Thank you very much, and it's a joy
to be here with you.
To share the word of God, I want
to read a verse in 1 Corinthians, chapter
2.
1 Corinthians, chapter 2, and verse 9.
Here it says that, just as it is
written, things which eye has not seen, ear
has not heard, which have not entered the
heart of man, all that God has prepared
for those who love Him.
Now when you read a verse like that,
what do you think it's referring to?
A lot of us can think it's referring
to heaven.
That God has prepared things which human eyes
have never seen, human ears have never heard,
has not even entered into the heart of
man.
The wonderful things that God has prepared for
those who love Him.
You know, this is a quotation from the
Old Testament.
This is exactly what is written in Isaiah
64, verse 4, except for one difference, that
there it says, the Lord prepares these things
for those who wait on Him.
Here it says, He has prepared for those
who love Him.
But in the Old Testament, that verse is
just quoted and left there.
Isaiah says, God has prepared wonderful things for
those who wait on Him, things which our
human eye cannot see, our ear cannot hear,
and mind cannot understand.
But when it comes to the New Testament,
it doesn't stop with that.
It says, but, verse 10, God has revealed
them to us through the Holy Spirit.
For the Spirit searches all things, even the
depths of God.
The Holy Spirit of God was sent to
earth to show us things which our human
eyes cannot see, to speak to us things
which human ears cannot hear, and to reveal
to our hearts things which the human mind
cannot understand.
That's the whole purpose of the Holy Spirit's
coming.
The most wonderful thing that ever happened after
the ascension of Jesus, that's ever happened in
the history of this universe, is the coming
of the Holy Spirit on the day of
Pentecost.
And therefore, that was the beginning of a
new age in God's dealings with man.
You know, if you were to talk to
the Israelites, they look back to that time
when Moses went up to the mountain and
the fire of God came upon Mount Sinai
and God gave them the law.
The law was God himself with his finger
wrote those ten commandments on two tablets of
stone, cut them out of the rock and
gave it to Moses and Moses brought it
down.
It was a tremendous experience.
Now, in the New Testament, the equivalent of
that is the coming of the Holy Spirit.
That was the great initial event that took
place under the law, and this is the
great initial event that took place in the
New Covenant age.
And therefore, I personally am not surprised, not
at all surprised, that the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit is the most controversial doctrine in
Christendom.
It has been like that for years and
it's like that today.
And whenever Christians come across a controversial doctrine,
they are too lazy, most of them, to
go into the scriptures to find out what
the scripture teaches about this.
They say, we might as well leave it
aside, it's too controversial.
There are groups saying this, that and the
other.
Or they've had some bad experiences with counterfeit
manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
Now, do you know that nobody makes counterfeit
brown paper?
Have you ever seen counterfeit brown paper?
Nobody makes counterfeit brown paper.
Why?
Because brown paper is worthless.
Do people make counterfeit toilet paper?
Counterfeit toilet paper?
What do they make counterfeits of?
Currency notes, diamonds, gold.
Wherever there is a counterfeit, you can be
absolutely sure that the original is very valuable.
That's what I was trying to say.
Wherever there is a counterfeit, you can be
pretty sure the original is very valuable, worth
having.
If there is counterfeit gold, the original gold
is really valuable.
If there is counterfeit diamonds, the original diamonds
are really valuable.
If there are counterfeit currency notes, the original
must be really valuable.
In India, nobody makes counterfeit currency notes of
the cheaper notes, 1 rupee notes.
Nobody wastes their time making counterfeit 1 rupee
notes.
They make counterfeit 100 rupee notes, 500 rupee
notes, 1000 rupee notes.
So, Have you seen counterfeit manifestations of the
Holy Spirit?
I have.
What does it prove to me?
It proves to me that there must be
the genuine somewhere, and that the genuine must
be very valuable.
And that's why the devil is seeking to
lead so many people astray through the counterfeits.
And so in Christendom today, I find, you
know like, we used to, when we studied
physics in school, and we had to put
iron filings on a paper and he put
a magnet, and we'd find all the iron
filings all stuck around the north pole of
the magnet, or stuck around the south pole
of the magnet.
Everything would be here or here.
And I find something like that in Christendom
when it concerns the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit.
I find some Christians who have gone overboard
into all types of extreme manifestations, believing that
anything supernatural is of the Holy Spirit.
And I mean, any sensible person would understand
that if a man barks like a dog,
that can't be the Holy Spirit.
But they seem to believe that.
I don't know how, but you probably have
to stretch your imagination quite a lot to
believe that.
But they do.
And then, that's one side.
And then you have these other multitudes of
Christians reacting against the whole thing and saying,
I don't want to have anything to do
with this.
I'm quite happy with the little bit that
I know.
