We were considering how God is a good
God, and there's such a great need for
the people in our land and in the
world to know that, because every other religion
proclaims God as one who is almost all
the time angry with his people, and somehow
or the other man has to do something
to appease and please this angry God.
Every religion teaches that.
That's why people go on sacrifices, that's why
people give money, that's why people roll on
the ground and do all types of things
to somehow please this angry God.
And in the midst of all this falsehood,
we are called to proclaim the good news
that God is not angry with man.
God is good and everything he does, even
if he can't explain it, comes from a
heart of goodness, of perfect goodness.
We have to confess there are things we
cannot explain, for example a lot of suffering,
a lot of innocent suffering, a lot of
helpless babies that suffer, children who suffer because
of the sins of their parents.
We can't explain all that, but that's because
our minds are small.
The moment you begin to use reason, you
will drift away from knowing this truth, that
God is a good God.
It is better to humble ourselves and say,
well my reason can't understand that, but I
still believe one thing that is eternally true.
God is a perfectly good God, he is
perfectly loving, every single thing that he does
originates from a heart of love.
And I believe when our minds are clarified
and we see as God sees, we will
discover that even hell is an expression of
the love of God.
It is difficult for us to understand that,
isn't it?
That hell can be an expression of God's
love.
But if I were to use a little
illustration, can you imagine what a city would
be like if there were no police, no
jails, no law and order?
Any loving administrator of that city would first
set up a prison for criminals.
That would be an example.
One day we will see very clearly, what
we cannot understand now fully, that even hell
is an expression of God's love.
There is nothing that God does which is
not done in perfect love.
I thank God for that understanding I have,
which has solved many problems in my life
and which has answered many difficult questions, in
the sense that once I believe this established
fact, I don't need to have an explanation.
Now I believe that another very, very important
truth that we need to proclaim, and which
is also not sufficiently understood, is the fact
that as much as God is a good
God, He is a perfectly holy God.
And it is because people don't understand the
perfection of His holiness, just like they don't
understand the perfection of His goodness, that they
think that by somehow doing a lot of
good works, they can please Him.
Every religion in the world teaches that, that
if you do a sufficient number of good
works, you will be taken into God's kingdom.
And the way to atone for your past
sins is by doing a lot of good
works.
And that arises from an ignorance of the
perfect holiness of God.
The perfect holiness of God is so great,
that any amount of good works will never
atone for even one sin.
That any amount of good works will never
take you into His presence, because His holiness
is absolute.
And it's so great that the Bible says
that our best deeds are like filthy rags.
Isaiah 64 6, our righteousness is like filthy
rags.
Now most of us can agree that our
sins are like filthy rags.
We have no difficulty believing that.
Yeah, we acknowledge readily that we have sinned
and our sins are like filthy rags.
But think of the best deed that you
can ever do.
Say you spend four hours in fasting and
prayer.
Do you believe that's a filthy rag?
It's very difficult to understand that.
Or you sacrifice yourself and help the poor.
Do you think that can be like a
filthy rag?
In 1 Corinthians 13 it says you can
give all your goods to the poor and
yet lack love.
You read that verse?
Is it possible for a man to give
his entire wealth, his entire wealth to poor
people and lack love?
Everybody will think that that man is a
loving man and yet in God's eyes he
may lack love and he's disqualified and he's
a zero.
You see, with God it is not what
we do that matters as much as why
we do it.
A man can give all his wealth not
because he loves the poor but because he
wants honor for himself.
A man can fast and pray or preach
not because he wants to glorify God but
because he wants something for himself.
And so we see that holiness is not
in these external actions primarily.
God's holiness is not in anything he does.
When we think of holiness we think of
actions, we think of prayer, we think of
Bible reading, we think of avoiding certain sins.
But God's holiness is intrinsic, it is within,
it is something which is what he is
even if he does nothing.
And that is the holiness which he calls
us to, which we can never attain.
