It's always a joy for me to speak
to you, dear brothers and sisters, from so
many parts of our wonderful country, and my
prayer is that God will equip you to
present Jesus Christ accurately to the corners of
this land.
I've been a Christian for forty-four years,
I've been in full-time Christian work for
thirty-seven of those years, and I've travelled
the length and breadth of this country, and
my own assessment is that Jesus Christ is
not being portrayed accurately by most Christian workers,
pastors, churches.
And if you sense that, instead of criticising
others, which anybody can do, any fool can
criticise others.
It takes a man to correct that wrong.
So don't be a fool and criticise.
What you say is right, but it doesn't
solve the problem.
But if you can go to wherever God
calls you and say, Lord, I want to
live such a life, speak in such a
way, behave in such a way, that people
can once again know what Jesus Christ was
like.
That is the greatest ministry that you can
fulfil in India.
When Jesus came to earth, he showed us
what the Father was like.
He said in John 14, if you have
seen me, you have seen the Father.
I can picture that the Father told Jesus
in heaven, people on earth have got such
a wrong picture of me.
They think I am a policeman, they think
I am a dictator, they think I am
a tyrant, they think I am a spoilsport.
Go down and show them what I am
really like.
And Jesus came and did such a perfect
job, that in the end of his life
he could say, if you have seen me,
you have seen the Father.
And then he turned around to his disciples
and said, as the Father sent me, so
send I you.
So it is as if Jesus Christ is
now saying to you and me, go to
the corners of India.
My calling is to India too.
Go to the corners of this country.
They have got such a wrong picture of
me, from much that they have seen in
Christians, from what they have seen in Christian
churches, Christian workers.
Go out into this land and show them
what I am really like.
Show them my heart of compassion.
Show them the purity that there is in
my life.
Show them my humility, the spirit of service.
Show them by the graciousness of your speech
how I lived on earth.
My dear brothers and sisters, that is the
basic challenge that comes to you and me.
And that is why we need to fall
on our face before God, repent of our
sins, repent of our lukewarmness, and ask God
to fill us with His Holy Spirit.
Otherwise it is impossible to do this job.
In fact, Jesus told his disciples, go into
all the world but wait, don't go yet.
Wait till you are filled with the Holy
Spirit.
Otherwise you can't do this job.
And he says the same thing to us
today.
You need to be baptized in the Holy
Spirit and go out and represent Christ.
So I want to share with you this
evening five dangers that Christian workers face.
And I want to base what I am
saying on Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3.
In those chapters you know that there are
the messages to the seven churches, and also
the messages to the seven messengers.
In some English translations it says angel, but
you know in our Tamil and Malayalam translations
it says doodhan, which means messenger.
So it's really addressed not to some angel
in heaven, it's the same word messenger, to
the messenger of the church.
That means the one in each church who
was bringing the message every Sunday morning.
That's the messenger of the church.
And at the end of the messages to
each church it says, he who has an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit is
saying, not to the messenger, but to the
churches.
So therefore, the message was not only for
the messenger, but also for the church and
the churches.
And out of these seven churches two of
the churches, the church in Smyrna, the church
in Philadelphia, did not get any rebuke.
But the other five churches were rebuked strongly
by the Lord.
They were Christian workers, these messengers, in these
churches.
And to each of the churches, each of
these five churches, to each of these five
Christian workers, the Lord points out where they
failed.
So we can learn lessons from where they
failed, so that we who serve the Lord
do not fail in the same area ourselves.
And if you can learn this when you
are young, and avoid these dangers, and remember
them all your life, can you imagine what
a glorious life yours will be?
And how you can end your life in
tremendous glory.
Number one, Revelation chapter two, to the messenger
of the church in Ephesus.
I'm not going to read it in detail.
The danger here was the danger of losing
your first love for the Lord.
It was a wonderful church, wonderful messengers.
They were very hardworking, verse two.
They put out evil men from the church.
They disciplined people who lived in sin.
They were pure in doctrine, exposed false apostles.
They worked hard.
They suffered for the name of Jesus, verse
three.
But all of this was useless, because, verse
four, they had lost or left their first
love for Jesus Christ.
