We know that it's easy for a Christian
to backslide.
We have seen so many examples around us,
and we have seen how easy that is
in our own life as well, if we
are honest.
If we read the letters of the Lord
to the seven churches in the book of
Revelation, only two of the churches and their
leaders, it was actually to the leaders of
the churches, had not backslidden, and that was
in the first century.
You know, people speak about the first century
church, but the first century church in Revelation
is in a pretty pathetic state.
What started out so well on the day
of Pentecost, in those immediate years after the
day of Pentecost, came to a very sad
state of affairs by the time of the
end of the first century, when John the
Apostle was writing to them.
And the significant thing there, which I have
often mentioned, is that the message to the
leader is the message to the church, because
the church has become like the leader.
And this is a fact, whether we like
it or not, we have to face.
If you have a godly, humble man as
the leader and shepherd of a church or
a movement, it will produce godly, humble people
who follow in that way.
If you have a man who loves money
and who loves honor, and for whom the
Christian ministry is a profession rather than a
calling, it will produce people also like that,
for whom the Christian ministry is a profession
or a calling.
And that's what we learn from those letters
to the seven churches.
It's easy for a leader to backslide.
And when a leader backslides, the church backslides,
the movement backslides, the organization backslides.
And the sad thing is, there may not
be anybody around to rebuke the leader, to
correct the leader.
In those days, there was at least one
John who could hear what the Lord was
saying and who had a care for the
leaders of these churches to tell them.
They were called the messengers of the churches.
The Lord said to John, write to the
messenger of the church in Ephesus, you have
left your first love.
Write to the messenger of the church in
Stardust, you have a name that you are
alive but you are dead.
Write to the messenger of the church in
Thyatira, you are allowing your false prophetess to
lead people astray in that church.
Write to the messenger of the church in
Laodicea, you are lukewarm.
I wish you were cold out in the
world rather than lukewarm.
And John wrote that.
John wrote a letter to all those people
saying, this is what the Lord thinks of
you.
If we have a brother like that to
tell us, we are extremely fortunate.
But that's not easy to find nowadays.
And so it's because such people who will
tell us the truth about our spiritual condition
are rare, it's easy for a leader to
backslide.
Please remember that in all the rebukes that
the Lord gave to the five churches there,
never once does he say, you are not
evangelizing enough, your outreach programs are not as
much as they should be, you are not
active enough in my work, in fact in
some places he says you are very active,
but you have left your first love.
In all those cases, his rebukes were to
their character, and not aimed at their activity.
And that's a lesson we must remember because
that's where we drift.
And sometimes we can drift in our character
and substitute activity for that drift, and we
have a bad conscience, and we try to
cover up that bad conscience by more work,
and that's not the answer.
So I turn to 2 Corinthians 11 to
look at a verse which tells us, when
can we say that we have gone astray,
or we are beginning to go astray, because
if we detect our going astray at the
beginning itself, then there is great hope that
we don't discover it years later, and there
is no apostle like John around to write
us a strong letter rebuking us, and we
say we are messengers to the churches, you
know those churches I mentioned in Revelation, they
were messengers to the churches, they were always
occupied with sharing the word, sharing the word,
Lord what is the word for your people
this Sunday, and what is the word for
your people this Wednesday, and then sit down
with their books, or whatever they had those
days on Saturdays to prepare the message for
Sundays, and in all of that they could
not hear what was the Lord's word to
their own heart.
They were the messengers to the churches, but
they couldn't hear what the Lord was saying
to them, and why couldn't they hear what
the Lord was saying to them?
They were not living under the Old Testament,
in the Old Testament you could not hear
what the Lord was saying to you, you
had to go to a prophet, even the
kings had to go to Elisha or somebody
and say please find out what the Lord
is saying, and Elisha would say wait 2
-3 days, or even Zedekiah the king would
go to Jeremiah, and say what is the
Lord saying, and Jeremiah said wait I will
tell you, and after 3 days he would
tell him, but that was Old Testament, now
in the New Testament it says they shall
not teach every man their neighbor, saying know
the Lord, Hebrews 8, 10 and 11, but
they shall all know me.
