Happy to be here with you.
One of the things that I have told
people in our home church in Bangalore for
25 or 27 years is that if you
take heed to what you hear in this
church, it will go much better with you
in the day of judgment.
It's like telling a student, you can get
good results in the final examination if you
pay attention to what you are being told
now.
One of the things that we all must
recognize is that God holds us accountable.
To whom much is given, much is required.
To whom less is given, less is required.
So that's another thing I tell people who
come to our church, and that is, it's
very dangerous to keep coming here if you
don't plan to obey what God speaks to
you.
Because every time you hear something, your accountability
to God increases.
And if you are planning to obey, you
can rise to great heights spiritually.
But if you are not serious about obedience,
then the very message that is meant to
lift you up spiritually can lead to your
damnation.
Because God's word is a serious thing.
Jesus said, to whom more is given, more
is required.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 3, that
our life is built on the foundation of
Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3.11 No man can lay
a foundation other than the one which is
laid, which is Jesus Christ.
So once we are born again, we are
on that foundation.
But on that, it says here that we
are building.
And every day of our life, we are
building.
We are building with our thoughts, our words,
our attitudes, our motives, our actions.
In all our work for the Lord, we
are building.
Personal life, our family life, our church life.
We are doing something, we are building.
And it says here that we can build
either with gold, silver and precious stones, or
with wood, hay and straw.
And then, even though it may not be
evident now, in the final day, it says,
our work will become evident.
1 Corinthians 3.13 For the day will
show it, because it is to be revealed
with fire.
And the fire, now this is the part
I want you to listen carefully.
In the final day, this is talking about
the final day when God's judgment is pictured
like a fire, testing our work, which means
our life, the way we spent our days
on earth from the time we were born
again.
The fire will test the quality of each
man's work.
Now generally speaking in Christendom today, quality is
not emphasized.
It's only quantity.
Every report that you read or hear of
Christian work is always numbers.
Number of converts, number of people who were
healed or made decisions or etc.
etc.
But never an emphasis on whether these people
who made decisions have become disciples.
Have they become wholehearted followers of Jesus Christ
or superficial converts?
And if you continue like this, it's going
to be a whole pile of wood, hay
and straw in the final day.
And you know when you put wood into
the fire, you know there's a great pile
of it.
Wood, hay, straw, it's all going to be
burnt up.
It's all reduced to ashes.
But a little bit of gold, a little
bit of silver, a little bit of precious
stones will endure the fire in that day.
That's the point of this.
Very simple illustration that it's not the size
of your work or your life, what you
can count in terms of statistics that's going
to matter in the final day, but the
quality.
And it speaks here about a man's work
remaining in that day.
Remaining because it's a work that can endure
the test of God's fire.
And such a man will receive a reward.
But if a man's work is burned up,
he'll suffer loss.
Now he won't go to hell.
He's not talking about going to hell.
There's a man who's saved.
But it says here, even though he's saved,
he'll be saved as through fire.
That means, okay, he's got a place in
heaven.
But his entire life's work is burnt up.
I've often said in many places that a
lot of people go to heaven, they're going
to have a regret.
And that's a concept that many people can't
understand.
They say, if you go to heaven, how
can you have regret?
You're only going to have joy.
Well, let's think about it.
Is it possible when we enter eternity and
stand before the Lord, we know that we
are saved.
We know that we're not going to hell.
We know that our sins are all forgiven
and I'm going to spend all eternity with
the Lord in heaven.
Is it still possible that there will be
regret?
Think of this verse.
This is actually going to happen.
When we stand before the Lord, our entire
life's work and all that we've done and
everything in our life is going to be
tested.
And imagine, I think of myself.
Supposing I discover in that day that, yeah,
I'm saved.
It says here in verse 16, I'm saved.
But I discover that my entire life's work
is burnt up.
Even though while I was on earth, everybody
thought I did a wonderful job for the
Lord.
Don't you think I'll have regret when I
see everything being burnt up in that day?
I can't imagine myself not being without regret
in that day.
I will have regret.
I will have regret because I didn't concentrate
more on the quality of my life.
I will have regret because I concentrated more
on impressing other people with what I was
doing, with my reports, with my statistics.
Or satisfying myself that I was doing something
for the Lord without examining myself in the
light of God's word.
