A spiritual man looks in three directions, and
if he looks in all three directions, he
is a balanced Christian.
And it's good for us to always examine
ourselves and see whether we are looking in
three directions.
First direction is of course upward, where we
look at the Lord in worship, and the
second is as a result of that, inward,
where we see our own need.
In Isaiah chapter 6 you see that very
clearly.
When God gave Isaiah a vision of the
throne, he looked up, and he saw the
Lord, lofty, exalted, and he entered into that
spirit of worship.
And that's what we seek to do when
we begin every meeting.
If it's not going to be a ritual,
it should be a time of worship.
All may give thanks and praise in the
meeting, but only few among those who are
praising the Lord may be worshiping, because that's
a matter of the spirit.
And as soon as Isaiah looked up and
saw there, he looked within, because he saw
his need.
And that's always what happens when we see
the glory of the Lord.
Verse 5, he said, Woe is me, for
I am ruined, because I am a man
of unclean lips.
I live in the midst of people of
unclean lips, because mine eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of hosts.
So there he says that he suddenly was
aware of sin in the way he was
using his tongue, his lips, his speech, which
he was not aware of before.
Now, generally speaking, I would say most of
us are not aware of the sins of
speech that we are committing probably regularly every
day.
It needs a revelation from the Lord to
be able to see that, not just a
message from the pulpit.
Isaiah probably heard lots of messages from the
pulpit, but when he saw the Lord, that's
what happened to Job.
He said in Job 42, I have heard
of you, so many messages, Lord, so many
preachers, but now I see you and I
repent in dust and ashes.
How do we know whether we have seen
the Lord or not?
We are just saying, I want to see
you.
If you really see him, then immediately you
will be aware of your sin.
And when we are not aware of our
sin, that means we have not seen him.
We have heard about him.
Job heard about him and he was not
convicted.
In fact, Job heard four preachers preach to
him, and he used to just argue back
and argue back.
And I have seen people, even when you
point out their sin, they are not willing
to accept it.
People who are not born again, you tell
them they are not born again, they won't
accept it.
You tell them you are not spiritually minded,
you are downright carnal, they won't accept it.
How many of you sitting here would accept
it?
If some brother came and told you, brother,
I think you are pretty carnal.
No, we don't like to accept it.
Job didn't.
A lot of preachers preached to him.
But one day Job saw the Lord, and
he realized his real condition.
One day Isaiah saw the Lord, and he
realized his real condition.
So when we look up, if we have
really worshipped, and we have really seen the
Lord, and not just clapped our hands and
had a good time.
They have a good time in the worldly
sing-song sessions too.
Exciting time, the emotions are stirred.
Rock groups, they are really excited when they
have a one-hour rock concert.
But at the end of it, they are
not convicted of sin.
Nothing has happened.
I think that's true for a lot of
Christians too.
They come, they go through the motions of
praise and worship, but they are never convicted
of their sin.
So that's something we must always examine ourselves
by, otherwise we can fool ourselves.
Oh, you have seen the Lord, we are
worshipping Him and all that type of stuff.
Are you getting light on things that you
didn't have light on earlier?
That's a pretty good test.
I believe that one of the greatest marks
of the Lord's blessing upon our life is
that He gives us light on things which
I never had light on before.
In fact, if I stop getting light anytime
in my life, I'm disturbed.
I'm just as disturbed as if suddenly my
hand became numb, or I don't have any
sensation now, something's wrong.
We should feel like that when we don't
have a sensation.
Is it possible that I'm living for so
many days without sin?
Or is it possible that I'm not getting
light?
I think it's more possible that we're not
getting light.
So we're not really seeing the Lord despite
all our songs of I want to see
Him and all that type of stuff.
So that's the second direction a spiritual man
looks inside.
But then, some of us may be doing
it, maybe we hear a message after the
time of praise and worship and then we
see inside.
Now that's the second best.
The best is if you see the Lord
and you get light on yourself.
The second best is you hear a message.
Well, in a message too, you can see
the Lord.
That's also possible.
So if you see the Lord in the
message and see yourself, that's good.
But it's possible that some people just hear
a message and get convicted.
That won't last.