So those messengers of the churches, if they
could hear the Lord's message for other people,
why couldn't they hear it for themselves?
Please remember this brothers and sisters, it is
easier to hear what the Lord has to
say to other people, than to hear what
the Lord has to say to us.
But if I don't hear what the Lord
has to say to me, first of all,
what I say to others will gradually lead
me to the place where I am a
professional preacher, and God hasn't called us to
be professional preachers, He has called us to
be His mouthpieces, and we must first hear
what the Lord has to say to us.
So I think of this verse in 2
Corinthians 11 and verse 3, Paul says I
am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve
by his craftiness.
There are two things that the serpent does,
one is persecute us, the other is deceive
us.
If we read in Revelation 13, that the
serpent, anyway some chapter 11 or chapter 12
or 13 I don't remember, the serpent persecuted
the dragon, sent a flood of water, persecuted
the woman, and sent a flood of water
after her, and then persecuted those who were
her seed, the seed of the woman who
held to the testimony of Jesus, and obeyed
the commandments of God.
There we read of the serpent persecuting, but
in the beginning of the Bible we read
of the serpent deceiving, and I feel it
is more dangerous when the serpent deceives.
Persecution has never in any country, in any
generation, led the church to backsliding.
Persecution has always purified the church.
For many many years I have preached and
I have believed, that one day, the Lord
will allow in India, an anti-Christian government.
I preached that 20 years ago, and I
said, I believe that, I don't know when,
but I believe that the Lord knows, a
time is going to come when, the church
in India has to be purified, and that
purification will not come merely through, conventions and
messages and preaching.
We respond very lazily, to such ministries, but
the Lord will do a quick work, by
permitting persecution, and suffering for His people, and
if we hear what the Lord is saying
in this time, I believe we need to
prepare our people in our churches, to be
faithful in the time of persecution, to be
faithful to the name of Jesus.
In some places where you work that is
already happening, but in many other parts of
India we don't have that persecution yet, but
it will come, it will begin, there is
no doubt about it, and in that day,
if we have not prepared our people, then
they will not be able to stand, then
we would have failed in our responsibility.
We must not live as people who are
just thinking of today, our calling is to
prepare people for tomorrow, for the future, and
for that we have to listen to what
the Lord is saying.
So the serpent deceives, and he says, I
am afraid that your mind should be led
astray, and here is where we find that
expression, led astray, from simplicity and purity of
devotion to Christ.
There are some lovely words there, simplicity, purity,
devotion to Jesus Christ.
There is a lot of difference, dear brothers,
from being devoted to Christ, and devoted to
his work.
There is a lot of difference.
It is like a wife who is devoted
to her husband, and who is devoted to
her home, and who may not have much
interest in her husband, but she does a
first class job as a homemaker.
I don't think any husband would be happy
with such a wife.
Yes, a wife must be devoted to making
a home, but it must be next to
being devoted to her husband.
It must flow from her devotion to her
husband.
When, for myself, what I see from this
verse, is that when my devotion to Jesus
Christ, to the person of Christ, begins to
come down, I have already started being led
astray by the serpent.
And if you will keep that as a
standard in your life, I believe it will
help you.
However active you may be, however blessed your
work may be, when in your personal life,
your devotion to Jesus Christ, the fervent love
that you had for Christ once upon a
time, when probably you did not do much
in terms of activity, when that fervent love
has gone, and your relationship with the Lord
is not one of love and devotion, because
you are so busy, you have so many
things to do.
I want to say to you, please remember,
the serpent has already led you astray.
Not into sin, you may have a good
life and a good testimony, but when the
serpent suggested something to Eve, he did not
tell her to slap her husband, or kick
him, or kill him, or speak rudely to
him.
Those things would have been obvious sin.
He told her something which looked so innocent.
What is wrong, he says, in knowing the
difference between good and evil?
You tell me, brothers and sisters, what is
wrong in knowing the difference between good and
evil?