I'll have regret that I wasted so much
of my earthly life on useless pursuits.
I'll have regret in the way I spent
my spare time.
I'll have regret in the way I spent
my money.
Many, many things.
But that's too late to think of it
then.
I have to think of it now.
I'll have regret about the times I lost
my temper.
I'll have regret about the fact that I
never sought to conquer my temper sooner than
I did.
Many things like this.
And if I take God's word seriously, I
can overcome some of that regret.
Maybe there are a lot of things in
our past life we have regret about.
I think all of us have.
We've done a lot of stupid things, foolish
things in our past life.
But our aim should be, at least in
the days to come, to reduce the amount
of regret in our life.
I remember when I was a young Christian,
I read a poem written by A.B.
Simpson, who was a great man of God
who founded the Christian and Missionary Alliance over
a hundred years ago.
And in that poem he said that, I
don't have any time for trifling in this
life.
That means I don't have any time to
waste in idle pursuits.
Because that's not the way my Master went
before me.
Every hour must count for God.
Every power I have must count for God.
That's the way I felt when I was
19 years old, when I was converted.
That's the way I feel today when I'm
62, 43 years later.
Every hour must count for God.
Every bit of my power must be for
God, not to impress men.
It's worthless.
The opinions of men, I've always said, is
fit for the garbage bin.
Good opinions, bad opinions.
What people think about you, say about you,
write about you, throw it in the garbage
bin.
It's not important what people think about your
work.
It's not important.
What does the Holy Spirit tell you?
Do you have a clear conscience about what
you do?
Are you doing this according to the best
of your understanding, according to the teaching of
God's Word?
Don't worry if nobody understands you.
In fact, anyone who follows Jesus wholeheartedly is
going to follow a path of misunderstanding most
of the time.
But he won't have any regret in the
final day.
I want to read a verse in Romans
chapter 11 to try and understand what it
is.
What is it referred to when it speaks
about gold, silver and precious stones as opposed
to wood, hay and straw?
This is a contrast.
Gold, silver and precious stones on one side,
we saw that just now, which can endure
the fire.
And wood, hay and straw on the other
side, which will not endure the fire.
He's talking about Christians, the way they live,
the way they work.
You can have a huge structure called God's
work.
But it may be made of wood.
The converts may be shallow.
The fellowship between them may be pathetically poor.
There was a non-Christian person in one
of the villages in India.
I only heard the story.
It's not in one of our churches.
Who was converted through a visiting evangelist.
He was a non-Christian.
In his village there was only one church.
He accepted the Lord.
He was born again.
And then he asked the evangelist this question.
He said, now that I'm converted, do I
have to join the church in this village
where everybody knows they fight with each other?
What reply do you give to such a
question?
Do you have to tell him, well, you
have to join that church.
It's pathetic.
This is the condition of a lot of
churches.
It's wood.
It's hay.
It's straw.
It's not what God intended it to be.
It may have 200 members.
So what?
I'd rather have a church with 5 members.
Where they love one another.
Jesus never said, all men will know you
are my disciples when you grow in number.
That's not in my Bible.
All men will know you are my disciples
when you love one another.
What's that?
Love has got nothing to do with quantity.
It's quality.
It's not that we are a huge mega
church and therefore we try to impact the
nation.
Those are all human concepts.
It's like, it's the principles of IBM and
Coca-Cola, trying to impress the world and
take over everything.
Christian church doesn't work like that.
Jesus spoke about salt.
How much salt do you put in a
plate of food?
Very little.
But as soon as you taste it, you
know whether there's salt in it or not.
If it has got quality.
Jesus always spoke about quality.
Love.
Quality.
Salt.
He said if the salt has lost its
quality, it's fit for nothing.
Throw it outside.
He spoke about light.
And he said, don't let the light begin
to become dim.
How much space in a room does a
bulb occupy?
Oh, so not even 1% of the
space in a room.
But it lights up the room.
And Jesus said, you're the light of the
world.
It's not numbers.
Jesus said, you're always going to be small.
The way to life is narrow.
Few there be that find it.
He never spoke about numbers.
At the end of his earthly life, he
had 11 people to offer up to his
father.
Father, he said, I've finished the work you
gave me to do.
Here are the ones I've taught your ways.
