Chapter

Introduction

Chapter 1

The Other Half of the Great Commission

The burden I have on my heart is to bring a balance in the matter of fulfilling the Great Commission. All Christians know how important it is to fulfill what is known as "the Great Commission," which Jesus gave to His disciples just before He left this earth.

The first part of that Great Commission is found in Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creatures. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." But there's another part of this Great Commission -- the other half, so to speak -- which is described in Matthew 28:18-20. There Jesus says, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

I have observed Christendom -- born-again Christians, Christian missions, and Christian churches -- in the last 52 years since I was born again, and I find that most Christians emphasize the Mark 16:15 aspect of the Great Commission. Very few emphasize the other half, Matthew 28:19. My guess would be that 99% make Mark 16:15 their primary focus, while only about 1% prioritize Matthew 28:19-20. To use an illustration, that is like a hundred-people trying to carry a log, with 99 people at one end of the log and only one person at the other end, struggling to hold that end up. That's the way I see it.

So I found that the Commission the Lord gave me when I began to teach the Word as He gifted me was to emphasize the other aspect of the Great Commission, the one which is being fulfilled only by about 1%, because the true balance should be 50-50. The first part of the Great Commission is what we know as evangelism. It is generally called missionary work, and often requires going into unreached areas. It is very essential to bring the message of the Gospel (that man is in sin, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that Christ died for the sins of the world, that He is the only way to the Father, that Christ rose from the dead, that he who believes in Him and is baptized will be saved, and that he who does not believe will be condemned) to these unreached areas.

But did the Lord want it to stop there? Once a person has believed, accepted the fact that he's a sinner, and received Christ as a Savior, is that all? Not at all. In Matthew 28:19, He asks us to go into all nations and make disciples.

What it Means to Be a Disciple

The early apostles who heard this commission for the first time had no doubt in their minds as to what was meant by "disciples," because Jesus had explained it very clearly to them in Luke 14.

When Jesus saw a great multitude of people coming along with Him, as we read in Luke 14:25, He turned and said some of the hardest words that He ever spoke to anyone. Most preachers and pastors, if they see a great crowd coming to listen to them, would never dream of speaking words like this, and this shows us how Jesus was different. He was not interested in numbers. There are very few Christian preachers today who are not interested in numbers; but what we see through the end of Luke 14 is Jesus emphasizing quality. He wanted disciples, and so He turns around and tells them, "If any of you come to Me and you don't hate your father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters and even your own life, you cannot be My disciple." It's not that you can be a second level of disciple; you cannot be a disciple, period.

Here we see the first condition of discipleship. The Bible says that we've got to honor our father and mother. What then did Jesus mean when He said we must "hate"? It's a relative statement. Jesus used some strong language sometimes - for example: "If your right eye offends you, pluck it out." "If your right hand offends you, cut it off." "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God's kingdom." "If you don't eat My flesh and blood, you don't have eternal life." He spoke many strong words. But the words that He spoke were spirit and life. So, what He actually meant here was that, in comparison with our love for Him, our love for our earthly relatives should be like darkness compared to light. To use an illustration, if your love for your parents, wife, children, brothers, and sisters is like the light of the stars, then your love for Christ must be like the light of the sun. When the sun comes up, the stars seem to become dark. They are still there, but you can't see them in the light of the sun. So, the word "hate" here means that your love for your father and mother is almost invisible: you still love them, but in the light of your love for Christ, which is like the bright-shining sun, this love is like darkness by comparison. Love for our family members is like hatred when compared with our love for Christ. It also means that we should not allow any family member to hinder us from following whatever the Lord may call us to do.

So, the first condition of discipleship is a supreme love for Christ, where we love Christ more than our parents, more than our wives, more than our children, more than every brother and sister in our blood relationship or within the church, and more than our own life. Would you say that missionary work and evangelism has brought Christians to this place? Has every person who claims to be a born-again Christian come to this place? Have you yourself, if you claim to be a born-again Christian, come to this place? Can you honestly say that you love Christ supremely more than anyone on this earth? In my observation of believers in many lands in the last half-century, I don't find that to be true. Many have accepted Christ and sing, "my sins are all forgiven and I'm on my way to heaven," but they haven't become disciples.

The second condition of discipleship is mentioned in Luke 14:27. "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." Again, that is absolute: "cannot." What does it mean to carry the cross every day? He said "his own cross;" I don't have to carry the cross of Jesus Christ, and I don't have to carry anybody else's cross, but I must carry my own cross. Jesus explained it like this in Luke 9:23: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." In Luke 9:23 the word "daily" is added, which applies Luke 14:27 as well.

If we are to take up a cross every day of our life and follow Christ, it must mean that Christ Himself carried a cross daily. Otherwise, how could He ask me to follow Him daily in taking up my cross? There was an inward cross in the life of the Lord Jesus all through His thirty-three-and-a-half-year life, which culminated in a physical cross that He carried to Calvary. We need to understand what this inward cross was, because if I don't take up that cross in my life -- I cannot be a disciple. Today we don't use the word "cross" much because it has become the symbol of Christianity. People have golden crosses and ivory crosses, but in the day when Jesus spoke about it, it was the most horrible means of executing people that the Romans had invented. Today a more appropriate symbol might be the hangman's rope, the electric chair, or the guillotine. The cross was a symbol of execution, of a man being put a death because he's a criminal. Only criminals were crucified.

Jesus was speaking about something in us that had to be put to death every day if we are to follow Him. What is that? And as we see in other places, Jesus spoke about our self-life: "If anyone loves his own life (his self-life), he will lose it." This is the cross that we must take, where our self is crucified every day. Where we say, in the words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, "not My will but Thine." The strength of my self is found in my will. I want to do my will, whatever pleases me. This is the root of all sin, and if that is not put to death, then I'm not taking up the cross. This is something that needs to be done every single day. It's only then that I can be a disciple. I don't have to necessarily say those words every single day, but I must have the attitude, "I'm not going to do my will this day in any area. I'm going to do the will of God." It's one of the things that Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." In heaven, none of the angels do their own will. They always wait upon God to see what God wants them to do, and that's what they do every single day in heaven. If our days are to be like the days of heaven on earth, if our life is to be a heavenly life, then here's the secret: "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." In other words, my attitude to the Lord is, "Lord I never want to do my own will in anything. I don't want to marry whom I like; I don't want to take the job I like; I don't want to live where I like; I want to know what Your will is, in every single area. When somebody treats me badly I want to react in the way You want me to react, and not the way my flesh, my self-life, wants to react." This is the meaning of taking up the cross every single day, and He says if you don't do that, you absolutely "cannot be My disciple."

Knowing that Jesus gave the other half of the Great Commission in Matthew 28, do you find that the believers you've met are walking in this way of taking up the cross every single day, of dying to themselves every single day? Are you doing that yourself? This is evidence of how little the Commission given in Matthew 28:19 is being taken seriously by Christians.

The third condition for discipleship is in Luke 14:33. The first is love Jesus more than all our relatives, friends and anyone on earth; the second condition is to love Jesus above our own self-life and our own will; and the third is to love Jesus above all material things. In Luke 14:33, Jesus says, "None of you (it's another absolute statement) can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." What does this mean in practical terms? We need to understand it. Does it mean we must become hermits or sanyasis and go into the jungles and live there, forsaking everything? No. "Possessions" refers to those things that possess us. My possession is what possesses me. If my house is my possession, I cling to it because it's mine. I possess it, and so it possesses me. It could be an expensive car that you've got or very valuable stocks and shares; you possess them, and then they possess you, because your mind is so much on those things. Your mind is not on the worthless things that you have in your home, but these very precious possessions.

So, what does it mean when it says that we have to "give up all our possessions" if we are to be His disciples? Do I have to sell everything that I have? There was one particular young man who came to Jesus, we read in Mark 10, whom Jesus did tell to sell all that he had, but Jesus never gave that command to everyone. Zacchaeus, for example, said to Jesus in Luke 19 that He would give away half his goods to the poor and repay those whom he had cheated, and Jesus said that was fine. He said, "salvation has come to this house." He didn't demand of Zacchaeus that he should give up everything like the rich young ruler. In the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, Jesus didn't even demand that they should give up anything. So, He didn't tell everyone that they should sell everything. The love of money is like cancer: in some cases the cancer is so widespread that a doctor says the only way you can be cured is by removing the entire organ. It could be some internal organ that is cancerous, and the doctor says, "There is no other way. You've got to remove the whole organ, otherwise you'll die." But in other cases, the cancer has not spread so much, and they need to cut out just a little bit. The love of money is like a cancer. In the case of that young rich ruler, it had spread so much that the Lord had to tell him, "You've got to sell all that you have, and give it to the poor." But in the case of others, like Zacchaeus, it is less. And in case of Mary and Martha, it was much less. So, He didn't give that same command to everyone. It depends on how much the love of money has gripped you, how widespread that cancer is in your life, that determines how much the Lord will tell you to actually give up and sell your possessions.

The attitude of forsaking what we have is understood perhaps best by thinking of the story Abraham and Isaac. Abraham possessed Isaac as his own. He loved him, and he possessed him. Isaac was the darling of his heart, and he cared more for him than even for his wife. God saw that Isaac was a little idol in Abraham's heart, that Isaac was actually Abraham's god. He loved Him too much, and God wanted to detach him from that idolatry of possessing Isaac. So He told Abraham to take Isaac to Mount Moriah and kill him, and Abraham obeyed. God gave him three days to think about it, so he walked all the way for three days to reach Mount Moriah, and then he said, "Yes Lord, I worship You. I will offer Isaac up to You." But as he took the knife to slay Isaac, God asked him to stop, and told him to take Isaac home. From that day onwards, Abraham did not possess Isaac, but he had him. Isaac was still in his house, he was still his son, but Abraham never possessed him again, and that's a very beautiful picture of what it means to forsake our possessions.

Think of the things that are most valuable (earthly things, material things) to you in your life. What are the things that you value, which are very, very, very important for you? Perhaps you should make a list of them. Those are your possessions, and you must be very honest if you want to really be a disciple. You've got to be honest about what your possessions really are and then you must decide whether you are willing to stop having a possessive attitude to these things. You know a possession when you hold onto something tightly. For example, if I hold a pen tightly in my hand, I'm possessing it. It could be your house, it could be your bank account, it could be your stocks and shares, it could be your car, it could be anything valuable like your property or real estate. To have it means you open your palm. It is still there -- you haven't given it up to somebody else -- but now you say, "Lord I recognize this is not something that's mine. It is Yours. You've given it to me and I am a steward. I want to use it faithfully, but I'm not going to be possessive about it. This doesn't possess me. I have it, and I thank You for allowing me to have it."

So, this is the difference between possessing and having, and Jesus says that I must forsake all my possessions. I can still have many things that the Lord gives back to me and I can use them, but I no longer possess them. So, the third condition of discipleship is that I love Jesus more than all earthly things.

These are the three conditions of discipleship in Luke 14. First, to love Christ more than any human being on this earth. Psalm 73:25 is the confession of a true disciple: "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? There is nothing and no one I desire on earth more than You." I do not desire anyone on earth more than Christ. Second, to love Christ more than my own will and my own choice. "Lord, I don't desire my choice in any matter. I want Your will in every single area my life -- how I'm to spend my time, my money, my energy, my life, my ambitions. My future is all laid at the feet of Jesus." The third condition is that I don't possess anything, that everything on earth I will hold loosely. Christ means more to me than all those things. If the Lord takes away some of those things or I lose some of those things, I say like Job said in Job 1:21, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." That is the attitude of a true disciple. If a person does not fulfill these three conditions of discipleship, according to Luke 14, he is not a disciple .

The Purpose of This Study

When Jesus told His apostles to go into every nation and make disciples in Matthew 28:19, He meant that we must bring people to the place where they not only know Christ as the Forgiver of their sins, but also as their Lord. That means we love Him more than anyone on earth, more than our own life, more than our own will and more than all the things we possess on earth. He means more to us than all of that. Would you say that Christian missionaries and evangelists who preach the gospel have fulfilled that second half of the Great Commission? I would say no. Do you see why I used that illustration of 99% fulfilling Mark 16:15 and 1% fulfilling Matthew 28:19-20? Ninety-nine people holding one end of the log, and one person holding up the other end of the log? That's why I found that the Lord called me to go and help the one person who is holding up the other end of the log. I believe that's a great need today, and this is also the reason why Christianity has such a bad testimony in so many nations. All of us know how born-again Christians have brought such disgrace to the name of the Lord. Why is it? Because they've only been converted; they have not become disciples. They've not been brought to giving up their own will, or being detached from the things they possess, and therefore the end result is like Jesus said in Luke 14: they're like people who have laid a foundation, but don't have enough to complete the building. In the middle of this whole section on discipleship in Luke 14, Jesus speaks about a man who wants to build a tower, which is a picture of the entire Christian life. By the time he finishes the foundation, it says he doesn't have enough to complete it. The meaning, if you see it in the context of these three conditions of discipleship, is that he's not willing to complete the tower by paying the price. Maybe he has the money, but he says, "I don't want to complete it."

The foundation is that once our sins are forgiven and we have been given the Holy Spirit, we become children of God. But is that all there is to the Christian life? It must be a tower, according to what Jesus said, not just a foundation. Verse 29 says that such a person who does not complete the tower is the object of ridicule, and that the angels in heaven are amazed that Christians who only lay a foundation in their Christian life imagine that that is the full purpose of Christianity.

So that's why it's very important to emphasize and understand what it says in Matthew 28:19, that we must go into every nation and make disciples . Whichever nation you are in today, if you are preaching, you should be making disciples.

Jesus ended this second half of the Great Commission by saying, "Lo I am with you always." In essence, "If you do this, go into all nations and make disciples, I'll be with you always." How can people lay claim to that promise without fulfilling the condition? What a wonderful assurance it is. If I have determined to go into all the world, to preach the gospel and to make disciples, the Lord will be with me always.

Chapter 2

Baptism

Think about the beauty in the symmetry of our human body. How ugly a body would look if one half of it was muscular and strong, and the other half of it was skin and bones. That would look hideous. What if one eye was normal size, and the other eye was 1 percent of that size? Or one ear was one percent of the size of the other ear? That's how bad it looks when the Great Commission, given in Mark 16 and Matthew 28, is fulfilled in an imbalanced way. Mark 16:15 is being emphasized to such an extent that Matthew 28:19-20 is almost ignored. In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus speaks about making disciples in every nation, not just getting them to the place where their sins are forgiven. Not just getting them to the place where they were baptized, but making them disciples and then leading on to other things, which we will address later.

But let's look at Matthew 28:19. In the last chapter we saw the conditions of discipleship and what it means to make a person a disciple. Jesus's apostles understood this very clearly. We saw those conditions in Luke 14:25-33. Then He said, "Once you make them disciples, you need to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." In other words, before we baptize them, we must present to them the claims of discipleship, and say, "When you come to Christ, we're not inviting you just to go to heaven when you die. We're not inviting you just to come to have your sins forgiven. We're inviting you to make Jesus Lord of your life. Not someone whom you occasionally visit once a week, but One who's going to be your Husband. When a woman marries, she even gives up her parent's name, and she becomes completely one with her husband. That's the way she should be, and this is the relationship that Christ wants to have with each of us. This is what it means to be a disciple. A woman should not enter into marriage thinking, "I've only got to spend one day a week with my husband," or, "I can continue to live my own life and visit him once in a while." She must be made aware of the fact that, in marriage, it's a total commitment to this man whom she's going to marry .

Baptism Is for Those Who Have Agreed to the Conditions of Discipleship

Even in the preaching of the gospel, there must be a clarity in the way we explain to the people to whom we preach, that the Christian life requires total commitment. It means discipleship. It means following the Lord. Those who are ready for that, are ready to be baptized. We don't wait till a person becomes perfect, but we do say that a person must be presented with the claims of discipleship. When he accepts these claims of Christ as Savior and Lord, then we baptize him in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That's why we like to wait in our churches to see whether a person is willing to follow the Lord before we baptize him. In countries where there's persecution, or where it's not popular to be a Christian, we may not need to wait so long. In the early days, for a Jewish person to become a Christian was a tremendous sacrifice (as it is even today), and that's why they could baptize a person almost immediately (as we see in the Acts of the Apostles). For an idol worshipper to give up their idolatry and become a Christian meant being cut off by their relatives completely. Thus it was easy to know that they were willing to be disciples, and so they could be baptized very soon. But nowadays, in countries where there's no persecution, it's not so easy to know whether a person has understood the claims of discipleship. He may have just accepted Christ because he wants to go to heaven. The claims of discipleship may not have been presented to him, or he may not have understood them, or even if he understood them, he may not be willing to fulfill the conditions of discipleship. We have no right to baptize such people. A person can backslide after they are baptized -- that's another issue -- but the claims of discipleship must be made clear to people right at the outset.

Jesus always proclaimed the truth like that. When a rich young ruler came to Him and asked Him, "What must I do to inherit eternal life," He virtually told the rich young ruler to forsake all that he had. When he was not willing to do that and walked away, the Lord never went after him. The Lord never sought to reduce the conditions in order to make it convenient. He didn't even ask him to come step-by-step. He said, "It's absolute. If you want to follow Me, you've got to give up all."

Baptism Is for Those Who Want to Die

What we see in Matthew 28:19 is the way the gospel should be presented. Then we can baptize them. Baptism is significant because, as we read in Romans 6, it is symbolic of the burial of that old self: my old way of life, which is basically doing my own will, doing what pleased me, seeking to please myself or seeking to please other human beings. That person, that Adamic person living inside me, has died. I have taken my place with Christ on the cross and that person has died. When I accept that, then I can be baptized. Coming out of the waters of baptism, I'm testifying that I'm a new person now. So that's the meaning of being baptized or immersed. If that is not true of a convert, then baptism becomes meaningless. You can't bury a man who has not died, and a lot of people who are baptized, are not dead because they have not chosen to die to themselves. Instead, they go into the waters as a ritual. Many parents want to urge their children to be baptized for their own honor. Or parents think that baptism will somehow protect their children from the world. It doesn't. Baptism is only a symbol of a choice that a person has already made - to die to doing his own will. If he hasn't made that choice, then it's a meaningless ritual. Sadly, a lot of Christians go through meaningless rituals like that .

Baptism in the Name of the Triune God

The other thing we read in Matthew 28:19 is that baptism must be in the name of the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christ emphasizes the Trinity, just as it was at His own baptism. We read there was a voice from Heaven, which was the voice of the Father. Jesus was the Son of God going to the river Jordan. And the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. Christian baptism (as commanded by Jesus in Matthew 28:19) emphasizes the Triune God, the three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Who are three distinct persons, but one God. And that's why it's mentioned "in the name," not "the many names." One name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is a mystery. I don't believe that it's possible for us as human beings to fully understand the mystery of how God is One but yet in three distinct Persons. To me that is one of the proofs that Christianity is the truth. One proof of it is that I can't understand everything about God. It's beyond my human understanding. To use an illustration, a dog is not able to understand a human being. Many things that a human being does, such as mathematics, are beyond a dog's understanding. You may be able to convince a very clever dog or chimpanzee by putting three objects in front of it that one plus one plus one is three. There are some clever chimpanzees who can identify that and say the total is three. But then if you go on from addition (one plus one plus one equals three) to multiplication, and try to explain to the clever chimpanzee that when one multiplied by one multiplied by one is still one, the chimpanzee is all confused. He can't understand that. Why is that? Because he is not a human being. Whereas when a little child going to school studies multiplication, he understands very clearly that one multiplied by one multiplied by one is still one. Three ones added together will be three, and three ones multiplied together will still be one.

This is a simple illustration which shows that even a 20-year-old chimpanzee won't be able to understand what an eight-year-old child can understand, because it's not a human being. For a chimpanzee to understand multiplication, it has to come to the level of the human being. Now consider this: the distance between us and a chimpanzee is much less than the distance between us and God. The distance between us and God is immense. And if a dog or chimpanzee can't understand what a human being can, then how do you think we as human beings could possibly understand Almighty God, and the fact that the three persons are one God. In fact, if I could explain God, I would have to be God myself, just like a chimpanzee would have to become a human being to understand multiplication. It's as simple as that. So I don't seek to understand the mystery of the Godhead. It is arrogance to think that the little cup of my mind can contain the ocean of God's wisdom, and His immensity, and the mystery that this truth represents.

So we can say that the Christian life begins with immersing a person into this mystery, as it were. He acknowledges there that there are things about God he cannot understand. We baptize him in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and he is being immersed into God Himself. When he becomes a disciple, he must have a personal, direct connection with God. He is not connected to God through a prophet, or through a pastor, or through anybody else. Just like a man doesn't want to have a secretary between him and his wife, Christ doesn't want to have any mediator between Him and His bride, which is you and me, if you're a disciple of Christ.

Emphasizing baptism as one part of the Great Commission includes this great mystery. "Make disciples and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

Experience Is More Important Than Understanding in Our Minds

Right at the beginning of the Christian life, introducing disciples to the mystery of the Trinity, which they can't understand humanly speaking, but which they can experience, teaches disciples that they can experience the love of the Father and the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives even though they can't explain that mystery.

There are many things like this in the Christian life, which are a mystery, which disciples may not be able to explain. The important thing is not explanation, but reality of experience, in regard to the mysteries of our faith. We human beings have such a tremendous faith in the ability of our own mind that we are tempted to arrogantly believe that our mind can explain everything. We can limit ourselves from knowing the truth if we say, "I only accept what my mind can explain." That is like a dog saying, "I can't understand multiplication, so multiplication must be all rubbish." That's how it is when a man says, "If I can't explain the Trinity, It must be all rubbish." But man has limitations in his mind, just like a dog's limitation that prevents him from understanding multiplication. As we begin the Christian life, it is important for us to realize that we are commanded not to lean on our own understanding if we want to follow Jesus.

I remember once a very tall person was being baptized in our church. When he was being immersed in the water by the brother who was baptizing him, I noticed that he did not go in completely. The top part of his head was still above water when the brother lifted him up. So I said, "Wait. We have to immerse him completely! And the top part of his head, where his brain is, has really got to die so that he can be resurrected and have the mind of Christ, and be humble enough to acknowledge that his human way of thinking is not capable of understanding divine mysteries apart from the revelation of the Holy Spirit." So I gave the instruction that he be immersed fully.

This is important for us to understand. It may be a very small thing, but I believe that many Christians go astray because they try to understand with their mind what can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus said that in Matthew 11:25, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to babes." Have you ever thought about that verse? Right at the outset of the Christian life, when we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are acknowledging (whether you know it or not), "There's a mystery here that my human mind cannot explain fully." It's hidden from the clever and the intelligent, who seek to explain everything of God with their minds.

Look at the foolishness of people who believe evolution. Just because they put certain evidence together, they come to certain conclusions, and yet they still have to acknowledge that there is a missing link there between that chimpanzee and the man, which they never have been able to figure out. When man is so confident in the power of his mind, he doesn't understand many things in Scripture. The explanation is here, that God has hidden these things from those who are wise and intelligent, and the reason is that they're proud of their wisdom, their cleverness, and their intelligence. It is not that God is against intelligent people, because God Himself gave us intelligence. But if I become proud of my cleverness and my intelligence, then I'll become blind to the things of God .

Revelation Is Given to the Humble

Why does it say that He has revealed them to babes? There's a word Jesus used in this passage, "revelation," which is different from understanding. Understanding comes through study and analysis and using my mind, and is useful for solving a chemistry equation or a mathematical. I can use my mind, my cleverness, and my intelligence to grasp and understand such things, but the things of God are not grasped by understanding, but by revelation. Revelation is a word used in the New Testament to speak about truths that cannot be understood by our natural mind without the Holy Spirit enlightening it.

It says that revelation is given to babes. What do babes have that clever, intelligent people don't have? Is there any book that anyone can write anywhere in the world that clever people will not understand, but that babes will understand? There is one such book, and that is the Bible. What does a babe have that the clever, intelligent people don't have? First of all, a babe has a pure heart. A little baby's heart is absolutely pure. He has got no bitterness against anyone. He has got no hatred, no grudges, nothing impure. They also have a humility that no other human being has. Jesus once picked up a little baby and said, "You have to humble yourself like this little child."

Baptism and Death on the Cross

A very important factor in revelation is humility, and humility is closely connected with death on the cross. Romans 6 says baptism is symbolic of our dying with Jesus, of death to self, of death to the old man. In baptism, I'm burying the old man that was crucified with Christ on the cross. Ephesians 1:4 says that God has placed us in Christ before the foundation of the world. What that means is God, Who knows the future, knew that millions of years later we would be born and at a particular time in our lives, we would open our life and surrender ourselves to Christ. He chose us on the basis of this foreknowledge. 1 Peter 1:1-2 says that on the basis of God's knowledge of the future, He chose us in Christ. Before Genesis 1:1, right at the beginning, He placed us in Christ.

Imagine a piece of paper placed completely inside a Bible. The paper represents you, and the Bible symbolizes Christ. The Father placed you completely in Christ, just like the paper is completely inside the book. So in that sense, whatever happens to the book, happens to the paper inside the book as well. You were in Christ, and when Christ died on the cross, because you were (in God's mind) placed in Christ before the foundation of the world, you died with Him when He died. And when He was buried, you were buried with Him spiritually; when He rose again, you rose again with Him spiritually; and when He ascended to heaven, you ascended with Him spiritually. Now when you are born again and the Holy Spirit comes into you, these things become a reality in your life. So in baptism, you are testifying: "I accept that on the cross, not only were my sins forgiven, but I also died with Christ." This is something that we need to lead Christians to understand right at the beginning of the Christian life. Your old man was crucified with Christ, and you have risen again. This is not some postgraduate lesson. It's okay if you were baptized and you didn't understand the full meaning of baptism. But since Romans 6 fully explains the meaning, it is good for us to seek to understand it. We are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit so that we can be raised up, and as we come out of the water, we are saying, "I'm raised up with Christ, and now my mind is set on the things that are above."

The command to be baptized in Matthew 28:19 is not something we should take as a ritual. It's unfortunate that many people, despite being obedient to Scripture, don't seek to understand the meaning of Biblical practices. If you don't understand the meaning of baptism, then you miss out on the full blessing of it.

"Make disciples and baptize them into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." We must acknowledge that there are many things that we can't understand, but as we accept them by faith, and as we come in humility, God reveals them to us. For example, we read in 1 Corinthians 2:10, "God has revealed them to us through the Holy Spirit." When the Holy Spirit comes into our heart, He reveals things that our mind cannot grasp. As we come in humility like little babes, He reveals these things to us.

There are a lot of people who deny the Trinity. So there's something seriously wrong if you are not baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To really become a disciple, you need to be baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and then you can move on to more of what Jesus taught.

Chapter 3

Teaching People to Do All That Jesus Commanded

"Teaching them to do all that I commanded you…" (Matthew 28:20)

This is the next part of the Great Commission. First, we go into all the world and tell people that they are sinners, that Christ died for their sins and rose up from the dead, that He ascended to heaven and is returning, and that He is the only way to the Father. Wherever we find people responding, then we invite them to make Jesus Lord of their lives, to be disciples who are going to follow Christ all their life, baptize them into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and introduce them to the mystery of the Godhead. But doesn't finish there; all of that is like coming to the starting line of the Olympic marathon race

Running the Race After We Reach the Starting Line

It would be a great feat if you were selected to represent your country and to get to come to the starting line of the Olympic marathon race. That itself is a feat, but it doesn't mean anything on its own, because coming to the starting line is just the beginning of the race. The fact that you have become a disciple and have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is likewise great, but just like the picture of the Olympics, you must begin to run the race. And to run that race is to do every single thing that Jesus commanded us. This will take a lifetime for every Christian, and this is what every church should be teaching people. If a church is prioritizing making disciples and baptism, it should not stop there. What should they be teaching every Sunday in their church services? Every single thing that Jesus taught. All that Jesus taught, not just a few selected things, and certainly not psychology or mere entertainment. It's sad when a church is more interested in improving its music than improving the quality of its members. That's extremely sad. What do you think God in heaven is more interested in?

Suppose a new church is gathered together. Assume they are full of people who are really born again, and they really want to make Jesus Lord of their life. If you find that such a church is concentrating on music, do you think God is pleased? It's good to have good music. I'm not against that. But it is a question of priority. What is God more interested in, the quality of the people in that church becoming more Christ-like, or the music becoming more entertaining? There we can see how Christians have drifted away, because Christian leaders haven't understood what pleases God.

What are we supposed to do in our churches? We are to teach people to obey every single thing that Jesus commanded. We cannot teach others how to obey God's commands if we haven't obeyed them ourselves. Notice the difference between these two statements: "Teach them all that I commanded you," and "Teach them to do all that I commanded you." If I just had to teach others all that Jesus commanded, I can take all the teachings of Jesus and teach them just like a man teaches chemistry or physics or history. I study the concepts and I teach them. But to "Teach them to do…" would require that I've done it myself first, so that I can teach them how they can also do it. If I haven't done it myself, I would be like a person teaching swimming when I don't know how to swim. If you understood the principles and techniques of swimming, you can explain it clearly on a blackboard to whole lot of people, and yet not be a swimmer yourself. That's merely "teaching them." But "teaching them to do…" is showing them in the swimming pool or in a river how you can actually swim on the surface of the water, and how to move from place to place.

A biblical Christian leader has the responsibility to teach people to actually do every single thing that Jesus commanded, and that is a huge amount of teaching. That's why I wrote this book, to fulfill that command. All that I am seeking to do in this book is to fulfill the command of Jesus, to teach all that Jesus taught, and to teach you to do it as I've sought to do it myself in the last 52 years of my life. Not just emphasizing the things that are my favorite commands, or the ones that are easy, and neglecting the others. In the Old Testament law, God gave many commandments. We all know the major Ten Commandments, but did you know there were 603 other commandments, making a total of 613 commandments? Many were "do's" and many were "don'ts," and some of those commandments were not as important as the ten commandments. Even Jesus emphasized that, in Matthew 5:19, when He uses the expression "the least of these commandments."

The Importance of Keeping the Small Commandments

So in other words, in Jesus' understanding, all commandments did not have equal importance. There was an order of priority. Some things were more important than others. There were certain commands, like certain types of food they were not supposed to eat, in Leviticus 11, that were not as important as not committing murder and not committing adultery. But they were still commandments, and that's what made Daniel a man whom God accepted, because he decided to keep those least commandments in the Old Testament. In Daniel 1:8, it says, "Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food." Perhaps there was some pork on that table, or some type of bird that God had forbidden in Leviticus 11. Daniel may not have been able to give a full explanation for the reasons why God had forbidden those things, but he decided, "If that is part of the Law of Moses, even if it's not part of the Ten Commandments, I'll keep it." It's written that, because he wouldn't defile himself, God honored him, and made him a mighty witness in Babylon. God saw in Daniel a man who was willing to keep all His commandments.

This is how it has always been through the ages. God has always looked for those who will keep His commandments, those who will do all that Jesus taught, and not just pick and choose the commandments they like. In Matthew 5:19, Jesus said, "Whoever annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." Jesus doesn't say he'll go to hell, but he will be the least in terms of Heaven's recognition and values. To be least on the earth is absolutely unimportant. It doesn't matter. But to be least in the kingdom of heaven means that God Almighty doesn't think much of you. I don't want to be in that category! I don't care if the world doesn't think much of me, but I certainly want God to think much of me.

It is said about John the Baptist, that the angel Gabriel told his father Zechariah, "Your son John will be great in the sight of the Lord." To be great in the sight of the Lord is certainly something worth coveting. I don't want to be least in the sight of the Lord, to be one whom the Lord doesn't think much of. Yet here it says here that there are going to be some people who are least in the kingdom of heaven, not because they don't keep the major commandments, but because they ignore the minor ones.

I find that attitude among many Christians even today. They say they are New Testament Christians, but they neglect some minor New Testament commands and say, "That's not important, you don't have to obey that." I'm not questioning their faith in Christ. I'm not here to judge whether they go to heaven or hell. That's not my business. God is the judge of that, but I certainly believe what Jesus said, that if one cancels the least commandment of all that Jesus taught (and all that Jesus subsequently taught through His Holy Spirit through the Apostles, in the Epistles), then he will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. In contrast to that, who is the one who is going to be great in the kingdom of heaven? The one who keeps the least commandment and teaches people to keep the least commandment. Matthew 5:19 could not be clearer. It's very clear.

Your attitude to the smallest commandments in the New Testament is what shows where you stand before God in His kingdom. Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." That's the mark of our love. Nobody can say, "I love Jesus," and ignore His commandments. To the extent that you ignore the least of the commandments of Jesus, in that measure, you don't love Him. Maybe you do keep the big ones, but it's your attitude to the least of them that determines your position in God's kingdom.

"All That Jesus Taught" Isn't the Only Commandments Made in the Gospels

One more word of clarification regarding "all that Jesus taught." There are some people who say, "What Jesus said in the Gospels is more important than what is written in the Epistles. The Epistles could be merely Paul's opinion, or Peter's opinion, or James' opinion. And if it is Paul's opinion or Peter's opinion and James' opinion, then I can throw that in the trash can." If that logic were true, then I wouldn't even keep the Epistles in my Bible. I'd cut out those pages and throw them in the trash can. Why do I want to know what Peter or Paul thought about something? It may have some value, but I wouldn't call such opinions the Word of God. Certainly not. A godly man's opinion may be important, but you can't say it is the Word of God. How in the world can I say something is the Word of God, and worthy of being included in the Bible, if it is just somebody's opinion? Do you know what Jesus said before He went to the cross, at the Last Supper? In John 16:12, He said to His disciples, "I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (or you cannot understand them now, because you can't grasp the importance of them now). But when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth." This is very important for us to understand.

Paraphrasing His words, what Jesus is saying is, "There are a lot of things I want to share with you, My dear disciples, but you won't be able to understand them. I wanted to tell you about all that's involved in New Covenant life. I want to share with you all that's involved in having the fruit of the spirit, and partaking in the divine nature. I want to share with you what it means to have the gifts of the Holy Spirit to serve Me. I want to explain to you what Divine Love is different from human love, which is what you have right now. I want to explain to you what it means to build the church as the body of Christ. I want to explain to you how to build local churches and how those local churches are to be administered. I want to explain to you about My second coming and things that'll happen before I return to this earth; I want to explain to you the real meaning of grace, and how sin will not be able to rule over you when you're under grace. There are many things like that which if I tell you now, you won't be able to understand, because you don't have the Holy Spirit."

Jesus knew all of these things, and more. He could have shared a lot of things, but that would be like trying to explain calculus to a student in the third standard. What will he know about calculus? It will just go over his head. He's got to wait six or seven years before he can understand calculus. It is somewhat similar here, the Lord is saying, "Until the Holy Spirit comes into you, if I explain all these things, it's a waste of time." Just like it is waste of time teaching differential calculus to seven-year-old students, because they have to grow up. In the same way, Jesus said, "When the Spirit of truth has come, He will lead you into all the truth." There are lot of commandments in the Epistles, and that's the fulfillment of John 16:12-13. It is Jesus Himself speaking in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the Colossians, the Philippians, the Corinthians, etc. It is the same for the letters of Peter, of James, the three epistles of John, and the book of Revelation. This is Jesus speaking the things that He could not speak when He was on earth, because they would have never understood it. So in one sense we can say that all that Jesus taught includes a lot of things in the Epistles. Those are the things that He wanted to teach when He was on earth, but because of the limitations of the apostles, He could not. But once that limitation was removed (when they received the Holy Spirit), then He could teach them through Paul, Peter, James and the other apostles.

The Compromising Position of Ignoring Select New Testament Commands

If we apply all of these things back to Matthew 5:19, we can say that "he who cancels one of the least of these commandments in the New Testament , he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." I could tell you of a number of commandments in the New Testament Epistles which many Christians and Christian leaders ignore. They say, "That was for that time," "It's not for us today," "That was a cultural command only for those people in Corinth, and not for us today." Once you take that attitude to any commandment in the New Testament, however small it may be, you have to give freedom to another person to say, "Well, take same-sex marriage: it is no longer forbidden. In that time, they had to marry opposite sexes, but now it doesn't matter. Marriage between man and woman was only for that time." How can you prevent a person from saying that if you also have changed some commandment in the New Testament, saying "that was only for that time?" People can say, "Homosexuality is not wrong. In those days, two thousand years ago, yes, it was wrong. But not today. It was wrong only for that culture and that time." Do you see the foolish position that many Christian leaders put themselves in when they take one commandment out of the New Testament and say, "That was for that time"? The same difficulty applies to any such compromise.

Whoever cancels the least of Jesus' commandments, he will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. He won't go to hell, but he will certainly be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, and is totally unfit to be a servant of God. So what did Jesus say in the Great Commission? "Teach them to observe all," and "all" includes the big commandments, the small commandments, and every single commandment that He taught them to do. The important thing about the commandments, whether they are big or small, is Who commanded them. In the military, people are taught that to obey a simple command like "right turn" or "left turn" on the parade ground, is as important as "go to the battlefield" or "report for duty at such and such a place." One may be a more major commandment than the other; both are equally important. Instant obedience is the mark of any military officer or soldier, and that's the type of person that the Lord wants in His church.

I find that people are more careful to obey commands in the military than in the church. The church calls itself "the Lord's army," but most of them don't behave like soldiers. From the day they join as recruits, soldiers are taught to instantly obey everything, and not to try to figure out whether they can understand the reason or meaning of a command.

Have we fulfilled this part of the Great Commission? Do we "Teach people to do all that Jesus commanded" in this way? I find that very few people have taken this matter seriously.

The Difference Between Really Living and Merely Existing

Matthew 4:4 is the very first sentence that Jesus spoke, after being anointed by the Holy Spirit at His baptism, that is recorded in Scripture. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism in Matthew 3:16, and then was led into the wilderness to face temptation. At the end of forty days of fasting, we read these words, which are the first words that come out of Jesus' mouth in response to the first temptation. The first temptation was from the Devil, "If you are Son of God, command these stones to become bread" (Matthew 4:3). And we can say the very first thing that Jesus taught was His response, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." That's a huge subject that we need to think about a lot more than just in this brief space, but I want to mention it here.

How shall man live? He doesn't that say bread is not necessary. Jesus is very realistic. He says bread is necessary -- we need food in order to live -- but not food alone. He's also saying that food is not primary. What is primary is every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What is every word that proceeds out of mouth of God? Everything that God has said - His commandments and His promises. These are the words that we find in the Scripture, and every Scripture is a word on which I can live. Really live. If I'm only thinking of existing, then I only need food; but if I want to live spiritually, the way God wants me to live, then I need every word of God. That has been revealed to us primarily in the Scriptures, the Bible. A person who is more interested in food than in studying the Bible has not really understood how God wants man to live. The very first words that Jesus taught us are, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

That is why God has given us His Word: so that we can know how we are to live. If you're a true disciple of Jesus Christ, you'll have a tremendous passion to know every word of God -- every promise and every commandment -- because that's the only way you can really live. That's why it's important to understand all that Jesus taught. Otherwise we only exist.

Do you know the difference between existing and living? It is this: Every single word of God . And this is not something we just read. Jesus says, "every word that proceeds out of the mouth God." God is constantly speaking. I can read the same Scripture 50 times and something fresh will continue to proceed from the mouth of God in that verse. God's word in the Bible truly is a most wonderful thing - because it is always living and fresh. We cannot fulfill the Great Commission really if we don't seek to hear all that Jesus spoke and taught, the promises He gave us, and the commands that He gave us.

Chapter 4

Complementary Functions in the Body of Christ

The great tragedy in Christendom is that many Christians who are fulfilling the first half of the Great Commission do not realize how important it is to fulfill the second half. What is worse, there are many workers who fulfill the first half and actually despise those who are seeking to fulfill the second half. If we are humble, we will see that we are fellow workers in the body of Christ, and that one function is as important as the other. The man who goes out to reach those who have never heard the gospel with the message of Christ dying for their sins is as important as the one who is seeking to complete the job by making that person into a disciple and teaching him to do all that Jesus commanded.

Some Functions are More Popular, but That Doesn't Mean They're More Important

It's very exciting to fulfill the first part of the Great Commission because this work often yields many wonderful stories to relate. The true accounts of missionary and evangelistic work are always exciting. There are stories to relate of people delivered from demons and idolatry and many things like that, and especially a lot of statistics to report. Evangelists can boast about the number of people they have brought to Christ. But what about another Christian worker, who is taking that convert and making him a disciple who obeys all that Jesus taught? He doesn't have statistics to boast about, but we may discover when Christ comes back that that person has done a more faithful job without getting any honor on the earth for making disciples. Generally speaking, Christians like to perform ministries that they can report about, and where they can quote numbers. That's why the Mark 16:15 aspect of the Great Commission is far more popular than the other half, in Matthew 28:19-20. But that is also why we are focused on the other half, and teaching people to do all that Jesus commanded.

Suppose you've spent 25 years reaching out into different parts of the world, preaching the gospel and doing evangelism. If you're an evangelist, you probably have the opportunity to report statistics of hundreds or perhaps thousands of people whom you have brought the Christ. But if you spent those 25 years teaching a group of converts who are not yet disciples to do all that Jesus commanded, you may not have much to report in terms of statistics. You have, however, produced Christ-like people who are a far better testimony for Christ on earth, and ones whom God can show forth to the devil as specimens of people who are redeemed from the nature of Adam, and who can manifest the nature of Christ. That effort brings glory in heaven, not on this earth.

If you're a Christian who is seeking honor from men (even from fellow Christians!), you will not care much about the second part of the Great Commission, because that won't give you much to report. You will only be interested in the first part, if your interest is in statistics and numbers and the honor of men. The Old Testament prophets were never popular; it was the false prophets who were popular in Israel. What is the difference between the two? One of the differences was that false prophets told people what they liked to hear, while true prophets told the people what they needed to hear from God. And very often, it was a rebuke for their sin, their worldliness, their idolatry, adultery, and their going away from God, as well as a call to repentance (turning back to God).

Prophetic ministry has never been popular, neither in the Old Testament nor in the New Testament. New Testament prophetic ministry is, in the same way, calling God's people back to Him, back to the word, back to obedience to the Scriptures, back to obeying all that Jesus taught. It is very different from evangelistic ministry - and the body of Christ cannot be built only by prophets or only by evangelists.

To use an illustration, fulfilling the first half of the Great Commission (Mark 16:15) through evangelism can be likened to taking food from a plate and putting into our mouth. What is the purpose of all evangelism? To bring someone who is not a member of the body of Christ into the body of Christ. That's evangelism essentially. Evangelism is designed to make an unbeliever, idol worshipper or person without any God, in to become a part of the body of Christ. My hand takes food, which is not a part of my body at the moment, and picks it up from the plate, and puts it into my body. That's a picture of how evangelism brings a non-Christian into the body of Christ.

How does food fully become a part of the body? First of all, I see the food and I take it with my hand, and put it into my mouth. This is evangelism, taking the unbeliever and bringing him into Christ. But this food, if it remains in my mouth, is never going to be a part of my body as long as I keep it in my mouth. It will rot, and I'll spit it out. A lot of people who raise their hands and sign decision cards and say they've come to Christ are like that, like food kept in the mouth. You go there and visit these five hundred people who've signed these decision cards, and you may find only one of them became a real disciple. The other 499 just drifted away. That happens all the time. It's not enough for the food to simply make it into the mouth. The teeth have to chew the food, and then it goes down the throat and into the stomach where there are all types of acids thrown upon it to break it down. At this point, it's no longer a potato, or a chapati, or rice. It will get converted into other forms yet, and after a process of digestion and many other things that happen inside the body, finally that food fully becomes a part of the body. This is a very gentle ministry, initially taking the food and putting it into the mouth, and this is evangelism. But after that, other parts of the body take over, and they do things that the hand can never do. Likewise, other workers perform functions which the evangelists can never do, such as prophetic ministry, teaching ministry, shepherding ministry, and apostolic ministry, all of which builds that person to become a living, functioning, effective, and powerful member of the body of Christ. Like that food which, after a few weeks, is no longer a potato, or a chapatti, but has become flesh and blood and bone, so it should be with every person whom the evangelist brings to Christ.

Light on the Complementary Gifts Given to the Body of Christ

So which function is more needed? The evangelist, or the prophet, or the shepherd, or the teacher? That is like asking, "Is the hand more important, or the teeth, or the stomach?" There is no way of comparing body parts, because if the hand doesn't take the food and put it in, then the teeth and the stomach have nothing to do; and if the hand does the job of putting the food into the mouth, but the teeth and the stomach don't do anything, then also it's wasted. So there's no use in thinking that the evangelist is more important than the prophet, or that the prophet is more important than the evangelist.

These are some of the words that Jesus wanted to speak to His disciples when He was with them on the earth, but that they couldn't yet understand. He wanted to teach them about the function of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers in the life of the church. We're told in Ephesians 4:11 that these are the gifts that He gave to the church after He ascended to heaven. He wanted to tell His disciples about these things while He was on earth, as we saw in John 16:12, in the previous chapter. To paraphrase, He said, "I want to teach you these things, but you can't understand them now because you don't have the Holy Spirit." Once they received the Holy Spirit, they could understand. Paul could understand, as he said in Ephesians 4:10, that when Jesus ascended, above all the heavens, He gave some the gift to be apostles. Paul knew these are not the apostles that He appointed when He was on earth, but that these are apostles that He appointed from heaven. They were apostles who would go forth and plant local churches, prophets who would diagnose the spiritual condition of people and provide them with a solution, evangelists who would bring non-Christians into the body of Christ, shepherds who would take care of the young ones, and teachers who would teach them God's Word. All of these Christ gave for the purpose of equipping all the believers so that all the believers could build the body of Christ, as he says in Ephesians 4:12. These are not the folks who will build the body of Christ. Ephesian 4:11-12 says people given these five gifts will equip all the other believers who don't have these gifts, and those believers will build the body of Christ.

So in the body of Christ, just like in the human body, every part has a function. We're not comparing those who fulfill Mark 16:15 with those who fulfill Matthew 28:19. Anybody who compares these two is a person who is ignorant of God's ways. God needs and uses both this one and that one. It is like asking, "Is your left hand or your right hand important? Which one would you like to cut off?" One may appear to fulfill a more important function than the other, but both are equally necessary in the body. God has determined that every part of the body must be healthy and muscular to be useful to fulfill its function .

We Need the Strength of Jesus's Authority to Fulfill the Great Commission

In order to help us do all that He commanded, Jesus began by saying, "all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). We must believe that if we're to go out and fulfill this Great Commission. If I don't believe that all authority has been given to Jesus, I'm going to give up after a little while, because Christian work can be very discouraging work. You don't see results immediately. Neither the evangelists nor the prophets nor the apostles see results immediately. Much like bringing a child up to adulthood. I can attest this through my years of planting churches and establishing believers and trying to lead them up to godliness. It is very easy to get discouraged unless we realize that the One Who is sending me forth into this ministry is One Who has been given all authority in heaven and earth. He is supporting me with that authority.

So I look at this part of the Great Commission like this. The second half of the Great Commission that we've been considering -- Matthew 28:19-20, which says, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teach them to do, by doing yourself first (don't teach what you haven't done), all that I commanded you" -- is bracketed between two of the most fantastic statements that Jesus made. The first is verse 18, "All authority in heaven and earth is given to Me," and the second is verse 20, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." If I have a doubt about either of these two facts, I'm not going to fulfill the second half of the Great Commission. I have found in fifty years of Christian ministry that it can be pretty discouraging, if you're not convinced that:

- The One who sent you forth is the One who has all authority in heaven (in the heavenlies, in the second heavens where the demons dwell) and on earth (over all people on earth). Christ has this authority.

- When I go forth trying to fulfill this part of the Great Commission, I have a specific promise from Him that He will be with me always.

We Must Meet the Conditions to Receive Spiritual Promises

Christians have a very bad habit of trying to claim a promise without fulfilling the conditions. For example, if you're told, "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved," and you say, "well I'm not going to fulfill the condition, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I'm still going to be saved," wouldn't you think that's crazy? Or, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins." If you don't fulfill the condition of confessing your sin, how can you believe that He's going to forgive your sin? The promises of God are conditional. There are material promises, like God makes the sun to rise on the good and the evil and He makes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous, which He gives to everybody without any conditions. But when it comes to the spiritual promises of God, there are conditions to receive them. This begins with the forgiveness of sins. Without repentance and faith in Christ, nobody gets forgiveness of sins. Justification is by faith, and sanctification is by faith. Also, God does not give His grace to everyone without condition. He only gives his grace to the humble. There is a condition for every spiritual promise.

Why do so many Christians, who understand the importance of fulfilling the condition attached to the promise in all these other areas that I've just mentioned, come to this promise, "Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the age," and try to claim it without fulfilling the condition? That amazes me. They would be surprised if I preach that you can be forgiven even if you don't repent and believe. If I say you can be forgiven if you don't confess your sins, they would say that's ridiculous. The Bible says if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you, right? Well the same Bible says the Lord will be with you always to the end of the age if you go and make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to do all that I have commanded you. This is what the Lord said. Then He said, "Lo, I'm with you always."

So that is a promise specifically given to those who go forth to teach others to do all that Jesus has commanded. I've spent 35 years seeking to fulfill that, teaching people to do all that Jesus commanded, in many parts of the world, through CDs, the internet, and literature. I can testify that I have really experienced the presence and the authority of the Lord with me. So I want to encourage you to believe that God's promises are true. His authority will back you if you go forth seeking to teach people to do all that Jesus commanded, by doing it yourself first, and He'll be with you always. One of the results of His being with us always is, He delivers us from discouragement, gloom, bad moods, and all types of things like that. How in the world can I have a bad mood if Jesus is with me all the time? How in the world can I be discouraged or fearful if Jesus is with me all the time? A lot of people imagine that Christ is with them, when He's not. They're not seeking to do all that Jesus commanded; they're not seeking to teach other people what Jesus commanded. So there's a condition to fulfill before we can claim that promise, and I want to encourage you to see that clearly.

An Illustration from a Carpenter's Shop

The first part of the Great Commission (Mark 16:15) is generally being done more by Christians than the second part because, when we think of the phrase, "all that I have commanded you," it covers a wide range of subjects. There is a wide range of areas where we need first of all to do what Jesus has commanded us in our own lives, and then, to teach others to do as well. Otherwise, the Great Commission remains incomplete. Jesus was a carpenter for the first part of His life up to the age of 30, so I will use an illustration from a carpenter shop: Suppose Jesus as a master carpenter gets an order from a business that wants a hundred tables to be made. Suppose Jesus employs ten carpenters, and nine of them spend all their time making just the legs of those tables. Granted, legs are very important. You can't have a table without four legs, so at the end of a number of weeks, you will need to have multitudes of legs there. But because there's just one man making the tabletops, Jesus is going to have a tremendous disproportion between the number of legs and the number of tabletops, and ultimately, He will have very, very few fully completed tables. He may have hundreds of legs, and perhaps only three or four tables. So if you were hired now as an additional carpenter to go into that shop, what would you do? What would the Lord tell you to do? I think He'd tell you forget about legs for now, and focus on tabletops so that we can have completed tables.

This is a picture of what is happening in a lot of Christendom today. Many are being converted, and we should praise the Lord for that. Many evangelists are going into unreached areas with the gospel at great sacrifice. They are laying down their lives to preach the gospel. We should respect them and appreciate them, and I believe their reward will be great. They have fulfilled their calling, but there are other parts of the body that need to carry on from there and complete the work. That is the second half of the Great Commission: to make these converts into disciples and teach them to do every single thing that Jesus commanded. Is that something we can ignore? We can't afford to neglect a single command. For example Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters." He said that in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:24. Those two masters are not God and Satan. Even though Satanis the master of many people, that's not the one Jesus was referring to here, because no Christian believes that he can serve God and Satan. A Christian does not attempt to do that. The two masters mentioned in Matthew 6:24 are God and mammon. Mammon means money, material wealth, material possessions, real estate, stocks and shares, houses, lands, cars, etc. Jesus said we cannot serve both of these, but there aremany Christians who feel they can serve God and material wealth. Jesus said you have to have a radical attitude towards the one or the other if you want to serve. He said, "You have to hate one and love the other or hold on to one and despise the other." How many Christians have understood what it is to "hold onto God and hate money?" To say, "I want to use money as my servant, but I won't let it be my master?" Have all those who've been converted through evangelism come to that place? Another example is what Jesus said about plucking out our eye if it stumbles us and causes to lust after woman. How many Christians have even been taught that? How many preachers have lived that standard of life so that they're able to teach it? There you see how so many tables are incomplete, and thus the work of the Great Commission is incomplete.