I am not asking you to do evil.
I am just asking you to know the
difference between good and evil.
Isn't that a good thing?
Take from this tree which will tell you
the difference between good and evil.
And Eve said, yeah, that sounds reasonable.
You know, it doesn't look as if it
is anything wrong.
That is how he led her astray.
He does not lead us into obvious sin,
but to something less than God's highest, something
which our reason may say is all right,
but our spirit is still uneasy.
Have you ever found situations like that, where
you use your reason, and reason says, yeah,
there is nothing wrong with that, and yet
when you consider doing it, your spirit says
no.
And you can't find any reason why you
can't do it.
I want to encourage you in such moments,
listen to your spirit.
Don't listen to your reason.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and don't lean on your understanding.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Go by what your heart says, and don't
lean on your understanding.
And it says in Proverbs 3, verse 5
and 6, He will direct your paths.
In all your ways, acknowledge Him.
How do you acknowledge Him?
By listening to what your heart says, not
by listening to what your reason says.
That's how the serpent led Eve astray.
And so we can be occupied with something
which is good, Christian work, and our devotion
to Jesus is gone.
So, in order to preserve our devotion to
Jesus, just like a young girl who is
engaged or in love with some young man
whom she has met, and she wants to
know everything about that man, about his interests,
and how he spends his time, and what
he lives for, and all about his life,
and all about his history.
I believe that if we are devoted to
Jesus, we will want to know Him better.
Everything about Him.
I want to encourage you to make the
study of the life of Jesus on earth
your passion.
Because the Bible says, we must follow the
example of Him.
He gave us an example that we must
follow in His steps, Peter says.
You know the apostles were taken up with
this.
Thirty years after the day of Pentecost, Peter
writes in 1 Peter 2, verse 21, Christ
suffered for you, leaving you an example for
you to follow in His steps, who committed
no sin, and like we were considering yesterday
evening, and in whose mouth no lie was
found.
In His mouth never was a lie found.
And it says here, follow His example, who
when He was reviled did not revile in
return, and so on.
So we read here that Peter says, Jesus
Christ has left us an example for us
to follow in His steps.
I need to discover what those steps are.
John, writing in 1 John 2, 60 years
after the day of Pentecost, writes like this,
1 John 2, verse 6, The one who
says he abides in Christ ought to walk
in the same manner as He walked.
Or as the living Bible puts it, anyone
who says he is a Christian, should live
as Jesus lived.
And I want to say this, that for
myself, this has been, I would say the
greatest passion of my own life, to live
as Jesus lived.
And my service for the Lord, whatever I
do is secondary.
It has to flow out from a passion
to live as Jesus lived.
And when we seek to live as Jesus
lived, we are not going to sit in
a monastery, just praying, because Jesus did not
live in a monastery praying.
He was not in a monastery even for
one day.
He spent thirty years in a home, and
working in a carpentry shop, and then He
spent three and a half years in such
active ministry, sometimes not finding enough time to
eat, not finding enough time to sleep, sometimes
praying all night, traveling one hundred miles, sometimes
to help one needy soul.
To live as Jesus lived is going to
be a very active life.
It is not going to be just sitting
alone in the room and praying and studying
the Bible.
Far from it.
It is going to be a blessing to
people.
It is going to be a life where
we may not have time enough to eat
or sleep, but we will spend our earthly
days being a blessing.
So, don't think that when we seek to
understand how to live as Jesus lived, that
we will have no ministry.
That is impossible.
We will have a more effective ministry than
we have right now.
Can you have more effective ministry than Jesus
Himself had?
So, if our passion is to live as
Jesus lived, to find that right balance between
devotion to the Father which He had and
service to people, we will be all right.
But when that devotion to Jesus is gone,
then our ministry becomes just an activity.
It becomes a dead work.
And when I look at the life of
Jesus who was the light of the world
and who calls us to be the light
of the world, I find one thing.
There are many, many things that we could
talk about, but one thing I thought of
which I wanted to share this morning was
He demonstrated by His life what heaven's values
were.