And 11 people, that's all.
But I want them to be one.
And with those 11 people, he turned the
world upside down.
Because those 11 people did not love money.
Those 11 people did not love themselves.
Those 11 people died to themselves and followed
Jesus.
They had no interest in anything of their
own or anything in this world.
You know, when I began to see the
work Jesus did in those 11 people, this
was my prayer.
I said, Lord, if I spend my entire
life to produce 11 people like that, I'm
ready to die.
Do you understand that?
Jesus is ready to go.
Paul said to Timothy, the things that you've
heard from me, commit to faithful men who
will be able to teach others.
Throughout the scriptures, the emphasis is on faithful
men quality.
Paul turned around once.
Paul spoke once about his co-workers.
And he said, everybody's seeking their own among
his co-workers, except Timothy.
There's a man who seeks only the things
that are Christ's.
It was like that in the first century.
It's been like that throughout the history of
Christendom.
Everybody wants to do something for the Lord
to ease their conscience.
Not too much.
But here it says in Romans chapter 11
in verse 36.
From him, through him, and to him are
all things.
From God, through God, and to God.
Just think of those three expressions.
From God, through God, and to God are
all things.
Now when you look at the world, everything
on this earth is not from God, or
through God, or to God at all.
So what does he mean that all things
are from him, and through him, and to
him?
It means all things of eternal value.
All things that are going to remain forever.
All things that are going to go through
the fire and come out untouched.
Anything that's going to remain unscathed by the
fire has got to originate in God.
It must be from him.
If it's some bright idea that came out
of your brain, I'm sorry to disappoint you,
but it won't last for eternity.
It won't go through the fire.
It may be a brilliant idea, but it's
wood, hay, straw.
If you want something to last for eternity,
it must begin with God.
It must be from him.
It must be something that the Holy Spirit
originated.
A thought that originated from the Holy Spirit.
And you'll never know it, unless you study
the scriptures.
Unless you wait upon God.
A lot of people get bright ideas in
their head and they think it's from God.
I'm amazed at the number of people who
claim to prophesy.
So many people I've seen who claim to
be baptized in the Holy Spirit and begin
to prophesy in meetings and say, Thus said
the Lord.
I'll tell you honestly, I'm scared to use
that expression.
The Lord told Jeremiah once, I never sent
these people.
And yet they claim to speak from me.
Jeremiah 23.
How quickly people take the name of the
Lord.
The Jews had a greater fear, because one
of their commandments said, Thou shall not take
the name of the Lord thy God in
vain.
They were very scared to say, Thus said
the Lord.
The false prophets did it all the time.
I think of when Paul was writing 1
Corinthians 7.
You know about virgins and marriage and all
that.
He says, when he comes to certain things,
he says, Verse 25.
Concerning virgins, I have no command from the
Lord.
But I give an opinion.
This is the great apostle Paul.
Who went up to the third heaven.
Who wrote scripture.
Who raised the dead.
Who was perhaps one of the mightiest servants
of God that ever walked this earth.
He says, I don't know the Lord's opinion.
I'm giving my opinion.
That's humility.
And at the end of the chapter, he
says in verse 40.
After all that he's written.
He says, I think.
I have the spirit of God.
Paul was at the age of 60.
Was not like these young upstarts who get
up and say, Thus said the Lord.
And go on and on and on and
on.
And Paul says.
I'm not so sure.
I think.
I'm speaking in the spirit of God.
I would any day listen to such a
man.
And all these young upstarts who say, Thus
said the Lord.
I have no respect for them.
They just say anything that comes into their
mind and say, Thus said the Lord.
It's a lot of garbage.
Fit for the garbage bin.
This is scripture.
Written by a humble man.
Who acknowledged his limitation.
And said, I think.
I have the spirit of God.
See, when a man reverences God.
He's not so quick to claim.
Divine origin for his words.
He recognizes that he is a flesh.
In which dwells nothing good.
And how he can easily be deceived.
And he recognizes that.
Everything of eternal value has to originate from
him.
Everything of eternal value must be done through
him.
And everything of eternal value must end in
him.
To him.
From him.
Through him.
To him.
That's gold.
Silver.
Precious stones.
From me.
Through me.
To me.
That's wood.
Hay.
And straw.
It's that simple.