In other words, when this Christian worker started
out his ministry, maybe twenty years earlier in
Ephesus, he was a young Christian, fervently in
love with Jesus Christ, and passionate to serve
Him.
He didn't think of anything else.
He was in love with the Lord.
He would spend time with Him, and everything
he did, he did out of love for
the Lord.
He never counted anything a sacrifice, because he
loved the Lord so much.
But as time went on, that love disappeared.
He still did the works.
Probably his congregation increased in size.
Probably he had more meetings and Bible studies
than he ever had before.
Probably he was invited to different places as
a preacher.
But all of that counted for nothing.
With Jesus Christ, the head of the church,
because the love was gone.
Many of you are young.
I hope you have come here to serve
the Lord because you love the Lord, not
because you want a job.
And if you have come because you love
the Lord, that's the right motive with which
to serve the Lord.
You remember when Peter, the great apostle, was
called to the ministry, Jesus said to him,
do you love me more than everything else?
And then when Peter replied, he said, okay,
then you can take care of my sheep
and my lambs.
So the Lord never asked Peter whether he
would sacrifice, whether he knew the Bible.
Those are not the main things.
Do you love me?
Three times he asked him that question in
John 21, and commissioned him to serve him.
I want to say this to you.
Please remember it until the end of your
life.
In the early part of your Christian life,
it's probably easier to preserve that love for
the Lord.
But I want to tell you, you can
even lose it in three or four years
in a seminary.
I remember speaking to one young man in
another seminary that I visited many years ago
for their graduation service, and he got the
award for the top student passing out in
that class.
And he said to me, Brother Zach, I
want to talk to you.
And I spoke with him, and he was
a defeated Christian.
I said, how is your life today compared
to what it was when you first joined
the seminary four years ago?
He said, much worse.
And that's at the end of four years
in a seminary, and coming top of the
class in all the subjects.
It's very easy for that to happen.
It's very difficult to preserve your love for
the Lord when people around you may be
seeking other things.
You have to fix your vision on Jesus
alone and say, Lord, I'm not going to
look at the people around me, and I'm
not going to judge them.
Be careful.
Don't judge them.
It's not our business.
Don't judge your fellow students.
Don't judge your teachers.
I have made the mistake, I'm sorry to
say, in my younger days of judging, and
I suffered such a lot for it, I
would warn you, dear brothers and sisters, do
not judge.
Mind your own business.
Fix your vision on Jesus and say, Lord,
I want to be devoted to you.
Everything I do must come out of a
fervent devotion for you, and I never, never
want to lose that love I had for
you when I was first converted.
Many of us, when we were first converted,
I'm sure we were all really fervently in
love with Christ because He loved us so
much.
Someone once asked me, how can we increase
in love for Christ?
I said, according to the word of God,
I can suggest two things.
One, we read in 1 John chapter 4
that we love Him because He first loved
us.
I don't remember the exact verses.
Somewhere towards the end of that chapter, 1
John 4, towards the end of that chapter,
we love Him because He first loved us.
And I said, this is what I used
to do as a young man of 19
and 20 years of age when I was
converted.
I used to sit and meditate much on
the love that Jesus had for me as
I saw it in the scriptures, and that
made me love Him.
So that's one thing we need to do
all through our life.
I still do it today.
I meditate on the love that Jesus had
for me, just like I seek to preserve
my love with my wife whom I married
35 years ago.
Even much more than that, I want to
preserve my love for Jesus Christ whom I
came to know 44 years ago.
Preserve that.
Meditate much on His love for you, and
that's what will bring forth love in your
heart for Him.
And the second thing I said was, I
said in Luke chapter 7, Jesus spoke a
parable towards the end of that chapter, in
the house of Simon the Pharisee, of two
people who owed a debt to somebody.
One man owed 500 pence or whatever it
was, another man owed only 50.
And when both were forgiven, Jesus asked, who
will love more?
Simon said, naturally, the one who was forgiven
more.
So that's the second way we love more.
All of us love Him because we have
been forgiven much.
But some people realize they have been forgiven
much, and some people don't realize it.
So that's the second thing which I have
sought to preserve through all these 44 years.