Think of that.
Is your life demonstrating what heaven's values are?
That's the challenge that comes to me in
my relationship with people, in the way I
deal with money.
Am I demonstrating what heaven's values are?
For example, you know this statement that Paul
made to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 6.
He uses an expression in verse 12.
Fight the good fight of faith and take
hold of eternal life to which you were
called.
You know, we have a mind which thinks
very logically.
2 plus 2 is 4, 3 plus 3
is 6.
And, you know, organized, systematic way of thinking.
But the life of God is not something
we can organize.
The work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said
the work of the Holy Spirit is like
the wind.
You can't put the wind inside a box.
You can't predict where it will blow tomorrow,
where it is going to go.
You can't say anything.
He says everyone really led by the Spirit,
born of the Spirit, will be like that.
So, eternal life also, many Christians have thought
of it like this.
I accept Jesus Christ and I've got eternal
life.
I've got it.
Now it's there.
Now it's there forever.
Then what does this verse mean?
Take hold of eternal life?
What is eternal life?
The best definition is the one Jesus himself
gave in John 17 verse 3.
This is eternal life, he said.
Not that they might live forever.
Even people who go to hell live forever.
This is eternal life that they might know
you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom you have sent.
So what is eternal life?
Let us get rid of our old concepts
of eternal life and take the definition which
Jesus gave.
Eternal life is to know God.
Eternal life is to know Jesus Christ personally.
To know more what his values are.
And Paul says to Timothy, get a hold
of that.
Get a hold of the values which Jesus
had in his life and take hold of
it and fight the fight of faith to
renounce everything else you are holding on to
and take hold of eternal life.
You see, I can't take hold of eternal
life if I don't fight the good fight
because there are so many other things in
the world that are tempting me to live
hold of them.
Do you think if the devil could tempt
even Jesus Christ with the glory of this
world, saying, I will give you all the
glory of this world if you will bow
down to me, you think he won't tempt
us with that?
You think I am such a great spiritual
man that the devil cannot tempt me anymore
with the glory of the world?
The one who thinks like that is going
to be deceived by the devil into the
glory of the world.
I want to say, my brothers and sisters,
till the end of our earthly lives we
will be tempted by the world.
It's not only when we are babies that
we are tempted by the world, spiritual babies.
Have you noticed this?
In 1 John chapter 2, I don't know
whether you have noticed the connection here, I
just want to show you something.
1 John 2, verse 12, I am writing
to you little children, that is, spiritual babes.
Verse 13, I am writing to you fathers,
those who are spiritually mature.
In the middle of verse 13, I am
writing to you young men, those who are
neither babies nor fathers, who are in between.
Again, the last part of verse 13, I
am writing to you children, those who are
small.
I am writing to you fathers, verse 14,
in the middle of verse 14, young men.
He writes to three groups of people, those
who are just beginning their Christian life, who
are babes, those who have grown up a
little, and those who are mature fathers.
And to all three of them, what does
he say?
Verse 15, Do not love the world, nor
the things that are in the world.
Fathers?
Is it only for children?
I am writing to you fathers.
Don't love the world.
Is there ever going to come a time
in our life, where we are not going
to be tempted by the things of the
world, by the values of this world?
Never.
I will tell you what I have seen
in these last 39 years.
I have seen people who, in their first
years after they were converted, when they were
radically converted and became disciples, they really didn't
love the world.
They forsook everything.
And they wanted to live for Jesus, detached
from all the sense of world's values.
And I have observed some of these people,
many of these people, as they have grown
on, they have gone on to, in terms
of activity and work, doing bigger things for
the Lord, but in terms of the world,
they have become more worldly.
That initial sense of detachment from the things
of the world is gone.
It should have been, they should have been
more detached when they were 50 than when
they were 20.
But they are not.
They are more attached to the world when
they were 50.
They were far better off when they were
20.
Isn't that sad?
Why?
Because their devotion to Christ is gone.
They did not make their life's passion to
study how Jesus lived.