I've got my sins are all forgiven and
I'm on my way to heaven.
But in the process, both of them have
missed the will of God.
And that's exactly what the devil wants.
You see, the narrow way is a very
narrow, very, very narrow path.
And there's a steep cliff on the left
side and a very steep cliff on the
right side.
And the narrow way that Jesus spoke of
is like that.
And you have Christians falling over the left
side into extreme manifestations.
And then you have Christians backing away from
those extreme manifestations and falling over the right
side who don't have anything.
And you know, the devil's quite happy with
both groups because he doesn't bother which side
of the cliff you fall over, provided you
fall over.
So long as you don't walk that narrow
way, the devil's quite happy.
He doesn't bother whether you go to this
extreme or that extreme.
Now, the only way to keep on that
narrow path, you know, the Bible says, let
us run the race.
There's a race that we have to run
on this narrow path.
Jesus said, the way to life is very
narrow and few there be that find it.
Few find it because a lot of people
go to this side or that side.
Now, the only way to stay away from
this side or that side is to do
what it says in Hebrews 12, that when
we run this race along this narrow path,
we look unto Jesus.
Turn to Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews in chapter 12 and verse 1.
The last part it says, let us run
with endurance the race that is set before
us, fixing our eyes on Jesus or looking
unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith, who endured the cross, for the joy
set before him, endured the cross, despising the
shame, sat down on the right hand of
the throne of God.
Now, the only way to avoid going astray
is by looking unto Jesus.
In him we see that perfect balance and
if we keep our eyes fixed on him,
then we will never go astray in any
doctrine.
So, that's what it says here.
Let us run the race along this narrow
path, fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Never take your eyes off Jesus.
You remember what happened to Peter when he
was walking on the water and he took
his eyes off Jesus for a moment.
Not for long.
He took his eyes away from Jesus and
looked at the wind and the waves and
he immediately sank.
And that was to teach us that the
moment we take our eyes off the Lord,
we will start sinking.
Immediately.
A lot of Christians are sinking because they
don't have their eyes on Jesus Christ.
They have their eyes on some leader who
they have a lot of confidence in perhaps,
a very gifted man perhaps.
You know the number of people today in
Christendom who admire a leader so much that
his word is law even more than the
word of God.
Well, I say such people deserve to go
astray.
They deserve to go astray because they have
taken their eyes off the Lord.
Such people deserve to sink because they have
disobeyed the scriptures which tells them to look
unto Jesus and instead of looking unto Jesus,
they look unto a man.
They deserve to sink.
They deserve to sink to the bottom of
the sea.
And they are sinking.
A lot of people have hit the bottom
as well.
And that's why their lives are so depressed
and defeated.
Their home life is so unhappy.
The reason for it all lies in the
fact that they are not looking unto Jesus.
So, why does the word of God say
in John's Gospel chapter 1 and verse 1,
it reads like this, In the beginning was
the word, and the word was with God,
and the word was God.
Why is Jesus called the word?
I want to tell you a couple of
reasons why he is called the word.
First of all, God uses simple words to
illustrate heavenly truths and we know that the
word we speak, for example what I am
speaking right now, is an expression of the
thoughts in my mind.
Now, if I stand here and just think
some wonderful thoughts in my mind, you know
that's not going to bless you, however wonderful
those thoughts may be.
Those wonderful thoughts I have in my mind
can bless you only when they are expressed
in words.
So, this wonderful God in heaven could not
bless us till he expressed himself in the
person of Jesus.
Thoughts are invisible, words are audible.
You can listen to them or you can
read them and you can see them when
they are in a book.
So, Jesus was the visible expression of the
invisible God, just like my words are the
audible expression of invisible thoughts or inaudible thoughts.
So, that's why he is called the word.
And the word is also, we can say,
just like you look up a dictionary for
the meaning of a word.
You know, you come across a word that
you are reading in a book or a
newspaper and you don't know the meaning, you
look up a dictionary.
And I see that Jesus is my dictionary.
That's why he is called the word.
For example, what is the meaning of humility?
We all have to be humble.
What is the meaning of humility?
You can look up a dictionary and get
a wrong understanding of humility.
There are a lot of Christians who got
totally wrong understanding of humility.
They think humility is to say, oh, I
am such a wretched sinner or to put
their head down and walk in a sluggish
type of way or to dress very simply.
All types of crazy ideas about humility.
That's not humility.
Jesus said, learn from me for I am
humble in heart.
So, if you want to learn humility, the
meaning of it, you got to look unto
Jesus.
Lord, what's the meaning of humility?
And I look at Jesus, I understand what
humility means.
It means to be nothing so that God
might be everything.
In very simple words, when you are willing
to be nothing so that God can be
everything in your life, you are a humble
person.
