Let's turn to a verse in Hebrews, in
chapter six.
Hebrews, chapter six, there is
a quality of love, a part of the
character of Jesus Christ, which most Christians in
the twentieth century don't pursue too much, and
that is patience.
1 Corinthians 13 says love is patient, and
it says love suffers long.
Here it speaks in Hebrews 6.12 about
not being sluggish.
It says don't be sluggish, but imitators of
those who through faith and patience inherit the
promises.
Now many people have believed that if you
only have faith you inherit the promises, and
we wondered why sometimes we thought we had
faith and we didn't inherit the promises.
But the Bible says faith and patience.
You need faith and patience to inherit the
promises.
There are many things in scripture that go
together, like husband and wife, like two legs
to stand on, the balance that we need,
many, many areas of Christian life like grace
and truth, the fruit and the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, etc., love to God and
love to man.
There's always two sides, and where you have
one side missing, you know something is wrong.
There are two sides to truth, like the
two wings of a bird.
If you use both wings, you move forward.
If you have only one wing, you go
round and round and round and round, and
that's what a lot of Christians do.
Many, many areas.
The trouble with a lot of Christians is
not that they've got a wrong doctrine, but
they've got one side of doctrine.
When the devil said to Jesus, it is
written, and told him to jump from the
temple, his angels will take charge of you,
Jesus said, it is also written.
That's truth, balance.
So it's not by faith that we inherit
the promises, it's not by patience, it's by
faith and patience that we inherit the promises.
And then it says here about Abraham, when
the Lord told him, I will surely bless
you and multiply you, it says he patiently
waited, and he waited for twenty-five years.
God gave him that promise when he was
seventy-five, and he got a seed only
when he was a hundred.
And he says, having patiently waited, he obtained
the promise.
Now, I think in the olden days, and
probably even in the villages today, people, it's
easier for people to be patient.
But those of us who live in the
cities, and we're more advanced in civilization, we
know how everything has to move so fast.
A hundred years ago in the villages in
India, people didn't think anything of walking twenty
miles.
They'd walk.
It takes seven, eight hours to get there,
but they'd walk.
We'd never, none of us would ever dream
of walking twenty miles.
Huh, getting a place in eight hours?
We'd like to get there in fifteen minutes.
See, and the prospect of reaching a place
twenty miles away in eight hours is so
horrible to us, that we'd say, forget it.
We want to get there immediately.
Now, that's okay as far as going distances
is concerned, but it's the same thing.
It affects many, many areas of our life.
You know why instant coffee is so popular?
Because the old business of waiting for it
to boil and get a decoction and all,
it takes too much time.
In every area it's like that.
Even in examinations nowadays, the old system of
teacher correcting all these long answers, it's all
gone.
It's all, you put it on the computer,
you get the result, by the time your
exam's over.
And unfortunately, this is in all areas of
life.
Even the doctors now, don't wait for a
woman to come to her time of delivery.
They say, no, you've got to operate immediately,
otherwise you may die.
And the poor woman's scared, they have a
caesarean and the baby's born, because the doctor
doesn't want to come in the middle of
the night.
Usually babies are born in the middle of
the night.
They don't want to come in the middle
of the night, so they say, well, nine
o'clock we'll have a caesarean and frighten
this poor woman and deliver the baby, and
that's it.
And unfortunately, this carries over into our Christian
lives.
God, in the name of Jesus, you said
you'd give me this thing, I'm asking for
this thing.
You wait two minutes, the answer hasn't come,
God doesn't answer prayer.
He does answer prayer, but He's not going
to answer it according to your dictating the
time to Him.
One of the things which I've learnt in
my Christian life is this wonderful truth.
You know, all Christians speak about Acts 1
.8. Well, a lot of Christians do.
You know what that is, Acts 1.8?
You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you.
How many Christians know Acts 1.7?
More important, actually, in a sense.
In fact, it's linked to Acts 1.8.
Acts 1.7 says, listen to this and
don't forget it all your life.
It is not for you to know the
time when God will do something.
Do you hear that?
It's not for you to know the time
when God will do something.
You know the question, you see, I'm paraphrasing
those words because the disciples asked Jesus, Lord,
is this the time when you're going to
restore the kingdom to Israel?
We think it's about time.
We've had enough of these Romans ruling us
for 40, 50 years.
We're sick and tired of them.
They make life so miserable for us.
In the name of Jesus, restore the kingdom.
Jesus said, it's not for you to know
the time.
You can pray, thy kingdom come.
Sure, we Christians have been praying it for
2,000 years, but it still hasn't come.
It's not for you to know the time.
It is not for you to know the
time or the epochs, dates.
The father has fixed by his own authority
and a humble person will acknowledge that.
Do you know the number of stupid, I
wouldn't say only stupid, but proud, arrogant Christians
who through the years have even decided that
they know when Jesus is coming again?
Somebody said he's coming in 1841, then they
changed it to 1844.
And then when he still didn't come, they
said, well, he came halfway and he sort
of got stuck somewhere there and he's on
his way because he wouldn't admit that I
made a mistake.
It's true.
One of the cult groups teach that.