And that's the reason why many people make
a lot of decisions in messages and they've
got to keep repeating it year after year
after year after year.
They're very sincere, but they never got through
to the Lord.
They came up to the message and stopped
there.
Well, the third thing a spiritual man, he
looks up and he looks in and he
looks outward to other people.
That's what we see here thirdly in Isaiah.
I heard the voice of the Lord, verse
8, saying, whom shall I send and who
will go for us?
He said, Lord, here am I.
Send me.
Then he said, go to these people and
give them this message.
So we find the upward look and then
the inward look and then the outward look.
And it's likely that with most of us,
even if we've got as far as the
inward look and we've seen ourselves, our need,
we may not have continued on to see
what the Lord wants us to do for
others.
And that is not something we do in
the meeting.
In the meeting, we can look up and
look in.
Stop, full stop.
The looking outward is the rest of the
week till we come back again.
And how much we're doing it, how much
we're concerned, how much we are burdened, you
know and God knows.
But that's an area where we may be
lacking sadly.
And that may be the reason for a
lot of our imbalance and a lot of
our spiritual problems.
You know, in the Christian world, we can
say that in a lot of Christianity today,
they're only looking outward.
They're not looking up.
They're not looking in.
Or if they are looking up, they're certainly
not looking in.
They're always looking outward.
There's a need here.
There's a need there.
We've got to reach these people.
We've got to reach this group and that.
It's all very good.
But the whole thing is so shallow.
Because they don't go the way Isaiah went,
first looking up and looking in and then
going out.
They just go out.
Or maybe they look up and go out.
And so, many of us have seen that.
We can react against that, this pendulumitis and
say, well, the main thing is to look
in.
So we spent 20 years looking inside.
And we have a lot of problems.
You know why the problems are?
Because we're not balanced.
And we listen to a message and say,
boy, that's it.
God really spoke to me that day.
But as we look at our life in
the subsequent weeks and months, we don't seem
to see much change.
Because looking up and looking in is relatively
easy.
The test is when we look out, when
we seek to make our Christian witness manifest
to other people.
I'm sure many of us have acknowledged our
failure in worship.
Lord, we're not worshipping you enough.
We probably acknowledge our failure in not seeing
ourselves as God sees us sufficiently.
But I wonder how many of us have
been concerned about our failure to be witnesses
for Christ as he wants us to be.
In fact, the whole purpose of being filled
with the Holy Spirit, Jesus said in Acts
1.8, is to receive power, to be
witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
Now that can come only if we first
have a burden.
What God gave Isaiah was a burden.
He said, I want to send somebody.
Isaiah said, here am I.
Send me.
Then the Lord said, okay, I'll give you
a message.
Go and tell these people this.
Isaiah chapter 6 is a wonderful chapter.
You read it, you'll get a picture of
a balanced Christian life.
What is the thing that we should be
concerned about most?
I'm not saying that we should all now
go out knocking at people's doors and giving
them tracts.
I know people do that and those who
have a burden should do it.
I've not had a burden for that myself.
I don't think Jesus went to every house
in Galilee and knocked on the door and
said, I don't see him doing that.
I don't see Paul doing that.
That's why I don't do it.
But some people have a burden for it
and I think they should do it if
they have a burden.
But Jesus was a very powerful witness on
earth.
He said, I'm the light of the world.
Into a dark world he came as a
light.
And you know how it is in a
dark street.
If you see one house lit up with
a generator, you know it's different.
It stands out in all the other houses
that don't have a generator when the power
cut is on.
It's something like that, how Jesus stood out
in a dark world.
I mean, maybe in one tiny little house,
but it was such a make out.
It stands different.
Jesus was like that.
And the apostles were like that.
And that's the meaning of being a witness.
To me, the incident of the burning bush
is really a picture of what it means
to be a witness.
Among all the bushes, one burned and it
made Moses stop.
And that's the first dwelling place of God
that we read in the Bible.
And from there, God could speak.
There's a picture of Jesus.
God tabernacled in the bush, God tabernacled in
Jesus, and God wants to tabernacle or dwell
in us.
And that's the whole purpose of the coming
of the Holy Spirit, that God may manifest
himself through us, that his glory will be
radiated through us.