Chapter 5

Doing Must Come Before Teaching

Jesus wants us to do and then to teach, not teach what we have not done. We don't begin by teaching; we begin by doing. You can't go to a Bible school, spend three years there, get a degree, and then think that you can now teach people, if you have not done what Jesus has commanded in your own life. I remember speaking with a person who graduated after a four-year Bible college course in a particular Bible College. He was the top student in his class. At the graduation ceremony where I was speaking, he came to see me and I asked him, "What is your spiritual condition at the end of these four years of study, in your inner life?" He said, "It's worse than when I first came. I'm more defeated by sin." He was honest. I said, "Now that you are going to go out with your degree and become a pastor somewhere, what are you going to teach people? Hebrew and Greek interpretations of various verses, or can you teach them how to overcome the lust of the eyes, and how to overcome anger? That's what they need to hear, because that's what Jesus taught. And if you haven't experienced that overcoming in your own life, you will just teach theory."

This is the sad state of so many preachers and pastors, and that's why you hear every now and then of some famous preacher or pastor, who has been preaching for many years, suddenly admit that he's been living in adultery for many years. How is it that the people in the congregation could not discern the impurity in this man's spirit? Because they were taken up by the eloquence of his preaching and the knowledge that he had. Jesus said, "Teach them to do all that I commanded."

Acts 1:1 shows us Jesus' Own example. Acts was written by Luke, the co-worker of Paul, and before he wrote the Acts of the Apostles, he wrote Luke's Gospel. He wrote both of them to a person called Theophilus. In the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, he refers to the gospel that he had written previously by saying, "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach…" If you were to ask Luke to give a title to his gospel, he would say "All that Jesus began to do and teach." Not, "All that Jesus taught," but "All that He did and taught." It was a principle in Jesus' life that He would not teach what He hadn't done. The principle is this: do and then teach. Not teach and do, but do and teach. Jesus did not practice what He preached; He preached what He had already practiced and continued to practice. That's the principle.

Based on that, if you were to ask Luke to give a title to the Acts of the Apostles, what title do you think he would give? If the Gospel of Luke was "All that Jesus began to do and teach in His physical body on earth," then the Acts of the Apostles would be "All that Jesus continued to do and teach through His spiritual body, the church." That is our ministry, to continue to do and teach what He began to do and teach when He lived on earth for thirty-three years. That's why the church is called the Body of Jesus Christ. That's why understanding all that Jesus taught is important, because we need to do it and then we need to teach it.

The Right to Proclaim the Gospel Is Reserved for Those Who Have Experienced It

There is a very interesting incident in Acts 10. There we read that there was a very God-fearing military man who was a heathen, not a Christian, and not even a Jew. He was a Roman soldier called Cornelius. That he was a Centurion means he was a certain high-ranking officer in the Roman army, and he was a God-fearing man. It says that "he was a devout man, a man who gave many alms to the people, he helped poor people and prayed to God continually." Does God listen to the prayers of people who are not Christians? Does God look at the money that non-Christians give to poor people? Well, have a look here. God sent an angel to Cornelius, and he said to him in Acts 10:4, "Your prayers have ascended as a memorial before God and the money you've given to the poor, the alms, have also ascended as a memorial before God." Isn't that interesting? And when Peter saw Cornelius later on, he says, "There's one thing I've discovered," Peter says, "That with God, there is no respect of persons." When the angel came to Cornelius, why didn't he give him the gospel? Why didn't he ask Cornelius, "Do you know that you're a sinner, that Christ died for your sins and rose again, that you need to receive Him as your Lord, repent and believe?" He couldn't say that. All that the angel could tell him was "Your prayers and alms have ascended, and now please send somebody to go and call for Peter; he's living far away in another place, in Joppa. It may take a few days for Peter to come here, but you've got to wait." And the angel then departed. Don't you think the angel could have told him exactly what Peter would tell Cornelius? The angel knew the gospel very clearly. There's a very important reason why Almighty God didn't allow the angel to preach the gospel to Cornelius. Cornelius had to wait for so many days to hear the gospel, till Peter came, because the angel had not experienced the gospel. He could not say, like Peter, "I was a sinner, but Jesus died for me, and His blood cleansed my sin, and I'm forgiven."

Because the angel could not say that, he could not preach it. He could not preach a truth that he knew only in his mind. He could probably preach better than Peter; it didn't matter. He was not allowed to preach it because he hadn't experienced it, which teaches us one fundamental principle: we are not permitted by God to preach what we have not experienced. There's a word for people who preach what they have not practiced or experienced, and the word in the New Testament is "hypocrite." There are many hypocritical preachers.

When Jesus said in His great commission, "Teach them to do all that I have commanded you," He was telling us to be free from hypocrisy. He was telling us never to speak about that which we haven't done. For example, if you have not gone to North India as a missionary, you can't ask other people to go there as missionaries, can you? While you can teach it but you haven't done it. It is very necessary, and very important to send missionaries to North India. But who's got the right to teach it? The one who's done it. That's just one example that applies in many other areas of life.

We must be willing to humble ourselves and recognize that God has placed many people in the body of Christ to preach various things, and we may not be called to preach everything ourselves. I can only preach what I have done. I cannot teach people to overcome anger if I'm still getting angry with myself, with my wife, co-workers, or anyone else. I cannot ask people to overcome dirty sexual thoughts, if I'm still defeated by them myself. I can say, "Hey fellas I am defeated, but let's you and I struggle together." That's fine, but I must be honest. Only teach others to do what we have first done ourselves.

The Very First Thing That Jesus Taught: Receive God's Word Every Single Day

The very first thing that Jesus taught after His being anointed with the Holy Spirit was that we cannot live if we don't receive the words that God speaks. We can't fulfill God's purpose and satisfy His heart, if we merely serve Him. A lot of Christians find a satisfaction in saying, "I'm doing this for the Lord," "I'm doing that for the Lord," "I'm running an orphanage," "I'm running a Bible School and I'm helping people," "I'm giving money to these people who are in need," and "I'm going here and doing that." They're always thinking of what they're doing for the Lord. I don't despise that. We need to serve the Lord till He comes, as it says in 1 Corinthians 15:58, "be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord." I want to do that till the end of my life, until Christ comes, "always abounding in the work of the Lord." I never want to stop serving the Lord. So I'm not despising that.

I believe we must serve, but I'd say more important than service, is receiving the Word of God. "Man shall not live by serving God alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." These are the first spoken words of Jesus after His anointing, so it must be very significant. Of all that Jesus taught, here was the very first thing: learn to receive the Word of God continuously every day. The Scriptures must come alive to you every day. In the early days, people didn't have a Bible like we have today. We are so privileged to have the Bible. We must read the Bible every day, if we are going to receive God's Word every day. In the early days, when they didn't have a Bible, they could still receive the Holy Spirit reminding them of what they heard from the apostles. A Christian who doesn't have a Bible, who is imprisoned for his faith and sitting in a prison, can still receive God's Word every day even though he doesn't have a Bible open in front of him, because he has read it in the days when he was not in prison. That's why it's so important to read and meditate on God's Word, because in our moment of need, God through the Holy Spirit will give us that particular word that will be the solution to our problem, and that'll be the answer to our need and the promise that we can claim.

This is illustrated in a story in Luke 10:38-42. There we read about Jesus entering the house of Mary and Martha. Martha received Him into the house, and went to prepare some food for Him, while her sister Mary sat at Jesus' feet listening to His word. Now remember, connect this with what we read earlier, that "man shall not live by food alone, but by every word that proceeds from God's mouth." Here are the two options, food and sitting at Jesus's feet. Is food important? Yes, it is. But what's more important is receiving the word that proceeds from God's mouth. This is illustrated so vividly here in these two sisters.

Martha was distracted with preparing food. For whom? Not for herself. She was very, very unselfish. Do you know how much labor it takes to cook food for 13 hungry men (Jesus and His twelve disciples)? She was slogging away in the kitchen, working hard not for herself, but for the Lord. She was spending her money, going to the market, and getting things to prepare food for the Lord. She was spending time, money, energy, and sacrificing to do work for the Lord. Maybe you're like that. Maybe you're sacrificing time, money, and energy doing so many things for the Lord here and there. Good. You might think, like Martha might have thought, "well, when I've done all this and I come before the Lord, He's is going to say, 'well done, good and faithful servant. You've done a great job!'" But that's not what she hears. When she came to Jesus, she was irritated with her sister Mary inwardly. Whenever a person is not at rest in his heart, it means something is wrong. She was not at rest. She was wondering, "why is Mary not coming and helping me?" and Jesus rebukes her. He says, "Martha, food is not the most important thing. To hear My word is far more important, and that's what Mary has chosen, and that will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:42). Do you see what Jesus means by, "Man shall not live by food alone"? What did Jesus want from Martha first? All that service? What does Jesus want from you? Service is good. We read later on that Mary served Jesus by pouring out perfume at His feet, and so we know that service is important; but the first, most important thing was to receive the Word of God. That is what Jesus taught.

We must learn this lesson first of all, that one thing is needful. Not 25 things. Luke 10:42 tells us to sit at Jesus' feet every day, to have that attitude all the time, and to receive what He has to say to us personally.

Long for God's Word like a Baby Longs for Milk

In 1 Peter 2:2, it says, "Like newborn babes, we must desire the pure milk of the Word of God." We should desire the pure milk of the Word of God, just like any newborn baby, if it's normal and healthy, as soon as it is born, cries out. From the very first day onwards, for a number of days and weeks and months, it keeps on crying out. What's it crying out for? Milk. Nobody has to teach that newborn baby to cry for milk. If it's a sick child, it will not cry, and unfortunately, we have a lot of "sick babies" in Christendom.

If you have had a proper new birth, and you're a spiritually healthy child of God, nobody will have to teach you to cry out for the milk of the word of God. I remember in my own life, when I was born again 52 years ago, I found within me a tremendous cry for the milk of the word of God. I was too young to eat the meat that is also found in this book, but I could receive the milk, and this is the very first thing that characterizes any genuinely born-again child of God.

If you claim to be a born-again and you have absolutely no desire for the milk of God's Word, I would ask you to question whether you're really born again. Every healthy baby cries out for milk all over the world. In every nation, every place, through all centuries, it's been like that. And so it is with the new birth: when it's genuine, there's a longing to receive God's Word and to hear what God has to say. Even if I don't have a Bible to hear what God has to say to me, I long to hear His word.

Don't Live by One Scripture, but by the Whole of Scripture

The second statement that Jesus made in his ministry was in response to the second temptation. In Matthew 4:7, He said, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." This is a very important principle. What the devil was saying to Jesus was, "If You're the Son of God, why don't You just throw Yourself down from the top of the temple and claim the promise of God? He even quoted Psalm 91, 'He will give his angels charge concerning you; in their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" This teaches us that Satan can even quote God's Word to you to get you to sin.

This temptation is related to the first temptation. The first time, Satan told Jesus to turn the stones into bread, and Jesus said, "Hey, man does not live by bread alone; he lives by every word of God." Satan caught on to that and said, "Every word of God, huh? Okay, here's the Word of God: 'He will give His angels charge over you and your foot will not strike against a stone.' So why not jump off from the temple?" When the devil sees that you have learned to respect God's Word, the next thing he will try to do is to twist God's Word to make it mean something it didn't mean at all. He will misquote God's Word, and take God's Word out of context. I can think of numerous Christians I have met in my life who have quoted a Scripture from here or there completely out of context, to satisfy their own desire. It's very easy to go to Scripture and find a verse to do what you want to do. There are so many people who go to Scripture and find a verse that justifies exactly what they want to do.

When we realize the importance of receiving God's Word, and read Scripture regularly, we need to remember from this temptation that Satan can come and misquote Scripture. That's why it's important for us to study the Scriptures in its context, and why it's important to study the whole of Scripture by "every word of God," as Jesus said, not just by one Scripture. We can't live by one Scripture (for example, "man shall live by every word of God"), and that's why it's important to know the whole of Scripture. That's why it's important to study it. If you are young, it's good to go and seek counsel from godly older men who know the Word whenever you're thinking of understanding what Scripture says on a particular subject. It is very easy. I've come across too many people who have deceived themselves by seeking to live by only one particular Scripture, and not the whole of Scripture.

Let me use a humorous illustration to highlight this point: Consider a young man who's very much in love with a girl called Grace. He wants to find the will of God, or at least he thinks he does, but he's already very much in love with this girl. The truth is, he wants to marry her and he just wants God's approval. So one day he reads 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you," and he's convinced. "Ah, God has spoken to me, Grace is the girl for me," he says to himself. He's just satisfying his own desire. Now consider another young man whose parents have suggested some girl called Grace to him. He doesn't like her at all and he has no interest, so he tells his parents "I will have to find God's will." He reads the same verse, 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you." He goes to his parents and says, "God has told me that His grace is sufficient for me. I don't want this girl called Grace, God's grace is enough for me." You can see how, from the same verse, these two young men get two different answers to satisfy their own lusts. What they want to do, they try to put into God's Word. That's one example of how the devil can take a Scripture and quote that to you. If he tried it with Jesus, don't you think he will try it with you?

What was Jesus' reply to the devil? It is very interesting to see that, when the devil said in Matthew 4:6, "It is written," Jesus replied in verse 7, saying, " Again it is written." Or, "On the other hand, it's written like this." That's what He meant by, "again it is written." This teaches us that the whole truth is not found only in "it is written" but in "it is written, and again it is written." When you put both Scriptures together, then you get the truth. That's why it is important to study the Scriptures to hear what God is saying to you. Otherwise, you can take one verse of Scripture and go completely astray. So Jesus said to him, "It is also written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." You shall not try to claim a promise just to try and test God.

Don't Test God by Insisting He Does Something Spectacular

How does this apply in practical terms? Here the temptation to Jesus was to jump off the roof of the temple, claim the promise in Psalm 91, and descend to the courtyard of the temple unhurt so that people will see and exclaim, "Oh, what a great man of God! Look at His faith, how He claimed that promise and was not hurt." And Jesus said, "I will not tempt God like that." When there are stairs provided from the roof of the temple to go down, there is no need to jump off. The meaning of Jesus's refusal is that we can use means that God has provided and not tempt God by asking Him to do something for us in some spectacular way. For example, in Acts 8:39, we read of an instance where, after Philip had preached to the eunuch, the Holy Spirit snatched Philip up and transported him all the way to another please called as Azotus. The Holy Spirit gave him an airlift like a helicopter would today. Now, if you want to go from one place to another place, and you try to tempt God saying, "Do that for me Lord," that's tempting God. If God has provided buses, trains, scooters, and airplanes, why do we need to ask the Holy Spirit to take us like that?

Another way to tempt God is to try and claim a promise so that I can perhaps testify later of a spectacular thing God did for me. For example, there are people who, when they are sick, say, "I am going to trust God to heal me even though medicines are available on the next street and there are doctors available to advise us. We don't use those doctors and those medicines." And there are many foolish Christians who have died like that, or allowed their children to die and their wives to die, because they try to claim a promise that "the Lord is my Healer, and so I don't need medicine." When God has provided stairs in the temple, He expects you to use them instead of trying to jump off the roof and claiming Psalm 91. Similarly, when God has provided medicines, He expects you to use them and not foolishly claim some promise that the Lord will heal you. It is as foolish as trying to ask the Lord to transport you from one place to another like He did with Philip.

We also must remember that God does certain things for certain people. He doesn't perform every miracle for every believer. We need to be very careful in studying the Scriptures that we're not trying to do something spectacular in order to get some honor for ourselves. The desire for honor from men is so deeply rooted in our flesh, but sometimes we are not even aware of it. It's one of the great things that Jesus taught His disciples to battle against. Here the basic temptation was to get honor, to claim God's promise and descend unhurt to the courtyard of the temple and people will acclaim you. But the temptation can come in less spectacular ways, too. Jesus said in Matthew 6, "When you pray, don't pray in such a way as to get honor from the men who are listening to you praying, and don't fast and inform everybody how many days you've fasted for." If you do that, it's to get honor. He also said, "When you give, don't let anybody know what you gave." Yet many Christians have disobeyed these commands, seeking honor and tempting God.

Seek for a Christ-Like Balance

The matter of putting God to the test has many, many ramifications. There are many, many areas where we can do this. We need to be balanced in our understanding of these Scriptures, and be able to say, "it is written and it is also written." The great need in the Christian life is for a balance. For example, the Bible says in John 1:14, "The glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth." That's balance. And when the devil said, "It is written," Jesus said, "It is also written." We must have grace and we must have truth. That's the balance there must be in our life. We must have the fruit of the Spirit and we must have the gifts of the Spirit. We find Christians sometimes emphasizing that the fruit of the Spirit is the most important thing, while some other group says the gifts of the Spirit are more important. We need both, and the answer always is to look at Jesus and see what he had. What did Jesus have? Did He have the fruit of the Spirit or the gifts of the Spirit? You know the answer: He had both. Did He have grace or truth? He had both. Many people say we must stand for the truth. The others say no, but we must also be merciful. Which was Jesus? Was He merciful, or did He stand for the truth? Both.

You see a classic example of that in the case of the woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees wanted to stone her to death. The truth is, Moses said to stone her to death. What did Jesus say? "He who is without sin, throw the first stone." But He didn't then tell the woman, "Oh, your sins are not serious." He balanced grace and truth in His response to her. He coupled grace ("I do not condemn you") with truth ("Go and sin no more"). So remember, we find the whole truth of Scripture in "it is written," and "it is also written."

Chapter 6

Seeking God’s Glory and Honor Alone

The Third Temptation and Satan's Great Sin

When Satan asked Jesus to bow down to him, he said, as it were, "you have come here to get all these kingdoms of the world back to God." So he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory in a moment of time, and said, "I'll give you all these if you fall down and worship me." In Luke's Gospel, in the parallel passage in chapter four, Satan says, "All these have been given to me - they're mine - but I'll give them to you." How did Satan get them? Adam handed it all over to Satan in the Garden of Eden. God had given Adam authority to rule over everything on the earth, but the moment Adam bowed down to Satan and did what Satan told him to do, he handed over what God had given him to Satan. And ever since that day, Satan has had that and Satan told Jesus, "I'll give this to you if you will bow down and worship me." That's what he has always wanted, and that's what made him the devil. He was the head of the angels, created by God, beautiful, full of wisdom, with the highest position in the universe, long before man was created. We read the history of this highest angel in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. We don't know his name, only that he is called the morning star (Isaiah 14:12), which is translated as "Lucifer" in Latin. So that title stuck to him, but that's not his name. We don't know his name, but this head of the angels wanted the angels not to worship God but to worship him. That's what he says In Isaiah 14, "I will make myself like God." Remember that this is how sin originated: When someone wanted worship, when someone wanted to rebel against God, and when someone's heart was lifted up with pride and wanted the angels to admire him.

This is the origin of sin. The first sin in the world was not murder or adultery; it was the desire to get other people to admire you. If you have that desire, whoever you are, even if you call yourself a Christian or a preacher, if you want people to admire you and not Christ, you are walking in the way that Satan walked. It's a dangerous spot because it finally leads to hell. Satan couldn't get it then; he was cast out from heaven, but now he tries to get it again. "Fall down," Satan says, "and worship me." But Jesus said, "Be gone Satan," Matthew 4:10, "for it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him." There is only one Person we must worship. We can make the mistake of worshipping glorious beings and great servants of God. In Revelation 22:8, even the great apostle John made this mistake. He saw an angel and he fell down to worship him after he saw the wonderful things that were revealed in the book of Revelation. Imagine, if the Apostle John, at 95 years of age, who had known the Lord for so long, could make the mistake of admiring a mighty servant of God, any of us can make that mistake. We must not admire some mighty servant of God to the point that our contact with God Himself becomes through that servant.

Wherever a preacher or a pastor seeks to be a second mediator between God and men, you've got to be careful. The Old Testament prophets were people who communicated God's will to men, but in the New Covenant, there's only one Mediator between God and man, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't need a pastor or a preacher or any man of God to be a second mediator between Christ and you. You don't need Mary. You don't need anybody else. You can go directly to Jesus, and through Him, to the Father. But we can make a mistake, just like John did. In Revelation 22, we also see the faithfulness of this mighty angel. He says, "Don't do that; don't worship me." Where are the preachers and pastors and Christian leaders who will not allow other Christians to be attached to them, who will push them off and say, "Don't get attached to me; seek to be connected to Christ Himself"? That is a true man of God whom you can follow without any fear - the one who refuses to allow you to be attached to him and refuses to find God's will for you but tells you, "God is your Father. Go to Him directly, and He will show you His will." Because God's New Covenant promise in Hebrews 8:11 is, "They shall not teach every man, his brother saying, 'Know the Lord,' but all shall know Me from the least to the greatest." That means that even the one who's newly born again, a baby in Christ, all the way up to the greatest, the mightiest servant of God, all can know Him personally. So the angel says, "Don't worship me. I'm one of your brothers, I am fellow servant and you need to worship God."

Seek an Intimate, Direct Relationship with God

That's effectively what Jesus said in Matthew 4:10. The New Testament begins, as it were, with this phrase "worship the Lord your God alone," and ends (in Revelation 22:9) with the same message, "worship the Lord your God alone." Don't worship the devil, don't worship angels, don't worship human beings, and don't worship any great messenger of God. The word "angel" can also be translated as "messenger." You can fall down before a messenger of God when he reveals mighty truths; you've got to be very careful. We must honor God's servants, of course; we must respect and appreciate and express our appreciation to God's servants, but we must not worship them, nor imagine that they are God, nor give them the place that God alone should have in our hearts. We shouldn't give that place to our husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, material things or God's servants or anybody else. We must each have a direct connection with God and that's what Jesus was saying here: "Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only." It speaks of an intimate connection that we have with God directly because in the New Covenant, He has become our Father. He's not a distant God, as in the Old Testament, where He could only speak to people through the prophets: if you wanted to find God's will, there was no way to find it unless you went to the high priest and he used the Urim and Thummim, which were the things they had in those days to find God's will; and the people went to the prophet, who could hear God speak to him, because God was outside of man those days. That's why we see in the Old Testament about God speaking in an audible voice, because He was outside of man. But now, after the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit has come inside. That's why we don't hear God's voice audibly on the outside now - we hear it from within us. We now come to know the will of God through the renewing of our mind by the Holy Spirit.

Worship in Spirit, Not Just Body and Soul

Worship of God is something that brings us into a very intimate, close relationship with our Heavenly Father, and worship is more than just speaking words or saying words to God. Let me clarify a misunderstanding that more than 90 percent of believers have. There is a very common expression used in many churches today for their Sunday morning meeting, which is called a "worship service." In Charismatic or other Pentecostal churches, they call it a time of "praise and worship." If you want to be completely scriptural and Biblical, that is a totally wrong expression; what they're doing there on Sunday morning is not worship. If you listen to the words of the songs they sing, it is praise and thanksgiving.It's not worship at all. If you don't believe me, you can take a concordance and look at the word worship as it is found throughout the New Testament. In the Old Testament, that was the only way they could express their worship to God: clapping and singing and using instruments to sing songs to God. But in the New Covenant, Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4:23-24, "The hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth."

Jesus spoke about an hour that was "coming." He was referring to the day of Pentecost, which hadn't yet come. He also said in John 4:23, "now is," which means it was already fulfilled in Him, because Jesus is the firstborn of many brothers in the New Covenant. He was the one who opened up the New Covenant for us, so in a sense, He was the first, and our Leader. And so, that hour had come where there was one man finally walking on the earth who was worshiping the Father in spirit and in truth, and that was Jesus Himself. Nobody ever had done it before. Man is spirit, soul and body. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 tells us that, and this indicates that when Jesus uses the word spirit here, He was saying that all Old Testament worship up until that point was only in the body and the soul. That means they worship God with their hands, raising their hands, clapping their hands; they worship God with their soul, which is using their mind, their intellect, their emotions; they felt joy and feelings, emotional feelings just like you when you sing songs of praise and thanksgiving in the meeting. That was the extent of worship in the soul and body. But He said, "Now you've come to a deeper level of worship that you can have from now on, when the Holy Spirit dwells in you like He's dwelling in Me." Jesus was saying, "You'll also be able to worship in spirit and in truth, not just in body and soul."

What should we do today? We still clap our hands and raise our hands, we still feel emotional and use our intellect when we praise God, but beyond all that, we must worship in the spirit, and that means that we penetrate that veil between soul and spirit, and enter into that realm where we're alone with God. In the Old Testament tabernacle, there are three parts - corresponding to body, soul and spirit - and the last part, this closed part, which was covered by the veil, is the most holy place, where only God dwelt. In the outer court, they had lot of excitement with sacrifices being offered. In the holy place, a number of priests were jostling around each other offering incense and lighting the lamps, etc. But in the most holy place, it was God alone. So when a person entered in the most holy place, he was with God alone. He was not conscious of anybody else. There was nobody else there but him and God. That is worship in the spirit, where it's you and God alone, and that's something you can do in your room, and it is not something that you do merely with words.

One of the finest examples of what a true worshipper says in his attitude towards God is seen in Psalm 73:25. If you can say this honestly to God from the depth of your heart, you are a worshipper. If not, you are not worshipping in spirit. It says, "O God, Whom have I in heaven but Thee?" In other words, "When I get to heaven, I'm not looking for the golden streets or a mansion or a crown. I'm going to be happy and satisfied with God alone. I don't need anybody or anything else but God." That is saying, "I have wonderful brothers and sisters and family members who may be there in heaven, but You are going to be everything for me. "And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth." That is saying, "Not only in heaven, but before I get to heaven, here on this earth, I don't desire anything but You. I don't desire anything more of material goods than what You've given me. I'm perfectly content." Godliness with contentment is great gain. A worshiper never has a complaint about anything on this earth - he's perfectly content with all the circumstances that God has arranged for him. He's content with the family God has brought him into, the job he has, everything he has. He is perfectly content. He desires nothing but God. Like the old saying goes, if a time comes in your life where you have nothing but God and everything else is lost, you'll find that God is more than enough.

So this is true worship, where the attitude of my heart is that I desire nothing here on this earth but God. If you don't have that attitude of heart, no matter how emotional you feel when you praise and thank God on Sunday mornings, you're not a worshipper. You can call it worship and praise, but you're deluding yourself, and Satan is quite happy for you to do that to yourself because you imagine that you're worshipping God when you're not. But Jesus said in John 4:23 that the Father is seeking for those who worship Him in spirit. And what a longing the Father has. Do you have that longing to satisfy your Father's heart, to be a worshipper in spirit? Then go to Psalm 73:25 and don't rest until those words are the expression of your heart, that you desire nothing on earth but Jesus Christ, not even a ministry. Don't find your satisfaction in your evangelism or in your teaching or in your church building or in any ministry or in your money or your property or anything. "Lord, I have You and I desire only You." Will such a man be a lazy man? Far from it. "Thou shall worship the Lord thy God," Matthew 4:10, "and serve Him." True worship leads to service, and it will be highly effective service. The apostles worshipped and served, Jesus worshipped and served, and when you worship, it will lead to service, which will be far more effective than just serving.

Four Steps of Communion with God: Prayer, Thanksgiving, Praise, and Worship

In our communion with God, we can say there are four steps: First of all is prayer, which is asking God for things. Second is thanksgiving, which is thanking God for what He's done for us, and for what He has given us. Then we go one step higher with praise, which is expressing our appreciation to God and adoring Him for who He is, not for what He's done. Thanksgiving is for what He has done; praise is for who He is. The highest level is worship. Worship may be expressed in words like we just read, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee Lord? There is nothing on earth I desire beside You, Lord Jesus." Worship can be expressed in song, where we express to God words such as, "all that I have is Yours, Lord", "Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord, to Thee. Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Take my voice, and let me sing always only for my King." This is expressing my worship to God in song. The highest expression of worship is silence, where I'm so taken up with the glory of God that I cannot even open my mouth.

Very, very few believers come to the point where they are blinded by the light of God in their hearts - not in their eyes, but in their hearts - like Isaiah, which makes them cry out, "Oh Lord, I'm a sinful man," like Paul cried out, "Oh wretched man that I am, I am the chief of sinners." That is the expression of a true worshipper who has seen the glory of God, and very, very few believers come to that point. The devil doesn't want you to arrive there. He wants you to worship him.

Seeking God's Kingdom First, Not Earthly Gain

Do you know that when you seek for something in the world, some gain in the world, you actually have to worship the devil in order to get it? But if you seek the glory of God- "seek first the kingdom of God," as it says in Matthew 6:33 - God will add to you whatever you need. Otherwise, we can long to get so many things that God doesn't want us to have. When we pray for them, we may think that God has blessed us, but some of those material things can be a curse to us and our children. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world," in John 18:36, "Otherwise my servants would fight." Jesus doesn't fight for earthly things.

So we don't pray for these things. We believe that if we seek God's kingdom first and are worshippers of God our Father, He will add to us whatever we need on this earth. We don't go to the devil to get things. Very often when people are saying, "Lord give me this, give me that, give me the other material thing," they are just proving that they're not content with what they have. Whereas Paul said, in Philippians 4:11, "I have learnt to be content with what I have, whether God gives me little or gives me much." Only a worshipper can say that. He seeks God's kingdom and God determines how much of this earth we should have, and gives us an amount which will not destroy us. It's better God decides that. Too much of things of earth can destroy us if we're not careful. So we need to come before God and say, "Lord, please guide us in this matter so that we can never stop worshiping you and never be distracted by Mammon and the attractions of Mammon."

Remember this: When we seek for something of this world and its glory, like the honor of men, very often we'll end up worshipping the devil. The devil said to Jesus, "Fall down and worship me. I'll give you the things of this world and its glory." So don't seek the glory and honor of this world lest you end up worshipping Satan. Seek the glory and honor of God alone - not your name but God's name. He taught us to pray "Hallowed be Your name" first - that's the way of salvation from worshiping Satan. Unconsciously, many believers are worshipping Satan; we need to worship God.

Chapter 7

The Kingdom of God

John the Baptist's primary message, described in Matthew 3:2, was, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He was the last of the prophets to the nation of Israel. He was also the forerunner for Jesus Christ, who was going to open up the way to a new covenant that God was making with man, which would bring people of all nations into a relationship with God as their Father. And so, his message to the nation of Israel was, 'Repent." To repent means to turn around. The best analogy I can think of for this could be from the military command, "About-turn." When a soldier is facing forward and the Sergeant Major on the parade ground says, "About-turn," the soldier turns around instantly with his back toward the direction he was facing and looks toward the direction where his back was facing formerly. That gives us a clear picture of the word repent - to turn around. We have to turn around in our mind. In English and in most languages, the word repent is not translated very clearly, but in the Tamil language it is very clear. In Tamil, repent is translated as"manam thirumbudhal', which means the turning of the mind. An about-turn of the mind is exactly what John the Baptist was preaching to the nation of Israel.

The nation of Israel was promised a whole lot of earthly things. Throughout the Old Covenant, there is no promise that they could partake of the divine nature of God, or have a treasure in heaven, or about a heavenly life on earth, etc. It was all earthly. In Deuteronomy 28, we see clearly that they were promised material wealth, material prosperity, physical health, a number of children, and blessings on their businesses, crops and cattle. They were promised that they would be very prosperous, they would never be in debt, their earthly enemies will all be destroyed, they would be a great nation, and they would have a land, the land of Canaan, which was called Israel.

All the blessings promised to Israel up to this point in time were earthly, and their face was completely set towards the things of earth, all the time. But John the Baptist came along and said, "turn around now, about-turn from this. Stop facing the things of earth and turn around because now a new kingdom is coming. That is the kingdom of heaven, where earthly needs become secondary, even physical health becomes secondary. Material prosperity becomes unimportant because God provides us with material necessities. Turn around, because now God is going to give you spiritual wealth, that is, heavenly wealth. God is going to give you spiritual children, not necessarily physical children. You will have a spiritual, heavenly land to possess, not an earthly land, primarily." He was telling them to turn around because the kingdom of heaven had not yet come, and was near at hand. It was going to come on the day of Pentecost.

We read in Matthew 4:12-13 that John was taken prisoner by Herod. When Jesus heard this, He withdrew from Galilee and left Nazareth, where He had grown up and lived for thirty years, and came and stayed at a house in Capernaum, which is beside the sea. Then, from that moment onwards, Jesus began to preach the same message exactly as John the Baptist had preached. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17). John, as it were, had run the first leg of the relay race and handed over the baton to Jesus and He took up the same message - "Repent." When Jesus ascended up to heaven, we read that the apostle Peter took up the baton from Jesus' hand and preached the same message - "Repent" (Acts 2:38). He preached to the people on the day of Pentecost, "Repent and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the kingdom of God within us." Then, it had finally come.

When John the Baptist and Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, they said that it was going to come, or it was at hand. Jesus once said the kingdom of God is in your midst, referring to the fact that, in Christ Himself, the kingdom of God was already present. But it was not present in the people around Him. That would take place only on the day of the Pentecost, when those 120 disciples waited for baptism in the Holy Spirit. Then the Spirit of God filled them and the kingdom of God came to dwell within them. That is the kingdom they proclaimed - the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of God) - where the Holy Spirit dwells within us. It is not an external kingdom of physical healing and material prosperity, as it is, unfortunately, being preached by a lot of Christian preachers today. Plainly put, that is a deception, and is not the kingdom of God.

What Matthew calls the kingdom of heaven is also called the kingdom of God in the other gospels. For example, when John the Baptist preached that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the same thing is quoted in the other gospels as, "the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15). If you compare Mark 1:15, where John the Baptist is quoted saying, "the kingdom of God is at hand, and so repent," with Matthew 3:2 where he says, "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand," it becomes clear as crystal that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are the same thing. Some Christians try to make a distinction between them because they haven't studied the Scripture properly.

The Kingdom of God Is an Inward Reality

We see that the kingdom of God is one and the same thing as the kingdom of heaven. But what is it, exactly? In Romans 14:17 it says, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. It is not something earthly like prosperity or healing - it is not an earthly blessing at all.

According to Romans 14:17, the kingdom of God is righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit:

• Righteousness: The righteousness of God Himself, first imputed to us when we receive Christ as our Savior and Lord, and then imparted to us from within by the Holy Spirit, where the righteousness of God becomes manifested in our life.

• Joy: An inward joy that delivers us completely from discouragement and depression in the Holy Spirit.

• Peace: An inward peace, primarily given by the Holy Spirit, freedom from anxiety, fear, tension, discouragement, gloom, bad moods et cetera and an outward peace with all men, where we refuse to fight with people or anything.

So this is the kingdom of God. It's an inward thing. The kingdom of God is within us. It is the life of Christ coming within, through the Holy Spirit. This is the kingdom of God. This is the kingdom of heaven. It is the life of heaven, here on this earth, inside our hearts and that is what Jesus was preaching. That is what we read in Matthew's gospel as the very first thing he preached. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of God) is near." This is what has already come on the day of the Pentecost. That is what we should be proclaiming now - not as something that is near, but something that has already come. In fact, Jesus made that clear in Mark's gospel. In the gospel of Mark, when Jesus was speaking to some of the people, He said to the people standing in front of Him, "Truly I say to you there are some of those who are standing here," not all but some, "who will not die until they see the kingdom of God come with power" (Mark 9:1). Some of you standing here, He said, would die before that day, but there are some standing here who will not die. There were old people and young people there and He was saying that some of you will not die till you see the kingdom of God come with power. Now obviously, that is not referring to the second coming of Christ, when the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. No. That day is in the future and nobody who heard Jesus speak there is alive today. So He is not referring to that. He is referring to something else that would happen in the lifetime of some of those people standing in front of Him, when they would see the kingdom of God, which they hadn't seen till then. No one on earth had seen the kingdom of God until then.

The Kingdom of God Came at Pentecost

When did that kingdom of God, which Jesus referred to here, come with power? The answer is in the word 'power.' Jesus used the word power again before He ascended into heaven. He told His disciples in Acts 1:8, "you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you," and ten days later, we read that they did receive that power. That was the fulfillment of Mark 9:1. Some of the people who heard Jesus had died before the day of Pentecost, but some others, who were standing there, were alive when the kingdom of God had come to earth on the day of Pentecost. So when we compare Scripture with Scripture, we find this is the kingdom of God that we have to proclaim.

The Gospel of the Kingdom

When the disciples asked Jesus about the second coming, the question they asked was, "When will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:3). Jesus said many things, and one of the things He said was about the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 24:14).

What is this gospel of the kingdom? Now many of us have heard of a gospel of forgiveness of our past sins. Praise God for that! But what about this gospel of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God on earth, the kingdom of heaven coming and dwelling in people's hearts? According to Jesus in Matthew 24:14, this is going to be preached in the whole world. But very few will receive it - probably only 1% or 2%. But it will be preached for a witness to all the nations and then, the end will come.

I am greatly encouraged by the fact that before Christ comes there's going to be a proclamation of this gospel of the kingdom. What is that? We saw earlier in Romans 14:17, a gospel of righteousness in the Holy Spirit, peace in the Holy Spirit and joy in the Holy Spirit. There are very few proclaiming it. Most people are only proclaiming the forgiveness of sins, which is a very good first step. To me it is like the cleaning of a cup. If my little boy comes to me and says, "Daddy, can you give me a glass of milk?", and he gives me a dirty cup (a picture of our hearts), what I do first is clean the cup. I would not pour milk into that dirty cup. I would take that cup and clean it thoroughly. But then, what's the purpose of that? I don't give him an empty cup! I fill it with milk and then give it to him. So when we come to Christ, the first thing He does is clean up our hearts, like cleaning the inside of the cup. But does He leave it like that? No! He fills it with the righteousness of God, the peace of God, and the joy of God, through the Holy Spirit. This is the gospel. If we only offer the truth that Christ will clean up the heart and clean up the cup, we are offering people an empty cup, and that is why so many Christians are thirsty. They are not satisfied because they are going around with an empty cup that may indeed be clean, but it is empty. What's the use of giving my son an empty cup that's clean saying, "Son, you gave me a dirty cup, here it is, clean". If that is all God gives us, it will be frustrating. My son would say, "Hey dad, I wanted some milk."

The Kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? The trouble is that a lot of Christians are not hungry and thirsty for righteousness and that is why they go around with a clean empty cup. Do you know the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant? It can be pictured like this. The gift of the Holy Spirit, who brings the kingdom of God to earth, as given to an old covenant believer, is like a cup that is placed on a table, upside down. And you pour water from a jug on the cup. This is the picture of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is how it was in the Old Testament times. The water flowed; the Holy Spirit was upon people and flowed out around them and probably blessed thousands and millions of people. There were two million people in the wilderness who Moses, the anointed servant of God, led. But the inside of Moses' heart was dirty. He could not overcome anger. He got so angry at one time, that he broke the tablets of stone that God had written on, with His own hands. Do you know what the new covenant equivalent of that would be today? It would be like tearing the Bible. That is what Moses did. Imagine a man getting so angry that he tore the Bible. Whatever may provoke you to anger, you shouldn't tear the Bible. But Moses did it because the inside of his cup was dirty. Despite his anger, the blessing flowed from him to bless the multitudes. David was an anointed person, but the inside of his cup was dirty. He could kill Goliath, but when he saw Bathsheba, he fell into sin. The inside of his cup had adultery. It was like that with Samson, Gideon and so many other people in the Old Testament. The Spirit of God was upon them. Even the great John the Baptist, who had the Spirit of God upon him from his mother's womb, had doubts about Christ when he was imprisoned. He questioned whether Jesus was really the Messiah, even though he had heard a voice from heaven. He had unbelief because the inside of his cup was not filled with faith.

But on the day of Pentecost, the Lord turned this cup right side up and poured the Holy Spirit inside the cup, which is the heart. Then it would not only overflow and bless people, like in the Old Testament, but much more than that, in the New Testament. It would be from the innermost being. That is the kingdom of God flowing out from within us. This is the kingdom that Jesus prophesied would come on the day of Pentecost. That is why on the last day of the great feast in Jerusalem Jesus said, "as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water'" (John 7:38). That would not and could not happen before the day of Pentecost. That is why it says in John 7:39, "This He spoke referring to the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given," that means not given in this way, "because Jesus was not yet glorified."

New Covenant Cleansing

Christ had to die and rise again and present His blood before the Father. Only then, could the hearts of men be cleansed. In the Old Testament, people's hearts were not cleansed. Psalm 32:1 says their sins were covered. They were forgiven, but their hearts were not cleansed (Psalm 103:2-3). Today my sins are not covered, but cleansed. If your sins are only covered, it is like putting a sheet over your sins. You can lift the sheet up and still see your sins. The blood of bulls and goats could never cleanse people's hearts, and that is why God could not put the Holy Spirit within people. The kingdom of God could not come within people in Old Testament times. But now that Christ has shed His blood and ascended to the Father, every sin of ours can be cleansed if we confess it to the Lord.

People ask me what is a sin that cannot be forgiven. I say that the sin you do not confess will not be forgiven. Whatever sin you don't repent of and that you don't confess, will never be forgiven. But if you repent and confess any sin, it can be cleansed in the blood of Christ - however great it may be. So God turns the cup right side up and cleanses us in the blood of Christ and pours the Holy Spirit within us first, so that He strengthens us to do God's will. Then, His life flows out from us in words and actions, so that we can also lead other people to do God's will, like we've done it ourselves.

The Meaning and Importance of Repentance

The Holy Spirit flows from our innermost being. If the Spirit does not flow from our innermost being, then that is an old covenant type of ministry. In order to come to this life, the first step Jesus taught us is to repent or turn around (Matthew 4:17). Not only turning around from seeking the things of earth, but most of all from sin. We don't have to overcome sin before we receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes in to help us overcome sin. We don't put the cart before the horse. The horse should be in front of the cart. I can't give up sin and then say, "Lord give me the Holy Spirit." Instead I say, "Lord, I need the Holy Spirit to be able to overcome sin." But I can turn around in my mind from sin; that means my attitude is that I genuinely desire to give up all sin.

That's all that God is asking you. Do you have an attitude where you want to give up every single thing that is dishonoring to God in your life? It may take you some years before you actually overcome them, but it doesn't matter. Make sure your attitude is always one of repentance, where you turn around from your old way of life. It is through repentance and faith in Christ that we come to the starting line of the Christian race. Hebrews 12:1-2 says that the Christian life is like a race, and I can come to the starting line only if I have repented. That message of repentance and turning around from sin is the message that is lacking in Christendom today. How many gospel messages do you hear on repentance? How many songs do you hear on repentance? Look at any hymnbook and see how many songs there are on repentance - hardly any. You will find many songs about believing. For example, there is a well-known song that says, 'To God be the glory, great things He has done'. One of the lines in that song says, "The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives". I disagree with it. Suppose there is a man attending a meeting - a complete wretched sinner - who doesn't know anything about the gospel. And he comes there and listens to that song - "The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives." He says, "Yes, I am the vilest offender," and he acknowledges that and says, "that is all I've got to do, just believe in Jesus. I believe in Him, He is the Son of God, He died for my sins." Is he forgiven? Not if he has not repented. The vilest offender who repents and believes is one who is forgiven. Many people will say, "Well that's the meaning of 'truly believe'". But that is a theological explanation that an unconverted, godless sinner does not know. He needs to be told that he has to repent. That is what the Apostle Peter made clear on the day of Pentecost: repentance. And that is what Paul preached everywhere. He preached two things - "Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21).

Repentance toward God, not toward prosperity and healing. Repentance is not turning away from sickness to healing. I am not turning away from poverty to prosperity. No! That is a false gospel that is being preached today. It says here I repent toward God from everything that was against God in my life and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says the same thing when he writes to the Thessalonians. He tells them that the Word of God came to them and they turned to God, having turned away from idols to serve the living God" (1 Thessalonians 1:8-9).

What is an idol? An idol is anything that takes the place of God in your heart. It could be your health, your wealth, your job, your house, your car, your wife or your children. It could be anything that takes the place of God in your heart. Just like Isaac took the place of God in Abraham's heart and God told Abraham to get rid of that idolatry. Turning to God from idols and from everything that prevents God from being first and uppermost in your heart - that is repentance. That is the meaning of seeking the kingdom of God first and His righteousness, in such a way that all our earthly necessities will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). You can be absolutely sure that you will never lack earthly necessities -- even if you never become a millionaire, He will make sure your earthly necessities are added to you -- if you seek God's kingdom first. Thank God for that. This is the way every Christian should live. It's a very sad thing today when Christians think that material prosperity and physical healing are the marks of God's blessing. That cannot be true because there are a lot of non-Christians who have a lot more material prosperity and a lot more physical health than even spiritual Christians. That itself proves that that is not the gospel. Moreover, they don't have freedom from sin that a true disciple has.

The message that Jesus proclaimed first, and that we need to keep proclaiming, is repentance. Jesus said, "Teach them to do all that I have taught." What did He teach? Turn around from sin, turn toward God and open your heart to the kingdom of heaven so that your mind is now set on things above, on the things of God - righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 8

Progressive Sanctification

If you are a Christian leader, you must not be satisfied until your flock is actually doing all that Jesus commanded. Not just one or two things that Jesus commanded, but every single commandment. Your job is not completed as a Christian leader until everyone in your flock loves all their enemies, blesses everyone who curses them, and is free from the love of money, anger, and lusting with their eyes. It is not enough to get them to say, "My sins are all forgiven. I am on my way to heaven." That is an incomplete fulfillment of the Great Commission.

An Incomplete Fulfillment of the Great Commission

Unfortunately, there is a lot of incomplete fulfillment of the Great Commission. I believe we must be honest with Scripture. Jesus said in Matthew 28:18, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." If I submit to that authority, then I must say, "Lord, I am not here to preach the gospel that I think is right. You have all authority in heaven and on earth. You have all authority over me. You have commanded me to go. Therefore, I go. You commanded me to go and not just make converts but make disciples who put Christ first in every area of their life. You have called me to baptize them in the name of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then after that, you have commanded me to teach them to obey all Your commandments. I must first obey them in my life. Then I can teach others to do it." As I seek to do this ministry, only then can I claim the promise in Matthew 28:20 that You will be with me until the end of the age.

This is God's will for us. If we go around proclaiming this message, only then are we teaching people what Jesus taught and completing the Great Commission. Otherwise, we are doing an unfinished job. If you have a red letter Bible that shows the words of Jesus in red, you will easily be able to go through the Gospels and see all the things that Jesus taught and commanded. This is what we are to teach every single person.

Running the Race Looking at Jesus

Earlier in Matthew 4:17, Jesus was teaching repentance. The first step in the Christian life is to repent. Repentance is turning around or an about-turn. Up until this point, I might have spent my entire life following after money and earthly things, but now I turn around from all of that and follow Jesus Christ.

Now in Matthew 4:19, we read that Jesus saw Peter and Andrew casting a net by the sea. He said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." The next step in the Christian life is to follow Him or running the race behind Him.

We run the race looking at Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2), who is the author and finisher of our faith. He does not ask us to run a race that He Himself did not run. Instead, He came to earth as a man and emptied Himself of equality with God. He did not regard equality with God as something to be held onto tightly, but rather He emptied Himself (Philippians 2:6-7).

Jesus did not empty Himself of His person as God, as that is something God could never do. For God could never cease to be God any more than you or I could cease to be a human being. God will always remain God. When Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, came to this earth, He was still God. That is why Jesus could accept worship. Seven times in the Gospels we read that people worshipped Him, and He accepted it. This is unlike the angels in heaven who do not receive worship. This is also unlike Peter who told Cornelius to stand up when he tried to worship Peter. Jesus accepted their worship readily because He is God. He has a right to be worshipped. He also forgave sins, which only God can do. We can tell people that God forgives their sins, but Jesus forgave them directly. For example, Jesus said to the paralytic in Mark 2:5, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Jesus was still God so what did He empty Himself of? He emptied himself of those powers, resources, and privileges He had as God. For example, God is never tired, but Jesus would get tired. In Mark 4:38, Jesus was asleep in a boat. In the same way, God is never hungry, but Jesus was hungry. He also had the privilege to call seventy-two thousand angels to defend Him in the garden of Gethsemane, but He would not call them. When He was on earth, He said that He did not even know the date of His second coming. He had given up that knowledge, which He now has in heaven. While on earth, He also emptied Himself of God's omniscience. He had to go near a fig tree to see whether there was fruit on (Mark 11:13). God can see whether there is fruit on the fig tree from a million miles away, but Jesus had to go near it. There are many similar examples that show us that Jesus emptied Himself of the privileges of being God, but not of being God Himself.

We Can Follow Jesus Because He Was Tempted

Jesus could be tempted because He had given up the privileges of being God. God can never be tempted according to James 1:13. Yet in Matthew 4, we read how Jesus was tempted. That must be one of the privileges He gave up and emptied Himself of. Why did He do that? Because only then could He be an example for us and be able to say, "Follow me." The very first words Jesus spoke after He spoke on repentance in Matthew 4:17 were, "Follow me" (Matthew 4:19). Suppose an angel came from heaven to teach us how to swim and flew across the swimming pool. The angel then says to us, "Follow me." How could we follow him? Can an angel teach you how to swim? Impossible. You would have to say to the angel, "First, get rid of your wings and take on a body like mine that sinks in the water. Then you can teach me how to swim." In other words, "Become like me. Live in a body constantly pulled down by gravity twenty-four hours a day. Then I can follow your example when you show me how to swim."

Along the same lines, if Jesus came to earth and lived with all the resources He had as God, He could never be tempted. The devil would not come anywhere near Him. If Jesus were to say, "Follow Me," that would be exactly like an angel with wings flying across a swimming pool and telling me to follow him. The angel would be taunting me because he is urging me to do something that he knows I cannot do. God does not do that. Jesus became exactly like His brothers in all things in order to become our High Priest before God (Hebrews 2:17). He had to be made exactly like His brothers in all things. If we have received Jesus as Lord, we are His brothers. Jesus is a high priest who can sympathize with our struggles in temptation. Therefore, He can say to us, "Follow Me."

It is a struggle to overcome temptation. We realize how weak we are in the moment of temptation. Even a little feather in the moment of temptation can knock us down into sin. One look at a pretty woman can make us sin. It is so easy for us to lie to get through some examination or to sign something false. There is also pride. We do something good, and immediately, we can become proud. Imagine a man whom you could knock down by touching him with a feather. How weak is he? That is how weak we are when it comes to temptation. But Jesus is a high priest who can sympathize with our weakness. Why? Because He was tempted in every way as we are, and yet, did not sin. He was made like us in all things (Hebrews 2:17), and He was tempted like us in all things (Hebrews 4:15). Therefore, these two verses show us that Jesus Christ has every right to say to us, "Follow Me."

Jesus Was 100% God and 100% Man

We can never turn around and say to the Lord, "You do not know what I am going through." He would respond, "I know very well because I became a man like you. I became one hundred percent man." The trouble with a lot of Christians is that they accepted Jesus Christ as one hundred percent God, unlike some other cult groups, but they have not accepted Him as one hundred percent man. That is as much a false teaching and heresy as it is to reject that He is one hundred percent God. The truth is in a balanced acceptance of both. He was not fifty percent God and fifty percent man like some people think.

The Bible never uses the expression "God-man" to describe Jesus Christ. He was fully God and fully man. When He came to earth, He lived as a man, and He ascended up into God the Father's presence as a man. In 1 Timothy 2:5, the Holy Spirit, who knows the truth better than you and me, tells us that there is one God and one mediator between God and man. Who is that? Not the God-man, but the man, Christ Jesus. He became a man when He came to this earth, and He remains a man forever.

In other words, when Christ, as God, became man on earth, He did not cease to be God. When He ascended to heaven, He did not cease to be a man. That is the full truth, if you are willing to accept it. That is why He can say to us, "Follow me. Walk in My footsteps. Deny yourself like I denied Myself. Take up the cross and die to yourself every day, just as I died to Myself every day." He can say all of this because He lived on earth with the same limitations and temptations as us.

Jesus Also Had to Fight Temptation

Was it easy for Christ to overcome temptation? Is it easy for you to overcome temptation? You might not find it difficult to overcome some serious sins like murder, but there are surely other, more subtle temptations in your thought life that are very difficult to overcome. For example, you might find it hard to overcome sexually impure thoughts, anxiety, bitterness, jealousy, grudges, pride, an unforgiving spirit, or love of money. Many of our inward struggles are very difficult to overcome. As someone who was perfectly pure, did Jesus find it any easier? Some think that because He was so pure, it was easier for Him. Because we are not as pure, temptation is much more difficult for us. They believe that He did not really experience what we go through. Therefore, it is still difficult for us to follow Him.

However, think of it this way. Suppose someone grew up in a slum or in a poor village in India and always lived in completely filthy surroundings. There are rats, cockroaches, and mosquitoes. There is no proper drainage or sewage. They are used to living in those dirty and filthy conditions. It is not difficult for them to live in that filth because they have been used to it from childhood. But think of someone comes from a very hygienic environment and was brought up in luxury. Perhaps they are from some western country where some people might never have seen a lizard or cockroach crawling in their house. Not even once in their life! Think of someone with such a standard of hygiene coming and living in this slum in order to help the people in that slum live a better life. Who do you think would find it a greater struggle to live in that slum? Is it the person who has come from totally sanitary conditions or the person who has always lived in the slum? You know the answer. The person who has come from the hygienic surroundings will find it much more of a struggle to live there, let alone keep himself pure from the unsanitary conditions.