What do I mean by from me, through
me, to me?
From me means, well.
I've got a bright idea.
To do something for God.
Maybe I got the idea from the Coca
-Cola company.
Management techniques.
Why is it Jesus did not give his
gospel to an advertising agency?
Why did he give it to eleven illiterate
fishermen?
Is that a sensible thing to do?
Why didn't he send them to Bible school?
Why, Gamaliel was running a Bible school in
Jerusalem.
Jesus never went there to pick anybody.
God's ways are not our ways.
You know, in the Old Testament we read
of Moses.
That God gave him a pattern to build
a tabernacle.
Now, two things I want to say about
it.
One is, any Philistine could have made a
tabernacle exactly like that.
If he got a hold of the book
of Exodus.
Because all the details are there.
The height, the thickness, the material, the number.
Everything is there.
You know, you can produce a tabernacle like
that today.
Down to the last little pin.
You can produce a tabernacle exactly like that.
Because all the details are there.
But there's one thing you won't be able
to reproduce.
And the Philistines would not be able also.
And you know what that is?
The fire that rested in the most holy
place.
That was from heaven.
And that was the distinctive feature of the
tabernacle.
Not the pattern.
A lot of people among Christians are taken
up with the pattern, pattern, pattern.
New Testament pattern.
What's the New Testament pattern?
Brother, it's New Testament fire.
That's more important than New Testament pattern.
That's the first thing I want to say.
And the second thing is, that tabernacle was
such a simple structure.
Just a few poles and a little animal
skin spread on top of it.
And a plain white sheet.
Not even a colored sheet.
A plain white sheet on four sides.
Very unimpressive.
And who's the one who's building it?
Moses.
The man who was trained in the academies
of Egypt and knew how to build pyramids.
Which were the wonders of the world in
those days.
And which even today, architects wonder how in
the world those people managed to build those
pyramids in Egypt.
Moses lived in those times.
And I believe that if God had given
the pattern of the...
If God had called Moses at the age
of 40, when he thought he was fit
to lead God's people.
And had given him the pattern of the
tabernacle, to build the tabernacle as God's dwelling
place, Moses would have said, Lord, just leave
it to me.
I can do a much better thing than
you're telling me.
I've been trained in the academies of Egypt.
What are you telling me about tabernacles?
Just leave it to me.
I'll design the whole thing and I'll make
a fantastic structure.
And he would have.
The only thing that had been missing is
the glory of God.
God wouldn't have come down upon it in
fire.
That's exactly what Christians are doing today.
Grand things.
Plans, programs.
According to human wisdom.
Not according to scripture.
I find today's charismatic Christians are pathetically ignorant
of scripture.
It's a very sad thing because that can
lead them into all types of excesses, which
are not found anywhere in the Bible.
It can lead them to preach a gospel,
which is not found in the Bible.
The Lord taught me scripture for about 15
years before he baptized me in the Holy
Spirit.
I'm very thankful.
It prevented me from going off on a
tangent.
It's very important to have the fire of
the Spirit and the guidance of the word
of God.
But by the time Moses was 80, God
had broken him so thoroughly.
And you know, it's the message of brokenness.
That is not found in Christendom today.
In any group.
It's a rare message.
And yet it is the most important message
that every Christian group needs today.
Moses at 40 could hammer one Egyptian and
kill him.
How long would he have taken killing Egyptians
one by one before he delivered Israel from
Egypt?
It would have taken ages.
But by the time he was 80, he
was an old man.
He was not able to kill anyone.
But we read that when he lifted up
his rod in the power of God, the
entire Egyptian army was buried under the Red
Sea.
That's what a broken man can do.
He accomplishes a lot more than a strong
man.
God doesn't want strong people.
He wants broken people.
And because Moses was broken at the age
of 80, he did not modify the pattern
of the tabernacle even slightly.
If you read Exodus chapter 39 and 40,
it says exactly as the Lord commanded Moses,
he did it 18 times.
That's what it means to do something from
God.
Only a broken man will do exactly as
God tells him.
A strong man will modify God's plans.
Because he's got bright ideas.
He's an intellectual.
He's learned management techniques.
The only thing missing in his work will
be the glory of God.
The only thing missing in his ministry will
be the anointing of God.
He'll have clever ideas.