They started like that, and they were gripped
by that when they were in their early
20s.
But as time went on, they did not
have good role models in front of them.
They looked at other Christian leaders who were
living comfortable lives, and they said, Yeah, one
day, if I am faithful, I will no
longer be struggling.
I will also live a comfortable life.
And finally they achieved it.
Achieved what?
They went down, like all those other examples
they had in front of them, went down.
And so Peter says, Jesus has given you
an example.
He went down.
Till his last day on earth, he lived
in simplicity, detached from the things of the
world, nothing on earth, no comfort, no ease
had any attraction for him.
The devil told him, I am sure he
told him many, many times, I will give
you everything this world offers, if you bow
down to me a little bit.
And from that, I learned something.
I can get the things of the world,
the honor and the glory of this world,
only by bowing the knee to Satan somewhere
in my life.
Others may not know it, but it is
very easy, dear brothers and sisters, for us
to bow the knee to Satan, to just
compromise a little bit somewhere, to have the
world's sense of values, because this is a
mental thing.
It's not something, I don't change the color
of my shirt when I become worldly.
I mean, that may be a much later
stage.
But it begins as a mental thing.
You know, the world is in our mind.
And that is very clearly proved in Romans
12 too.
Do not be conformed to the world.
What's the rest of that verse?
But be transformed by the renewing of your
mind.
So, where is the world?
Where is the conformity to the world?
In the mind.
Where is the transformation into the likeness of
Christ?
In the mind.
The mind, think like the world thinks, but
be transformed to think like Jesus thinks.
In Colossians 1 and verse 9, it
says here, we pray for you, in the
last part of verse 9, that you may
be filled with the knowledge of His will
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
You know, it's very interesting when you read
through Paul's letters and you see the things
he prayed for people.
This is one of those examples.
Many times in the episodes, if you want
a good Bible study, you could study through
the prayers of the Apostle Paul to Romans,
Philippians, Colossians.
See, what does he pray for?
Many of these people were extremely poor and
he never once prays that they'll be materially
rich.
He never even prays that they will escape
persecution.
He's always praying some spiritual thing for them,
that they will be filled with the Holy
Spirit or have an understanding of God's will
or become perfect in Christ.
These were the type of things he prays
for.
So different from the prayers of many Christians
and the prayers of many Christian leaders for
their congregations.
And here's one of the things he says,
I pray that you may be filled with
the knowledge of His will in all spiritual
wisdom and understanding.
That is a paraphrase of the New Testament
written by a man called J.B. Phillips.
And in one of the earlier versions of
that paraphrase, that was also revised, but one
of the earlier versions, which it said like
this, this verse is paraphrased like this, that
you may look at things from God's viewpoint.
I pray that you may see things or
look at things from God's viewpoint.
That's a wonderful thing.
That's what it means.
To understand His will in all spiritual wisdom
and understanding means to be able to see
things from God's viewpoint.
That is the great need if you are
to be a true servant of God, to
look into a situation, to look into people
the way God is looking at that.
Then you'll be able to find a solution
to it.
And so, the honor of this world, I
was talking about that.
Let me turn back to 1 Timothy 6.
Fight the good fight of faith, take hold
of eternal life.
Verse 13, 1 Timothy 6.13, I charge
you in the presence of God, who gives
life to all things, and of Christ Jesus,
who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate.
What was that good confession before Pontius Pilate,
which was such an important confession that Paul
quotes it to Timothy?
That confession is found in John chapter 18
and verse 36.
Jesus answered Pilate and said to him, My
kingdom is not of this world.
If my kingdom were of this world, then
my servants would be fighting.
As we look at the life of Jesus,
we find that His whole life He demonstrated
that His kingdom was not of this world.
And that's what many of the disciples couldn't
understand.
They wondered why He never wanted to be
a king?
Why He did not use His power to
destroy the Romans or destroy the Pharisees?
Why He would allow people to speak evil
of Him and He would only forgive them?
All the time, His whole way of life
demonstrated, My kingdom is not of this world.
I don't fight according to the principles of
this world.