In the same way, it must have been much more difficult for Jesus Christ, who came from the purity of heaven, to live on this earth than for us who are so used to this filth. Not only was the battle more difficult for Him, but He could not afford to sin even once if He were going to be a sacrifice for us. We know how difficult it is to keep from sinning in our thoughts, attitudes, or motives just for one day. What a feat it would be to live free from sin in thought, word, attitude, or motive for one month, let alone a lifetime!

Pray, "Lord, Forgive Me of My sins"

Jesus taught us to pray every day, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive others." Do you know that we need to pray for forgiveness every day? Even if we do not repeat Jesus' prayer each day, we must at least recognize that we need to pray for forgiveness daily. I pray every day, "Lord, forgive me of my sins." How do we know forgiveness is something we need daily? Because the previous line in the prayer is, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). Therefore, it is a daily thing. Lord, I need my daily bread today, and my follow-up request is that You forgive me of my sins today as well.

You might ask, "How you can claim to have victory over sin, but also say that I sin every day?" There is a difference between overcoming conscious sin and unconsciously sinning in areas that we do not even know about. We are really only aware of about ten percent of our lives. Just like we can only see the tip of the iceberg, we can only see the top part of sin in our life. There are a whole lot of areas in our life where we are unconscious of sin and of un-Christlikeness. We need to pray that God will forgive us even in those areas.

That is the meaning of asking for forgiveness every day. We can live in total victory over conscious sin as the Apostle Paul did. In 1 Corinthians 4:4, Paul says, "I am conscious of nothing against myself." In other words, Paul is saying, "I am living in victory over all known sin." I might not be aware of any sin in my life, but that does not mean I am acquitted or completely free from guilt. The one who examines me is the Lord Himself, to whom I am answerable to. He sees a lot of areas in my life that I do not even see myself. That is why I cannot carelessly say that I am acquitted. I have to ask God to forgive me. When He gives me light on areas I had not previously been conscious of, then I can seek to overcome in these areas. This is sanctification.

The Path of the Righteous

The Lord gives us a simple command, "Follow me." The Lord then shows us the pathway to a wonderful life of progressive sanctification. Proverbs 4:18 says, "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day." If we are born again, we are declared righteous because the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us. The moment of conversion is like the sun rising over the horizon at dawn, chasing away the darkness. The sun becomes brighter while it slowly rises into the heavens until it comes to the perfect noonday position when it is brightest. Similarly, if we are righteous, we should progress in practical righteousness to a greater degree day by day. The sun should not remain on the horizon all the days of our lives. It must increase in brightness. The path of the righteous is like the shining light of the dawn that gets brighter and brighter until the day Christ comes back. Then we will be like Him.

We will be completely like Him only when He comes, but we can walk like Him today. 1 John 3:2 says, "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is." Notice the distinction made in 1 John 3:2. We are already children of God, but what we are going to be is not yet manifested. What are we going to be like? We are going to be like Jesus completely. Our total personality including all our thoughts, words, deeds, attitudes, motives, every area of our inner life, and our unconscious life will be like Jesus.

And when will this happen? When He comes again, and we see Him as He is. But until that day, what should we do? 1 John 3:3 says that if you have this hope that one day you will be completely like Jesus, you will keep on purifying yourself every day until you reach His standard of purity. This is similar to what is written a little earlier in 1 John 2:6, which says that if I say I am a Christian, I must live like Christ lived and walk as He walked. Then one day, I will be like Him.

There is a difference between 1 John 2:6 and 1 John 3:2. The message of 1 John 2:6 means that we need to walk by the same principles by which Jesus lived His earthly life and follow Him. We must have the same attitude that Jesus had towards material things, men, women, Pharisees, religious hypocrites, and enemies. For example, Jesus prayed for those enemies who crucified Him, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do."

The Holy Spirit will enable us to walk like Jesus, but it will only be in our conscious lives, which is only ten percent of our full lives. The remaining ninety percent is hidden. God will reveal more of that hidden area to us so that we may overcome in those areas and increasingly purify ourselves. God cleanses us from sin (1 John 1:7), but we must also seek to purify ourselves by getting rid of sin through the power of the Holy Spirit (1 John 3:3).

Jesus is Our Forerunner

To follow in Jesus' footsteps is seeking to root out sin. In Hebrews 6:20, Jesus is called our Forerunner. It is a title which many Christians do not know. We know Him as our Savior, the Light of the world, the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd, and the Resurrection. We know Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But here is a title which is not so well known: our Forerunner. As our Forerunner, He has run this race in front of us. Hebrews is a great book that tells us about the humanity of Christ and how we can follow Him. In Hebrews 12:1-2, we are instructed to run this race looking at our forerunner, Jesus Christ, who was tempted like us and lived on earth like us. There is no excuse for us to say that we cannot overcome conscious sin. The only excuse is that we are not hungering and thirsting after righteousness. We are not seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit and live a Spirit-filled life every day.

Jesus is Our Dictionary

This is all that is involved in this simple command of "Follow Me".

We can come up with so many theological arguments about what a verse means. Sometimes people even make the Bible their idol and worship the Bible. But what do you do when you come to an English word that you cannot understand? If I find a difficult English word in a book, I put the book aside, take out a dictionary, and try to find out the meaning of that word. As a result, my English has improved.

In the same way, when you come across a verse that you cannot understand in the Bible, look it up in the dictionary. However, this dictionary is not an earthly dictionary. It is the Word made flesh in Christ. Jesus Christ is our dictionary. When you come across a verse in the New Testament that commands you to do something, and you do not know how to do it, look at Jesus Christ and see how He did it. The way He did it is the definition we are looking for and the way for us to follow Him.

If you want to understand humility, do not look it up in the English dictionary. Look at Jesus Christ. If you want to understand loving God, look at Christ. If you want to understand loving people, look at Christ. If you want to know how to treat women, look at Christ. If you want to know what your attitude towards money should be, look at Christ.

This is the meaning of the simple command, "Follow Me." We are not following the commands from the Old Testament. Everyone in the Old Covenant could only follow commands. There were 613 commandments in the law of Moses. It would be so difficult to remember them, let alone follow them! Now it has been simplified by the Holy Spirit, who constantly shows us how we can follow Jesus Christ's example without having to remember all the commandments.

Let us allow the Holy Spirit to show us the glory of Jesus so that we can follow Him more closely.

Chapter 9

Becoming Fishers of Men

All That Jesus Taught Is for Disciples

Doing all that Jesus taught isn't a message for everybody in the world, but rather, for those who are interested in being disciples. We've got to preach the gospel, forgiveness of sins, to the whole world, but when it comes to "all that Jesus taught," we have to teach that to disciples. There is no use telling worldly, unconverted people everything that Jesus taught. He said to first make them disciples (Matthew 28:19) and then teach those who have become disciples to do all that He commanded. If you don't make a person a disciple, it's pointless trying to teach him all that Jesus commanded. It will be just head knowledge that he has no interest in following. We have multitudes of Christians today who sit in churches listening to all that Jesus commanded, yet they have no interest in following His commands and no interest in doing them, and neither do their leaders. That's not what Jesus has commanded. The church can become a strong church that the gates of hell will never prevail against, if we first make disciples and then teach them to do every single thing that Jesus commanded. I believe God wants little groups of people like this - New Testament churches - all across the world.

The mark of a New Testament church is that its members do everything that Jesus commanded, and seek to love one another as Christ loved them so that all people will know that they are Christ's disciples. This is God's will, and this is why we have set out to study all the things that Jesus commanded beginning in Matthew 4. In the previous chapter, we looked at Matthew 4:19, where Jesus turned to Simon Peter and Andrew and said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." We looked at what the command "Follow Me" implies. In this chapter, we want to look at the rest of that verse.

Read the Bible Slowly, Intending to Obey

We need to read the verse slowly and carefully. Many Christians don't read the Bible slowly - they don't meditate on it or think about the words - and therefore they miss what God has for them. Much more important than going through the Bible 50 times in a year, is the Bible going through you once, in a way that changes you. I don't want to get into the Guinness Book of Records for how many times I read through the Bible or how many verses in the Bible I have memorized; I am not in a competition with anybody on those issues. (It is certainly good to read through the Bible many times. And it is also good to memorize portions of Scripture, if you apply them in your life, claim those promises, and obey those commands. Otherwise, it's worthless head knowledge that will only puff you up. But it is much more important to let the Bible go through you).

One of the prayers that I have prayed and continue to pray is, firstly, "Lord, before I leave this earth, I want to obey every single commandment that You have given me to obey, especially in the New Testament." There are many commands God gave Israel in the old covenant that are not for me, such as sacrificing lambs, keeping the Sabbath day, etc. But every one of the commands in Scripture that is meant for me, I want to obey completely (100%) before I leave this earth. Secondly, I pray, "Lord, before I leave this earth, I want to claim every promise that You have given me, especially in the New Testament." There are promises to Israel and to Abraham, which I am not interested in claiming. But before I leave this earth, I want to claim every single one of the promises which are for me - a child of God - whether in the Old Testament or New Testament. Isn't this a good prayer to pray? Why should I leave this earth ignoring certain sections of Scripture, certain commandments, or certain promises? I want to claim all of them before I reach heaven so that I can stand before my Lord not having despised a single commandment or promise of His. How do you think you would feel if, when you stood before the Lord, you discovered that you neglected a lot of His commandments, even just the small ones? Or if you discovered that you neglected to claim some of His promises, which made your life unnecessarily miserable on earth? I would feel terrible if I stood before the Lord like that! So I don't want to neglect any of His commandments or promises. That is why we want to read Scripture carefully.

Follow Jesus to Become a Fisher of Men

Keeping the above in mind, let us consider the simple statement "I will make you fishers of men." Who is going to make you a fisher of men? Christ. No man can make you a fisher of men. You can go to a Bible college and spend years there, but it will not make you a fisher of men. You don't become a fisher of men by studying the Bible, by hearing a missionary challenge and raising your hand, or by coming forward and kneeling down to consecrate your life for God's work. No, if you want to be a fisher of men, the Lord says, "Follow Me." Not even, "Study the Bible," but, "Follow Me."

The early Christians did not have a Bible. How could they become fishers of men? By following Jesus. We must understand this correctly. We certainly must study the Scriptures, as we learned at the beginning of this study: "Man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). But we must not become idol worshippers of the Bible. Don't become a biblioidolator. The Bible is meant to help us follow Jesus better. The Holy Spirit uses the Word to show us the glory of Jesus Christ. And to follow Jesus is the way to become a fisher of men. It is Jesus Christ Himself Who is going to make you a fisher of men, not some missionary Bible training institute. God may use men, but ultimately it is Christ who wants to have a personal relationship with you, and He alone can make you a fisher of men.

True Fishermen Bring Men Completely Out of the Water of This World

What does it mean to be fishers of men? To be fishers of men is to be just like fishermen who go into the sea or river and let down their nets to pick up fish and bring them to the shore. They bring them from one surrounding into another. The fish is not naturally comfortable on earth; it is comfortable in the sea! And a fisherman is picking that fish up from the water and bringing it to earth, to a completely different environment from what it was in. It is important to understand that it is not like capturing a lion or an elephant and putting it in a cage, because the lion is already used to living on the earth, not in the sea. But when you catch a fish, it is being taken out of one environment, and put into a completely different one. Land and water are like opposites. So to be a fisher of men - a real fisher of men - is to go to people who are in the waters of this world, pick them up from there, and bring them into a completely different environment: the kingdom of heaven.

If you haven't brought a person out of the kingdom of this earth and into the kingdom of heaven, you haven't really brought that fish out. You may have kept that fish in your net perhaps, but if it is still in the water, you haven't really brought it out. You haven't really become a fisher of men. Which fisherman catches a fish in a net and leaves it in the net, still in the water, where the fish is very comfortable? But once you bring it out to the earth, you see how fish behaves. When it is on land, it flaps around and says, "Hey, I'm not very comfortable here!"

When a person is transported from the kingdom of earth to the kingdom of heaven - just like when a fish comes out of the water and onto the land - he is brought into a completely different environment altogether. The Holy Spirit makes us comfortable in the kingdom of heaven. So don't feel that you have completed your job and you are therefore a "fisher of men" just because you made a hundred people say, "Lord Jesus, come into my heart." Unfortunately, that is what has happened with many believers. They have not meditated on what it means to be a fisher of men because other human beings and teachers have made them fishers of men - not Christ. If Christ were to make you a fisher of men, it would be on the same principle that He preached two verses earlier, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We must teach these 'fish' to turn around and seek for the kingdom of heaven, to come into a completely different environment than they were in. That is what a fisherman is doing. He is taking a fish from the sea onto the land, and we must take people out of the kingdom of earth into the kingdom of heaven - out of the kingdom of the devil and into the kingdom of God - if we are to be true fishers of men. It is only Jesus who can make us fishers of men. Nobody else can do it.

Furthermore, it is not just the evangelist who is a fisher of men. The evangelist is only doing part of that job. The prophet, the apostle, the teacher, the shepherd, the pastor also have to complete the job of making these people really comfortable in their new environment, the kingdom of heaven. The complete task is to take a person out of the sea and onto the land - out from the kingdom of earth and into the kingdom of heaven. And the way to do that is to follow Christ. If I follow Jesus, I will do that just like He did it.

Don't Be Discouraged If Some Fish Want to Go Back into the Water of the World

Jesus called twelve people to be His apostles but He only succeeded in transferring eleven of them to the values of the kingdom of heaven; one of them dropped out. This teaches us that despite our best efforts, some will still drop out when we seek to lead people into God's kingdom. We are not to be discouraged by that because that happened even in Jesus' church. Even if somebody steals money in your church, don't get discouraged; even in Jesus' church, somebody stole money - Judas Iscariot. So we are not talking about a perfect 100% success with all those we work with. Jesus did not have perfect success with all those He worked with. He always said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." He does not force people to enter into His Kingdom. He did not force Judas Iscariot, and He will not force anybody else. So don't get discouraged if you find some people dropping out. Paul once said that, "all who are in Asia turned away from me" (2 Timothy 1:15). He once looked at his co-workers and said, "I have no one else of kindred spirit (like Timothy) who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own interests" (Philippians 2:20-21). But he was not discouraged because he knew that the way to life was narrow and few would find it. Jesus knew that (He taught it in Matthew 7), the apostles knew it, and I know it. We work with everybody, recognizing all the time that only few will really make it - only few will find the way to life - because most people are just not interested. They want the things of heaven as well as the things of the earth, and so they end up like Judas Iscariot or like the people who turned away from Paul. But if we are faithful with our job, there will always be a remnant that really becomes a part of the kingdom of heaven on earth and becomes a very powerful church, as a witness for Christ on this earth. They may not be large in number. In fact, they will not be large in number, because the way to life is narrow and very few find it. It is very important to understand that it is the Lord who makes us fishers of men.

Becoming Fishers of Men Changes Our Entire Outlook

Think of the picture in Jeremiah 18, where the Lord told Jeremiah to go to the potter's house. There he saw the potter taking clay and making a beautiful vessel out of it. It is amazing how experienced potters can make beautiful vessels out of ordinary mud. We are also like mud that the Lord takes and, by the power of Holy Spirit, transforms into servants of God - fishers of men. Most people in the world are fishing for money. They are looking for opportunities to make money just like fishermen who look for where they can catch plenty of fish. That is the way most people live on the earth. "Where can I make more money? Over here or over there?" However, when a person begins to seek God's kingdom first, his mindset changes. He is thinking of where he can turn more people into members of God's kingdom - to be more Christlike. He is looking for opportunities where he can bring an unconverted person to Christ, or where he can bring a person who is converted but not yet a disciple into being a disciple, or where he can make a disciple who is just sitting lazily, to obey every single thing that Jesus commanded, so that he is completely in the kingdom of heaven, following in Jesus' footsteps. Then he can reproduce himself in another generation that begins to follow Jesus. So first I begin to follow Jesus, and then as I fish for people and seek that they be transformed into people who follow Jesus completely, I produce another generation of disciples.

This is what we should do with our own children. Every true disciple of Jesus should desire that every single one of his sons and daughters also become followers of Jesus, so that Jesus (not I) can make them fishers of men. There are many preachers who promote their own children to follow in their footsteps. I am not talking about that type of nonsense. Only Jesus can make anybody a fisher of men. I can never make my children fishers of men. Jesus has to do that. I can encourage them to follow Jesus, but Jesus has to make them His servants. I cannot do that no matter how much I try. It is very important to recognize this difference as we seek to train our children and the younger generation whom we minister to, to follow Jesus' footsteps and say, "Lord, please make them fishers of men as well. Make them people who will draw others out of this world and bring them into your everlasting kingdom".

Jesus' Principles for Catching Men

In this process, we have to learn from the examples that Jesus gave in the gospels. Jesus taught those fishermen how to fish through His actions. He taught them once at the beginning of His ministry and once at the end of His ministry. It is very interesting to see that. We read of Jesus cleansing the temple twice - once at the beginning of His ministry (in John 2) and once at the end of His ministry as well. In the same way, we find Him teaching the disciples this truth by illustration once at the beginning of His ministry (in Luke 5) and then at the end of His ministry, too (in John 21). Consider the example in Luke 5 and see how He taught them to catch earthly fish as a principle by which we can learn how He makes us fishers of men.

In Luke 5, we read that Jesus was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. "And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, 'Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch' (Luke 5:1-4). Jesus had borrowed Peter's boat, and so He want to repay Peter for it (wasn't that kind of Christ?). Simon answered and said, "Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets" (Luke 5:5). This is the principle we need to understand in serving the Lord. If you work hard all your life without the power of the Holy Spirit, you will discover when you stand in heaven one day that you caught nothing, even if you yourself are in the boat and you are saved. Do you want a life like that? I certainly don't want it. That is why I want to learn to listen to Jesus, the word of God, and the voice of God in the Holy Spirit. Jesus says to him, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch," and Simon was willing to respond. He says, "even though we caught nothing, at Your bidding, I will let down the nets" (Luke 5:5).

This is the first principle: "Lord I will not go by my human reason. I am going to do what You say, even though my human reason says it's a waste of time - having tried all night, in the same areas, going to every single spot in this lake and not getting any fish." Imagine how many hours in the night they might have toiled (maybe 7-8 hours) and caught nothing. They were absolutely sure there were no fish down there, but at Jesus' bidding, they let down their nets again anyway. Their attitude was, "Lord, if You told us to do it, we'll do it." So they went out into the waters and "when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; so they signaled to their partners in other boats for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats" (Luke 5:6-7). This is like a picture of churches cooperating together, eager to bring people completely into God's kingdom and acknowledging that, "we cannot do all of this alone. Let us cooperate and fill both boats." Imagine getting such a catch that they even began to sink. "But when Simon Peter saw that," he knew it was an absolute miracle and not something accidental, and "he fell down at Jesus' feet, saying, 'Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!' For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, 'Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men'" (Luke 5:8-10).

This is Jesus' first principle for catching men: Recognize that you cannot do it on your own, and that all your labor will amount to zero. Bow your head before God and say, "Lord I do not want to do my will in my life. I do not want to serve You according to my plan. I do not want to go to this part of the lake or that part of the lake according to my own choice. You tell me where I must go and I will go." Is that the way you seek to serve the Lord? Only then will you accomplish God's will.

This is one of the great blessings I have discovered, particularly in the last 36 years, as I have sought to listen to where God wants me to go. I do not go everywhere people invite me because that may not be where God wants me to go. People think that I am a gifted brother, and if I speak somewhere, it will automatically be a blessing. Not so! I cannot be a blessing, except when God sends me. I cannot catch fish, unless God tells me to go. That is the first thing we need to understand. The second thing we need to understand is that when the Lord tells you to go, despite what all your feelings and your reason say, go, and you will find that God has a purpose in sending you there. I have found this many times.

The other example is in John 21, at the end of Jesus' ministry. This is the last miracle that He worked after the resurrection. We read in John 21:3 that the disciples went fishing in a boat, and they toiled all night, and again caught nothing. This time Jesus was not in the boat. This was a repetition of the lesson they had learnt three years earlier at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. "So Jesus said to them, 'Children, you do not have any fish, do you?' They answered Him, 'No.' And He said to them, 'Cast the net on the right-hand side of the boat and you will find a catch.' So they cast, and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish" (John 21:5-6). This teaches the same lesson: we can toil all night without seeking the Lord's will. It says, "Simon Peter said to them, 'I am going fishing.' And the others said, 'We will also come with you'" (John 21:3). They went out doing their own will and caught nothing. Then a few hours later, as the day breaks, Jesus comes to them, after they had come to an end of themselves, and asks, "Have you caught anything with all your labor, doing your own will?" Very often the Lord has to wait until we come to an end of ourselves.

Look at the quality of your converts - they are defeated, they fight with each other, they love money, they do not do anything that Jesus commanded. Is that the type of fish you are going to present to Jesus? The Apostle Paul said that he wanted to present to God an offering that is acceptable to Him. Are the believers that you have converted in your church the type that are acceptable to God? Or do they fight and quarrel with each other? How are the married couples in your church? How are the children being brought up in your church? Are they acceptable to God? Paul says in Romans 15, "I want them to be acceptable to God." It is very important that we present the best before God. Just like when we invite an important person to our house for a meal. Paul says, "I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin" (2 Corinthians 11:2). In Colossians he says, I want to "present every man perfect in Christ and to this end I labor" (Colossians 1:28-29).

What does it mean to catch fish? To present the best possible fish to our Lord, by going out, laboring and working with other members of the body of Christ, not by ourselves, but by cooperating according to His leading. We do our part, and they do their part, so that finally we can transport people from the kingdom of earth into the kingdom of heaven and present to God an offering that is acceptable to Him, a pure virgin to be the Bride of Christ. Let us labor for that day. The way to do it is to follow Jesus Christ and allow Him to make us, like a potter makes clay, into a beautiful vessel.

Chapter 10

Follow God’s Will for You

Jesus' Ministry in Galilee

"Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people" (Matthew 4:23).

Jesus went about in all of Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of this kingdom - the same gospel of the kingdom of heaven that He has commanded us to proclaim. He was healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. It did not matter what that disease was. There was not a sickness that He could not cure. There was not a disease that He could not heal. The news went about into all of Syria outside of Israel and they brought to him all who were ill. Even non-Jewish people brought people with various diseases and pains. They brought demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics and Jesus healed them. There was nobody who was not healed. We have never seen a healing ministry like that since that time.

Jesus was the only One Who healed in such a miraculous way that every single disease and sickness was healed. In today's so-called healing campaigns, people are excited if one out of a thousand people walk out of a wheelchair, but so many people go away disappointed from these healing meetings with their diseases and sicknesses. Many of those who were proclaimed healed die a few days later.

This is not the reputation of the healing ministry of Jesus. A lot of this is just a mighty deception fooling people in order to collect their money. We should not be fooled by that. Don't ever think that is the reputation of Jesus' healing ministry. If you want to see the healing ministry of Jesus, read Matthew 4:23-24. Have you seen anything comparable to even 0.01% of that? No, we have not. Nowhere does that happen.

Why did Jesus heal like this? In Acts 2:22, Peter says to the multitude, "Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst." The miracles and healings of Jesus were an attestation by the Father - "This is My Son." This was needed before He went to the cross so that people would know that this was indeed the Son of God dying for the sins of the world on the cross. It was an attestation from God.

Healing Miracle Is Not Guaranteed for Everyone

This was not something that every one of His disciples was supposed to do because there is not a single disciple who could do what Jesus did in this area of healing, not even the great, mighty Apostle Paul. Yes, Paul raised a dead man once (Acts 20), but he could not heal a simple problem like Timothy's stomach aches. Where is the comparison between a stomachache and a dead man?

Paul could raise a dead man in Acts 20 but he says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:23, "For your frequent stomach aches, take a little wine as medicine." Do you not think Paul laid his hands on Timothy and prayed for him? I am sure he did many times. But Timothy was not healed. Timothy would have said to Paul, "Paul, I'm having frequent stomach aches. Can you pray for me?" Paul prayed for him and nothing happened. Paul said, "Okay, just take some medicine." Do you think Paul did not pray for Trophimus? In 2 Timothy 4:20, Paul writes, "I prayed for Trophimus but he is still sick. I left him sick at Miletus." Trophimus could have travelled with Paul, but he was sick and was not healed yet, so he couldn't go. We must be realistic when it comes to this matter of healing.

The miracles and healings of Jesus were total, but they were an attestation from God as to Who He was. Jesus was the Son of God Who has come to die for the sins of the world. We must keep this in mind so that we do not get an unrealistic idea of what Jesus has commanded us to do. Jesus has not commanded us to go into all the world and heal all the sick people. There will be healings and confirmations with healings, but that's not the main emphasis of our ministry. In Mark 16:17, Jesus says "Go and preach the gospel to all creation and these signs will accompany those who have believed."

We need to read Scripture slowly, carefully, and exactly.

"In My Name, they will cast out demons.

In My Name, they will speak in new languages.

They will pick up serpents, and if they drink deadly things, it will not hurt them.

They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

Who is going to do this? Not every single believer, as it is often taught. It says "The group of people who believe in Me" (Mark 16:17) - the body of people who believe in Jesus. These signs will be in their midst. It is enough if one person out of 1,000 do it. But what will they do? They will cast out demons. They will speak in unknown tongues. It is all happening even today. When they are hurt by serpents or poison, they are protected supernaturally. When these people travel to preach in unknown regions, they face so many dangers and God protects them.

In their midst, there will be some who recover from sickness. These signs will accompany that group of people. This refers to the group of people who have believed. It is not something that every believer does. It does happen, even today, but differently from the ministry of Jesus, where every single person was healed. It says a number of times in the gospels that Jesus "healed them all" (for example, in Matthew 4:23 and Matthew 9:35). We must have an accurate understanding of this matter of healing. Jesus did not tell us to go into all the world and heal everybody.

Jesus Did Tell Us to Make Disciples and Teach Them to Do All That He Commanded Us

Jesus told us to go into all the world and make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to do all that He commanded. You are not to heal everybody who is sick. You are not to even heal every believer who is sick. If we try to add to Scripture, we get into problems. This is different from the Commission that Jesus gave in Matthew 10, which was given before the new covenant was established. When Jesus called His disciples, the very first thing He said to them was "Do not go to the nations" (Matthew 10:5). If you really expect to apply the commands in Matthew 10 for yourself, then you must begin with the first command: "Do not go to the nations, do not go to the Samaritans. Go only to the Israelites." Isn't that very clear? He could not be clearer than that. But there are people who ignore that first part and take the rest of it, saying the last part is for us as well. It does not seem to work in many cases. But they deceive believers who do not read the Scriptures carefully. Read them slowly and carefully.

"Do not go to the nations, to the people of other nationalities. Do not even go to the Samaritans (who are half Jews and half Assyrians), but go only to Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand'" (Matthew 10:5-7). Today, this is not our message. We do not preach today that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We say, "The kingdom of heaven is here. Get your sins forgiven. Turn to Christ." Their message was the kingdom of heaven is near. This was a preparation for what was coming in the future. Jesus said to them, "Heal the sick." But where? In Israel. Raise the dead in Israel, cleanse the lepers in Israel, and cast out demons in Israel. Freely you have received, so freely give.

Jesus also said, "Do not ever acquire any gold or silver" (Matthew 10:9). How many preachers have you seen who follow that command? "Do not acquire any gold or silver. Do not carry any money with you." Where have you seen preachers following that? People are selective. They pick and choose from different verses and say, "This is for us; this is not for us." That is playing the fool with God and playing the fool with Scripture. Either take the whole thing or dump the whole thing! These words are not for us. This is what Jesus told His disciples to do when they went to Israel. Then He said, "Do not even take a bag for your journey. Do not take two coats." How many preachers have you seen like that? "Do not take an extra pair of sandals or a staff because wherever you go, the Lord will provide for you" (Matthew 10:10). He goes on giving them further descriptions of what they should do. When He finally commissions them at the end of His life in Luke 22, He cancels out the instructions He gave in Matthew 10. Many people have not seen Luke 22. "When I sent you out three years ago, I sent you out without a purse or bag or an extra pair of sandals. Did you lack anything? Did you not find that your sandals probably never wore out? Did you not find that somebody provided your needs supernaturally? You had no purse, no bag, and no sandals. You lacked nothing, but now, we are entering a new phase of ministry. Those rules I gave to you in Matthew 10 to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and raise the dead do not apply now. "Do not take a purse. Do not take sandals.' That does not apply now. What should you do now? Take a purse with you. This is new covenant ministry. Take a purse with you. If you do not have a bag, take a bag with you. And if you don't have a sword, get one." Jesus never told them to go with a sword in Matthew 10. Jesus now says, "If you don't have a sword, it is better to sell your robe and buy one because you are going to face all types of dangers. You need to defend yourself. You don't use a sword to attack people, but you need to have a sword to defend yourself. For I tell you, this is going to be fulfilled, 'He was numbered with the transgressors.' And the disciples said, 'Lord, here are two swords.' They had two swords with them, and He said that was enough" (Luke 22:35-38).

Why Did Jesus Tell Disciples to Take Swords?

What was He telling them to take swords for when they went to Gethsemane? Peter took one of the swords and chopped up somebody's ear. Jesus healed that ear and told Peter to put his sword back. Jesus said, "He who takes the sword will perish with the sword" (Matthew 26:51-52). They could have said, "Lord, You're the One Who told us to bring these swords!" Jesus would have told them, "I never told you to bring swords to attack people. What I meant was if the Roman soldiers take out their swords to attack you, you do not have to lift up your hands and get injured. Bring a sword so that you can defend yourself with it." In other words, you can use the sword for defense, but never to attack. When we do not understand the words of Jesus clearly, we can go to an extreme position like a lot of people who say we should never take a sword at all. That is trying to be more spiritual than Jesus Christ Himself. If somebody attacks you, you have every right to defend yourself, but you are not to attack someone.

If somebody takes you to court, you have a right to defend yourself, but you do not go taking other people to court. That is the point. You do not attack people, but you can defend yourself. We have a right to do that. When people slapped Jesus, He said, "If I have spoken the truth, why do you slap Me?" (John 18:23). So we have a right to defend ourselves but never to attack. If we understand this, we realize that our calling today is not what we read in Matthew 10, because Jesus did not tell us to go and do what He has done. What is the command in Matthew 28? "Go into all the world, make disciples, and teach them to do all that I have commanded."

If we read Scripture exactly, we find that it literally gets fulfilled. We can do everything that Jesus commanded, but we cannot do everything that Jesus did. All those preachers who pretend to tell you that they are doing everything that Jesus did in the realm of miracles and healings are deceiving you. We need to understand what Jesus meant. "Go and teach them to do all that I commanded, not all the ministry that I did." When Jesus said, "Follow Me," He was not telling us to follow Him in His ministry , but in His life.

Be Followers of Christ's Life

The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Be followers of me as I am of Christ." There are two people in the New Testament who said, "Follow me." No Old Testament prophet could ever say follow me. Their life was not an example to be followed. Not Isaiah or Moses; there was nobody. They could only proclaim, "Hear what God says through me. These are God's words." But not one of them could say "Follow my example." Moses quarreled with his wife and disobeyed God in not circumcising his son. They were not all good examples in their life, but they could proclaim God's Word accurately and say, "Thus said the Lord." But in the new covenant, we do not just say, "Thus said the Lord." We do not just say, "Come and hear what God is saying." In the new covenant, we say, " Come and see what God has done," which is different from the Old Testament prophets saying, "Come and hear what God is saying." The New Testament prophet says, "Come and see what God has done in my life. Come and see what God has done in my family. Come and see what God has done in me. Now I want to teach you to obey what Jesus has commanded so that He can do the same thing in your life. Follow me."

Jesus was the first Person in the Bible to say, "Follow Me." Then we read Paul saying, "Follow me as I follow Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). He goes on to say in Philippians 3:17, "Brothers, follow my example. And not only my example, but observe others who are walking like me. You can follow their example too, because I'm following Christ. "Christ is like the person who has climbed to the top of a 10,000 meter high mountain. He has reached the top, and we're following. Paul is probably ahead of us. Maybe he has gone up 3,000-4,000 meters. He says to those behind him, "Follow me." Maybe I have gone only up to 500 meters. I can say to people who are still further lower down on the mountain, "Follow me." I can follow the example of others who are ahead of me, who are following Christ to the peak. The peak is total likeness to Christ. That is the goal. The goal is not to heal all the sick people in the world, but to become totally like Jesus Christ in our life, and from that life will be an overflow of ministry.

We need to understand this. Jesus did not command us to go and tell people to do the same ministry He did. We could not follow Paul when he said, "Follow me" if he was speaking of ministry. He was not telling us to become apostles. How can everybody be an apostle? How can everybody be a prophet or an evangelist like Paul was? He was saying, "Follow me in my life. Imitate me in the way I imitate Christ." Even the Apostle Paul could not imitate Christ's ministry of healing all the sick, walking on water, or feeding 5,000 people with five loaves of bread. There were times when Paul said he himself was hungry (2 Corinthians 11:27). When he was in need, he shivered in the cold and asked Timothy to bring a blanket for him (2 Timothy 4:13). The early Christians suffered in many ways. They were not protected when they were thrown to the lions, but they followed Jesus, Who refused protection when He was being crucified. It is His life that we have to follow. We cannot follow Jesus in His ministry.

The clearest example of this is that His ministry included dying for the sins of the world. How in the world can we follow that ministry? We cannot. So, it is in His life that we follow. We need to distinguish between Jesus' life and His ministry. In one sentence Jesus could say He did the will of His Father - both in His life and in His ministry. We can do the will of God for us in our lives and in our ministry as well. In our life, it is to follow the example of Jesus exactly. That is what Paul did. In our ministry, it is to fulfill that particular function in the body of Christ that is given to us. If we understand this distinction between the life of Jesus and the ministry of Jesus, we will find that we are protected from deception and save ourselves from a lot of unreality and hypocrisy. A lot of hypocrisy is in Christians who pretend that they are doing the same things that Jesus did.

People sometimes ask, "What does it mean when Jesus said after the Last Supper, 'Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father. I am going to ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit' (John 14:12,16)?" What He was saying is when the Holy Spirit was going to come, you're going to be able to do the works that He did and greater works than those. We need to understand that.

If you were to ask somebody what are the works that Jesus did, they will immediately talk about healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water, feeding the 5000 with five loaves of bread. But you would only be talking about the last 10% of Jesus' life! This is what He did in the last three and a half years of His life. Is that all He did? What about the other 90% of His life? What did He do in that 90% of His life? What did He do throughout all of His life? In one sentence: He did the will of His Father. Jesus Himself said in John 6:38, "I came from heaven not to raise the dead, heal the sick, and walk on water. I came from heaven to deny My Own will and to do the will of My Father."

That in a nutshell is "the works of Jesus." He came to say "No" to His Own will and to do the will of His Father. The will of His Father included preaching the Sermon on the Mount, healing all who were sick, sometimes healing only one person like in the pool of Bethesda, walking on water, making Peter walk on water, and feeding the 5,000 with five loaves. The will of the Father for Paul did not include walking on water or feeding 5,000 with 5 loaves or raising someone who had been dead for four days like Lazarus, but it included fulfilling the will of the Father.

That is the point. The works that Jesus did were, in one sentence, the will of God. Paul did that as well. For him, the will of God was to travel around, plant churches, and write Scripture. Jesus never wrote any Scripture, but Paul did. We are not called to write Scripture. But we are called to do the will of our Father. Those are the works of Jesus. This included His obedience to Joseph and Mary at home. If Mary asked Him to bring a bucket of water from the well, Jesus would bring a full bucket of water. Those are the works of Jesus: obedience to the Father in the little things and the big things. All of us can do that. That in a nutshell is the works that He did and He says we can do that.

The opposite of that is living in sin or doing our own will. He was saying there you do not have to do your own will. You do not have to live in sin anymore. You can do the works I did. You can live in purity doing God's will.

What Are the Greater Works That Jesus Mentioned?

"And greater works than these shall you do." What is that? There is one work that Jesus could never do when He was on earth, and that was to make people one. He had preached to His 12 disciples for three and half years. At the Last Supper, they were still arguing as to who was the greatest and who was going to be the leader after Jesus dies (Luke 22:24). And He said, "You are going to do a greater work than that" (John 14:12). The reason why Jesus could not make His disciples one was not because of any failure on His part, but because they did not have the Holy Spirit within them. When people do not have the Holy Spirit, even Jesus cannot make them one. So He said, "After I go and I ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit (John 14:16) then the Spirit of God will come inside your hearts. Then you will become one. Then you will do a greater work."

That greater work He was referring to is to build the body of Jesus Christ. Not a congregation of people, like in the Old Testament, who were unrelated to each other, but born-again believers who are one with each other exactly like the members of a human body, functioning perfectly together. Those twelve disciples did not function like the members of a body because they did not have the Holy Spirit within them. But once the Holy Spirit came, Jesus said, "You are going to be able to do a greater work than even I have done." That is why building the church and building the body of Christ is the greatest work that anybody can ever do on this earth. And for that, we have to obey the command in Matthew 28:19-20 and make disciples in every nation. You cannot build a church without disciples. You cannot build the church if you don't teach them to do every single thing that Jesus commanded.

I hope that makes it clear as to what exactly it means to be a servant of God in this new covenant age. I hope it clears this fog of confusion concerning healing ministry. We believe in praying for the sick (James 5), but our calling primarily is to teach people to do all that Jesus has commanded. If we come across demon-possessed people, we have to deliver them in Jesus' name. I have done that myself often. We need to do that. But my primary ministry is to lead people to obey all that Jesus commanded, because that is the only way we will be able to build the church as the body of Christ. The church is God's ultimate goal, against which the gates of hell will never prevail.

Chapter 11

Right Attitudes 1 to 3

Beatitudes/Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5 marks the beginning of what is known as the Sermon on the Mount, which comprises the next three chapters of Matthew. There's a lot of instruction here.

Beatitudes Were for Disciples

“When He saw the multitudes, He went up to the mountain, His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them” (Matthew 5:2). The first thing we should notice is that Jesus was speaking to His disciples. The Sermon on the Mount was not given to the multitudes primarily, but to His disciples - it was to those who wanted to follow Him. Only they could understand and live by the standards of the sermon. Many times, Christians neglect these three chapters, or take their instruction lightly. They say something like, “This is not for us, this is for the Jews!” There are many crazy, foolish, stupid arguments like that among Christians who do not want to obey all that Jesus taught. They find many excuses to do away with what Jesus taught. But if we see that these are very important words that Jesus spoke specifically to His disciples, then those of us who are disciples will take them very seriously (even if the multitudes are also permitted to listen).

Jesus Prepared This Message for 30 Years

It says, “He sat down, His disciples came to Him, and He taught them.” And at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, it says, “the multitudes were amazed at His teaching” (7:28). The picture is one of Jesus getting His few disciples close to Him and speaking to them, and the multitudes are behind them listening to what He was saying as well. They were amazed at his teaching, and one paraphrase says, “It was obvious that He was living (He had lived) what He was preaching” (Matthew 7:29 MSG). He had authority (unlike the scribes who preached without authority), and the reason behind Jesus’ authority was that He lived every word of what He spoke.

People take a lot of time preparing sermons. How long did Jesus take to prepare the Sermon on the Mount? Thirty years. He was speaking out of His life. These are not notes that He sat down one day earlier and wrote down to speak on, like a lot of preachers do today. He was speaking out of His life, a life that had faced all types of temptations and various circumstances in Nazareth. And from there, He was now speaking out of His life, and that is the example for how we ought to speak as well, as we have considered already in this study.

An Outline of the Sermon on the Mount

The first verses of the Sermon on the Mount describe nine “Blessed”s or nine of what I would call, “right attitudes” (beatitudes – verses 3-12). Then Jesus gives a little introduction in Matthew 5:13-20. From 5:21 up to Matthew 7:6, Jesus describes nine wrong attitudes that a believer should not have. At the end of chapter 7 is a conclusion, from 7:7 onwards. We will begin by looking at each of the right attitudes that Jesus taught.

Right Attitude #1: Poor in Spirit (Matt 5:3)

First of all in Matthew 5:3 Jesus says, “blessed are the poor in spirit.” This word “blessed” can mean “happy” or like the Amplified Bible says, “someone to be envied.” If you want to envy somebody on earth, don’t envy the rich person, don't envy the famous person, and don't envy the good-looking person. Envy the one who's poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to him. People with many other qualities, such as charisma and wealth, can have things on this earth and possess a kingdom on earth, but the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit. In the long run, this is the one who is really to be envied, because his wealth is going to last for all eternity. When we think of our lifetime on earth, even if it's 70 or 80 years, if you really believe that man is an eternal being (eternity is never-ending, millions of years are like one second in eternity), what would 70 years be? Nothing! In 2 Peter, it says a thousand years is like one day before the Lord and one day is like a thousand years! In the light of eternity, our entire life on earth is very short.

A wise person is one who really seeks to have a future in God's kingdom, and here we are told that the one who's going to have the maximum possessions in God's kingdom is the one who is poor in spirit. This is a phrase that is not understood by many Christians because they don't seek to understand these seemingly confusing statements of Scripture. They just read and move on. One thing that helps me is to think in terms of an illustration. I find that when I think in terms of pictures, I get a clearer understanding of the Scripture. In fact, Jesus Himself explained many doctrines in terms of pictures, such as salt and light, and through many parables.

A Picture of Spiritual Poverty

We can compare “poor in spirit” with “poor in body,” because man is spirit and body, and we understand what it is to be poor in body. A tramp or a beggar is poor in body, which means he does not have what it takes to care for his bodily needs. A really poor beggar who's living on the streets might go from house to house begging for his needs, only to get just enough to survive for the day, and then he would have to come back to the same house to receive some more for the next day. So applying that picture to the phrase, “poor in spirit,” we see that Jesus means a person who is aware of his spiritual need every day. He is describing a person who is just like that beggar, who is aware of his physical need every day and goes to some generous man's house for help. And if the man asks him, “What about what I gave you yesterday?” he would say, “That was finished yesterday - the money you gave me yesterday was just enough for yesterday's need, and again I am in need. I am penniless, I'm in need.”

A person who is “poor in spirit” is one who comes to God in that way, saying, “Lord I'm a needy person.” He comes to God every single day aware of his spiritual need, and asks for help to meet his spiritual need, just like the beggar would ask for help to meet his physical needs. In the book of Proverbs, there is a verse that speaks about this condition. Proverbs 8 is a chapter on wisdom, and Christ is pictured here as wisdom, saying, “I, wisdom…” (starting in verse 12). He goes on to say that it is through wisdom that the world was created. And it says in verse 24 that He was there before the fields were there and the earth and everything else - when He established the heavens (verse 27), He was there. So wisdom is what we need, and it says, “Blessed is the man who listens to me, who watches daily at my gates.” Think of that beggar now, waiting at God’s doorposts. Just like a beggar waiting for his daily gift of money, we are to come before God as spiritual paupers every day.

We won't come like that unless we are needy. Rich people don't go begging at other people's houses; they would be ashamed to do it. A beggar is not ashamed because he's needy. He doesn't have money for food or his daily necessities, and he's aware of that. It’s only the person who's aware of his spiritual need every day who will come before God every single day and say, “Lord I'm a needy person. Please give me wisdom for today.” And as it says in Proverbs 8:35, “He who finds me finds life.” This is what it means to be poor in spirit: to be aware of our spiritual need constantly. The one who is aware of his spiritual need constantly, and who keeps seeking for wisdom from God, will possess the entire kingdom of heaven. If you see the kingdom of heaven as the riches of God's kingdom, the Bible says in Ephesians 1:3, that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Every single blessing of the Holy Spirit is ours in Christ in the heavenly places. We can think of all the spiritual blessings in the kingdom of heaven as a huge mansion with thousand rooms, and the master key that opens every door of that mansion is a poverty of spirit. Blessed is the one who is poor in spirit, because he can possess the entire kingdom of heaven - that is, every single room of the mansion. The treasures in every room will be his, if he holds fast to this master key.

Be Aware of Your Own Need, Not Judgmental of Others’ Needs

The master key to possess God's kingdom is to be aware of your own need. Very often the devil makes us aware of the needs of other people. Towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks about the wrong attitude of judging others. He says to leave them alone. Judge yourself, and don't worry about the speck in somebody else's eye. See the log in your own eye, your own need. This is how Jesus begins and ends the Sermon on the Mount. Be aware of your own need. Don't be a busybody in other people's matters. Aware of your own spiritual need, come before God, and wait before Him day by day.

It is not enough to only be aware of our need in the beginning, when we come to the Lord. When we first come to Christ, we're all aware that we are sinners. We are hopelessly lost, and at that time we are very aware of the fact that we need Christ’s help to have our sins forgiven; but many people stop there. We don't realize that we need God's help for deliverance from this wretched nature, the corrupt nature that we've inherited from Adam, which has everything in it contrary to the nature of Christ. And if we're longing for that, we will become aware of our own need and we won't be looking at other people’s needs. A tramp or a beggar comes to a house asking for charity for himself, and that's how we have to come to God. We must say “Lord, I'm a needy person. I'm needy.” It is very easy to recognize and acknowledge that on the day we are born again, but we still need to live recognizing our need 50 years after we are born again. I'm personally very thankful that God has opened my eyes to see the great secret of the Christian life, to be aware of my need every day, even 52 years after I was born-again: to come before God empty-handed and say, “Lord I need You.”

The picture that Jesus used of need is that of a branch in a tree, “I am the vine and you are the branches,” He said. A branch is always aware of its need. Even if a branch has been in the tree and produced mangoes for 50 years, it still needs to remain in the tree to produce mangoes again this year. It can’t say, “I have 50 years of experience! Now I can be cut off from the tree and produce mangoes on my own.” It is impossible. A branch is constantly “poor in spirit,” and therefore it constantly produces fruit. It’s when a man begins to think that he can rely on his experience and not upon Christ that he stops producing fruit.

Let me also add one other thing: the branches that have been laden down with the most fruit are the ones that bend lowest to the ground, and the most upright branches are the ones that have no fruit. The more spiritual fruit we have, the humbler we will also be. And the less spiritual fruit we have, the prouder we will be. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Right Attitude #2: Mourn for My Sin and Others’

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). The word “comfort” means “strengthened.” It has the little word “f-o-r-t” right in the middle of it. “Fort” is a picture of a huge military protected area - a fort, strengthened. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” People in the world mourn for all types of things. Most people mourn because of some personal loss. Either they lost money, or they lost a loved one, or they lost their reputation, or they lost something of this earth, like their dignity, their position, their job, or something else like that. But Jesus is not speaking about such mourning. It is not mourning because somebody hurt me, nor is it weeping for my own sorrows.

Jesus never wept for His own sorrows, but He did weep for others. We read that He wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and that He wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35), but never once did He weep for the way people treated Him, whether they called Him the devil or spat on Him. He never wept for Himself. Not only that, as He was taking up the cross and stumbling on the road to the cross, we read in Luke 23:27 that a great multitude of people were following Him as He was carrying the cross, and some women were mourning and loudly crying when they saw Him being whipped and beaten, and the blood flowing down His head and back as He carried this heavy cross, with a crown of thorns upon His head. Do you know what Jesus turned around and said to them? “Daughters of Jerusalem stop weeping for Me! I'm OK; yes, My back is torn, there's a crown of thorns on My head, and I am carrying a heavy cross. I'm going to be killed in a few moments, but I'm perfectly okay because I'm in the center of the will of God” (Luke 23:28)! Can you have that attitude when you're suffering the most? “Don't weep for me, I'm OK, but if you want to weep, weep for yourselves and your children - look at their spiritual condition.” They are Pharisees, cloaked in robes and looking very grand. But look at their spiritual condition. What's going to happen in the day when Christ comes back and they say to the mountains, “Fall on us and cover us” (Luke 23:30)? That is the attitude of Jesus. He didn't have any tears for His Own griefs like the song says, but sweat drops of blood for my griefs.

The true disciple of Jesus mourns because he's not like Christ; he mourns when he has sinned, and when he has slipped up. He doesn't mourn for the way people treat him. He believes that's his appointed lot on this earth, to be dishonored for the sake of Christ. But he mourns whenever he has dishonored the Lord by sin or by failure. When he goes to a higher level spiritually, He also mourns for the sins of others, for the failure of others, like Jesus wept over Jerusalem. This is the mourning that Jesus spoke of. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be strengthened.” Perhaps the reason why some of us are not being strengthened is because we’re not mourning for our sin.

Spiritual Fathers Mourn for the Sins of Others

It's an even higher level to go beyond that to mourn for the sins of others. The apostle Paul had reached that higher level. He says to the Corinthians who had failed so miserably, “I'm afraid when I come to you, my God will humble me before you” (2 Corinthians 12:21). Why should God humble Paul? He had lived such an upright life, and was conscious of no sin against himself. But he says, “I will mourn over many of you who have sinned in the past and who have not repented of your impurity, immorality, and sensuality.” He lists some of the things they had in the midst of their church (verse 20): jealousy, anger, tempers disputes, slanders, gossips, arrogance, disturbances, etc. When he thought of all the sins among those people who called themselves God's people, he wept, because he was their spiritual father. It’s just like how an earthly father would weep if his son were very sick. If the father were spiritually minded, he would be very grieved that his son is going astray into drugs or evil habits. Paul was a spiritual father to the Corinthians, and every true Christian shepherd or pastor should be a spiritual father to his flock. One mark of a spiritual father is that he won't just criticize the flock, but he will also weep over them like Paul wept over the Corinthians. Only such a man is fit to be a spiritual leader. In Isaiah 49:10 (Isaiah 49 is a great chapter on spiritual leadership) it says, “He who has compassion on the people will lead them.” Who is fit to be a spiritual leader? It’s the one who has compassion on people. And so the “mourning” in Matthew 5:4 refers to mourning for oneself, for one's own sin, one’s unlikeness to Christ, and mourning for others. We will be strengthened if we do that, and we will find strength to be able to strengthen other people as well if we go along this way.

Right Attitude #3: Be Humble

“Blessed are the gentle (or those who are humble and meek) for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). I believe this refers to those who will not fight for their rights, who will not retaliate when ill-treated. Jesus showed what meekness was when His rights were taken away, and He did not fight back. He did not curse those who cursed Him. He did not pray for God's judgment on those who crucified Him. He said to us in Matthew 11:29, “Learn from Me, for I'm meek and gentle of heart - I'm humble and gentle of heart.” It’s not an easy word to fully translate in English, and that's why there are many different translations that people use - “gentle” (in the margin of my Bible it says “humble, meek”). The general picture is one who is not fighting for his rights on earth, because it says that he shall inherit the earth one day. God gives the earth to those who do not fight for it. This is God's Way.

It's not those who fight for their rights to whom God gives His greatest blessings, but those who yield their rights. Jesus went down to the cross; He yielded up all His rights. His humility and His meekness were seen in this, that He humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a shameful cross (Philippians 2:8). He was humiliated and put to shame, and because He was willing to go down like that, to that level, therefore, it says in verse 9, “God exalted Him and gave Him a name which is above every name.” The reason why Christ is exalted to the right hand of the Father today is not because He was always there for all eternity. He was always there as God. But when He came to earth as a Man, He earned His right to come to the right hand of the Father. It is very important to understand that. He earned a right to come back to the right hand of the Father because He demonstrated the nature of God so perfectly in His earthly life, as a man facing all types of temptations, and He humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. He didn't fight for His rights and therefore, one day the whole earth will be given to Him.

Right now He's been given a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth. That's not yet happened. A lot of people despise the name of Jesus and do not bow to His name today. The demons don't, and a lot of people on earth don't. But a day will definitely come when every knee will bow at the name of Jesus and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the whole earth will be given to Him. It will belong to Him because He was meek. And so, to the ones who follow Him in that road of meekness, Jesus said, “Learn from Me” (Matt 11:29). The only thing He told us to learn from Him was this gentleness and meekness. “Learn from Me, for I’m gentle and humble, meek and lowly of heart.” This is something we have to learn from Jesus Himself. He doesn't tell us to learn from a book. He says, “Look at Me and see how I did not fight for My rights, how I gave up My rights and I was meek and lowly, and you will find rest for your souls.” I believe there’s only one reason why so many Christians are at unrest, in tension, and some have nervous breakdowns: they're not meek. They are inwardly fighting for something. They are seeking for their rights, and therefore they are at unrest.

We must seek to learn these three values: to be poor in spirit, to mourn for our un-Christlikeness and to be meek, never fighting for our rights, but walking in humility and leaving it to God to give us what He sees we need.