How much I have been forgiven.
I'm not looking at the sins of others,
it's not my business.
I have failed the Lord so many times,
and I think about that, how again and
again and again He has forgiven me.
And as I come closer to the Lord,
I discover new areas in my life of
unchristlikeness, where I need to repent.
So my life has become over the past
few years a life of continuous daily repentance
from things which God shows me as I
get close to Him.
And when I see how much He has
forgiven me, like Jesus said in that parable,
spontaneously, I love Him more.
So I want to say to all of
you, think much about how much you have
been forgiven.
That's the second thing that will help you
to love the Lord.
You know in the Old Testament, people either
did good works or evil works.
You know the tree of knowledge of good
and evil that Adam took part of had
a knowledge of only two things, good and
evil.
And that's what our conscience tells us.
This is a good work, this is an
evil work.
But when you come to the New Testament,
you find another type of works.
Good works, evil works, and dead works.
You don't hear about dead works in the
Old Testament.
Do you know what dead works are?
Dead works are good works done without love
for Jesus Christ.
This man, all his works, wonderful works, his
deeds, his perseverance, his keeping the church pure,
keeping the doctrine pure, perseverance, endurance, suffering for
Jesus' name's sake, the whole lot is dead
works because he lost his first love.
That's how serious it is, that everything we
do becomes dead works when we've lost our
love for Jesus Christ.
So preserve that at any cost.
Don't be satisfied that you're doing something for
the Lord.
Sometimes you can go out into the fields,
do something for the Lord, give tracts, bring
people to Christ and feel happy in that.
No.
See if it was a dead work or
a good work.
You may say, but there was results, there
was fruit.
Yeah, that's true.
That's because God loved those sinful people, not
necessarily because he approved of what you did.
You know once God told Moses in Numbers
chapter 22, speak to the rock, and instead
of speaking to the rock, he hit the
rock.
But the blessing still came, the water still
flowed.
Even though God's servant disobeyed God, God still
blessed because he loved the two million people
who needed water, not because he approved of
Moses.
Afterwards he punished Moses for doing what he
did and said, you won't enter the promised
land.
So you can bless two million people through
your ministry, and yet God may pull you
off later on and say, I'm going to
punish you now because you were not right
with me.
Jesus said that many in the last day
will come to me and say, Lord, I
cast out demons in your name, I did
miracles in your name, I prophesied in your
name, and he'll say, depart from me.
I never knew you.
I never had a personal relationship with you.
It's amazing that you can have a miracle
ministry and not love Jesus Christ.
A lot of people like that in the
world today.
Do you want to live a life and
have a ministry over which you'll have no
regret when you get up to heaven and
live millions of years in God's presence and
then determine right now that you're never, never,
never, never going to lose the love you
have for Jesus Christ?
And if you've already lost it, come back
to it.
This is fundamental.
Let's go to the second thing.
In the message to Pergamum, Revelation chapter 2,
verse 12.
Here, one of the things, there are a
number of things, but one of the things
he mentions is, I have a few things
against you, Revelation 2, verse 14, because you
have there some who hold the teaching of
Balaam, or the doctrine of Balaam.
Now, to understand the doctrine of Balaam or
the teaching of Balaam, you have to go
back to the Old Testament.
What he did later on is mentioned here,
that he put a stumbling block before the
sons of Israel, but the doctrine of Balaam
began with something else, and I don't have
time to turn to that right now.
It's the danger in Christian work of the
love of mammon.
That's the second danger.
The love of mammon.
That is the way Balaam walked.
You read about it in Numbers chapter 22
to 24.
Very briefly, you know that story if you
have read it.
God told him, when King Balak comes and
calls you to go and preach for him
against my people, don't go.
And so the first time the king's messengers
came, he said, I'm not coming.
But then, Balak sent messengers again, with more
money.
It's like a Christian organization coming and saying,
okay, I'll offer you a higher salary.
You didn't accept my first offer.
Here's a higher salary now.
Double of what I offered you before.
And you already heard a word from the
Lord the first time.
You're not supposed to go there.
But now when the salary is doubled or
tripled, Balaam said, okay, let me pray about
it again.
