The Bible says that in the...
The things written in the Old Testament are
written for our instruction that we, through patience
and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.
And if you read the Old Testament...
Why is three quarters of our Bible the
Old Testament?
We speak about the new covenant which we
are in.
The old covenant is abolished.
But even though the old covenant is abolished,
God has given us three quarters of the
Bible of the Old Testament.
And the Old Testament has not been abolished.
We read it to understand things which are
fulfilled in the New Testament.
The Bible says the Old Testament was a
shadow.
For example, you can study about the Sabbath
in the Old Testament and see the tremendous
importance God gave to the Sabbath in the
Old Testament.
If a man went to pick up sticks
on the Sabbath day, he was killed.
And tremendous blessings promised to those who keep
the Sabbath.
That must have a meaning in the New
Testament.
And you find that in Hebrews chapter 4
where it says, We must enter into God's
rest.
We must come into a life that is
free from restlessness and tension and depression and
discouragement and self-condemnation.
Those are all no entry roads.
There is no entry sign on those things.
Self-condemnation, discouragement, depression, gloom, restlessness.
It's all no entry.
We are not supposed to go into those
roads.
And that's what the Lord was trying to
say through the Sabbath.
When the Lord emphasized so much paying the
tithe.
The tithe was, we read in Deuteronomy 14
to teach us to put God first, not
money.
That was the whole purpose.
In the same way, many other things we
could go through the Old Testament.
It's very interesting to see the things that
God emphasized so much in the Old Testament.
And then, another great thing we see in
the Old Testament is there were two movements
of God's people Israel.
Two great movements of God's people that are
described in detail.
A lot of Christians know only about one
of them.
And that is the movement of God's people
out of Egypt into Canaan.
But there is another movement of God's people
from Babylon to Jerusalem.
In the latter part of Israel's history.
In the beginning of Israel's history, through Moses,
there was this great movement from Egypt where
they slew the Passover Lamb and went through
the Red Sea and came out.
And the cloud came upon them symbolizing the
Passover Lamb.
We know symbolized Jesus Christ dying for our
sins as the Lamb of God.
Going into the Red Sea and out symbolized
water baptism.
Not by sprinkling, but going right in and
coming out of the water.
And the baptism of the cloud coming down
from heaven symbolizing the baptism in the Holy
Spirit where the cloud encompassed them.
They had two baptisms.
Baptism in water, baptism in the Holy Spirit.
A lot of Christians have only one.
We need two.
Baptism in water, baptism in the Holy Spirit.
But that's not the end of the Christian
life.
That was only the beginning of their journey.
So the baptism in the Holy Spirit is
not some type of postgraduate degree.
It's a kindergarten class.
And you get in.
And that's the way you get your education.
But there is this other movement from Babylon
to Jerusalem.
What does that symbolize?
Deliverance from Pharaoh and Egypt.
Pharaoh symbolizes the devil.
Egypt symbolizes the world.
And living there as a slave symbolizes being
a slave of sin.
So the Lord delivers us from sin, from
the world and from the devil.
But there is another thing the Lord has
to deliver us from.
And that is what is symbolized in the
Old Testament is the movement from Babylon to
Jerusalem.
And that is deliverance from a legalistic lifestyle.
From Phariseeism, from life of rules and regulations.
And a lot of Christians know very little
about that.
And we are to come out of this
Babylon which is a whole system.
As I said the first day, that seeks
your own.
And that's built on money.
You read Revelation chapter 17.
It refers to how Babylon ends up.
And that's linked up with chapter 18.
And chapter 18 is all about money.
God and money mixed up together.
And Jesus came to separate them.
That's why He drove the money changers out
of the temple.
And you find the money changers are back
in the temple today.
They are still mixing up God and money
today.
Everywhere, in every group.
And you know the love of money is
in our flesh.
It's not something outside.
And if I'm not free from it, I
can't really build Jerusalem.
Because I'm still part of that old Babylonian
system.
Even though I've come out of a denomination.
If I don't seek to be free.
I remember once the Lord said to me
that the battle in the last days is
going to be in the heavenlies.
It's in the heavenlies that the battle takes
place.
And if you don't win the battle there,
nothing is going to be won on earth.
And to win the battle in the heavenlies,
you must be a heavenly person, detached from
everything of earth.
That means money has no hold on you.
The honor of men has no hold on
you.
The fear of man has no hold on
you.
Nothing on earth has any hold on you.
You live on the earth, but you don't
belong to the earth.
Just like a ship which is in the
sea, surrounded by water all around, and yet
not one drop inside.
That's how the church is supposed to be.
That's how every Christian is supposed to be.
And if you're like that, a heavenly person,
we can fight the battle against Satan and
overcome.
And that's how Jesus overcame.
The real Jesus was like a ship in
the sea.
There was not a drop of the world
in Him.
And just like the Israelites came out of
Egypt, but Egypt had not come out of
them, in the same way we find that
when the Israelites came out of Babylon, Babylon
had not come out of them.
They physically came out of Babylon, but that
spirit was still in them, even when they
were in Jerusalem.
They were not interested in building the church.
In fact, God had to send a prophet
called Haggai and said, you fellows have come
out of Babylon physically, but what are you
doing in Jerusalem?
You're just building your own houses.
And the house of the Lord is lying
waste.
You're building your own houses, enjoying yourself.
And he stirred them up.
And he and Zechariah, the two prophets, began
to stir them up to build the temple.
But that took a long time.
And then Nehemiah came along and he said,
this is not enough.
We've got to have a wall of separation.
We're not just to be just like the
rest of the world.
There must be a wall of separation.
And then he came and he built the
wall.
The coming out of Egypt was in a
moment.
In a moment the Egyptians were buried and
they were out.
And being born again is like that.
It's not a moment.
Born again is not a gradual process.
They came out of Egypt in a moment.
We're born again in a moment.
But the coming out of Babylon we found
was a gradual process.
They came out in batches and little by
little by little.
And that's what I've discovered.
Coming out of legalism doesn't happen in a
moment.
It's a process, but we got to come
out completely.
Just like we come out completely from Egypt,
we got to come out completely from Babylon.
And see that there's no Babylon left in
our spirit.
And that's more difficult.
To physically come out of a denomination, that's
easy.
Now, when Jesus spoke, He also spoke about
these two deliverances.
Jesus didn't come to only deliver us from
sin.
He came to deliver us from this legalism.
And Jesus not only preached against sin, He
preached against people who were following empty traditions
which were hindering them from obeying God's word.
And do you know that the Pharisees would
never have killed Him if He had only
preached against sin?
It's because He preached against the traditions that
they killed Him.
And you preach only against sin, I tell
you, a lot of people will accept you.
Just keep quiet on the traditions.
But then you begin to speak about traditions
which are not in God's word.
They'll crucify you in one way or the
other.
It's the same thing today.
I mean, it's the same thing that you
read happened in Jesus' time.
It's happening today.
Because the spirit of Christ is completely opposed
to the spirit of the world and especially
the religious world.
It was then.
And Jesus' greatest conflict was with the Pharisees,
not with the Romans, not with the Greeks.
And it was the Pharisees who were determined
to kill Him.
The leaders, not the common people.
The common people heard Him gladly, the Bible
says.
But the leaders were out to kill Him.
And it's exactly the same today.
The common people, there are so many simple
people in all denominations from one extreme of
Christendom to the other.
And they are longing for deliverance.
It's the leaders who sit and hold them.
I have found in the last 30 years,
all over India and every places, it's the
leaders who hate me, not the people.
The people are longing for deliverance.
But the leaders, they won't be delivered themselves
and they won't let other people be delivered.
And Jesus' conflict was the same.
And Jesus spoke about new wine and new
wineskins.
What's that?
What's the old wine?
The old wine is the life of sin,
the life of Adam.
Jesus wanted to replace it with the new
wine.
What's that?
The life of Jesus.
So, that's the meaning of old wine and
old wineskins and new wine and new wineskins.