That's how Jesus was.
Even though he was the son of God,
equal with the father from all eternity, when
he walked on earth, he would always refer
to himself as an ordinary man.
He said, I am a son of man.
Son of man means I am an ordinary
man.
He lived like that.
Even the last day of his life, he
was washing people's feet.
But his humility also included, you know, driving
people out of the temple with a whip.
Now, if you saw somebody driving people out
of a temple with a whip, you wouldn't
think he's a humble man.
But Jesus was a humble man.
You see, humility meant being nothing.
That if God told him to use a
whip and drive people out, he would do
that because he was nothing.
He wanted God to be everything.
So, our concepts of humility can be wrong.
If you see a man getting up in
a pulpit and calling people, you generation of
vipers, how will you escape the damnation of
hell?
You'd say, boy, that man's not a humble
man.
But that's how Jesus spoke.
That's how Jesus spoke.
And he was the humblest man that ever
walked on the face of the earth.
You see, we've got some twisted ideas of
humility because we look into an English dictionary
to get its meaning.
Jesus said, learn humility from me.
Not from a dictionary.
You'll get all your meanings of scripture wrong
if you look into an English dictionary.
Jesus is the dictionary.
Jesus is the word made flesh.
The word manifested in flesh.
Humility manifested in flesh.
You see it in Jesus.
A humble man can easily get up and
expose Pharisees ruthlessly.
Just as much as he can wash people's
feet.
He's as humble when he's doing one thing
as when he's doing the other.
Because his humility is being nothing so that
God might be everything.
And when he becomes nothing and God is
everything, God may tell him to expose hypocrites
in a church and he'll do that.
Now if he was concerned about his own
reputation, he wouldn't do that.
You understand?
He wouldn't do it because he'd say, boy,
if I speak like that, people will think
I'm a proud man and I want a
reputation as a humble man, so I won't
say that.
Such a man is not humble because he
doesn't want to be nothing.
He wants to be something.
He wants to be known as a humble
man.
Well, you can't be humble if you want
to be known as a humble man.
That's it.
You've got to be willing to be nothing.
And where do I learn that?
I learn that from Jesus.
I don't learn it from the dictionary.
Jesus is my dictionary.
I learn love from Jesus.
Otherwise I'll get all types of wrong ideas
about love.
Can you understand the love of God which
Jesus described in the story of the prodigal
son?
That when the son went away, the father
did not go seeking for him.
Have you ever noticed that in that story?
The father never went seeking for him.
That was love.
The father never sent him food packets to
the far country.
That's love.
Love was such to make, let that prodigal
son starve, sink to the level of the
pigs, don't send him any food packets, don't
send him anything, let him come to an
end of himself and come back.
That's the love of God.
Can you understand that type of love?
You know, if you don't understand that type
of love, you will hinder God's work on
earth.
I've seen a lot of Christians who when
God is disciplining a prodigal son, they go
and give him food packets just to make
sure that he never goes back to the
father's house.
You think that's love?
That's foolishness.
Because they got their definition of love from
the world.
They got their definition of love from the
dictionary.
Not by looking under Jesus.
I'm just giving you one or two examples.
I could give you many more.
So, Jesus Christ is the word made flesh.
Now we're coming to the Holy Spirit.
We're talking about the Holy Spirit.
If you want to see, if you want
to understand what it means to be filled
with the Holy Spirit, where shall we find
the answer?
How shall I find out what it means
to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Shall I look up a dictionary?
Shall I go and buy some book, some
popular book in some book shop which talks
about being filled with the Holy Spirit?
No.
I shall look up my spiritual dictionary, which
is Jesus.
And I look at Jesus, the most perfect
spirit-filled man that ever walked on this
earth, and I understand what it means to
be filled with the Spirit.
This is what changed my life when I
was seeking God, about what it means to
be filled with the Spirit.
There's a little book I wrote on it
called Living as Jesus Lived.
The spirit-filled life.
The spirit-filled life is living as Jesus
lived.
A spirit-filled person.
You know, we hear that expression a lot
nowadays in Christian circles.
They ask you, are you spirit-filled?
Are you spirit-filled?
I'll tell you something, my brothers and sisters.
Being spirit-filled is not a once-for
-all experience.
To be filled with the Spirit is a
continuous thing.
And those who are continuously full of the
Spirit can be called men full of the
Holy Spirit.
But what is going to be the characteristic
of their life?
The more filled with the Spirit they are,
the more Christ-like they are going to
be.
Because Jesus Christ is the standard.
Looking unto Jesus.
Now if you don't look unto Jesus, I
guarantee that you'll fall on the left side
or the right side.
And the devil doesn't bother which side you
fall over.