And among Christians, even among those who feel
and know that our righteousness are like filthy
rags and we cannot be accepted and therefore
we come and accept freely the forgiveness that
God offers us in Christ, there is still
the feeling that after we have accepted the
Lord, after we are born again, that we
can now perfect ourselves in our own strength.
The Galatians made that mistake when Paul wrote
to them saying, are you so foolish, he
says in Galatians 3, having begun in the
spirit, are you going to now become perfect
in the flesh?
In other words, when you began your Christian
life, it was the Holy Spirit who gave
you a new birth, you didn't produce that
yourself.
And are you thinking that the beginning was
by the Spirit and the rest of your
Christian life is not going to be by
the Spirit?
He says you are a fool.
But that's the mistake a lot of Christians
make.
And that again is because they feel, they
haven't understood God's perfect holiness.
Once we even get a little glimpse of
God's perfect holiness, we will see that we
can never attain to it even with a
lifetime of effort.
Supposing you deny yourself, take up the cross,
read the word of God every day, discipline
yourself, keep your conscience clear and pray and
seek fellowship and live what you think is
a good life.
You think that will make you attain to
God's nature?
Impossible.
Man cannot manufacture God's holiness.
This is a very important truth for us
to understand because a lot of Christians have
that idea that I have somehow got to
become pure and holy and they try and
try and try and try and never seem
to attain it and they keep trying some
people foolishly for 50 years.
Well, I would have told them right at
the beginning, you'll never attain it brother, forget
it.
But how long are you going to take
to realize that you cannot attain it?
It is God who makes us holy.
1 Thessalonians 5.23 says, may the God
of peace himself sanctify you, make you holy
as much as the forgiveness of my sins
is a free gift of God.
Holiness is also a free gift of God
because I can never manufacture holiness as much
as I cannot attain to the forgiveness of
sins.
It has to be a free gift.
But then you say, why isn't every believer
holy?
For the same reason that every sinner is
not converted.
You all know very well that forgiveness of
sins, justification is a free gift.
Is there anybody here who believes that forgiveness
of sins was a result of some work
that you did?
Not at all.
It's a free gift, 100% free.
And yet why is it that more than
90% of people in the world don't
have it?
Because even though it's free, it requires that
they turn and receive by faith.
Turn from sin towards God and receive by
faith.
Something like, if there's a man standing here
behind me offering me a free gift, say
a Bible, however much he offers it to
me, I can never receive it until I
turn around.
That's the first thing.
I turn around and second I stretch out
my hand and take it.
Only two things I have to do.
It's absolutely free.
But I cannot say that my turning around
was a work I did or my stretching
out my hands was a work I did.
None of us would be so foolish.
But as long as I keep my back
to him, I can never receive it.
As long as I don't stretch out my
hand, I can't receive it.
This turning around is repentance.
The stretching out the hand and taking is
faith.
That's all there is.
But the gift is free.
Forgiveness or holiness.
And so that's the reason why just like
90% of sinners or more than 90
% perhaps are not converted, 90% of
believers never come to a holy life.
They're always struggling.
And God waits for them to see and
realize you can never make it.
I believe that was one purpose of the
law.
God gave the law to Israel for 1500
years to teach them one thing.
One thing in 1500 years, you will never
make it.
You can try all your life, you will
not make it.
And even though God taught that lesson to
Israel for 1500 years, there are Christians who
still today feel, well, somehow I'll do it
a little better than the Israelites.
But what will be the result of your
efforts?
Like the disciples who toiled all night and
caught nothing, you will toil maybe for one
year, maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years, that
varies depending on how long you take to
realize this truth.
But finally at the end of it, you'll
get nothing.
And then you'll come to the Lord and
the Lord will say, what you sought all
night and didn't get, I will give to
you in a moment.
And he filled their boat with fish.
This is God's way.
Because if you toiled all night and brought
a load of fish to the shore, you
would glory in it.