Don't let that happen to you, that you
want to pray about it again.
Because the level of mammon has increased.
The offer is now higher.
Jesus said in Luke 16 verse 13 that
you cannot serve God and mammon.
He said there are only two masters in
the world, God and mammon.
And mammon relates to not only money, but
all the things that money can buy.
Money plus all the many good things.
I'm not talking about evil things.
I'm not talking about pornographic books and dirty
things.
No.
I'm talking about good things that money can
buy.
To make our life on earth more comfortable
and where our lifestyle can become a little
more luxurious, we can get more clothes for
our children, we can get a bigger house
where we have a separate bedroom for the
boys and a separate bedroom for the girls
and a separate bedroom for the guests.
There are many things money can buy.
Comfort, ease, entertainment.
Money can buy so many entertainment gadgets nowadays.
And it's very easy for the pull of
mammon to pull a Christian worker away from
the will of God.
That is the doctrine of Balaam.
That's the teaching of Balaam.
That's the way of Balaam.
And many, many Christian workers who when they
started their Christian life were determined to serve
the Lord at sacrifice and at any cost,
in simplicity, in frugality.
Frugality means not spending much on ourselves.
You see these same people ten years later,
and they are not the same.
I myself know Christian organizations in India where
the workers were simple when they started out
many years ago.
Not today.
The lure or the attraction of mammon has
drawn them away from Jesus Christ.
It's a danger.
Danger number two.
Today, your students, you don't have much money,
it doesn't tempt you so much.
This temptation will come after you've graduated from
here, and you're going to decide what you're
going to do with your life.
And there's God, and there's money.
And you've got to choose which one you're
going to serve.
Many, many people have destroyed their lives because
they tried to serve both God and money.
It is not possible.
It's not possible to serve God and the
things that money can buy—pleasure, comfort, ease.
If I make a comfortable life, a luxurious
life, an easy way of life, one of
the things I definitely need if I serve
the Lord, I will definitely miss God's will
for my life in some area.
I may still bring many souls to Christ
and plant churches and do wonderful things, but
it will all be dead works.
The Bible says in Hebrews 6.1, I've
got to repent of dead works, because money
pulled me.
Keep this in mind.
Even if you don't need it today, I
guarantee in a few years you will need
it, and remember what you heard.
My personal conviction, and I'm absolutely convinced I'm
right in this, is that Judas Iscariot was
a wholehearted, fervent, devoted disciple of Jesus Christ
when Christ first called him.
I don't have time to show that to
you, but if you read in Luke 6
.12, you will see that Jesus prayed all
night before He selected the twelve from the
multitudes who were following Him.
And God the Father did not make a
mistake, and He did not deliberately choose a
deceiver just to fulfill some scripture.
That would have been terrible if you accused
God of doing something like that, and in
fact it says there in that passage that
Judas became a traitor.
He was not in the beginning.
He became a traitor.
When you become something, you were not like
that in the beginning.
And that's the verse that teaches me that
Judas Iscariot was just as wholehearted as Peter,
James, or John.
But he was carrying the bag, and the
temptation of using this a little bit for
myself, it was given for God's work, and
to use it for God's work would have
been right.
But along with God's work, he began to
use a little bit for himself, and that's
what destroyed him, and that's what's destroyed thousands
of Christian workers since that day.
They put their hand in and used God's
money for themselves.
You've got to be careful.
William Carey was the father of modern missions.
He had a son called Felix, who was
his co-worker up there in Serampore and
where he worked in the Calcutta area.
And people would send money from England, little
bits of money across to him for his
work.
And he once wrote to his son, Felix.
He said, Felix, remember my son, money given
for God's work is the most sacred of
all money on the face of the earth.
Be very careful how you spend it.
Even if it is for God's work, be
very careful how you spend it.
The Bible says, Jesus said in Luke 16,
verses 10-12 I think it is, if
you are not faithful with money, unrighteous mammon,
who will give you the true riches?
The true riches are revelation on the word
of God, being able to understand things which
are hidden from other people.
The true riches are conformity to the likeness
of Christ in our character.