You can go to one extreme, to some
type of fanaticism, or you can go to
the other extreme and reject everything and say,
I don't want anything of the Holy Spirit.
There are people like that.
You know, to me the Holy Spirit's power
is like electricity.
Electricity is a wonderful thing.
We wouldn't be able to enjoy many things
in this room tonight if you didn't have
electricity.
Powering the lights, powering the amplifier, etc.
But have you noticed that electric wires are
always insulated?
You know why they are insulated?
Because they are very dangerous if they are
not insulated.
They kill.
A man can touch an electric wire and
die on the spot, in just a few
seconds.
Where there is power, there is danger.
So when a person tries to install electricity
in his house and he does not follow
the laws of electricity, he is exposing his
house to tremendous danger.
Supposing he decides to wire his house with
uninsulated wires.
He is going to blow up his house
and he is going to kill his children
and he is going to do a lot
of harm in his house if he's got
uninsulated electric wires running all over the place
which anybody can touch and get killed by.
That's exactly what's happening today with a lot
of people who are talking about the power
of the Holy Spirit that they don't follow
the laws of the Holy Spirit.
It's like installing electricity without following its laws.
And so, what do some other people do?
You know what the other people do?
Go to the other extreme, they say, oh,
look at the number of people who are
being killed over there with what they call
electric power.
We don't want electricity in our house.
We'll just light a candle and live with
that.
Is that the answer?
I know if you have a candle, nobody
will be electrocuted.
That's true.
But you're going to miss out a lot
of things that electricity could run.
The answer is not to avoid electricity altogether.
The answer is to have electricity and follow
the laws of electricity.
You understand what I'm driving at?
The answer is to follow the laws of
the Spirit and we need the power of
the Holy Spirit.
When people are teamed up on two different
sides, some emphasizing the fruit of the Holy
Spirit, some emphasizing the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, I'm not confused.
I'm not confused because I go to the
dictionary.
Jesus, the Word made flesh.
And I ask myself this question, what did
Jesus have?
Tell me.
You know the answer.
Did Jesus have the fruit of the Spirit
or did he have the gifts of the
Spirit?
Which did he have?
Which?
Both.
Right.
So which should you have?
Well, if you follow Jesus, I presume you
should have both.
The Bible says that Jesus was born of
the Holy Spirit.
You know, in Mary's womb, the Holy Spirit
came and he was born of the Holy
Spirit.
And we also, when we are born again,
we're not like Jesus in the sense that
he was God.
But in a spiritual sense, something happened in
us and we were born of the Holy
Spirit.
So Jesus had the Holy Spirit with him
right from birth and that's how he lived
a holy life for 30 years.
But yet, we read in Luke's Gospel chapter
3, we read that when Jesus was being
baptized, do you know what Jesus was doing
when he was being baptized?
How many of you have read the scriptures
carefully?
Now, most of us, when we get baptized,
we're probably more concerned about whether water goes
into our nose or into our lungs.
But Jesus, when he was getting baptized, it
says he was praying.
Have you noticed that?
Luke chapter 3 and verse 21, that when
the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized
and he was praying.
I have hardly met anybody who is praying
when they are baptized.
But Jesus was praying.
And how do you know what he was
praying for?
I know what he was praying for.
It's not written there.
I know what Jesus was praying for because
of one reason, that whatever Jesus prayed for,
he got the answer immediately.
Immediately.
He always lived to please the Father and
therefore the Father always heard him.
And whatever he prayed for, he got the
answer immediately.
There was never a delay when Jesus prayed.
When he prayed for a blind man, the
blind man's eyes were opened immediately.
When he prayed for a deaf person, the
deaf person's ears were opened immediately.
And when Jesus prayed at his baptism, I
know what he prayed for because the answer
came immediately.
You know what it was?
It says here, the Holy Spirit descended on
him like a dove, verse 22.
The Holy Spirit, that's what he was praying
for.
So I can imagine, can you picture this,
John the Baptist standing in the river, baptizing
people and Jesus also goes down there and
as Jesus being dipped, he's praying, Father, anoint
me.
Now people who try to pigeonhole the ministry
of the Holy Spirit into theological compartments and
little pigeonholes say, but he had the Holy
Spirit.
What is this praying for, the anointing of
the Holy Spirit?
Don't you have the Holy Spirit, Jesus?
Lord Jesus, don't you have the Holy Spirit
from birth?
What are you praying for now?
Get your theology right.
He had his theology right.
It's we who got our theology wrong.
He prayed, he who had the Spirit from
birth prayed that he should be anointed to
the Holy Spirit and the Father answered him.
So theology must have been right.
The Holy Spirit came upon him and he
went into this and he was, then it
says in chapter 4, verse 1, Jesus full
of the Holy Spirit.