You would compare your catch with the catch
of the next fisherman and say, I'm holier
than you.
That's exactly what happens to Christians who accomplish
a certain holiness through their own effort.
They are invariably proud of their purity, like
the Pharisees.
They look down on adulterous women, they look
down on ordinary sinners.
But a person who has received a free
gift like those disciples got on that morning
when Jesus filled their boat with fish and
they dragged such a catch as they had
never had in their whole life, they couldn't
lift up their shoulders and stretch out their
chest and say, see what I got.
No, there would be a very humble attitude
as they saw that fantastic catch of fish.
See, I had nothing to do with this.
It was all of God's grace.
And that's the mark of a genuinely holy
man.
Please remember this, my dear brothers and sisters.
A genuinely holy man is primarily, primarily a
very humble man, because he knows that there
is nothing, nothing that he has, which was
not given freely.
He didn't catch it.
It was not the result of his toiling
all night.
That is the message we have to proclaim.
Because a lot of heathen and a lot
of Christians have a wrong concept of holiness.
It's not automatic, just like forgiveness of sins
is not automatic.
I want to repeat that.
If forgiveness of sins were automatic, everybody in
the world would be saved.
If holiness were automatic, every believer would be
holy.
But we know it's not true.
It requires a response from man, because God
did not make man like the planets.
And so we see that holiness can come
only when man exercises his will to choose
what God gives.
Like I said, I have to turn around
and receive what is being offered to me
freely.
But the principle of holy living is exactly
the same as the principle of receiving forgiveness
of sins.
The Bible says, as you have received Christ,
so walk in him.
How did I receive Christ?
By simple repentance and faith.
I walk every day in the same way.
There is a lot that we have to
do.
If we stand still in the light, we
would never get any more light on our
life.
The Bible never speaks about standing still in
the light.
It speaks about walking in the light.
Walking means, for example, if I am walking
from here to Cochin, each step I take
takes me nearer to Cochin.
That's the meaning of walking.
And if I'm walking in the light, each
step I take takes me closer to God,
who is light.
And the result of that will be that
I get more light on myself.
And the clearest proof that you are walking
in the light is this.
Please listen carefully.
That you are getting light on sins in
your life, which you never thought were sins,
once upon a time.
You begin to get light on things like
being inconsiderate to the feelings of another person,
or on talking too much, dominating a conversation,
things like this which most people don't even
consider as sin.
You get light on little things, little things
which don't disturb other people.
You go to a house and you see
a postcard lying there and you pick up
and read it.
The spirit says, you shouldn't read that.
It's not addressed to you.
You know, this is holiness, where the Holy
Spirit, if you walk in the light, shows
you things which other people are not disturbed
by, which you yourself, one year ago, did
peacefully, freely, without any twinges of conscience.
But now your conscience disturbs you.
It proves that you are walking in the
light.
And so, it's very important for us, if
we are to live for the Lord and
serve Him, to understand something of God's perfect,
intense holiness.
And that's something that we see in Scripture
right from the beginning.
The Bible says in Romans chapter 11, let
me read you this verse.
Romans 11 it says, verse 22, Behold then
the kindness and the severity of God.
Behold means look carefully.
We looked a little bit yesterday evening at
the kindness and the goodness of God.
But it's not enough.
It's not something we just look at for
one evening or for one hour and finish
with.
You need to look at it carefully all
through life.
But there's another thing you need to look
at very carefully, all through life.
In fact, there are only two things it
says here.
Look carefully at the kindness of God and
look carefully at the severity of God.
Both of these we see very clearly throughout
Scripture.
From Genesis to Revelation, you will see the
kindness of God.
You see the severity of God.
For example, in Genesis 3, you read about
the fact that Adam and Eve sinned and
immediately you see, not God coming and saying
to them.
What is the first thing He tells them
after they make their excuses?
He doesn't say, well, you people are doomed
to hell.