And that's why you've probably heard me say
very often that I have a question about
a lot of the so-called baptisms in
the spirit that people seem to receive nowadays.
And I don't find many people having that
type of question.
They say, well, it's just baptized in the
Holy Spirit.
Well, I hope so.
And then they say, oh, he's spoken in
tongues.
And you've often heard me say, well, speaking
in tongues doesn't prove that you're baptized in
the Holy Spirit.
And I never, never saw or read any
Pentecostal or Charismatic.
I mention them because they're the ones who
preach baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Book or tape or anyone saying what I
was saying.
Till last week, I read something by a
man who died in 1935.
And he had lived more than 40 years
as a spirit, or 35 years.
I think he was filled with the Holy
Spirit in 1900.
And he died in 1935 as a 65
-year-old man.
And he had a tremendous ministry who brought
many thousands of people to Christ, and many
were healed through his prayers.
And he said, somewhere in 1920, about 20
years after the first great Pentecostal revival in
the United States, his brother was in the
United States.
He wrote this in the 1920 or so.
He said, the baptisms in the Spirit that
I see nowadays are not at all like
the ones I saw in the early days.
Those brought power.
These folks don't seem to have it.
And then he said that by making them
convinced or by making them speak in tongues
and forcing them to speak in tongues, what
happens is, you've made them content with something
they haven't got, or which they think they've
got.
I never found anybody say anything like that.
It thrilled my heart.
And at last, I found somebody who agreed
with me.
And he wrote that over 80 years ago.
Can you imagine how much things have declined
since this, in these 80 years?
And he said he would never be satisfied
with that type of baptism in the Holy
Spirit.
And I myself have been challenged.
You know, the apostles had a power which
made them real bold witnesses for Christ.
And Jesus, in relation to the power of
the Holy Spirit, he said, we've got to
seek, we've got to thirst.
I want to show you two passages in
relation to the Holy Spirit where he used
these words.
One is John 7.
You know this passage.
In John 7, he said, if any man
thirsts in relation to the power of the
Holy Spirit, in John 7, verse 37 to
39, he used the word thirst.
And you know what thirst is.
It's such a tremendous longing for water.
It's not the type of thirst all of
us may have right now, where we may
drink a little water.
Not that type of thirst.
It's a sort of a desperate thirst.
Man's been without water in a desert for
three days, and he's about to die.
They say that you can't really live more
than three days without water in a really
dry area.
Three days is about the maximum, without a
drop of any liquid.
Thirst is a very powerful thing, more than
hunger.
A man can fast from food for 40
days, but not from water for more than
three days.
It drains you, especially if you're in a
hot desert place.
That's thirst.
And Jesus said, if anyone's thirsty like that,
come to me and drink.
And out of his innermost being shall flow
rivers of living water.
It's God's will, because the Spirit was not
yet given like that, because Jesus was not
glorified.
The other passage is Luke 11, where also
Jesus speaks about the Father giving the Holy
Spirit, in verse 13.
He said, if you being evil know how
to give good gifts to your children, how
much more will your Heavenly Father give the
Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?
And in this connection also, He told us
how to ask.
You know, with this desperate, verses 5 to
8, this chap knocking at his neighbor's door
and saying, give me some bread for my
visitor.
And Jesus said in verse 9, ask, seek,
knock.
Because everyone who asks like this will receive.
Everyone who seeks like this will find.
And everyone who knocks like this will be
open.
What about all those people who don't ask
like this, who just occasionally ask, or just
ask and say, Lord, I believe I've got
it.
Well, I suppose they don't get anything.
Or those who don't seek like this, because
they're too lazy.
Or those who don't knock like this, because
they got tired after knocking two or three
times.
Now, if the fullness of the Spirit was
something which, you know, you once get and
that's it for life, like marriage.
You know, you can't be married today and
unmarried 20 years later.
It's not possible.
You can be divorced, but you can't be
unmarried.
Once you're married, it's for life.
But baptism in the Holy Spirit, or even
being born again, it's not like that.
You can lose your salvation, and definitely you
can lose the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
There are thousands of cases all around us.
So, it's something that we need to, actually
the apostles themselves, we read of the apostles
being filled with the Spirit again and again.