Chapter 12

Right Attitudes(4 to 6):Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness, Be Merciful, Be Pure in Heart

The Narrow Way

In the last chapter we looked at Matthew 5:3-5, where we saw the first three “right attitudes” that disciples should have. Jesus was primarily teaching His disciples, as we read in verses 1-2. Notice that these are not characteristics that people in the world appreciate. People in the world do not appreciate being constantly aware of their own need. In the world we are told to be full of self-confidence - confidence in our own ability. This is true as far as physical ability, intellectual ability, and human smartness are concerned, which are all required of salesmen, CEOs, etc.

But when it comes to the spiritual realm, it is exactly the opposite. It is the one who is poor in spirit who is going to possess God's kingdom. It is the one who mourns for his sin who is going to be strengthened spiritually. And it is the one who is meek and does not fight for his own rights who is going to inherit the earth.

In other words, God's ways are not our ways. His way of thinking is completely opposite to this world’s way of thinking. The right attitudes (beatitudes) mentioned here are not things that the world appreciates. In fact they are quite the opposite. That is why, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “This way that I have spoken of is a very narrow way, and very few people find it” (Matthew 7:14 - Paraphrase). I don't anticipate millions of people turning to this way. Millions of people want to go to heaven and millions want the power of the Holy Spirit, but very few want to have the attitudes that Jesus taught are the characteristics of God's people, who live in God's kingdom.

Right Attitude #4: Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). In the world, people are hungering and thirsting for all types of things. If you look at the things that people in the world hunger and thirst for, they are things like wealth, money, a comfortable life, houses and lands, advancement in society, higher position in their jobs, beautifying their appearance, and anything else that will bring them honor, comfort and pleasure in this world. This is also true for many Christians.

Most Christians, even those who claim they're born again, are pursuing these things. But hungering and thirsting to live a godly life - hungering and thirsting to overcome sin - is such a rare quality that I believe what Jesus said: very few find this way to life. I am not surprised when I find very few interested in a message of being totally righteous. In fact I am not surprised when people turn around and say, “That's impossible.” When people say the Sermon on the Mount has impossible standards and that nobody can live up to it, that is exactly the answer I expect from a worldly Christian or so-called born-again Christians who have worldly attitudes. I would question whether such a person really born again if he neglects all that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. That is why Jesus said, “Make them disciples” before He said, “Teach them all that I have commanded,” in Matthew 28:20.

Every person who calls himself a Christian, but who only wants to go to heaven and is not interested in obeying all that Jesus commanded, is far from it. If a person truly becomes a disciple, he will be interested to know what Jesus has commanded. The attitude of a true disciple of Jesus is, “If He wants me to be poor in spirit, I want to know what that means and obey it. If He wants me to mourn for my sin or to be gentle, I want to know what that means too. If He wants me to hunger and thirst for righteousness, I want to hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? For example, if you say, “I'm thirsty for a little bit of water,” how much would you be willing to pay for that glass of water? What if a glass of water cost 100,000 rupees? You would say, “No, I'm not that thirsty, to pay 100,000 rupees for a glass of water.” But consider if you were a person who had been wandering in the desert for seven days and your whole body is dry and your mouth is dry and you are about to die of thirst. Boy, you would be willing to pay 100,000 rupees for a glass of water! That is thirst. And you would be willing to pay any amount for food if you were dying of hunger.

The type of hunger and thirst that Jesus is speaking of is a desperate hunger and thirst to be righteous at any cost, not to be righteous only if it's convenient or if it doesn't disturb any of my plans. Most people who sit in churches, even those who listen to messages of holiness, want to be holy if it doesn't disturb their plans, or if it doesn't ruin their ambitions for the future, or if it doesn't hinder them from marrying the girl or boy they want to marry. They want righteousness, as long as there's not too much of a price to pay for it. So when you offer them righteousness, if their first question is, “What’s the price?” then you know that they are not really hungry. A person who is desperately thirsty or hungry will not ask for the price. He will say, “Give me that water! I will pay! I will give you everything I have because I'm dying!”

That is the meaning of seeking God with all of our hearts. The reason why many people do not find God in the way that others have found Him, and why they do not have a satisfying Christian life (which is the condition of most born again Christians), is because they are not seeking God with all their heart. I have found very few Christians in my life, as I’ve traveled to many countries and been a Christian for 52 years, who can honestly say, “I am really satisfied with the Lord, I am satisfied with my Christian life, in the progress He’s given me, and I am thankful for the way it has gone. I'm excited about my life every day!” Very few can honestly say that. I find most people are bored of their Christian life. Maybe they were excited on the day they were converted, but now they are so bored. They have no time to read the Bible, they have no interest in spiritual things; they may be indulging in a certain amount of activity like going to church, witnessing, and caring for the poor, but they are not excited about following in Jesus’ footsteps.

To understand the reason behind this we need to understand a law concerning man and God. In Jeremiah 29:13 the Lord says to His people Israel, “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” What if you do not seek Him with all your heart because you are seeking Him half-heartedly, or three-quarters of your heart? Sure, you would have a religion. You would have a Christianity that is a mere religion, with rituals and various things that you do, but you would not know the Lord. You would not know Jesus as a personal friend, and so you would miss out on everything in the Christian life. You may have a Christian name and be a member of a Christian Church, but if you don't know the Lord personally, you have missed out on the main thing. And the reason may be because you aren’t seeking God with all your heart. There are lot of things in the world you may be seeking with all your heart, but not the Lord.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled (or they shall be satisfied)” (Matthew 5:6). So when a man says, “Oh brothers, I have been trying so hard for victory over sin, but I haven't got it, I can tell him on the basis of this verse that he is not really hungering and thirsting for a holy life. He is not really desperate about overcoming sin.

Jesus’ Own Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness

Consider how Jesus prayed to overcome sin. We know the fact that Christ was tempted on earth exactly like us and He never sinned, but it was not easy for Him. Hebrews 5 tells us about how Jesus faced temptation. We are told in Hebrews 4:15 that He was tempted in all points as we are, and then it goes on to say that this Christ is our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 5:6). It says further in verse 7, “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety” (Hebrews 5:7). This is not speaking about the last day of His flesh in Gethsemane, but of the entire period that He was in the flesh on earth - for thirty-three and a half years: He offered up prayers and supplications.

Supplication means a specific request to His Father. They were not just general prayers saying, ‘Bless Me,’ but they were specific requests. And He offered up these prayers with loud crying and tears. Why in the world was He crying out loud and shedding tears when He prayed? Would Jesus pray like that? Can you think of a time in your life where you prayed with tears? Maybe if your child was sick, or if you lost something which you wanted badly, you may have cried and prayed to God, but Jesus wasn't praying for any such thing. Have you ever prayed with loud crying? Maybe when somebody died or something tragic happened, but Jesus wasn't praying on such occasions. It says He was praying with loud crying and tears to the One (that is the Father) Who was able to save Him from death. And He was heard because of His godly fear.

Now there are a number of things that that verse teaches about what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus did not have righteousness offered to Him on a platter in a way different from us. He had to struggle and fight for it, hunger and thirst for it, just like us, because He was a Man like us, in order to be an example for us. He faced every situation, every temptation that we face, and He faced it the way we have to face it, in order to overcome that temptation. That is the meaning of praying to the One able to save Him from death.

What death is Scripture talking about? Jesus was not afraid of going to Calvary. He loved us so much that He would be willing to go to a thousand Calvarys to save us from our sins. He was not afraid of physical death. There are Christian martyrs who have gone singing to their deaths. How could Jesus ever be afraid of that? It also says that His prayer “was heard,” but He was not saved from physical death. So how was His prayer heard? Both those statements indicate that it was another kind of death that He was praying to be saved from.

The Bible speaks about physical death and spiritual death. James 1 says, “When sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” When you are tempted and yield, it leads to sin, and that ends in death. That is the death Jesus is asking to be saved from, in the moment of temptation: that there would not even be a smell of the spiritual death of sin brought about by Him responding to temptation in any way - in thought, attitude, motive, word, or deed. There should be no smell of sin. And because He was so desperately eager to be totally pure, to be pleasing to the Father, He had to pray with loud crying and tears.

For 30 years in Nazareth, and three and half years in His ministry (in all the days of His flesh), He prayed, “Father, I never want to sin. I never want to do My Own will, (that's the root of all sin).” He prayed and struggled in Gethsemane for that same thing, sweating as great drops of blood, because He wanted never to do His Own will and He was heard because of His godly fear.

So what is the mark of godly fear, according to this verse? One mark of godly fear is that you cry out desperately that you will not displease God in any way. And He was saved, His prayers were heard, He never sinned. Perhaps this is the reason why we sin - because we are not so desperate to be saved from it. The Bible says, “Flee from immorality.” Herein lies the secret of living a godly life. The first step is, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” And there is a promise: you will be filled. There is no doubt about it.

Right Attitude #5: Be Merciful

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7). Mercy is the attitude that includes both forgiving others who have hurt us and also doing good to those who are in need. The Bible speaks of two aspects of mercy. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus asks the man who questioned Him, “Who was the one who showed mercy and who was the one who loved his neighbor?” The answer was that it was the man who showed mercy to his neighbor. And what was that act of mercy? It was helping a man in his need. That is one aspect of mercy.

The other aspect of mercy is forgiving people. The Lord is merciful to us and He forgives us our sins. He taught us to pray, “Our Father in Heaven, forgive us our sins in exactly the same way as we forgive others for their sins against us.” What does that prayer mean? It means, if I don't forgive somebody for his sin against me, the Lord will not forgive me. What I am praying to God is, “Lord, forgive me in the same way that I have forgiven this other person.” But if I haven't forgiven this other person, I am really asking the Lord not to forgive me. Do you recognize that? “Forgive me in exactly the same way that I have forgiven this person; since I haven't forgiven him, You don't forgive me.” Or, “I have forgiven him but I have a terrible grudge against him because of what he did toward me, so Lord, when You forgive me, You too keep a grudge towards me.”

Do you realize that when you pray the Lord’s prayer, you are asking God to forgive you in exactly the same way as you have forgiven others? If you are merciful to others, God will be merciful to you. If you are not merciful to others, God will not be merciful to you. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7).

Whenever people do us harm or hurt us in some way, there are two contradictory thoughts that arise in our mind. One is a thought of mercy and the other is the thought of judgment. The Holy Spirit tells us to forgive and to be merciful, but our flesh tells us to be hard on that person and to judge him, and to pray that God will judge him as well. But it says in James 2:13, “For judgment will be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy to others.” If I am merciless towards someone, God will be merciless to me. And in the day of judgment, we are going to get a big surprise when God imposes a very heavy judgment on believers who did not forgive others - they will not enter God's kingdom.

Mercy Triumphs over Judgment

James 2:13 goes on to say, “Mercy must triumph over judgment.” That means that when there is a conflict in my heart between judging someone and being merciful to him, let mercy triumph, and not judgment. That is the mark of a man of God. Mercy triumphs over judgment. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” It is God's business to take vengeance on people, not ours.

Romans 12:19 says, “Never take your own revenge” because that is God's business. God says, “Taking revenge is My business. It's not your business.” “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. So if your enemy is hungry feed him, if he is thirsty give him something to drink. We must not take revenge. We must be merciful and seek to do good wherever we can do good to others. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” We will discover on the day of the judgment that if we have not forgiven others, God will not forgive us. Jesus repeats that same instruction again in the Lord's Prayer.

“If you do not forgive others, then your heavenly Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matthew 6:15). “Your heavenly Father” implies that He is already your Father and you are a child of God. He did not say, “God will not forgive you.” If He had used the word “God,” then we could say that this verse refers to unbelievers. But notice what it says in Matthew 6:15 - “Your Father…” Is God the Father of unbelievers? No! But if you are a born-again child of God, then God is your Father. And it says “Your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” Why? Because you did not forgive somebody else.

If your transgressions are not forgiven, how in the world can you enter God's kingdom? Do you think they will be forgiven after you die? Is there a second chance after we die? If you die without forgiving someone, what is going to be your fate in eternity? I have no doubt in my mind that you will go to hell, because no one can enter heaven with their sins not forgiven on earth. There is no chance of sins being forgiven after we die. They must be forgiven now, and that is why it is so important to be merciful to others. That is not a kind act that you are doing to someone else. It is actually a kind act that you are doing to yourself, because you want God to be merciful to you.

Right Attitude #6: Be Pure in Heart

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). There are many things about God that He reveals to those whose hearts are pure. It is lack of purity in our heart that blinds our eyes. Jesus spoke about the eye being the lamp of the body. I want to connect Matthew 5:8 with Luke 11:34, where Jesus spoke about the eye being the lamp of your body. When your eye is clear your whole body is full of light. If you want to know what it means to be blind, just shut your eyes and you know what blindness is. All the light outside is not coming in anymore and so you cannot see anything. “The lamp of the body is the eye, but if your eye is bad or blind or full of cataracts, then your whole body is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, then it will be wholly illumined”.

This verse is a reference to the conscience. The conscience is the eye of the heart. When you keep your conscience clear, your heart is filled with light, and you can see God. But when you neglect to keep your conscience clear, which means you did something wrong and you don't confess it – if you don't take the blame for it, and you try to put the blame on somebody else - the eye becomes dim little by little and you lose your vision of God. You can still have a head full of knowledge of the Bible, but you won't see God anymore, because that has nothing to do with head knowledge; that has to do with purity of heart.

There is another possible way of looking at this verse. We can say that this also refers to seeing God in all our circumstances when our heart is pure. When my heart is pure, I can look around and I see God in all my circumstances, in everything He does and in everything He says. I can say that God is in control, and even in the evil that other people do to me, I can see God using that for my good. Jesus could see God in the most evil thing that happened to Him. When the Roman soldiers came to capture Him in Gethsemane, all that Peter could see was this crooked betrayer Judas betraying Jesus Christ and the evil Roman soldiers coming to capture his Master. But Jesus did not see them. He said, “The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” The postman may have been Judas Iscariot, or the Pharisees and the high priest, but ultimately the cup came from the Father. What does it matter if the postman looks like an evil man, if the letter came from your beloved?

Jesus’ heart was pure, therefore He saw God in everything. That is why He could accept being captured, humiliated, and crucified. His heart was pure and He saw God in everything. When we love God with all of our hearts and we are called according to His purpose, then everything works together for good (Romans 8:28). If our heart is pure, then God makes it all work for good, and when we look at the evil that other people do to us in circumstances that don't seem to fit in with our desire, we can say “God is there.” This is why there is tremendous blessing in pursuing purity of heart. As we understand more Scripture, we will see Jesus more clearly in Scripture. Many people study Scripture and don't see Jesus. They see a doctrine and they fight for a doctrine. But when our heart is pure and our eyes are clear, the same Scripture, where somebody else sees a doctrine, will reveal Jesus. We see the glory of Jesus that the Holy Spirit brings out, and it draws our heart to Him and helps us be able to follow Him more closely.

Consider these three good attitudes seriously in your life. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they have a tremendous longing to be totally pure. Blessed are those who are merciful, who are ready to forgive no matter what harm another person has done to them. And blessed are those who seek with all of their heart to keep their conscience pure before God and men, like Paul did, and who are thereby pure in heart, because they will see God all the time - in the Word, and in their circumstances.

Chapter 13

Right Attitudes (7 to 9): Peacemakers, Rejoice When Persecuted for Righteousness and Jesus

Right Attitude #7: Peacemakers Will Be Called Sons of God

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Do we have a right to call ourselves the sons of God? It says here that it's not us calling ourselves sons of God; it says they shall be called sons of God. That means that God is going to call us His sons when we are peacemakers. We must have a reputation as peacemakers. The opposite of a peacemaker is a troublemaker. What is your reputation in your church? Maybe you say, “I'm not a troublemaker and I’m not a peacemaker, but I’m neutral.” Well then you can’t be called a son of God! It says here “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Peacemakers are those who are always seeking for peace.

God Is Pleased with Those Who Pursue After Peace

When Jesus was born, the angels from heaven came saying, “Peace on earth, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among the men with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14). God is pleased with those who pursue after peace. The world is full of all types of quarrels, fighting, grumbling, murmuring, and complaining. If we were to look at this earth from heaven’s standpoint, we would see it filled with darkness because of this. But in the midst of this darkness there are a few spots of light - those are the children of God, the sons of God; and one mark of these sons of God is that they are peacemakers.

We find the same thing repeated in Philippians 2. Why does it say that we must do all things without grumbling, disputing, and complaining (Philippians 2:14)? We must do every single thing in our life without any grumbling, without any complaining, and without any disputing - that's a pretty high standard. But it says in verse 15, that that's the only way we can prove ourselves to be blameless, “Innocent children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” That's the only way we can appear as lights in this dark world. How is that? What is the darkness? It’s murmuring, grumbling, and complaining. What is the light? It’s people who make peace and do not grumble or complain.

When Jesus sent out His disciples to the people of Israel He appointed seventy to go two by two, ahead of Him to every place where He Himself was going to come later (Luke 10:1). He directed them to look for a man of peace to stay with whenever they enter a town. He said, “Whenever you enter a house, say ‘peace be to this house,’ and if a man of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And if you find a man of peace, stay in that house - don't move from house to house because you will hardly find another house like that in a town” (Luke 10:5-6).

In other words, what He was saying was: “You will probably find only one house in a town where a man is a man of peace.” Otherwise why did He tell them not to move from house to house? What if there were 10 or 20 or 30 or 100 houses like that? Jesus knew that it is very unlikely to find such homes. But such homes are exactly the type where God dwells.

Is your house a house of peace? Can it be said about you as a husband that you're a man of peace? It always requires two people to quarrel; you can’t have a quarrel if one person refuses to fight. It’s just like how both of your two hands have to collide with each other to make a noise. You can’t have a noise with just one hand clapping. If one hand refuses to clap, the other hand cannot make a noise; quarreling is like that. If anyone (say husband or wife) refuses to fight and dies to him or herself, there will be no fight. Instead, there will be peace. So I can never blame the lack of peace on another person, whether it be in my church or in my house or anywhere else.

You can’t say, “My wife is the one who disturbs the peace,” or “My husband disturbs the peace.” It is because you cooperate in that quarrel and fight that there's no peace. There can be no sound if even one hand refuses to come together with the other. So in a situation where there is conflict, if you are pursuing peace, then you will die to yourself and let the other person agitate as much as he or she likes. Then there will be peace.

Fellowship Is Better Than Peace

If both husband and wife are willing to die to themselves, then there will be what we call fellowship. Fellowship is even higher than peace. Peace is second best; fellowship is the best. Peace is where one person refuses to fight and dies to himself or herself; fellowship is when both die to themselves and their rights, and they both refuse to grumble or complain or find fault. They have fellowship. But where we can’t build fellowship, let's at least pursue after peace.

Two verses in the New Testament speak about the importance of this. We already saw in Philippians 2:14 the importance of never grumbling or complaining or finding fault in others. Romans 12:18 says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” That’s exactly the same principle: if anybody wants to come for a fight or an argument with you, but you refuse to fight and quarrel, and you die to yourself, then there is peace. There may not be fellowship with that person - for example there may not be fellowship between you and your husband or wife - but there can still be peace in the home. As much as it depends on you and is possible from your side, die to yourself.

Pursue Peace Even If It Means Losing an Argument

I refuse to argue with people even on doctrinal matters if I find that all they are interested in is controversy. When people come to my home and inquire or ask questions after a meeting, if I find that they are really eager to know the truth, I'm willing to spend hours with them; but if I find they are only interested in controversy, I want to pursue peace. I say, “Listen, let's change the subject, let's talk about cricket or something like that where we’re united. Let's talk about pursuing humility instead of arguing about this doctrine because I know this person's interest is in controversies. He is getting upset and angry, and it’s pointless pursuing that discussion, because I don't want to win an argument and lose a friend. I'd rather say, “Let's keep the friendship. You can assume that you have won the argument but I'm not going to argue with you.”

Pursuing Peace Requires Dying to Self

If I believe that God is sovereign and will never allow me to be tested beyond my ability, I'll be willing to die to myself. Many people say that if you pursue this path, people will just take advantage of you; they will treat you like a doormat and walk over you. Not so. If you believe 1 Corinthians 10:13, which says, “God will never allow you to be tested beyond your ability,” then you will recognize that He will not allow people to take advantage of you, and you will confidently pursue the way of peace. You'll find, like it says in the book of Proverbs, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and are safe” (Proverbs 18:10). When you find controversy, take refuge in the name of Jesus and then you'll find the fulfillment of Proverbs 16:7, that “When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, you come and hide in the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” It's amazing what God can do! I've experienced that. If you try to please the Lord, you too will find that even your enemies get subdued.

The peacemakers are called “sons of God.” Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all men.” Not only are we to pursue peace with other believers, but with every human being - with your difficult neighbor, your difficult mother-in-law, your relatives, your brother-in-law who cheated you of the property, your family members who cheated you and took advantage of you - with everyone. Pursue peace with them and God will make sure that you get what you should get – and you don't have to fight for it. “Pursue peace with all men, and sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). Now this is an amazing verse; it says that it is not enough to pursue sanctification, but I must also pursue peace with all men. Many people are pursuing sanctification in their personal life with the Lord, but they're not pursuing peace with all men. However, it says that I need to pursue peace with all men and sanctification, without which I will not see the Lord.

“Sons” of God Are More Mature Than “Children” of God

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called be the sons of God.” The meaning of sons of God is different than the meaning of children of God. Children of God are babies; a son is a mature person who knows how to die to self and to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Ask yourself whether you deserve the title, “son of God” or “daughter of God.” It's very easy to find out. Just ask yourself the question: Are you a peacemaker? Are you a peacemaker at home? Are you a peacemaker in the church or are you a troublemaker? Are you a peacemaker with your neighbors? Are you the type of person who kicks up a quarrel wherever you go? If yes, then you don't deserve the title “son of God,” since you are acting more like a son of the devil. So let's be careful.

Right Attitude #8: Being Persecuted for Righteousness Leads to the Kingdom of Heaven

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10). Earlier on we saw, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” When we take a position of humility and pursuing peace and hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and we pursue gentleness and we don't fight for our rights, we will find that we will run into people in the world who are evil persecutors. All those who seek to live in a godly way will be persecuted. So if we seek to live in righteousness, we will be persecuted.

2 Timothy 3:12 is an absolute statement inspired by the Holy Spirit. Paul says, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” It doesn't say “some;” it doesn't say “many;” it doesn't say “most.” It could be some, many, most, or all. It says “all.” All includes every single believer in Christ Jesus (not every single person who calls himself a believer, but everyone who desires to live a godly life). You will be persecuted in your place of work. You may be persecuted for righteousness. What does it mean to be persecuted for righteousness? It means that in your place of work or in some situation, you say, “I will not do that wrong.”

I remember numerous situations when I was working in the Navy, where I had to stand up to my senior officers and say, “I'm sorry, sir, I cannot do that because my conscience does not permit me. I'm a Christian.” And that is a very risky, dangerous thing to say in the military. If you say that in a secular job, you just get sacked and turned out of your job. But when you say that in the military, you're in danger of being court-martialed, which means being taken before a court and probably put into jail, because it is a very serious thing not to obey orders in the military. I remember numerous situations where that happened and I had to trust God to take care of me. If they asked me to do something that violated my conscience, I would say, “Sorry, sir, I am a Christian, I can’t do that.” It didn’t matter how senior the officer was.

It’s possible that I would have suffered in some way because of that, meaning that the commanding officer wouldn't give me a good recommendation for a promotion. Once I was transferred within half an hour to another post. I could suffer inconvenience, but that's okay. You can’t call this persecution at all; these are like little mosquito bites compared to the lions that ate up the early Christians. But the early Christians faced these too.

Standing up for Righteousness

We need to consider what it means to stand up for righteousness. There are many jobs in which people compromise - they tell lies, they cheat, and they give bribes in order to get something unrighteous done. When Christians go that way, they of course will not face persecution; but if they refuse to go that way, if they refuse to take a bribe, or to do something unrighteous, they may face threats from the people above them, who want a share of that bribe or something. There are many cases like this. When you stand for uprightness, you may lose your job or find disfavor with your bosses, but the kingdom of heaven belongs to you. You may lose something of earth in that process - maybe a position, maybe some promotion - but you will get something of heaven in exchange. Is that worth it?

Is it right for a person to tell a lie to get admission or to get a job in some situation? It’s not worth it! It’s never worth it for a Christian. It's far better that he doesn't do it because he will be out of the will of God. If you get admission into some situation by telling a lie, you can be pretty sure that God didn’t lead you there. When you face a tight spot, the devil may tell you, “Tell a lie here because a lie is almighty; it can get you anything.” And the Holy Spirit says, “No, that's a lie; God is almighty. Telling a lie is not the most powerful way to get what you want. Stand up for God. God is able to give you what He wants you to get.” Then you will find that God will give you what you should get.

Sometimes God will test you in this. I know God has tested me at different times and I believe that if I had failed that test in those places, I would not be where I am today and I would not have the ministry God has given me. Perhaps you could have had a ministry if you had been upright and had been willing to suffer earthly loss in some places for the sake of righteousness. The kingdom of heaven would have been more greatly yours to some extent, but you lost some of that. You can't do anything about the past; what you have lost is gone and you can’t get it back. But you can do something about the future. Say, “Lord, at least in the days to come, I want to stand up for what is righteous and upright.” A Christian is not supposed to be crooked in any area. A Christian is not supposed to tell a lie or cheat for any type of profit. God is looking for those who will stand upright so that he can commit a greater ministry to them.

Right Attitude #9: Rejoice When You Are Persecuted for Jesus’ Sake

“Blessed are you when men cast insults on you and persecute you (not for righteousness sake now (v10) and say all kinds of evil against you on account of Me” (Matthew 5:11). The difference between verse 10 and verse 11 is that, in verse 10, you're standing for what is right. There are even non-Christians sometimes who stand for what is right. There are people who have lost their jobs, judges who have been killed for giving a right verdict, and businessmen, politicians, and others who have been killed by their enemies for standing up for what is right. It is not just Christians who do this, and it's a shameful thing that non-Christians are sometimes more willing to stand for uprightness than many who claim to be Christians. I believe you're going to get a lot of surprises in the day of judgment when such Christians who imagined that they were entering God's kingdom are exposed as compromisers and backsliders. If you're righteous and you're willing to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake, the kingdom of heaven is yours; not otherwise.

Matthew 5:11 speaks about being persecuted for Jesus’ sake. If you keep quiet about the fact that you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, you can get some benefits in your place of work. Maybe you’re righteous and that's appreciated by others, but you keep quiet about the fact that you believe in Jesus Christ as the way of salvation because you're afraid you won't get a promotion. Perhaps you'd rather let others believe that you are a non-Christian, just like your bosses are and you are ashamed to be a witness for Christ. I’ve seen government offices and banks where non-Christians will hang up a calendar with the picture of their favorite idol, but it's very rare that you find a Christian who is willing to hang up a calendar with the Word of God on it, which pronounces the fact that he's a Christian. This is because he's afraid of what will people say about him. “Will my boss see it and prevent me from getting a promotion or harass me in some way?”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted on account of Me, who are not ashamed of Me.” Are you ashamed of Jesus in your place of work? Don't glory in the fact that you're externally righteous because many non-Christians are externally righteous too. Go beyond that, one step further: declare, “I'm also a Christian. I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ.” If you stand up for God and His Word (and it's not only in the place of work, even as a preacher if you stand for everything that is taught in God's Word), if you are eager to expose the deception in Christian circles today, people will insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evils stories about you falsely, because you stand up for the truth.

Rejoice When You Are Persecuted for Jesus’ Sake

What should you do when that happens? Do we have to feel sorry for ourselves? Far from it! It says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great” (Matthew 5:12). You won’t get a reward on earth - you might be persecuted and cast out - but your reward in heaven is great because that's exactly how they persecuted all the prophets who were before you. If you look at the Old Testament prophets, you’ll see that true prophets of God were persecuted. The persecutions that they faced, however, are not always mentioned. Take for example, a man like Isaiah, who spoke some strong words against the people of Israel. We’re not told in the book of Isaiah how he died, but tradition tells us that he was inside of an empty hollow log of wood and his persecutors sawed him into two pieces.

He is one of the people mentioned in Hebrews 11, who were sawn asunder. All those who stand up for Christ will be persecuted. Stephen, when he was standing before the chief priests in Acts 7, asks the crowd a very significant question at the end of his long message: he says in Acts 7:52, “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? Your fathers killed those who had previously announced the coming of Jesus, the righteous One. Which one of the prophets in Israel did your fathers not persecute? Can you name one?” Stephen was describing Israel's history. He had studied Israel's history and he concluded that there was not a single prophet in the entire history of Israel who was not persecuted. No true profit was popular neither in the Old Testament nor in the New Testament.

Pastors can be popular, evangelists can be popular, and even apostles can be popular at times. Teachers can be very popular, but a prophet is almost never popular because he is coming to diagnose and expose the faults in a church or in people. And he comes into a church to speak what they need to hear and not what they like to hear. He will show them the areas of God's Word that they are ignoring. He will show them the areas in their lives where they are falling short of God's standards, and then he will be persecuted. It happens even today. This is what it means to stand up for Jesus, “On account of Me and My Word.” If you are persecuted, you're blessed and you are to be envied. In another version it says, “Leap for joy!” You should be excited because you’re in the footsteps of the prophets and in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

Chapter 14

Jesus’ Disciples Must Be Salt and Light

“You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Jesus didn’t say this to the multitudes. Remember that the Sermon on the Mount is primarily to His disciples and the multitudes sat around listening. The multitudes are certainly not the salt of the earth – they don’t have any salt. But the disciples are to be the salt of the earth. Jesus was a master of using word pictures, and He left it to us to understand the meaning behind them as we seek for the inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit. “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how it will be made salty? It is good for nothing any more, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”

Purpose of Salt in Our Food: Taste

So what is the purpose of salt, particularly in our food? He is talking about taste here. Salt is used for many other reasons, such as preservation. But He is not speaking here about the preserving power of salt. He is talking about taste.

We can’t preserve the world from becoming rotten. It will become rotten, because men’s hearts are fully set on evil. But in the church, He is talking about disciples who have retained the taste of heaven in their life. That means that when you come in touch with this disciple, you will taste something of heaven, which is so different from what you see in the average person, who tastes of this earth.

Taste of Earth vs Heaven

What do I mean by “tasting of heaven” and “tasting of the earth”? When you meet many people, all they can talk about is what’s happening on the earth: what is the latest price of the stocks and shares, what calamity is happening here, what evil is happening there, etc. Or they may talk of the latest gossip concerning other people - this is the taste of the world.

The taste of heaven is something that brings life and joy and peace and goodness. It is very rare to find people like that, who have the life of Jesus bubbling up in them. They are like salt that gives taste to its surroundings.

Quality Salt

In a bowl of food, you need very little salt. You don’t even need one full spoon of salt; that would be too much. In a bowl of food, you need very little salt to give taste to the whole bowl, if the salt is really powerful and good. But if the salt is tasteless, then even if you put 20 spoons in it, it is not going to make any difference in the taste. So the point is not quantity, but quality. When Jesus says, “If the salt has become tasteless” (Matthew 5:13), He is not talking about the quantity of salt at all.

He is using this picture to show us that His disciples will always be small in number. If you have a plate of rice and curry, how much salt are going to put into that whole plate of rice and curry? You would not even put half a teaspoon. You need very little salt to make that whole plate taste right. And so the proportion of the amount of salt relative to the food is about the same as the proportion of true disciples on earth relative to the population of the world (and sometimes even the number of people in the church!). The true disciples are very few.

But it’s only those true disciples who are called the salt of the earth. It is because of them that the earth is preserved from judgment. Abraham once prayed to God concerning the evil city of Sodom, which the Lord said He would destroy. He asked to the Lord (concerning whether He would still destroy it), “Suppose Lord you find only ten righteous people in Sodom?” (Genesis 18:32), the Lord said, “I won’t destroy Sodom, if there are ten righteous people in that city.” Ten people were enough to preserve the city from being destroyed, but there were not even ten there, so it was destroyed.

In Jeremiah’s time, the Lord reduced that number even further. Jeremiah was prophesying at a time when Israel was about to be taken into captivity by the Babylonian king (that was God’s punishment), but before that, Jeremiah went to prophesy. He preached and warned them for 40 years, but they wouldn’t listen to him. The Lord told Jeremiah, “Go through the streets of Jerusalem and see if you can find one man (not ten, just one single man) who does justice, who seeks truth, and I will pardon the whole city” (Jeremiah 5:1). It’s amazing, but there wasn’t even one righteous man, and so the whole city went into captivity.

Very often God is looking around like that. Ezekiel was also a prophet at the time of Babylon and God said through Ezekiel, “I searched for one man among all of them who should stand in the gap for me and build the wall that I shouldn’t destroy the land, and I found none” (Ezekiel 22:30). God spoke the same words: quality, not quantity. He wasn’t looking for 10,000 people. He was looking for even one man.

It’s amazing what God can do through one man if he is whole-hearted and radical. Think of Moses - one man in the Old Testament through whom God could deliver 2 million Israelites. There was nobody else in Israel who was fit to be the leader. In Elijah’s time, even though there were 7000 people who did not bow their knee to Baal (a picture of 7000 believers who don’t worship idols), there was only one man (Elijah) who could bring the fire down from heaven. It is the same proportion today. You might find only one believer among 7000 believers who can bring the fire down from heaven through their ministry or their prayer.

The 7000 may say, “I don’t do this, and I don’t do that.” Their testimony is negative! “I don’t go to movies, I don’t drink, I don’t gamble and I don’t smoke cigarettes.” They don’t worship Baal, but who can bring the fire down from heaven? The one who lives before God’s face, like Elijah did; Elijah had salt.

It’s the same in the New Testament. Can you imagine the loss that the church would have faced, and the loss we would have faced, if the Apostle Paul had never existed? How much Scripture would be missing? He was one man! Of course God’s work is not going to be hindered because one man fails (God could have used somebody else), but what we see in Scripture is that often God accomplishes more through one person who is whole-hearted than He does through 10,000 compromisers. That is the point Jesus emphasizes when He tells His disciples, “You are like salt.” Don’t ever complain, “We are so few!”

God Answers the Prayers of the Few

I remember situations in our own church in Bangalore where we found a need to pray for the government, because of some problems in the city. We were not a big church, but we had two good qualities in our midst: first, we were pursuing holiness with all of our heart. We were not there to compare ourselves with others but we could honestly say before God, “We are sincerely seeking to pursue holiness and to please You in everything. We don’t want to please men, or worship money. We have no interest in money in our church, and so we don’t worship Mammon; we worship Christ instead.” The second thing is, to the best of our ability and knowledge, we were one with each other. We were not a church full of strife, quarrels, disputes, and cliques. So we pursued holiness and unity. Those are the things God looks for, because if we have iniquity in our heart, the Lord will not hear us (Psalm 66:18). And where two are united (Matthew 18:19,20), they can ask for anything, because the Lord is in the midst. So I said, since we have purity, and we have unity, we have a right to get an answer to our prayer. And we received that answer many times in many miracles that God has done.

How does God do these things? He does them through a few people who have not lost the taste of radical righteousness, purity, fervent love, pursuing humility, etc. So keep this in mind: you are the salt of the earth.

Quality Light

Next, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do men light a lamp and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all that are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

Light is another illustration or word picture that Jesus used. In those days, they used lamps. The wick of a lamp is a very, very small thing (a bulb is a very small thing today). But it lights up a whole room! The wick of a lamp in those days was so small, but as it burned, it lit up the whole room. It was not the size of the wick or the size of the bulb, but the intensity of light that would come forth from it that mattered. Again the emphasis is not on quantity but quality. There are zero watt bulbs that emit such a dim light that you can hardly see anything from them, and then there are powerful bulbs about the same size, like halogen bulbs, which light up a whole street. A bulb can be very low wattage or very high wattage. The important thing is not its size, but its power - the intensity of power with which it can light something up. And Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.”

The world is in darkness, and there must be nothing of that darkness in me. If I am a bulb and the darkness of the world is in me, then I am like a broken bulb. A lot of churches have Christians who are like broken bulbs. Once upon a time they were burning, but now they are broken: they are backslidden and their light is not shining anymore. What is that light? It says here, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.” In those days, light came through a lamp that was constantly burning with oil that enabled the wick to burn, and the oil is the picture of the Holy Spirit.

One mark of a person anointed with the Holy Spirit is that he does good. It says in Acts 10:38 that when Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, He went about doing good. He didn’t go around collecting money from people for His ministry like a lot of so-called “anointed” preachers do today. He was exactly the opposite of that. He went around doing good, and He never charged for it. People voluntarily gave Him gifts without His asking and He accepted them, but He would never make His needs known to anyone. He went about doing good without any charge.

He says, “Let your light so shine upon men so they may see your good works and not glorify you, but God!” If you do good works to get honor for yourself, to get glory for yourself, that’s actually darkness. And lot of good works that many Christians do are actually advertisements for themselves, to get honor for themselves. Their organization or their ministry is actually darkness because there is no glory that goes to the Father in heaven. Instead, glory comes to that particular organization or that particular man. But Jesus said, “Let people see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” That is the true light, where a person is doing good and as a result of that, Christ is glorified, not the individual.

This is what it means to manifest light. In John 1:4, this light is described like this: “In Jesus Christ was life, and that life was the Light of men.” So the light is not a doctrine, a teaching, or a particular message - it’s a life. It’s the very life of Jesus coming forth from us through the Holy Spirit. The life of Jesus coming forth from us is like an old lamp that was lit with oil, giving off light.

Jesus said very clearly in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall never walk in darkness.” Whenever a person is walking in darkness, according to John 8:12, we can say without a doubt that that person is not following Jesus. If you say, “Well, I am a bit dark right now,” the reason is that you may not be following Jesus. Please do not confuse walking in darkness with being unsure of God’s will. Even Jesus was confused about the Father’s will, being perplexed in the garden of Gethsemane. That’s why He prayed for one hour, “Father what is Your will, should I drink this cup or not?” That’s not darkness. Perplexity is part of the life of faith, but darkness is something else, something contrary to the life of Jesus. Jesus said, “He who follows Me will never walk in darkness but have the light of life, because I am the light of the world.”

Then He went on to say that He was the light of the world only for certain period of time. “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5). How long was He in the world? He was in the world for 33 ½ years. That’s all.

People may be super-spiritual and say, “Isn’t Christ in the world right now?” Well, if you read John 17:11, He says, “I am no longer in this world.” We have to get rid of our super-spirituality. Just before Jesus left this earth and went to heaven, on the eve of the cross, He said, “I am no more in the world. But these disciples are here in the world. They are in the world, but I am no more here. I am coming to You, Holy Father, so I am not in the world anymore.” So when He said in John 9, “As long as I am in the world,” He was talking about that 33 ½ year period where He manifested life. After He went up to heaven, who is the light of the world today?

Jesus’ Disciples Are the Light of the World Now

Matthew 5:14 says, “You are the light of the world.” If somebody were to ask me, “Who is the light of the world?”, the Scriptural answer would be to say, “Me. I am the light of the world, along with others who follow Jesus.” Have you ever thought of it like that? Have you ever thought of answering the question, “Who is the light of the world?” by saying “Me and others who follow Jesus”? That is the right answer.

It is very easy to say “Oh, don’t look at me. Just look at Jesus.” But He is not in the earth! He said, “I am the light of the world only as long as I am in the world.” So many Christians haven’t read the Scriptures properly, and they get many types of wrong ideas in their heads that are from their own understanding and are completely wrong. Just like God depended 100% on Jesus Christ during those 33 ½ years to manifest His life perfectly, He is depending on His church - His disciples on earth - to manifest that same light perfectly now. “Let people see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus’ Life Was the Law Manifested

Matthew 5:17 says, “Don’t think that I came to abolish the law of the prophets; I didn’t come to abolish, but to fulfill.” The fundamental principle behind God’s law is His life. In the law, He was, in a limited way, putting into writing what His nature was like. The absence of idolatry and giving God the first place, honoring father and mother, never hurting other people with murder, adultery or any such thing, etc., was a manifestation of the life of God in man, and Jesus manifested that life. He said, “I haven’t come to abolish the law.” The fundamental principle behind the law was never abolished. Some people misunderstand that verse to mean that we should keep the Sabbath as well.

But it is the principle behind the law that the Lord was speaking about here. He says, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not a smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law until all is accomplished.” He says, “I have come to fulfill the law,” and then He goes on to say, “If you cancel one of the least of these commandments and teach other people that some commandment is unimportant, you will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But if you keep them and teach others to keep even the least commandment, you will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:18-19) .

Is He referring to the ten commandments, or the commandments of Moses, such as killing lambs and offering peace, grain, and sin offerings? Those commands were all in Old Testament, so we can’t pick out one. The commandments (laws) were fulfilled in Christ. So when He is speaking about the “least commandment” in the law, He is talking about the spirit of the law.

The Law Was the Shadow of Christ

Colossians 2:16 says, “Don’t let anyone act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, because all these things are a shadow.” Did you notice that He included the fourth commandment, keeping the Sabbath? He says it is only a shadow. It is fulfilled in Christ. In today’s language, you could say it is like a photograph. Until Christ came, you needed the photograph. If I am not travelling with my wife, I may carry her photograph with me and look at it, but if I am travelling with my wife, why do I need to look at the photograph? There is something wrong with a man who is travelling with his wife but keeps looking at her photograph!

The law is over, now that Christ has come. He says that was only a shadow. It is an accurate picture of Christ - many things in the Old Testament accurately portrayed Christ - but it is only a photograph. The reality is in Christ. We need to keep that in mind when Jesus speaks about fulfilling the law. The Sabbath was fulfilled in Christ, and now it’s the inner Sabbath that the Lord is seeking to bring into our hearts. “Come to Me and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). That inner rest comes as we take His yoke upon us. Some people think of keeping the Sabbath as the one commandment that should never be cancelled. No, the fulfillment of the law is now through the Holy Spirit inside our hearts.

In Romans 8:4, it is explained like this: “The righteous requirement of the law is now fulfilled inside us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” This is how the law is fulfilled. We have to compare Scripture with Scripture. The law will not pass away. Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, and it must be fulfilled in us, too. How is it going to be fulfilled in us? The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us when we don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Holy Spirit instead, every single day (Romans 8:4). It’s not by keeping the Sabbath or other commandments.

Finally, in Matthew 5:20, He says “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law, and even in our lives, the law of God has to be fulfilled in our hearts. In the Old Testament, they fulfilled it externally in various ways - they kept the “outside of the cup” clean. But it is the inside of the cup that God is interested in now. We are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and that life has to come from the Holy Spirit, from within.

Chapter 15

Inward Righteousness and Anger

Don’t Lower God’s Standards

We need to receive the teaching of Jesus exactly like it is written because many have diluted it or made it mean something it doesn't mean. Because they're not able to live up to God’s standard, many teachers have lowered His standard down to their level. Whenever you see something in God's Word that you haven't attained to, or which is higher than your level of life, you have two options. One option is to say, “Well, God’s Word doesn't really mean that. It means something in a general way but not exactly that.” For example, “I know that it says, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always,’ in Philippians 4:4, but it doesn't really mean ‘always.’ It means, ‘generally speaking,’ or ‘most of the time.’” Thus you have succeeded in lowering God's Word down to your carnal level, and you satisfy yourself by imagining that you're obeying it. But the spiritually-minded Christian leaves God's Word where it is and says, “I'm supposed to rejoice in the Lord 24/7,” and he acknowledges humbly, “Lord, I'm not there yet. I'm rejoicing some of the time, grumbling some of the time (or most of the time), and angry often, but I'm not rejoicing in all circumstances. I'm not giving thanks for everything like the Bible says, so I acknowledge this. Please bring me there.”

That’s the person who will reach God’s standard. The other person, who has lowered God’s standard to his level, will never attain it. One day he will wake up in eternity and discover that he disobeyed God all his life. So, it's good to leave God's Word where it is, and acknowledge that either we haven't understood it or we haven't reached there. Then there's some hope we will get there.

Surpassing the Righteousness of the Pharisees

We must bear this in mind as we come to Matthew 5:20: “I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds/surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The righteousness of the Pharisees was a pretty high standard. They kept the Ten Commandments. The rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, “I kept all the commandments,” Jesus didn't question that. (Of course, they couldn't keep the Tenth Commandment, but nobody could keep that because the tenth one was inward. I'll come to that later. But they were keeping the other nine commandments, and all the Old Testament laws, which included more than 600 commandments.) The Pharisees boasted that they prayed regularly, probably three times a day, fasted twice a week, and gave tithes of all their income. So what does it mean when this verse says that your righteousness must exceed theirs?

Does it mean that you have to pray more than three times a day, fast more than twice a week, and give more than 10 percent of your income? That’s not the meaning. We always think in terms of quantity, because our mind is worldly-minded. The more worldly-minded we are, the more we think in terms of numbers, statistics, and quantity. We judge a church by the number of people there are, not by the quality of life of those people. We think Jesus said, “All men will know you are My disciples when there are 30,000 of you meeting in one church.” But that's not what He said. He told his eleven disciples, “All men will know you are my disciples when you eleven love one another.” The number of people doesn't matter. Love for one another is the primary mark of a true local church of disciples.

Jesus always emphasized quality. Today's Christianity, such as mission organizations and megachurches, emphasizes numbers. How many people are there in our church? How many places have you reached? How much is our yearly offering? These are the things they inwardly glory in. Or preachers will say: How many countries have I traveled to? How many sermons have I preached? How many books have I written? How many TV programs am I speaking on? These are the things that carnal people glory in.

Jesus always emphasized quality: quality salt and quality light. He had only eleven disciples at the end of His life. That’s not a large number, but look at the quality of their lives. Those eleven disciples turned the world upside down. Where do you find disciples like that, who have forsaken all, who have no interest in money, and things like this? It’s so rare to find even one preacher like that in the world today.

And it’s quality that Jesus was emphasizing when He said, “Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees.” Quality, not in the number of activities that you engage in. It's got nothing to do with money. It's got nothing to do with praying. It's got nothing to do with fasting. It's got to do with quality of life.

Jesus goes on in the remaining verses (in fact, almost until the end of the Sermon on the Mount) explaining this one verse. We can say the majority of the Sermon on the Mount is explaining Matthew 5:20. Do you want to enter the kingdom of heaven? He speaks a lot about this. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (verse 3). Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (verse 10). And now He says your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of scribes and Pharisees if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Two Strengths of the Pharisees

There were two good things about the Pharisees that Jesus Himself commended. If Jesus gave a certificate of approval for something, you can be sure it was pretty good. In Matthew 23:2,3, Jesus says the scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. “Therefore, all that they tell you to do and observe, do, but don't do according to their deeds.” He is saying that their doctrine was right. That's the first certificate of approval that He gives them. He wouldn't say that about the Herodians, who were worldly. And He wouldn't say that about the Sadducees, who did not believe in angels or in the resurrection from the dead. He wouldn't say to the disciples, “All that the Sadducees tell you to do, do,” because their doctrines were wrong. But when it came to the Pharisees, He said their doctrines were right. Here's one certificate of approval.

The other certificate that Jesus gave the Pharisees is in Matthew 23:25: “You clean the outside of the cup and the dish.” That means that their external life was very upright. What this shows us is that if your external life is upright and your doctrines are correct, you could still be a terrible Pharisee, on your way to hell. It is to these people that Jesus said, “How will you escape the damnation of hell?” He says in Matthew 23:33, “You people who have all your doctrines right, you people whose outer life is very clean, how in the world will you escape hell?” Do you think Jesus would say that to some Christians today? “Your doctrine is alright and your external life is so good that people appreciate you, but how will you escape hell, my dear Christians?”

What is it that Jesus is looking for? Your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees in quality. These are not comfortable truths that Christians like to listen to. We've been coddled and comforted for so long, and assured by preacher after preacher after preacher that our sins are forgiven, that we're all on our way to heaven, and that the blood of Jesus is all that we need. But it's better to trust in the Word of God than what some preacher tells you. See what Jesus Himself said: “If your righteousness doesn't surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees in quality, you are not going to enter the kingdom of heaven, no matter which preacher assured you that you are.” It is better to listen to a preacher who points you to God's Word and tells you the truth. Don't get a surprise on the day of the judgment, my friend.

Inward Righteousness Deals with the Root of Sin

Jesus explains the standard of righteousness that the Pharisees maintained. They kept the standard of the law externally and cleaned the outside of the cup. You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit murder.” It’s good when you don't commit murder, and in that area the outside of your cup is clean. But what about the inside of the cup? That's the question. Your doctrine may be right, but what about the inside of the cup?

Matthew 5:21 says that it is not just the man who commits murder who's liable to the court, but that if a man has the seed of anger in his heart, that is murder. Murder comes out of anger. That's the seed. It's like a little acorn seed from which the big oak tree grows. Anger is the seed from which murder comes, and Jesus was pointing out the root of the problem.

The Old Testament and the law were like a pair of scissors that snipped off the bad fruit from the tree, but John the Baptist said Jesus has come to lay an axe to the root of the tree. Jesus came to hit the root of the problem. To use a modern illustration, the law was like ointment that you spread upon a sore that comes in your body, to prevent it from coming forth. The law restrained people from murder, adultery, and so many other evils. After you rub on the ointment, the sore goes away, but then it comes up somewhere else. You rub in the ointment again, but then the sore pops up on your leg, and this process keeps repeating itself. Then, all of a sudden, somebody discovers an antibiotic, and the doctor says, “Now you don't need to keep rubbing in the ointment. Instead, take this antibiotic. The antibiotic hits the root of the problem, and gets to the root of this disease that is causing these eruptions on your skin. You can be healed.”

This is what grace does. Grace hits at the root of the problem. So in Matthew 5:20, Jesus says, “I want to tell you that anger will make you liable to the court. In the Old Testament, murder would make you liable to the court, but I'm saying that even anger will make you just as guilty today.” In the Old Testament, you were only guilty if you committed murder; in the New Testament, you are guilty when you get angry. Now, an anger that is just in the heart, even if it hasn't even come out of your mouth yet (verse 22), makes you guilty.

Wrong Attitude #1: Anger

There are nine wrong attitudes that Jesus spoke of after speaking about the nine right attitudes. The number one wrong attitude is anger. If you have anger in your heart, it's a wrong attitude, and you're already guilty, even though you have done nothing. You've said nothing, nor killed your brother physically or with your words, but you're guilty already.

And then that anger can go one step further. Out of the abundance of the heart, Jesus said, the mouth speaks. The mouth is like the overflow valve of what is in the heart, and if there is anger in the heart, it overflows through the mouth. Jesus says that if your anger overflows through the mouth and you say something to hurt your brother in your anger, now you're going to be guilty before a higher court, the supreme court (Matthew 5:22).).). Before that, you were just guilty at a lower court. He’s using human language to show that your guilt is much greater when you have allowed your anger to be expressed in words towards your brother. If you've kept it in, that’s good, but you're still guilty; if you express it, you're guilty at a higher level; if you go still further, and you hurt your brother with even more angry words, you can be guilty enough to go beyond court, and beyond supreme court, to hell itself.

What has Jesus taught us about anger? That anger in the heart is the first of three steps to hell. Have you ever heard any preacher tell you that, that when you get angry with anyone (it could be with your wife, with your husband, with your mother-in-law, with your neighbor, with your boss, with someone who has done some evil to you, or anyone else), in God's eyes the seed of murder is already there in your heart? You are guilty, and if it comes forth in hurtful words, you're guilty enough to go to hell without ever having murdered that person. This is where our righteousness is to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees.

The Pharisees only thought of physical murder as taking a man to hell, and it is to this outward attitude toward the commandments that Jesus added His, “but I say to you.” We can say that Moses went up to the mountain and brought down the two tablets with Ten Commandments, and Jesus went up to the mountain and replaced those Ten Commandments with the Sermon on the Mount. Whatever is written in those commandments that Moses got on the mountain, Jesus wants to tell you the spirit behind those commands.

Jesus said in John 6, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and life. The flesh profits nothing.” It's the spirit that's most important. He showed what was behind the law of murder: God is against your getting angry with your brother. It's a serious thing, so if you are angry with your brother, what should you do?

How To Deal with Anger

It’s wonderful that the Lord gives us a solution. He doesn't only identify the problem; He gives us a solution. A true prophet will not only indicate the sin in a church or in a person, but will also provide them a solution, just like a good doctor does not only diagnose a sickness, but also provides a cure. So He says, “If you come before God with an offering of apology because you realize that you have sinned, God will say, ‘That's not enough. I'm not going to accept your offering of asking for forgiveness.’ So here’s what you must do: leave your offering there. First go to your brother whom you spoke against, whom you hurt, and be reconciled to him. Then come back and present your offering to God and ask Him for forgiveness” (Matthew 5:24).