He doesn't even tell them, the ground is
cursed for your sake before He has told
them something else.
He does tell them, the ground is cursed
and sorrow you'll bring forth and all that.
But before that, He says something else.
He says, the seed of the woman will
crush the serpent's head.
After telling them that and telling the serpent
that, then He tells them, of course, you
have to be punished.
In sorrow you'll bring forth children and the
ground is cursed for your sake.
But see the kindness first.
Human beings are not like that.
We tend to be severe first.
And if at all kind, maybe sometimes later,
but not God.
He manifested His kindness to Adam and Eve
first by telling them, yeah, you've sinned, but
I've already made a solution for it.
This hasn't caught me by surprise.
I've already made provision for it.
But then He deals in severity.
And when you come to the end of
the Bible, in the book of Revelation, you
see the tremendous goodness of God to sinners
redeemed by the blood of Jesus and how
they can spend eternity in heaven.
But then you also see in Revelation the
severity of God on sinners who refused to
listen to His word.
And so towards the end of the Bible,
it says, he who wants to be filthy,
let him be filthy.
Have you ever thought that there is a
exhortation in Scripture to be filthy?
And he who wants to be unrighteous in
Revelation 22, he wants to be unrighteous, let
him be unrighteous.
You know why it says that?
Be unrighteous.
Why does it say be filthy, be unrighteous?
The reason is, if you have come, by
the way, that is in Revelation 22, 11,
let him continue to be filthy, let him
continue to do wrong.
The reason is, if you have read this
book completely and you come to the last
paragraph almost of this book and you still
want to do wrong, then God says, go
ahead and do wrong.
You still want to be filthy, even after
coming to the end of this book, the
Lord says, then go ahead and be filthy,
there is no hope for you.
That's the meaning of that exhortation.
Because this entire book reveals God is a
God who hates wrong, who hates filthiness, who
hates sin, who is severe against sin.
And if you read all that and it
still doesn't disturb you, then there's not much
hope left for such a person and the
Lord says, go ahead and do wrong then,
go ahead and be filthy.
So we can see that this book is
meant to teach us that God is severe
and strict with sin.
And we see that in Genesis 3 as
well.
When Adam and Eve sinned, God did not
give them a second opportunity to stay in
Eden.
He told them, in the day you eat,
you will surely die.
And they died.
God didn't say, okay, well, I'll give you
another chance.
I'll let you live.
Why didn't he do that?
Because he's not only kind, he's not only
good, he's holy.
And his absolute holiness demands that he keep
his word and demands that wherever sin comes,
until an atonement is made for that sin,
however much he may love Adam and Eve,
his connection with them is broken.
There is a verse in the book of
Habakkuk, in the Old Testament, which reads like
this, Habakkuk and chapter 1 and verse 13.
O Lord, your eyes are too pure to
look upon evil.
Your eyes are too pure to look at
evil.
Even if he loved Adam and Eve intensely
as he did, because of sin, one sin,
not two sins, not 25, I wish we
would see this.
I believe if we really see it, it
will revolutionize our life and our service.
If you could see, my dear young people,
that one sin, not two, one sin was
enough to separate God from Adam and Eve,
whom he loved intensely.
And one sin is enough for God to
turn his favor and his face away from
you, even though he may love you intensely.
Many of us think, oh, well, that's just
one sin.
It's just one thing.
That's because we haven't read Genesis 3 carefully.
We have beheld the kindness of God, but
we have not beheld his severity.
And I find that is the reason why
multitudes of Christians, Christian workers, tend to take
sin very lightly.
It is with great grief, I say, that
it is rare to find in India Christian
workers who take sin seriously, every sin, little
ones, big ones.
And that's the reason why God's work through
them is limited.
They can do so many things that impress
people statistically, but in terms of quality of
the work it's pathetically shallow, impure, far below
God's standards, because the worker himself, the preacher
himself, has not understood God's holiness.