Now, if the secret of this is a
constant hunger, a constant asking, a constant seeking,
a constant knocking, we can ask ourselves, how
to create this desire within us?
Do we always have to come to a
meeting to get stirred up and challenged?
It doesn't seem to last.
Don't you remember the number of times you've
come to a meeting here and got all
stirred up and you thought, this is it.
And it wasn't it.
I mean, you did get stirred up, there's
no doubt about it, but it didn't seem
to last.
It's worn out.
Well, I want to suggest something to you
today.
If you take it seriously, I believe it
could really help you in this area.
And that's related to the first prayer that
Jesus taught us to pray in this Luke
11 itself.
In Luke 11, before he came to asking
for the Holy Spirit, he said, when you
pray, verse 2, first of all, say, Father,
hallowed be thy name.
So, let's start there.
Do you know that except for maybe Anglicans
and others who repeat that prayer every day
or Jacobites and others who repeat that prayer
every day, most Christians almost never pray, hallowed
be thy name.
They pray for a thousand things, but not
hallowed be thy name.
Because they say, we're not supposed to repeat
the Lord's Prayer.
I agree.
I'm not saying the people who repeat the
Lord's Prayer mean it either.
I'm just saying it as a and it's
worthless.
But Jesus taught us, if you really want
to pray, start with praying, God, Father, I
want your name to be glorified in my
life, in Bangalore, in India.
And then I look around and see it's
not being glorified in my life.
It's not the name of Jesus is not
being glorified in Bangalore.
Who cares for Jesus in Bangalore?
Many times when I travel in a train
or anything, I look at the multitudes of
people on a railway platform or in a
train, and I say, how many of these
people know Jesus?
Even those who call themselves Christians, there's such
a tremendous ignorance of Jesus Christ.
And here I am, God's placed me.
I'm supposed to be a spiritual Christian.
What am I?
Is the light shining?
Do these people see something?
Do they see something different in my life,
in my words, my behavior, in my home?
And that really brings us to need.
Lord, your name is blasphemed among the heathen.
You know, it's one of the charges that
the Lord made against Israel, which is quoted
in Romans chapter 2, verse 24.
The name of God is blasphemed among the
nations because of you.
I'll never forget the words of the second
president of India.
You've probably heard me quote that before.
President Radhakrishnan was a Hindu man who had
a great respect for the Lord Jesus Christ,
very observant man.
He had spent many years observing Christians and
all that they preach, read the Bible.
And he said to the Christians once, you
Christians make such extraordinary claims, but you live
such ordinary lives.
You make such extraordinary claims, but you live
such ordinary lives.
I have never forgotten that.
I have taken it as a personal challenge
to myself.
Am I one of those who's making extraordinary
claims?
You know, the tremendous promises in scripture, this,
this, this, this, this, you know, whatever you
ask in my name, I'm going to get
it, this, that, and the other.
And then when it comes to sin shall
not have dominion over me, Satan's crushed under
my feet, you know, it's fantastic claims.
And then our God rules the universe and
all authority in heaven and earth belongs to
Christ.
And all these tremendous things we say, and
then we look at our life and the
way we live at home, and it's just
very, very ordinary, just like any other atheist,
maybe a little decent and upright, like some
decent atheist, let's say.
God's name's not being glorified.
And then you look at Bangalore, God's name's
certainly not, Jesus' name's certainly not glorified in
Bangalore.
I mean, we don't have any doubt about
that.
Jesus' name's certainly not glorified in India.
Look at the name so many preachers bring
upon Jesus, by the way they live, their
attitude to money, the covetousness, the false reports,
and all types of things.
I want to ask you, do these things
concern us?
Do these things burden us?
These things have burdened me for 25 years,
and they bring me to need.
Lord, I want your name to be glorified
in this land, I want your name to
be glorified in this city, I want your
name to be glorified in our church, and
I want your name to be glorified in
me, and in my home, my children.
Hallowed be thy name.
Try beginning to pray that prayer, just one
prayer.
Lord, I want your name to be glorified.
It's a tremendous prayer.
I'll tell you, 1% of Christians may
be prayed, 99% do not.