And then people have waited on mountains in
the year 2000 and even in the year
1000, I heard people waiting for the coming
of the Lord.
What would a humble man do?
Do you know who was the humblest man
who walked on the earth?
Who was that?
Jesus.
You know what he said?
He said, I don't know the date of
my own second coming.
He didn't know the date of his own
second coming when he was on earth.
Then who are these people who think that
they know and fix dates and all that?
Arrogant, proud man.
It's not for you to know.
It's not for you to know when Jesus
is coming again.
You can know when he's near, but you
won't know the date or time.
Jesus said that.
Jesus himself did not know when he was
on earth.
Today he knows because he's gone back and
taken back all that authority he had from
all eternity as God.
When he was on earth, he had it,
but he didn't use it.
He was God, but he never used those
powers.
Otherwise he wouldn't be an example for us.
That's why he gave up even the knowledge
of many, many truths.
So there are many, many things like that.
When is God going to answer this prayer
of mine?
Well, it's not for you to know the
time.
But faith says, if I have asked something
according to the will of God, he will
definitely grant it to me.
Have you asked for victory over sin?
You didn't get it in one day and
you got discouraged.
See, this is the great danger.
I want to give you a promise which
has been a tremendous help and blessing to
me through many, many, many years.
It's in Isaiah chapter 49.
You know, many, many problems we have in
our life, we don't have an answer because
we don't study the word of God.
There is an answer in scripture to every
single problem, question, doubt we have in our
whole life.
It says here in Isaiah 49 and verse
23, those who wait for me shall never
be ashamed.
Those who hopefully wait for me, those who
have hope, God will answer my prayer because
I have asked according to his will.
He will answer me.
That's faith, faith and patience.
When God has promised something and you know
that that is God's will for you.
Now, there are a lot of areas where
we don't know whether it's God's will for
us.
You ask God to give you a particular
job.
I don't know whether that's God's will for
you or not.
You want to marry a particular girl or
a particular boy.
I don't know whether it's God's will for
you or not.
A lot of people marry people whom God
never chose for them.
They just were in a hurry and got
married.
OK, that's up to them.
But God, those who wait for him will
never be ashamed.
It's true, never.
You can be absolutely sure if you want
God's perfect will in your life in every
single area, you don't have to grab anything.
You wait for God's time and he will
give you the best.
I found that in 43 years of my
Christian experience.
I've never missed anything in my life which
God wanted me to have.
And as far as I can remember, I
never grabbed anything.
No, nothing.
I believe that if God wanted me to
have something, he'd give it to me.
If he didn't want me to have it,
it'd be far better if I didn't have
it in any case.
And the sad thing is, there are certain
things which God may want you to have,
but he may not want you to have
it now.
He may want you to have it three
months from now, or three years from now,
or ten years from now, I don't know.
God wanted Abraham to have a son, but
he wanted him to have it 25 years
later.
And that's where patience is tested.
You're sure God wants you to have it.
God wants you to have victory over sin.
But very often we don't get it in
one day.
Let me ask you a question.
I think even those children can answer this
one.
You remember Esau and Jacob, the sons of
Isaac?
And before they were born, listen to this,
before they were born, God gave a promise
that there'll be twins there, but one will
come out a little before the other, so
he's the elder.
Who was that?
Esau.
And God said the elder will serve the
younger.
God said that before they were born.
And God's promise was that the birthright should
go to the younger, because the elder has
to serve him.
Jacob knew that from the time he was
a little boy, his mother told him, you
know, God said to me, Esau, your elder
brother will serve you.
The birthright is yours.
And I can imagine that their mother must
have told that to him a hundred times.
God wants you to have the birthright.
And yet, one day, when Isaac, his father,
decided, today I'm going to give the birthright,
and the mother heard Isaac tell Esau, go
and bring some killer deer and bring its
meat to me.
I really like that.
Bring it to me and I'll give you
the blessing.
The mother got into a panic.
Jacob got into a panic.
And Jacob was not a little kid.
He was at least 40 years old by
then.
And they said, we better scheme.
If he don't grab something quickly, we won't
get it.
We better grab quickly.
Otherwise, Esau will get it.
In other words, Esau is more powerful than
God, right?
That's what they believed.
And so they schemed, and they planned, and
they deceived, and did all types of things
to get what they wanted.
You think believers don't do these things?
I've seen in my own life, believers scheme,
and plan, and deceive, and tell half-truths.
Why?
To get something.
It may be the will of God, but
the way they're getting it is not the
will of God.
The way they're doing it is not the
will of God.
The time they're getting it is not the
will of God.
There are young men who want to marry
a young woman.
They say, if I don't grab her quickly,
somebody else will get her.
They scheme, plan, deceive, and get her.
Maybe it was God's will, but that was
not the way to get it.
They've ruined their life.
How many years of their life?
Jacob lost 20 years of his life because
he got it the wrong way.
And you know, you can use a lot
of what God wants you to have when
you grab before God's time.
That's why I said, remember Acts 1-7.
It is not for you to know the
time.
That is in God's hand.
Trust Him.
He won't let you down.
How can, if Jacob had said to God,
and supposing Jacob had told him, even if
his mother told him, hey, let's do something.