He's not understood how God looks at sin.
He's not understood that one sin was enough
to turn his face away from Adam and
Eve, and even though he loved them, he
wanted to help them.
He did everything he could for them.
He made coats with skins of animals, took
away their fig leaves.
He did all that.
And God is very good when it comes
to clothing us and feeding us and giving
us material things.
And I believe that God blesses people materially
even when they are disobedient.
Do you believe that God blesses materially those
who live in sin, with whom God is
angry?
I believe that, because God is a good
God.
As far as material things go, look at
the world and you find that He has
blessed people materially who live in sin.
Look at believers who live in sin.
They don't seem to suffer.
They are blessed materially, but not spiritually.
There's no grace upon their life, there's no
anointing upon their words.
And I tell you honestly, I would rather
have grace upon my life and anointing upon
my words, even if the price is poverty,
suffering, ridicule, misunderstanding, living in a little shack,
eating one meal a day, anything, any sacrifice
materially is worth it, if I can have
grace upon my life and an anointing upon
my ministry.
But for that, you have to take sin
seriously.
And I hope that our land will see
another generation in the coming days of young
men and women who have understood something of
the perfect holiness of God and who decide
to live with an extremely sensitive conscience, listening
to the still small voice of the Holy
Spirit when He says, don't go that way,
take this way.
You will never regret at the end of
your life if you have lived like that.
I can't say that I have lived like
that perfectly in the last 40 years.
I feel ashamed of the times when I
have not lived.
But I can say that to a great
extent I have sought, especially in the last
15-20 years, to live like that, and
they have been the best years of my
life.
And it has made the Christian life so
real.
It has made my joy in the Lord
perpetual, because joy is the result of holiness,
as much as depression and gloom are the
result of sin.
There is no gloom or depression in heaven,
because there is no sin in heaven.
And I don't want you to believe just
what I say, I'll give you a verse
for it.
If you ever find that I say something
which doesn't have scriptural support, maybe I forgot
to mention it, please come and ask me
after the meeting.
I'll give you scriptural support for it.
Hebrews 1.9. It says, God anointed Jesus
with the oil of gladness, joy, because He
loved righteousness more than others, and He hated
sin more than others.
That's the reason, mentioned in Hebrews 1.9.
And that teaches me that if I go
that way, that Jesus went, of hating sin
and loving righteousness, and it's not a question
of what other people think about me, it's
a question of what God thinks in my
inner being, whether He sees that I'm extremely
sensitive to hate sin and to love righteousness,
the reward He will give, He will anoint
me with the same oil of gladness that
Jesus had.
Not in the same measure, because He loved
righteousness and hated sin more than me, but
the same oil.
And as I learn to love righteousness and
hate sin more, that oil of gladness will
only increase in my life.
Don't seek for happiness in the Christian life
first.
Seek for holiness.
I'm sorry to say that a lot of
people who sing choruses and clap their hands
and appear very joyful in a charismatic type
of praise and worship meeting, do not experience
the anointing oil of gladness perpetually.
And the reason is, they are seeking happiness
more than holiness.
If you seek holiness, happiness will follow automatically.
When Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in
heart, the word blessed actually means happy.
Happy.
This is the secret of happiness.
Be pure in heart.
Such people will be happy.
But it's not the other way around.
It's not that if you're happy, you'll be
holy.
No.
A lot of happy people are not holy.
They're only superficially happy.
Real deep joy is a result of seeing
God's holiness and living in the light of
that.
Another clear proof of God's holiness, one I
told you was in the Garden of Eden.
Now I could give you a number of
examples under the law.
I don't have time to point out all
that to you.
But there is an instance in Exodus where
a man, after God had given the command
to keep the Sabbath day holy, a man
went out to gather sticks.
That was just to light a fire.
He didn't harm anybody.
He didn't hurt a single soul.
Maybe he loved his neighbor as himself.
But he went out to gather sticks on
the Sabbath day when God said, You mustn't
do any work.