Oh yeah, sure.
We've got a lot of clever people in
the church.
So, if our work does not originate from
him, it's not going to last the eternal
fires.
I want you to look at Jesus' own
example.
Have you read these amazing words in John's
Gospel chapter 5?
John's Gospel chapter 5, verse 19.
Jesus answered and said to them, Truly, truly
I say to you, the son can do
nothing of himself unless it is something he
sees the father doing.
Whatever the father does, these things the son
also does in like manner.
That's the way Jesus lived and served.
And that's the way you and I are
supposed to live and serve.
To see, to understand how the father wants
something done and to do it that way.
To do it because the Lord prompts me
to do it.
I believe one of the things that has
hindered and ruined the testimony of Christ in
India is that 90% of Christian workers.
I'm talking from my little limited experience.
I don't know about all the Christian workers
in India, but 90% of the ones
I have met should never have been in
Christian work.
They went into Christian work not because God
called them.
They went into Christian work because they thought
it is a good idea or because they
didn't get any other job or it is
a good means of earning a living.
It is not from God, but they call
themselves pastor or reverend or right reverend, etc.
But their calling is not from God.
And therefore, the Lord's name is dishonored.
Such people would have done a great service
to God if they had never stepped out
into Christian work.
If they had gone and done some secular
job.
God's work can only be done by those
whom He has called.
It says here that Jesus never did anything
unless the Father told Him to.
He sent Him the next week after Adam
died.
Get the job done quickly.
I would have.
You know what that has taught me?
That God's ways are not my ways.
That my clever brain will do stupid things
in God's work.
That all your management techniques don't work in
God's kingdom.
That God's kingdom is not based on the
techniques of the corporate world.
It has been good for me to learn
that.
Because it has helped me to wait upon
God.
To submit my clever ideas to the teaching
of God's word and do it the way
God has shown in His word.
If I want fruit that lasts for eternity,
it must be from Him.
Ok.
After Jesus came to earth, at the age
of 12 He knew the Bible better than
anybody else in all of Israel.
Why did He spend the next 18 years
making stools and benches and wasting time with
all that when the world was dying in
sin?
Don't we hear messages like that?
Oh, the world is dying in sin.
Why are you sitting there doing nothing for
the rest of the world?
Come on, get out and do something.
What do you think Jesus would have done
if somebody went and told Him in the
carpenter shop when He was 20 years old?
What are you wasting your time making stools
and benches?
The world is dying in sin.
He would have said, you do what you
like.
I'm going to do what my father tells
me.
And spends the next 10 years making stools
and benches while the world is dying in
sin.
He wouldn't be stirred by all these missionary
messages that we hear today.
The only thing that moved Him was the
Father's will.
Missionary messages that we hear today are sales
pitches put forward by good salesmen following the
principles of the business world.
And look at the quality of Christianity they
have produced today.
You know, Jesus didn't do anything unless He
saw the Father doing it.
And at the end of three and a
half years when He's finished His ministry, He
says in John 17, Father, I've finished the
work You gave Me to do.
I'm coming back.
But Lord, what about the need in Africa?
What about the need in India?
What about the need in Japan?
You haven't gone to any of these places
yet?
I did not come here to go to
all these places, the Lord would say.
I traveled in the little country of Palestine,
maybe a couple of hundred miles at the
most in length, what Jesus traveled.
Spent all His life there, just three and
a half years.
I finished the work the Father gave Me
to do and I'm going to go.
And that was the greatest work that any
man ever did on the face of this
earth.
It wasn't quantity.
He didn't live a hundred years.
He lived only 33 and a half.
You know, it's not length of life.
I remember reading the biography of David Brainerd
who was a young American missionary to the
Red Indians in the 1700s who brought lots
of Red Indians to Christ.
He died when he was 29.
And in just a few years, six or
seven years of a devoted, passionate life, he
did more than other people have done in
300 years.
He prayed much.
He wasn't sitting making plans with his brains.
He learned to wait on the Lord.
He learned to listen to the Holy Spirit.
Everything we do must originate in Him.
Otherwise it's worthless.
Jesus once visited the home of Mary and
Martha and we see there Martha going into
the kitchen and working very hard.
Was she doing a good thing?
She certainly was because she was working unselfishly,
sacrificially, producing food for the Lord and His
disciples.