Let's cheat our dad, and fool him, and
deceive him, and get what we want.
Otherwise, we'll miss it.
Supposing he had said, no mom, God's almighty.
He's on the throne.
He's in control.
He can give me what I want at
the right time.
He who said before I was born that
I would get the birthright, I will trust
Him to give me the birthright.
Do you think God could have given it
or not?
Yes or no?
Now, all of you who said yes, remember
that when your time comes, okay?
Remember that when your time comes.
God can do it if He's promised you.
We can trust Him to do it, because
how would God have done it?
I don't know.
As if I have to give ideas to
God how to do things.
But the Bible says the king's heart is
in the hand of the Lord.
He can turn it wherever he wills.
And I'm sure Isaac's mind was in the
hand of the Lord, and God could have
changed Isaac's mind.
And delayed, he saw, like he kept all
the fish one day away from the lake
of Galilee, he could have kept all the
deer away that day.
Do you think God could have done that?
Sure.
And God could have made Isaac think, something's
wrong here.
God didn't bring a deer.
That means, remember what God told you 40
years ago.
You've got to give the blessing to Jacob.
And He would have given the blessing to
Jacob.
Without Jacob deceiving, cheating, lying, He would have
got it the good way.
I believe God wants us to have wonderful
things in life.
The Bible says, if you being evil know
how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more shall your heavenly Father give
good things to them that ask Him?
If you believe that, can't you trust Him?
Can't you trust Him to give you the
best at the right time, without your grabbing,
without your scheming, without your deceiving, without your
having to tell lies, without your having to,
you know, do so many things and ruin
your own life?
God says, I could give it to you
in a better way.
You wouldn't trust Me.
Your faith had no patience in it.
And therefore, it was not real faith.
Real faith always has patience.
If you believe that God can give you,
even if somebody grabs something from you, God
can give it back to you.
You remember once, you read in Luke chapter
12, a man came to Jesus and said,
tell my brother to divide the property with
me.
My father is dead.
We're only two brothers.
I should get 50 percent.
He should get 50 percent.
But the fellows grabbed the whole thing.
What did Jesus say?
He said, I didn't come here to divide
property.
No.
Let him have it.
Let him have 100 percent.
What God wants you to have, you'll have.
If that man had trusted God, God's righteousness
demands that I should get 50 percent.
Because my dad died and we were only
two brothers.
But that chap has grabbed the whole thing.
But God, there must be a very good
reason why you have allowed him to do
it.
I trust you.
Let him have it.
What?
God can do amazing things.
God can kill him and you get 100
percent.
Don't you think God can do that?
Or God may know that if you get
that 50 percent, you'll get so taken up
with your money and your business that you'll
go to hell.
You'll get taken up with your money.
God saves you from that.
There could be many, many reasons.
I'm just mentioning two of them.
Why God did not allow that man to
get his 50 percent share at that time.
It was a test of faith.
And God will test your faith in different
situations where he's going to see whether you
can trust him there or whether your faith
is only on Sunday morning in CFC and
not in daily life.
I want to tell you this.
If your faith is only here on Sunday
morning, it's not faith at all.
It's a deception.
It's a whitewash.
Let me turn you to Genesis in chapter
13.
Here is an example of another man, the
man we first read of, Abraham.
It says here there was strife, verse 7,
between Abraham's servants and Lot's servants, verse 6
and 7, chapter 13 of Genesis.
There's a very interesting statement here, the last
part of verse 7.
It appears as though it has got no
connection.
What's the connection between that last sentence, the
Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the
land What's that got to do with the
context of the story?
It's got to do with the fact that
these two people who talked about God were
fighting with each other and the heathen were
watching.
That's the point.
It's exactly what's happening in the world today.
Christians are fighting with each other and the
Canaanites and Perizzites are watching this whole thing.
And Abraham, who was the senior man, the
godly man, this chap who was his nephew,
who had no business to come with him,
first of all, God called only Abraham.
He could have many reasons why he could
have said, listen Lot, I'm senior, I'm your
uncle, and I'm the one whom God called,
you've got no business to be here, and
so you find some other place.
That is the legal thing.
If Abraham had gone to court, that's what
any judge would have said.
That's not what a godly man does.
A godly man does not go by the
rules of law.
He gives up his rights.
And he told Lot, let there be no
strife.
He says, we are brothers.
He doesn't say, you're my nephew, I'm your
uncle.
No, he says we are brothers.
So, isn't the whole land in front of
you?
You choose first.
You go to the left, I'll go to
the right.
If you go to the right, I'll go
to the left.
So, you see, he allowed Lot to choose
first.
Now, imagine if Lot did choose first, he
would naturally choose the best part of the
land, and Abraham would get the worst part.
Isn't that how it is?
You allow a selfish person to choose first,
he's going to get the best part of
the land.
And Abraham said, that's fine.
That's faith.
What God wants me to have, I'll get.
Even if Lot grabs it, I'll get it.
I will not grab.
I will wait.
I want to say to all of you
who are impatient, who want things quickly, immediately,
if you don't get rid of that way
of life, you'll never get God's best in
your life in anything.
You've already probably missed many, many things, because
you read these stories, but you don't practice
them.