It's very simple.
The old wine is the life of Adam
and the new wine is the life of
Jesus.
And Jesus said, a lot of people drink
the old wine and they say, we don't
want any of the new, the old is
good enough.
And that's how the whole world is saying.
A lot of people sitting in Christian churches,
they say, we don't want the life of
Jesus, the old is good enough.
Just a little patch of religion.
And then the new wineskin has got to
replace the old wineskin.
The old wineskin is this life of traditions
and rituals and I tell you, it doesn't
go out from us easily.
And a lot of people have come out
of Babylonian systems but all those characteristics of
that Babylonian system are still there.
And they judge other people on the basis
of that.
And that's what hinders their spiritual growth.
We got to break not only from sin,
but we got to finish with all those
traditions that we've got which are not found
in God's word.
Jesus said, man shall not live by bread
alone but by every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God and not by any
tradition.
I decided when I, I came out of
a so-called Christian church which is traditional,
which prayed to Mary, prayed for the dead
and all that type of stuff, very similar
to the Roman Catholic but not Roman Catholic.
And I decided when I began to read
God's word more than 45 years ago when
I was converted that if ever I found
a tradition which is not in the scripture,
I'd throw it away, I don't care who
believed it, I don't care how many thousands
of people believed it, I would only follow
the word of God.
And I want to encourage you to see
whether all those things that you value so
much can be found in scripture.
If it can't be found in scripture, give
other people the freedom to be different from
you.
Otherwise, I tell you, we'll build a cult.
The way to build a cult is to
follow traditions or favorite verses not balanced with
other verses.
You know, this is how a lot of
Christian leaders are deceiving people today.
They study the scriptures and they study their
favorite verses and they know that this is
true in every church that 90 to 95
% of people sitting in every denomination including
ours do not study the Bible carefully.
And therefore, it's very easy to fool them
when you quote verses to them.
For example, do you know that Jesus believed
in eternal security?
And I do too.
Let me read it to you.
John's Gospel chapter 10.
These are the words of Jesus.
Verse 28.
And I give eternal life to them and
they shall never perish.
No one shall snatch them out of My
hand.
My Father who has given these people to
Me is greater than all and no one
is able to snatch them out of the
Father's hand.
And I say, what does that say?
Listen to me preach now.
What does that say?
What has God, Jesus given you?
Eternal life.
Verse 28.
What does He say will never happen to
you?
You will never perish.
What does He say?
No one will snatch you out of His
hand.
What does He say more?
My Father is greater than me.
No one can snatch you out of the
hand.
I mean, if that isn't eternal security, what
is?
The only problem is it begins with the
word and.
And means there must have been something said
before that.
And I want to read the first part
of it.
And that's what a lot of preachers won't
tell you.
That's how they fool you.
The first part is, My sheep hear My
voice.
Okay?
Are you listening to His voice?
And I know them and they follow Me
and I give them eternal life.
So who gets this eternal security?
The ones who are following Jesus.
Are you following Jesus?
Brother, you are eternally secure.
You stop following Him tomorrow, verse 28 doesn't
apply to you anymore.
I can't understand it any other way.
I believe in eternal security.
With all my heart I believe in eternal
security.
That all those who follow Jesus are eternally
secure.
Anything other than that is heresy.
And I believe the opposite also.
If you don't follow Jesus, you are not
eternally secure.
This is what I mean.
I said the other day how you can
preach the blood of Jesus cleanses everybody from
all sin.
It's not true.
If you walk in the light, as He
is in the light.
1 John 1.7 Then and then only
the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from
all sin.
So how do people deceive others?
By quoting half a verse.
You take half a verse and build a
doctrine on it.
It can be eternal security.
It can be blood of Jesus cleanses us
from all sin.
So many things.
You know there are songs we sing.
I told you, I give you another example.
We are under the blood.
Why?
Thank God I am not under the blood.
I am not an Egyptian with a blood
over my door posts.
Do you know that the Bible never says
in the New Testament that the blood covers
me?
Like we sang in that song just now.
I thought of it when I sang that
song.
Nowhere.
It's an Old Testament thing.
Blessed is the man whose sins are covered.
It's like all our sins are written on
the blackboard and a sheet is put over
it.
It's covered.
You lift up the sheet, it's all there.
But the blood in the New Testament cleanses.
It wipes out that blackboard.
You can never find it.
There is no sheet to lift up.
There is nothing there.
It's gone.
It's gone forever.
And the sins and iniquities I will remember
no more.
I thank God my sins are not covered.
Because somebody may lift up the sheet and
discover it.
It's gone.
It's cleansed.
It's gone forever.
You can't lift up anything and find anything
there.
It's wonderful.
The blood of Jesus Christ does not cover
us from any sin.
It cleanses us.
My dear brothers and sisters, I'm just giving
you examples how traditions have got so much
in your mind that you've almost accepted it
as God's word even though you don't have
a single scriptural verse in the New Testament
for it.
I'm just giving you examples to show you
how people have fooled you for so many
years.
That's why I always say, Be like the
Bereans.
And say, Brother Paul, I know you're a
great man of God, great preacher, but we
like to check the scripture before we believe
what you say.
Say that to every man.
Show that to me in scripture.
I've said it for 40 years, 45 years.
And that's what's protected.
And I want to encourage you, Be a
student of the scriptures.
Paul told Timothy, Be diligent to study the
word.
And I want to encourage you to do
that.
We need not only the new wine, the
life of Jesus, but we need that new
wine in a new wineskin.
In a wineskin that Jesus has given to
us.
And that's why we preach about being delivered
from Babylon.
And I want to share something further today
about the life of Jesus.
It says here in 2 Corinthians 13.
Something about the life of Jesus we see
here in 2 Corinthians 13.
You know, maybe we can begin at verse
3.
Since you are seeking for proof of the
Christ who speaks in me.
You know, these Corinthians were so ungrateful.
Paul had done such a tremendous work there.
Established a church.
And then, they were questioning whether he was
an apostle.
I mean, we would have thought they are
the last people in the world who should
be questioning whether he was an apostle.
He spent one and a half years there
and established this church when nothing was existing.
And they were still questioning whether he was
an apostle.
And he said, you fellas are still seeking
for proof whether Christ is speaking in me.
And what does he tell them?
He tells them about his weakness.
Not about the mighty things.
He said, listen fellas, do you know I
raised people from the dead?
You know, that's how we try to impress
somebody that Christ is speaking through us.
You want proof that Christ speaks through me
and works through me?
This is what I did over there.
These are the people I raised from the
dead.
I can bring before you people who have
been healed through my prayer.
Those are the people whom demons I cast
out.
And these are the books I have written.
And these are the places I have established
churches.
What do you mean you doubt my apostleship?
That's not what Paul said.
That's how people in the world and Babylonian
people try to boast about their accomplishments.
We don't have anything of that.
Do you ever find Jesus getting up and
saying, you know I raised the dead over
there and I healed the sick over there
and I remember I'll tell you the story
of the blind man I healed over there.
He never said these things.
He spoke God's word.
And so, here we see Paul doesn't use
any of those ways to prove that Christ
is speaking through them.
He never thought about it.
He said, you want to know how Christ
speaks through me?
I'm a weak person.
God's made me weak.
In the previous chapter he said, you know
God's given me a thorn in the flesh.
I've got a sickness I'm not healed from.
You want to know that Christ speaks through
me?
I've got a sickness I'm not healed from.
You want to know whether Christ is with
me?
I prayed three times to God and He
didn't answer my prayer.
Paul, are you stupid?
Are these the type of things you're going
to say to prove that you're an apostle?
You're crazy.
The way of the New Testament is the
way of brokenness.
The way of weakness.
The way of helplessness.
The way of a weak, helpless person depending
upon God.
It's like a branch in a tree.
That branch is absolutely helpless, useless, good for
nothing without the tree.
Even if that branch has had 50 years
of experience being in the tree, producing fruit,
what's it today?
A weak, helpless branch.