And they came to Moses and said, What
should we do with this man?
And Moses said, Wait, let me find out
from God.
And God said, Kill him.
Amazing.
Do you behold the severity of God?
There's another verse in Deuteronomy which says, If
you have a rebellious son who just will
not listen to his parents, the parents must
bring him out to the elders of the
Israel and at the gates of the city
and stone him to death.
Well, after two or three boys were killed
like that, I can imagine that all the
other Israeli boys and girls started behaving themselves
at home.
Today, because we don't have such punishments, we
have so many rebellious boys and girls in
our homes.
I'm not saying that we should start those
punishments again, but I'm just trying to say,
Behold the severity of God.
Look at it carefully.
We haven't understood it.
We take sin so lightly.
When there's rebellion in a home, a little
child rebellious, the parents take it so lightly.
If you're a darling, you shouldn't behave like
that.
That's not the time to tell him that.
That's the time to say, You're rebellious.
You need to be taught a lesson.
It's because we haven't understood God's holiness.
Look at Calvary.
Why did the father forsake Jesus?
It was the only time that the father
ever forsook Jesus.
There was a time when Jesus told his
disciples before he went to the cross, You
will all leave me tonight, because the word
has to be fulfilled.
I will smite the shepherd and the sheep
will be scattered.
And it was true that all left him.
But he said, I'm not alone.
The father is with me.
And the father was with him all through
that night in Gethsemane, in the trial, in
Annas and Caiaphas' court, in Pilate's court, all
the way along that way of the cross.
Even on Calvary's hill, when he was being
nailed, the father was with him.
When he hung on the cross, the father
was with him.
For three hours when he hung on the
cross, the father was with him.
But then, for those last three hours, even
the father forsook him.
That's when everything became dark, like night.
That's when he cried out, because it's something
he had never experienced for thirty three and
a half years.
He had never experienced for eternity.
It was a new experience to be forsaken
by the father.
You and I have lost the fellowship with
the father so often that sometimes we don't
even realize it when we lose it.
But for Jesus, it was like life itself
going out.
For him, life was not in money, not
in comfort, not even in ministry, like it
is for many people today.
For him, life was only one thing, fellowship
with his father.
If that was gone, everything was gone.
He could never find happiness in anything else.
And that is what he struggled in Gethsemane
and saying, father, do I have to lose
fellowship with you?
That was the cup he had to drink.
Isn't there another way?
I mean, I'm willing to go through any
torture, I'm willing to go through any suffering,
but one thing, this fellowship with you, which
I've had from all eternity, do I have
to lose even that?
And it dawned on him, he could avoid
it if he wanted.
But a world would never be saved.
And I see his love for me in
Gethsemane, long before I see it on Calvary.
I see him in Gethsemane, choosing to give
up that which was his most valuable possession.
We think of his giving up the comfort
of heaven and coming to earth.
He would have lived a million years in
Nazareth for our sake.
That was nothing compared to this, which was
his most prized treasure, which he gave up.
To be a servant, to wash people's feet,
we think these are great things.
Yes, they are great.
But the greatest manifestation of his love was
when he said, father, to save him, that's
me, and you, to save her, I'm willing
to give up even this.
And he gave it up for three hours,
and at that moment he couldn't take it.
And he said, my God, it's the only
time in his life where he addressed his
father as God.
He never addressed him as God.
He taught us to address him as father.
And he always addressed him as father, but
in that moment he said, my God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?
But yet not in a spirit of rebellion.
There are some people who say, oh God,
why have you forsaken me?
He didn't say, oh God.
He said, my God.
He said, even though you have forsaken me,
you are still my God.
Till the very end you will be my
God.
That will never change.
But I can't understand why you have forsaken
me.
It was not a cry of rebellion.
It was a cry of a lack of
understanding because of the weakness of the flesh
at that moment.