God gave you an opportunity to practice them,
and you would not practice them, because you
were in a hurry.
Abraham could wait.
And Lot took the best of the land.
It says, Lot lifted up his eyes and
took the best.
There's a lovely verse in verse 11.
You notice that?
The mark of a man of the world.
Lots of believers live like this.
Lot chose for himself.
God chose for Abraham.
You got it?
Lot chose for himself.
Abraham allowed God to choose for him.
Lot decided when he wants his property.
Abraham decided that God will decide when he
should have the property.
So, Lot took the property and left.
It says, the Lord said to Abraham, verse
14, Okay, Abraham.
I saw exactly what happened.
Lot didn't know that I was watching, but
I was watching.
And do you know, my brother and sister,
when you grabbed something, when you were in
a hurry somewhere, God was watching.
You didn't know he was watching, but God
was watching.
God told Abraham, now lift up your eyes,
and you can look north, south, east, west.
This whole land, I'll give to you and
your descendants.
Now, I'll tell you something, Abraham did not
get it in his lifetime.
But he was willing to wait.
He lived nearly another 100 years, till he
was 175 when he died.
And he never got it.
But he died trusting that God would give
it to his children.
I'm not surprised that God blessed a man
like Abraham.
And I'm not surprised that God doesn't bless
many believers like that today.
Because they don't have faith.
They don't believe in God's timing.
They believe in their own timing.
Are you like that?
Are you in a hurry to get instant
answers to your prayer?
You can't wait?
For God to give you in his own
time, in his own way, the very best.
Whatever you grab will always be second best.
I'll tell you that.
Or tenth best.
What you wait for God to give you
will be his best.
You can get many things if you don't
wait for God.
The world is full of people who are
always grabbing, left, right and center.
They're grabbing, grabbing, grabbing, grabbing.
They violate every law of God and grab,
and grab, and grab, and grab, and grab.
And they suffer.
And when believers grab and suffer, and they
suffer, then they'll come and say, Brother, please
pray for me.
We are in suffering.
Well, how did that suffering come?
It came because you were grabbing.
And so we see here an example of
one who waited and he was not ashamed.
Because God gave him what he waited for.
That's how it is always in Scripture.
We read about David.
Samuel came one day and knowing to them,
we read with oil and said, You are
the king.
God has given up on Saul.
And do you know how old David was
at that time?
Probably around 20.
We don't know.
His age is not given.
17 years, 20 years.
And do you know how long he had
to wait?
After he was anointed to get the king,
to become king.
10 years.
And during those 10 years, you read in
1 Samuel, you take time to read it
sometime.
There were many opportunities he had to grab
the throne.
There were times when King Saul lay in
the cave in front of him and his
soldier said, This is God.
God's given you the opportunity.
Kill him.
He said, No.
I'll never do it.
I will not go against God's principles.
Of course, he could have grabbed like Jacob.
He could have violated God's laws and grabbed
and killed Saul and become king.
But he would have become king before he
had finished his education.
He needed 10 years of spiritual education before
he became king.
Do you know that God knows the right
time when you have finished your education spiritually,
when He can give you a ministry?
You try to grab a ministry like a
lot of people have tried before God's time.
That would be exactly like David killing Saul
saying, God's anointed me.
There are people who have done that, made
a mess of their life.
We read that Joseph had visions of God
when he was 17.
Of ministries, brothers bowing down to him.
But he had to wait 13 years before
that was fulfilled.
And he didn't grab.
He didn't grab.
These are the men.
Joseph, Abraham, David.
These are the men we read about, we
appreciate on Sunday morning.
Monday to Saturday, we can go and live
just like any worldly person and lose out.
I want to tell you, my dear brothers
and sisters, I believe God had some tremendous
plans for some of you.
If only you had waited for God's time.
He tested you to see whether you'd wait,
but you were not willing to wait.
You grabbed.
Okay, you got what you wanted, but you
missed God's best.
And you got to repent of it now.
And until you acknowledge your sin and acknowledge,
Lord, I did something wrong.
I never waited for you.
I was impatient.
I was in a hurry.
I repent of it.
I'll tell you, you'll never have what God
wanted you to have because you don't acknowledge
your sin.
You keep justifying what you did.
Oh, but that was God's will.
Well, it was God's will for David to
be king.
It was God's will for Joseph to have
his brothers bow down to him.
But the time, the times are in God's
hand.
The time when you were supposed to have
something was in God's hand.
Some of you are in a hurry to
get married.
How do you know you're ready to be
married?
How do you know you're ready to be
a father?
Maybe you need five more years to be
ready to be a father or a mother.
But you're in a hurry.
What's the result?
Maybe you'll have children who'll grow up to
be godless because you were in a hurry
to be a father or a mother.
You want to get married before God's time.
Don't be stupid.
Don't be foolish.
I'm not sure all of you are going
to listen to me because that impatience that
is in your flesh may be more powerful
than the voice of the Holy Spirit in
your conscience.
Then I can only feel sorry for you.
But those who have years to hear and
who don't practice their faith only on Sunday
morning and who practice it Monday through Saturday,
who have years to hear, let me tell
you, you'll never miss God's best if you
wait for God.