What's the difference between that branch which has
had 50 years experience in bearing fruit and
this branch which just came out of the
tree today?
Tell me, is there a difference?
Is there a difference between that fellow who
found Christ today and someone like me who
knew Christ 45 years ago?
Absolutely not.
In terms of our human ability to do
anything for God, He and I are just
the same.
The branch with 45 years experience bearing fruit
and the branch which just started coming out
of the tree today.
Both are equally helpless, dependent on the tree
for the sap to bear fruit.
And it's when people begin to think that
their experience makes them special.
That's when they get puffed up and God
stops using them.
I've seen numerous cases.
I want to say to you, you wonderful
young people who have accepted the Lord, I
want to rejoice with the angels in heaven
over every sinner who repents.
The Bible says, there's joy in heaven over
one sinner who repents.
And if you can't rejoice when a sinner
repents, something's wrong with you.
You're not in touch with heaven.
But I'll tell you another thing.
And that is, there's sorrow in heaven when
these wonderful believers, 10 years later they've lost
the fire.
Or 5 years later they've lost their love
for Jesus.
They're enmeshed in the world and taken up
with other things.
And they've built a new set of traditions.
Another old wineskin.
That's when there's sorrow in heaven.
When these people who were meant to be
on fire for God, got married to the
wrong person, went after money, went after earthly
honor.
Began to get something for themselves and lost
that original vision which they had when they
converted.
That's when there's sorrow in heaven.
And I want to encourage all of you
wonderful young people.
Let God break you.
And there'll never be sorrow in heaven.
All of your life, God wants to break
you.
He says, you want to seek proof of
Christ working in me?
Verse 4.
Here's what I said.
The real Jesus.
He was crucified because of weakness.
If you can understand that verse, you'll understand
the power of God.
He was crucified because of weakness.
Yet he lives because of the power of
God.
Do you know that, I don't know whether
you know this.
Jesus, it never says anywhere in the Bible
that Jesus raised himself from the dead.
You try and find a verse that says
that.
It's not there.
Jesus did not raise himself from the dead.
It always says, God raised him from the
dead.
Always.
Jesus gave himself to die.
Now my question is, I mean, if I
say, well, I'm not going to raise myself
from the dead.
That's not a great thing.
Because I don't have the power to do
it.
It's like saying, well, I decided today I'm
not going to fly.
What's so great about that?
I don't have the power to do it.
If you have the power to do it,
and then you don't do it, that's something
great.
That's the type of weakness I'm talking about.
And you see this weakness right from the
beginning of Jesus' life till the end of
his life.
He had power to turn stones into bread,
but he wouldn't do it.
Now if I say, I decided not to
turn this grass into bread.
That's not a great thing.
I don't have that power.
But when Jesus was hungry for 40 days,
and had power to turn stones into bread,
and had the discipline to say, I won't
use it.
I will never use the power God has
given me to satisfy myself.
Even to satisfy my hunger.
Look at the number of people today who
are using the power God has given them
to fill their bank accounts, to make money,
to get honor, and all types of things.
Using the gifts God has given them to
promote themselves, to promote their own organizations, to
promote their own churches.
And you see how different they are from
Jesus Christ.
The real Jesus never promoted himself.
He never used God's power for himself.
He was weak.
He had power to turn stones into bread.
He wouldn't do it.
He wouldn't use it.
And right at the end of his life,
how do you see it?
He had power to call 72,000 angels
from heaven to fight against these Roman soldiers.
There's a verse in Isaiah, which says that
in the time of King Hezekiah, he prayed
to God when the Assyrians came to fight
with him through Sennacherib, their leader.
And God sent one angel.
And you know how many people that one
angel kills?
185,000 people.
Okay?
Can you imagine how many people, 72,000
people angels can kill?
You work out the math on that.
72,000 is millions.
He could have called 72,000 angels and
he didn't do it.
That's weakness.
He could have called down fire from heaven
much quicker than Elijah to burn up that
fellow who spat on him.
He didn't do it.
You and I don't have that power.
We don't do it.
It's not a great thing.
He had the power and he didn't do
it.
Now the disciples, they didn't understand that.
We read in Luke 9 that they came
to Samaria and the people in Samaria did
not receive Jesus.
You know why?
Because He was going to Jerusalem and it's
like, they told Him, well, if you are
going to that denomination, then we won't let
you preach here.
Okay, fine.
And the disciples who knew the Bible very
well, they said, Lord, you know, this is
the place where Elijah called down fire, the
same Samaria.
We remember that from the Old Testament.
It's written there in 2 Kings.
He called down fire from heaven, burned up
these people who wanted to capture Him.
And let's do that now, James and John
said.
And Jesus said, you don't know what spirit
you are of.
He had the power to call down fire
from heaven and He wouldn't use it.
That's how it is.
That's weakness.
He was crucified in weakness.
Means, He had the power to be free,
but He would not use it.
He refused to use His own strength to
fight back against people who fought with Him.
He said, it's okay.
And Paul says, in 2 Corinthians chapter 13
verse 4, We also are weak in Him,
but we will live with Him by the
power of God.
This is the secret of the Christian life.
To be weak like Christ was, so that
God honors us, so that God exalts us,
so that God raises us up.
We humble ourselves, He exalts us.
God bore witness to Jesus Christ.
We read that in the Acts of the
Apostles chapter 2 when Peter is preaching.
He says, here is a man whom God
bore witness to.
God bore witness to the Apostle Paul.
And I want to say to all of
you, all of you dear brothers and sisters,
God must bear witness to you and to
your life and to your labors.
It's not enough that other people think you
are great.
That's worthless.
Get all the opinions of all the people
in the world and throw it in the
garbage bin.
It's trash.
It's good for nothing.
The good opinions and the bad opinions.
It means nothing.
There is only one person whose opinion matters.
I hope you know that.
I have said this for years in India.
Ten thousand people calling you a prophet will
not make you a prophet.
Ten thousand people calling you a devil will
not make you a devil.
It's what God thinks about you that matters.
It's the only thing that matters.
He is the only one.
Hebrews chapter 4 verse 13 says, He is
the only one with whom we have to
do.
And when you live like that, that's how
Jesus lived.
He didn't care whether people called him demon
possessed or devil or false prophet or false
teacher.
It didn't make any difference because he lived
before his father.
He was secure in his father.
Remember what he said to his disciples.
Even his disciples in John chapter 14.
See these words in John 14.
Sorry, John 16 verse 32.
John chapter 16 verse 32.
He says, an hour is coming.
It has already come.
For all of you.
Now remember, these were the only 11 people
who finally stuck with him and everybody had
left him.
And now there were 11 with him.
Imagine being in a church where you see
one by one people leaving.
They are offended with your message.
I have seen that happen many times.
They get offended, they get offended, they leave,
they leave, they leave and finally you are
left with 11.
You think they are wholehearted.
And then it says here in verse 32,
the time has come when all of you
will also run away to your own homes.
You want to save your own life.
And you will leave me alone.
To be left alone in the world is
real weakness.
Where everybody leaves you.
Your best friends who said they would stick
with you through thick and thin leaves you.
Maybe your wife turns against you.
Your husband turns against you.
You are alone.
That is weakness.
And he says, but I am not alone.
Here is a man who is totally secure.
He is not saying, oh I hope you
fellows won't leave me.
You are the only ones I have got
left.
No.
There was a time in John chapter 6
where we read many people got offended with
what Jesus preached about the cross and they
left him.
And then he looked at the 12 and
he said, do you also want to go?
And that's not what a person who is
insecure would ever say.
So often we find, you know, it's really
true.
Many of you, you don't realize it.
I don't want to shake you up, but
it's good to be shaken up sometimes.
I feel that a lot of you are
finding your security in a church and not
in Jesus Christ.
And you won't be strong.
Your security is some wonderful brothers and sisters
around you.
Maybe only 4 or 5 or 10 or
11.
And you find your security there.
Oh, these folks will stick by me through
thick and thin.