What's wrong in that?
What's wrong in producing food for the Lord
and His disciples?
That's the very best thing you can ever
do.
But when she came before the Lord, the
Lord said to her, Martha, you are worried
about many things.
They are not important.
Mary has chosen the good part.
That won't be taken away from her.
What was the good part which Mary chose?
Sitting at His feet and listening.
Is that the most important part?
I want to give you my own testimony.
For 40 years the Lord has kept on
reminding me.
40 years.
Remember one thing is needful.
To listen to me.
If you listen to me and do my
work, you will accomplish a lot more in
your life than if you just rush around
like Martha doing something or the other for
me.
Please remember this my brothers and sisters.
That the most important thing is not even
to serve the Lord unselfishly and sacrificially like
Martha, but to listen to what the Lord
has to say.
And then to do what He says.
In other words our work originates from Him.
Prayer is also like that you know.
I believe that true prayer, true prayer does
not originate in a man's heart.
It originates with God.
God putting a burden in my heart and
my praying that burden back to God in
faith.
And the circle is complete.
Such prayers are always answered.
But a prayer which just originates in my
heart or in my bright clever brain, it
is not from God.
It says the Holy Spirit makes us pray
because we don't know how to pray.
We don't know what to pray for.
We pray for all types of stupid things.
But the Holy Spirit knows the mind of
the Father.
And if we are in tune with the
Holy Spirit, we will pray according to the
mind of the Father.
Such prayers will always be answered.
It is easy to have faith for such
things.
God will supply all our need according to
His riches and glory in Christ Jesus, but
He won't supply all that we want.
You know the difference between wants and needs?
Everything that we do, our prayer, our activity
and everything must be from Him.
And that's why we must listen to the
voice of the Holy Spirit.
And that's why we must be filled with
the Holy Spirit not once, but constantly.
Constantly.
Must live under that waterfall.
Every day.
We must have a clear conscience to live
under that waterfall.
We must have a humble, broken spirit to
live under that waterfall.
Otherwise we can't.
And we won't listen.
At least one day will be wasted if
we live one day without that power.
One week, one year.
Lot of people are wasting a lot of
their time from Him.
Jesus said in John 5 verse 30, I
can do nothing on my own initiative.
As I hear, I judge.
He heard.
That's why Jesus would frequently go away to
a place alone where He could listen to
what the Father had to say to Him.
That's a habit which today's Christians don't have.
Listening.
We talk too much.
We listen very little.
Even people who say they pray, most of
their prayer is talking, not listening.
To me, prayer is like a communication, communicating
with God with a telephone.
A telephone has got an earpiece and a
mouthpiece.
And it's very rude to do all the
talking yourself.
Particularly, if the person at the other end
of the line is a ten times more
godly man than you are.
You'd have to be pretty conceited to do
all the talking yourself.
You can.
That man may be humble and listen to
you.
But you won't learn anything.
And if God is at the other end
of the line, don't you think you should
be listening a little more than talking?
I don't follow the books of prayer.
There are multitudes of books of prayer.
I don't follow all of them.
My prayer is listening.
90% of the time.
I talk very little.
He already knows my needs.
But I listen.
And I seek to listen all the time.
Lord, what are you trying to teach me?
I want to encourage all of you, my
brothers and sisters, develop the habit of listening.
From Him are all things of eternal value.
You'll accomplish a lot more if you listen
like Mary and then act.
Okay, secondly, it says, through Him.
Romans 11.
That means, not only must what I do
originate from God, it must be done in
God's power.
There's a lot of things which we can
do with human power.
God endowed Adam with tremendous abilities.
Do you know that God, do you know
that Adam gave a name to all the
animals on the earth?
Have you read that?
Do you think you could do that?
I don't know how many thousands there are.
Animals, insects, all these crawling things.
I think by the time I came to
the 60,355th insect or animal, I'd forget
all the other names I gave before.
It's really a miracle that that man could
give a different name to all the animals.
It's just a little example of the tremendous
potential that God put in the human mind.
There is tremendous potential and power in the
human soul.
That's just one example of it.
And when Adam and Eve ate of the
tree of knowledge, they decided to develop that
power, so that they did not need God.
You know that's the, that was the sin
in the garden of Eden.