How many people do that? When you have hurt your wife by some words you spoke, or you’ve hurt your husband by something you said (or a co-worker or somebody else), as a Christian, what is the first thing you need to do as soon as you are aware that you did something wrong? Go to that person and say, “I'm sorry.” The Lord says, “Don't come to Me first.” We need to understand God's law. You have to go to the one whom you hurt first, otherwise God won't even listen to your prayer. It's so clear. Go first to man and not to God. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come present your offering to God.

But people may say, “What if I go to my brother and say, ‘I'm sorry for what I did,’ and he doesn't forgive me?” Your responsibility is over then. It's between him and God if he's got a grudge against you. God will deal with him, but you finished your responsibility. You don't have to force him to forgive you. You have to do your best to clear your debt to him because you sinned against him, and as far as you're concerned, your reconciliation is complete when you've done your part. If he doesn't do his part to forgive you, that's between him and God. A person who doesn't forgive another will go to hell. That's none of your business. You have to do your part to go and ask forgiveness, and then come to God. Otherwise, He says if you don't do that, then you can finally go to hell. That's the meaning of Jesus’ parable which says you'll be thrown into prison and you'll never be able to come out of there till you paid the last cent. It’s too late after you get into eternity to go and ask people for forgiveness. That's why we need to settle all matters with God and men right now.

The Righteous Keep Their Consciences Clear

The Apostle Paul said in Acts 24:15 when he was speaking to Felix in a trial, “I have a hope in God which these men cherish themselves, that there will certainly be a resurrection of the righteous and the wicked.” All who are born again Christians believe in two resurrections. The book of Revelation speaks about the first resurrection and a second resurrection. Jesus spoke in John 5 of the resurrection of the wicked and the resurrection of the righteous. Here also, he says there'll be a resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. People die, and one day they're going to be raised up - the righteous and the wicked alike. Paul says, “I want to be in the resurrection of the righteous, not in the resurrection of the wicked.” In order to be in the resurrection of the righteous, what should we do?

“In view of this” means, “because it is true that there are going to be two resurrections, I want to make sure that I'm in the resurrection of the righteous and so I do my best...” He doesn't say, “I trust in the Lord to forgive my sins.” That's fine. Your salvation is only through the death of Christ, but he says - “I do my best to maintain always (always means 24/7) a blameless conscience before God and before man.” Not only before God. We should all be able to say, “I seek to keep my conscience clear 24 hours a day, seven days a week, before God and men.” You see an example of that in the previous chapter where he shouted at the high priest. As soon as he realized his mistake, he immediately asked for forgiveness (Acts 23:5). I believe it is implied there in the words written there.

First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and give your offering.

Don’t Grieve the Holy Spirit with Your Words

This is why we have such a strong word in Ephesians 4:31, which says, “Let all anger be put away from you.” Our words are very important. The one place in Scripture where it speaks about grieving the Holy Spirit - hurting the Holy Spirit, really making Him sad at the way you are conducting yourself - is in our speech. Ephesians 4:30 says, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” What is a subject in the previous verse and the next verse? The words we speak. The exact meaning of verse 29 is, “Let no rotten word come out of your mouth, but only what is good, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

“Don't grieve the Holy Spirit with your words,” and therefore, “Let all bitter words, wrathful words, angry words, clamorous words, slanderous words, be put away along with all hateful words” (paraphrase verse 31). The context of grieving the Holy Spirit is our words. So if we don’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit, we must ensure that all angry words, and all spiteful words, and all bitter words, and all slander, and all gossip, and all ways of speech where we yell and scream, must be put away.

What percentage of those words should we put away? 100%! Verse 31 says “all.” I want to ask you: have taken that word, “all,” seriously? Do you believe what Jesus said, that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees? It's not enough to say, “I have not murdered people.” Have you gotten angry with people or expressed yourself in anger and hatred, or kept bitterness against people?

A Note on Speaking to Children

I want to clarify one thing. When you raise your voice at your children, that may not necessarily be anger. It may be because they aren’t taking what you say seriously. It's like when somebody is hundred meters away from you, you have to raise your voice to help them to hear; you are not angry with him. In the same way, a child may be sitting next to you, and you tell him to do something, but in his mind, he is 10 miles away. If you then raise your voice to help him hear you, that does not mean that you are angry. We need to distinguish between raising a voice without anger and raising a voice in anger. But just because raising your voice is permissible, don't justify yourself with that. Ask yourself if there's anger in your heart. There’s no excuse for doing that with adults. With your wife or husband, you can never make that excuse, because a raised voice in speaking to an adult is almost invariably a sign of anger.

Let's ask for the Holy Spirit's help to put away all anger. Call it “murder” and put it away from your life so that you can please your Heavenly Father, and so let your light shine before men that, as they see your good words and works, they glorify God for what He's done in your life.

Chapter 16

Righteous Anger, Unrighteous Anger and Lustful Thinking

Fulfilling the great commission of making disciples is more laborious than simply bringing people to Christ, which can be done in a moment. To lead people to the type of life that Jesus described in His teaching is a life-long process. This is not independent of the ministry of evangelism and missionary work, but it is completing the job those ministries begin. One needs the other, just like how a hand takes food and puts it into the mouth (a picture of evangelism). And then the rest of the human body’s processes digest that food and make it part of the body - that is a picture of the other ministries that complete the work and make that new convert an effective member the body of Christ.

This is what we see in Matthew 5, things that Jesus taught and commanded that we are to bring every single believer into this life.

New Covenant Standards: Anger

In Matthew 5 Jesus spoke about putting away anger. The old covenant standard was “You shall not murder” (Matthew 5:21), but in the next verse Jesus says, “My standard is, do not be angry” (Matthew 5:22). However, there is an anger that is not sinful and there is an anger that is sinful, and we need to understand the difference. In Ephesians 4, we have a command that says, “Be angry, and yet do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). What it means is, the type of anger you should have in your life is an anger that is not sinful. So when Jesus raised the bar from the Old Testament standard of, “Do not murder,” to, “Do not be angry,” we need to understand what is the right type of anger and what is the wrong type of anger.

Whenever we do not understand a verse correctly we must look at our spiritual dictionary: the Word made flesh - the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus called Himself the light of the world and it says of Him, “In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men” (John 1:4). The life of Jesus Christ our Lord is the light that explains every verse in Scripture. So when we read, “Be angry, and yet do not sin” and we are trying to distinguish between an anger that is sinful and an anger that is not sinful, we’ve got to look at the Light that is in the life of Jesus.

Righteous Anger

When was Jesus angry and when was He not angry? We read in Mark 3:1-5 that when Jesus was in a synagogue, He looked around with anger at people who were trying to hinder a man with a withered hand from being healed. He was angry when the Pharisees, who were more concerned about keeping the ritual of the Sabbath than healing a paralyzed man. This is the right type of anger – anger towards religious leaders and religious people who are more interested in ritual than in people and more interested in keeping certain rituals than delivering paralyzed people.

Today the paralysis is found among Christians who are defeated by sin, and when we have religious people who are more interested to make sure that the people pay their tithes more than that they are free from sin. They are in the same category as the Pharisees who would not allow the man with a withered hand to be healed and were more interested in people paying their tithes and keeping the Sabbath. There are a lot of preachers and pastors like that today, who are not interested in delivering their flock from the power of sin in their life, but rather are more interested in ensuring that they pay their tithes. Jesus would look at such people with anger today because He did not come to earth to make people pay their tithes; He came to save people from their sins. He did not die on the cross to get people to pay their tithes; He died on the cross to deliver us from our sins.

Our Savior’s name is Jesus and He came to save us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). When people hinder others from being saved from their sins and say, “Don't go and listen to this person because he is preaching victory over sin, but keep listening to me because I tell you how to pay your tithes,” we must be sure that Jesus would be angry with such people. And if you are in fellowship with Jesus Christ, as a servant of God you must also be angry with such people, who hinder others from being delivered.

Another example when Jesus was angry is in John 2 when Jesus went into the temple and drove the money changers out of the temple. It says that He made a whip and turned over the tables of the money changers and said, “Take these things away!” He was really angry and the disciples remembered the word that said, “Zeal for Your house has consumed Me” (John 2:15-17). Zeal for the purity of God's house should make us angry when we see people making money in the name of religion or in the name of Christ and exploiting poor people just like the sellers of doves and sheep exploited the poor people saying, “We will sell you these sheep and doves for your sacrifice but of course it’s going to cost you a little more than out in the market because we have to get our commission.”

He was angry with such people. He said, “If you want to make money, go out into the marketplace. The temple (the house) of God is not the place to make money.” Today we have a lot of preachers who are using Christianity to make money for themselves. They are using television and all types of means to become wealthy, to build huge houses, to buy airplanes for themselves, and all types of things. What would Jesus do if He were here today? He would do the exact same thing. He would be angry with them because they are dishonoring God's name by exploiting poor people. This is the right type of anger that we see in Christ. He was angry when He sees poor people being exploited, when He sees people making money in the name of religion by exploiting their ignorance. And when you see that happening today, if you are not angry, you are not like Christ. If you are Christlike, you will be angry when you see people, whether on television or on a platform or in a church, trying to make money in the name of Christianity or exploiting poor people in the name of religion.

Unrighteous Anger

When was Jesus not angry? One example is when He was called Beelzebub (prince of devils) (Matthew 12:22-24).). This occurred when Jesus cast out a demon from a man who was deaf and dumb. The multitude saw that, were excited, and began to say, “This is the Son of David. Look what a wonderful miracle He has done and set this man free!” But the Pharisees were jealous and they immediately said, “This man is casting out demons by the ruler of demons” (Matthew 12:24). They were calling Jesus, Satan. Imagine if somebody called you Satan when you are serving the Lord. But Jesus responded saying, “I am just a Son of a man, I am just an ordinary Man. If you have spoken against Me, you are forgiven; but be careful that you do not speak against the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 12:32).

He wasn't angry when people called Him the devil. He said, “It is alright if you speak against me, I am just the Son of a man. You are forgiven.” He was Almighty God when they called Him the devil, and He wasn't upset. He forgave them. A true Christian will never be upset with people calling him bad names, calling him a devil, pig, dog or whatever. It doesn’t make a difference. If he is Christlike, he will forgive them and not get angry. He won't even retain any bitterness or anger against the people who called him those names.

Another example of Jesus not getting angry is when He was standing before the chief priest at His trial and they spat on His face. They even slapped Him, and He still didn't get angry. When people physically assault us or spit on our face, if we get angry, then we are not Christlike. That’s the difference between anger that is sinful and anger that's not sinful. Anger that is sinful is when I am upset that people say something against me or do something to me. Your convenience is disturbed and your will is crossed. Be it your wife or husband or neighbor or your enemy or anybody. If we get angry then, we are not like Christ. We need to overcome that type of anger. The Holy Spirit comes to help us overcome to make us like Christ, Who was never upset when people called Him the devil or spat on His face.

Very few Christians want to be like Jesus Christ, but they all want to go to heaven when they die. Every Christian wants to go to heaven when he dies, but how many of them want to live like Jesus Christ on this earth before they go to heaven? Very few. That's the problem. Many of these folks are not really Christians. They are Christian by name because they were born in a Christian family, but they have not surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their life and therefore as far as God is concerned, they are not Christians. They are going to get a big surprise when Christ comes again and they discover they were not Christians at all, because you cannot be a Christian by being born into a Christian family. You have to make a personal choice.

In the Old Testament you were a Jew if you were born into a Jewish family because becoming a Jew was by natural birth. But becoming a Christian is not by natural birth. It is by spiritual birth, and that comes when you repent of your sins and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord. That is the reason why many people don't take the matter of living like Jesus on this earth seriously. A true Christian will seek to live like Christ on this earth before he goes to heaven. Such a Christian, when he reads a command like, “Be angry, and yet do not sin,” is very eager to find out what type of anger is sinful.

When you see a television preacher trying to make money out of poor people in the name of Christ, if you are not angry at that, then you are not Christlike - you are sinning. You should be angry because Christ was angry when He saw people making money in the name of religion. If you are angry when people spit on you and call you the devil or hurt you in some way, then again, you are sinning because that is the wrong type of anger. When you look at a lot of Christians today, much like a lot of people in the world, they are angry at the wrong things - they are angry when people hurt them – but they are not angry when God's name is dishonored. They are angry when their own name is dishonored. Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” not, “Hallowed be my name.” It doesn't matter what people say about my name or me or my family. That is unimportant! Let the name of the Lord be honored. If that is our fundamental prayer, the first prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, then we will be angry at the right time and we will give up sinful anger.

This is so important for us to understand. This is the meaning of Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry, and yet do not sin.” And then five verses later in Ephesians 4:31 it says, “Put away all anger.” The two verses look contradictory, where in one place it says, “Be angry but don't sin,” and in another place it says, “Put away all anger.” What anger should we put away? Anger that is selfish, self-centered, and sinful. What is the anger that we should have? That which is God-centered, which concerns the glory of God's name. We should be burdened that God's name is not being honored on the earth today.

New Covenant Standard: Lust

Jesus continues teaching in Matthew 5 about a second wrong attitude. The first wrong attitude He spoke about was anger. We must get rid of anger from our life. The second wrong attitude, which is another major problem with all Christians (even all human beings),), is sexually lustful thinking – such as when a man looks at a woman to lust for her. Matthew 5:27-28 says that the Old Testament standard was “Do not commit physical adultery.” As long as you don't touch a woman who is not your wife, and you don't commit adultery with her, you were alright. That was the Old Testament standard. But Jesus raised that standard, too. Just like Moses went up to the mountain and came down with Ten Commandments, Jesus went up to the mountain and preached the Sermon on the Mount. He raised the level of those Ten Commandments to the spirit of those commandments. This showed that murder was like anger, and adultery was same as lusting with your eyes - in other words, you are committing adultery with that woman in your mind. Jesus said that in God's eyes, that was adultery because your inner life was impure.

The mark of the Pharisees was that they kept their external life pure - the outside of the cup. A Christian who keeps his outer life clean but his inner thought life impure is a Pharisee, and he is on his way to hell, whether he knows it or not. Many of us don't understand the seriousness of this.

During the last 35 years I have preached the most against a handful of sins, but two sins particularly - anger and sexually sinful, lustful thoughts. People have asked me why I speak so much against them. I tell them it’s because Jesus referred to these two sins when He first said that our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Immediately after saying that your righteousness must be higher than the righteousness of all the Pharisees around you (who are very religious people), the first two sins Jesus mentioned were in the area of anger, and in the area of sexually lustful thinking. That’s the first reason why I preach against them the most.

The second reason why I preach against these two sins is that these are the only two sins that Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount where He said the danger of indulging in them was going to hell. Most people don't believe that. The only two times where Jesus spoke about hell in the Sermon on the Mount were in relation to these two sins, so this tells us that these two sins must be very serious.

There were other sins mentioned in Matthew 5, 6 & 7, but He didn't refer to hell again. But when it came to anger, He said there is a danger of hell: “you can be guilty enough to go to the fiery hell” (Matthew 5:22b). And when He spoke about lusting after a woman, He said the same thing in Matthew 5:29, “your whole body can be thrown into hell,” and again in Matthew 5:30, “your whole body can be thrown into hell.”

It is very significant that the only two times Jesus spoke about hell in the Sermon on the Mount were in relation to anger, and to sexually lustful thinking. So these must be very serious sins in God's eyes and there is not sufficient preaching against them today. Can you think of the last time you heard a message on overcoming anger? I don't think I’ve heard a message on that in my whole life. In the 50+ years I've been moving around Christendom, I've heard a lot of preachers on television, tapes, CDs, and in many churches. Yet I've hardly ever heard a message on overcoming sexually lustful patterns of thinking. Why is it that the devil has prevented preachers from preaching on these two areas?

The number one reason is that the preachers themselves haven't got victory. How can they speak about it if they’re still enslaved themselves? Secondly, the preachers are very often more interested in making people look nice on the outside in their churches and collecting their money. So there's a great need to emphasize these two things, which Jesus spoke about so much. These are the two sins that Jesus said would lead a person finally to hell and that is a very serious thing.

Jesus took the Ten Commandments and showed the people what was behind those commands.

You don't have to come to Matthew 5 to understand that lusting after a woman who is not your wife is a sin, as will be shown later. Jesus said that everyone (and it doesn't matter if the person is a believer or unbeliever) who looks on a woman to desire her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. Lust means a strong desire. He said it is so serious that if your right eye makes you to stumble in this area then you must tear it out! You must be radical when you're tempted to lust with your eyes. You must act as if you're a blind man. That is the only way to overcome it. You shouldn't take it lightly and say, “Well, I'm just admiring the beauty that God has created.” There are so many ways we can justify this sin, and a lot of people do. It's when a person is careless in this area that over a period of time he will even fall into physical adultery, like a lot of pastors have throughout the world.

Overcoming Lust Through the Fear of God

You don't need to have a Bible to understand that lusting after a woman is wrong. Let me give you an example of a man who did not have a Bible and yet overcame in this area. That man is Job. The book of Job was the first book of the Bible that was written. We know this because there is no reference to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob in that book. Every other book in the Bible has some connection with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but the book of Job does not. There is also no reference to Moses. Job probably lived in the time of Abraham, and he certainly lived before Moses, for it was Moses who wrote Genesis. The book of Job must have been written before that because there are so many accurate details of Job’s conversations in this book that could not have been written by anyone else other than Job himself. This is a man who lived long before the Law was given, who had no understanding of the Ten Commandments, who had no Bible, and who had no fellowship. He was a lonely but godly man on the earth. But one thing he did have was the fear of God - a reverence for God. He turned away from whatever was wrong and sought to live uprightly. God Himself certified him saying, “For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless upright man who reveres Me and turns away from evil” (Job 1:8).

What was Job’s attitude towards women? He says: “I have made a covenant with my eyes, how then can I gaze at a virgin (a woman who is not my wife), because doesn't God see my ways and number all my steps?” (Job 31:1,4). “If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s doorway (when he is not there and his wife is there - v9), that would be a lustful crime” (Job 31:11). Who taught Job that? There was no Old Testament, and there was no New Testament in those days. There was no Bible at all! It was his reverence for God that taught him that even if he sinned only with his eyes, that it would be a sin against Almighty God, and it would be a disaster in his life (Job 31:3).

What Jesus taught in Matthew 5 was not something new that God-fearing men did not know. I'm sure John the Baptist knew it even before Jesus spoke it. Job knew it. Anyone who reveres God, even if he doesn't have a Bible like Job, will conclude that if I look with sexual lust at a woman who is not my wife, it is a sin before God. There is something within us that tells us that it is wrong. It is like stealing what God hasn't given to you. Even if you don't have a Bible, your conscience will tell you that when you steal something that doesn't belong to you, it is a sin. You don't need a commandment to tell you that. Reverence for God itself will tell you that.. That is a wonderful thing to remember as we see what Jesus taught.

Since Job knew this two thousand years before Jesus ever spoke it, even when there was no Bible available to anybody on the earth, what excuse is there for a Christian today who has a Bible? And those who speak English have the Bible in 20 or 30 translations today - every one of which tells the same thing. How is it that so many believers today take this matter of sexually lusting with their eyes so lightly? It is because there is a fundamental lack of reverence for God, which Job had. Today’s Christians have Bible knowledge, but no reverence for God. There are people who go to Bible schools and get doctorates in theology studying the Bible, yet still lust after women. What does that teach us? It teaches us that head knowledge of Scripture and “getting a degree” from a Bible seminary does not make you holy. There is so much Bible knowledge today with the abundance of translations and concordances. We even have the Bible on our mobile phones and on CDs, which people can listen to when they drive in their cars, etc. Yet in spite of all this abundance of knowledge, there is very little reverence for God.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught many things that we could know even without reading the Sermon on the Mount, as long as we have reverence for God. Some of these things are very clear to us: anger is sin, lusting after women is sin, and many other things written here. Therefore it is not because of a lack of knowledge that you continue in sin; it is because of lack of reverence for God. Reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom. It is the “ABC” of the Christian life and if we don't have that, there is no amount of Bible study or listening to messages that is going to make us holy.

Chapter 17

Faith to Overcome Anger and Lustful Thinking

Taking Anger and Lustful Thinking Seriously

A lot of people are just happy with having their sins forgiven, and that’s it. Such people do not know Jesus as their Savior; they know Him as their Forgiver. For example, anger and sexually lustful thinking are not spoken about much because most preachers don't have any victory in either of these areas. Without victory, they can’t possibly have the authority to speak against them; and even if they do speak against them, victory-less preachers will not speak in a practical way, which leads others to overcome.

Let’s look a little more at these sins, so that we don't just see their seriousness, but so that we also understand how we can overcome them. Their seriousness is seen by the fact that these are the only two sins in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus connected with the possibility of a man going to hell. My observation is that 99% of Christians do not feel that anger is a very serious sin. They certainly do not feel that anger can take them to hell. Thus they don't really believe what Jesus said in Matthew 5:22. What type of Christians are they if they, don't believe what Jesus Christ said? Do you believe what He said about anger? Or do you believe the psychologists? Psychologists can’t lead you to heaven. In the same way, 99% of Christians don’t really believe that lusting after a women with your eyes is serious enough to take you to hell. Most people don’t take that seriously at all, which is proof that the devil has made sin such a light, unimportant thing.

Sin Is a Spiritual Disease

Think of a deadly disease, like AIDS or cancer: how many people would take contracting AIDS or getting cancer lightly? Only people who are completely ignorant of what such diseases can do. If you were to tell an illiterate, poor woman in a remote village that she's got cancer, she wouldn’t be disturbed, because she does not know what cancer is. An educated person, on the other hand, would be very disturbed if the doctor tells him that cancer has spread all over inside his body. Why is he disturbed? Because he sees the danger of cancer.

In the same way, when you're spiritually illiterate, you don't consider anger to be a serious sin. When you're spiritually illiterate, you don't consider lusting after women to be a serious sin. That is a mark of your spiritual illiteracy, just like that illiterate woman doesn't know how serious cancer is. In the same way, one who is spiritually literate will take these sins very seriously. He doesn't even need the words of God to tell him to, because he knows instinctively that these are serious sins, because one hurts other people, and the other hurts himself. So that's why we should look at these sins more carefully and ask how we can overcome them.

Teachers Must Obey and Warn Others Against These Sins

Jesus said that it is responsibility of those who preach God's Word to teach every single one of the people in their flock how to overcome in these two areas. If you are a preacher or a pastor or a teacher: are you doing that? Have you overcome in these two areas? And are you teaching others to whom you preach to overcome in these areas? Are you showing them how it is possible? If not, you're failing in your duty, and I would say that you have no right to be a minister of the gospel; you're not teaching people what Jesus taught. Today, most Christian teachers are preaching what the psychologists teach, not what Jesus taught in the Bible.

There are very few prophetic voices in Christendom today that hold people up to the standards that Jesus proclaimed in His Word. That ministry is sadly lacking. The devil has silenced prophetic voices in the church, and most people think of prophesy only as “predicting the future;” not only that, but usually predicting the future in relation to material things. That's a deception. A prophetic voice is one which leads God's people to repentance from the sins that are destroying them. Material prosperity is not the way to heaven; it’s freedom from sin that's the way to heaven.

What Jesus’ Name Means for These Sins

When the angel came to Joseph in Matthew 1, he gave the very first promise of the New Testament. It says in Matthew 1:21, “Jesus will save His people from their sins.” That is the meaning of the Name of Jesus. A lot of people who name the Name of Jesus don't even know what His Name means. Matthew 1:21 tells us that the name, “Jesus,” means “the One Who will save His people from their sins.”

What's the difference between being saved from our sins, and being forgiven of our sins, as it pertains to anger and sexually lustful patterns of thinking?

If you get angry in a sinful way, and then repent of it and ask the Lord to forgive you, He will forgive you. And tomorrow, if you will get angry again in a sinful way and ask the Lord to forgive you, He will forgive you. And next week, if you do the same thing, and you ask Him to forgive you, He will forgive you. In the same way, if you lust after a woman with your eyes and you realize it's a sin, and you ask the Lord to forgive you, He will forgive you. And if you do it again tomorrow, and you ask Him to forgive you, He will forgive you. You turn to the internet and watch pornography, and you ask the Lord to forgive you, and He forgives you.

But have you been saved from these sins? No. Have you been forgiven? Yes. The pattern of your life is one of sinning, asking the Lord to forgive you, sinning again, and asking the Lord to forgive you again. It’s an endless circle. Have you been forgiven? Yes! You may have sinned a thousand times, and all your sins are forgiven, but have you been saved from your sin? No, because you keep on doing it! It’s like coming out of a pit, and falling into the pit again; you ask somebody to pull you out, he pulls you out, and then tomorrow you fall into the pit again. Every time you ask someone to pull you out, you fall into the pit again. When is it going to end?

Be Honest with the Lord: What Do You Have Faith For?

What has Jesus done for you up to this point? Jesus has forgiven you. Then be honest and say, “I know Jesus as my Forgiver, but I do not know Him as my Savior. I know Him as One who forgives my sins, but not as One Who saves me from my sins.” We have to be honest. If we are dishonest with ourselves, we will never come into the fullness of what the Bible promises us. God loves honest people. I encourage you to be honest before God, and say to Him honestly, from your heart, “Lord Jesus, I only know You as my Forgiver. I do not know You as my Savior.

If you're honest with Him, and say, “Lord, I want to know You as my Savior, not only as One Who forgives me, Who keeps on lifting me out of the pit I fall into. Your promise is that You will save me from my sin. Your Name doesn't just mean Forgiver; it means Savior! “He will save his people from their sins,” not simply, “He will Forgive them their sins.’” Of course He forgives us, thank God for that. None of us could live without His forgiveness. But He does more than that! He saves us, and we need to experience that, too.

Consider the story of the two blind men who once came to Jesus. In Matthew 9:27, we read that two blind men followed Jesus and said, “Have mercy on us,” and Jesus asked them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” (In the parallel passage in another gospel that becomes clear.) They said, “We want our eyes to be opened!” and then He asks them a question in Matthew 9:28, “Do you believe that I am able to do this for you?”

That's a very important question. It's an important question that the Lord asks concerning anything He has promised when you make your request to God. “Lord, I want my blind eyes to be opened,” or, “I want a sickness to be healed,” or, “I want to be saved from a particular sinful habit,” or, “Lord I want to get a job,” or, “I want to find a place to live.” There are so many things we can ask God for. God cares for all our needs, spiritual and physical, but the question that the Lord will ask us after we have made our specific requests to God is this: “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” That is Jesus speaking.

He's not asking you, “Do you believe that you can overcome this sin.” That's a very liberating thought! Thank God that Christ does not ask you or me, “Do you believe that you can give up this sinful habit?” I would straight away answer, “No, Lord. I can’t give up any sinful habit. I am such a slave to sin, being born as a child of Adam. Every single sin I'm a slave to. I'm a slave to anger, a slave to this, to that, and to any other - You name it - but I believe with all my heart that You can save me from it.” That’s the question: do you believe? The Lord says, “I can do this for you.” Thank God for that! Jesus didn't come teaching psychology, on how to train ourselves or our mind, and He didn't come to teach us yoga, how to control our thoughts or how to overcome anger with self-control.

No. He's asking you, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” He said in John 15:5, “Without Me you can do nothing.” Thank God for that verse. I say, “Lord, You Yourself said, ‘Without You, I can do nothing.’ I agree 100%.”

Christ’s Deliverance Produces Inward Uprightness

A branch cannot bear fruit if it's not in the tree, and every branch can say to its tree after being in that tree for 50 years, “Without you, I can produce no fruit; but if I am in you, it’s almost effortless to produce fruit.” Do you think a branch is struggling? Look at a mango tree: is that branch struggling to produce mangoes? No. But if you cut that branch off of that tree, even if it's been producing mangoes for 50 years, it stops producing immediately, because it withers. As long as it's in the tree, though, the sap of the tree flows in, and that’s how the mangoes are produced. That’s the principle of overcoming sin and that's what we need to teach every single person who is a disciple in every nation.

Dear friends, you have to understand (and if you're a preacher, you’ve got to make other people to understand) that without Christ, you cannot overcome any sin. You can overcome external sins, sure. But what does that prove? There are multitudes of atheists in the world who don't murder anybody, and who won’t even commit adultery physically. To keep the outside of the cup clean, you don't need Jesus Christ; you just need to be a good Pharisee. There are non-Christians, even atheists, who never cheat, who are honest, and whose external life is very upright; but when it comes to the inner life, they are corrupt within. Inner uprightness is more than self-control. You can keep from expressing anger outwardly with the powers of yoga, but that's not deliverance. That's just closing the bottle tight so that the poison remains inside; it still destroys you. That's not the deliverance that Christ offers.

Christ offers deliverance from the anger within. I can open the bottle, and there's no poison there. If you look inside my heart, there’s no anger there; it is not by great effort that I am trying to keep my mouth shut and don't lose my temper - that‘s yoga, but that's not deliverance from anger. Deliverance from anger is where Christ delivers us from the anger within our hearts. It’s completely gone, and if you look inside of one such heart, there is no anger. If you look inside that heart, there is no lusting after women. Only Jesus can do that.

According to Your Faith Be It Unto You

Think again of the blind men who came to Jesus. After they made their request, the Lord asks them, “Do you believe that I'm able to do this for you?” Imagine that they came one by one to the Lord, and the Lord asks the first man, “Do you believe that I'm able to open your eyes?” Not, “Do you believe that you can open your eyes with some exercise?” or any such thing.

Imagine if the first blind man says, “Well Lord, I will be happy if you could open just one eye. That’s more than enough for me. I could survive on this earth with one eye, and I believe you can do that.” The Lord would reply to him just as He says in verse 29, “Be it done to you according to your faith.” Not, “According to My ability,” the Lord says, “but according to your faith.”

Do you know that the Lord does for us not according to His ability, but according to our faith? If you don't have faith for something, even if the Lord has ability to do more than that for you, you won’t experience all that the Lord wants to do for you. You will only experience deliverance according to the level of your faith. So when one man says, “I have faith to have only one eye open,” the Lord will say, “According to your faith be done to you,” and he will go out of that room with one eye open and the other eye still shut. Now that's pretty good; for a blind man to have even one eye opened is fantastic.

Then imagine that the other blind man comes, and the Lord asks him the same question, “Do you believe I can do this for you?” And he says, “Yes Lord! I believe You can open both of my eyes! What’s impossible for You?” He gets both eyes opened. If he meets the other blind man (who had only one eye opened), and that man asks, “How in the world did you get both eyes open?! This must be some false teaching!” It’s not false teaching; the second blind man just had more faith than the first, that's all.

We can think of these two eyes as being forgiven of our sins, and being saved from our sins. One person gets both; another person gets only the first one. Why is that? Is it because God was partial to that person? Is it because that person was a better person? No. He just had faith for all that Christ promised to do for him. One person only had faith that Christ could only forgive his sin, and so he got that. Another person doesn't even have faith that Christ can forgive his sin, so he doesn't get even forgiveness.

There are lots of people like that in the world. One has faith that Christ will forgive his sin, and he will get forgiveness. Another has faith for “both eyes,” that Christ can not only forgive me, but also deliver me from that sinful habit. He gets both. And when a person proclaims both, that Christ can not only forgive, us but also deliver us, then people who have experienced only forgiveness will call that greater deliverance a false teaching. Because they haven't experienced it themselves, they say it's impossible. They say it's impossible for any human being to have deliverance from sin. But the question is not whether it's impossible for men. The question is, is it impossible for God?

Jesus said there is nothing impossible for God. Many things are impossible for man. It’s impossible for a man even to get forgiveness of sins without God's power, but with God, nothing is impossible. Please remember that if you don't experience something that somebody else does, it's not necessarily because he has some false teaching; it could be because you don't believe as much as he does.

To use another illustration, imagine that rain is falling equally outside everybody's house and there's a shortage of water in the town, so the people put containers outside to collect the rainwater. If one man puts a little cup outside his house, how much rain is he going to get? Just a full cup. If another person puts a huge tub outside his house, how much water does he get? A full tub! Is there a difference between a full tub and a full cup? Certainly! The man with the full cup might say, “How in the world did you get a full tub of water? God was partial to you, sending more rain in front of your house!” The man with the tub would respond, “No; the same amount of rain fell outside your house, too brother, but you only had a little cup outside! That was the level of your faith, and so that's all you got.”

We get from God according to the proportion of our faith. God's blessing is unlimited. Ephesians 1:3 says He has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” every blessing of the Holy Spirit to deliver us from every single wretched sinful habit that we have inherited from Adam, our forefather. We have all inherited the same evil nature from Adam. Every evil man in the world has the same evil flesh that you and I have. Our circumstances and upbringing might have restrained us from doing some of the terrible, evil things that terrorists do. But we've got the same flesh that they do, and we can only be delivered from it by the power of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. That's important for us to remember and to explain when we teach people all that Jesus commanded. His commandments can be fulfilled only through the power of the Holy Spirit, particularly in these two areas.

The New Covenant Life Is Much Higher

In the Old Testament, how did the Lord tell people to overcome anger? Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry and don't sin,” it is actually a quotation from Psalm 4:4, which says “Tremble, and do not sin.” You may tremble with anger but don't let that anger become sinful. And the solution for that is to go and, “Meditate in your heart upon your bed, be still, and trust in the Lord” (Psalm 4:4-5).

The Old Testament solution for anger was, whenever you're upset with somebody, withdraw from that person. Go and lock yourself up in your bedroom, and lie down on your bed and meditate on God till you cool down, and trust in the Lord to take care of that situation. That was all that's possible. So in the Old Testament, you could control the words that come out of your mouth in a manner somewhat similar to yoga.

But in the New Testament, God has given us the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit is self-control from within. Jesus Christ delivers us inwardly from that anger.

It’s exactly the same with lusting with the eyes. In Matthew 5, He speaks about lusting with the eyes, and He goes on to say that nobody in the Old Testament could overcome it. The tenth commandment in Exodus 20 was the one commandment that nobody could keep. I don't know whether you know that. The first nine were all external commands, and they’re all that anybody could keep. But the tenth Commandment was, “You shall not lust after your neighbor's house or his wife or male servant or … anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Every woman that walks on the street is either your neighbor's daughter or your neighbor’s wife, and it says you're not supposed to lust after them. This was actually written as the Tenth Commandment, and nobody could keep it. Nobody in the Old Testament could keep that commandment.

The Apostle Paul once said, “According to the righteousness of the law, I was found blameless.” When he testified before a high priest in Acts 23:1, “I have lived with a perfectly good conscience before God until this day,” what did he mean? He meant that he was keeping all the commandments. What commandments was he keeping? Only the first nine, because he's honest enough to say in Romans 7:7-8, that when he came to the tenth commandment, which said, “You shall not covet, you shall not lust,” he “found lusting of every kind.” He discovered every type of lust - a lust for money, a lust for other people's wives and daughters, lust for honor, and every type of lust - within himself, and realized he could not keep this commandment.

The Holy Spirit Strengthens Us Inwardly to Fulfill the Sermon on the Mount

When the Apostle Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit in his heart (just like when the Holy Spirit came and filled people on the day of Pentecost), he says in Romans 8:2, that “the law of the Holy Spirit - which is not ten commandments but - the law of life in Christ Jesus, set me free from the law of sin that kept causing me to fall into anger and lust and everything else,” and he goes on in verse 4 to say, “the righteous requirement of the law - which is “You shall not lust” - is now fulfilled inside of us because we don't walk according to the flesh, but we walk according to the leading of the Holy Spirit.” This was impossible under the old covenant.

When Jesus spoke about overcoming these sins in Matthew 5, He was talking about something that is impossible for a man to do without the power of the Holy Spirit. If you read Matthew 5, 6 and 7, you find that, at the end of those three chapters, the most important question has not been answered. What is that? “Lord, how do I live this life?” That’s not even mentioned in Matthew 5, 6 and 7! The Sermon on the Mount just shows us the standard of life that God expects of a new covenant Christian, of a born-again Christian, but how to get there is not mentioned in the whole sermon.

Then how in the world will we know what to do? I believe that Christ only proclaimed the Sermon on the Mount to create a desire in our heart for this life, and that, if a person has a longing for this life, he will go to God and say, “Lord, what's the solution?” And Lord will say, “You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need to be strengthened in the inner man.” There are a lot of counterfeit experiences of the Holy Spirit today, which only emphasize speaking in tongues, but this inner life of freedom from sin is not emphasized. I thank God that I speak in tongues - I have spoken in tongues for 35 years - but the fullness of the Holy Spirit brought something far more important into my life: it brought deliverance from inner sin! That's the primary purpose of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, so let's seek God for that.

Chapter 18

How to Overcome

Adultery and Lustful Thinking

“You have heard that it was said, ’You shall not commit adultery’” (Matthew 5:27). That was the standard under the Old Testament. Jesus was explaining what was behind that command. It is not just a question of physically avoiding adultery; it’s about not even lusting inwardly after a woman. God has put a strong sexual desire in all men, and this desire rises up in the early teenage years. It becomes strong and lasts for many decades.

Why has God allowed such a strong desire within man? A woman doesn't have such a strong desire for sex. God could have kept the sexual desire low in a man just as in a woman, but in His great wisdom, He has made it much stronger in a man, and there is a reason for that. God wants us to be overcomers, and this is an area where we should overcome before we get married. God could have made man in such a way that he didn't get this desire till he was 25 or 26, when he gets married. But yet God has allowed this desire to come up in our hearts when we are 12 to 13 years old. From that time, we have to battle it constantly, and God wants us to overcome in our thought life before we are married. This is the reason why He gives us 13 to 14 years to fight and struggle - to overcome before we get married. It doesn't have to take that long if you are faithful and have a radical attitude. If we are to overcome, then we have to be honest and acknowledge that it's impossible to overcome in our own human power.

Genuine Fullness of the Holy Spirit Leads Us to Overcome

The great Apostle Paul was a very upright man according to the law, but even he could not overcome this desire until he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and then the Spirit of God set him free. This is like Jesus opening the blind man's eyes: the blind man couldn't open them by himself.

It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that this is possible. In fact, we can live up to everything Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount only if we are filled with the Holy Spirit.

I'm not talking about the cheap counterfeits that are going around today under the name of “fullness of the spirit”. If the fullness of the spirit that you claim to have experienced made you shake, roll on the ground, laugh, and speak in tongues, but you are defeated by the sins like anger and sexual lust, if you still raise your voice at your wife or husband, then you have not been filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't let anybody deceive you. Many people are deceived. The Holy Spirit gives us a new tongue, not just the ability to speak in unknown tongues, but even to control our mother tongue. It is of no use to speak in unknown tongues on Sunday morning in church and yet shout at your wife in your mother tongue on Sunday afternoon. That's not the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

The fullness of the Holy Spirit gives us control over our tongues. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control, and He gives us control over our tongues 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If this is not the case, you should ask God to give you a genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit. Thank God for the gifts of the Spirit, but ask God for the genuine fullness of the Spirit, which is beyond just having the gifts of the Holy Spirit. That’s the only way to overcome. There is no other way.

James says that every animal has been tamed by man, but no man can control the tongue (James 3:7-8). Only the Holy Spirit can. If you're filled with the Holy Spirit, He will give you control over your tongue and over your eyes. These are the two parts of the human body that Jesus spoke of in relation to sin in Matthew 5:21 -32. Sinning with the tongue, and sinning with the eyes. Both are very, very important.

Don't ever be satisfied with any cheap counterfeit of the fullness of the Holy Spirit if it does not give you control over your tongue and control over your eyes. Go before God and say, “Lord I've got a cheap counterfeit. I want to be honest with You. I'm just convincing people that I’m filled with the Holy Spirit, and that is worth nothing. I don't want to miss out on the genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit.”

When I was a young Christian, I was defeated in both of these areas. As I sought for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, people sent me to different assemblies, but I was so disappointed with what I saw there. I heard a lot of noise and I said, “Lord, this is not what I'm looking for. I’m looking for power to overcome sin. Even if it takes ten years, I want the real thing. I want what Peter, James and John got on the day of Pentecost, not the cheap counterfeit that's going around the world today.”

The devil wants people to be satisfied with some counterfeit. If you were going to buy gold or diamonds, or even currency notes, how careful you would be to ensure that you don't get a counterfeit. If you know there's a lot of counterfeit currency going around, you will be careful to look at the five hundred rupee notes you pick up. How much more careful we need to be about something that concerns our eternal destiny: the genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit! Don't be satisfied with a counterfeit. If you are not satisfied with counterfeit gold and diamonds and currency notes, how much more you should not be satisfied with counterfeit in the area of the fullness of the Spirit. This is the test: has the Spirit of God set you free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2)? That's the test.

Be Honest to Overcome

In Matthew 5:28, Jesus says, “Everyone who looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” We need to go to God for deliverance from this, and the first step is to be honest. If you got angry, be honest. Go to the person you wronged and say, “Brother, I'm sorry. I am sorry for the way I spoke to you,” and if you sinned ten times a day in anger, go ten times to that person and say you're sorry. If God sees you’re honest and you’re humble, He will give you the power to be free from it.

But if you cover up, make an excuse, and try to justify your anger, you will never be free. The only time you are justified in anger is when it concerns the glory of God, not when it concerns yourself.

When it comes to lusting after women, you are never justified. You can look at your wife and admire her, but not any other woman. That's not God's will. God says you have to be radical here. First of all, you have to be honest and say, “Lord, I committed adultery.” Don't ever say, “I admired a beautiful face.” Instead, say, “I committed adultery.”

If you are honest, God will deliver you.

Be Radical to Overcome

The other thing is you must do is be radical. The Bible says, “Flee from immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18). If you are at the computer and you're tempted, either run away from it or turn it off and say, “Lord I don't care what I miss, but I don't want to fall here.” When Jesus says, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out,” He is not telling us to physically pull out our right eye. That's obvious because you can still lust with the left eye. The meaning is that you must take a radical attitude towards sin, a radical attitude towards your tongue and your eyes.

Be like a blind and dumb man at that time when you are tempted. Can a dumb man raise his voice and shout at someone? Can a blind man lust? No. Be like a blind man and say, “Lord, You didn’t give me eyes to lust after women. You gave me eyes to see Your glory.” Jesus says that if you don't do that, you might preserve the physical parts of your body, but you’ll still be thrown into Hell. It is better for you lose one part of your body (i.e., voluntarily refusing sinful pleasure that your physical body craves for) and go into God's kingdom.

In the same way, Jesus says, “If you sin sexually with your right hand, and that makes you stumble, cut it off” (Matthew 5:30). Imagine that you have an amputated hand and that you can’t sin with your right hand or left hand. Jesus was very down to earth and practical. Jesus tells you to act as if you're blind, as if you’re amputated, because sin is very serious. If we take such a radical attitude, I believe God will help us to be completely free, and we will have better marriages as well. Don't think marriage will solve the problem of lust. There are lots of married people who fall into adultery in their thoughts all the time. Every day there are many married people who watch internet pornography. Marriage doesn't solve that problem because it's an inner desire. If you don't battle it in the power of the Holy Spirit, you'll be defeated, and you’ll delude yourself all your life that you're a spiritual Christian when you're not.

Is this some postgraduate level of Christianity that Jesus is speaking about? No, He's just talking about how to escape Hell. Escaping Hell is not postgraduate Christian material. It is elementary. Jesus says that it's better for your body part to perish than for your whole body to be thrown into Hell. Salvation from Hell is the bare minimum, and this is what Jesus wants us to teach every disciple in every nation. How much is this being taught? Hardly at all, and that is why I have been commissioned by the Lord personally in my own ministry to keep emphasizing it.

Jesus’s Teaching on Divorce

In Matthew 5:31, Jesus goes on to speak about another type of adultery. The Old Testament standard was to send your wife away with a certificate of divorce. It was not that God was telling people to divorce their wives. He was not even permitting divorce like the Pharisees said. God never wanted man to divorce his wife from the time he created Adam and Eve. God did not make two women for Adam to choose which one he wanted (“if you get fed up with one, just choose the other!”). He made only one woman for Adam, and He has made one woman to be your wife. That is God's will; Jesus said that very clearly in Matthew 19. But Satan has lead man astray, and it is a fact that people divorce. So the law was given. It is mentioned here in Matthew 5:31, which is a quotation from Deuteronomy 24. If you read Deuteronomy 24, it doesn't say God permitted divorce. God said if you do divorce your wife -- out of your own choice -- at least give her a certificate of divorce so that she can go away decently (Deuteronomy 24:1). That is what He meant when saying ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ It is different from permitting divorce.

But He says, “I say to you, I’m raising the standard. You can’t just get away with giving a certificate of divorce. I say to you that if you divorce your wife except for the cause of unchastity, you are making her commit adultery. And if you marry a divorced woman, you are committing adultery.” You cannot lower that standard. It is being lowered all over in Christendom, particularly in Western Christianity today; but you cannot change God's Word. Let God be true and every man a liar. It doesn't matter if 90% of Christendom accepts divorce. It is still against the Word of God. We have the tragic situation today of Christians, even well known Christian leaders and preachers, disobeying the Word, which says that whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. There are great preachers I know who married divorced women and justified it by saying that God led them to do it. Imagine using the name of God to justify one's own desire and lust. And there are many pastors and preachers today who are divorced themselves, and who are marrying divorced women, completely ignoring Scripture.

Seek for Purity in the Church

This is a day when reverence for God and His Word has disappeared completely, and there's a great need to come back to what Jesus said about going into every nation, making disciples, and teaching them to do every single thing He commanded. Will you have a large church as a result? No! Many people will get offended and leave your church, because this way to life is very narrow and few there’ll be who find it. Is the Lord interested in a large church? Far from it. He's interested in a pure church. And if it is pure and large, then praise the Lord. But if it's a choice between numbers and purity, the Lord says, “Purity is what I want.”

What about you? Is that your position too? The vast majority of pastors and preachers do not preach the whole truth because they're afraid some people will leave their congregations, but your congregation will become a better congregation when those people leave. Don’t you pull the weeds out your garden to keep your garden fresh and fruitful? That's what needs to be done in a church too. The standard is, God hates divorce. He said that in Malachi 2:16, “I hate divorce.” He hated divorce even in the Old Testament, and Jesus makes it very clear that anyone who divorces is committing adultery (verse 32).

Both Adulteries: Lustful Thinking and Divorce Are Equally Serious

Jesus actually taught us about two adulteries: one is to lust after a woman (Matthew 5:28), and the other is divorce. Both are equal to adultery. Many people ask me about the stand of my church on divorce, but never till today has anybody asked me about the stand of my church on lusting after women. Why is that? Why is there so much emphasis on adultery number two (divorce), and not as much emphasis on adultery number one (lusting)? There are churches that take a very strong stand against divorce (praise the Lord, they even put people out). But what about taking an equally strong stand on adultery number one, which is lusting after women? We can be very hard on divorced people, but not hard on people who are lusting with their eyes. Is there a difference? Both are adultery in God's eyes, and we need to take them both seriously. Some of you may say, “Well I'm not divorcing my wife. I'm a pretty holy person,” but you lust with your eyes. That is equal to adultery too. Why is it that so many Christians who would never dream of divorcing their wives, lust with their eyes? It’s because they have not seen that both are equally adultery. They have not taken God's Word exactly as it is.

God Looks for The Humble and Contrite Person

The latter half of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40, has some fantastic promises for Christians. There are two parts in Isaiah, the first 39 chapters correspond to the first 39 books of the Old Testament, and the next 27 chapters correspond to the 27 books in the New Testament. The last 27 chapters of Isaiah are essentially new covenant prophecies - a lot of them referring to Christ and a lot of them referring to us to follow in Jesus’ footsteps - and so there are some fantastic promises in Isaiah chapters 40 to 66 which essentially relate to us in the New Covenant.

Isaiah 66:1-2 is a picture of building the true Church of Jesus Christ, against which the gates of Hell will never prevail. “Heaven is My throne and the Earth is My footstool, where's the house that you're going to build for Me? Where's the church that you human beings, you people who call yourselves born again Christians, are going to build for Me?”

When the Lord says, “To this one I will look,” He is describing the person that He will look upon with favor to build His church, against which the gates of Hell will not prevail. A church against which Satan cannot infiltrate with anger, lust, adultery, lying, stealing, and all the other wretched things that are found in the race of Adam.

“I will look at the one who is humble and contrite of spirit” (Isaiah 66:2). The number one quality He is looking for is humility and contrition, or brokenness of spirit. God looks at people who have a low opinion of themselves, not low self-esteem. Jesus did not have low self-esteem. He was the Son of God. He told His disciples, “I am your Lord and Master. You call me that, and so I am” (John 13:14). He had no doubt about Who He was. He knew He was the Son of God. He didn't have any low self-esteem. But he had such tremendous humility that He considered others as people whom He should serve, and He would wash their feet. Do you know that He even washed the feet of Judas Iscariot? That is humility, washing the feet of one who is going to betray you in a few hours. He had no low self-esteem, but took a low position. He had low thoughts about Himself. In our relation to others, Philippians 2:3 says, “Consider others as more important than yourself.” That is the number one quality, brokenness of spirit. A brokenness in sorrow because we’re not like Christ. God looks at that type of person.

Tremble at God’s Word

The second quality in a person that God looks for in Isaiah 66:2 is, “One who trembles at My Word.” This is so important to consider in connection to what we are studying in Matthew 5. When you read words like these, do you tremble at God's Word? At the word that says that if you get angry and speak in that anger to a person, you're guilty enough to go to Hell? Do you tremble at the Word that says that if you don't take a radical attitude to cut off bodily members that cause you to lust with your eyes and commit sexual sin your eyes or your hands, you must take a radical attitude, otherwise you will go to Hell? Do you tremble at that Word?

I find very few Christians who tremble at that Word, even among those who have heard me preach about this for years. I'm sorry to say that even in some of the churches where I have responsibility, where people have heard me preach against these sins for 25 years, they still do not tremble at this Word. That is the condition of a lot of Christians: they've got the knowledge, but they take it lightly. How can you take sin lightly when you see the price that Christ paid on the cross to deliver us from sin? There is a hymn that I often sing to myself, which says:

Ever when tempted make me see,

Lord help me to see,

My God alone outstretched and bruised

And bleeding on the earth He made

And make me feel it was my sin

As though no other sins were there

That was to Him Who bears the world a load

That He could scarcely bear.

I sing that many times to myself to remind myself how my Lord, Who could bear the load of this universe on His shoulder, couldn't bear the load of my sin. It crushed Him on Calvary -- and that's what has helped me to have a tremendous hatred for sin, and has caused me to tremble at God's Word. And this is what makes me have a burden to educate Christians, to help them to know that sins like lusting with your eyes are worse than getting AIDS, or cancer.

Take These Sins More Seriously Than AIDS

The day you understand that, you will fight these sins radically. You wouldn't play the fool with syringes infected with AIDS. Why are you so careful about them, and are yet not careful about something far worse than AIDS? I’ll tell you why: because you don't believe that sin is worse than AIDS and cancer, you don't tremble at God's Word. I have learned to believe this, and that's why I'm extremely careful with these sins such as anger, lusting after women, and divorce. To enter Kingdom of Heaven, our righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees.

I find very few Christians who take this seriously, and very few preachers who preach it seriously. The Sermon on the Mount is the fundamental requirement that we need to have. Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

I believe this with all my heart. The Lord is expecting Christians to show a quality of righteousness that is way above the Ten Commandments. Idolatry is not bowing down before idols of wood and stone. It’s giving something other than God a place in my heart. The Sabbath is not just not doing work on a Sabbath day; it is an inner life of rest. Adultery is not just physical adultery; it’s lusting with the eyes. Murder is not just killing someone; it is anger. And so on with all the commandments, as we will look at later on.

Be the Person God Looks for to Build His Church

Let us learn to tremble at God's Word so that God can use us to build His church. The type of person God will look for and use to build His House is what we saw in Isaiah 66:1-2. May God help us.

Chapter 19

Love the Spirit of Truth

New Covenant Righteousness

The section beginning in Matthew 5:33 is an expansion of what Jesus said in Matthew 5:20, “Your righteousness must surpass or exceed the quality of the righteousness of the Pharisees (which is only external).” Your righteousness must be internal as well. Jesus was expanding our understanding of the Ten Commandments. He was saying that “murder” means more than murder; it means anger in the heart. He said that “adultery” means more than adultery; it means lusting after a woman in your heart, or divorcing her.

Let Your “Yes” Be “Yes,” and Your “No” Be “No”

Then Jesus went on to the matter of making vows (Mathew 5:33). In the Old Testament, the law said, “You shall not make false vows but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord,” and, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” In today’s terms, a vow is like swearing something under oath. People put their hand on a Bible and say that they will speak the truth. What they really mean is, “Most of the time I tell lies, but now I'm going to speak the truth.” That’s what the meaning of a vow is when someone puts their hand on a Bible and swears by it. However, in James it says you should be speaking the truth all the time (James 5:12), and that’s what Jesus said here.