And I am happy with them.
It's good.
It's like a baby stage in the Christian
life.
Grow up brother.
Grow up from that.
Grow up to the place where it doesn't
matter if you leave me too.
I have God.
Then you're strong.
Then you can really be a blessing in
the church because you're free from men.
You're even free from these wonderful brothers and
sisters around you.
I remember when we started building our church.
We started with about 10 people in our
home.
Less than 10 I think of those who
are with us now.
Maybe 4 or 5 only are with us
now.
In our home 29 years ago.
And I said, Lord, I have seen certain
truths.
I don't hear anybody in India preaching them.
But I'm going to preach them.
If everybody leaves, that's fine.
It doesn't make one difference to me.
I've seen something and I'm going to preach
it.
And those who want to hear it can
come.
Those who want to get offended can go.
I studied John chapter 6 and I saw
John chapter 6 is one of those wonderful
chapters which begins with a great multitude following
Jesus.
Jesus preaching the cross.
And finally the number becomes 12.
And He looks at the 12 and He
says, One of you also is a devil.
If you want to know how to reduce
a great multitude to 12, read John chapter
6.
That's how we build the church.
Everywhere around us people are trying to make
the church bigger.
Jesus was trying to make the church purer.
There's a world of difference.
Have you noticed one thing about Babylon and
Jerusalem in Revelation?
I don't know whether you've noticed it.
You study the Bible carefully, you discover one
great thing about use a concordance.
I would encourage you to use a concordance
when you study the Bible.
Babylon is called the great city.
11 or 12 times in Revelation.
Jerusalem is never called the great city.
It's called a holy city.
That is the difference between Babylon and Jerusalem.
One is great, the other is holy.
One is great in the eyes of the
world, big.
The other is holy.
You remember the story that the parable Jesus
said about a mustard tree, which is only
supposed to grow this high.
That's how high a mustard tree is supposed
to be.
And it grows up and becomes the biggest
of all the trees.
It's not supposed to be that.
That's not the way God intended it.
But it becomes such a huge tree with
all these artificial fertilizers and psychological tricks that
people try with this little mustard tree.
And it becomes so huge.
And what's the end result of that?
All the demons, birds of the air come
and nestle in that.
That's what happens to these big Babylonian denominations.
When you make something much bigger than God
intended it to be.
Jesus is interested in making the church pure.
In weakness.
All through His life there was weakness.
And He says here, Even you leaven will
leave Me and go away, but I'm not
alone.
The Father is with Me.
You know, God wants every single one of
us to have such a knowledge of Jesus
Christ.
This is eternal life.
We saw that in the first day.
This is eternal life.
That they might know God and Jesus Christ
whom God has sent.
And I want to say to you, this
is the most important thing that you should
pursue in your life.
To know God.
And the Bible is only a means of
knowing God.
When I tell you to study the Bible,
it's not an end in itself.
You'll be a Pharisee if you make the
Bible an end in itself.
It's only a way by which you can
know God.
Because this is the only book in the
world that tells us what God is like.
This is the only book in the world
that tells us what the real Jesus is
like.
And we've got a lot of false ideas
of Jesus which you've probably seen during this
weekend.
And if you come here, you get to
see the real Jesus.
You know Him.
And that's eternal life.
And that's eternal security.
When we begin to know Jesus personally and
say, Lord, You were like this.
How was He?
He was a person who could turn around
to the only 11 people sticking with Him
till the end and say, You're gonna leave
me too.
I'm not gonna be alone.
I'm secure in my Father.
Can you say that?
Supposing everybody in the church here left you.
And you were left alone.
Would you feel sorry for yourself?
Would you say, That's fine.
I'm not alone.
Supposing your wife turned against you and say,
I think you're going the wrong way.
I'm not gonna divorce you, but I'm not
gonna support you in this type of direction
you're going.
It's fine.
What am I gonna do?
Compromise to please my wife?
Never.
I've got to follow Jesus.
That's why Jesus said, You can't be my
disciple if you love wife or husband or
father or mother or child more than me.
Say, Sorry, you can't be my disciple.
Go and find some other thing to do.
Because He wants us to have that personal
relationship with Him where it doesn't matter where
who turns against us.
That's weakness.
And God makes us weak.
And, you know, sometimes I feel it doesn't
matter the whole world turns against me.
Six billion people against me.
It's fine.
I remember hearing the story of a great
man of God.
His name was Chrysostom who stood up for
the doctrine of the Trinity way back in
the early, I don't know when he lived,
2380 or something like that.
And those are days when there were a
lot of people preaching false doctrines.
And somebody told him these words which stuck
in my mind.
He said, Do you know, Chrysostom, that this
doctrine you're preaching, the whole world is against
you.
You see, those days, Constantine had made everybody
nominal Christians.
And it was sometime then, he said, the
world is against you.
He said, that's fine.
Then Chrysostom is against the whole world.
That's all.
It's the end of the matter.
I mean, no further discussion required.
You're not going to change me by saying
the whole world is against me.
Let them be against me.
Let God be true and every man a
liar.
And I want to say to you, my
dear brothers and sisters, you must develop that
individual life with God and not something that
leans upon the church.
I'll tell you what I've discovered in Bangalore,
in our home church.
We have a wonderful church.
And because it's such a wonderful church, a
lot of people have not grown spiritually.
Isn't that a contradiction?
It's not a contradiction.
It's like in the villages, sometimes I see,
and people are not, who are away from
Bangalore and who are in some place where
they don't have a church and they've got
only Jesus.
And I see them once a year at
a conference.
And I say, boy, that fellow's grown spiritually
more than this person who's sitting listening to
all these wonderful messages for 52 weeks.
Why was that?
Because he could lean on the church.
And that fellow had nobody to lean on
but the Lord.
And that can happen.
You know, in India, sometimes we have, you'd
probably never see it anywhere else.
You'd never see it here in the United
States.
We can get into buses and trains which
are so jam-packed.
That's the word we use.
They're jam-packed.
And that when you get into the aisle,
you never get a seat, of course.
You stand.
But the wonderful thing about standing in these
aisles is you don't have to move.
There are people behind you who just keep
pushing you up and you keep moving without
any effort.
It's like these travelators and escalators.
You just stand there and you just move.
And these are human forces that keep you
moving.
And you can be in a church like
that where everybody is pushing you forward and
you move.
And effortlessly you move till all those people
drop out one day and then you suddenly
find you got no strength.
You don't know the Lord.
I've seen numerous cases like this.
It's one of the dangers of being in
a good church.
It's one of the dangers of being in
a zealous church where everybody is zealous around
you and they just push you along.
And you're a passenger.
You don't have an individual connection with Christ.
Very dangerous.
So what should we do?
Leave that church?
No!
In the midst of that church have an
individual connection with Christ and say, Lord, I
want to lean on you.
I want to develop an individual life with
you.
I want to know you.
I don't want to be pushed along by
others.
And one way to discover whether you're being
pushed along by others or whether you have
an individual life in Christ is this.
Do you find that God speaks to you
only in the meetings?
That's a danger sign.
Doesn't God speak to you when you're all
alone reading the Bible or walking down the
road?
God doesn't speak to you then?
Something is seriously wrong, brother.
You need to check up.
Something is seriously wrong.
Thank God for the times God speaks to
us in conferences like this and in the
meetings.
But you must hear God speaking to you
at other times when you're all alone.
Seek for that.
Otherwise you'll be...
This is how a lot of people get
dependent on some pastor or preacher.
And it's very easy.
It's very easy for you folks here to
lean upon Jason so much even though he
may not call himself a pastor.
You can lean upon him so much that
you don't need God.
Terrible if it becomes like that.
I've seen sometimes this happened to me through
the years.
I've seen somebody leaning upon me and I've
pushed him away.
You got to lean on Christ.
You're not going to lean on me.
I remember one person who would only come
to visit me and never visit any of
the other elders or the other brothers in
the church.
And he'd always come to me.