Now he was full of the Holy Spirit,
returned from Jordan and went into the wilderness
and was tempted and he came back from
the wilderness, verse 14, after being tempted in
the power of the Holy Spirit.
It's wonderful.
He went into the wilderness, full of the
Holy Spirit, chapter 4, verse 1, and he
returned from the temptation in the power of
the Holy Spirit.
That's what temptation does to you if you
overcome it.
People filled with the Holy Spirit are then
led into temptation, to be tempted by the
devil before they go out into a ministry.
They have to be tested.
Even Jesus was tested.
You and I are not better than him.
Jesus is my dictionary.
He's the author and finisher of my faith.
He's the A and the Z in the
dictionary.
That's the meaning of author and perfecter of
my whole faith.
Everything I want in the Christian life I
find in him.
As he was born of the Spirit, I
want to be born of the Spirit.
As he was anointed, I want to be
anointed.
As he was full of the Holy Spirit,
I want to be full of the Holy
Spirit.
And I know as he was tempted, I
will be tempted.
But I know also that as he overcame,
I can overcome and I can return from
temptation like he returned from temptation, chapter 4,
verse 14, in the power of the Holy
Spirit.
That's what temptation does for us.
If we overcome it in the power the
Spirit gives us, we can return in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
There's tremendous authority that a man has when
he's living an overcoming life in the power
of the Holy Spirit, when he's overcoming temptation.
Tremendous authority that a man can have.
Jesus had such tremendous authority because he not
only had the Spirit resting upon him, he
went out and was tempted by the devil
and overcame, overcame, overcame.
For 40 days he was tempted and he
overcame.
We don't know what all areas he was
tempted in for 40 days, but we do
know, it says in verse 2 that for
40 days he was tempted by the devil.
Have you noticed that?
He wasn't just tempted on the last day,
he was being tempted for 40 days.
And on the 40th day, the last three
temptations are mentioned to us in chapter 4.
But those are only the last three, there
were probably a thousand before that.
He overcame a thousand temptations and then in
the last three we read, he overcame also
and he returned in the power of the
Holy Spirit.
There's tremendous authority when a man has overcome
temptation in the power of the Holy Spirit.
You know there's a lot of difference between
a man who stands to preach God's word
who never shouts at his wife and a
man who stands to preach God's word who
still shouts at his wife.
There's a world of difference between the two
of them.
There's an authority that one has, the other
doesn't have.
Both may have the same doctrine, but one
has an authority the other doesn't have because
he's overcome a certain temptation.
There's a tremendous authority a man has who
preaches God's word who has overcome lusting with
his eyes, which another man who has not
overcome lusting with his eyes does not have.
He may get up and preach the same
word, but it's not the same authority.
No.
A man who has overcome the love of
money will have such authority when he speaks
which a man who has not overcome the
love of money will not have.
And I could go through the list like
that.
That's why God allows spirit-filled people to
be tempted by Satan.
Because that's the way you're going to have
authority.
Otherwise you'll be an authority-less man.
The trouble with a lot of people today
who claim to be filled with the Holy
Spirit is they are defeated in one temptation
after the other.
A lot of them fall into adultery, they
divorce their wives and remarry and all types
of evil things and they claim to be
full of the spirit.
Well, maybe it's true, but it's not the
Holy Spirit.
It's some other spirit, that's all.
Sure.
I don't have any doubt about it.
People try to scare me and say, Brother
Zach, don't judge.
Don't judge.
Oh, don't speak against the Holy Spirit.
It's very dangerous.
You won't be forgiven.
I say, don't try to scare me.
I know God.
I'm not scared by all these verses.
The Bible tells me not to believe every
spirit, but to test the spirits, whether they
are of God.
And I'm not afraid to do that.
Don't get scared by all these scary verses
that people quote at you.
A spirit-filled man will be a Christ
-like man.
He'll be a man who overcomes temptation.
He'll be a man who manifests the authority
of the spirit in his life, in his
ministry.
Jesus did that.
And then he came into the synagogue in
Nazareth, it says in verse 16, and he
stood up to preach.
And they gave him the book of Isaiah.
He turned, he scrolled it and scrolled it
and scrolled it and scrolled it, scrolled it
till he came to Isaiah 61.
And he said, this is what I'm going
to read today.
He found the place, verse 17, where it
was written, the Spirit of the Lord is
upon me because he has anointed me.
That's what he preached on.
That was his first sermon.
You know what is the first sermon Jesus
preached in his hometown?
That he was anointed with the Holy Spirit.
Now for 30 years, he had come to
that synagogue as a little boy and he
sat there for so many years listening to
all the boring sermons the Pharisees preached there
and he kept quiet.
But now the time had come to speak.
And when he got up to speak, he
said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon
me.