You don't have to grab.
You don't have to fight.
You don't have to do any such thing.
Just trust in the Lord.
He will do everything at the proper time.
He can do miracles.
You need never, never, never be afraid that
if you wait on God, you'll miss what
He has.
God's timetable is always perfect.
Everything runs on time.
There's a beautiful expression in Galatians 4 which
says, in the fullness of time, God sent
His Son.
Galatians 4, 6 I think it is.
In the fullness of time, verse 4 or
6 anyway, that means at the perfect time
God sent His Son.
He wasn't one minute late.
He arrived exactly on time.
Mary had delivery pains exactly at the right
time when no room was available in the
hotel.
You know, if Mary had delivery pains one
week later, she probably would have got a
room in a hotel because some people would
have vacated who had come for the census.
They'd given their names and gone.
But then the Son of God would have
been born in a good room.
But that was not the will of God.
The will of God was the Son of
God must be born in a cowshed.
Why?
Because He has come to serve all men
and no human being I've ever heard of
in my life was ever born in a
cowshed, not even those in the slums.
So God arranged that Mary would have delivery
pains when there was no room available anywhere
in Bethlehem.
That was the perfect time.
God is never late.
He's never early.
I thank God for the assurance God's given
me in that.
I remember, I'll give you one or two
examples from my own life.
On the 6th of May, 1964, God spoke
to my heart and said that I was
to leave my job in the Navy.
It was very clear.
And I was on leave.
As soon as I went back to work,
I put in my resignation.
And I said, Dear sir, the Lord Jesus
Christ has called me to serve Him.
So I cannot serve the country anymore in
the Navy.
I have to leave.
Went up to naval headquarters.
They probably laughed at it and sent it
back, rejected.
Okay, what do I do?
I waited.
I asked the Lord, Lord, what shall I
do?
And the Lord said, What did Moses do
when Pharaoh said no?
Went back again.
So I went back again.
Let my people go, that they may serve
me.
And I went back again.
And two years later, God released me.
You know what people told me in those
two years?
Brother Zach, why don't you say you're sick?
Get released on compassionate grounds.
Why don't you use the influence of some
MP or something like that?
I said, No, I don't have to say
I'm sick because I'm not sick.
How can I say I'm sick?
Now I don't want to tell a lie
in order to go out and serve God.
I don't want to say my mother is
dying or anything like that.
All this rubbish people say, you know, to
get something done.
They tell lies to take leave.
And yeah, yeah, yeah.
You take leave by telling a lie.
You'll be out of the will of God.
I'll tell you that.
And use human influence to manipulate.
I may have succeeded, but I would have
left the Navy before God's dying.
And then I would not have been ready
to serve the Lord.
God knew I was not ready.
So he kept me waiting two more years.
And I'm sure I learned a lot of
lessons in those two years, which I would
not have learned otherwise.
So I waited.
And I don't regret it today.
I knew the exact in the fullness of
time.
I didn't have to tell a lie.
I didn't have to cheat.
I didn't have to deceive.
I remember when our somebody suggested our marriage
proposal for me with Annie and we met
and decided to get married.
Her father said, I'll never let you marry
that man.
He doesn't have a job.
He doesn't have a salary.
And I don't blame him.
Will you let your daughter marry a person
who's got no salary, no job?
Before you criticize someone, I'd like to see
the person who allows his daughter to marry
someone who's got no job and salary.
I said, OK, let's trust God.
That's what I told her.
I said, let's trust God.
Is God almighty or not?
We'll wait.
We had to wait 10 years.
We wait 10 years.
I never went to meet him.
He never saw me.
I never saw him.
Three months later, without seeing me, without seeing
him, he said, OK.
Who was that?
I didn't suddenly get a job.
I was still jobless, salary-less.
Not jobless.
I was serving the Lord.
Best job of all.
But humanly speaking, salary-less, yes.
God, at the right time, that delay was
necessary.
So we waited some eight months or nearly
a year before we finally got married.
It's OK.
What's there if you get married and married
one year later?
What do we lose today?
God is the time and season is God's.
Don't ever forget that.
I remember when we got married, we didn't
have money to rent a house.
We were much poorer than all of the
people whose marriages I've conducted in CFC all
these years.
It was good for us.
Of course, I could have done what a
lot of people do today, borrow money.
But I knew if I borrow money, I'm
violating the Word of God, which says, O
no man anything.
So I will not borrow money, leave alone
to build a house.
I won't borrow money even to rent a
house.
I'd say, God, when you decide that I
can have a house, you'll give it to
me.
Not when I decide.
And I waited.
I got a house about four years after
I got married.
It's fine.
We lived in one room for about two
years, ten feet by ten feet.
What did we suffer?
Physically, yes.
But look at the lessons we learned.
I don't believe I would have had a
ministry today if I hadn't gone through those
lessons I learned in those two, three years.
If I had violated God's laws and chosen
comfort, I'd have got comfort, but no ministry
like a lot of you.
My brothers and sisters, it's not worth it,
violating God's laws.
God tests you to see whether you'll be
patient, whether you tremble at His word.
Oh God, I'd like to have ministry.