One day he came to my door and
said...
I said, I don't want you to come
to my house again till you go and
have some fellowship with these other brothers.
Now that sounded rude but I needed to
do that so that he wasn't leaning on
me.
We don't want anybody leaning on man.
We want people to come to a living
connection with Christ and to value the different
brothers and sisters.
Our calling...
We're not to be an end in ourselves.
We're to be a signpost saying Jesus is
that way.
Go there.
And if people get stuck at the signpost
something is wrong.
And this is what's happening in so much
of Christian leadership today.
People come and they're stuck with the signpost.
Jesus is over there but these fellows don't
have a signpost.
And these are the people who are acting
like Jesus.
You know when Jesus said, many will come
and say...
come into the world and say, Behold, I
am Christ.
He said, Where in the world have I
met a person who says, I am Christ?
No, you haven't met anybody like that.
But you met people like this who get
you so attached to them.
They're acting like Christ.
They're acting like God.
You're supposed to be attached only to God.
I'll never in my life allow anybody to
be attached to me.
Because that's the mark of the Antichrist.
The Antichrist sits in the temple and acts
as if he's God.
Everybody's got to be dependent on me.
I've had people come to me and say,
Brother Zach, can you please find out the
will of God for me in this matter?
I say, I certainly won't.
I'll give you some advice.
But you've got to find out the will
of God yourself because God's given you the
Holy Spirit.
I'm not going to make you dependent on
me.
I'll give you any amount of advice.
I'll sit hours with you giving you advice.
But I will not take that decision for
you.
You ask me, what should I do?
I say, I don't know.
I remember hearing about...
I was in the Navy and I heard
a story about in the war time there
was a commanding officer of a ship who
wanted to encourage people to take individual decisions
and not depend on him for everything because
he wanted them to develop understanding in warfare.
So, he sent a signal across to the
captain, this junior ship captain.
I sent a signal across to the top
commander and said, Shall I turn?
Now I'm going towards the enemy.
Shall I turn left or right?
He said, yes.
He said, yes to the left or yes
to the right?
Yes.
He wanted him to be independent and take
a decision.
By all means, take advice but learn to
lean upon God.
And if you are weak, all the more
reason why you can lean upon God.
It's in weakness that God manifests His power.
So, that's why God allows so many circumstances
in our life to make us weak.
And that's how it was with Jesus.
You know the real Jesus, it says in
John chapter 7 that His brothers, verse 5,
did not believe in Him.
Can you imagine?
If you had an elder brother, just imagine.
Now picture this in your home.
Sometimes we got to use our imagination, put
ourselves in the place.
I put myself in the place of these
brothers of Jesus.
Maybe 2 years younger to Jesus.
Another fellow 3 years younger.
Another sister 4 years younger to Jesus.
There were 4 brothers.
We read their names in Mark 6 and
2 sisters at least.
And they have growing up in their home.
They can watch their older brother never get
angry, never act selfishly, always do the dirty
jobs, ready to do whatever mummy or daddy
says, always obedient, never get irritated, never hits
back.
When you grab his toy, he lets you
have it.
When you, as you grow up, you grab
something else, he lets you have it.
You watch this for 30 years and you
don't believe in him.
That's absolutely amazing.
It's amazing how blind you can be.
And you know what happens whenever you have
a really good boy like that in a
home.
All the others gang up against him.
I've seen that.
One good boy in a home and all
the other wicked ones gang up because they
are irritated that this fellow never gets angry.
And they want to work him up, work
him up, work him up till they get
him angry and then they are happy.
Have you seen people like that who are
upset because you don't get upset and they
work you up, work you up and they
relax only when they see, at last we
got him upset.
But they tried that with Jesus year after
year after year and he never got upset.
But can you imagine the pressure that was
on him with them making fun of him
and calling him, and all six of them
ganging up against him in that home where
he grew up and he couldn't run away
because his father said, That's where you got
to be.
That's where you got to be.
Imagine the brokenness that came upon him.
And then he walked down the street and
there'd be old people sitting by the road
and say, You know that little boy, the
one on the other side?
We know his mother, Mary.
We don't know who his father is.
That's the reputation he grew up with for
30 years, a young boy.
Imagine a young boy being always pointed out.
That's the one we don't know who's father
he is.
Mary got pregnant before she got married.
You know there was a reproach upon Jesus
long before he came into his ministry.
These are the means God used to break
him.
When it says in Isaiah 53 verse 10,
It pleased the father to crush him.
Because that's the way God does.
And that's the way God did with his
only son.
You can be sure.
That was his favorite son.
And the closer you are to God's heart,
the more he will deal with you like
that.
Do you want to know someone who was
very close to God's heart other than Jesus?
The apostle Paul.
I want to show you something that he
went through.
Turn to 2nd Corinthians in chapter 11.
Now remember, this is Paul writing to people
to whom he's trying to prove that he's
an apostle.
Okay?
And he doesn't talk about the people he's
raised from the dead.
He doesn't talk about the scriptures he's written.
He doesn't talk about the books he's written.
He doesn't talk about the churches he's planted.
He doesn't talk about any of these things.
The things that today's Christians boast about.
I've done this and I've done that.
And I've done the other thing and I've
done the other thing.
He doesn't say any of these things.
He says, okay.
Are they boasting?
Okay.
He says, I'll also boast.
What shall I say?
2nd Corinthians 11 verse 23.
Are they servants of Christ?
And now I'm speaking like a madman, he
says.
I'm more than them.
How?
Because I've labored more.
I've been in jail more times than them.
What a way to prove that you're an
apostle.
I've been in jail more often than those
people have been.
They say that wherever Paul went, there was
either a revival or a riot.
And usually both.
And it finally ended up with Paul in
jail.
But then he wouldn't be quiet in jail.
He'd convert people right into jail till they
got him out of jail and sent him
out from there.
That's how he was.
Far more imprisonments.
He says, I've been beaten so many times
that I've stopped counting.
You see, he's trying to prove he's an
apostle.
I've been beaten so many times and God
didn't come to help me.
God didn't paralyze the hand of the man
who was beating me.
He just allowed the guy to beat me
and beat me and beat me.
And that didn't just happen once, he says.
It happened so many times I've lost count.
I've been in danger of death numerous times.
Verse 24.
Five times the Jews gave me their 39
lashes on my back.
And God didn't paralyze the hands of those
Jews who whipped me on my back.
I was beaten with rods three times.
I was stoned once.
Three times I was shipwrecked.
We think at least God could save this
man from a shipwreck.
What was he going for on the ship?
Where do you think Paul was going on
a ship?
Do you think he was going to make
money?
Was he going on business?
No!
He was going to preach the gospel.
Do people who go to preach the gospel
face shipwrecks?
You know, we've got this wrong idea about
God.
Because we haven't understood the way of weakness
and the way of brokenness.
So much of our thinking is not like
the thinking of Jesus.
It's like the thinking of the world.
God is here to help me.
I'll never have a shipwreck.
I'll never...
nobody...
God will not allow anybody to stone me.
God will not allow anybody to whip me
on my back.
I'm a child of the king.
I'm a son of God.
I'm a servant of God.
Well, he was one of the greatest servants
of God.
Shipwrecked not once, but three times.
And he says, 24 hours.
Once when I was shipwrecked, I was in
the water.
Wondering whether I drown or somebody would come
to rescue me.
Imagine being 24 hours in the open sea,
clinging on to some piece of wood, hoping
that somebody would rescue you, crying out...
Do you think Paul was praying at that
time?
I'm sure he was.
He prayed for one hour, nothing happened.
Then he prayed another hour, nothing happened.
Oh God, please send somebody, some ship on
the horizon.
Nothing.
12 hours, nothing.
Do you think God would let his servant
drown?
No, he had a ministry for him.
But these were ways in which God had
to break this man because he was used
so mightily.
When God uses a man mightily, he has
to break that man mightily.
And that's what he had to do with
him.