Have you ever thought what's wrong with knowing
good and evil?
Is that a bad thing?
How many of you believe that knowing the
difference between good and evil is a bad
thing?
You ask anybody in the world, they all
say it's a very good thing to know,
to do evil is wrong, that everybody agrees,
but to know the difference between good and
evil, don't we want our children to know
the difference between good and evil?
Why did God say, if you eat of
that tree of knowledge of good and evil,
you'll die?
One would think you should live, not die.
What's the meaning of it?
The meaning is this, that if I want
all that knowledge of good and evil resident
within myself, I don't need God anymore.
I've got all the information myself.
I can live on my own.
But God said you'll die that way.
But, if you are willing to go to
the tree of life, and the tree of
life is a life of dependence upon God,
it's a life of faith, the righteous shall
live by faith, that's the tree of life.
And faith means a life of dependence on
God, where each time, I want to know
whether it's right or wrong, I have to
go to God.
I have to depend on the Holy Spirit.
That's another way of living, depending on the
Holy Spirit.
But if I develop this human power which
God has given me within my soul, I
can do a lot of things.
Think of what Hitler could accomplish with his
powerful preaching.
Think of what great political leaders who are
atheists or godless men.
They've succeeded in getting such a tremendous following.
That's not Holy Spirit.
It's human soul power.
Think of rock musicians.
They can sway millions.
They can stir people with their music.
Is that God's power?
No.
It's human soul power.
And we know in rock music, the devil
sort of latches on to that pretty quickly.
The thing I want you to know is,
you can use that soul power in Christianity
too.
And a lot of people are using it.
Manipulating people psychologically and calling it Holy Spirit
power.
It's not Holy Spirit power.
Gimmicks.
Psychological gimmicks being paraded as the gifts of
the Holy Spirit.
You want to change that?
Yeah, as I was saying, psychological gimmicks being
paraded as the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Now, there are the genuine gifts of the
Holy Spirit.
But if you're not a person with discernment,
you can easily be fooled with some psychological
gimmick, which is not a gift of the
Holy Spirit.
It's human soul power.
We see a lot of it in India
with people who do yoga.
They can move, bend spoons and all without
touching it.
By human soul power, mental power, supernatural power.
Maybe they got a little help from the
devil too.
But it's not Holy Spirit power.
Don't think that everything supernatural is from God.
2 Thessalonians 2 says there are going to
be a lot of false signs and wonders
in the last days.
And one way to find out is, I'll
come to that in a moment, is whether
this glorifies a man or whether it glorifies
Christ.
There's one quick way to find out.
Through God, only that which is done through
the power of the Holy Spirit will last
for eternity.
Everything else will be burnt up in that
fire in the final day.
I don't want any of my work to
be burnt up in the final day.
I want everything I've done to be according
to the will of God, according to what
He has revealed in Scripture, according to the
example I see in Jesus.
I want everything that I do to be
genuine power of the Holy Spirit.
I don't want anything which is not from
God in my life.
I don't want to do anything which is
not through the energizing power of the Holy
Spirit in my service for God.
And that's why we need to be constantly
dependent, constantly seeking for the anointing of God
upon our life.
It's easy to, you know, when we feel,
when we are not baptized in the Holy
Spirit and we feel dry and we begin
to seek God.
You know, this is what I've seen with
so many believers.
Before they are baptized in the Holy Spirit,
they seek God, they are hungry, they fast,
they pray, and they seek God.
God meets with them.
And for a few weeks, they are in
heaven.
And then they come down to earth.
And they begin to backslide.
Now they don't seek God anymore, like the
old days, because they've got it.
What they sought, they got.
Now they don't need to fast, they don't
need to seek God, they don't need anything.
They are relaxed, and that's when they go
astray.
I've seen that so many times.
We need to be continuously filled with the
Holy Spirit.
We need to have a continuous hunger after
God, a continuous dissatisfaction with our spiritual development,
because we haven't yet become like Christ.
Seeking for the power of the Holy Spirit
in our life and in our ministry.
Seeking for a greater degree of anointing than
we have ever experienced before.
Then our life, then our work will last
for eternity.
Not to be fooled by, not to use
my human soul power to dominate other people.
You know, I have soul power, and I
have to crucify it when I serve God.