Check your own life.
Let me turn you to a psalm, Psalm
115.
I don't know whether you've ever read this
psalm.
I'm sure you've read it in your routine
Bible reading, but taking it seriously, I read
it again today, and it really blessed my
heart.
It's as though I hadn't noticed some things
here.
Glorify your name, not ours, O Lord.
It's the living Bible.
Psalm 115, verse 1.
Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to thy name give glory.
Hallowed be thy name.
It's Old Testament.
The psalmist was also concerned that God's name
should be glorified.
And let me read in the living Bible.
Cause everyone to praise your loving kindness and
your truth.
Why should the nation say, why should the
people say, where is their God?
Where is their God?
These Christians who make such extraordinary claims that
their God can do this, that, and the
other, where is their God?
They seem to live such ordinary lives.
But our God, here is a contrast between
our God, verse 3, who's in the heavens,
he does whatever he pleases.
That's an extraordinary claim.
And we compare our God with idols.
The idols are silver and gold, the work
of man's hands.
Those idols have mouths, but they cannot speak.
Those idols have eyes, but they cannot see.
Those idols have ears, but they cannot hear.
Those idols have noses, but they cannot smell.
Those idols have hands, but they cannot feel.
Those idols have feet, but they cannot walk.
Quite picturesque, the way the psalmist describes idols
and people who worship them.
They cannot make a sound with their throat.
And then he says, those who make them
become like them, you know, powerless and paralyzed.
What he's saying is, if your God, I'm
going to paraphrase this whole thing, if the
God you worship cannot speak to you, cannot
hear what you're saying, cannot do something for
you, he cannot work on your behalf, after
some time, you will become like that God.
You'll become spiritually blind, and deaf, and dumb,
and powerless, but still you'll continue to make
these extraordinary claims.
You think that's a pretty accurate picture of
a lot of Christians?
What do you think?
Of course, none of us.
We are okay, right?
It's all those other people out there.
We can always think the problem is with
other people.
That's exactly what the devil wants us to
think.
Judgment must begin in the house of God,
the Bible says.
It must begin with us first.
Those who make them will become like them.
Everyone who trusts in them.
Oh, church, verse 9, trust in the Lord.
He's our help and our shield.
Trust in the Lord.
You who fear the Lord, verse 11, trust
in the Lord.
He's our help and shield.
The Lord has been mindful of us.
He will bless us.
What I was thinking of was, I've been
thinking about this for quite some time.
I say, Lord, in what way can I
manifest to all these people of many religions
around me, in this city, or wherever I
go, that the God I worship is a
living God?
You know, the most important witness that the
apostles had was their witness to the resurrection
of Jesus.
If you read the Acts of the Apostles,
you'll never find them saying, we are witnesses
of his crucifixion.
They mention it, they immediately mention resurrection, immediately.
They were witnesses of his resurrection.
The most important single truth, the most important
single truth that the apostles gave witness to
was not that they spoke in tongues, but
that Jesus Christ was alive.
We've got that written outside our church building
now.
Jesus Christ is alive.
But it takes more than words to prove
that.
That is an extraordinary claim.
Jesus Christ is alive.
How do I prove it?
Just by writing a word, a verse.
Supposing one of these heathen religions talk about
their God and say, our God is alive.
And then some fellow from another religion, probably
hundreds of religions, everybody says, our God is
alive.
It's something like the challenge that came to
Elijah on Mount Carmel.
Is Baal God or Jehovah God?
Who is the real God?
And Elijah was so filled with the spirit,
he challenged those prophets of Baal.
I'll prove to you fellas, who's the true
God.
Now, we may not be called to a
ministry like Elijah, but we should have a
burden.
You know, we look up, we look in,
we don't stop there.
We got to look outward and say, Lord,
what is our testimony to this city, to
this country, to the people I work with?
Would they know that I believe in someone,
a God who came as a man and
went into the grave, killed and rose up
alive, therefore delivered me from all fear of
death, because the one I follow has conquered
death.
Not afraid of cancer, not afraid of martyrdom,
not afraid of accidents or anything like that,
because the Lord I follow is one who
went into the grave and came out.