He says, I've been on frequent journeys and
dangers from rivers and dangers from robbers and
so on and on and on and on
and on.
And he says, I've been through many sleepless
nights, verse 27.
And in hunger and thirst, often without food
and cold and exposure.
Now there were times when Paul fasted.
That was out of choice, which all of
us should do now and then.
But there were other times when he did
not want to fast and he could not
eat because he didn't have anything to eat.
And I've discovered one thing through the years.
That if you have a love for food,
you cannot serve the Lord.
You better forget about serving the Lord if
you love food.
If you love sleep, forget about serving the
Lord.
To sleep is okay, but to love sleep
is wrong.
To have money is okay, but to love
money is wrong.
To eat food is okay, but to love
food is wrong.
Because you can't serve the Lord.
I've seen numerous people.
They can't serve the Lord because they love
food so much.
There's a time in Mark chapter 3, I
think it's verse 20 or something where it
says, Jesus was so busy with people that
he didn't even have time to eat his
meals.
Has that ever happened to you?
Where you're so busy serving people, counseling people,
advising people that you didn't have time to
eat lunch.
That's how it was with Paul.
God broke him sometimes.
He didn't have food.
Here's another thing.
He was shivering at times because he didn't
have warm clothing.
And he didn't have the money to buy
it.
In another place he says, he tells Timothy
in 2 Timothy 4, Please bring that cloak
which I left behind in that place.
I'm here in jail and I'm shivering in
the cold and nobody will give me a
cloak.
Can you please bring that cloak, that old
cloak I left behind there.
Here's the greatest apostle on the face of
the earth.
He didn't have a blanket to cover himself
in that prison.
Have you understood what it means to serve
God?
It's so different from these film star type
of preachers today who stand in platforms with
a spotlight shining on them.
This is another type of man.
This is the man I want to follow.
Not these modern day film star type of
evangelists.
They don't...
I'm not even tempted to go that way
because I know that that is another Jesus.
I've seen it clearly.
And I don't care how many people get
mad at me.
It's another Jesus and I don't want to
follow that.
I'm not here to criticize them.
It's none of my business to judge them
or criticize them.
Like I was saying yesterday about demons casting
people down.
I was saying that in another meeting in
another place and somebody said, Why don't you
then, you mean to say all these people
are pushing people down and got demon possessed.
No, I said I didn't say that.
Don't quote me wrong.
I've been misquoted so many times in so
many places.
Even in India for 25 years, you know,
something I say, somebody picks it up and
misquotes it to promote their own agenda.
Once I went to the Lord and said,
Lord, what am I going to do, Lord?
Have I got to go and clarify every
time somebody misquotes me?
And the Lord said, Don't worry, I've been
misquoted for 2000 years.
I said, OK.
Well, that comforts me.
People misquote the Bible and they build cults
on it.
Completely against the spirit of Christ.
Quoting the words of Jesus Christ.
So I got some comfort from that.
So people misquote and I said, That's not
what I said.
I didn't say they've got demons.
I just said, Jesus never did it.
That's what I said.
The rest, you are deducing from that.
I'm not here to judge another person.
It's not my business.
And I say, I see in the Bible
that Jesus never pushed anybody down.
But I do see in the Bible that
demons push people down.
Period.
That's all I have to say.
I'm not going to say anything more.
You know, Jesus said a number of things.
But there's a wonderful thing that Jesus said
here in John chapter 8.
Which I have learned to take for myself
very seriously.
John chapter 8.
He said in verse 15.
You people judge according to the flesh.
I am not judging anyone.
You want to see the real Jesus?
The real Jesus was one who did not
judge anybody.
You say, well, didn't he say certain things
exposing the Pharisees?
He certainly did.
But that was not judging.
You know, it's like, if I have children
in my home.
There was a time in Bangalore where kidnappers
would kidnap children from school, from the gates
of the school.
They'd go and tell these little children, your
dad's around the corner.
He's asking to come and pick you up.
And the innocent child would go with that
person.
The child would be kidnapped.
And his hand would be broken.
And he'd be made a beggar on the
street and some 500 miles away in some
other town.
Or if it's a girl, child would be
taken for prostitution.
This used to happen.
So what do I do to my children?
I say, be careful.
There are kidnappers around.
Don't just listen to anybody who says, your
dad's waiting around the corner.
Don't go with them.
This is warning.
And when I had spiritual children in a
church, I had to give them warnings too.
There are kidnappers around.
There are people out to kidnap you, take
you away from Christ.
I have to warn them.
Wouldn't any father do that?
Now that's not...
I'm not here to judge those kidnappers.
It's not my business.
But I have to warn my children.
And there's a lot of...
And Jesus was warning his disciples.
He says, be careful that you're not like
those Pharisees who preach things which they don't
practice.
That you don't follow those ways.
That you don't exploit poor widows and come
to the church and preach wonderful...
and pray wonderful prayers and preach wonderful sermons.
He says, God won't be impressed with you.
And don't just be taken up with little,
little things and neglect the more important things
like mercy.
And so, we see here, in the same
way, Jesus was always...
He said, I never judge anyone.
And he said that twice.
He said...
And then he said in verse 16, even
if I do judge, my judgment is true.
If there was one person who lived on
this earth, who could judge perfectly and never
make a mistake, that was Jesus.
That was power.
But he never exercised it.
Throughout Jesus' life, you find he had power
to do certain things, but he'd never use
it.
Another place, in John chapter 12, he says...
He says, if you don't obey my word,
I won't judge him.
Verse 47, John 12, 47.
If anyone hears my sayings and doesn't keep
them, I don't judge him.
My brothers and sisters, can we follow Jesus
here?
And say, I don't judge anybody.
I warn my children, sure, against all the
kidnappers.
There are plenty of them in Christendom.
But, I will not judge anyone.
That's not my business.
Yesterday I mentioned the first words that Jesus
spoke, recorded in the Gospels.
Do you remember what it was?
My father's house.
I got to be about my father's house.
My father's business.
Do you know what the last words that
Jesus spoke in the Gospels?
The last words recorded in the Gospels are
in John 21.
If I were to paraphrase it, it's like
this.
Mind your own business.
This is the last words he spoke in
the Gospels.
Mind your own business.
You want to hear it?
It's in John 21.
You know, the Lord had just told Peter
in verse 18.
You know what's going to happen to you,
Peter?
You're going to suffer.
You're going to die.
When you grow old, now you're free and
you go wherever you like.
After some time, somebody will stretch you out,
stretch out your hands and you'll be crucified.
And he said that, telling him, verse 19,
what kind of death he was going to
die.
And Peter looked around and saw John, verse
20, and said, as if we're asking, Lord,
what about this man?
Verse 21.
Is he going to have a comfortable life?
Is only me going to suffer?
What about him?
And Jesus said, that is none of your
business.
That's essentially what he was saying.
If I want him to remain for 2
,000 years till I come back again, what's
that to you?
You follow me.
You mind your own business.
Your business is to follow me.
Whether somebody else is following me or not
is none of your business.
Whether you have a difficult life and he
has a comfortable life, it's none of your
business.
Lord, why have you given me such a
small income, such a small house and so
difficult to make ends meet?
And that other brother, he seems to have
life pretty comfortably.
You know what the Lord will say to
you?
M-Y-O-B.
Mind your own business.
What's that to you?
You follow me.
I believe many, many believers need to hear
that word.
Because we are looking around at somebody else
and we don't say it, but we're thinking,
why is he having such an easy time?
Why is it only me having such a
rough time?
We need to hear the last words that
Jesus spoke in the Gospels.
You mind your own business.
Don't judge him.
You know, because when you get in the
business of minding other people's business and starting
judging them, it's very easy, unconsciously sometimes, to
begin to hold hands with the devil.
Because the devil is the accuser of the
brethren.
And Jesus once said in John 14 and
verse 30, When the devil comes, he finds
nothing in me.
There's absolutely nothing of Satan in Jesus.
There was not any spirit of accusation.