Paul had soul power.
That's why he spoke so much about crucifying
the flesh, if he was to serve God
effectively.
It's very easy, if you are a dominant
type of person, to use that personality of
yours to overpower somebody else with your teaching
and your convictions.
And many people are weak in their spirits
and souls, and you can dominate them, and
you think it's the power of the Holy
Spirit.
It's not.
It's just your soul power.
But since very few people have discernment, they
are not able to recognize it.
Through the years, this is one of the
things I've sought to become sensitive to.
Not only in my life, I have a
responsibility in a number of churches.
And when I listen to a man speak,
I want to sense, is that his soul
coming forth?
Or is it his spirit?
If he's a broken man, it will be
the Holy Spirit working through him.
It's when the alabaster box is broken, that
the house is filled with the odor of
the ointment, not otherwise.
Then lastly, there's a lot more to say
on that, but lastly, to Him must be
all things of eternal value.
That means, what originates in God, we listen
to Him, we're guided by Him, we seek
the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish
it, and the glory must be given to
Him.
We must not draw people to ourselves.
We must not draw attention to ourselves, in
anything.
One of the things we decided 27 years
ago, when we started our work in India,
it was just three or four families meeting
in our house.
That's how it started.
It's grown now to 30-40 churches in
many countries.
But, one of the things we decided, was
that we would never send a report of
our work anywhere.
We'd never send photographs of our work, or
reports of our work.
Everybody in India would do it, but we
decided we wouldn't do it.
We would never ask anybody for money.
We would never send reports or photographs of
our work anywhere.
We wouldn't even take an offering in our
meetings.
We just kept a box at the back,
for those who wanted to put in a
donation.
That's how we've done in all our 40
churches, over 20 years.
Because, we see what a lot of human
glory there is, in Christian work.
The promotion of individuals, and people standing up
on platforms like film stars, with the searchlight
on them.
I can't imagine Jesus being like that.
Jesus was a very ordinary man.
He moved among people, ordinary people.
Here there's so much of glory to an
individual, or to some great work, or some
mega church, or some organization.
I saw all this and I said, Lord,
this is so far removed from what I
see, in the acts of the Apostles.
This is because people haven't read the Bible,
that they follow all this.
If they only read the Bible, and saw
what Jesus and the Apostles did, they'd never
follow all this.
But we live in a day of tremendous
ignorance of Scripture.
And so, everything is to man.
Okay?
It lasts a long while, these wooden structures,
structures of hay and straw.
One day Christ will come, and the whole
thing will be burnt up.
So I want to say to you, my
brothers and sisters, make sure your work originates
in listening to what God has to say
to you.
And if you haven't developed that habit, start
today.
It's a habit to be developed.
Somebody once asked a man of God, said,
a young believer, said, I read in the
Bible that my sheep hear my voice, Jesus
said.
But he said, I don't seem to be
able to hear his voice.
So the man of God said, it's true,
the sheep hear his voice, but the lambs
have to learn what that voice sounds like.
How do you recognize the voice of your
husband, or your wife?
Because you heard it so often.
You can recognize it on the other side
of the wall.
But you wouldn't be able to recognize the
voice of someone you haven't heard frequently on
the other side of the wall.
But if there are 25 people speaking there,
you can recognize your wife's voice there.
You should be able to recognize God's voice
like that.
In the midst of all the other voices
in your mind.
If you listen to it often enough.
And here's one place to listen to it
very often.
That's why I say, begin with the Bible.
Study it thoroughly.
Let your work be done through the power
of the Holy Spirit.
And for the glory of God alone.
Zero glory for self.
Zero.
Everything for Jesus.
Let's pray.
If the Lord has spoken to your heart
this evening, and I believe He has this
afternoon, then He expects a response.
He never speaks without expecting a response.
Today, if you will hear His voice heartened
out of your heart, the Word says, respond
to Him, my brother or sister.
Respond to what God spoke to you.
In that specific area, be willing to give
up cherished ideas that you have held for
years perhaps.
And submit to what God has spoken to
you from His Word.
Respond to it.
Say, Lord, I want to build something that
lasts for eternity.
Thank you, Father, for this evening, this afternoon.
We pray that You will bless what we
have heard for the rest of our time
together.
In Jesus' name, Amen.