He has anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor, to set people free, to
give sight to the blind.
Isn't that interesting that the very first sermon
Jesus ever spoke in his hometown, the very
first sermon he ever spoke.
And as far as we know, that is
probably the very first sermon he ever spoke
in his life.
What was the subject of the first sermon
Jesus ever spoke in his life?
It was about being anointed with the Holy
Spirit.
Jesus valued it.
Maybe you don't, but Jesus valued it.
And I'll tell you my testament.
I have come to value the anointing of
the Holy Spirit.
It's the secret of the Christian life.
If you go to the Old Testament, if
you go to the Jewish people even today,
and you ask them, what do you consider
the most secret thing of all?
They'll say the law.
The law, the law.
What is the most important thing for you?
You ask any Jewish person, he'll say the
law.
And you come to a Christian and say,
what is the most important thing for you?
He should say the Holy Spirit.
Because the Holy Spirit replaced the law.
Moses went up to the mountain and brought
the law down.
Jesus went up to heaven and sent the
Holy Spirit down.
It's exactly the same.
This is the equivalent of that.
Did you hear it?
Moses went up to the mountain and brought
the law down.
Jesus went up to heaven and sent the
Holy Spirit down.
That law guided Israel.
Everything in their life was governed by that
law.
And everything in the life of the Christian
must be governed by the Holy Spirit.
And if you take away the law from
Israel, finished.
They become like any other nation on earth.
It's the law that made them distinct, different
from all the other nations on the earth.
And it's the Spirit of God that's supposed
to make the Christian distinct from all the
other people on the face of the earth.
Not a particular doctrine.
I tell you, it's a very sad thing
that Christians try to distinguish themselves from others
by a doctrine or a teaching or a
standard of life.
No, my brother.
It's the Spirit that should distinguish us.
Not a pattern.
I find among Christians, for example, so many
different groups.
They distinguish themselves from that group on the
basis of some doctrine.
They have this type of baptism, we have
this type of baptism.
And they have this type of church government
and we have this type of church government
and they have this and we've got this
and they've got that and we've got this.
Is that the way we're supposed to distinguish
ourselves?
I've often thought about the tabernacle.
Have you studied the tabernacle?
In the book of Exodus, you read about
the tabernacle.
The tabernacle was God's dwelling place in the
Old Testament.
And do you know that it's possible for
you to make a tabernacle exactly like that
Old Testament tabernacle?
Because all the dimensions and everything are given
us in Exodus.
The material, the dimensions are all given.
Any Philistine could have made that tabernacle.
There's not only the people of Israel who
could have made that tabernacle.
Any Philistine or Ammonite or Moabite could have
made a tabernacle exactly the same pattern.
Do you know that it's very easy to
copy a pattern?
There are people today who call themselves New
Testament pattern churches.
It's easy to copy a pattern.
I find in India, we have our conferences
where we gather together people once or twice
a year in Bangalore and in the other
churches also other times of the year.
We have about seven or eight of them
a year.
And when we come together in the conferences,
we have sometimes visitors and other believers who
come and they are so impressed by the
spirit of fellowship in our midst.
And they say, boy, we want a church
like this in our hometown.
And they think the secret is in the
pattern.
So they say, if we can have a
meeting the same way these people have their
meeting that we sing songs like them and
we share like them and we follow the
pattern down to the last detail, we'll have
the same life.
And it doesn't work like that.
I've seen people who try to follow the
pattern and that assembly is deader than the
deadest of other Christian churches.
Because the life is not in a pattern.
The philistines could have copied the tabernacle's pattern
exactly.
But there was one thing in the tabernacle
which the philistines could not copy.
You know what that was?
What was that?
What?
The fire.
There was a what was called the Shekinah
Glory, the fire that rested from heaven on
top of the most holy place of the
tabernacle.
You could copy everything else, but you couldn't
copy the fire.
That is New Testament pattern.
It's not all the little details of how
you have your meeting and all those things.
It's the fire.
If you don't have a fire, brother, it's
no use.
That's the Holy Spirit.
That is what makes a Christian a New
Testament Christian.
That is what makes a church a New
Testament church.
That the fire of God is burning in
the midst, exposing sin, setting people aflame with
devotion and love for Jesus Christ.
If that's not there, everything is worthless.
Don't be satisfied when you preach God's word,
that you are preaching the truth.
You know, it's good.
We must be careful about the truth.
Because there is a lot of error nowadays.
But truth alone is not going to build
up people.
Supposing I stand here and say, listen to
me, I am speaking the absolute truth and
tell me how much it edifies you spiritually.
Two ones are two, two twos are four,
two threes are six.
This is just a multiplication table.
Two fours are eight, two fives are ten.
Don't worry, I am only going to go
up to sixteen.