My brothers and sisters, I'm saying this as
one who has fought against Babylon for 30
years in India.
Who exposes it constantly.
But I say to you, watch your spirit.
Watch your spirit when you do it.
You can do it with a judgmental spirit.
You can do it with a critical spirit.
And you'll destroy yourself.
Be careful.
I've seen young people, I remember one brother
in our church who came out of the
Roman Catholic system.
And all he could do every time he
would meet people was condemn the Roman Catholic
priests and the bishops and the Pope and
this was the Antichrist and this number 666
was this and that.
I said, Brother, you'll destroy yourself.
This is not our gospel.
Our gospel is not that the Pope is
the Antichrist.
That's not my gospel.
You got hung up on that, go ahead.
But that's not my gospel.
My gospel is that Jesus Christ is the
light of the world.
And in Him is life.
And that's what I'm trying to lead people
into.
And I said, If you continue this way,
you will destroy yourself and sure enough, he
didn't listen to me and he did.
He destroyed himself.
He fell out of the church because his
message was anti-Catholicism.
Now I'm just warning you.
You can get so taken up.
I mean, it's alright in the early days,
you know, you're excited that you've come out
of a system and I believe we have
to expose it.
And I believe I expose it just as
much as anybody else.
But you've got to watch your spirit.
Jesus exposed the Pharisees.
But he was willing to die for them.
Don't forget that.
Question.
Did Jesus die for the Pharisees or not?
No catch in it.
Yes or no?
Well, he had a right to rebuke them.
If you're willing to die to save those
people, boy, you certainly have a right to
rebuke them and expose them.
But if you're standing outside of that and
say, you fellas, you don't know anything and
I'm here.
Be watchful of your spirit because that could
be the spirit of the Pharisees.
It's very easy to have that.
Jesus was willing to die for them.
And that's why he could expose them.
You remember the story of the prodigal son?
Let me ask you another question.
No catch here.
The father went out of the house for
which son?
Which one?
Both.
Don't forget that.
He first went out for the younger one
who was the sinner coming back, the worldly
sinner.
And then he went out of the house
for the elder son who was a self
-righteous Pharisee and pleaded with him also to
come inside the house.
And that father is a picture of God.
And God cares for that filthy, rotten, worldly
sinner.
And he cares for this self-righteous Pharisee
also because both of them need salvation.
So if you've got that type of heart,
then you're alright to understand how to stand
against Babylon.
Otherwise it's very easy to hold hands with
the accuser of the brethren.
Because how many of you believe there are
some of God's people in Babylon?
There are.
The Bible says that.
Come out of her.
My people.
If God can call them his people, why
can't I?
They're in the wrong place.
And God says, you are my people but
come out of there.
You're in the wrong system.
We've got to understand that.
Otherwise it's very easy to become Babylon ourselves
over a period of time.
Jesus was determined that there'd be nothing of
the devil.
John 14, 30 is a verse that God's
spoken to me many, many times.
The ruler of the world is coming and
he has nothing in me.
Make that a goal in your life.
One of the goals in your life.
That when Satan comes against you, he finds
nothing of his spirit in you.
And one of the primary characteristics of Satan
is the spirit of accusation.
That there is zero spirit of accusation.
You know, you can accuse your wife.
You can accuse your husband.
You can accuse the elders in the church.
You can accuse brothers and sisters without knowing
their circumstances.
You think you know.
We don't know.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 4, judge
nothing till the time comes.
1 Corinthians 4, 5 to 7.
Judge nothing till the time the Lord, till
the Lord returns.
Because when the Lord returns, He'll show you
the inner motive with which that person did
something.
Then you will be able to understand whether
he was right or wrong.
But you've got to be pretty conceited to
think that you know what's going on in
a man's heart right now.
We don't know.
I really believe the mark of a humble
man is that he says, Lord, I don't
know.
I don't know there what's in his heart.
I don't want to judge him.
I've got enough to do judging myself.
That's enough for me.
I don't want to hold my hand with
the accuser.
That's why he never, never, Jesus never, never
judged.
Even though he had every right to.
And I believe this is the real Jesus
we need to follow that I never in
my life judge another person.
I remember once in one of our village
churches, young sister came with a lot of
jewelry on her.
Now, I don't believe that you've got to
take off your jewelry to go to heaven.
But in our churches, 99% of the
sisters don't wear jewelry.
It's not a law.
It's just their own choice.
I've never told anyone to remove it.
I remember when we started meeting, all the
sisters wore jewelry except my wife.
And I told those husbands, please don't ever
tell your wife to take it off.
Because then it'll be a dead work.
So we're not, our message is not remove
jewelry.
No, I've never preached that.
I baptize people who wear jewels.
I've no problem with that.
But, here was this girl coming decked with
jewels.
And for such a temptation to judge, boy,
she's really trying to show off.
Till a brother told me, you know why
this young girl wears jewels and come here?
Because her parents are Hindus.
And they have said to her, we'll allow
you to go to that church as long
as you don't take off your jewels.
If you take it off, the day you
take it off, we won't let you go
to that church again.
What was she supposed to do?
I said, please, please wear it and come.
Thank God they're allowing you to come.
At least that way you can listen to
God's word.
But how, I thought of that, you know.
How easy it is for us to look
at someone, we don't know his circumstances, we
don't know the background and we pass a
judgment on that person.
You judge according to the outward appearance.
And Jesus said, I don't judge anybody.
It's always better to put a good construction
on that.
Say, I don't know.
Now, I'm telling you from the mistakes I
made.
I don't have any stones to throw at
anybody because I'm with sin first of all
myself.
I've done this so much in my life,
made a mess of my life in my
younger days that I've learned a lesson.
I want to save you young people from
wasting your life in your younger days, judging
other people.
Leave them alone.
Mind your own business.
Judge yourself.
Live before God.
See, I've seen also people criticize pastors, preachers,
full-time workers.
In our church, I'm talking about Bangalore.
I said to them, be careful brother.
You've seen me say that.
And you're trying to imitate me.
You didn't get a revelation from God to
say that.
You're just imitating brother's act.
Now, I'll tell you something.
I said, I have a right to speak
about that.
First of all, because God laid it on
my heart.
And secondly, because there was a time in
my life where I gave up my job
to serve the Lord.
I stepped out in faith with nothing and
I lived in poverty for quite some time.
I have a right to speak to these
people.
You fellows, who are sitting in your comfortable
jobs, never once gave up your jobs to
serve the Lord.
You don't have the right to speak to
them.
Sometime in their life, they quit their jobs
to serve the Lord and become missionaries.
Okay, they're part of Babylon.
But you don't have the right to criticize
them because you never made the sacrifice.
They made it sometime.
So, there are so many things, you know,
where we can look down on someone and
say they've gone astray.
I know they've gone astray.
But maybe you don't have the right to
speak to them.
Somebody else has got to speak to them.
We've got to recognize our boundaries.
One of the biggest mistakes a lot of
Christians make is to go outside their boundaries.
And they get in a lot of problems.
I said yesterday, Jesus sat in the synagogue
for 30 years listening to all those boring
Pharisees and He never got up once.
Think of that.
He knew much more than any of them.
But He never got up because the Father's
time hadn't come.
There was a time He always operated on
the principle of my hour has to come.
When my hour comes, is there a need
for wine here?
My time has not come.
When it comes, I'll do it.
That's how He always operated.
He recognized His boundaries.
He wouldn't do things because He had power.
He'd do things when God prompted Him to.
Because He was like these people who got,
these policemen who got walkie-talkies in their
car.
It's always on.
Anytime a message comes, they listen to it.
That's how a Christian must be.
Always a walkie-talkie connected to headquarters.
You never know when the message will come.
So you go to the policeman and say,
Well, are you going to go down there
where there's been an accident?
He says, No.
Why not?
I haven't got orders from headquarters yet.
So the other fellow goes off.
Five seconds later, this policeman gets an order
from headquarters.
Go to the site of the accident.
And he goes there.
And the other guy says, Hey, you're a
liar.