Sure, God wants to give you a ministry
too, but you've got to tremble at His
word first.
You can't just do what you like and
have a ministry from God.
Impossible.
That's what a lot of preachers out there
in the world are trying to do and
they don't succeed.
Have we learned it in CFC after all
these years that if you want God's best
in your life, you must tremble at God's
word.
You must accept limitation.
Do you want to come to a place
of abundance and spiritual wealth?
Shall I show you the route to it?
You really want to see the route?
How many, if I ask you, how many
of you want to come to a place
of spiritual abundance, overflowing rivers, wealthy, spiritually placed?
All of us will raise our hand.
Now, by the time I've showed you the
route, I don't know how many will raise
their hands.
I'll show you the route.
Psalm 66, David says, here's the
destination.
Last part of verse 12, you brought us
into a place of abundance.
That's where David finally ended.
I can testify to that.
God's brought me to a place of abundance,
spiritually.
That word in the Hebrew language is the
word which is used in only one other
place in the Old Testament.
It's where David says in Psalm 23, my
cup runs over.
That's what the same word here, place of
abundance.
God, you brought me to a place where
the water is running out of my life.
Rivers of living water.
How do you get there?
Now that's the question.
Here's the route.
Verse 11, verse 10, you tested us.
You refined us like silver is refined in
a fire.
You brought us into a net.
A net means you didn't give us freedom
to move.
Have you seen fish in a net?
And fish in the sea?
You brought us into a net.
You laid a burden, an oppressive burden upon
our loins.
That means on my back there was a
burden which never got lifted despite prayer, prayer,
prayer, prayer, prayer, that burden.
But it was there.
You allowed men to ride over our heads.
Men trampled me, pushed me down, humiliated me,
told false stories about me, crushed me, took
you to court, harmed you, you went through
fire and then after the fire, cold, ice
cold water, back into the fire again.
But in the end, you brought us into
wealth and great abundance.
How many want to go there?
I hope we all want to go there.
It's worth it.
When you get to heaven, you'll discover like
we sing in the song, it was worth
it all.
We'll say it's worth it all when we
meet Jesus.
That everything we faced on earth, it was
worth it.
To trust God, not to violate His laws,
to tremble at His word, not to do
anything contrary to His word, to trust Him
that in His own time He will give
me the best.
You don't have to grab, you don't have
to do anything.
I'll give you another example.
I remember the days when we were struggling.
We were getting 150 rupees a month and
it went up to a little more than
that.
I didn't have a house to live in.
I didn't have a telephone in my house.
And there was a Christian organization here in
Bangalore, a very good evangelical Christian organization that
told me, their foreign directors called me and
said, Brother Zach, we trust you.
We want you to be the director of
our organization.
We'll pay you so much salary.
We'll give you a free car, free house,
free telephone and all this.
If you will come and sit at this
desk and be the director.
All I had to say was yes.
And I was in real need.
And I said no.
God has not called me to sit behind
a desk.
There's nothing wrong with this organization.
It's doing good work, but God's not called
me to sit behind a desk.
God's called me to preach His word.
And I will not do something other than
what God has called me to do.
Even if there's free house, free telephone, free
car, free everything.
You know, that was 30 years ago.
And if I had responded to that invitation
30 years ago, I wouldn't be here.
And I would not have any ministry that
God wanted me to have.
I would have lived in comfort.
And missed the will of God.
That's all.
It was a test.
Now this is not the invitation to be
head of some Hindu organization.
It's a good Christian evangelical organization.
They do the Lord's work.
But it was not the will of God
for me.
And God was testing me to see whether
I would value His calling or house, telephone,
car, more than that.
What do you value?
Do you know that God can never give
you a ministry before He tests you?
He tested me when I was going to
leave the Navy to see whether I'd grab.
He tested me when I wanted to get
married to someone, whether I'd grab or wait
for His time.
He tested me when I was going to
have a ministry to see whether I'd grab
or wait for His time.
Everything.
He always tests.
He tested Abraham.
He tested Joseph.
He tested David.
He has tested you.
And He's tested me.
By faith and patience, we inherit the promises.
They shall not be ashamed, says the Lord,
who wait for me.
And I could give you numerous instances like
that in matters of family property, my family,
my wife's family property.
Always I've given up.
I said, take it.
I don't want it.
You take it.
And I've never regretted till today.
Never.
I'm just telling you that for your encouragement
to say that many of you have missed
God's best and are missing God's best because
you grab.
Maybe you got it.
There are a lot of people in the
world who grab and get.
But they get something which is either not
God's will or something which is not in
God's time.
That's the thing.
If you...
It's not only in this area of waiting
for God to give us something in His
time.
Think of this verse.
In 2nd Timothy chapter 4, Paul says, Alexander
the coppersmith did me much harm.
The Lord will repay him according to his
deeds.
When somebody does you much harm, you don't
have to pretend that he did not do
you much harm.
Humanly speaking, he did harm.
Of course, Romans 8, 28, God made it
work for good.
That's another thing.
And whatever Alexander the coppersmith did to Paul,
I don't know what all he did.
But they caused him harm.
But he left it in God's hands.
It's okay.
God will repay him.