Did I tell a lie?
Was anything I told a lie?
A lot of Christian preaching is exactly like
that.
It's like repeating the multiplication table.
It's absolute truth.
But there's no anointing, there's no power, there's
no fire.
There's no Holy Spirit.
You know, in India, when we go to
buy meat, we go to the meat market
and you have all these, the beef and
all the other things hanging up there.
All the flies sitting on it.
It's hanging up there, just in the open,
in the meat market.
It's in Bangalore, it's like that.
And your mouth doesn't water when you see,
even if it's a chicken hanging up there,
your mouth doesn't water when you...
But somebody buys that chicken, takes it home
and puts it on the fire and boy,
you're walking by that house and you smell
it and you wish you could go inside
and get a taste of it.
What was the difference?
That was that chicken on fire.
That was the only difference.
Same chicken that was hanging over there, that
didn't make your mouth water, now see what
happened to it when it was set on
fire in the kitchen.
That's the difference, brothers, sisters.
That's the difference, brothers, sisters, between the Word
and the Word set on fire.
It's the power of the Holy Spirit and
every one of us can have it.
I don't mean just when we preach from
the pulpit.
Even if somebody comes to visit you in
your home and you share a word, maybe
two, three sentences with him, it should be
the anointing of the Holy Spirit on it.
There is a difference.
Have you noticed how Jesus is, not only
when he was preaching, sometimes one sentence, one
sentence, he who is without sin, let him
cast the first stone.
That was better than a whole sermon.
He who is without sin, throw the first
stone at this woman caught in adultery.
One sentence.
Lord, should we pay tax to Caesar?
Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and render
to God what is God's.
It wasn't a big sermon.
One sentence.
He was like that.
He's my dictionary.
He's my example.
And do you know how he was like
that?
You say, well, he was the son of
God.
I know he was the son of God,
but when he came to earth, he did
not use that power as the son of
God to live this life.
He lived as a man, anointed by the
Holy Spirit.
That's how he lived.
And I say, Lord, that's how I want
to live.
When he preached, it says here in Matthew
7 and verse 29 and 28 and 29,
when people heard, they were amazed.
Matthew 7, 28, 29, that when Jesus finished
preaching, the multitudes were amazed because he was
teaching them as one word authority and not
as the scribes.
The scribes just held up the chicken in
front of everybody and Jesus held up a
cooked chicken which is on fire.
And that's what they wanted.
A lot of difference.
The words he spoke, the way he lived.
I think of a time when Jesus and
his disciples were walking through Samaria, 13 of
them.
Now, I know that when I have traveled
with different brothers preaching the gospel or going
to some place and we're all hungry, you
know what we do?
We all go to the restaurant to eat.
That's normal.
Before we continue.
Okay?
Jesus and his disciples were going through Samaria
and the normal thing for them to have
done was for all of them to go
to the fast food shop and eat lunch
there.
But somehow Jesus felt a prompting from the
Holy Spirit, don't go with them.
You sit here by the well, even though
you're hungry, let them go.
It's very unusual.
It's not normal.
So Jesus said to them, you go, you
go and bring some food for me.
I'll sit here.
Sit there, all alone in the desert, all
alone, nobody around.
But he was listening to the Holy Spirit.
And sure enough, a little later, that sinful
woman from Samaria comes there, gets converted and
goes and brings the whole city and the
whole city.
There's a revival in that city.
Just think, if Jesus had not listened to
the prompting of the Holy Spirit, think what
Samaria would have missed.
Can you think of what some people have
missed?
Because you did not listen to the prompting
of the Holy Spirit.
I don't want to be like that.
I say, Lord, I have only one life
on earth, and I want to be sensitive
to the voice of the Spirit, to go
where you want me to go, to do
what you want me to do, to speak
what you want me to speak.
That was my desire 40 years ago, and
that's my desire today, and if the Lord
gives me another 30 years, that'll be my
desire 30 years from now.
To listen to the voice of the Spirit.
Don't seek for reputation before men.
That's fit for the garbage bin.
Seek for the anointing of the Holy Spirit
upon your life.
Seek for it.
God does not give valuable things to those
who don't seek for it earnestly.
Jesus says, God says, you shall seek me
and find me when you search for me
with all your heart.
If any man thirst, let him come to
me.
Out of his innermost being will flow rivers
of living water.
You got a thirst, and you know what
thirst means?
Well, I may be thirsty right now.
I'd like to have a glass of water.
But, supposing somebody said, Brother Zach, you're welcome
to have this glass of water, but it
costs a hundred thousand rands.
That's the cost of this water.
If you drink it, you're welcome to have
it, but that's what you got to pay.
I say, well, I'm not that thirsty.
Thank you very much.
I'm thirsty, but not that thirsty.