And that's why I'd say everyone who's afraid
of death, is thereby proving that Jesus is
not alive.
It's a tremendous thing to be free from
the fear of death.
Hebrews 2, 14 and 15 says, it's a
slavery when a man has got fear of
death.
And Jesus came, it says, not only to
deliver us from sin, but there it says
to deliver us from the fear of death,
with which the devil kept so many people
in slavery for thousands of years.
They could not be free because nobody had
conquered death.
Naturally, you're afraid of something which nobody's been
able to conquer.
It's like these fairy tales of children, some
great dragon or something like that, that nobody
has been able to conquer and the whole
village is terrified of this dragon till somebody
goes and kills it.
Then the fear is gone.
So that's what Jesus did.
And they were witnesses of his resurrection.
Jesus Christ is alive.
I want to say to you, my dear
brothers and sisters, that we really examine ourselves
and see whether our lifestyle, the way we
live, the way we do things, that there
is some indication that Jesus Christ is alive.
Or are we also followers of a dead
religion, a dead religious leader who taught a
lot of good things like Buddha or some
other person, but of course was dead and
gone now.
Nathana Gandhi taught a lot of good things.
They're all dead and gone.
This has been a burden on my own
heart.
Lord, we want not just to sing songs
and listen to good messages, get stirred emotionally
now and then.
We want to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is
alive.
I mean, how to do that, that's up
to you.
But I'm burdened about it.
I'm not trying to tell God how to
do it.
I don't have to tell God how to
do it.
God knows how to do it.
But I think God can't do anything in
me until I have a burden.
A burden is like conceiving a baby.
You can't have a baby unless you conceive
it first.
It takes some time, some months for the
baby to come out.
But you have to conceive it first.
And the burden that God puts in our
heart is like that.
A little burden.
I want to encourage those who have years
to hear this evening to have a little
burden.
That the Lord's name will be hallowed in
your life, in your home, in this city,
in this country.
That we look a little more outward in
the days to come.
The need is so great, tremendously great, everywhere.
All around us, so many religions proliferating and
zealous propagators of cults and religions, all saying
that they've got the real thing.
What is the difference here in this psalm
between the God and the idols of other
religions?
It's this.
Our God can hear, see, speak, feel, act.
And their God cannot do any of those
things.
So if by our life we demonstrate that
our God doesn't do much for us, and
He can't see what problems we are going
through.
And I don't know whether He hears us,
we pray all right, but whether He hears
us or not, I don't know.
And speak to us.
I mean, we hear men, powerful men speaking,
but God.
I want to ask you, my brothers and
sisters, is your Christianity really just an imaginary
thing which you have in your mind?
Maybe you were born in that faith.
It's a good thing to have.
It helps you to live a decent life.
Good to be in a church where people
care and love one another.
And where we hear some good messages now
once in a while, especially for our children.
We don't want our children to be drug
and drunkards.
So it's good to bring them to Sunday
school.
Christianity becomes a sort of a moral improvement
society to preserve our children and our family.
So different from what it was for the
apostles.
They were witnesses of the fact that Jesus
Christ is alive.
And God, the Lord shows us something, shows
us that we can't attain to it, then
makes us seek Him.
I believe that's the whole purpose of the
Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5, 6, and 7 are some of
the most challenging chapters in the whole Bible.
I don't know if you ever found three
chapters like that.
I read them for 44 years and they
still challenge me.
And it's as if there is no answer
given in those three chapters, how to get
this life.
You know, it says so many wonderful things
there.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, but doesn't
tell me how to be poor in spirit.
Blessed are the pure in heart, how to
be pure in heart.
And you should never lust with your eyes,
but how to do it.
And you shouldn't get angry, how to do
it.
Always speak the truth.
Your yes must be yes, your no must
be no.
You mustn't love money, mustn't do anything for
human honor.
It's absolutely fantastic.
You will never judge anybody.
By the time you come to the end
of the life, you're expecting an answer and
the Lord says, anybody who does these things
has built his house on the rock.
Still no answer.
Is that the end?
Amen.
Hey, the thing I'm looking for is not
here.
How in the world to get this life?
God left it like that to see how
many would be honest and say, Lord, such
a life is possible, otherwise you would not
have commanded it.