The true riches are the anointing of the
Spirit in our ministry.
And Jesus says, if you want these true
riches, be faithful with money.
Very, very, very important.
I hope you'll never forget it in all
your life.
Demas left Paul because he knew, 2 Timothy
4.10, that he could not make much
money working with Paul.
So he decided to branch out on his
own, start another organization and make money for
himself.
That's happened again and again and again in
India.
Be careful.
Danger number 2.
And then danger number 3 is in the
message to Thyatira, verse 18 onwards of Revelation
chapter 2.
Here it speaks about people who commit, verse
20 to the last part, acts of immorality.
That's the third danger in Christian work, sexual
immorality.
A very big danger.
Many, many Christian workers have fallen in this
area because the sexual desire is one of
the strongest desires that we find in our
body.
And if you don't overcome it, if you
don't know how to keep those passions under
control by the power of the Holy Spirit,
the devil will trip you up one day
or the other when you are not on
your guard, and your entire ministry will be
destroyed by one act of foolishness.
For five minutes of pleasure, you can ruin
your whole life by one act of foolishness,
and everything that your loving Heavenly Father planned
for you.
This sin destroys more people's ministries.
See, a man can go after money, and
then he can repent of it and come
back and maybe recover his ministry.
But if you have come to a position
of leadership in Christian work, and then you
fall sexually, it is a very big danger
and it's almost impossible to erase that image
from you for the rest of your life.
If you fell in it in the early
days, okay, it's not so serious.
I mean, sin is always serious, but once
you come into a position of recognition and
leadership, you're a pastor or a Christian leader,
and you fall in this area, you can
destroy everything God has planned for you.
So I want to say to you, this
is an area where it's very, very easy
to fall.
Samson was mightily anointed by the Holy Spirit.
When a lion came against him, he could
tear the lion to pieces, but when Delilah
came, he was finished.
Who is more powerful, Delilah or a lion?
Think of that.
These things are written for our instruction.
I have been in the preaching ministry for
over 40 years, and I'll tell you something
from my experience.
Preaching gives us a power over people, and
it's very easy for a preacher who is
tremendously gifted, anointed, whom people look up to,
who are helped and blessed and liberated from
sin and legalism and from the bondage of
Satan in their life through the ministry of
an anointed preacher, he has such a high
respect in the eyes of people that he
can have power over them.
And he can misuse that power by many
ways.
He can make them give him all their
tithes and destroy himself by collecting their money.
He can become a little dictator, telling people
what to do, making them run around doing
things for him, so that he loses the
spirit of a servant that Jesus had.
Or he can have power over women, young
attractive women, who are blessed through his ministry,
challenged.
And the Bible speaks about weak women in
2 Timothy 3, how preachers enter the homes
of these weak women, who are always learning
and never able to come to the knowledge
of the truth.
There are weak women in our churches, there
are weak women in India.
And it's very easy for a preacher to
be admired by these weak women.
And they will come to you and say,
Brother, I want some advice, I want some
counsel.
And you feel sorry for them, seeing their
tears.
And you begin to pray with them, you
begin to counsel them.
And gradually you go one step further to
comfort them, you put your arm around them.
And you never know where you'll go from
there.
Be extremely careful.
Personally, I never counsel a woman, unless it's
in a public place, seated in a hall
like this, where everything is open.
Or she comes to my house, I call
my wife, speak to her in my wife's
presence.
Or with another elder from the church.
Never, never alone.
I will never sit in a room alone
with a woman.
I haven't done it, I won't do it.
I'm 64 years old today, I still won't
do it.
Much less should you do it, when the
passions are so strong in your body.
The Bible says, flee from immorality, run away
from it.
What a strong word.
Not just walk away.
If you walk away, you'll be pulled back.
Run in the other direction.
It's a very dangerous area.
And you sisters, you've got to be careful
too.
You can mess up your life with an
attraction to a man who may not be
the one whom God has chosen to be
your marriage partner.
There's nothing wrong in being attracted to somebody
of the opposite sex.
If you consider marriage, go to an elder
brother, consult him, and go about it in
a decent, proper way.
1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 3 to 5
says, each man must know how to get
a wife in a proper way, in uprightness
and holiness.