The sum and substance of Matthew 5:33-37 is that we should always be truthful. We must not be ingenious and clever and subtle with our words, and claim to speak the truth legally as if it were in a court of law. We must be known as truthful people and not tell lies in anything. Our “yes” must be “yes” and our “no” must be “no.” Anything other than that is evil. If I have to say “yes” in a devious way, there is something wrong and that will ultimately lead to hypocrisy.

If you read the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, it did not say, “You shall not tell lies.” The ninth commandment was, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” That was basically referring to a court of law, and that in a court of law you must not tell a lie. In other words, if you swear to something you must speak the truth. That was the standard in the Old Testament because God knew that nobody could keep a command to not tell lies. Similarly, there was no commandment in the Old Testament saying, “You shall not lose your temper,” because God knew nobody could keep such a commandment. Back then, the commandment was “You shall not murder.” Similarly, there was no commandment in the Old Testament that said, “Don't lust after a woman,” because God knew nobody could keep it. So the commandment was, “Don't commit physical adultery.”

But now in the new covenant, the gift of the Holy Spirit comes within, and makes it possible to live such a life. When the Holy Spirit comes in power, He comes in like electricity that lights up a light or runs a fan or runs our gadgets. Then we can do certain things that we could not do without the power of the Holy Spirit. Now it's possible to overcome the lust of the eyes, it's possible to overcome anger, it's possible to stop shouting at your spouse, it’s possible to speak the truth all the time, and it’s possible to let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.”

To use a more up-to-date illustration: if you signed a sale deed or any other agreement in a court of law with witnesses, you were very careful to read that agreement before you signed it because you know that it will be enforced by the court of law. For a Christian, his word should be as good as that signed agreement. Would you say that is true in your life?

I remember once when in my own life I had agreed with someone who wanted to buy something that I was selling in my house. It was fairly expensive and we agreed for a price, but he didn't come back to take it for many months. By then the value of that thing had gone up and I could have said to him, “Hey, the value of this has gone up and you didn’t take it then.” Though I didn't sign an agreement, I had verbally agreed to give it to him for that particular price, and the Lord said to me, “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’” He was a brother in crisis and that was all the more reason why I wanted to keep my word to him. I said, “Sure you can have it for that price,” and of course he was delighted. What did I suffer? Maybe I suffered a certain loss financially. Perhaps I could have made a few thousand more rupees by giving it to him at a higher price, but then I would have had a bad conscience that, because my ‘yes’ was not ‘yes.’

God Tests Us to See to Whom He Can Give a Higher Ministry

It's worth losing a little bit of money to be upright and to be Christ-like in our conduct. Many times we are tested in the area of money to see whether we're willing to let our yes be yes and our no be no.

God tests us in this area before He can lead us higher. I found in my life many, many times that God tested me in places where I may have had to lose something or sacrifice something. He tests me with these commandments to see whether I will live according to them. Then I discover whether I really believe it or not. There are many situations today where speaking the truth costs us nothing. There is no test there, but when speaking the truth could cost you your job, for example - it’s then that you're tested by God to see whether He can lead you to a higher ministry. I believe many of these areas are where God tests us. And many, many people young people have failed God’s test.

I remember once asking the Lord, “India has 1,200 million people - such a huge population - where are the prophets in this land who speak faithfully for You? We have wonderful evangelists but where are the prophets who will hold up God’s standard in His Word in every single area exactly the way Jesus taught and lived and spoke?”

The Lord spoke an answer to me; “I have prepared many young people to be my prophets in this land and many of them have fallen away and through failing the test. Either they go after money, or they join up with some American Christian organization to get a better salary, or they marry the wrong person, or they are unfaithful with their eyes or tongue and don't take sin seriously. By the time they could have become prophets they are unfit, and I have to set them aside”. That has happened to so many! I believe it has happened to hundreds of people. I myself have seen wonderful, zealous young people when I was a young man and I’ve seen where they are today - fallen by the wayside. There has been a tremendous loss for God.

God doesn't force anybody to be His faithful servant. I believe He wants you and me to be faithful servants of His, but whether you're going to be faithful or not, whether you are going to stick to the standards of God's Word, and whether you are going to compromise Him to please people will determine whether you ever become true servant of God or not.

“If I seek to please men, I cannot be the servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). This is absolutely clear. I remember I had that verse written on a little wooden plaque and I kept it in my sitting room before me for 25 years. I studied it every day until it was drilled into my mind. I don't need it in front of me now, since it is in my heart. It is a very important principle. If you ever seek to please men I can tell you in Jesus’ name that you will never be a servant of God! So don't ever seek to please men. Seek to please God. Jesus spent those 30 years seeking to please His Father and He got a certificate in the end. The question is not whether men think you're truthful. Can the God say about you that your yes is always yes and your no is always no?

Think of a situation for example, if you're working in an office and maybe there's an expensive machine there that you accidentally misused and spoiled, but nobody saw you doing it. Many people use that machine and a little later on somebody discovers the machine is not working, and the authorities come to investigate. The boss comes by and asks who spoiled the machine. You know it was you but you keep quiet because there's no way they can find out, since a lot of people were using it. You think you didn’t lie because you didn’t open your mouth, but actually you did tell a lie. You told a lie without opening your mouth! So that you would keep your job, you did not admit that you were the one who used it last and spoiled it in some way. Maybe if you had confessed it they would have sacked you from the job because it is an expensive machine.

Which is more important in that moment? The devil comes to you and says a lie is almighty; that if you tell a lie you can preserve your job. At the same time the Holy Spirit whispers to your heart that it is a lie. Is not God almighty? If you trust God in this situation and speak the truth, maybe you will lose your job, but God will give you a better one. Do you have that faith? It is in such situations that we are tested.

I'm not speaking in theory. Many, many times God has tested me in different things in this area, not to see whether I'm clever or ingenious to find my way out of some situation, but to see whether I'm honest and willing to pay a price for speaking the truth.

This is how He anointed me and gave me a ministry to speak the truth from the pulpit irrespective of the cost. I believe God wants many, many prophets of God in the pulpits in Christendom today who will speak the truth, irrespective of the cost - even if they get thrown out and become despised, rejected, misunderstood, criticized, or falsely accused. The way that God will prepare you for that ministry is by testing you in the ordinary circumstances of life to see whether you will speak the truth, even if you have to pay a price for it and lose your job, or if you have to lose money for it because you stand for the truth. This is a very important area.

Being Truthful

The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth. Jesus said, “The Spirit of Truth will guide you into all the truth, He will not speak on his own initiative. He will disclose to you what is to come, and He will lead you into all the truth” (John 16:13).

I want my life to be totally truthful from head to foot because that's what it means to follow Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” So often even Christian preachers are diplomatic in the way they speak to others. They say, “If I say it like this, well, that could cause some problems so let me be diplomatic.” Jesus was never diplomatic. He always spoke the truth plainly and directly. I don't mean that He was rude and I don't believe we should be rude, but Jesus was not diplomatic for any personal gain. I believe we should be gracious and considerate in speaking the truth (not rude), but I'm talking about speaking the truth where it's going to affect you. We're always to be gracious when we speak to other people, but we must be truthful when it comes to ourselves.

Did you know that the Holy Spirit leads us into all the truth? The first sin that was judged in the early church was the sin of dishonesty, not the sin of covetousness. In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira saw many people selling their lands and bringing the money to the Apostles’ feet (many people were doing that in Acts 4:34). Ananias and Sapphira also wanted a reputation in the church of being wholehearted and surrendered to God completely, so they also sold a bit of their land, but didn't give the full amount of money to lay at the Apostles’ feet like the others were doing. Let's assume they sold the land for a 100,000 rupees and kept back 50,000 rupees, thus giving 50% to the church. If somebody sold their property today and brought 50% of their proceeds to God, you would call that person a wholehearted Christian! But Ananias was killed, not because of what he gave or didn't give, but because he told a lie.

He stood in the line with others and kept his mouth shut as the people were leaving their money at the Apostles’ feet. He also left his money and moved on. As he moved on Peter said, “Ananias, come back here.” God gave Peter discernment that this guy was a liar. Peter told him in Acts 5:4, “When this land was yours, it was your own. Nobody asked you to sell it. God doesn’t want your money or your land. Everybody is giving voluntarily and after you sold it, the money was still yours. Nobody has asked you to give 50% or 10% or even 1% -- why have you thought of this? You have told a lie to God.” Ananias could have said, “I never opened my mouth! I never said a word,” but do you know you can tell a lie to God without opening your mouth? Ananias just stood in line, put the money at the Apostles’ feet, and moved on. He never opened his mouth, but in that action, it was a lie. This is hypocrisy - to pretend.

You can come to the fellowship in a church and pretend to be wholehearted like all the others, and yet be a liar. If you sit with people pretending to be wholehearted like the others and you are not wholehearted, you are a liar even if you don't open your mouth. You can sing to Jesus “Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold,” because you're singing along with all the others and the tune and the words are nice, but you may be an absolute liar because you don't mean it. Many Christians tell more lies to God on Sunday than any other day of the week because of the songs they sing! If you sing “All to Jesus I surrender,” but you haven't surrendered all, then you're a liar. You may not hear a preacher tell you the truth, but you need to hear it because it is the truth. If you have surrendered all to Christ then say it, otherwise keep your mouth shut, or say, “Lord I want to surrender all, but I haven't done it all.” That’s more honest. It doesn't matter if it doesn't fit in with the tune that others are singing. You be honest with God.

Loving the Truth

What is the consequence of this? In 2 Thessalonians 2:10 it speaks of those who don't receive the love of the truth. Loving the truth is more than speaking the truth. I can speak the truth but a higher level than that is to love the truth. I have such a tremendous longing to speak the truth that I love it and I don't ever want to have any lie in me. If we don't receive the love of the truth to be saved from all lying, then 2 Thessalonians 2:11 tells us the consequence: that God Himself will deceive us. That's one of the most fearful verses in the New Testament. If you don't love the truth dear friend, let me tell you straight: Almighty God will deceive you. Satan is a deceiver. Your lusts deceive you. Your heart is deceitful. On top of that, if Almighty God, Who is your only hope of protection from deception, decides to deceive you, there is no hope for you. 2 Thessalonians 2:11 says that God will make you believe what is false. He will make you believe that you're born again when you're not born again. He will make you believe that you are filled with the Holy Spirit when you're not filled with the Holy Spirit. Why? Because of one reason: you don't receive the love of the truth.

Do you know the first sin mentioned in the Bible? It was a lie, when Satan told a lie to Eve saying, “You shall not die” (Genesis 3:4). That’s the first sin mentioned in the Bible - a lie.

What is the last sin mentioned in the Bible? If you turn to the very last chapter of the Bible, you see that lying is also the last sin mentioned. In Revelation 22:15 it says that those who practice lying are outside the holy city. So the first sin and the last sin mentioned in the Bible is lying. The first sin judged in the early church was lying. The people whom God deceives are those who don’t love the truth.

It's very important for us to take this seriously. “Let your yes be yes and your no be no” (Mathew 5:37). This protects us from deception. Jesus said, “I am the Way.” We all appreciate that. We acknowledge that Jesus is the Way and the Life. But He also said, “I am the Truth - I am reality” (John 14:6).

They couldn't have this in the Old Testament. David says in Psalm 51:6 where He makes his confession after sinning with Bathsheba, “Lord I realize You decide truth in the innermost being, I don't have it. I've been a hypocrite. I could kill Goliath, I could defeat the Philistines, but I was a hypocrite in my heart. I sinned with Bathsheba and tried to cover it up by first of all getting her husband to go to her bed that day. I didn't succeed there. Then I got rid of her husband and married her. Lord I realize You desire truth in the innermost being. I don't have it.” But truth in the innermost being is one of the wonderful things we can have today because of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Truth will make us truthful all the way to the innermost being of our life, and heart.

Revelation 14 speaks about certain people who are standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion. Revelation 14:4 tells of a group of overcomers who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. One characteristic about them is, “No lie was found in their mouth” (Revelation 14:5). Children of men are liars from the time they are born. We read that in Psalm 58:3. But here's a group of people who are completely delivered from lying so that there is no lie is found in their whole system. They have become like Jesus: full of truth! I want to encourage you: we need to cleanse ourselves from every type of lie.

Even if you have to pay a price for speaking the truth, if you stand for the truth and decide that you are going to eliminate lying from your life, then 100% your life will be clean. You'll be able to see God. You will never be deceived by any of the deceptions going around in Christendom today. You will know the truth because God Himself will show you the truth, and you will never be deceived about your spiritual condition.

Chapter 20

The Spirit of Jesus' Commandments

Attitude of Taking Revenge

We have looked at three wrong attitudes so far. The first wrong attitude is the wrong attitude of anger (Matthew 5:21) and the second wrong attitude is that of sexually sinful ways of thinking and divorce, both of which amount to adultery in verses 27-32. And then the third wrong attitude is that of lying. We need to eliminate lying completely from our lives so that we are totally truthful.

The fourth wrong attitude is the attitude of taking revenge. This is also very common, unfortunately, even among those who call themselves believers. In the Old Testament, the law said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This was a law that God gave in Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, and also in Deuteronomy 19. What God was saying there was not that if somebody takes out your eye you must take out his eye. What He was saying is, don't take out both of his eyes if he took out only one of yours. The point is that you can forgive the offender and let him go, and not take any of his eyes out. That would be the best way. God was limiting punishment by saying, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

But Jesus raises the standard higher, and says, “Do not resist the one who is evil; if somebody slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other to him. If someone sues you to take your shirt, give him your coat as well. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with them two” (Matthew 5:39-41). Roman soldiers would sometimes force the Jewish people who were their slaves to carry their baggage and military equipment for a mile. The Jews were slaves so they had to do it. Jesus tells us that in situations like these we should go two miles with the person, to not fight with him about it, to give to him who asks of you, and to not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

We need to take these words in the spirit in which they are spoken. We need to see exactly what Jesus meant. Was He telling us to be like doormats? Are we to let people do whatever they like? It cannot be. Whenever you don't understand the Scripture properly, look at the example of Jesus Christ Himself - because He is the Word made flesh. In the Old Testament, they had scribes who examined the law to explain every jot and tittle in it. In the New Testament, we don't need to analyze verses as much as we look at Jesus, since we have His example now.

What did Jesus mean by, “If someone slaps you on your right cheek turn the other cheek”? We see that Jesus Himself, when He was standing before the chief priests in the trial just before his crucifixion, was slapped and didn't turn the other cheek. He said in John 18:23, “If I have spoken what's right, why do you slap Me?” They didn’t respond to that (they probably slapped Him again and He didn't fight back). When they slapped him, He didn't offer His other cheek to be slapped as well. So, we need to be careful to understand the spirit of what Christ is saying, otherwise we would have to accuse Jesus Himself of not practicing what He preached.

The principle here is: I don't desire revenge; I'm not seeking to get back at someone for what was done to me. If someone calls me a devil, I'm not going to call that person a devil. If I am slapped, I will not slap back. I'd rather just sit back and trust God to protect me from being taken advantage of.

What does He mean when He says that if somebody sues you in court to take your shirt, give your coat also? For example, if somebody unrighteously tells a lie and sues you for your own property saying it is his property - perhaps he got some false documents in court and wants to take away your house from you - what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to tell him to take your house and offer your other house as well? Is that the meaning?

That’s not at all what Jesus meant. Again, we need to understand the spirit. If somebody forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. In other words, if someone forces you to do something, do more. You must understand the spirit of it. Jesus also instructs us not to turn anyone who wants to borrow from us away. Is He saying that you should give money to every single person who wants to borrow from you? Here in India, if you give money to someone once and you get a reputation as one who freely keeps on giving to anyone, you’ll end up bankrupt in no time at all!

If you don't understand the spirit of these words, and blindly take them literally, you're going to get into a lot of trouble. The same thing applies to words that He spoke earlier, such as, “If your right eye makes you to stumble, tear it out.” Imagine if you actually tore out your right eye because one day you lusted after a woman and then the next day you lusted with your left eye, and then you have to tear that out, and so now you are blind. Is that what He meant? You can still lust in your mind after both your eyes are gone! Do you think blind men don't lust? You can be totally blind and still lust in your mind without both eyes, so you need to understand the spirit of these words. He was talking about a radical attitude towards lusting when He instructed us to be as a blind man is, or as the one with an amputated hand.

That's the spirit in which we need to understand all of these things: don't seek to take revenge, be willing to be taken advantage of, and even be willing to die to myself; but it doesn't mean I have no rights. It doesn't mean that I have to give up my property to anybody who asks me for it. We need to balance Scripture with Scripture, so let’s look at the last statement in particular.

Principles of Lending

“Do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42). Sometimes we understand things better by comparing Scripture with Scripture, so we must look at a parallel passage to best understand this verse. Jesus said in Luke 6:35, “Lend expecting nothing in return.”

I remember a brother once came to me saying that he lent three thousand rupees to this other brother who said he would return it. A great deal of time had gone by and he had not yet returned it. I told this brother that he is the one who disobeyed Scripture, because Scripture says to “lend expecting to receive nothing in return.” If you lend expecting to receive what credit is that to you, even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount (Luke 6:34). But when you as a believer lend you must be different - expect nothing in return.

What Jesus meant was that you should only lend an amount of money that you can write off as a gift. So, I told this brother that he probably should not have lent this other brother three thousand rupees when he asked to borrow it. He should have said, “Sorry, I can't afford to give you three thousand rupees, but I can give you 500.” In other words, lend only as much money as you are comfortable never seeing again. Treat it as a gift, and if he doesn't return it, that’s it. But if you didn't do that, then you have disobeyed Scripture. We need to understand the spirit in these things.

What did Jesus mean when He said, “Don't turn away from him who wants to borrow from you”? When I was as a young Christian, I was earning a lot of money as a naval officer (far more than I needed) and I had plenty of money to spare. There was a poorer brother in the church who knew that and would come to me and ask to borrow money. I asked how much he wanted and he agreed to pay it back in a month. The next month came along and he came to me and said he still couldn’t return what he borrowed and he asked for more money, so I gave him more money. I had in mind this verse, “Don’t turn away from him who wants to borrow from you,” and I continued to give him money for months. I just kept quiet thinking I was obeying Scripture. I was a young, newly-baptized Christian and I was doing what Scripture said as far as I knew, but after a while this person who took this money backslid and got into drinking and other bad habits. When I heard that, then I wrote to him saying that if he used the money to buy alcohol and to finance the devil’s kingdom, then he had better return the money to me because this money was to be used for God’s kingdom. He got very angry with me and he said that even the dead denominations did not make demands like I was making.

And the Lord told me to forget it. I never wrote back to him and I never got the money back. I thought, “Lord, what did I do wrong? I obeyed Your Scripture which said, ‘Don't turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.’” And the Lord taught me something that has helped me throughout all these nearly 50 years. That is, you must compare Scripture with Scripture. The Lord showed me that I treated that money as if it was my own. One Scripture said I must lend to him who asks, but there's another Scripture that says that nothing that I have belongs to myself - everything on earth belongs to the Lord. “The earth is the Lord's and everything that it contains” (1 Corinthians 10:26). So when I receive a salary that I think is mine, I have to see that it's not mine; I should forsake it. I should give it to the Lord. Even though I collect my salary on the first of the month and it's in my bank account, I must say that it's not my money; that it's God's money.

An illustration that came to me at that time: if somebody had given me 5000 rupees to keep and then return later, and another person comes to me at that time saying that he heard I had 5000 rupees and asks for me to lend him 3000 rupees, what will I say? I’ll say “I'm sorry, brother; that that's not my money, it's somebody else's. He just asked me to hold on to it for him. Let me ask him about it and if he allows me to give it to you, then I'll give it to you.” Wouldn't that be the righteous way to handle this situation since it's not my money? If I had treated my salary as the Lord's money, then I wouldn't have given it out as easily as I did. When that brother came to borrow from me, I would have said, “Yes, that's fine; it’s right for me to lend to somebody who is in need, but let me go and ask the One to Whom the money belongs (in this case, the Lord). I would have brought it to the Lord and said, ‘Lord, do you want me to give it to this person?’” And maybe the Lord would have said yes or no. God speaks; He is a living God. Perhaps the first time He would say yes, and the second time He would have probably said no, but I didn't wait to listen. I went by the letter of the law and I got into bondage, but I'm very glad that I learned a lesson very early in my life on how to obey Scripture – “it is written” and “it is also written.” I need to balance Scripture with Scripture to be able to understand. I'm willing to lend to everyone who asks of me today just like it says here. But I also want to recognize that all that I have belongs to the Lord, so I cannot give that out without asking the Lord and that's what I followed subsequently when people have come to me and asked me for money. I now say, “Let me seek the Lord; if I have freedom in my spirit, I’ll give it to you.” And there are times that I have given and I have never gotten it back, and there are times when I've not given because Lord didn't give me freedom to give, but my heart was willing.

This is an example of how we need to understand the spirit in which Jesus spoke all these things. It's not that we allow people to treat us like doormats. The principle is that we do not take revenge on anyone and that we do not wish to get back at someone who hurt us.

Another brother, who worked as a bus driver, once testified in a church meeting that as he drove down the street, he would sometimes at night see someone coming toward him in a car in the opposite direction with glaring headlights that would blind his eyes. They're supposed to dip their lights when there's another car coming in the other direction, but these people didn't. Because their lights were blinding his eyes, he felt like making his bus headlights also glare back at them in much greater brightness, blinding the other driver back to teach him a lesson. He suddenly realized that he was a Christian and shouldn't take revenge so and he decided not to do it. Notice the revelation that that brother got on what it means to take revenge: to hurt another person in the same way that he hurt him!

If I understand the principle Jesus taught, I will discover the application of that principle even when driving down the road as somebody is allowing his headlights to glare into my eyes. This situation may not be written in Scripture anywhere, but I'll understand the principles and be willing to yield, recognizing that my time and my money and my energy primarily belong to the Lord. I'm not a slave of men and I'm not going to allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry to reduce me to become their slave. I'm primarily a slave of the Lord and I'm not going to be a slave of men.

So if I keep that in mind, I understand these principles: I never want to take revenge, I never want to treat that person the way he treats me, and I don't want to speak back to him the way he spoke back to me. I want to yield, I want to be gracious, and I want to give up my rights.

Love Your Enemies

Jesus goes on to something that is very closely connected. The next wrong attitude He speaks of is hating people. “You have heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy” (Matthew 5:43). In the Old Testament the Israelites hated the Canaanites, they hated the Philistines, they hated the Amorites, the Moabites, etc. They intended to destroy them. But Jesus now says, “I say to you, love your enemies.” Has God changed through the years? No. Man now has the higher possibility to live like Jesus Christ. He was not capable of living like Jesus in the Old Testament. Without the Holy Spirit it is impossible to really love your enemies the way God wants you to love them. You may love your enemy to get some honor as a very gracious person, but what about to love your enemy for the glory of God? Only a person filled with the Holy Spirit can do that. “So I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Remember that these are the commandments that we’re supposed to teach every single believer who is a disciple around the world. If I'm to build a church, I must build a church where every single person in that church loves every one of his enemies. If he has ten enemies and he loves nine of them, he has not obeyed that command. Jesus said, “Go into all nations and make them disciples, teaching them to obey and do everything I have commanded.” In other words, I have to go through the experience myself first, and that's why every servant of God is allowed by God to face enemies in his life - so that he can learn to love them. That's how he can teach other people to love their enemies.

That's also why every true servant of God has to face persecution - because it's only then that he can learn how to pray for those who persecute him, and then he can also teach others how to pray for those who persecute them. That is why Jesus says, “So that you can be sons of your Father Who is in heaven.” He instructs us to look at our Father in Heaven, Who “makes the Sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

Think of two farmers, one is an atheist and the other is a God-fearing farmer. Their farms are next to each other, and one man prays regularly while the other man thinks that there's no God and it's all rubbish. Yet God makes the sun rise on both of them and their farms! God makes the rain fall equally on both of their farms so that they get good crops and good fruit in their trees. Do you see how good God is! He pours equally on the atheist and the God-fearing farmer, and He tells us to be like that. Be like God - equally good to the person who is good to you and to the person who is evil to you. All of this is impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit - that's why we don't read such commands in the Old Testament.

Jesus goes on to say that if we only love those who love us, there’s nothing special about that, because even the tax collectors, and evil sinful people like murderers, and people in false religions and groups, do that. So if you only greet your friends or your brothers, you're no better than the heathen (Matthew 5:47).

Have you ever gone out of your way to greet somebody who doesn't want to greet you? I've done that numerous times. As a servant of the Lord, many people are upset with me because of the truth I proclaim - the truth of God's Word. Just as people were upset with Jesus and Paul and many other servants of God through these twenty centuries, many would not greet me if they were to pass me on the road. Sometimes I cross the road to go and greet them because the Bible says to greet those who don't have an interest in greeting you, to show that you have nothing against them.

Someone once asked me how many friends I have. I said as many people as there are in the world I have as friends, and the number keeps increasing every day! If there are seven billion people in the world, as far as I'm concerned, they're all my friends. I don't have any enemies; I love them all. They may consider me as their enemy, but I don't consider them as my enemy. People who have done harm to me, persecuted me, I want to pray for them. People who have cursed me, I want to bless them. “Bless those who curse you” (Matthew 5:44). Do you do that?

You know that no curse can ever harm you. That's impossible because we're under the blessing of God. Christ took every curse on the cross and now we are under the blessing of God, so any person cursing me is not going to hurt me in any way. He doesn't know that and I can, in response, bless him by saying, “God bless you.” I can turn to every human being in the world and say, “God bless you.” That’s sincerely what I desire for every single person. Whether God blesses him or not depends on his attitude, etc. but I certainly desire that God will bless him.

Be Perfect in Mercy

Lastly, the Lord teaches, “You are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). What does that mean? In what area am I supposed to be perfect? I can’t be perfect in love and holiness and wisdom like God - that is impossible. He's not saying here that one day you will be perfect; what He is saying is that you must be perfect. Again, we should compare Scripture with Scripture. In Luke’s gospel the same verse is mentioned: “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful. Love your enemies and be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36) - that's a parallel passage.

By comparing Scripture with Scripture, I realized that there is one area where I'm supposed to be perfect and that is in the area of mercy. I must be perfect in mercy. That means that I must forgive 100% of the people who have harmed me. I must love 100% of my enemies. I must bless 100% of those who curse me. I must do good to 100% of people who hate me - that should be how I live. So when Jesus says, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” when we compare Scripture with Scripture, we see that it‘s something that is indeed possible.

Many people have not taken a serious look at this verse and so they take this as a promise that one day they will be perfect (that is 1 John 3:2 - one day when Christ comes back we will be like Him - that is absolutely true, but we are not talking about that now). Instead, here it says you must be perfect, and Jesus is giving the example of the Father in Matthew 5:45, Who makes the sun to rise on both the evil and the good. Be good to that person who is evil towards you, in just the same way that God makes the Sun and the rain to fall upon people who are evil and don’t even believe in His existence.

Isn’t that a wonderful way to live on the earth? This is true Christianity and if you are not able to live like this, it is for one reason only: you don't take the words of Jesus seriously. You don't tremble at His Word, or you're not filled with the Holy Spirit.

The fullness of the Holy Spirit is not something that will make us giggle, laugh, fall down and roll on the ground. It's something that will make us love our enemies, greet those who don't greet us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us, and be merciful to every single person who is evil towards us just like our Heavenly Father is merciful to us. Think of how merciful God has been to you: the millions of sins He just overlooks and forgives. Can’t we forgive others in the same way? Let's take these words seriously and be free of the wrong attitudes that the Lord wants us to be free from.

Chapter 21

Secret Giving and Praying

In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus speaks on one wrong attitude. We have already seen a number of wrong attitudes in the previous verses from Matthew 5:21-48. Another wrong attitude is seeking honor from human beings in relation to giving alms (money for charity, or giving to the Lord’s work), in relation to prayer, and in relation to fasting.

In all these areas of giving, praying, and fasting, Jesus said it is very important that we do not allow men to know anything about our sacrifices. We should keep these secrets before God as far as possible. This is another area where our righteousness is to surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). Remember, that verse could be the heading for almost for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount: the ways in which our righteousness is to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, in order for us to enter into God’s kingdom.

Righteous Motives

In the matter of our giving, Jesus says our attitude must be completely different from the Pharisees, hypocrites who wanted people to know what they were giving. He said to beware of practicing your righteousness before men. That’s the fundamental principle. And that righteousness Jesus breaks down to giving, praying, and fasting. In all these areas, Jesus said not to do it in order to be noticed by people.

We can’t avoid people noticing these things sometimes, and we don’t have to feel guilty if people happen to accidentally to know about them, or if there is no way to avoid it, but we don’t do these things in order to be noticed by men. That’s the point. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in Heaven. According to this verse, there are a number of people who have prayed and fasted and given for the Lord’s work who are going to get NO reward in Heaven, because they wanted other people to know how much they gave, prayed, and fasted.

Righteousness in Giving

Jesus said, “When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you” (Matthew 6:2). Jesus always had a way of exaggerating something to highlight a point. He didn’t speak literally about swallowing a camel and straining out a gnat, for nobody strains out gnats or swallows camels. Jesus spoke about having a log in your eye, but it is impossible to have a log in your eye. And here He speaks about blowing a big trumpet. Nobody blows a literal trumpet before they give money.

Jesus was exaggerating in order to highlight a point. You want people to know what you are giving so that you can get honor from them. And Jesus said that if people do this, then they have already received their reward. This means that what they wanted is honor from men (and not from God), and so they received it. There is no reward from God left for them, because they have already received their reward. But Jesus said that when you give, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, meaning that another member of the body of Christ should not know what you have given. Thus, your alms may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

This matter of giving is very important. In the Old Testament there was no law that said that other people should not know how much you give, because everybody knew that you had to pay a tithe. A tithe was not money in those days. The Jewish people were farmers, so they brought their grain, mint, cumin, and animals as their tithe. When they offered it up to God, people would see them bringing a sheep or an ox or grain or whatever it was. They couldn’t hide it. Thus, there was no law that said that people should not see what you are giving. And there was no law in the Old Testament that said you even have to give cheerfully, which is a rule and principle in the New Covenant, which says that God loves a cheerful giver, and that no one should give grudgingly or under pressure (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Giving - Not Tithing - Is the New Covenant Command

We need to understand the principles of New Testament giving. There is no law in the New Testament that says you must pay 10%. The last mention of a tithe being commanded is in the book of Malachi, in the Old Testament. When Jesus referred to it in Matthew 23, He was speaking to people who were still under the Old Covenant -- the Pharisees and the Jewish people. The New Covenant was established on the day of Pentecost, and after that, there is not a single command to Christians to pay the tithe. There is no reference to the tithe at all.

There is a vague reference to Abraham having given 10% to Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews, but that wasn’t a law that Abraham was following. He could have given whatever he liked. It happened to be 10%, but Abraham was not following a law, and he wouldn’t have sinned if he hadn’t done it.

The emphasis that we see on tithing in Christendom today is completely Old Covenant. Most Christians live under the Old Covenant in many areas. In the Old Covenant, you could only have your sins forgiven (Psalm 103); in the New Covenant, Romans 6:14 says that sin will not rule over you. When people have only forgiveness of sins and no victory over the sin, they are living in the Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant, there was a congregation that could not work together as one body. When a church today is like that - when it cannot function together as a body - that proves it is really just an Old Covenant congregation. When tithing is emphasized, that is also Old Covenant.

There are many areas where Christians today are living under the Old Covenant; they don’t realize that the New Covenant was established on the day of Pentecost. It is almost like people in India not knowing that we became independent in 1947. Can you imagine somebody being ignorant of that? It is just as ridiculous for Christians to still live under the Old Covenant.

In the New Covenant, the principles of giving are that it should be secret (Matthew 6:1-4), cheerful (2 Corinthians 9:7), and, proportionate to what you have earned (1 Corinthians 16:2). There is no law as to how much you should give. You can give as God has prospered you. If you have much, and you have got plenty to spare, then you can give more; and if you don’t have much, you don’t have to give. That is OK, because God is a billionaire, and He doesn’t want any of His poor children to suffer by giving to Him.

If you don’t understand these principles, a lot of pastors and preachers will exploit you and take advantage of you financially. But keep this in mind, that when we give, we should give secretly. Any church that makes you reveal what you are giving is actually asking you to disobey the word of God in Matthew 6:1-4. As far as possible all our giving should be secret, voluntary, and cheerful.

This is why I personally do not believe that we should put a bag in front of people and force people to give when they may not be giving cheerfully. It is probably not possible for them to give secretly, because their neighbors are watching them give. I believe the way to do it is by keeping a box somewhere in the church where people voluntarily give secretly, cheerfully, and according to their ability. But very few churches practice this because there is a tremendous love for money among most Christian preachers and in most Christian churches.

If you give secretly, your Father, Who sees in secret, will repay you. That is a wonderful reward that God has promised, that if we obey His command here, then one day, when Christ comes again, there is going to be a great reward for those who have given sacrificially and secretly.

Righteousness in Prayer

Jesus’ principle in prayer is the same: when you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. There are number of things Jesus tells us about prayer as a warning.

First of all, hypocrites love to be seen praying. “They stand and pray in synagogues and the street corners in order to be seen. They have their reward in full.” The principle here is that if you pray in public, and your aim is that other people should appreciate your prayer, that is seeking honor from men. Almost everybody who begins to pray in public will have to admit that they are seeking honor when they pray.

Ask yourself, do you pray in public in the same way that you pray in private? When you are kneeling by your bed alone, how do you pray? What do you say to God? Is that what you say when you’re praying in public? Or do you make your language more flowery and bring a little tremor into your voice and behave like an actor, like a lot people do when they pray in public, to impress people that they are very earnest or they’re very emotional?

It’s all hypocrisy. God hates it. I wish we would realize that type of public praying is detestable before God. God detests it and won’t even listen to it. Most public praying in churches falls under this category, where people are praying in order to demonstrate how well they can pray before other people. This is completely against the teaching of Jesus, and people do it because they have not been taught all that Jesus commanded.

How shall we cleanse ourselves from it? We should judge ourselves each time we pray. I remember the first time I prayed as a Christian in public. I have to confess that I was seeking honor from people when I prayed. When I went home and judged myself, I said, “Lord, that is not the way I should pray.” The next time I got up and prayed in public, I was still seeking honor, and so I went home and judged myself again. It took me a number of years before I could cleanse myself from this desire to seek honor from men in public prayer, but finally, after many years, I learned to pray to God Almighty alone, to my Heavenly Father. Have you come there? If not, I want to encourage you to work out your salvation from seeking the honor of men.

Seek Cleansing from Dead Works

Matthew 6:1-18 is warning against seeking the honor of men. It is a sin that many people don’t even recognize, and it is not spoken about much. You can do a good work, but when you do it to seek honor from men, it becomes a dead work. In the Old Testament, there were only bad works (evil works) and good works. There were no dead works. But in the New Testament, we read about three categories of works: evil works, good works, and then something in between, called “dead works.” We are told in Hebrews 6:1 that we must repent of dead works, and we are told in Hebrews 9:14 that the blood of Christ must cleanse us from dead works. 1 John 1:7 says the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all sin. That we can understand; but do you know what it is for the blood of Christ to cleanse you from dead works as well?

Nothing can be cleansed unless it is confessed. When was the last time you confessed a dead work? What is a dead work? A dead work is a good work done in order to seek honor from men. When I pray, that is a good work. But if I pray to seek the honor of men, that good work becomes a dead work, and I need to repent of that prayer. When I give money for God’s work, that is a good work. If I give money to a poor believer, that is a good work. But if I give in order to be seen by men, that good work becomes a dead work that I need to repent of.

Any work done with a wrong motive -- even doing work to get some reward from God -- becomes a dead work. People say, “Give your tithe to our ministry, and God will reward you with a car,” or something like that -- you are doing business with God, and it is a dead work. You can’t do business with God.

Whatever we do, we must do out of love for God, to glorify Him. Not because we want some return from Him, as if we are doing business with Him. Don’t pray like a hypocrite, seeking to impress others. You have to be radical in your attitude if you ever want to be free from this, otherwise you will never be free.

Praying Alone Before God

Then Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your inner room; and when you shut your door, pray to your Father in secret.” How do we do this in public? We can do it in public if we have a door in our mind that we can shut. Even when I am standing in the midst of 100 people, there is a door in my mind. I shut it, and then I say, “I am now standing before Almighty God, my Father, alone.” There may be people around me, but I don’t want to be conscious of them. That’s one reason we close our eyes when we pray. There is no law that says you should close your eyes when you pray. You can pray with open eyes, because even Jesus did that sometimes.

We close our eyes so that we don’t get distracted by our surroundings, so that we don’t seek honor from the people around us. In a sense we are shutting out people when we shut our eyes. We need to shut our mind, too, and say, “Father, I have shut the doors now and I am praying to You.” That’s the way to pray, and we can do that even in public. We pray to our Father in secret, and our Father, Who sees in secret, will repay us. You can be absolutely sure that if you are praying to God your Father, and not seeking honor from men, He will definitely repay you and answer that prayer.

Avoid Meaningless Repetition

Jesus gives us more advice concerning how not to pray in verse 7, “Don’t use meaningless repetition like the heathen do because they think they will be heard for their many words.” One of the mistakes that the heathen make is to use meaningless repetition. Some religions have a habit of chanting something. They repeat some religious phrase, and it becomes a meaningless thing.

It’s possible to take some spiritual language and repeat it. It is possible for us to say, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah,” and it becomes quite meaningless after a while. It becomes a ritual. The same is true for phrases like, “Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord..” Jesus said, “Do not use meaningless repetition.” If you read the New Testament, you discover the word Hallelujah only comes in Revelation 19, and it says, “Hallelujah because of this,” and then it goes on to say another time, “Halleluiah because of this.” There must be a reason why we praise the Lord, and so we should not just say "Halleluiah” meaninglessly. We must give thanks in everything, but if it is meaningless repetition, it can be pretty foolish, and it doesn’t amount to anything before God. It can even be taking the Lord’s name in vain because the last part of Hallelujah, 'yah,' is a short form of Jehovah, and the Jewish people were very afraid to even mention that name, lest they take the Lord’s name in vain. I believe a lot of Christians are taking the Lord’s name in vain, when they say “Hallelujah” meaninglessly. I often say it when I praise the Lord, but I seek to say it meaningfully every single time. I am not against using that word, and neither is God, but it must be meaningful, and not a meaningless repetition.

Do you see how Christians have not taken a simple command like this seriously? Jesus said that it‘s the non-Christians who repeat something meaninglessly like a chant, and that must not be true in our lives. The same thing applies to lot of songs we sing. When you sing a song, particularly a song you have known very well and have sung probably 500 times, check yourself. The next time you sing that song in a church, you may discover at the end that you don’t even remember what you sang. If you were to ask an average, born again Christian at the end of a church service, “what did you tell God today in the songs you sang?” he’ll have to scratch his head and think, “What did I say? I don’t even remember. It was a nice song, so I just sang it along without even thinking of what I was saying.” That is meaningless repetition! We need to reverence God and say what we mean. You can’t go before a king, or the president, or the prime minister of India and just repeat something, when you don’t even know what you are saying. We must have much more reverence for God. Avoid meaningless repetition.

Seek Faith and a Clean Heart Rather Than Long Prayers

Jesus also says, “Don’t think that you will be heard for many words.” That’s another mistake lot of people make in prayer. They think that if they pray for a long time, God will certainly hear them. “I prayed for 3 hours, so definitely God will hear me.” That’s a lot of nonsense, and that’s what non-Christians think - if they pray for long time, then God will definitely hear them. It’s not true.

On Mount Carmel, the prophets of Baal prayed for many hours -- maybe six hours or more -- but nothing happened. Elijah got up and prayed for half a minute and the fire fell. It’s not the length of a prayer that makes Lord hear. It is very important to understand that.

A lot of people think that they will be heard for praying all night. “Well I prayed all night, so of course God will answer my prayer.” Who said that? It’s faith that brings an answer to prayer and a heart that is free from sin. Those are the most important things. “If I regard iniquity in my heart,” Psalm 66:18 says, “the Lord will not hear me”.

It doesn’t matter if you pray all night, and it doesn’t matter how wonderful your prayer sounds. If there is sin which is not settled, if there is unconfessed sin in your heart, if there is a wrong relationship between you and your brother, if you hurt somebody and you come and pray to God, God will not listen to your prayer. Go and settle that matter with your brother. If there is a sin between you and God, or between you and your brother, that is not confessed and settled, you can be absolutely sure that you are wasting your time praying, whether you pray for 1 minute or 10 hours.

Faith is the second requirement to be heard in prayer. If you don’t have faith when you pray, you will not get anything. You don’t have because you don’t believe that you will receive. Jesus said, “When you pray, believe and then you will receive” (Mark 11:24). Even if I pray for a long time, if I don’t believe that God is going to grant it to me, then I will not get my request.

Why do we say, “Amen,” at the end of the prayer? Amen is not just a signal that the prayer is over; it is much more than that. It means that I believe that I will get what I have prayed for. Amen is a Hebrew word which means, “It shall be done,” or “It will be so..” I am saying to God, “I prayed this, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, and I believe it will be done. I have asked in faith - I believe I have asked according to Your will - and so it will be done.” When there are areas where we don’t know what God’s will is, we say, “Father not my will, but Thine be done.”

As little children go to their father and ask for anything, you are permitted to ask God for anything. A little child can ask for an elephant or a real airplane! A little child can ask his father for anything, and you can ask God for anything, provided that you conclude your prayer with this one sentence, “Nevertheless Father, not as I will, but as Thou will.” This is effectively telling God, “I trust You to choose for me.” This is a wonderful attitude to have in prayer. “I trust You, Father, to choose for me, and I trust You that I will get this which I am praying according to Your Will.”

There are many areas where God’s will is revealed to us in Scripture. We must come in faith. Many Christians say, “I don’t know whether God has heard my prayer.” We should not be like that. We are not to pray like the heathen who think that we have to inform God about our needs. No, Your Heavenly Father knows what you need before you even ask Him. He asks us to pray so that we can have a sense of cooperating with God when the answer comes! We say, “Yes! I prayed, and God answered me,” and that brings a closer fellowship between us and our Heavenly Father.

Chapter 22

How to Pray

Having taught us in Matthew 6:5-8, how not to pray -- not as the hypocrites, not with meaningless repetitions, and not with length of prayer, but believing that our Father knows what we need -- Jesus next tells us how to pray. I notice, as I have observed Christians, that very few people actually pay attention to these simple statements of Jesus, which even a child can understand. He taught us how not to pray, and many people have not taken that seriously, and He has taught us how to pray, and even this many people have not taken seriously.

He was not giving us a prayer to blindly repeat though. There is no harm in repeating it if you mean every sentence. But Jesus was teaching us a pattern that should characterize all of our prayers.

First, Pray to Our Father Who Is in Heaven

Jesus said when you pray, pray like this -- “Our Father Who art in Heaven.” The first thing Jesus said is that when you talk to God, call Him Father. Nobody in the Old Testament could ever dare to look up to God and say, “Father.” Old Testament prayer was always, “O God, Lord Almighty, etc.” because God was the CEO of the universe and His people were like little employees in a factory. You can’t talk to the CEO any way you like! But in the New Covenant, we are God’s children, and just like the child of a CEO can walk into his Dad’s office and call him “Daddy,” so we need to understand the privilege of being a child of God. It is fundamentally different!

And yet, it is true of most Christians that they don’t call God, “Father;” they call Him, “O God.” There is nothing wrong in that. He is God, and it is right to address Him as God; but if you only address Him as God, and not also as Father, then there is something wrong.

In the Old Testament, God had a name, Jehovah (or Yahweh (Nobody knows the exact pronunciation of it because the Hebrew alphabet did not have any vowels in it)). As far as I am concerned, it is an absolutely unimportant discussion, because I don’t call God Jehovah or Yahweh! I call Him Daddy.

He is my Father because Jesus taught us to pray, saying, “Our Father.” In Romans 8, we learn that the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and cries out, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15). Yet if you look at some of the songs people sing, like “Guide me, Thou Oh great Jehovah,” are they speaking to their Father? He is Jehovah, but we need to learn to address Him as our Father. If my children came up to me and said, “Mr. Poonen,” I would think there is something wrong with them! Why are they calling me Mr. Poonen? They should call me Daddy. When I come to God, I don’t call him Jehovah or Yahweh, even though that is His name. I say, “Father,” because He is my Father. I have become His child.

That reality of having become the child of God has not hit many Christians, and this is because they don’t open themselves up to the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit fills a person, one of the first things He does is make him cry out “Abba Father,” which means, “Daddy.” Has that happened to you? This is very, very important. It is not something that somebody trains you to say. It’s an automatic, inward cry. That inward reality comes when the Holy Spirit comes into a person’s heart, when he is born again. If he is filled with the Spirit, he really knows God as his Father. It is one of the most important things in the Christian life, to know God as Father and to call Him Father. You can call Him Lord, and you can call Him God. But the predominant way you should be praying is to your, “Abba Father.”

Not only “our Father,” but Jesus said to pray, “Our Father Who art in heaven.” We are not praying to some earthly father. My earthly father may love me very much, but he may be helpless to help me in a difficult situation. My Father in heaven is not helpless; He runs the universe. He is more powerful than the prime minister of India! Think if the prime minster of India were your father. If you had a problem, all you’d have to do is call your dad and tell him about it. Well, your Father in Heaven is mightier and more powerful than anyone in this world. Why don’t you go to Him with your problems?

Jesus was trying to lay a basis for faith in that very first sentence of this prayer. “Our Father, Who art in heaven,” makes it clear in my heart before I start praying that the One I am talking to is my Heavenly Father, a Father Who loves me intensely. This Father is in heaven, and He is almighty. These two truths, that God loves me intensely, and that God is all-powerful, are the basis for my faith. He can solve any problem - He can do anything - and He loves me intensely. This is the greatest basis for faith.

Prioritize God’s Interests

In the six requests that follow, if you look carefully, you’ll notice that the first three requests concern God. When you go to God in prayer, what is your first request? You’ll find it is almost always something for yourself or your family. “Lord meet this need,” or “Heal my backache,” or “Give me a job,” or “Take care of my children: provide a job and a marriage partner for them,” etc. There is nothing wrong with these requests. We can certainly pray for all of these things. God wants us to go to Him for every little thing, even small things. Even if you have misplaced your keys, you can ask God to help you find them.

You can ask God for every little thing, and every big thing, but what do you give priority to? Jesus said that when you pray, you should make your priority be God and His needs. That’s the meaning of “seek God’s kingdom first.” Jesus says this in Matthew 6:33, “Seek God’s kingdom first and His righteousness and these other earthly things will be added to you.” You can ask for them, but put God’s kingdom first; this is God’s way.

Jesus says your first request must be, “God, my Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Never mind what people say about my name. That is unimportant, because my reputation is fit for the trash-can.” Are you concerned about your name and your reputation more than God’s Name? Then you are not praying in the way Jesus taught us. Suppose somebody scandalized you or scandalized your daughter. Does that disturb you more than the name Jesus being dishonored in our country? It doesn’t bother us enough that Christians fight with each other and do so many wrong things. If that doesn’t bother us at all, I wonder whether we really have relationship with God as our Father. If you are more concerned about your name, your family name and your children (what people are saying about them), then you need to reorient your thinking and get it more centered on God.

A Christian’s Life Should Revolve Around God, Not Self

The first three requests that Jesus taught us are “Hallowed be Thy Name,” “Thy kingdom come,” and “Thy will be done.” Notice everything has to do with God. Man is basically self-centered. What we have inherited from Adam is a self-centered life that makes us think of ourselves primarily, and very often ourselves only. It’s I, me, and my family, that’s all that concerns most people. If they get converted, it’s still I, me, and my family. When they receive Christ, they only think of how Christ can now bless I, me, and my family. That’s not Christianity. Jesus came to deliver us from this self-centered life, which is the root cause of all our misery and unhappiness.

The reason why most Christians cannot rejoice all the time is because they are centered in themselves. When something good happens to them, they rejoice; and when something doesn’t happen the way wanted -- if they didn’t get the promotion that they expected -- then they lose their joy. Why? God is still on the throne, your sins are still forgiven, the devil is still defeated! You can’t rejoice because something you wanted, you didn’t get. Jesus has come to deliver us from a self-centered life, which is the root cause of all our problems.

Can we ask for food? Of course we can, Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:11, “Give us this day our daily bread.” “Daily bread” includes food, clothing, shelter, and children’s education, because they need to get educated and get a job so that they can earn their daily bread. There is nothing wrong in asking for these things. “Forgive us our sins,” and “Deliver us from evil” are also good requests, but all these three requests concerning us come after seeking God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s glory. Jesus is changing our priorities.

The right way to pray is to pray with God’s Kingdom, His name, and His will primary in our thinking. In other words, I must change my whole way of life, to now think in terms of God’s name, God’s Kingdom, and God’s glory. That is the truly spiritual Christian. Anyone can repeat this prayer - even a parrot can. But only spiritual people can pray this prayer from their hearts, because only spiritual people can honestly say that their primary concern in life is that God’s name will be hallowed in the country, in the church, and in themselves and their families.

“God’s kingdom should come soon, God’s rule should be established in the church, and God’s will should be done in my life, in my family, everywhere.” That is the mark of a spiritual man. Don’t consider yourself spiritual until these three are the uppermost desires in your heart. Everything else is meaningless if the center of your life is still around yourself. Many people, when they are converted, because their life has been self-centered all along, have just added Jesus into their orbit to serve them - to forgive their sins, to answer their prayers, to bless them, make them prosperous, and heal their sicknesses. This is not Christianity. This is a self-centered life with religion added on to it. When Christ really comes in, we turn from (repent of) our self-centered life, and God becomes the center.

Consider Others Even in Our Material Requests

In the three requests concerning ourselves at the end of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus does mention material things (give us this day our daily bread), but He links them with “Thy will be done on Earth as it is Heaven.” I am saying “My Father, I want to do Your will on earth in my life exactly like the angels do it Heaven, which is instant obedience; and in order to do Your will, I need health, so give me my daily bread. Are you praying for daily bread in order to do God’s will, or in order for you to do your own will? Is it in order to sin, or in order to please God? Our prayer should be, “Give me this day my daily bread for health and strength to live for God.”

The other thing to notice is that in this entire prayer, the words “me” and “my” are missing. Isn’t that interesting, that in our own prayers you’ll find “me” and “my” very frequently, but in the prayer that the Lord taught us to pray, these words are completely absent. He says, “Give us” - “it is not just me Lord, I think of my brother too, he needs his daily bread.” “Forgive us” - “don’t just forgive me, forgive my brother too.” “Deliver us…” The truly spiritual man is a man whose life is centered in God, and when it comes to considering himself, he thinks not only of himself, but also of the people around him - others who are also part of the family of God. Because God is the Father of large family, he thinks of others as well.

The proper order is Christ first, and then others and me together; not just me by myself. That’s the way a spiritual person prays: not just for his own needs. He is concerned about his children naturally, but he is also concerned about somebody else’s children. He doesn’t look down on them. It is not humanly possible to be burdened as much for other people’s children as for our own. We must be realistic, but we must have some concern for them. Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgiving Others

“Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven others.” This is an important request. It is the one request Jesus repeats at the end. He says in verse 14, “If you forgive men their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.” It is very important to understand this condition, because Jesus Himself laid it down: if you don’t forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. Is this true, or not?

Does God withhold forgiveness when you don’t forgive somebody else for what that person did against you? Absolutely. He will not forgive you if you don’t forgive other people. Please remember this. It is a fundamental principle in God’s dealings with men that He treats us like we treat other people. If we are merciful to others, then God is merciful to us. If you forgive others, then God forgives you. We saw that in Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.” Here we can say, blessed are those who forgive others, for they will be forgiven; and those who do not forgive others will not be forgiven.

Jesus once told a story in this connection to illustrate it clearly in Matthew 18:21-35. This is a very important parable that we need to understand. There was a king who had many slaves and they all owed him a lot of money. One man owed him 10,000 talents, which is something like a billion rupees - a huge debt that you can never pay. The king was merciful and forgave him. This forgiven man went out and found another person who owed him a hundred rupees, caught him by the throat, and said, ‘If you don’t pay me, I will take you to court and have you locked up,” and then he does just that. When other slaves saw this, they went and reported to the king. The king called the slave and said, ‘You wicked slave, you just asked me to forgive your debt and I forgave you. Shouldn’t you also have mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you? And he was moved with anger. The King handed this slave over to the torturers until he paid back everything he owed.