I don't live according to the values of
this world.
I don't fight for earthly things.
If my kingdom were of this world, then
my servants would be fighting.
Then I should not be delivered up to
the Jews.
So, a Christian is called, particularly those who
are in leadership, are called to demonstrate by
their life, by their whole way of life,
that people who look at your life should
be able to see that you do not
live for this world.
You do not fight for earthly things.
You allow people to take advantage of you
as far as earthly things go, because you
spend your life fighting for spiritual things.
That's a very important principle.
When we look at the life of Jesus,
we see that this is how He lived.
He demonstrated Heaven's values in the different situations
He found Himself in.
When Peter would take out a sword to
cut off the soldier's ear in Gethsemane, Jesus
would pick up that ear from the ground
and put it back and heal him and
demonstrated, I'm not here to fight.
I'm not here to cut off your ear.
I have come to bless you.
Even if you hurt me, I want to
bless you.
That is our calling.
Jesus said in Luke chapter 16, Luke's gospel
chapter 16, He said to the Pharisees, verse
14, Now the Pharisees who were lovers of
money were listening to these things.
Now there we can pause a moment and
think.
There was nobody in Israel who knew the
scriptures as much as the Pharisees.
They knew every little commandment, every little law,
every little detail, and yet they were lovers
of money.
Is it possible for a man who knows
the scriptures well, who preaches from the scriptures,
to be a lover of money?
Yes.
The Pharisees are proof of it.
And in two thousand years, we have more
than enough proof of that in Christendom.
You can be a religious leader.
Pharisees were religious leaders, but they were lovers
of money.
There didn't seem to be any connection between
their religion and their attitude to money.
These were in two different compartments.
Their religious activity was one thing, and their
love of money was another thing.
In their love of money, they were just
like any worldly businessman.
But the worldly businessman had no time for
religious activity, but these Pharisees had time for
religious activity.
Now when a Christian worker puts these two
in two separate compartments, that means his love
of money is just like that of his
unconverted relatives, and then of course he's also
got religious activity, he can only be a
Pharisee.
But when we follow Jesus, these things cannot
be put separately.
My knowledge of God has to change my
attitude to money, to material things, to the
honor of this world.
If it has not, something is wrong.
You know when the Lord came to the
house of Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus said, half my
money I give to the poor, Jesus said,
salvation has come to this house.
Did he check up whether Zacchaeus believed all
the correct doctrines?
Today we check up a person's doctrines and
say salvation has come.
But Jesus knew that it was not just
checking up on doctrines.
If a man's doctrine on money is not
right, whatever other doctrines you check up, it's
not enough.
But when he said, whatever I have cheated
others I'm going to give back four times,
half my money I give to the poor,
Jesus said, salvation has come.
And when another rich man refused to part
with his money, Jesus said, sorry salvation has
not come.
He was correct in all his doctrines, otherwise.
See Jesus checked up very much on the
doctrine of money.
The doctrine which is not found in usually
in all the fundamental statements of the faith,
of all different organizations.
Everything else is there, God is the Trinity,
Jesus is the Son of God, we believe
in the sinless life of Jesus, his substitutionary
death, his resurrection, everything else.
But I've never found a statement which contains,
and we also believe that a man should
not love money, if he has to be
a disciple of Jesus Christ.
That is never found anywhere, because if that
is a statement, how many people will honestly
be able to sign it?
And then Jesus said to these people, verse
15, you are those who justify yourself in
the sight of men, but God knows your
hearts.
Do you know what a tremendous desire there
is in all of us, to justify ourselves
in the sight of men?
To somehow prove to others, God is blessing
my work, I am a faithful servant of
God.
Don't believe what these other people say, I
am a faithful servant of God.
Whose opinion do you want?
Those men?
What the Lord showed me from that verse
was, if you try to prove to others,
that you are a faithful servant of God,
you are making those men your God.
You are worshipping their opinion.
You must not worship the opinion of any
man, if you are a servant of God.
What does God think about your work, and
your labor, and your life?