That's the right thing
to do.
Be very careful.
You know, when a boy and a girl
come together, the pressure on the accelerator increases,
and it's the girl who must apply the
brakes.
Be very careful in this area, because it
is definitely a significant danger in the lives
of many, many Christian workers.
Through the years, even in the last thirty,
forty, fifty years, so many people in our
country, in other countries, have fallen in this
area.
Some who are well known have fallen publicly
known to everybody.
Many others have fallen in secret.
They are not so well known, but the
anointing has gone from their life.
Whether you fall publicly or secretly, the anointing
will go.
God cannot endorse an impure man in His
ministry.
And that's why in your youthful days you
must fight this passion.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 28,
I keep my body under subjection, lest, after
having preached to others, I myself am cast
away.
There is a tremendous amount of internet pornography
today, that young men, believers, I'm talking about
believers, are indulging in, secretly.
They don't go and buy pornographic books, they
just got a click on some thing on
the internet.
Be careful, my brother, sister.
It's not worth it.
For a few moments of pleasure, you can
have regrets for millions of years in heaven.
Think of that.
Don't be like Esau, who for a little
pleasure sold his birthright.
You got a birthright to be an anointed
servant of God in this land.
I know God gripped me with that when
I was twenty years old.
I saw that God had a plan for
my life when I was twenty years old,
and I said, God, please help me.
Don't let me miss that plan for your
life.
I don't care what price I have to
pay.
I want to endure till the end as
a faithful, anointed servant of God.
I want to be a living demonstration to
this country, that you can endure till the
end as a faithful, humble, anointed servant of
God.
Be one of those.
India needs many such.
India needs prophets.
Perhaps you are called to be a prophet.
Well, then the devil will do everything possible
to destroy you, particularly through the sexual area.
Danger number four.
Revelation chapter three.
The danger of seeking a name for ourselves.
To the messenger of the church in Sod
is right, verse one, the last part.
You have a name, that you are alive,
but you are dead.
How did you get that name?
People usually get a name by seeking for
it.
Beware of the danger of seeking a name
for yourselves as a great preacher, as a
great miracle worker, as a man who has
brought so many people to Christ, or planted
so many churches, or done this or done
that.
Fear it.
There are many things God will give us—blessings,
gifts of the Spirit, grace—but there is one
thing He will never give us.
Isaiah 42, verse 8 says that He will
never give us His glory.
The glory belongs to the Lord.
We say that in the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven, ends with,
Thine is the kingdom, the power and the
glory, for ever and ever.
Don't let that just be a statement that
you make at the end of your prayer.
I'm not supposed to touch the glory of
God.
That is reserved for God alone.
I'm never supposed to take credit for anything
I do, because the Bible says in 1
Corinthians 4, verse 7, what have you got
that you did not receive?
What have you got that you did not
receive?
If you received it, why do you glory
as though you had not received it?
Any ability that God gives us, any ministry
that God does through us, it is He,
it is the Holy Spirit.
People will come and praise you.
Don't touch it.
Give it to God immediately.
Frequently go alone to some lonely place, or
if there's no other lonely place, on your
bed at night.
Fall on your face before God and say,
God, I never want to touch your glory.
I never want to take credit for anything
I ever do in my life.
It's all yours.
The Bible speaks about Jerusalem and Babylon.
Jerusalem is the true church.
Babylon is the false church.
The mark of the true church is, we
read in Revelation 21, it shines with the
glory of God.
The mark of the false church is that
it shines with the glory of man.
You read in Daniel chapter 4 that Nebuchadnezzar
walked on the high walls of Babylon, his
palace, and he said, is this not Babylon,
which I have built by the might of
my strength and for the glory of my
majesty?
And as soon as he said those words,
God made him a madman for a number
of years, till he learned to give the
glory to God.
He was a heathen king.
You read in Acts chapter 12, Herod gave
a tremendous, it wasn't even a Christian message,
just a great speech, political speech.
And he took the credit to himself, and
it says worms ate him up on the
platform.
It's a very serious thing to touch the
glory of God.