Second, I have not attained to such a
life, but I want such a life.
God, show me the way.
He did not write down the way there
because He wanted us to seek Him to
experience that life.
Not by an answer in a book, but
by a living contact with God through the
Holy Spirit.
That's why the Sermon on the Mount, you
read through the whole thing.
It never tells you how to attain that
life.
It's the most wonderful life described in the
whole Bible, but never tells you how to
get there.
And some people can read through the whole
thing.
You know what one group, one good, I
won't name them because you know that group,
one good evangelical group in Christendom, widespread all
over the world, preaches that Matthew 5, 6
and 7 is not for us, it's for
the Jews.
At least they're honest.
They say, we can't live this life, it's
for the Jews.
The bigger hypocrites are the people who say,
it is for us, but don't live it.
That's the thing.
God has kept it there to see how
many people, when they finish reading it, will
be honest and say, God, I haven't got
this.
I mean, you don't have to go even
to Matthew 5, 6 and 7.
Here and there, God places a few verses
like that.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
Again, I say rejoice.
Okay.
God sees a lot of Christians reading it,
maybe 1% or less acknowledge that I
don't have this life.
Lord, I'm not rejoicing always.
Something's wrong.
99% read it and go to the
next verse and go to the next verse
and say, I'll finish my Bible reading for
today.
Tomorrow I go to Colossians chapter 1.
What should God do for such people?
Exactly what they deserve, nothing.
But some fellow gets stuck in Philippians 4,
4 for weeks.
He can't get past it.
Because he says, God, this is something.
Am I supposed to have this?
Or many other verses like that.
Thanks be to God who always leads us
in triumph for the peace of God which
passes all understanding.
God, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Be anxious for nothing.
Don't be ever afraid.
Imagine taking a verse like, don't be afraid.
Somebody said it's written 52 times, or is
it 365 times?
I don't know.
52 times throughout the Bible, one for every
week of the year.
Fear not.
Don't be afraid.
Just imagine if you just took that verse
and say, Lord, I want to take that
seriously.
I don't seem to be living there.
I'm afraid of all types of things.
I want to change.
I want to change, Lord.
I want to live a life free from
fear.
And then we go on to, you know,
looking out, we say, Lord, your name's not
glorified.
I'm concerned about that.
I'm concerned that your name's not being glorified
in this land like it should be.
That we as Christians, not they, we, we
as Christians are not manifesting that Jesus Christ
is alive.
And if that brings us to a sense
of need, it'll create all those things which
we read in John 7 and Luke 11.
Thirst, asking desperately, seeking earnestly, knocking repeatedly.
All that will come automatically because we are
concerned.
Glorify your name, O Lord.
Psalm 115, glorify your name.
We want to manifest that our God is
not like the God of the heathen.
Lord, I haven't done it yet, but I
want to do it and I'm concerned.
I've been greatly challenged by another verse that
comes often in the Gospels.
I've seen my own great lack.
Something like Isaiah saw, I also saw.
You know, you see the Lord and you
see your lack.
When I read the Gospels, I saw Jesus
there.
And I saw, it says, he looked at
them and he had compassion, compassion.
And I said, Lord, I have so little
of that.
You looked at them with all their blunders
and their faults and their mistakes and the
stupid things they were saying and the stupid
things they were doing and the sins they
were living in.
And you didn't just get angry with a
whole lot of them.
You had compassion because they were not being
led correctly by their leaders.
And I said, Lord, please give me something
of that.
You know, there are times, I'll tell you
honestly, where I say, Lord, I wonder if
I should just quit preaching and seek your
face more.
Honestly, the need is so great.
We don't want to spend our life just
being tickled with good sermons or, you know,
presenting new aspects of truth or some new
illustration to amplify the 100 illustrations we already
have about some truth we already know.
What we need is sometimes one manifestation of
the risen Christ can do more than a
hundred good sermons.
That's the word that's come to my heart.
I'm not talking to you.
I'm talking to myself.
I'm just sharing my testimony with you.
You are invited to visit our website
on the internet at www.cfcindia.com.
That is www.cfcindia.com.
And at www.punan.org.
That is www.punan.org.