That is enough.
It doesn't matter what people think.
Can you honestly say that, dear brothers and
sisters?
Can you honestly say?
It doesn't matter one bit to you, what
people think.
Particularly, worldly, preachers and leaders.
I think I would be concerned, to know
what a godly man thinks, because a godly
man, may be able to give me, a
little insight into my life, which I may
not have otherwise.
That I would value very highly.
I mean, if John or Peter or Paul,
or someone like that was around, I think
I would seek a lot of fellowship with
such a man, so that I can have
some insight into my life.
But the average person today, and the average
Christian leader today, they don't have to bother
about their opinion, because they don't have discernment.
They can only evaluate your work.
They will evaluate you by your work, and
not by your sense of values.
And Jesus said, you are those who justify
yourself in the sight of men, but God
knows your hearts.
And then this statement, that which is highly
esteemed among men, is detestable or an abomination.
The King James Version says, an abomination in
God's eyes.
Think of that little expression.
That which men value highly, is an abomination
before God.
I'll give you one example of what, in
the Old Testament was called an abomination.
In the Old Testament, in the book of
Deuteronomy, the Lord said to his people, through
Moses, when they were out in the wilderness,
he said, when any of you is going
out to answer the calls of nature, take
a spade with you, so that you dig,
and when you have finished what you have
done, cover it up.
Because the Lord should not see any abomination,
in the midst of the camp of Israel.
Abomination.
That filthy thing that comes out of our
bodies, we cover up, we flush it down
the toilet, today.
The Lord says it's an abomination.
Okay, now, picture that as an abomination, and
here it says, that which men value highly,
is an abomination, in God's eyes.
What are the things that men value highly,
education, culture, smartness, cleverness, wealth,
property, big buildings, impressive structures, impressive
organizations.
Flush it down the toilet, the Lord says,
these have no value in God's eyes.
You can have them, or you may not
have them.
It's just the same.
These have no value.
When you, I'm not saying we shouldn't have
these things.
I'm saying when you place a value on
these things, then you have gone astray.
These are all big and great in the
eyes of men.
When you preach, my brothers and sisters, how
do you preach to people?
Do you preach, like some preachers do today,
with great philosophical words, and some words I
can't even understand.
I'm a little educated, but I can't even
understand some of the things which, there are
all types of new, new words, used in
this 20th century by preachers, which I can't
understand.
Or do you preach like Jesus, simply, to
the hearts of people, without trying to impress
them with all your fantastic knowledge, and quoting
this person, and quoting that person, and quoting
the other book which you have read, and
that authority, and this authority, and the other
one.
That which is great in the eyes of
men, is an abomination in God's eyes.
It's not just neutral.
If it were neutral, okay, God doesn't mind
it.
It's not neutral.
It has to be flushed down the toilet.
In other words, after you use the toilet,
flush it.
Don't just leave it there.
That's what the Lord says.
Get rid of this from your life.
Don't just keep it there.
I mean, if you have a painting on
your wall in your house, okay, that's neutral.
But, if you leave your toilet unflushed, that's
not in the same category.
In which category is this thing, this trying
to impress people with all this fantastic language.
It's not like a painting on the wall.
It's like an unflushed toilet in your life.
Get rid of it, the Lord says.
It's an abomination in God's eyes.
That which is great in the eyes of
men.
Do you understand what is great in God's
eyes?
Do you think God is impressed by all
this cleverness and philosophical language and words?
Don't follow the example of such preachers.
Make Jesus your example.
One of the first things I did in
my life when I became a Christian and
started preaching was to make a study of
the preaching of Jesus.
How he preached.
And I said, Lord, help me to preach
like you preached.
I don't want to make any earthly preacher
my example.
Jesus preached.
There is enough examples in the scriptures.
Let me study that.
How he made things so clear and so
simple that even a child could understand.
He spoke to people once for one or
two hours when they were walking to Emmaus
from, I don't know how long it was,
that journey, but at the end of it,
they said their hearts burned within them when
they heard him.