Worms may not eat you up physically, but
they have eaten up many preachers spiritually, because
they touched the glory of God.
They took the credit to themselves, they sought
a name for themselves.
Beware of writing a report in order to
get a name for yourself.
When you read somebody else's report, and you're
tempted to be envious, jealous, because of the
wonderful work he's doing, and you're tempted to
write something to impress, beware of that.
That's where you will exaggerate and state things
which are not true.
That's where you will expand the truth, and
it becomes a lie.
Why?
Because you're not satisfied with the glory that
God gives.
You also want the glory and honor of
some man whose breath is in his nose.
Why do you want glory from a man?
Do you know that whenever you say something,
or do something, or write something to impress
somebody, you are actually worshipping him?
I don't know whether you realize that.
When you say something in your testimony or
anything to show somebody that either I'm a
great guy, or I'm better than that other
fellow, or somebody preaches something and you get
up to show that you can preach better
than him, or somebody sings and you want
to show that you can sing better than
him, or somebody plays an instrument and you
want to show that you can play it
better, it's all evil.
It's all to get a name for yourself.
It's the sin of Lucifer that made him
a devil in a moment, and it will
make you a devil in a moment too.
To seek a name for yourself.
Tremendous danger in Christian work, and plenty of
it today, because people send reports and emails
and everybody wants to show that a great
revival is taking place where I'm serving the
Lord.
I'm amazed when you read all the reports
going out of India, you think a revival
is taking place in every corner of India,
you think all one billion people are saved.
It's not true.
It's because of this tremendous lust to seek
a name for yourself.
Are you happy to wait for the final
day when Jesus will call you up front,
and before the whole world say, well done,
good and faithful servant?
Or do you want the approval of empty
men?
No.
I remember once the Lord gave me a
picture of this, like this.
He said if you take a camera and
take thirty-six pictures, let's say I take
pictures of the work I have done for
the Lord, and if I'm ignorant of photography,
and I take out that reel and open
it all out, what will happen?
Everything's gone.
As soon as he's exposed to the light,
all those pictures are gone.
You've got to keep it dark.
You've got to put it in the darkroom.
Do that with your work.
Do that with your prayer life.
Let nobody know how much you pray.
Let nobody know how much you fast.
I mean, when we do it together as
a church, naturally people will know.
I'm not talking about such things, but I'm
talking about the many private things we can
do.
The sacrifices you make for the Lord, don't
let anybody know about it.
The money you give, don't let anybody know.
Your Father will reward you openly.
Never, never, never seek the honor of men
for anything.
Anything.
It will be strongly tempted, because everybody else
is in that competition.
Pull out of that race.
Pull out of that race and say, I'm
not in that race.
I want to live before God's face.
This is the reason why many people don't
have faith in these days, real faith.
People have faith for the wrong things nowadays,
but not faith for overcoming sin and partaking
of the nature of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, how can you believe, how can
you have faith, John 5, 44, when you
receive glory from men and not from God?
You know the reason why many people don't
have faith?
They look for glory from men and not
for the glory that comes from the only
God.
Danger No.
5, Revelation 3, verse 15.
The danger of losing the fire.
The messenger of the church in Laodicea says,
I know your deeds.
You are neither cold nor hot.
I wish you were cold or hot, but
because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold,
I'll spit you out of my mouth.
Tremendous danger.
The fire with which God fills us when
we are first baptized in the Holy Spirit,
it's very easy for that fire to cool
down.
Many, many people who were baptized in the
Holy Spirit once upon a time, today all
they have is a date, a date on
such and such a date.
I say, I don't care for dates.
God doesn't care for dates.
Dates are found in graveyards.
You go to the graveyard, you'll see plenty
of dates.
Do you have the fire today?
Have you ever had the fire in your
life?
You know there's a saying in the world
that something is better than nothing.
If something is better than nothing in the
kingdom of God, then to be lukewarm must
be better than being cold, right?
But it's not true.
In the kingdom of God, something is not
better than nothing.
If I were to paraphrase these words, Jesus
was saying, you either have zero or you
have 100%.
Don't be this 50-50 type of person.
You either live 100% for the world,
zero for God, or you live 100%
for God and not for yourself.