When you turn to Psalm 22, you read
there that cry of the cross, prophetically mentioned
by David.
My God, my God, why has thou forsaken
me?
Psalm 22.1. Oh my God, I cry
by day.
Verse 2.
Thou dost not answer.
And by night.
Those are the three hours that he went
through on the cross of night.
And I have no rest.
And here is the answer.
The answer is in verse 3.
Yet thou art holy.
That's why he was forsaken.
Because at that moment, he was taking upon
himself the guilt of the entire human race.
And even if that guilt had been only
one sin, supposing there was only one man
who had sinned and he had committed only
one sin and all the others were holy,
Jesus would have come and died for that
one sin.
That is the punishment for one sin or
millions and millions of sins.
But there we see that even Jesus, whom
the Father loved from all eternity, even Jesus,
the Father forsook him and turned away.
He was of purer eyes, like we read
in Habakkuk, than to look at sin.
And there the sin of the world was
upon Jesus on Calvary.
And it didn't matter to the Father that
it was not his sin.
It was other people's sin.
God made him to be sin for us,
who knew no sin.
Because that is the only way we could
become the righteousness of God in him.
And even though the Father knew this is
not his sin, this is the sin of
other people, his eyes are so pure, he
couldn't look and he was forsaken.
The punishment for sin is not physical death.
Everybody dies physically.
The punishment for sin is spiritual death.
In other words, hell.
What is hell?
Hell is not just a lake of fire.
It is a place where there is no
presence of God.
In this world there is a presence of
God, which blesses even unbelievers.
But in hell we can say that is
the one truly God-forsaken place in the
universe.
Hell is not a geographical location.
It is to be forsaken by God primarily.
That is hell.
And that's why Jesus experienced hell for three
hours on the cross.
Because that's the punishment for sin.
The hell that you and I are supposed
to go to, he suffered for three hours.
And that's why he said, my God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?
That was hell.
And he experienced it because God, who is
a holy God, could not look upon any
sin.
And that proves to us that if God
could not look upon sin when it was
found in his own son, his firstborn, his
only begotten, how can he look at you
and me if there is the slightest trace
of sin in our life?
Do you think he can?
He cannot.
And there we see the foolishness of thinking
that if I'm a little better than other
believers in my church, God is pleased with
me.
Rubbish!
Garbage!
He cannot look at you if there is
the slightest, slightest trace of sin, consciously or
unconsciously in your life.
How then can God look at us?
That's why he has to clothe us with
the righteousness of Christ.
Otherwise we could never stand in his presence.
It's not enough to be forgiven.
Let's say I accept Christ today and my
entire past life is forgiven.
Every single sin of thought, word, deed, attitude,
motive is blotted out and I'm completely forgiven.
You think that qualifies me to stand before
God?
No, because there is still a lot of
sin in my life.
I've been a believer forty years now, there
is still sin in my life.
Unconscious, most of it unconscious, but I still
can't stand before God.
And that's why today I need to have
the righteousness of Christ clothing me as much
as I needed it the day I was
born again, forty years ago.
That's why justification is so important.
Not just forgiveness, but that Christ has clothed
me with his righteousness and then I stand
in Christ.
And when I stand in Christ before the
Father, I am accepted in Christ.
That is why we are told every time
we pray, to pray in the name of
Jesus.
Not, well Lord, I served you now for
so many years, can't you do this for
me?
No, but in the merit and the righteousness
of Jesus, like we sing in that song,
I stand complete in him.
He is all my righteousness.
I stand complete, perfect in him, accepted, because
God is a holy God.
There is no other way I could be
accepted when I was converted.
There's no other way I'll be accepted when
I finish my earthly course and get to
the gates of heaven.
Even if I've lived a perfect life, faithful
from the day I was converted and served
God sacrificially for fifty, sixty, seventy years, when
I stand before the Lord, I have to
say, I am a condemned sinner, but Jesus
died for me.
That qualifies me for God's presence.