Their hearts would not have burned within them
if he had talked to them in all
high-sounding language.
He spoke to their hearts.
And that should be our longing, that we
can be mouthpieces of God, that we deliberately
get rid of all that the world considers
great.
We don't want to impress people by the
greatness of our organization or the greatness of
our work or the smartness of my personality.
I mean, if you are smart, well, that's
good, but don't think that has any value
before God.
That's all I'm saying.
It's good to sing well, but don't think
that by singing well alone, God's work can
be done.
God's work is done by the power of
the Holy Spirit.
And if you can't sing well, you can
still serve God.
I don't know whether all the apostles were
good singers, but I'm sure they were humble
people.
God used them.
That's the main thing.
What is heaven's values?
Is it good-looking people, clever people?
If that was heaven's values, then as soon
as we are born again, we should become
good-looking and we should become smart and
clever, but we are not.
We remain the same and most of God's
people are not very good-looking.
It's true.
All the good-looking people are out in
the cinema world.
They are serving the devil.
And most of God's people are not all
so clever.
All the brilliant scientists in the world are
not God's people.
Many of them are atheists and unbelievers.
You think it was difficult for God to
make all of us clever?
Not at all.
But God is seeking to demonstrate through us
in this world that that which is big
and great in the eyes of men has
no value in His eyes at all.
And Jesus' earthly life was a demonstration of
that.
He was only a carpenter and a very
simple...
and He called people who were living in
very...
working in very simple ordinary professions.
Do you think you can make an impact
in your society if some film star gets
converted and comes to your church and you
suddenly make him an elder brother in your
church because he is a well-known film
star?
What is your understanding?
It happens in Christendom.
Just because this fellow was a converted film
star we think that he has become spiritual
now.
No.
It doesn't mean a thing.
This is...
The man is great in the world.
You think Jesus is dependent on these converted
film stars to let His kingdom go forward?
No.
There is so much of this type of
thinking in Christian circles that we impress people
by the things worldly people seek...
do to impress.
And unless we get this out of our
mind we've got to flush it down the
toilet.
It's an abomination in God's eyes.
I say, Lord, it is Christ-likeness which
God values.
It's Christ-likeness.
That's what God is looking for.
Anything in your life...
And I've just taken a few examples.
Money.
Do you think that more money means God's
blessing more?
It's not true.
Till...
If you seek the kingdom of God first
and His righteousness, what we need will be
added to us.
To have far more than we need is
not always a blessing.
It's extremely dangerous.
The world places value on...
Sometimes I've felt it's good for believers to
make a list of all the things in
your life which the world places value on.
Make a list of it.
And all of us have some things which
the world also appreciates.
And I'm not saying we've got to get
rid of them.
There are some things we cannot get rid
of.
For example, if you're a handsome man, what
can you do?
You don't have to cut up your face
to make yourself look ugly.
That's stupidity.
That's Hinduism.
That's not Christianity.
All I'm saying is don't place a value
on it.
For example, if you're intelligent.
I don't pretend that I'm dumb.
I'm not dumb.
God has given me a certain measure of
intelligence and I don't try to get rid
of it.
But I do say, Lord, I don't place
any value on it.
I cannot serve God with my intelligence if
I don't have the power of the Holy
Spirit.
That's what I say.
Make a list of those things.
You don't have to get rid of any
of them.
But put value equals zero in God's eyes.
Value equals zero.
And then put what are the things that
have value?
Christlikeness, the power of the Holy Spirit.
These are the things that have value.
I think that's a very good exercise.
And to live by that then we shall
be preserved from going astray.
Let's just pray.
Heavenly Father, there are many things that we
have thought of this morning and we don't
want to think of them lightly or easily
forget them because our future is so dependent
on our attitude towards these things.
And also the lives of many whom we
have committed to our charge in our local
churches.
The way they grow depends so much on
the way we grow.
Their values depend on our values.
We pray that you'll help us to take
these days of fellowship here seriously.
That our lives will take a new turn
in a direction more for your glory.
In Jesus' name, Amen.