In other words, that forgiven debt was put back upon his head. How do you account for that? Does God, who forgives us, un-forgive us? Does He put back on our heads the sins He has already forgiven? According to this verse, yes. The Bible never says that God has forgotten our sins. He says, “I will not remember your sins anymore,” meaning, “I will not hold your sins against you.”

There is no verse that says that God completely forgets. I myself cannot forget the sins I committed, so how can God forget them? No, He still knows, but doesn’t hold them against us. This parable teaches us that if you forgive others, God forgives you, and if you do not forgive, God will not forgive you.

Be Humble Towards Temptation

And then the last request is, “Do not lead us into temptation.” What does that mean? God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability (1 Corinthians 10:13), but it is good for us to pray this, because it is good for us to recognize that some temptations are way beyond our ability to cope with. We know that God will not allow us to be tested beyond our ability, but we need to pray to not be led into temptation that is too strong for us. “But deliver me from evil.” I am expressing a humble position saying, “I do not know how to overcome this temptation. I don’t have the ability to overcome this temptation. So Lord, my Father, please don’t lead me into something too strong for me.” When I pray like this, I am expressing my inability and helplessness. That’s a good attitude to have towards temptation.

We are not to think that we are too strong to be overcome by temptation. That’s the reason many people don’t have victory over sin. The reason most Christians are defeated by sin is that they have too much self-confidence. They think they have the ability -- they think that having a few more good resolutions and gritting their teeth will help them overcome. No, that won’t. We have to acknowledge, “Lord, don’t lead me into temptation too strong for me, and when I face any temptation, deliver me from evil, because I can’t overcome evil on my own.” If only we would recognize that evil is far too strong for us, even in the matter of forgiving others, then we would pray as Jesus teaches here. If you find it difficult to forgive somebody -- if somebody has done terrible harm to you or to your family, and you find it very difficult to forgive that person, for the evil that person has done, -- then you can ask God for grace. Say, “Lord please help me, deliver me from this evil of an unforgiving spirit. I don’t have the ability to forgive this person, but I ask You to help me to forgive him.”

Prayer is an expression of our weakness and our helpless dependence on God, and faith is the confidence that God will help me because He is my Father Who is in heaven, Who sent His Son to die to free me from all my sins. Romans 8:32 says, “If He gave His son to free you from all your sins, how much more will He will give you everything that you need along with Him!”

The prayer concludes in Matthew 6:13, “For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen”.

It is very important that we conclude our prayer like this and say, “Lord, at the end of it all, when you have answered my prayer and done everything that I asked you for, I want to acknowledge that the kingdom is Yours, and the power is Yours. I don’t have power to be able live this life; I don’t have power to overcome sin. The power is Yours. And when I do overcome sin, the glory also be Yours.

Then the prayer concludes with “Amen,” which means, “It will be so”.

Keep Praying - Never Give Up

Jesus placed a great importance on prayer. One of the things Jesus said in Luke 18:1 was that men should always pray and not give up - not get discouraged. In each of the only two parables He gave on prayer, Jesus spoke of persistence. One example of this is the widow who went to a judge in Luke 18:1-8, who kept on asking until she got justice against her enemy. Hers is a prayer for overcoming Satan and the lust in our flesh. The other example is in Luke 11:5-13, where Jesus was speaking about asking God for bread - for strength and gifts to help another person who is in need who comes to us. In both parables, the emphasis is on persistence; the person keeps on knocking until he gets that bread. The total teaching of Jesus regarding prayer is never give up! God is your Father: He will meet your need, He will overcome the enemy for you, and He will give you all that you need to bless others. We need to go to God in prayer and in faith, believing that He will give us what we ask for his glory, Amen.

Chapter 23

Fasting in Secret and Love of Money

Jesus first spoke about giving, then about praying, and then about fasting. In Matthew 6:16-18, Jesus speaks of fasting. The principle is the same for fasting as it is for prayer -- do it in secret. “Don’t be like the hypocrites who neglect their appearance in order to be seen fasting by men -- they have their reward in full. But when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face so that you may not be seen fasting by men, but by your Father who is in secret”.

Many Christians like to secretly boast about what they have done for the Lord (in the areas of giving, praying, and fasting), but Jesus said to keep it secret -- let God reward you in the final day. Many would like others to know how much they pray. For example, you read in some people’s biographies that they would spend a certain number of hours in prayer every day. If that person was praying in secret, he should have never let anybody know that he was praying. Perhaps he couldn’t avoid his family members knowing, but otherwise nobody else should know how much a person prays. He should tell his family members not to tell anyone. Very often you read biographies of such people and you just get discouraged. The Bible doesn’t tell you to pray for two hours or for four hours. It just tells you to pray always (Luke 18:1) and without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

If you pray, don’t let anybody know how long you prayed for or anything concerning your prayer. When you give, don’t let anybody know how much you gave. And in the area of fasting, perhaps more than praying and giving, keep it secret. I have heard numerous people tell others that they fasted for 7 days or 21 days or 40 days -- and I don’t see any righteous purpose in that. Such stories are outright disobedience to the Word of God, which says that you should never let anybody know how long you fasted, whether it was for one meal or 40 days. Jesus said this so clearly, and yet this command is thoroughly disobeyed by almost everybody who fasts. I presume that very few people on earth fast without anybody knowing about it, but they are the ones who will get a reward from God.

Notice this expression that comes repeatedly in the areas of giving, praying and fasting. “Your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you” (Matthew 6:4,6,18).

People will see the result of your secret activity in these three areas in your life. There is no need for you to advertise. When you advertise, you are seeking your own honor and glory, the very thing that Jesus said you should avoid. This is why I have no respect for people who tell me how long they pray for, how much they give, or how much they fast. I don’t respect them because they are disobeying the command of God openly. If somebody tells you how long he fasted, remind him that Jesus said we are not supposed to tell anyone how long we fasted.

The Purpose of Fasting

All of us have a tremendous love for food. Every human being loves it, and it is very easy for food to become our god. In fact, in Philippians 3:18-19, it speaks about certain people whose god is their appetite. They are called enemies of the cross of Christ. Food can be an idol that replaces God and becomes too essential in your life. Fasting breaks that slavery to food.

Fasting also helps us really understand what hungry people in the world feel like. I never knew what hungry people in the world feel like until I fasted, and you won’t know what hungry people feel like until you fast. That is another purpose of fasting. It detaches us and helps us to concentrate more on the things that we are particularly praying about. Very often prayer is coupled with fasting, and usually, when you have to take some momentous decision, it is good to concentrate and maybe take a day off from work to fast and seek God in prayer. It doesn’t mean you have to be on your knees all the time. Sometimes you can also go to work while fasting.

Fasting is a very good habit to do as discipline. I believe that all godly men give, pray, and fast. A person who is spiritual will always give, pray, and fast in secret. A person who does not do these three things should not consider himself to be a very spiritual person at all. The important thing in all these areas is to do it in secret.

Now we come to another very important area. We have seen the wrong attitudes of anger, sinful sexual desire, lying, revenge, and hatred in Matthew 5:21-48. The sixth we considered is seeking the honor of men (Matthew 6:1-18).

Do Not Love Money

The seventh wrong attitude is an attitude that loves money (Matthew 6:19-24). Many people do not believe this is a wrong attitude. To have money is not a sin, to love money is a sin. Jesus said, “don’t lay up for yourself treasure upon earth, where moth and rust will destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourself treasure in Heaven, where no moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves cannot break in or steal --the reason is -- because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:19-21).”

It is very easy to understand whether we have obeyed this command or not. If your mind is thinking more about earthly things than Heavenly things -- If you are thinking more about your earthly assets and properties than Heavenly things -- you can be pretty sure that your heart is on this earth, and that your treasure is also here. The way to know whether we have obeyed this command is to ask ourselves during the day where is our heart set. In the middle of our work (or anything else), if we’re terribly disturbed because of a little financial loss or excited because of a financial gain, this could indicate that our treasure is on this Earth.

I remember many years ago, when somebody gave me a small financial gift, the Lord asked me a question - ‘Has your joy increased?” I suddenly felt convicted and confessed to the Lord that my joy did increase because I got this little money. I learned that day that I must rejoice only in the Lord and not in money. I also learned that the increase of money should never increase my joy. If it does increase my joy, it means that my joy is in money.

The Bible says to rejoice in the Lord always - and the Lord is always the same - so if you gain money or lose money, your joy in the Lord should not increase or decrease. It should be the same. If your joy decreases because you lost some money, you can be pretty sure that your heart was there. If your joy increases because you got some money, you can be pretty sure your heart was there. We must trust God. He will provide all we need for our earthly life, but we must not find our joy in these earthly things. We can use these earthly things but should not find our joy in them.

Make Money Your Servant

Money is a wonderful servant, but it is a terrible master -- just like fire. Fire is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. We cannot live without fire in our houses, to cook, for example. But if the fire in that stove becomes a master, then the house will be burnt up. It is a terrible master - capable of burning down your whole house - but if you keep it under control (when you turn the knob say, “I am going to control when I turn you on, and when I turn you off. I am going to decide that. I, not you.” Thus you are master of the house), then it is a wonderful servant. Money must be like that. Just like we need fire, we need money to live on this earth, but it must be a servant. You must say, “Money I am going to decide that you are not going to control me; I am going to control you. You are not going to control my mind and make me think about you all the time. I am going to think about the Lord and things of Heaven, but I am going to use you.” This is the position of a spiritual man.

Gold is a very good thing if it is used as a servant. The Bible says there is even gold in Heaven! But there, we read about streets of gold. That means you walk on it, it is under your feet. This is the difference between a heavenly Christian and an earthly-minded Christian. A heavenly-minded Christian has put gold under his feet - it does not rule him - but a carnal Christian wears gold on his head and it is on his mind all the time.

So if money is on your mind all the time, then you love it, whether you like it or not. It’s like a boy who loves a girl and is always thinking about her. One who is always thinking about money is in love with money, and the love of money is root of all sorts of evil. You don’t have to be rich to love money. I have never seen a beggar in India who does not love money. Every beggar loves money. If you gave them 50 paisa they would despise it. They love money and want more. Thus, it is not wealth that makes a man love money. Poor people love money too just as much as rich people.

It is also the case that you can be free from money irrespective of how much wealth you have. It is a question of your attitude towards it. If you have one servant in your home, and he takes over your house, it would be terrible. You can have a little money (like having one servant), but he has taken over your house and rules your thinking. On the other hand, you can have 318 servants like Abraham had, yet they were all his servants and obeyed him. Like Abraham, you can have lot of money, and if you rule over it, then you can use it for the glory of God.

The love of money is the root of all evil, (not necessarily having plenty of money). It is very important to understand this distinction. I have seen many poor people who love money tremendously, and I have seen rich people who do not love it. I have seen that it is not a question of how much you have, but what you love. This is what Jesus was speaking about. Your mind must be set on the things above. Lay up treasure in Heaven. Check what are you thinking of, where your heart is, to discover what are you in love with.

Then Jesus goes on to speak about the eye in relation to money in Matthew 6:22, “The lamp of the body is the eye, and if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” This means that it is a question of how you look at money. If your eye is bad, it means that you look at money as something very important, as most important for your life on earth, and your body will be full of darkness. “If the light that is in you is darkness, how great that darkness is.” It is amazing that many people who have all of their doctrines right, and are good Christians in the eyes of others, who go to church services regularly yet they love money tremendously. They may even look down on other dead denominations without knowing that people in dead denominations are free from the love of money than they are, who claim to be in New Testament patterned churches.

Ask yourself some fundamental questions like these: do you get excited when you get little more money? Do you get depressed when you lose money? Then you love money. Our joy will be completely unaffected if it is in the Lord alone. If our joy is in earthly things, it will be affected by changes in our income.

If You Serve Mammon, You Cannot Serve God

Jesus went on to make a tremendously important statement in Matthew 6:24. Having just said that the love of money is as wrong as revenge or hatred, as wrong as seeking the honor of men, telling lies, lusting, and getting angry, He explains even further. In Matthew 6:24, Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold on to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” The two masters are not God and devil - there is no Christian who feels that he can serve God and the devil. The two masters are God and money. There are lot of Christians who think they can love God and they can also love money. They don’t think that they can love God and Satan, but they do think they can love God and money. But Jesus just demolished this idea and said, “You cannot do that.”

This is so important in our day, where we find that many Christian leaders and preachers are always asking people to give money to their ministry. A lot of the money that is given enables this great preacher to live a very luxurious lifestyle, often ten times better than the people who are giving him the money. This is a crime that people on earth don’t judge, but God will severely judge such people in the Final Day. Can you imagine Jesus taking money from poor people and living at a much higher standard than them? Is that the Jesus you see in Scripture? Far from it! Jesus would not take money from poor people and live at a higher standard Himself.

There are many today however, who call themselves servants of God and take money from poor believers to live in a luxurious lifestyle themselves. This is a crime of the first order, and if Jesus was here, He would take a whip and chase such people out of the church. He would say, “Listen, if you want to make money, go out and do business somewhere else. Go and do some other work, earn as much as you can, and do what you like; but don’t take money in God’s name, from people who give for God's work, and use it to live luxuriously.”

God has ordained that those who preach the gospel should live of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:14). But many people misuse this verse. The verse says, “The Lord has directed those who proclaim the Gospel to get their living from the Gospel.” It is right for those who preach the gospel to receive gifts to take care of their earthly needs, but the Lord has not directed that those who proclaim the Gospel should live luxuriously from it. This is the result of the covetousness of preachers. We see plenty of examples in Christendom today, of people who misuse this verse and live at a far higher standard of life than the people who support them.

Most preachers today, particularly those on television, are not serving God. They are serving money. Why is it that so many people who claim to be able to do miracles and healings in big stadiums and on television say God can do anything? It is quite hilarious when I look at it and hear them; “God can open blind eyes, raise the dead, open deaf ears, cleanse the leper, and heal the sick! He can do any miracle, and He can do all types of things for you. There is one miracle God cannot do - He cannot give me money for my needs, so you people have need got to do that.” You see what a joke this is? Is that the one miracle God cannot do? The Lord says the silver and the gold in all the universe is His, and that the cattle on a thousand hills are His (Psalms 50).” If I were hungry, I would not tell you.” If this billionaire is the Ruler of the universe whose servants we claim to be, then why do we go begging to people for money? No servant can serve two masters. If you cannot trust your Heavenly Father to meet your needs, stop serving Him and go do some earthly business.

If You Love Money, You Hate God

No one can serve two masters. “Either he will hate the one and love the other.” It is quite a radical thing Jesus says here, just like Jesus speaks about hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters in Luke 14:26. Jesus was radical. Jesus says that if you want to love God, you have to hate money (Matthew 6:24). Mammon refers to money, real estate, stocks and shares. Jesus says that if you want to love God, you must hate all of that. You can use it, but your love for God must be so supreme -- like the brightness of the sun -- that your interest in money disappears as stars disappear in daylight. If it is not like that for you, you cannot serve God.

Jesus says, “If you hold onto one, you despise the other.” Put “the Word God” and “mammon” into that sentence and this is how it reads: “No one can serve God and material things (material wealth, money). Either he will hate money and love God or hate God and love money.” The implication of what Jesus’ saying is that anyone who loves money, hates God. You may not have not known it before, but now you do. Jesus is saying that if you love money, you hate God. You may think you love God just because you sing a lot of songs to Him, but that is not what Jesus says. Jesus says that if you hold onto God, you will despise money, and if you hold onto money, you despise God. You can have money and earn money, but the moment you begin to love it you begin to hate God. God may have given a good job or an inheritance where you have lot of money, and that is fine. But if you love it, and hold onto it, you despise God and you hate God. It is so important for us to understand and to have a right attitude in this if we want to serve the Lord faithfully.

In Luke 16:11, Jesus said, “If you are not faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true riches to you?” The true riches are revelation in God’s Word, likeness to Christ, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and partaking of God’s nature. Why is it we find so few Christians manifesting the likeness of Christ, getting revelation from God’s Word, and having a rich anointing of Holy Spirit? One reason is that they are not faithful with mammon. This is the reason for all the boring sermons that we hear in churches and all the unfaithfulness that we see in Christian workers. Money is an alternate master to God, and if you want to have a right attitude to God, you must keep money in its proper place, as a servant, under your feet.

Chapter 24

Do Not Be Anxious

The eighth wrong attitude, anxiety, is mentioned in Matthew 6:25-34. Many people don't think of anxiety as a sin, just like a lot of people don't think of anger, love of money, seeking honor from men, hating your enemy, or telling white lies as a sin.

Treat Sin as Seriously as God Does

Many people think of love of money or anger is a weakness. As long as you call it a “weakness,” you will never be free from it. Jesus didn't come to save us from weaknesses; He came to save us from sin. If we confess something as sin, Jesus will save us from it. But if you try to give it a more polished name, you will never be free from it. Call something by the dirtiest name you can think of -- call lust, “adultery,” call anger, “murder,” call the love of money, “the hatred of God,” and you'll be free from it because you see what an evil it is.

If you think of AIDS and cancer only as serious as a cough or a cold, you are not going to take it seriously. Many people take these sins very lightly even though Jesus spoke so strongly against them. I don't blame them because I would say that their leaders and teachers have not taught these things to them. There is a great lack of Christian preachers and teachers who preach the whole truth of God and who do not seek the honor of men. There are few preachers who do not want anybody's money but want to speak the truth to lead God's people to spiritual help. It’s like a doctor who is not interested in your money but who is interested in leading you to health. There are very few preachers like that.

People also call anxiety a weakness. It is not just a weakness. In Matthew 6:25-34, Three times in Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Universe, says, “Do not be anxious.” In the space of just ten verses, the Lord says “Do not be anxious” three times. This is the same Lord Who commanded us not to commit murder, not to commit adultery, and not to steal. Put them all together: “Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, and do not be anxious.” Which one is not a sin? Can you say, “Oh well, I'm anxious only once or twice a week?” That’s like saying, “Well, I murder people only once or twice a week” or, “I commit adultery once or twice a week, not too often.”

Why is it that we take some sins seriously, and not others? Because your teachers haven't taught you. Fear is not a weakness, it's a sin -- like murder is a sin. How do we know what is sin? If God says you shouldn't do it, then it is a sin. If God has said you must love your wife, even if your wife is an evil woman, you have to love her, because God said so. And if God has said not to do something, even if you don't think it is evil, don’t do it -- it is evil. It's not because I think adultery is bad. God has said, “Don't do it.” He has said, “Don't be anxious, and don't be afraid.” I want to see the things which God has said “don't do” as evil.

Anxiety Is an Insult to God

Anxiety destroys my fellowship with God. Anxiety says that God doesn't care for me. It is an insult to God. What would you think of a four-year-old child who is eating from the garbage bins? There are a number of them like that in our country. Unfortunately, they don’t have parents who care for them. Is our Heavenly Father like that? Does our Heavenly Father not care for us? It is an insult to put our Heavenly Father in the same category as the fathers of those children who are eating from those garbage bins. These children don't know where their next meal is going to come from -- they have a right to be anxious, because their earthly fathers don't care for them. But if you have a Heavenly Father and you're anxious, you're saying that your Heavenly Father is also in the same category.

“For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life” (verse 25). Don't be anxious for your life -- what you eat, what you drink, or for your body. Isn’t your life more than food body and clothing? Luke takes the example of the birds of the air -- they don't sow, they don't reap, nor do they gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. How many times have you seen a dead bird on the road? It is such a rare sight to see a dead bird on the road. I think I can count on my fingers the number of times in my entire life that I've seen a dead bird on the road. Where have you seen birds starving? It's such a rare thing. There are millions and millions of these birds on earth, and they get food even though they don't sow, they don't reap, and they have to go looking for food here and there. Who feeds them? Jesus said your Heavenly Father feeds them. He's not their Heavenly Father; He's your Heavenly Father. He's their Creator, and He feeds them, but with you, He is not just your Creator; He is your Father. Are you not worth much more than these birds?

I read a little poem once which is a very interesting. It is about two little birds talking to each other. The Robin said to the Sparrow, “I would really like to know why these anxious human beings rush about and worry so?” The Sparrow said to the Robin, “Friend, I think that it must be that they have no Heavenly Father such as cares for you and me.”

We need to remember that this is not just a lovely story. It is an insult to God to think that He doesn’t care for our every anxiety.

Concern Is Not Anxiety

To have a concern for our children, for example, is good. If your children have not come home at the usual time, to be concerned for them is not wrong. To be concerned is right, but to be anxious is wrong. It is like having money. It is right to have money. It is right to be concerned for our children, for their future education and their spiritual growth, etc. But to be anxious is wrong.

Faith Says, “God Knows”

Do not be anxious. Then Jesus says, “By anxiety can you add height to yourself?” No. Why are you anxious about clothing? He says, “Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow; they don't toil and spin clothing for themselves, yet I say to you that even Solomon the Great King in all his glory could not clothe himself like these flowers. And if God can so clothe the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow thrown into the furnace, won't He do much more for you, oh you of little faith?” Jesus is speaking to His disciples and saying, “Why are you so worried about what type of clothing you going to wear, where you will get it from, etc. God cares for the birds, He cares for the lilies, and for the grass of the field (not just the flowers, but even the grass of the field He cares for!). If He has clothed the flowers with such beauty won’t he cloth you?” He certainly will, so then do not be anxious saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “With what shall we clothe ourselves? For all these things the gentiles eagerly seek but your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.”

Faith in this area is to say that my Heavenly Father knows what I need. If that is true, then why should we pray? We pray because, in prayer, we are expressing our need to God so that we come into fellowship with Him. God wants to have fellowship with us and that's why He wants us to talk to Him and commune with Him. God wants to commune with us, it is very, very important. This was not possible in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God just spoke to the prophets. The prophets spoke to God, and nobody else could have a direct communication with God. But today God is your Father. You know how much we love little children when they come into our home. Think about a couple that never had children for many years, and how delighted they are when they finally do have a child.

God says in Isaiah 49:15, “Can a mother forget her sucking child and not care for the child of her womb? Even she might forget, but I will not forget you.” That is a beautiful picture of God. He is not only a Father. He is also like a mother. He cares for us so intensely!

There are many people who are afraid and wonder who will take care of them when they get older. I have heard people complain to me that their children are not taking care of them now that they are old. But I ask, ‘Did you bring up your children to take care of you, or did you bring up your children for the glory of God?” Don’t bring up your children to take care of you when you’re old. Bring them up for the glory of God. Here is a promise for old people from Isaiah 46:3-4. The Lord says to you,

“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,

And all the remnant of the house of Israel,

You who have been borne by Me from birth

And have been carried from the womb;

Even to your old age I will be the same,

And even to your graying years I will bear you!

I have done it, and I will carry you;

And I will bear you and I will deliver you.

What a promise! Trust in God -- you don't have to depend on your children. God can use anybody and any means to provide what you need. You don't have to be anxious.

Deal With the Root of Anxiety

The Bible says to be anxious for nothing in Philippians 4:6. It is an absolute statement, “Be anxious for nothing.” But we do need to do something about the cause of anxiety. Perhaps there's some problem that you are facing now, and you don't know how it will work out. What should you do? God doesn’t say to do nothing; He says to pray about it. Supplication means to make a specific request to God and tell God exactly what the problem is. After supplication, don't forget to complete the prayer with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is saying, ‘Thank you, Father, for hearing my prayer, and thank you for caring for me.” Giving God thanks is like a receipt -- an acknowledgment that my letter has reached God's presence and he received the letter -- that’s what I’m saying when I say, “Thank You for hearing me.”

When you do these two things, Philippians 4:7 says, then “The peace of God which is beyond comprehension, which we cannot even understand, will guard (guard is a military word -- like a fortress) your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

To not be anxious is a command we must obey. When I am free from anxiety, I will also be free from a lot to discouragement. This is a wonderful step that we must take.

The Right Kind of Anxiety

Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 6:33 (paraphrase): “Don’t be anxious about all these earthly things, but if you do want to be anxious about something, be anxious about pursuing God's kingdom first and His righteousness’. In other words, let those energies be directed toward seeking God's Kingdom first and His righteousness, and you will find that all these earthly things which you are anxious about will be taken care of.

That’s a wonderful promise, and it applies to anyone in any age. The word ‘kingdom’ refers to the rule of God in our life. If God is my authority, then He is the one who rules over me. It is the government of God I submit to. This is the meaning of seeking God's kingdom. To “seek His righteousness” means to seek total purity in every area of my life. When I seek these things first, all my earthly needs will be added to me.

Financial Debts Reveal a Lack of Trust

Our lives should be a testimony to the truth of this verse. I have sought to live following this verse for more than 50 years now. Sincerely seeking God's Kingdom and His righteousness first - to the best of my knowledge and ability - and I can testify that God has certainly added all my earthly needs. I and my wife have been through times of deep poverty, but we have never been in debt in all my 72 years.

I have never been in debt. When we get into debt, we are saying that our Father has forsaken us. If we trust in God, He will provide our need. When the Bible says in Romans 13:8, “Owe no man anything,” it is teaching us never to get into debt.

I want to explain what debt is. If you take a loan from the bank to build a house, there is no debt there. Because for the money you borrowed, there's an asset counter-balancing that debt. If you take a loan to buy a car, and that car is insured, then there is a balance there, and there is no debt in this case. But if you have borrowed money to spend it on yourself - to go on a vacation, for example, or to spend it on a wedding - and it has evaporated (meaning there's no asset to counterbalance your borrowing), then it is a debt. We should not get into this type of debt; we must learn to live within our income. If we spend extravagantly, there will be plenty of reason for anxiety. Jesus says that the Gentiles live like this -- they eagerly seek to live a very luxurious, comfortable life, and if they can’t afford it, they use a credit card to keep buying things and get into credit card debt. It is a shameful thing if a Christian is in credit card debt. If you use a credit card, make sure that it is paid within the month so that you don't pay any interest on it. If you have gotten into the habit of using a credit card and getting into debt, I want to say to you in Jesus' name that you are living in disobedience to God. You have every reason to be anxious and worried. You are testifying that your Heavenly Father doesn't care for you. You're trying to live beyond your means, and you are not satisfied with what God has given you.

I'm not speaking what I have not practiced. I have been through times when my wife and I had very little, but we decided to never get into debt. We lived with what we had, and as God increased the circle of our finances, we could buy more things. This has been such a tremendous education for us. I can stand boldly before people today and say, no matter what our circumstances, I have learned to be content. Paul could say in his late sixties “I've learned to be content in all circumstances. I have learned to have little and I've learned to have much” (Philippians 4:12). However much I have been given is up to God. But I'm perfectly content. Godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Timothy 6:6).

It’s very important for us to understand the simple principles of finances because a lot of anxiety comes from a wrong attitude in the area of money. It's a continuation from Jesus’ earlier statement, that you cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24), that Jesus spoke about anxiety. He said, “For this reason - because you cannot serve God and money - do not be anxious” (Matthew 6:25). So seek the kingdom of God first and do not be anxious concerning tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself (Matthew 6:34). Each day has got enough trouble of its own. Just live for today.

Saving Is Wise, Not Anxious

That said, do lay up for the future, by all means. The Bible says, “Go to the ant” (Proverbs 6:6-8). Because the ant knows that in winter time, there won't be enough grains, it lays up for the future. There is nothing wrong in having a savings account Even Jesus Christ had a treasurer who kept money. That was like a savings account; there is nothing wrong with having a savings account. It is not laying up a treasure for yourself. It’s being wise about the future. It is wise to provide for your children. 2 Corinthians 12:14 says that parents should lay up for their children. That’s a perfectly right thing to do. You don’t lay up treasure for yourself, but you must provide for your children; that's right. 1 Timothy 5:8 says that if you don't care for your family you are worse than an unbeliever. And so, as we conduct ourselves with wisdom, we can be completely free from anxiety. We don’t seek for things that God doesn't give us, we are satisfied with what God has given us, and we are going to live within our means.

It’s a good thing to ask ourselves this question. This little phrase that Jesus used in verse 32, “these things the Gentiles seek after.” What are the things that the Gentiles seek after? Ask yourself whether you're seeking after those things. Are you seeking for the same things worldly people seek? Then you shouldn't be calling yourself a Christian. You should be calling yourself a worldly person.

A Christian is one who seeks God's kingdom first and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33) and finds that all the other things are added unto him. At the end of his life, whether he has lived for fifty years or ninety years, he can that say he spent his life seeking God's Kingdom first and His righteousness. I can testify that, at the end of 52 years of being a born-again Christian, I have spent my life seeking God's kingdom and His righteousness, and God has added all that I need. May that be your testimony too.

Chapter 25

Do Not Judge

The ninth wrong attitude - judging and condemning others - is like many of the other wrong attitudes, in that it is another attitude which most people don't even think is wrong.

“Do not judge or condemn others lest you be judged and condemned yourself. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye” (Matthew 7:1-5).

Now it is a very, very common practice, unfortunately, among Christians to judge people, to look down on them, and to despise them. It’s a common practice among Christians to consider yourself better than others when most of the time, you don't even know everything about them. There’s a reason why we are told not to judge others, and if we understand the reason behind it, it is easier to obey that command. Jesus gives us the command not to judge here, but just as Jesus said in John 16:12 -- “There are many other things that I want to say to you which you cannot bear now. But when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will explain the truth to you,” -- this is a command whose reason is given by the Spirit elsewhere.

When the Holy Spirit came, He explained through the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4 why we should not judge others. Jesus did not explain that in Matthew 7. This comes under the category of things He could not explain to them then. In 1 Corinthians 4:5, the Holy Spirit tells us through the Apostle Paul, “Do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait.”

The Holy Spirit is saying to those of us who have a tremendous lust (I call it a lust because it is a strong desire) to judge other people, “I will give you that opportunity, but just wait. Don't judge right now. That's all I'm saying. You can judge later, but hang on. Wait until the right time. Wait until the Lord comes. When He comes, He will bring to light the full story.” The reason why we're not allowed to judge others is because we don't know the full story. Think of the number of days and months sometimes a High Court judge takes to listen to both sides of an argument and evaluate the whole thing before he writes his 500-page judgment. If an earthly judge takes so much trouble to investigate fully before arriving at a conclusion, how can we make conclusions so quickly? “Do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will bring to light…” What will He bring to light? First of all, He will bring to light “the things hidden in the darkness.” Secondly, He will bring to light “the motives of men's hearts” (v5).

Confess How Little You Know

Those are two areas which we know nothing about. When you look at another person, you do not know what he's doing in secret. Most of us do not know, for example, how a person behaves with his wife at home. We do not know how she behaves with her husband, or how they speak to each other. They may speak very nicely and lovingly in public, but they may not be speaking to each other like that at home. You may think they are a very loving couple, but they may not be like that at all. They may be fighting and quarrelling with each other every day at home. So your assessment could be completely wrong. And vice versa too. You may look at a very quiet type of person and think that he is pretty useless. He is not doing anything for God and yet in secret, he may be doing ten times more for God than you are. The only thing is that he doesn't make a big show of it.

The things hidden in darkness, we do not know. You do not know the things that are private, even if you live with a person. A wife can live with her husband for fifty years and still not know whether he loves money or not. Externally, it may appear as if he doesn't love money. But deep down in his heart, he may be loving money. God will expose it in the final day. A husband and a wife may not know whether either of them has bitterness in their heart against somebody, such as a relative or a neighbor. It can be very carefully hidden in nice language. Yet in the darkness of their heart which we cannot see, there may be bitterness. There may be jealousy. Very often, you can’t make out whether there's pride in someone's heart. The person may appear to be very humble. Wait until God exposes the darkness as well as what's hidden in the darkness.

The second thing that God is going to reveal in that day is the motives of men's hearts. This means the reason why a person did something. For example, suppose that you hear a man preach a wonderful message. You may not know why he did that. He may have done that for money. He may be preaching for honor. Or he may be preaching to show that he is better than somebody else. There's always this tendency, in even the best of our actions, to do them with wrong motives. That is another reason why you shouldn't judge.

You can listen to a man praying and say, “Ah! He is just trying to seek honor!” He may not be seeking honor at all. He may be praying to the best of his ability to God. But you judge him. We have such a tendency to judge people in areas we know nothing about. We don't know their motives. Because of the evil of our Adamic nature, we often attribute the worst possible motive to people.

We Know Much Less Than We Think

Let me say this from many years of observation. Even if you know a person very intimately or even if you live with that person, you still know only 10% of his life. I want to say to every husband and wife who have known each other for fifty years - you know only 10% of your husband or wife. The other 90% lies hidden, like the bottom part of an iceberg or the lower part of an ice cube in water. There are depths which you know nothing about. You may know more than other people, but there are still hidden depths you know nothing about.

If you see a person occasionally, you still only know 1% of his life. Maybe you work with him in an office or you see him in church every Sunday for 25 years. You still only know 1% of his life. The same applies to the people you meet regularly at church or in your office. You only know 1% of their life. That is why, when one day, you hear that they have been in some horrible sin, you’re shocked. You say, “Hey, I thought I knew him for 10 years.” No, you didn't. You only saw 1% of his life.

What would you think of a teacher who evaluates a hundred-question exam on the basis of the answer to the first question? If the first question was wrong, the teacher gives a zero even though 99 questions may be right. Or if the first question was right, the teacher gives a 100% even though the other 99 questions were wrong. What do you think of such a teacher? I think such a teacher should be sacked from the school! How can a teacher evaluate a whole hundred-question test on the basis of the answer to the first question?

You can see the absurdity of that, yet that is exactly what you do when you judge others. You know one percent of his life, and you have evaluated him. You say, “he's like this,” or “he's not like this.” The Bible says, “Wait. Don't go on passing judgment before the time.” That is the reason why we should not judge: because we will be judging wrongly. We tend to judge people with wrong motives.

God Waits to Judge

The other thing to know about judgment is found in Hebrews 9:27. It says, “It is appointed unto men once to die and after this comes judgment.” So when does God judge people? When does Almighty God, Creator of this universe, judge people? According to this verse, “Once to die and after this comes judgment.” So God judges people only after they die.

When do you judge people? You judge people long before they die. Why does God wait till a person dies before He judges? He may be an evil person, but God says, “I have hope for him. Maybe he will change,” and so God waits. Think of what would have happened if God had judged the dying thief on the cross who went to paradise before he died. Consider if God judged him even a few minutes before or few hours before he died. That would have been terrible. He was deserving to go to Paradise finally, but he would have been judged and sentenced to hell. God waited until he died, and then took him to paradise. This shows that God waits until a person dies before He judges him. Man is impatient and judges people long before they die. This is the foolishness of man. He doesn't know all the facts. He doesn't know 99% of the person's private, inner life. He doesn't know how much that person has struggled or prayed, but he judges him. No serious High Court judge would ever judge with such little evidence. If a judge knows only 1% of the case, he will say, “Listen, I need more evidence before I can pass a judgment. Until then, I will suspend judgment.” This is what every Christian should say too.

Judging Others Is a Mirror

When we judge a person, we're really just showing the condition of our own heart. As it says in Proverbs 27:19, “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man.” Or like in mirror, a man sees his own face. This means what you imagine finding in that person's heart as a bad motive is only an indication of the wrong attitudes you have in your own heart. You imagine that man can’t possibly be doing that with a good motive. You think, “It must be with a bad motive because I myself would only do such a thing with a bad motive.” You are revealing your own heart. It's very foolish to judge other people.

Think of the story of the prodigal son. In the story of the prodigal son, we read about the elder son. He was very upset when he saw the Father rejoicing over the return of the prodigal son. When the Father goes out and asks the elder son why he hasn't come in, see what he says in Luke 15:30, “This son of yours.” He doesn't even call him, “this brother of mine.” What a despising way to speak. “He has devoured your wealth with prostitutes.” How did he know that? How did he imagine that his younger brother was going around with prostitutes? Did somebody come and report that back to him? Not at all. He assumed this man, his younger brother, must have been spending money on prostitutes. It may not have been true at all. He may have been drinking and wasting his money in foolish ways, but perhaps not on prostitutes. But when you have a wrong attitude like this older brother’s attitude towards his younger brother, you can always imagine the worst about the other person. And whenever you imagine the worst about somebody else, you can recognize that the problem is with you more than with the other person. The other person may end up sitting with his Father at the dining table and enjoy the fattened calf, and you may end up outside the house.

The story of the prodigal son is a story where in the beginning of the story, the younger son is outside the house and the elder son is inside. At the end of the story, the younger son is inside the house, and the elder son is outside the house, because he is judging people. Make sure you don't end up outside the Father's house because you're judging people with insufficient information. The safest thing to do is not to judge.

Consider Judgment to Be the More Serious Sin

Do not judge. Jesus says even if you're judging, what are you doing, judging a little speck in your brother's eye, when you have a log in your own eye? That's what He said. What is this log that is in a person's eye? You can’t have a physical log inside your eye. But Jesus is exaggerating to show how grievous your sin is compared to his. Granted, perhaps he did something terribly wrong. But your unloving attitude towards that person is a log compared to his sin, which is only like a speck.

Maybe he went to prostitutes. Okay, that's a sin. But then even that is only a speck compared to your unloving attitude towards him. That’s like a log. The Lord says to get rid of your unloving attitudes towards others. He says that unloving attitude towards that person makes you constantly want to find fault with that person. Whatever that person does, you put a wrong motive to it. That person cannot do anything good. The person is evil in your eyes, but you don't see how evil you are to have such an unloving attitude towards that person. So what does He say? Imagine a man who has very poor eyesight. Would you go to that person to pull something out of your eye? Would you go to an eye doctor who is almost blind due to cataracts and other problems with his eyes? How in the world can he look into your eyes and remove a little speck from them? I wouldn't want to go anywhere near that person.

That is what the Lord says. How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out your eye,” when there is a huge log in your eye that keeps you from seeing properly? You can damage his eyes. But the Lord says, “You hypocrite! See your unloving attitude.” Every person who has an unloving attitude towards another person and judges that person is a hypocrite according to Matthew 7:5. First, get rid of this unloving attitude, and then you will see clearly. Then that brother may come to you of his own accord and say, “Brother, could you please take the speck out of my eye?” Isn’t that wonderful when you come to that type of situation?

Only the Father’s Mind Is Fit to Judge

Jesus said in John 8:15, “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgement will be absolutely true because I'm not alone in this, but I and He who sent me.” Jesus walked in such perfect fellowship with the Father that He could say, “If I do pass a judgment, it would be absolutely right, because I'm in complete fellowship with the mind of the Father.”

You and I are not in such perfect fellowship with the mind of the Father. We have to humbly admit that. How in the world can we pass a judgment? Even Jesus, Who was in such perfect fellowship with the Father, says, “I do not judge.” Jesus says, “You people judge according to the flesh. You see something and you have your own carnal way of assessing that. And you judge that person. But even I am not judging anyone.” What a fantastic verse! Can you follow the example of Jesus, who was in such perfect fellowship with the Father and still said, “I'm not judging anyone”? The more we are out of fellowship with God, the more we judge other people. He said, “I'm not judging anyone.” This occurs immediately after the story of the Pharisees judging the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus setting her free.

Seek Discernment

In the previous chapter, John 7, Jesus speaks about how we are to judge. We are not to live in this world without any opinion, like zombies floating around this world. No, God doesn't want us to be opinion-less people. Paul had an opinion about the Corinthians. He said they were carnal. He had an opinion about the Galatians. He says, “You Galatians have been bewitched! You're foolish!” We need to understand this. We need to have discernment, but we should not have a suspicion of others. Sometimes what people call discernment is plain, simple suspicion.

“Do not judge, but judge.” Have you heard a verse like that? Do not judge, but judge. We are commanded to judge. Here is the balance. In John 7:24, Jesus says, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” That means don't judge by what you see or hear. Instead, you need to judge righteously. In Isaiah chapter 11, we are told that that's how Jesus would judge. “When the Spirit of God is upon Jesus, He will delight in the fear of the Lord.” One mark of fearing God is given in Isaiah 11:3, “He will not judge by what He sees or what He hears, but with righteousness.” We get a lot of information from our eyes and our ears. He says not to judge on the basis of that information. Listen and see, but reserve judgment. Say, “Lord, I've seen something, I've heard something, but I don't know whether this is the truth. I want to wait on You.” That's how Jesus did it. He would never judge by what His eyes saw or by what His ears heard because He wanted to listen to the Father. It's a very good example for us to follow. Never judge by outward appearance, but judge with righteousness and have a righteous opinion.

Recognize the Circle God Has Appointed You

Whom do we have to judge? We have to judge the people who are within our circle. For example, if you're a father and your children are quarrelling with each other, you can’t turn around to them and say, “No, I'm not going to judge because the Bible says, ‘Don't judge.’” You have authority in the circle of your family. You have to judge and sort out the problem between them. If you're an elder in a church, you have to discern the situation and sort out the problems between husbands and wives or between brothers. We read in 1 Corinthians 5 that the Apostle Paul once gave a man over to Satan, because he had authority over that church. He passed judgement. That is right, and that was after waiting upon God to know what to do. We are to judge the circle in which we have responsibility.

You don't have to judge what's happening in another person’s church. You don't have any responsibility there. You don't have to judge another person’s children because you're not their parent, but you do have to judge your own children. The principal of judgment is to see if that person is within your circle. For example, if you’re a boss having people working under you in your factory, and they have a problem, you have to pass a judgment because you have authority over them. But in spheres where you don't have authority, the answer is to mind your own business. It’s a wonderful word - mind your own business. Peter says in 1 Peter 4:15, “Let none of you suffer as a busybody in other people's matters.”

For many years, I had this little sentence written in front of my table - The happiest people in the world are those who never judge others but judge themselves constantly. I got that from 1 Peter 4: 17, “In the household of God, we judge ourselves first,” and 1 Peter 4:15, “Don't become a busybody in other people's matters.” We judge ourselves first. The mark of a true household of God is that it comprises of people who are not busybodies in other people's matters, but who judge themselves first. Such are the happiest people in the whole world. I'm thankful that I kept that before my mind for a long time. I've urged people who want to live a godly life to take this decision, to only judge themselves and the people whom God has put under their authority, but nobody else. I believe you can live a wonderful life. This is the ninth wrong attitude that Jesus warned us about in Matthew chapter 7. It is a very important word for us to follow. I hope you have understood the balance of where to judge, where not to judge, whom to judge, whom not to judge, and how to judge. May God help us.

Chapter 26

Seek to Prophesy the Right Word by Listening to God

Beginning at Matthew 7:6 we have the concluding paragraphs of the Sermon on the Mount. “Do not give that which is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matthew 7:6). Jesus is teaching us that we have to be wise concerning what we speak to whom. In Proverbs 26:4, we are told that we're not to answer a fool according to his folly. We must look to Jesus’ example when we try to understand a verse of Scripture.

Seek to Understand the Principles Behind Jesus’ Commands

When we look at a verse like this, it is not that we are to treat anybody like dogs, or to treat anybody like swine. We are all sinners. Every single person is a sinner. We're all sinners. Some of us are saved by the grace of God with our sins forgiven, and some are still in their sins, but we're basically all sinners to start with because we've inherited that from Adam. So there's no reason for one person to think that he's better than the other, or to look down on another like a dog or a swine.

We need to understand the principles behind what Jesus is saying as we read through the Sermon on the Mount. For example, when Jesus said, “Pull out your eye” or, “Cut off your hand,” He wasn't referring to us actually cutting off our hand by amputating it, or plucking out our eye. It’s the principle behind the statement that He wants us to obey. When He spoke about eating His flesh and drinking His blood in John 6, it's not His physical flesh or physical blood that He was speaking of. He was talking about a participation in His death. Some people took this word literally and got offended and left, but He said to them, “The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life. The flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63).

There was another instance of this when Jesus went Syrophoenicia, to the land of Tyre (Matthew 15:21-28). He went all the way that distance from where He was (about 80 kilometres) just to help one Canaanite woman. It's amazing that Jesus would walk 80 kilometres one way, and 80 kilometres back (over 150 kilometres), just to help one person. He was obviously led by the Spirit to do this. As a man He didn't know what He was going to find, but when the Spirit leads, if you obey, you will discover there's something wonderful at the end of the journey. When Jesus got to Tyre, a woman came asking for help for her daughter who was demon possessed. Jesus turned around and said, “It's not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26). Some people have questioned that statement.

Was Jesus calling her a dog? Would you walk 150 kilometres to help one single person? How long does it take to walk 150 kilometres? It would take a couple of days at least. There we see the intensity of Christ's love. Knowing how deeply He loved her, we see that the Lord was testing her to see whether she was willing to take any lowly position, recognizing that she deserves nothing from God. When she said, “That's fine. I'm a dog, but can I get the crumbs that fall from the table?” Jesus said, “O woman, your faith is great!” It’s only twice that Jesus ever said that to anybody, and both were to non-Jewish people. One was to a Roman centurion, and the other was to this Syrophoenician woman. Look how He appreciated her!

We need to understand that when Jesus speaks about dogs and swine in Scripture, He’s not despising people. He’s recognizing that we don't deserve anything at all from God. Anyone who thinks, “I deserve that God should do something for me” hasn't understood man's position before God. The only thing that you and I deserve is hell. If we go to God and say, “Lord give me what we deserve,” then He should be giving us hell. Anything better than that is God's grace. When we recognize that, then we will see that we get a lot that we do not deserve from God. But most people don't recognize that position.

The Difference Between Animals, Men, and Christians

When Jesus said, “Don't give that which is holy to dogs,” He meant, “Don't give something which people don't appreciate to them.” All a dog wants is a bone. He doesn't want something holy. When a human being is more interested in material things on earth than God, there is a sense in which he is no better than an animal. What do you live for? Do you live just to bring up children, have sex, sleep, and eat good food? Well, that's what all the animals are interested in too! Animals are always interested in earthly things. Dogs are always looking down on the earth. So are swine. You never see a dog or a swine looking up to heaven. Animals are always looking down at the things of the earth, and that's the meaning of the word ‘dogs’ here - it means “people whose minds are set on earthly things.”

A true Christian has his head lifted up. He is looking at things above. For people who are not interested in the things above, it is pointless giving to them that which is holy. It's like casting pearls in front of swine. What swine need is a lot of rubbish (slop). That's what they love to eat, so it's pointless giving them that which is holy. Jesus is speaking of the Sermon on the Mount - the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not meant for unbelievers. That is the point of Matthew 7:6: don't give this message to those who are not born again, because they cannot appreciate it.

What people who are not born again need to hear is the message of repentance. They need to know that they are sinners. They need to know that they deserve hell. They need to know that they are lost, and cut off from God, and are heading to an eternal destiny in hell. That’s the message that non-Christians and even people born in Christian homes (who are not born again, who have not come into a living connection with Christ) need to hear.

Every human being, if he does not give God first place in his life, is really like an animal. An animal has no interest in God, no interest in prayer, no interest in hearing what God has to say. When you have a human being living on Earth with no interest in prayer, no interest in God, and no interest in hearing what God is to say to him, he is no better than an animal. An animal is interested in sex. When man is primarily interested in sex, he is like an animal. Every animal is interested in sex and food, and when human beings are interested only in food, sex, sleep, and having children, they are just like animals. But there was a difference when God made Adam. He made Adam from the same dust that He used to make the pigs, the dogs, and all the animals. It’s exactly the same dust. If you look at the internal organs of dogs and swine, there's a lot of similarity there between man's internal organs and the internal organs of these animals. So what the Lord was saying is, physically, both of you are from the same material. And that's why God made animals and man both on the sixth day. The first part of the sixth day He made the animals, and the second part of the sixth day He made man. But there was one big difference with the animals: God didn't breathe on them. They automatically had breath when they were created from the dust, but as soon as man was made, God breathed into him, and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7), and that was the thing that distinguished him from the animals immediately - the breath of God.

If God had not breathed into Adam, he may have looked like a man, but he would have been like an animal. But the moment God breathed into him, he became a living soul. He became an eternal being, unlike animals, which are not eternal. When an animal dies, they just become dust. But when God breathed into a man and man became a living soul, he became an eternal being at that moment. He became an eternal being answerable to God. He didn't have eternal life, because eternal life refers to life that had no beginning, and only God has that. But we can receive that eternal life when we repent of our sins and come to Christ and receive Him as our Lord and Savior. Then we will have eternal life. Otherwise, we are just eternal beings who go to hell and dwell there for eternity, separated from God.

What the Lord is saying is that there are two distinct categories of people on this earth. There are those who live just like animals (like dogs and swine), and there are others who recognize that they are supposed to be children of God, and who recognize that God has made them eternal beings answerable to Him. When God breathed into man, he was made of dust, but he also had a conscience that made him aware that he's answerable to God for his actions and words. Animals don't have a conscience. They don't have any sense of guilt when they do something wrong, whereas man (even if he's a completely illiterate barbarian in a jungle) has a sense of guilt because he has a conscience. Even the barbarians in the jungles bow down and worship - maybe a rock or a stone or the sun, for example. There's some awareness that there is a Creator, there is an eternal Being to Whom they are answerable. You never find a religious dog anywhere, or a religious monkey or swine. Why is it that even barbarians have that sense of awareness of an eternal Being to Whom they’re answerable? That's because they have a conscience. Every man has a conscience, and that's what distinguishes man from swine, dogs, and other animals.

Discern the Maturity of Your Audience

We need to recognize what truth we can give to each person. That's what Christ is saying in this verse. The Apostle Paul says when writing to the Corinthians, “I decided when I was with you I will only speak about Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Some people have misunderstood this verse, as if that is the only thing that we have to ever speak on. If ever you take one verse out of its context you can get a wrong doctrine, and that’s how many cults are built. Whenever you read a verse in Scripture, remember it is part of a letter, and if you take one sentence out of page two of a letter you can get a wrong understanding. Read the whole paragraph. Read the whole letter. When you read the whole paragraph here, you read that Paul is telling the Corinthians, “With you people I could only speak about Christ dying for our sins.” Then in Chapter 3 he explains why; “You're like babes, and babes can only drink milk.” You don't put solid food in the mouth of a one-month-old baby, it will choke to death. What do you give a one-month-old baby? Milk. You cannot put solid food into that child's mouth, because it can’t chew it. That's what Paul is saying about the Corinthians.

But he says in 1 Corinthians 2:6 (paraphrase), “We do speak wisdom among those who are mature, and you guys are not mature, so I can’t speak God's wisdom to you people. I can only tell you that Christ died for our sins, because you're constantly falling into sin and asking God to forgive you, and again falling into sin after that. What do you need to know? You need to drink milk, that Christ died for your sins, repent of your sins, confess them, and ask God to forgive you.”

Paul is saying to them, “How long are you going to be babes? You need to grow up.” That's what the Hebrews were also told. The writer to the Hebrews says, “You people can only drink milk. You're not ready to eat solid food (the food of righteousness).” This is being told to Christians who should have become more mature. The writer says, “By this time you should have become teachers, but you still need somebody to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you need milk and not solid food” (Hebrews 5:12). So just like we don't give pearls before swine, and we don't give that which is holy to the dogs, we should not give solid food to babies.

The point here is, we need to give appropriate truth to people according to their spiritual level. If they're not even converted, it’s no use taking a Bible study on the Sermon on the Mount to them, because that is not meant for them; that's meant for disciples. If a person is unconverted, what he needs to hear about is his sin. He needs to hear how terribly guilty he is because of his sin before God, how he is headed to an eternal hell, how he is a rebel against God, and how God’s wrath and judgment are resting upon his head. He needs to hear that so he can turn and be broken and humble before God and ask God for His mercy. That's the message for the sinners, not the Sermon on the Mount. Then, when the person is converted, we can teach him. First, we begin teaching them as a babe with milk, and then we can go on to more mature teaching of God's wisdom. Then, we can (once he is a disciple) teach him the Sermon on the Mount.

It is a very simple principle because there are many people in the world who think Christianity is only following the Sermon on the Mount. That’s not true. The first step of Christianity is laying a foundation, and that foundation is - you're a sinner and you're on your way to hell, you're a rebel against God, and you need to repent of that and come back in brokenness and humility and repentance, feel sorry for your sins and want to turn away from your sins, believe that Christ died and took the punishment for all your sins upon the cross, and believe also that He proved this was the only way of salvation by rising from the dead. The thing that distinguishes Christianity from all other faiths is two great truths; 1) Jesus Christ died for your sins (nobody else has even claimed to do that) 2) Jesus Christ rose from the dead, proving what He said was true (nobody else has ever raised from the dead). If you remove these two truths from Christianity, Christianity is like any other religion. Do good, help the poor, be kind, don’t hurt anybody, etc. That is the superstructure of Christianity, but the foundation is that Christ died for our sins and rose again. That foundation is what is lacking in all religions.