Nothing else.
Not my faithful service, not my years of
walking in obedience.
Once we understand the holiness of God, these
things will be clear.
God cannot look at sin.
But this also teaches us another thing, and
that is that even though I'm clothed in
the righteousness of Christ, if God sees inwardly
that my attitude towards sin is one like,
well, if I'm clothed in the righteousness of
Christ, it doesn't matter how I live, then
God sees that I'm not really repentant.
You know what repentance means?
Turning around to God away from sin.
And it's possible for a believer who has
turned around away from sin to God, once
he realizes the goodness of God and once
he's realized he's clothed with the righteousness of
Christ, after a while, particularly when he sees
that when he does a few things wrong,
God doesn't punish him immediately, then he begins
to take those sins lightly.
Have you found that in your life?
That certain things like lusting with your eyes
and telling a small lie, or getting angry
and not apologizing after one has fallen in
that area, were sins that you took very
seriously when you were first converted some years
ago.
But now you have begun to take some
of them lightly.
I want to say, you're going in a
dangerous direction.
You should be more sensitive today than you
were when you were first converted.
Why is it you have begun to take
these things lightly?
The answer is in Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and
verse 11.
It says, because punishment against a sin is
not executed immediately by God, therefore the sons
of men give themselves to sin.
In other words, the reason why you're sinning
is because God doesn't punish you immediately.
Supposing every time you lusted with your eyes,
you became a little blind, and the next
time you lusted with your eyes, a little
more blind, and the next time you lusted
with your eyes a little more blind, I
tell you, you'll get victory over lusting with
the eyes within two or three days.
What you haven't got in 20 years.
If every time you got angry or told
a lie, your tongue got a little paralyzed,
and the next time you told a lie,
you found a little more of your tongue
gets paralyzed, you'll finish with telling lies and
anger within a day.
You know, people say, brother, my father had
a bad temper and I've inherited it.
What to do?
I'm still struggling with it after 10 years.
It's all rubbish.
If your tongue started getting paralyzed, you'd finish
with it in one day.
It's because you don't take sin seriously, because
the punishment does not come immediately.
Every time you have a bitterness against someone,
if you suddenly get chest pain and your
ECG shows changes in the rhythm of your
heart, I tell you, you'd get rid of
bitterness very quickly.
But because your ECG is normal, even though
you got bitterness and everything is okay, you
continue.
Judgment doesn't come immediately.
I tell you, if judgment came immediately upon
every sin, the world would be full of
holy people.
Christianity would be full of holy people.
But that is where God tests us.
Will you fear me and live a holy
life even when I don't punish you immediately?
It doesn't mean the punishment won't come.
One day at the judgment seat of God,
we'll have to give an account for every
outburst of temper, every time we lusted with
our eyes, every lie we spoke, every bitterness,
every jealousy.
Nothing has escaped God's notice.
We'll have to give an account for it
one day.
The man who fears God and knows God's
holiness lives today in the light of that
day.
People seek to be baptized in the Holy
Spirit.
They think it is a baptism in a
noisy spirit.
Is it called noisy spirit or holy spirit?
Excitable spirit or holy spirit?
I'm not against noise.
I'm not against emotion.
But never forget that God has given that
name, Holy Spirit.
If it is a baptism in the Holy
Spirit, it should make us holy.
It did that for me.
The Holy Spirit gave me many other things,
but it was holiness.
So my brothers and sisters, do you know
what Christendom needs to see in India?
Do you know what our land needs to
see?
People who have seen the holiness of God
and live in the light of it.
Let's pray.
God has spoken to your heart and I
believe he has.
I want to invite you to respond to
the word of God that you have heard.
Open your being and say, Lord, give me
a new vision of your holiness like Isaiah
saw of the seraphim covering their faces and
covering their feet and saying, Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord of hosts.
Heavenly Father, we pray you will give us
such a vision that will change our lives.
We ask in Jesus name.