A hundred thousand rands.
Sorry.
I can live without it.
But supposing I had been wandering in the
desert for one week without water.
This is water.
I say, water.
And somebody comes to me and says, water?
Sure.
A hundred thousand rands.
Brother, whatever I have, take it.
Give it to me.
If I have a hundred thousand rands, I'll
give it.
Won't I?
Won't you?
Because now I'm about to die.
That is thirst.
When you can live the Christian life comfortably
without the Holy Spirit, because the price is
too much, you're not thirsty enough.
And I can tell you, in a hundred
years, you will not receive the power of
the Holy Spirit.
You can pray.
You won't get it.
I'll tell you right now, you won't get
it.
You don't waste your time praying.
But when you get desperate, when you say,
Lord, I'm willing to pay any price.
I don't care if all men reject me.
I don't care if this doesn't agree with
somebody's theology.
I don't care what anybody thinks.
I'm desperate because my life is defeated.
I'm desperate because I'm wasting my earthly life.
I'm holding up uncooked chicken before people, expecting
them to come be drawn to it.
Something is missing, Lord.
The fire is missing in my life.
And I'm willing to pay any price.
Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
If you thirst, Jesus said, if any man
thirst, let him come to me and drink.
Open your mouth and drink.
It's as easy as that.
Believe.
And from your innermost being will flow rivers
of living water.
Do you know what are the first two
promises in the New Testament?
There are many wonderful promises in the Old
Testament.
Many, many wonderful promises, all the way from
Genesis, right up to Malachi.
From the seed of the woman promised in
Genesis 3, to the son of righteousness that
will arise with healing in his wings, promised
in Malachi chapter 4, there are wonderful promises.
But when you turn over to the New
Testament, to the pages of Matthew, you come
across two promises which are the first two
promises in the New Testament.
Number one, you shall call his name Jesus,
Matthew 1.21, because he will save his
people from their sins.
That's the first promise in the New Testament,
that Jesus will save us from our sins.
I think many of you have begun to
experience that.
What's the second promise in the New Testament?
Matthew 3.11, he shall baptize you in
the Holy Spirit.
Those are the first two things you need,
more than anything else, to be saved from
sin and to be immersed.
Baptism means immersion, to be immersed in fire.
I know that from the time that God
made that a reality in my life, many
years ago, I will never exchange it for
anything in the whole world.
The baptism of fire, immersed in fire.
The fire that burnt on the most holy
place of the tabernacle, glory of God, that
distinguished that tabernacle from all other tents on
the earth.
Today, I am the tabernacle of God, God's
dwelling place.
You are the tabernacle of God.
The pattern to be baptized in the right
way, in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit is all good, but the
pattern alone is not enough.
You need the fire resting upon you.
Fire that burns purity into you, into your
eyes, into your tongue, into your life, into
your ministry.
Dear brothers and sisters, can I encourage you
this evening to seek God for something that
you may have been missing in your Christian
life.
Don't let prejudice and theology stand in your
way.
Don't let the extreme fanaticism of some groups
who talk about the Holy Spirit stand in
your way.
I don't agree with them.
I remember as a young Christian, I went
to some of these Pentecostal groups and I
saw all the noise and the racket and
I said, Lord, I don't want that.
I want what Peter, James and John got
on the day of Pentecost.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That's what I'm asking you to seek.
I'm not asking you to seek all these
fanatical extremes that we see today in Christendom.
I'm asking you to seek for what Peter,
James and John got on the day of
Pentecost, which changed them from fearful, timid, money
loving, selfish, power loving people into selfless, devoted
disciples of Jesus Christ.
Let's pray.
While our heads are bowed in prayer, if
God has spoken to your heart, my brother,
sister, respond to his word.
Respond to his word.
Don't let the devil take away that word
from your heart.
Say, Lord, the things which human eyes have
not seen and ears have not heard, not
entered into the heart of man, I want
to know them by your Holy Spirit.
I want you to fill me.
I'm willing to pay any price.
I surrender all to you.
I'm willing to set everything right in my
life, confess every sin, forsake everything that's wrong,
give up all worldliness.
Lord, I'm willing to stop seeing all those
filthy movies on television that pollute my mind.
Lord, I'm willing to give up anything in
my life if you will fill me with
your Holy Spirit, set me on fire so
that at least the remaining days of my
life I can live for the glory of
God.
Heavenly Father, I believe there are at least
some here who are seeking you, who need
a touch from you, a touch from heaven,
a being set alight with the power of
God.
I pray that they'll experience it.
Heavenly Father, be glorified in our midst.
Bless the word.
Let it ring in people's hearts tonight when
they go to bed that they will not
rest until they seek you and you come
and meet with them.
Father, hear us, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.