I'm not going to do anything.
Has somebody done you harm like Alexander the
coppersmith or any other smith, silversmith?
Can you trust God to deal with that?
Or are we impatient?
When is the Lord going to repay Alexander
the coppersmith?
Probably not in his whole lifetime.
Probably he hasn't still repaid Alexander the coppersmith.
Paul said that's fine.
That's up to God when he is going
to repay him.
But one thing is sure.
Anyone who harms another human being, leave alone
a child of God.
Child of God is worse.
If you harm another human being, one day
God will repay you.
He may wait two thousand years, but he'll
repay you.
He will close the accounts one day.
It's better to settle your accounts before you
leave the earth.
If you don't settle your accounts before you
leave the earth, I guarantee, it's more certain
than the sun rising tomorrow morning, God will
repay you.
If you settle it before you leave the
earth, it's settled here.
If it's not settled before you leave the
earth, you'll have to settle it on the
day of judgment.
There's no doubt about it.
If you have harmed another person in any
way, maybe spoken evil about that person or
that person's family members, and you've never humbled
yourself and gone to that person and apologized
and gone to all the people to whom
you spread those scandals and apologized and withdrawn
your statements.
If you haven't done it, please mark my
words and don't tell me in the day
of judgment I didn't warn you.
You will pay up because of a word
of God which says in Romans chapter 12,
the Lord says in Romans 12 verse 19,
Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave
room for the wrath of God.
For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I
will repay, says the Lord.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but that
word will not pass away.
God doesn't say, I might repay or maybe
I'll repay, maybe I'll change my mind.
I will repay.
If God says to me, I will give
you eternal life, He will give me eternal
life.
If God says, I will repay, He will
repay.
You can be pretty sure of one thing,
that you'll see that in the day of
judgment.
God will keep His word.
He will repay every single person who ever
did harm to another person in any way,
starting with Cain.
Cain got a little curse way back there
in Genesis 4, but that's not the end.
He's going to come up in the day
of judgment in the final day and stand
before God and get His final payment.
He hasn't got His final paycheck yet.
Cain and a lot of other people since
Cain who harmed God's people in any way,
if you have touched a hair on somebody's
head, you're going to get it back unless
you apologize, set it right and ask God
for forgiveness and ask that person for forgiveness.
You can cast aside what I say, but
don't forget in the day of judgment that
I reminded you, you had the opportunity in
your earthly life to set it right.
And I say also this, my brothers and
sisters, if somebody has harmed you, don't wait
to try and get your own back on
him.
The Bible says, never take your own revenge.
Never take your own revenge.
At any time.
Will you come here please?
We need to teach our children to be
a little more well-behaved.
There are some children who are consistently badly
behaved.
And I find they're always the same ones.
And I want to encourage parents to please
take more responsibility to discipline your children and
teach them to sit properly in the house
of God.
So what I want to say is, never
take revenge for what you have and if
somebody has done to you, God will repay
them at the right time.
And if you leave it to God, He
will do it in His own time, in
His own way.
I know the times when God has said
to me, when somebody has done something wrong,
do you want me to deal with them
or do you want to deal with them?
The answer is very clear.
Lord, I want you to deal with them.
Why don't you let God deal with them?
Why don't you forgive them?
Release them.
Let them go and let God deal with
them in His own time.
If He's going to take 2,000 years,
give Him 2,000 years.
God knows the time and season is in
God's hand.
He's the one who's going to decide what
is the right time to deal with somebody.
You are not to decide that.
I'm not the one to decide that.
God is the one who decides when is
the right time.
And He's patient.
There's a reason why He waits.
We don't know all the reasons.
Maybe He's hoping that person will repent.
Maybe He's giving that person a chance to
set matters right.
You think He should drop dead tomorrow.
God may give him 50 years of health.
Health!
Because only if he has health, he's got
a chance to repent.
Leave it to God.
Those who wait for Him will never be
ashamed.
I believe we are living in an age
where everybody wants something immediately.
A lot of people who pray for the
baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Let me come to that.
You know what Jesus said to His disciples?
In, let me read this to you.
Luke 24, verse 49.
Behold, I'm sending forth the promise of My
Father upon you.
But you must stay in the city until
you're clothed with power from on high.
You must stay in the city until Acts
chapter 1 and verse 4.
He told them not to leave Jerusalem but
to wait.
And they waited.
I remember seeing a cartoon once of these
disciples waiting in the upper room on the
day of, you know, waiting, waiting, waiting.
And one man getting up and telling the
others, listen, I've waited nine days and I've
had enough.
I'm going home.
You fellows can wait if you want.
And he goes home.
And the next day he hears that the
Holy Spirit fell on all those people who
were waiting.
How would he feel?
Why, if only I had waited for one
more day.
Brothers and sisters, many of us seek for
the baptism in the Holy Spirit but we're
impatient.
We want something in a hurry because we
want the badge to tell others we also
got it.
And the devil knows you're in a hurry
and he'll give you a counterfeit.
You go to some meeting.
Some fellow will make you say blah, blah,
blah.
And you say you got it.
And you come home thinking you got it.
You got nothing.
What you got was that blah, blah, blah.
