's house and if he sees a letter
lying on the table and nobody's around, he'll
pick up the letter and read it, even
though it's not meant for him.
He who is without sin, let him throw
the first stone.
But if he's filled with the Holy Spirit,
as he picks up that letter, the Spirit
will say, that's not for you.
Just drop it.
Leave it there.
Don't read it.
That's not your letter.
See, this is the thing.
It's not civilization.
It's not culture.
It's the Holy Spirit making him sensitive because
that man wants to be Christ-like.
It's just one example.
That if you're serious about being Christ-like
in your life, and that's the whole purpose
of the Christian life.
See, the Christian life is meant, first of
all, to have our sins forgiven and then
to grow into the likeness of Christ.
It's like going through school, going up to
A-level and then through to college and
higher, postgraduate degrees and so on.
This is growth into Christ-likeness.
And that growth comes through the Holy Spirit
making us more and more sensitive to sin.
Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that
because God is blessing you materially, he's happy
with you.
It's not true.
Do you think the richest people in the
world are the most Christ-like?
Just look around and see.
Like somebody once said, if you want to
know what God thinks about money, just see
the type of people he gives it to.
Look at the type of people who are
making such a lot of money in the
world.
Are they the most godly?
You know, one of the poorest people that
ever walked on this earth was Jesus Christ.
He did not have a place to lay
his head.
And pretty close to him was the Apostle
Paul.
And at that same level was Peter and
John.
Imagine, the man didn't even have money to
give to a beggar at the temple gate
in Jerusalem.
These were some of the godliest men that
Christendom has seen.
They were not rich, but they were godly.
You know, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11,
there were times when he didn't have enough
money to buy food to eat.
He fasted deliberately.
And other times, he says, I was hungry,
not fasting.
I wanted to eat, but I didn't have
anything to eat.
That's what he says.
And he also says, he didn't have enough
money to buy a blanket to cover himself.
I'm paraphrasing his words, in shiverings in the
cold.
He writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4
from a Roman dungeon, which they used to
call prisons those days.
Please bring that cloak which I left behind
there when you come, Timothy, because I'm shivering
in the cold here.
He didn't have money to buy another one.
These are some of God's greatest men.
Don't think prosperity is a mark of God's
blessing.
Not in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament, it was, but not
in the New Testament.
In the New Testament, it's something far greater
than prosperity.
It is Christlikeness.
It's not even health.
Paul had a thorn in the flesh, which
is a physical ailment for which he prayed
three times and didn't go.
But it didn't hinder him from doing God's
work.
I believe Jesus heals the sick and it's
right for us to pray when we're sick.
But I also believe that sometimes for some
greater good, perhaps to keep us humble, the
Lord may allow something to remain, as he
did in Paul's case.
But I have discovered through the years that
the greatest thing that God can do for
us is to make us like Jesus Christ.
You know, there's a great dispute in Christendom.
Some of you who are not theologically minded
may not know about words like Arminianism and
Calvinism.
These are big, big words and thank God
if you don't know what they mean.
Because it's not important.
They're not in the Bible, so you don't
have to worry about it.
But it's a great dispute concerning whether God
predetermines that certain people should go to heaven
and certain people should go to hell.
I personally think it's a lot of rubbish
to think that God predetermines that somebody will
go to heaven and somebody will go to
hell.
But I'll tell you, the predestination is a
New Testament word.
But not predestined to go to heaven or
to hell.
That's the point.
You know what predestination means?
You know what destination means?
That's where I've got to finally go.
Predestination means God has, before I was born,
determined what my destination should be.
And that destination, this is the important thing,
is not heaven or hell.
I want to give you a little surprise.
It's not heaven or hell.
Let me show you Romans chapter 8.
Do you know what the destination is for
you?
Many Christians don't know their destination.
If I were to ask you, where are
you going?
What's your ultimate destination?
I think most of you will say heaven.
I'll say that's not what the Bible says.
We may go to heaven, but that's a
sort of secondary thing.
Do you know what your destination is?
Here it is, Romans 8, verse 29.
Whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed
to the image of His Son.
Do you know what your destination is?
Christlikeness.
When He comes, we shall see Him and
we shall be like Him.
Also, do you know what the blessed hope
is for me?
Many people say the blessed hope is Jesus
is coming back.
I say that's half of it.
The other half of it, according to 1
John chapter 3, verse 2, is that I'll
also be like Him when I see Him.
That is my destination.
My destination is to be like Jesus and
with Him.