You said you're not coming here and here
you are.
It's very easy to misunderstand.
You read that in John chapter 7.
The disciples, no, the disciples, the brothers of
Jesus said, Are you going to the feast?
Jesus said, No, I'm not going to the
feast.
Okay.
They went off by themselves.
Five minutes later, Jesus went to the feast.
Have you read that?
And if He walked a little faster than
them, He'd have reached Jerusalem before them.
And they see Him there.
They say, Now we're convinced.
You're a downright liar, calling yourself son of
God and all that.
You told us with your own mouth that
you wouldn't be coming here.
And here you are.
Do they understand what it means to listen
to God?
Do they understand this walkie-talkie principle that
I act so much on orders from headquarters
that I have to say no because I've
got no orders from headquarters.
And five seconds after you leave, I get
orders from headquarters to leave.
I follow.
I don't care if you misunderstand me.
Jesus never bothered to explain Himself to people
who misunderstand Him.
Do you remember that time when in John
chapter 7, this is the real Jesus.
He never tried to explain Himself to people
who misunderstood Him.
They said in John chapter 7, This guy
cannot be the Messiah because He was born
in Nazareth.
Now you got to live in a village
in India to understand the situation in those
first century Palestine.
If you tell me you're from Missouri, it
doesn't mean you were born there.
You could have been born in Kentucky or
California or somewhere else.
But that's not true in India.
In the villages in India, if a man
says, I'm from village X, you can be
absolutely sure he was born in village X
because people don't move.
They're there.
You can be absolutely sure his father was
born in village X and his grandfather going
back many generations was in village X.
That's why they were absolutely convinced that Jesus,
if He's from Nazareth, He must have been
born in Nazareth.
Where else?
And Jesus, that was a wonderful opportunity for
Him to explain.
Do you remember 30 years ago, there was
a census and Augustus Caesar passed a rule
that everybody had to go to their hometown
and that's when I went to Bethlehem and
I was born there.
Do you think He wasted His time explaining
all that to them?
What an opportunity to prove to them He
was the Messiah.
Why didn't He explain it?
He said, if these guys need to see
my birth certificate to find out whether I'm
Messiah, they're not interested in the truth.
If they can't see it in my life,
I'm not going to convince them with the
birth certificate.
You know, so many Christians try to convince
people, I don't waste my time.
The Lord told me years ago that if
people attack you, keep quiet.
Just ignore them.
Leave it alone.
If people fling mud on you, what should
you do?
If you wipe it, it'll spoil your shirt.
You leave it alone, it'll dry off and
drop, drop off by itself and your shirt
will be clean.
That's the best thing to do.
Don't try and wipe it off.
Leave them alone.
Just leave them alone.
I've seen people, I remember a person who
rang me up once because of some decision
I take.
Sometimes as elders, we have to take decisions
which are strong decisions that upset some people.
It doesn't bother me if I've lived before
God's face.
This one was, he was not part of
our church, but he was so upset about
some decision, a discipline I've taken on someone,
he yelled at me on the phone and
yelled and yelled and yelled and yelled.
Now I could have just, you know, been
rude to him and put the phone down.
But these are the times you got to
put the phone really close to listen when
somebody's criticizing you because there may be some
truth in what they say.
Have you heard the saying that your enemies
say more truths about you than your friends?
It's true.
Your enemies say more truths about you than
your friends.
So I was listening, listening, listening, listening.
I never said a word.
He didn't, he didn't understand the situation why
this person had to be disciplined.
And finally he finished.
I said, brother, have you finished?
He said, yes.
I said, okay, God bless you.
Goodbye.
I didn't believe in explaining anything to him.
Six months later, I get a letter from
him.
Oh, dear brother Zach, I never knew the
whole story.
Now I understand.
I'm really sorry for all that I said.
Wasn't it better that God convinced him?
There are different times when people have tried
to attack me.
There are people who have taken me to
court for exposing them as heretics.
Christian groups, so-called Christian groups.
The three court cases filed against me the
last six years is going on in India.
There are different ways.
God hasn't finished breaking me yet.
There are many ways.
He does it in different ways with you,
different ways with me.
But, I said, so what?
I mean, God's in control and very often
what the Lord says to me is, this
simple question.
Okay, these guys are attacking you.
Do you want to deal with them yourself
or will you let me deal with them?
What's your answer?
I said, no, you deal with them.
It's far better.
I'll leave them alone.
We don't have to be afraid.
Let people, I mean, if I'm walking with
a lion down the street and I see
a dog barking there, what am I going
to do?
Go and fight with that dog?
I've got to be crazy.
Let him bark.
If he comes to attack me, I'll let
the lion deal with him.
That's the meaning of having Jesus with us,
the Lion of Judah.
He's with us.
Greater is He that is in you than
he that is in the world.
Jesus was never afraid of the devil.
You know, I've seen so many believers who
glorify the devil so much.
Oh brother, the devil did this and the
devil did that and the devil's doing this
and the devil's doing this in my family
and the devil's disturbing me in my work
and the devil's doing that.
Boy!
I say, where's Jesus?
Is He around anywhere?
Or is the devil hanging around all the
time doing this, that and the other to
you?
Now I want to ask you this question.
We're talking about the real Jesus, okay?
I want to ask you first of all,
be honest.
Have you ever said that?
The devil did this to you and the
devil done that and the devil did this
through your wife or the devil did that
through someone else?
Now, let's look at the real Jesus.
You search the Gospels and see if there's
even one time when Jesus said, the devil's
doing this to me and the devil's doing
that to me.
Never!
He wasn't occupied with the devil.
You know who he was occupied with?
His father.
I have learned not to glorify the devil.
He's been defeated on the cross two thousand
years ago.
I'm not going to give him some type
of, you know, supernatural position.
I say to the devil, God's given a
place for you.
Do you know where it is, Satan?
Under my feet.
Romans 16.20 The God of peace will
crush Satan under your feet and I tell
him to his face, you're under my feet.
You were defeated on the cross two thousand
years ago.
He doesn't like to hear it.
I remember once when you're casting out a
demon out of a woman and I didn't
know she had a demon.
I told her to accept Jesus and I
said, now say, Satan, you've been defeated on
the cross and she looked at me and
changed her voice and said, I've not been
defeated on the cross.
That's the moment I knew it was a
demon.
I said, you're a liar.
I'm speaking to the demon now.
Get out of her in Jesus' name.
And the demon left and I then told
the woman, now tell the devil, you've been
defeated on the cross and she said it
and I knew the demon had left.
But that's the day I learned one thing.
The devil does not like to be reminded
that he was defeated by my Savior on
Calvary's cross two thousand years ago and I
decided that I'm going to remind him of
that as often as possible.
Tell him to his face that he was
defeated on the cross.
He has no power over me.
Now some people would even get scared to
say that.
Oh, if I say that in public, the
devil will be after me for the next
week.
How scared Christians are of the devil.
They don't know Jesus.
That's the problem.
This is eternal life that they might know
God and Jesus Christ and you'll never be
afraid of the devil anymore.
If he does anything to me, it's what
God's permitted him.
Have you read the story of Job?
Every single thing that the devil did, he
had to get permission from God first.
Can I do this?
Okay.
Can I do that?
Okay.
Think of this court case that came to
me six years ago.
I can imagine maybe ten years ago the
devil said to God, I want to get
a court case against Zach.
God said no.
He's not ready for it yet.
Nine years ago.
Can I have a court case against him
now?
God said no.
No, no, no, no.
Six years ago.
Can I have a court case against Zach?
God said yes.
Okay.
He can't do it without God's permission.
And if you see that God's permitted him
to do it, why do you glorify the
devil?
There was an Old Testament saint called David
who had light on this which New Testament
saints sometimes don't have.
And if you want some help on this,
just read 2 Samuel 15.
It's chapter 16 where there was a guy
called Shimei.
You read in verse 5.
I don't have time to go through the
whole thing.
2 Samuel 16.