That's all.
I've been to meetings like that where somebody,
when I was 23 years old, some pastor
told me to say whatever he wanted me
to say.
I said no.
Nobody taught the apostles on the day of
Pentecost to say anything.
They waited.
I said I'm willing to wait 10 years
to get the real thing.
And I had to wait 10 years.
I said I don't want a cheap counterfeit.
I don't want a badge.
I don't want to tell other people I
got something.
Do you know the multitudes of people today
in the world who have missed a genuine
baptism in the Holy Spirit and fire because
they were in a hurry.
They didn't believe.
They believed in Acts 1.8. They didn't
believe in Acts 1.7. Do you want
a cheap counterfeit?
Do you want a cheap counterfeit gift to
the Holy Spirit?
The devil's got plenty.
His bag's full of counterfeits.
Whatever experience you want, the devil will give
it to you if you want a counterfeit.
But those who wait for me, says the
Lord, will never be ashamed.
In every area of life, I want to
say to you, my brothers and sisters, wait
for God.
He'll give you the best if you wait
for Him.
God called the Apostle Paul on the day
he rode to Damascus.
Do you know when he began his ministry?
God told him that day through Ananias, you're
going to suffer great things.
You're going to have a great ministry to
the Gentiles.
Do you know how long it took for
him to have that ministry?
Ten years.
Between Acts chapter 9 and Acts chapter 13.
Ten years.
And during those ten years, he had to
go three years to Arabia, the desert for
three years.
So, there was a time.
And God's willing to wait.
And Paul was willing to wait.
Unlike a lot of Christians today who jump
up, they say, we are anointed.
I want to have a ministry like this
other brother.
They go out and make a mess of
their life.
Let me say to you a lesson which
20th century Christians need to learn.
Wait on the Lord.
Those who wait upon the Lord will one
day rise with wings like eagles, the Bible
says.
One last verse.
Says in Proverbs in chapter 29, verse
20, on the margin of my Bible, it
says, Do you see a man who is
hasty in his matters?
There's more hope for a fool than for
him.
Solomon wrote 29 chapters in the book of
Proverbs.
Chapter 30 we read was written by Agur
and chapter 31 was written by Lemuel.
Solomon wrote the first 29 chapters.
And in 29 chapters, Solomon talks about various
types of fools.
This type of fool, that type of fool,
the other type of fool, this type of
fool, this type of fool.
Before he closes his book, he says, now
I will tell you the greatest fool of
all.
The one who gets first prize.
The man who is hasty, who can't wait
for God's time.
He takes the prize as the biggest fool
of all.
Who speaks quickly, answers quickly, writes letters quickly,
never waits, never waits.
No time to wait on God.
He's in a hurry.
Everything they do in a hurry.
Even in the world, they have a proverb
which says, Marry in haste and repent at
leisure.
It means that you can take your own
cool time to repent because you've got all
of your life for that.
Where are the Christians who have learned to
wait for God?
I've seen very few.
I find most believers, even in our churches,
are always in a desperate hurry.
Determined that God must do everything for them
like instant coffee.
And God does not do it.
And so they get God's second best, tenth
best, hundredth best, etc.
in life and waste the one life God
has given them.
The ministry God's given them, they miss for
some cheap earthly blessing.
Let me tell you this, my brother, sister.
It's better not to have a house than
to have a house which is not in
the will of God.
It's better not to have a job than
to have a job which is not in
the will of God.
It's better not to get married than to
get married to someone who's not in the
will of God.
It's better not to get married too soon
than to get married sooner than God's will.
In everything, wait on the Lord, honor Him.
You'll never miss God's best.
Let's pray.
Is it just one more message that stirs
you tremendously at this moment and by tomorrow
morning forgotten?
Like a lot of other messages in the
past.
That choice is yours.
Jesus says, He who has ears to hear
let him hear.
Brother, sister, I want to encourage you this
morning to take a decision before God.
Take a decision.
Say, Lord, I want your best in my
life.
I repent of the various things I've done
in the past where because I was in
a haste, I have messed up your plan
even though I don't realize it.
But I don't want it to continue in
the days to come.
Lord, I want to wait for your time
in everything.
Teach me that lesson, Lord, before I waste
any more of my life, before I frustrate
any more of your plan for my life,
before I destroy whatever ministry you're trying to
have for me.
Lord Jesus, teach me to wait.
How you waited in 4,000 years in
heaven before you came to earth.
How you waited 30 years in Nazareth before
you started your ministry.
Teach me, Lord, to wait.
Teach us, Lord.
We're all so impatient.
We're impatient for comfort.
We are impatient to satisfy our lusts.
We're impatient to do what we want to
do in our time.
We have no time for you.
And yet we claim to be holy people.
Forgive us for our hypocrisy.
For being deceivers.
Help us to repent.
To show that we're no better than any
worldly person.
Teach us, Lord, to wait on you.
Teach us never to take vengeance on anyone
who has harmed us because you will repay
them in your own time, in your own
way.
Teach us to wait on you for the
mighty power of your Holy Spirit.
Never to give up seeking thirsting trusting that
by faith and patience we can inherit all
of your promises.
Thank you, Father.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
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