If you live like that, you'll have the
fire until the end of your life.
There'll be a fire in your preaching that
people's hearts will burn when you speak.
Wherever you go, until the end of your
life, never lose the fire.
Never mind if you lose your salary, never
mind if you lose your house, never mind
if you lose anything, but don't lose the
fire of God in your life, my brother,
sister.
Be willing to pay any price to keep
the fire of God burning in your heart.
Paul told Timothy, stir up the gift that
is in you.
Fan to a flame that gift God put
inside you.
We have to fan it to a flame.
That's why people ask me, how can I
keep it?
How can I keep the fire burning?
I say, keep your conscience sensitive.
As soon as you're aware of a sin,
set it right.
If you've hurt somebody, go immediately and ask
forgiveness.
Don't wait till tomorrow.
If you've got some money on your hand
which is not yours, go and return it.
If there's something in your life which you
have some area where you have sinned, you
hurt somebody or you did something wrong, go
before God.
Ask Him to forgive you.
Go to that person and ask Him to
forgive you.
Do it ten times a day if necessary
because you don't want to lose the fire.
Keep your conscience clear.
The second thing you need to do to
keep the fire burning is always humble yourself.
Always take the lowly place.
God showed me the glory of that many
years ago in my life, that God gives
His grace to the humble.
Water always flows to the lowest place first.
And if you go to the lowest place,
you'll find the river of God flowing there
in plenty.
Always humble yourself.
Let the other person take the prominence.
Let the other person get the honor.
You humble yourself.
You hide yourself.
You go down.
If somebody insults you, keep your mouth shut
because you don't want to lose the fire.
You want to set everything right in your
life immediately.
Only God can give us the fire.
I cannot create the fire for myself.
The sons of Aaron, we read in Leviticus,
I think it's chapter 10, tried to make
fire themselves and God smote them.
We're not supposed to make fire ourselves.
We're to go before God and allow Him
to baptize us in fire.
That is the greatest need of the hour.
There are many counterfeit baptisms in the spirit,
in Christendom today, even in India.
And how do you know that?
Because it doesn't seem to bring holiness in
the lives of people.
The fire brings holiness.
The fire brings a power.
The fire brings a passion, a devotion to
Christ.
It'll equip you for the ministry to which
God has called you in the body of
Christ.
Whatever it is, I never want to lose
that fire.
God baptized me in the Holy Spirit in
fire some years ago and I've many, many
times gone before God and said, God, don't
let me ever lose the fire in my
life.
I don't care what else I lose.
I don't care if I lose the good
opinions of all of Christendom in India, but
I never want to lose the fire in
my life.
Be passionate.
India needs you.
India needs me.
There's a tremendous need in our country.
I pray often to God that God will
give me a long life, not because I
love this rotten old earth, but because India
is a very needy land.
I pray that God will give me health,
not because I enjoy traveling, but because India
is a needy land.
You are young.
You have life ahead of you.
Beware of these dangers and live for God.
And you'll have millions of years in eternity
to be thankful that God protected you from
the snares that many other Christian workers fell
into.
Let's pray.
While ahead, so bowed in prayer, my dear
brothers and sisters, my dear young brothers and
sisters, I have spoken from my heart to
you because I've seen what has happened to
many young people like you in this land,
and I pray it won't happen to you.
I would weep if it happens to you.
Fine young people, come here to serve the
Lord.
You can miss out on God's will for
your life.
Don't look at other people.
Don't look at other Christian workers.
Don't judge them.
Look at the standards of God's word and
live there.
And don't let these things just be in
your notebook.
Let it be written in your heart permanently,
these five dangers.
Say, Lord, protect me from all of them.
Heavenly Father, I believe there are many, many
sincere people crying out to you today, here
this evening, who sincerely want to serve you.
I pray you'll give them their heart's desire,
that they'll be able to look back over
their life many years from now, and in
eternal ages in heaven, over a life lived
in a worthwhile way for Jesus Christ.
I ask in Jesus' name.
I ask
in Jesus' name.
Our mailing address is Christian Fellowship Centre, Forte
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The Lord bless you richly.