Not heaven.
I told the Lord years ago, I said,
Lord, I'm ready to go to hell if
you're there.
If you're there, I'm ready to go anywhere.
Because heaven is, for me, where Jesus is.
It's not a geographical place with streets of
gold and gates of pearl and all that.
I'm not looking for streets of gold and
gates of pearl.
I'm looking for my Savior.
I'm looking for Jesus.
I think my home in Bangalore will be
an empty home if my wife is not
there.
If she's in a hut, I'd rather go
and live with her in a hut.
What is it that makes a home a
home?
The presence of your loved one.
Not the grand walls and curtains.
I hope not.
What's it that's going to make heaven heaven?
Tell me.
The presence of Jesus.
So, what's my destination?
Jesus.
To become like Him.
That is what God predestined me for.
He predestined that wretched sinner Zak Poonen should
become like Jesus Christ.
Or put your name there.
That's God's destination for you.
If you agree with God, say, Lord, I
agree fully.
I want to get there myself.
And do you know how you're going to
get there?
By the Holy Spirit making you more and
more sensitive in your conscience to little things.
You know why He's called Holy Spirit?
Not noisy spirit?
Or excitable spirit?
Holy Spirit.
A lot of people, when they get filled
with the Holy Spirit, they think they should
have noise or excitement.
Okay, I'm not against those things.
But I say, first of all, holiness.
What are you excited with?
Holiness?
To me, it's like this.
If somebody comes to your home and out
of great affection for you, brings to you
a beautiful diamond.
Very expensive diamond as a gift for your
birthday.
And wrapped up in a beautiful, with blue
shiny paper and nice ribbon and all that.
And you open the ribbon and the paper
and take out the diamond.
Now tell me, what will your little one
year old child be excited with?
With the shiny paper and the ribbon.
Absolutely right.
You're not excited with that.
You throw that in the trash then.
You're excited with what is inside.
The emotional experience is the shiny paper.
I'm not against it.
But I don't care if I get a
diamond even in rough brown paper.
I'd be quite happy with it.
Even if it's in newspaper.
The important thing is the thing inside.
Did the Holy Spirit make you holy?
If not, you open this beautiful blue shiny
paper and the ribbon and you find it's
empty inside.
What's the use of that?
That's the type of experience some people have
got.
They got some emotional thrill and excitement.
Say they were filled with the Holy Spirit,
there's nothing inside.
There's no holiness.
Understand what is your destination.
God is destined that you should become like
Jesus Christ.
And He sent the Holy Spirit to fill
us so that we reach that destination.
Do you want to reach that destination?
Say yes to God and tell Him, Lord,
that's where I want to get.
I mean, you may give me so many
thrills and frills along the way, but I
want to reach my goal.
Let's pray.
There are a number of things I'm sure
God spoke into your heart this evening.
And I want to invite you, my dear
friends and brothers and sisters, don't let the
birds of the air, the demons, take away
from your heart what God has sown into
your heart this evening.
Call upon the Lord when He is near.
And if you heard His voice clearly this
evening, then you can be pretty sure God
is near you.
Respond to that call and say, Lord, I
want to respond to that specific thing that
you told me about.
Maybe there's a phone call you need to
make.
Maybe there's a letter you need to write.
Maybe there's somebody you need to go and
apologize to.
Maybe there's some money you need to return.
Maybe there's something that you need to set
right.
Maybe there needs to be a change of
your goals in life, your ambition.
Maybe you need to stop watching that filthy
program on television that you've been watching, which
is polluting you, which is hindering you from
reaching your destination of Christlikeness.
Maybe it's the type of movies you're watching
that will ensure that you never reach the
goal.
Be serious.
Say, Lord, I want to be a serious
Christian from today.
I don't care what it costs.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you will raise
up in this land of South Africa men
and women who know God, who are pursuing
the goal of Christlikeness, who've got a clear
vision of their destination, and who want to
get there, whatever the price they have to
pay.
And I pray that you will raise up
many such men and women in this land,
men of all colors and shades, but who
love Christ, who love Jesus, and whose life
will be like a light in the midst
of the darkness around them.
I pray that you'll raise up churches like
that, little fellowships of people who love one
another fervently, who love you with all their
hearts.
And you will uphold the standards of your
word in the midst of a corrupt and
compromising Christendom.
Thank you, Father.
Do it.
And I pray that you will, even from
the crowd of people who are here this
evening, begin a work in many hearts that
will lead to that goal finally.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.