The superstructure of Christianity may look the same as that of other religions, but it's like comparing the man who built a house on the sand with the man who built on the rock. Both houses look the same, but one doesn’t have a foundation. A lot of things in Christianity may look similar to what is taught in other religions, but if you look at the foundation, you’ll see that there is no foundation elsewhere. Only in Christianity is a foundation that Someone died for my sins and took my punishment, which is the greatest need that human beings have. Nobody did that except Christ, and how do we know that's true? He rose from the dead. It’s on that foundation that we lead people to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and become disciples who give all to Christ. When a person has come there, the foundation has been laid. Then we can teach him the Sermon on the Mount.

Seeking the Lord for Wisdom

That is the point of Matthew 7:6 - we're not to give truth to those who do not appreciate it. That's why we need to have wisdom whenever we talk to people. We're not to have a standard message for everybody. We need to seek God to hear what God wants me to say to each person. Even Jesus lived like that.

There’s a prophecy concerning the Lord Jesus Christ in Isaiah 50:4 which is very appropriate for those who preach the Word, wondering, “What am I supposed to give to a person as God's message?” I first need to discern what his spiritual condition is. This is why I need prophetic insight from God when I speak God's Word to anybody. Giving God's Word is a supernatural thing. If you only think of it as giving a lecture, like teaching chemistry, then you can teach the Bible anytime to anyone. But if you want to minister God’s Word according to the person’s spiritual level, you need to have supernatural insight which only God can give. Isaiah 50:4 says (this is referring to Christ), “The Lord God, the Father has given me the tongue of a disciple, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word.” In other words, “In order to get the right word for a weary one who comes across my path, God my Father awakens me morning by morning every day, and he awakens my ear in the morning to listen as a disciple.” Jesus is saying here that He would listen every day, and He would listen constantly so that He could give the appropriate word to the people who came to Him.

One example of this is in John 8. We read of the Pharisees bringing a woman who was caught in adultery to Jesus and quoting the Old Testament Scriptures, which clearly said that she was to be stoned to death. Jesus did not disagree with that because He knew the Old Testament Scriptures. He had given them Himself to Moses hundreds of years earlier! So what does He do? It says that Jesus did not reply. They kept on accusing this woman, and Jesus just stooped down with His finger and started doodling on the ground (John 8:6). He was waiting for a clear word from the Father. “What shall I give these people? What is the appropriate word to give these people who want to stone this poor woman to death?” He was not going to contradict Scripture, since the Scripture which He Himself gave to Moses said to stone her. When He had a word from His Father, He just straightened up and spoke to them (John 8:7 paraphrase), “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone. Go ahead - you can stone this woman according to the law, but only the one who's without a sin can throw the first stone.” And it says that they all went away beginning with the oldest, because the oldest had sinned the most.

One word was enough to handle the situation! It did not take a whole sermon. There were other times when Jesus would say nothing. For example, once when somebody asked Him a question He said in reply, “Let Me ask you a question first: the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or is it from men?” And they began to dispute among themselves, “If we say it was ‘from men’ the people will be upset because they considered John a prophet, and if we say ‘it was from heaven,’ Jesus will ask us ‘why didn’t you believe him then?’” So they didn't know how to reply and so they said, “We don't know. We're not going to say.” So Jesus said, “Well I'm not going to reply your question either” (Matthew 21:27).

Jesus didn't have a standard way of dealing with everybody. Sometimes people came to Him and asked Him a silly question, like, “A man died and his wife was married by his brother, and that happened with his seven other brothers. Who's going to be her husband in the resurrection?” Jesus gave a reply to them; He didn’t just walk away. He took the time to explain to them that in the resurrection there is no marriage. If you look at the replies that Jesus gave, it wasn’t like getting a fixed answer, like you would get if you looked up a computer program saying, “What’s the reply to this?” He was always listening to the Holy Spirit, and that's a very important principle that we need to learn from Matthew 7:6.

Earnestly Desire to Prophesy

Many times, we need to know what the appropriate word for a particular person is. It is so important in all ministry to know exactly the right word to give to people. Why does the New Testament say that we must covet to prophesy in 1 Corinthians 14:1? Every believer is told that he must earnestly desire to prophesy. The reason is that in the New Testament church meeting, if all prophesy, and all have the gift of prophecy (all are not prophets, but all can prophesy), then it says that when someone comes in who is an ungifted man, who probably doesn't believe in these gifts, he's convicted by what he hears and the secrets of his heart are disclosed because he heard a word exactly according to his needs (1 Corinthians 14:24-25). He will then fall on his face and worship God saying, “Boy! God is certainly here, because I got a word according to my need!”

Every single church meeting should be like that. Every church should have people who prophesy prophetic words. You need to wait upon God, and you need to surrender everything to Him to do that. And if you're not doing that, then you're not fit to be a preacher of God's Word. You need to know exactly what is appropriate to give to a person. That is the point of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:6. When you see someone who's like a swine, give him what's appropriate for a swine; when you see someone who is like a dog, give him a bone. You can’t give animals the Sermon on the Mount. As we seek for the gift of prophecy, God gives us the ability, at the moment we get up to speak, to discern exactly what the need of the people who are in front of us is, and God will give us the word for their need. This is a very important principle that Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount with and it’s very, very important for us to understand - especially for those of us who are called to preach God's Word, whether it’s to unbelievers or believers. We don't despise anyone. If you despise someone, you're not fit to be a servant of God. Jesus didn't despise the worst of sinners. But we need to have an appropriate word according to the need of the people. That is the point of Matthew 7:6.

Chapter 27

Asking Receiving Spiritual Blessings

Matthew 7:7 repeats the core message of the Sermon on the Mount. The bar to live up to is so high that it is impossible, humanly-speaking, to live up to it. That is why most people look at it and simply give up, believing that no one can live in such a way—nobody can be completely free from anger, nobody can be completely free from lusting with the eyes, nobody can be completely free from the love money, everything that Jesus speaks about.

Christians look at what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount and say that the standard is too high. Is it possible to speak the truth all the time? Can you pray without caring at all for the opinion of men as you pray? Can anybody live without judging others? If you asked Christians about the standard Jesus gives us in His sermon, many of them would say that you can’t live at that level, especially not in all areas. In a sense, they’re right, because with human strength, it is impossible. However, Jesus also said later in Matthew’s gospel that “with men this is impossible, but not with God—with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). It’s a lovely verse that Jesus spoke when a rich young ruler came to Him and Jesus told him to sell all that he had. He couldn't do it, and Jesus said to His disciples, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” At this point in the Sermon on the Mount, we can apply this truth to everything that Jesus has already said. All of the exhortations that Jesus has given up until Matthew 7:5 are impossible—but that's not the end of the sentence—yet with God, they are possible.

Praying for Spiritual Needs

It comes together in Matthew 7:7, where Jesus says you need to ask, otherwise you won’t receive. What you ask for will be given to you, and you need to ask for power to be able to live according to this standard. That is the meaning of the verse in this context. Very often, we ask God only for material things. “Lord, I need a house; I need a car; I need healing from my sickness; I need this, that, and the other,” almost all entirely worldly things. It is the same with our requests for others: “I need this for my family and my children;” again, all worldly things. To tell you honestly, there's not much difference between the prayers that believers pray and the prayers that unbelievers pray. The prayer that non-Christians pray in their mosques and temples is quite similar to the prayer many Christians pray in their private lives. It’s almost 99% about material things, and the one spiritual thing they may pray is, “Lord forgive my sins,” but nothing more than that. For example, when was the last time you prayed that you would learn to forgive every single person? When was the last time you prayed that you would love all your enemies? When was the last time you prayed that you would be completely free from sexually sinful ways of thinking? When was the last time you prayed that you would be 100% free from anger, and persisted in that prayer? When was the last time you prayed that you would speak the truth 100% of the time? Or that you would be completely free from the honor of men? Or that you would never judge others? We hardly ever pray for these things. Instead, we're praying for material things, just like the non-Christian. There's almost no difference between the non-Christian and the Christian, because the standard of Christianity taught today is so pathetically low. The teachers of these Christians have never taught them to do all that Jesus commanded, and these people have not experienced a genuine fullness of the Holy Spirit.

The fullness of the Holy Spirit that many Christians experience is just a counterfeit. It is counterfeit in the same way that there are also fake diamonds, fake gold, and counterfeit currency notes. When people are genuinely filled with the Holy Spirit, they'll become holy. Everybody knows that unclean spirits make people unclean, and evil spirits make people evil. What is the Holy Spirit? Some people say the Holy Spirit makes you make a lot of noise. That's not true! The Holy Spirit makes you holy! I remember one man who came to our church in Bangalore once. He was from some particular denomination that believed in making a lot of noise during Sunday morning meetings. He came to me after the service and said, “You don't have the Holy Spirit here.” I said, “How do you know? Have you lived in our homes and seen how we live, whether we live holy lives or not?” “No,” he said, “you don't have enough noise in your meetings.” “Oh,” I said, “your Trinity is Father, Son, and noisy spirit. My Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The third person of your trinity makes you make noise, and the third Person of my Trinity makes me holy.” Which is the third Person of the Trinity in the Bible, the noisy spirit or the Holy Spirit? It’s as simple as that. Even a little child can understand.

Requirements to Receive: Desire, Asking, and Faith

But if we don't desire the Holy Spirit who makes us holy, we will never have the ability to live up to Jesus’ standard. That's why Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you.” In the last part of James 4:2, we read, “You do not have because you do not ask.” Remember this little sentence at the end of James 4:2, you do not have something that God wants you to have because you do not ask. There are many things that God wants to give Christians, but they have not received them because they do not ask. Take the verse in Luke 11:13, “How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.” There are millions of things that Christians have missed just because they don't ask God.

Why does God wait for us to ask Him? Because He wants us to appreciate what He gives us. What He gives without us asking, we don't usually value. Forgiveness of sins, that’s the most important thing of all. Didn’t you get it by asking for it? Would you have gotten it if you didn't ask for it? Would you have received salvation if you didn't ask for it? There are millions of people on earth who have not been saved because they don't ask for it. They don't humble themselves to acknowledge that they need it.

What are the other requirements for receiving God's highest spiritual blessings? First of all, we must have a desire, a thirst, for them. Then, we must ask in faith. Asking speaks of that desire, and Jesus speaks about faith a few verses down, in Matthew 7:11. He says, “If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”

If you don't ask, you won't receive. If you seek, you will find. If you want to know the truth, you’ve got to seek for it. There are treasures in God's Word. There are some things on the surface, which everybody can receive, but its deepest treasures are inside, and you have to seek for them. Think about the earth. There are a lot of valuable things on the surface, like mangoes, coconuts, and so much other good fruit, but if you want the really expensive treasures, like gold and diamonds, you have to dig thousands of feet into the ground. In the same way, there are certain things you get from the surface of the Bible, such as how our sins can be forgiven (because Christ died for them). But if you want to discover the deepest truths of Scripture—how to live a Spirit-filled life, how to partake in God's nature, how to overcome all sin, how to overcome anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, jealousy, sexual lusting—then you have to dig deep. If a person doesn't dig deep, God sees he is not really interested. “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek with all your heart, and you will find.”

It’s a promise we find in Jeremiah 29:13, “When you seek Me with all your heart, you will find Me.” If a person has not found God and the wealth that is in Him, I can say without the slightest hesitation, that this man has not sought God with all his heart. He has sought half-heartedly, and there is no promise for the half-hearted in Scripture. There's no promise for the three-quarter-hearted either, but tremendous promises for the whole-hearted. You can be so close, you can give 90% of yourself to God and get no more than the person who gave 10% to Him. But, when you give a 100% to God, you get everything. If you give 90%, you're in just the same category as the person who gave 10%. That's what Christians don't realize. Seek God with 10% of your heart, and you won’t find Him. Seek Him with 90% of your heart, and you won’t find Him. Seek God with all your heart, and you’ll find Him. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. These are promises. God never breaks His promises. Every single person who asks receives. Why haven’t you received? You’re obviously not asking the way God wants you to ask. Everyone who seeks, finds. Maybe you haven't sought the way God wants you to. It will be opened to everyone who knocks. Perhaps you have not knocked sufficiently. Jesus emphasizes faith, thirst, and persistence in prayer.

Persist In Prayer

In connection to this, there are two parables that Jesus gave, both emphasizing persistence. One is in Luke 18, where He spoke about prayer and said men ought always to pray and never to lose heart (v1). Then He speaks about a judge, who didn't fear God or man, and a widow who was being oppressed by her neighbor (and perhaps an enemy). She didn't want to trouble the enemy in any way. She asked the judge, just protect me, give me legal protection so the enemy does not take advantage of me. He might have been encroaching into her property or troubling her in ways he had no right to. She was asking for her legal rights, and the judge wouldn't help her. The judge was not willing, but she kept on at him. She went to his door at two o'clock in the morning and woke him up, and he said, get away from here. She came again the next morning at two o'clock in the morning, knocking, knocking, day and night at his door, until he got so fed up that he said, “This widow bothers me so much that I'll give her legal protection, otherwise she will wear me out” (v5).

The Lord said, “Look at what an unjust judge does and says; do you not think that a just God is better than that? Don't you think He will bring justice for His elect? Who are the elect? Those who cry to Him day and night. Do you think He'll delay in answering them? No, He will answer them speedily” (Luke 18:7). What a lovely promise. God will answer me speedily if He sees that I'm earnest in asking Him to help me overcome Satan, my enemy, 100%. Will you say, “Lord, Satan has taken over certain areas of my life, certain areas of my home”? Maybe he's come and taken over your wife, or husband, or children, or someone else. Pray, “I want to drive him out. Give me protection from my enemy.” If you persist, you can be absolutely sure that God will answer.

The other place Jesus spoke about prayer is in Luke 11, when the disciples asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray" (v1). He taught them to pray, and He gave them a parable. He told them, “Suppose one of you has a friend who visits your home at midnight, and out of courtesy and love for him, you ask him if he has eaten. If he says he hasn’t, and you look into your refrigerator and see that there is no food there or in the rest of the house, what do you do? You go to your neighbor.” Now, this is very rare. Hardly anyone would go to their neighbor at midnight and wake him up to ask food for their friend, but this person does. He goes, knocks at his neighbor’s house, and says, “Please lend me three loaves. I’ll return it tomorrow, but lend them to me now. A visitor has come to my house, a very good friend of mine, and I've got no food for him.” Now, the man inside the house tells him to not disturb him or his children because they are all in bed, “You're disturbing us at midnight, waking us all up, and you keep on banging at the door.” But this person will keep knocking and won’t let his neighbor sleep till he gets what he needs.

The Lord says, “Even if this neighbor doesn't give you anything because you are his friend, because of your persistence and because of your shameless knocking, he will get up and give you as much as you need.” What a lovely expression this is, “As much as you need.” Jesus then finishes— “I say to you, ask like this.” Matthew 7:7 echoes this message, but from the parallel passage in Luke 11, we see the full story. We have to ask with constant asking, seeking, and knocking. Everyone who asks like this will receive.

Why We Pray to God

In Luke 18, the widow went and knocked for her own need, and in Luke 11, someone went and knocked for somebody else's need. We have two reasons why we go to God. First of all, we go to Him for our own need. “Lord, the enemy is oppressing me. I’m defeated in certain areas by the enemy, by sin. He has taken over certain areas in my life, he's come and occupied areas of my home. He's gotten hold of some of my children, and I want them to be free.” This is personal need. The other reason we go to God is for the need of others, for ministry. “Lord, I want you to give me that which will help me meet the need of these people whom I have to serve.” When you have a burden for the people in your church, to lead them to a Godly life, to lead them to do all that Jesus commanded, to lead them to live according to the standards of the Sermon on the Mount, you will ask for the power of the Holy Spirit, you'll ask for a prophetic word from heaven that will meet the need of those people and deliver them from the clutches of the devil and bring them to a Godly life. And if you love them enough, you'll be persistent. Don't you think that this person, who went to his neighbor’s house at midnight, loved his visitor? He must have loved him so much that he was determined to get him food that night. Most of us, if we didn't have food the night the visitor came, would tell him, "I’m sorry, but we have no food, so let's go to bed now, I'll get you something in the morning.” But this man loved his hungry visitor so much that he said, “I’m going to get you something tonight, even if I have to be shameless before my neighbor.” It’s a wonderful picture of going to God with persistence and saying, Lord give me the gifts of the Holy Spirit to serve these people.

I remember when I sought for baptism in the Holy Spirit - for the power of the Holy Spirit to be an effective teacher of God's Word - to have utterance. I was a very shy person when I became a Christian and began to share God's Word. I knew I needed the power of the Holy Spirit, and if I got the power of the Holy Spirit, I'd be transformed into another person. And that's exactly what happened. If you seek God like that for the mighty supernatural anointing of the Holy Spirit not for yourself, but for others, and you keep on knocking, saying, “Lord, give me bread to feed these people (we saw this expression in Luke 11:8),” then God will give you as much as you need (Luke 11:13). I'm referring to the Holy Spirit here. Jesus made it clear what we're supposed to ask God for. “Give me the power of the Holy Spirit to serve others. My needs are met, we've gone past Luke 18, now I'm thinking about the needs of others.” That's a true Christian.

Very often, people seek for the power of the Holy Spirit to get some tickle down their spine, some electric shock or feeling, some speaking in tongues, or something for their own benefit. We need to seek for the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be able to bless other people. I remember when I sought God for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was to serve other people, and even if God gave me the gift of tongues, it was to keep myself fresh, because the Bible says that he who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. I wanted to edify myself so that I’d always be fresh when I'm serving other people. Therefore, even the gift of tongues was to benefit others, to keep myself fresh and to build myself up. No gift of the spirit was for my own personal edification, but rather for personal edification that led to the blessing of other people.

We need to remember that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are meant for others. The fruit of the Spirit benefit me. If I have joy or peace, that benefits me, not you. But, if I have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, whether it be prophecy or healing or any other gift, those gifts benefit others. We need both of these. You need to ask God, and you need faith.

God Only Gives What Is for Our Good

“If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give what is good (especially the Holy Spirit and all His good gifts) to those who ask Him?” We need to have faith that we're coming to our Father. We're not coming to the CEO of some company, who is so distant that we have to approach him through a secretary. We’re coming to our Heavenly Dad, and what will He deny us? There’s absolutely nothing good that He can ever deny us. If God doesn't see fit to give us something, we can be absolutely sure that it’s not good for us.

The Apostle Paul once had a sickness in his body which he called a thorn in the flesh. He prayed three times for it to be removed (2 Corinthians 12). God didn't remove it, and he realized that it was for his good, because it kept him humble and broken. God always gives us what is good, and when God is good to us like that, tremendously good to us, what should we do? We need to be good to other people.

The Golden Rule

Jesus then goes on to what is often called the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12). Therefore, since God has been so good to you, to give you all that you need, you must treat people in a good way as well. Freely you received, freely you give. God has forgiven you, so you forgive other people. God forgave you all your sins, forgive other people all their sins. God is good to you; be good to them. Treat people in the way you want them to treat you. How do you want people to treat you? Treat them in the same way. Don't treat people the way they treat you. A lot of human beings live like that. They say, “I treat people the way they treat me. If they're good to me, I'm good to them. If they are bad to me, I’m bad to them.” That's the law of Adam. The law of God is to treat people not in the way they treat you, but to treat them the way you want them to treat you.

Do you want people to gossip about you behind your back? Do you want people to speak evil about you in their homes? No? Then don't speak evil about them in your home. Do you want people to spread bad stories about you, even if those stories are true? Suppose you slipped up and made a blunder? Do you want everybody to broadcast that all over town? No? Then don't broadcast the evil you know about others either. Treat other people the way you want them to treat you. If you want them to be kind to you, be kind to them. If you want people to speak graciously to you, speak graciously to them. What about husband and wife? Let me ask you husbands, how do you want your wives to speak to you? Graciously? Respectfully? Then speak to them graciously and respectfully, and vice versa.

It is certainly true that it is a Golden Rule because Jesus said the whole message of the Law and the Prophets—that’s an expression for the entire Old Testament, the Law being the first five books, and the Prophets and history making up the remaining 34 books— is this: God has been good to you (Matthew 7:11), therefore you have a debt and obligation to be good to other people around you. You have to pass on the love that God has given you, to treat others exactly like God treated you. Treat them the way you want them to treat you.

For example, Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other…” And how exactly should we extend forgiveness to others? “Exactly like God in Christ forgave you.” Be kind to one another like God has been kind to you in Christ. Be tender-hearted to others - especially your children when they slip up and make a mistake, and towards your wife, and towards your husband - because God has been tender-hearted towards you. Forgive like God forgave you. It goes on to say in the next verse, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.” That's a lovely expression. Do you know that you're called to imitate God in the way He's tender-hearted, kind, good, and forgiving towards you? Do you know that we're supposed to reflect that to others like the moon reflects the light of the Sun? We are to be like that, reflecting the light of God and the goodness of God to other people, and this is why we need to ask - and keep on asking - for the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the message of the whole Bible.

Chapter 28

Narrow Way and How to Discern False Prophets

Matthew 7:13 marks the conclusion to what Jesus had already taught. We need to read the following verses in the context of all that precedes them in Matthew 5-7. “Enter by the narrow gate.” What does Jesus mean? Jesus meant that what He has preached so far is, in a sense, a very narrow gate. “For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. Many are those who enter by the wide gate and the broad way” (Matthew 7:13-14).

The Broad Way Disregards the Sermon on the Mount

Destruction is eternal hell. Did Jesus speak about Hell in the Sermon on the Mount? He certainly did. He spoke about it three times. Let's look at the way to destruction. In Matthew 5:22, Jesus said, “If you're angry with your brother, you’re guilty before the court. If that anger gives expression to words of anger, then you are guilty before the Supreme Court. If it goes further to serious words of anger, then you’ll be guilty enough to go to hell to destruction.” Again, Jesus says in Matthew 5:28, “If a man looks at a woman with lust for her in his heart, it is better for him to pull out his right eye. Otherwise, you can be thrown into hell. It is better to cut off your right hand if it leads you to sexual sin.” Otherwise, Jesus says in Matthew 5:30, you can be thrown into hell. That is the way to destruction. The way of uncontrolled anger and uncontrolled sexual desire is the wide way, and there are multitudes of people walking along that way. The world is full of people who are angry and saturated with sexual lust, uncontrolled sinful sexual desire, exploiting poor women, etc. That is the broad way to destruction.

What if a man says he's a born-again Christian, but watches internet pornography, taking advantage of poor women being exploited? What if this Christian expresses his anger outwardly? That is the way to destruction. Whether he calls himself a Christian or a non-Christian, it makes no difference. He is on the way to destruction. It is the wide way. The way is sometimes made wide by preachers who say we don't have to be so narrow-minded and say that only those who overcome these things are going in to eternal life. No, they make the gate wider than Jesus taught. Jesus said that the way to life was like a needle’s eye. Can a camel go through a needle’s eye? No. Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the man who is rich in himself to possess the kingdom of God. Our richness is not only in wealth. It could be in our intellect. It could be our intellectual arguments when we come to Scripture. We take away the seriousness of God’s words with intellectual arguments. You are not going to enter God's kingdom through the wide road that leads to destruction. But the gate is small, and the way is narrow, that leads to life. That is the way Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount. What Jesus is saying is, “All that I've spoken here so far is a very narrow gate and a very narrow way, but it is the way that leads to life. There are very, very few people who find it.” Do you expect multitudes of people to choose the way described in the Sermon on the Mount? Not at all.

Few Will Find the Narrow Way

The Sermon on the Mount is not meant for non-Christians. It is not meant for non-disciples. It is meant for those who have already laid a foundation in their life of repentance and faith in Christ, who are born again, and who have become God's children. If a person has not taken that first step when he tries to follow the Sermon on the Mount, he is like a person who is building a house without a foundation. But here, it is speaking about disciples who are seeking to follow the Lord. They will find that this is a very narrow gate, and that there are very few who find it. I don't expect multitudes of people to come rushing to obey the things written in Matthew 5-7.

When you see mega churches with thousands of people sitting there, you might wonder if these are the “few” people who have found the way to life. Or are these people are being led astray by false preachers, and going on the broad way that leads to destruction? We do not want to judge any of them. I would be delighted if thirty thousand people in one little area want to obey the Sermon on the Mount and follow Jesus. I would be happy if there is a church of three hundred thousand people who want to follow Christ. I would not be happy with 300,000 people who just want to go to heaven without following Christ on earth. From what I have observed, the people sitting in most churches want to go to heaven without following Christ on earth. That is not the true church of Jesus Christ. That is a church against which the gates of hell will certainly prevail, and where the preachers have made the gate wide so that multitudes of people can get in without paying the price. The gate is wide enough so that you can love money and imagine that you love God as well. They made the gate wide, and are deceiving themselves that they are making disciples of Jesus in that church.

We need to see very clearly that it is at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus explained this gate is very small, and this way is very narrow that leads to life. There are very, very few that actually find it.

False Prophets Dilute the Scriptures

The very next thing He says is, “Beware of the false prophets” (Matthew 7:15). We need to see who these false prophets are in the context of this passage. Are these false prophets the ones who come to church but talk about some other religion, and start teaching from the holy book of some other religion? No. False prophets are those “who come in sheep's clothing.” Sheep's clothing means the appearance of being a servant of Jesus Christ and being a sheep of Christ. They come in sheep's clothing. They look like sheep. They come with the Bible in their hand, but they made the way broad. They explain away the commands of Scripture, saying, “This command is not necessary,” or “It does not mean exactly this…” These people have tried to explain away so many things in Scripture. If they come to verse like Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” they say, “It doesn't mean 24/7. It means generally speaking, or most of the time.” When it says in Philippians 4:6, "Be anxious for nothing,” they say, “It doesn't mean ‘nothing.’ It means generally speaking, you should avoid anxiety.” When it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that we must “give thanks in everything, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus,” they say, “That it doesn't really mean every single thing.”

God's Word is being diluted and robbed of its sharpness and power by many preachers. Take for example a small thing like a woman covering her head to show her submission to male authority. Such preachers say, “Well, it doesn't mean that we have to do that. That was for that culture, in Corinth,” and thus everything is explained away. There is an explanation for everything. God's Word has been diluted. The Bible says that if you do not take sexual sin radically, you can go to hell. Such preachers say, “No, it is not that serious.”

Beware of Hypocrisy

You will discover in the final day when you stand before Jesus Christ that God meant exactly what He said. Christ meant exactly what He said. If you do not believe these words in the Bible, you must be honest and scratch them out or tear up those pages in the Bible.

You are being dishonest and hypocritical if you say the Bible is God's Word, but then you do not follow it. God is going to judge this hypocrisy. God loves an honest person. I believe God loves many atheists more than hypocritical Christians because they are honest. They do not believe there is a God. They act like there is no God. The businessman out in the world says there is no God but money. He worships money, and he is honest. But Christians, who say that Jesus Christ is the true God and the Bible is God’s Word, if they live like those worldly people, they are the hypocrites. Remember that when Christ was on earth, He condemned the hypocrites more than anybody else. The adulteress was saved. The thief on the cross was saved. The murderer was saved. But the hypocrites went to hell.

The same thing is going to happen today. Beware of the false prophets who come to you with sheep’s clothing and with the Bible in their hand. They speak the right doctrine, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolves. They put on sheep's clothing in order to come in the midst of the flock. They pretend to be sheep, but all they want is to bite the sheep and get what they can out of them. It is a picture of a preacher who comes with his Bible college degree, quotes Scripture, and is an eloquent speaker. But all he wants is to get your money. Whenever you find a preacher like that, think of this verse. He is a “ravenous wolf” who has come in “sheep’s clothing.” That person is not a shepherd. He is a wolf. A good shepherd cares for his sheep. He is interested in leading the sheep to the green pastures and by still waters, not to bite off the sheep like a lot of preachers do.

How to Know False Prophets: Fruits, Attitude Towards Money

Jesus said you will know these false prophets by their fruits, not by their gifts. Many people seek to identify a man of God by His gifts. That is the biggest mistake of Christians. They go directly against what Jesus has said. In Matthew 7:16, Jesus said that you will not be able to distinguish between a true prophet and a false prophet if you look at the gifts. Both may appear to have gifts. A true prophet has gifts, and a false prophet has gifts. But the true prophet also has fruit. If you want to know whether one of these is a true prophet of God, do not look to see if he has a healing gift. Do not look to see if he is eloquent. Do not look to see if his doctrines are right. Both of their doctrines will be right, but one of them has sheep's clothing.

The way to distinguish which one is the real sheep and which is the wolf is by their fruits. What is the fruit of the Spirit? This is primarily humility. Does he have humility? Does he have a genuine compassion for people? Is he free from the love of money? If he is always compelling you to pay your tithe, that is a wolf, without a shadow of a doubt. Most preachers are wolves like that today. A lot of them only preach on giving your tithe to their ministry. They give you all types of false promises that God will give you a hundred times if you give to their ministry. Do not be deceived by these preachers that dominate Christian television. They are ravenous wolves who are after your money.

“You will know them by their fruits.” Always look for fruit. For example, the fruits of goodness, kindness, and humility. Look for someone who treats you with respect and is not out to get your money. Look for the fruit of Jesus Christ in their life. Where do you find in the Bible that Jesus Christ went after anybody for their money? Never once did He take a collection and offering, at any time in His ministry. When He healed the sick, He did not take an offering. He did not ask His disciples to go with an offering bag and collect money from the people He healed, unlike what we see in today's healers and preachers. I believe they are counterfeits and deceivers compared to Jesus Christ. You never find any of the apostles going around with an offering bag after they preached to people or healed people. How will we have money for God's work? Yes, we can keep a box and let people voluntarily give. We should not put a bag in front of them and compel them to give. Also, the Bible teaches that Jesus and the Apostles would never take a cent from unbelievers. It is a great tragedy today that unbelievers are invited to a meeting, hear the gospel, and are asked to give money. Do you have to pay money to get your sins forgiven? Do you have to pay money to get healed? Beware of false prophets. They are worse than unbelievers.

Someone invited me once to sit on the platform for a healing meeting in Bangalore. I said, “I'm all for getting unsaved people to Christ, but I want to know whether the organizers are going to be upright and honest in presenting the gospel.” I wanted to ensure that the gospel is absolutely free. Even praying for the sick is free. Let me use an illustration. If I were to go and buy a CD player from a non-Christian store and next day, I find it doesn't work. I will take it back to the store and tell the store owner that it doesn’t work. He will refund the money to me. If I paid two thousand rupees, he will refund two thousand rupees to me. Now apply that illustration to this situation. I said to the organizers that you conduct a healing meeting and invite a famous person somewhere to pray. Before he prays for the sick, you take a collection in the background. There is a non-Christian there who brings his paralyzed wife to the healing meeting to be healed. You pass a collection bag and that non-Christian man thinks, “If I give money, God will heal my sick wife.” He puts two thousand rupees into the bag. You pray for that sick wife, and she is not healed. This man comes back to you the next day and says, “Your prayer didn’t work. (It’s like saying your product didn’t work). My wife is not healed. Will you please return the two thousand rupees I gave you?” If you say no, I say you are a bigger crook than that an evil store keeper who doesn’t return my money when his CD player he sold me didn't work. Your prayer didn’t work to heal that person. You should return that money to them, but you don't do that.

I asked the organizers, “How in the world can I sit with all of you on a platform and conduct this type of counterfeit healing meeting in Jesus’ name?” Show me a healing meeting where you do not take any money at all and where people are genuinely healed. That is the type of healing meeting that Jesus and the apostles had. A lot of what goes on today is just a gimmick and used to swindle people from their money. Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing. You will know them by their fruits.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, "You do not go to thorn bushes to gather grapes; you do not go to thistles to get figs, do you?” It is so simple. If you want to go to get grapes, you go to a vine. You do not go to a thorn bush to get grapes. The fruit manifests what the tree is like. When you see thorns coming out of it, you know that is not fruit. Always look for fruit, not for gifts. Gifts can be deceptive. For example, Satan has tremendous gifts, but he does not have fruit, nor character. Satan can give those abilities to his servants. The Bible says that Satan’s servants can appear as ministers of righteousness.

Further, Jesus said that even so, every good tree bears good fruit. There is no doubt about it. A good tree will always bear good fruit. You can buy good fruit, tie it up on a bad tree, cut off all the bad fruit, and fool people that your tree is a good tree. But it isn’t. This is the way a lot of Christian behave. I look at a lot of Christians and see how they appear to be good in public, but are really bad in the way they live in their homes and in their offices. They live in unrighteousness, cheating, etc. I am reminded of a man who has a bad tree in his garden: it produces rotten, stinking, dried-up mangoes, but he doesn't want anybody to know, so he cuts them off, buys very luscious mangoes from the market, and ties it up very cleverly on this tree. People look at this tree and say, “Boy, what a lovely mango tree you have!” It looks very nice, but it is not coming from within the tree. It is something which is meant to deceive people. This is hypocrisy. A good tree will produce good fruit. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit” (Matthew 7:18).

How to Deal with Bad Fruit

What should you do with the tree that does not bear good fruit? In Matthew 7:19, Jesus said that it must be cut down and thrown into the fire. The nature of ours that we have inherited from Adam needs to be crucified. That is the great need. That is the meaning of “cut down.” John the Baptist said that Jesus is coming with an axe that is laid at the root of the tree to cut it down. He is going to cut it down in the root, throw it in the furnace, and replace it with another tree. Many people have not experienced this. They try to get rid of superficial sins in their life and respond to Christ. But the root is still there. It is like seeing a doctor. If you have symptoms, he will not just give you some ointment to get rid of those symptoms. He will give you an antibiotic that treats the root of the disease. When the root of the disease is treated, then its symptoms will disappear. That is how a good doctor treats patient who are sick. That is also how Jesus does it.

Jesus says that the root to all these problems in your life is a self-centered life. From that self-centered life, only fruit that seeks your own will come. You can tie nice fruit there and preach nice things like many preachers, but if you're a self-centered person, you will be seeking your own all the time. Until you hit the root of that, you are not going to be really experiencing the salvation that Christ came to give.

Numerous people who have come to our church in Bangalore have told me, “Brother Zac, I never knew what it was to be really converted until I came here. This is because I never knew what repentance was until I came to your church. I thought I was born again. I took baptism somewhere. But I never knew how serious sin was. I never knew what repentance was because I didn't know what sin I had to turn from. When I came here, I saw and I heard what sin really was. It was a self-centered way of life. I saw that I had to turn from that. It is only now that I'm really saved.” I believe a lot of people who imagine they are born again, are really not, because they have not turned from their self-centeredness. The root of that bad nature is not being hit by the axe. That bad tree has not been cut down. They are trying to produce good fruit on a bad tree.

What is the mark of those who belong to Christ? Galatians 5:24 says, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh.” “The flesh” speaks of that self-centered life that wants to do its own will. The attitude of those that belong to Christ is to crucify that self-centered life. The Romans reserved crucifixion for the worst criminals in their society. The ordinary criminals will be just jailed; the worst criminals were crucified. When you see that this self-centered nature that you inherited from Adam is the worst possible criminal and deserves to be crucified, then you have understood what repentance all is about. Then you can belong to Christ, because all those who belong to Christ have taken this attitude.

We Must Crucify Our Self-Life

What is the right attitude to have towards my self-centered life? Crucify it with all its passions and desires. Some people will say that they belong to Christ even if they don’t crucify their self-centered life. Suppose those who belong to Christ may not have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Then God's Word is meaningless. But God's Word is true. A tree that produces bad fruit must be cut down and thrown into the fire. Then we can have this other nature that the Holy Spirit gives us, that produces good fruit. Many people who have fruit, may not have the gifts of the Spirit. That does not matter. God gives different gifts to different people. If you can remember what Jesus repeated twice in Matthew 7, then you will be saved from a lot of deception. In Matthew 7:16, Jesus said that you will be able to identify a true and a false prophet, not by their gifts, but by their fruits. Again, Jesus says in Matthew 7:20, “You will know them by their fruits.” If only all Christians had just taken this one simple sentence to heart, we would be saved from a tremendous amount of deception in Christianity today.

Christianity today can be divided into two categories: Babylon and Jerusalem. That which is Babylonian, or harlot Christianity, is described in Revelation 17, and it will be burnt up and destroyed by God one day. The pure holy bride of Jesus Christ is called Jerusalem in Revelation 21. That will shine with its glory through all eternal ages. There is a way to distinguish between the two. Both may have gifts, but remember that only one will have the fruit of the Spirit, of humility, love, goodness, freedom from the love of money, etc. Whenever you look at a preacher, this is what you need to look for. Is he a true prophet, or he is just false prophet? Is he a real sheep, or a wolf in sheep's clothing? This is such an important work for our day. Does he preach the Sermon on the Mount? Does he preach the narrow way that leads to life? Or is he just showing off his oratory and his abilities? This is the way to distinguish between a true and false prophet.

Chapter 29

A Bridal Relationship with Jesus

In Matthew 7:14, Jesus says that the way that He has described in the Sermon on the Mount is a very narrow way. Salvation is only through faith in Christ; it's not by works. It's not by keeping the Sermon on the Mount that we get life. We get life, first of all, by coming to Christ and acknowledging we are sinners, and that we can do nothing to get our sins forgiven. Next, we must believe that He paid the entire price for all our sins on the cross, and that because He died and He rose again from the dead, we receive forgiveness of sins as a free gift from God. However, salvation comes only when we have turned from our sin – this is called repentance. If I have not turned from my sin in repentance, it's no use believing that Christ died for our sins because salvation is offered to those who repent and believe, not just to those who believe. There are many who believe - the world is full of Christians who believe that Christ died for their sins - but 95% of them haven’t repented. In that case, they have not received anything. They’re asking God to forgive them, but they are still facing their sins; they need to turn around. But how do we know that our faith is genuine? James says in his letter that “Faith without works is dead.” That's where the Sermon on the Mount comes in: if our faith is genuine, it’ll produce a desire to live the type of life described in the Sermon on the Mount.

Desire to Obey Is the Proof of Faith

Just like a human being has different desires from an animal, a Christian has heavenly desires. When God created Adam, He breathed into him the breath of life, but Adam also had flesh, so there were two pulls in him. One was the downward pull to earth because he had flesh, just like the animals. The other was the upward pull from God because of the divine life, divine breath in him. He responded to the downward pull in the garden of Eden, which is how he sinned.

And when a man keeps responding to the downward pull, he becomes like an animal. You find around the world that most men behave like animals towards each other, and animals don't have any interest in God. A lot of people don't have any interest in God, and they are just like animals. But when we respond to the voice of conscience that’s reminding us of God, that helps us to turn towards Him, and that's the first step of Salvation. When we respond to that and are really born again, it will produce a desire to live the type of life described in the Sermon on the Mount.

James describes it like this: just like the body without breath is dead, so faith without works is dead (James 2:26). He compares faith in the doctrines of Scripture to all the parts of our body. You may believe every single truth in Scripture - that's like saying this person has ten fingers, ten toes, two ears, two eyes one mouth. If all the internal parts of the body - liver, kidney, heart - are all there, but he is dead, what’s the use of that? In that case, it doesn't matter if he is in even worse shape - has no hands and no eyes and no legs and no heart and no kidney - if he's dead, everything is useless. In the same way, what’s the use of believing all the doctrines, if the breath is not there, and if the Holy Spirit has not brought in us the desire to live according to what is described in the Sermon on the Mount? “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). That kind of faith is exactly like a dead body. It may have all its parts, but not breath! Only when the body has breath, do you know it's living. And it’s better to have a body with one hand (incomplete doctrine) that's living than have two hands (perfect doctrine) and be dead. We shouldn't glory in our doctrines; we shouldn't even glory in our gifts. That's the point: that the way to life is narrow. When a false prophet wants many people in his church, he is going to widen that gate. And that's exactly what many preachers have done, widen the gate so that many people would come in.

Don’t Lower God’s Standards in the Last Days

Noah in the Old Testament is a great example of a man who did not widen the gate. He was living in a time of tremendous sexual sin, immorality, violence, and evil, and Jesus said that the last days will be like the days of Noah, much like they are today. Noah, however, kept the gate narrow so that nobody could get in unless they were willing to fulfill the conditions. Ultimately, it was only his own family members that fulfilled those conditions and stayed in that church. Noah’s church was comprised of eight members - he, his wife, his three sons, and their wives - his whole family, but nobody else. It's not because he didn't want anybody else - he preached to the whole world of his time to enter into the ark - but only these 8 wanted to enter in. Now if he had lowered the standard (Noah is called a preacher of righteousness), he could have gotten many more people. He could have gotten 80 or 800, but none of them would have qualified to get into the ark, and the entire world would have been destroyed. You and I wouldn't be living today. We should thank God for Noah’s faithfulness.

If the last days are like the days of Noah, then there must be a few people like Noah in the last days, too, who don't lower God’s standards. There must be preachers of righteousness who keep the gate as narrow as Jesus made it - not legalists who try to make it narrower than what Jesus made it. I'm sorry to say there are some people like that, too, who add to Scripture, who say things which Jesus never said and try to make the gate narrower than what Jesus made it. We have to make it the right size, and that's why we need to know Scripture. False prophets are those who widen the gate, and we could also say that there are false prophets who make it narrower than the way of Jesus (like a lot of legalists). You will know them by their fruits.

The Fruit of the Spirit Is More Important Than Gifts and Doctrine

The test is always the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and that's why the fruit of the Holy Spirit is much more important than the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Both are necessary, but fruit is more important. Jesus’ life produced the fruit of the Spirit for thirty-three and half years, but He manifested the gifts of the Spirit for only 10% of that time, just three and a half years. So which is more important? This shows that the fruit of the Spirit was ten times more important than the gifts of the Spirit in Jesus’ Own life.

We do need both, but both are not equally important. That's what comes up in the next section of the Sermon on the Mount, starting in Matthew 7:21. In the earlier section, verses 15-20, Jesus spoke about the importance of fruit. Good trees produce good fruit, and “You will know them by their fruits.” He begins and ends that section with the same sentence, “You shall know them by their fruits.” The same sentence is repeated in verses 16 and 20, emphasizing fruit and then He compares it with gifts. He says, in relation to gifts, that, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” and He then describes fruit as “Doing the will of My Father in heaven.” That is a beautiful expression of what fruit is - doing the will of my Father, whatever it is. And that means denying your own will. You cannot do the will of God if you don't deny your own will. Jesus could not do the will of the Father in Gethsemane if He did not say, “Not My will.” That “not my will,” is described in verse 19 as cutting down that which doesn't bear good fruit. My will is always contrary to God's will. Man's human self-will is contrary to God's will, otherwise Jesus would not have said, “Not My will.” In heaven, before He became a man, He could say, “I do My Own will” because it was the same as His Father's will. However, the moment He came as a man, He said, in John 6:38, “I came from heaven not to do My Own will.” Why not, Lord?” Because it's not the same as My Father's will. I came to do not My Own will, but the will of My Father.” We can describe it like this: in a cross, my will crosses God's will, and that's where I have to die. If I die there, then I will do God's will.

Not everyone who simply says to Jesus, “Lord, Lord” is going to enter God's kingdom. There are lot of people who say to the Lord, “Lord, Lord” that are not going to enter God’s kingdom. The fact that he says, “Lord” proves that his doctrine is right. The fact that he says, “Lord, Lord” indicates that he's emotionally excited about the fact that Jesus is his Lord, but he doesn't realize that this Jesus is not really his Lord because in his daily life, he doesn't do the will of the Father. It's the one who does the will of God, which means the one who dies to his own will and does the will of God and is crucified with Christ, that is the one who is going to enter God's kingdom. Do you qualify according to this verse? Jesus says that many - not just one or two, “many” means thousands - are going to stand before God in the day of judgment and say, “Lord, Lord.” They are going to use the right words. “Didn't we prophesy in Your Name?” they’ll say. Prophecy is one of the greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit that we are encouraged to seek for. In 1 Corinthians 14:1, this gift is to proclaim God's Word as His mouthpiece; it's not just like a teacher who is teaching God's Word - those are the scribes, which are different from the prophets. Prophets are people who understand God's Word to proclaim it prophetically according to the need of people - it is a supernatural gift.

Attitude Towards Sin Is More Important Than Performing Miracles

The Lord says that “many people” will come to Him and say, “Lord, we prophesied in Your Name. We blessed people with the spirit of prophecy,” and many others will say, “In Your Name we cast out demons!” And a third group of people will say, “We performed not one or two miracles, but many miracles in Your Name!” These are genuine miracles, not like fake counterfeit miracles that a lot of people claim to be doing on television and on public platforms today. They perform genuine miracles, and all of these say, “We did it in Your Name.” Three times you find that expression, “coming in Jesus’ Name” (verse 22). And yet Jesus “will declare to them, ‘I never knew you, you who did miracles in My Name.’” I don't question that they really worked miracles - they wouldn’t dare tell lies to Christ if it didn't actually happen. Today somebody can fool you, saying he is doing a miracle. It may be a magician's trick or very often people boast about miracles that happen in other places (lot of preachers talk about miracles that happen in other places). Jesus never spoke about miracles He did in other places; He did a miracle right in front of people.

There are lot of deceivers today, and Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you. Depart from Me you who practice lawlessness (or you who live in sin).” The important issue is their attitude to sin - not how many demons they cast out, not how many miracles they did, and not how much they prophesied. Again, it’s their attitude to sin that is important. Do you believe that these are words of Jesus? Do you believe that it's going to be exactly like this in the day of judgment? Do you believe that many of these great healers whom you've seen on television, and whom you have seen on platforms preach so eloquently, and whom you admire so much because you think they are doing great miracles and casting out demons – do you believe that many of them will be cast into hell in the final day? I don't think many Christians do. I'm not surprised by these deceivers who get up and swindle people of their money with all their fake gifts and miracles. I'm more surprised that millions of people are so gullible and dumb and blind, spiritually, that they swallow all their gimmicks and imagine that these are men of God. Christians don't seem to look for the fruits of these deceivers. Is this man free from the love of money? Is he using my money to live in a luxurious lifestyle himself? Is he a humble man? Is he leading me to godliness? Is he living in sin? Is he divorced? Is he fooling around sexually? Hardly anybody seems to worry about these things. Jesus says to such people, “I never knew you. Depart from Me. I don't have anything to do with you.”

I believe these are the exact words of Jesus, and that it’s going to happen exactly like this when Christ comes again. Whether you believe it or not, it’s going to happen like this because the Word of God says that there will be many, which means thousands of people, who will come to Him - some of these great so-called “men of God” whom you think are great men of God, and you’ll discover on that day that they were swindlers and crooks and not men of God at all. What are they going to say to the Lord? “Lord, we preached on television for so many years. Millions listened to us, millions sent us their money for these programs and have enabled us to live in great style. We cast out demons in your name. We preached powerful messages in Your Name that held people spellbound for hours. We performed many (not one or two, but many) miracles in Your name!” - and He will turn around and say, “Get away from Me, all of you. I never knew you personally. I didn't have a personal relationship with you. You had certain doctrines that you proclaimed to know, like a chemistry teacher who gets up in a class and teaches chemistry because he studied chemistry.” These people can teach the Bible because they studied the Bible, but they didn't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If they did have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, they would have imbibed the nature of Christ, which is one of humility, freedom from the love of money, never exploiting the poor, always seeking the good of people, and no showing off or drawing people to themselves. They would be drawing people to Christ.

It's a good question to ask ourselves, what is important in the final day? Why is He sending them away? He says, “All of these things that you did count for nothing.” Listen to this! All of these miracles, casting out of demons, ministry, and prophecy - God says, “As far as I’m concerned, it counts for zero if you're not free from sin in your life. The important thing is to be free from sin.” You who practice sin, sin is lawlessness, we read that in 1 John 3:5. So the important question in the final day is going to be: what is your attitude to sin? Not how many miracles you did, or how much you preached, or how many tracts you distributed, or how much evangelism you did, or whatever else - not your ministry, but your attitude to sin. Many people satisfy themselves today by doing some ministry for the Lord. That's not what's going to be primary in the final day. Your attitude to sin in your heart and in your personal life, that is the essence of the Sermon on the Mount. He is concluding the Sermon on the Mount, and there is nothing about ministry in the Sermon on the Mount. It is all about your personal life. Jesus says that that's the important thing, and that's the way to distinguish a true prophet from a false prophet. A true prophet will emphasize freedom from sin; he will emphasize holiness, not gifts. You will know true prophets by their fruits, and not by their gifts. What He said earlier, in verse 16-20 (about knowing people by their fruit), is in contrast to what He says here. Don't judge by their doctrine. They may say, “Lord, Lord” correctly, but look for their fruit, and don't be deceived by their gifts.

How Do False Prophets Have Gifts?

Many may say, “How do they exercise these gifts?” Well, we should ask ourselves, “How does Satan have supernatural gifts today?” Satan has such tremendous supernatural abilities; he even gives abilities to witch doctors, as we read in the Bible. The first person who brought fire down from heaven was not Elijah - it was the devil, in the book of Job. Job lived before Moses, who wrote Genesis, and Job is the first book of the Bible ever written. There we read, in chapter 1, of fire coming down from heaven. Who sent it? The devil did, and it descended on Job’s property. He has supernatural power to stir people to attack God’s servants, as we read in Job 1. He has power to give sickness to people, as we read in Job 2. Satan has tremendous supernatural power - you see that in the witch doctors of today, and in people who are in contact with black magic and such things - where did he get it from? He couldn't have created it, and a being cannot have supernatural power. He got it from God. Why did God give Satan all these supernatural abilities, and when did He give them? It's obvious that God would never give the devil any gifts after he became the devil. These were gifts that God had given him before he became Satan, and you read about that in Ezekiel 28. He had so many abilities then - he was full of wisdom and beauty - and he still has all the supernatural gifts that God gave him when he was a Holy Angel. He was called in Ezekiel 28:14, “The anointed cherub that covers,” and anointing always refers to supernatural gifts. But he's using those gifts for himself and for purposes to promote himself now, and not to promote God. The same is true for some of these people who are doing certain supernatural things today as Christians, preaching in Jesus’ Name.

Once upon a time, maybe they were sincere Christians who sought God and who received gifts, but then they began to use the gifts for themselves. It’s like the prodigal son, who came to his father, received the gifts, and then went away and used them for himself. That's a perfect picture of many preachers today. They come to God to receive gifts from Him, and then go out and use the gifts to promote themselves. This is the opposite of Jesus; Jesus wouldn't even use the gifts of God to make bread for Himself. He did make bread for the 5,000, but He wouldn't do it for Himself. That's the mark of a true servant of God. But these preachers have used God's gifts to promote themselves, and gradually, what happens to such people is that they drift away in sin. Jesus’ attitude to them is, “I never knew you. I forgave you once upon a time, but you drifted away from Me, and you have lost that forgiveness. You have lost your salvation, and you never came into a personal relationship with Me.”

Jesus Is Most Interested in a Bride-Bridegroom Relationship

Does God give gifts to people who don't know Him? “Knowing” is a word used in the Old Testament for husband and wife - Adam “knew” his wife. “I never knew you” means, “I never had a relationship with you as a bridegroom and a bride.” Did you know that God does not have that kind of relationship with any angel? It's only with man, redeemed by the blood of Christ. Christ is not the Bridegroom of any angel. He is the Bridegroom of the church, those who are redeemed by His blood. Satan, even when he was a holy angel, was not the bride, and he had no personal knowledge like that spoken of here, knowing like a husband knows his wife. He did, however, have gifts, and there are a lot of people like him today who have gifts, but who do not have an intimate relationship with Christ. Again, “I never knew you” means, “I never had a bridegroom-bride relationship with you.”

That is the important thing that will matter in the final day. Christ is coming for a bride, not for people who exercise gifts and who serve him in this ministry in that ministry. Ask yourself what is important to you in your life - are you like Martha, doing a lot of things for the Lord? Or are you like Mary, having that bridal attitude, sitting at Jesus’ feet and loving Him like a bride? A bride and a bridegroom love to be with each other. It's not what they do for each other that is important, but their attitude towards each other. They know each other, and that is going to be the most important thing in the final day.

Do you know the Lord? Do you know him intimately, as a bride knows a bridegroom, as wife knows her husband? That's what the Lord is telling these people. You can exercise so many gifts, you can do so much of work for Me, you can distribute thousands of tracts, raise so much money, travel here and there, preach, and do so many wonderful things, but if you don't have a bridal relationship with Me, I will say to you, “I never knew you.” He told Martha that one thing is needful: that bridal attitude that Mary had, who sat at His feet; not all the work you do for Him. He said that's a distraction. In Luke 10:42, He said, “Martha, you're distracted by your work for Me.” He did not even appreciate the fact that Martha was doing so many things unselfishly - just like false teachers have also blessed many people with their healing ministries, their demon casting-out ministries, and their preaching ministries - but Jesus didn't bother to mention it. Christ was not impressed with that. He said, “More than your work, I want you.” I wish we would recognize this, and realize what it is that the Lord wants from us, and what it is that going to matter in the final day.

That's why the Sermon on the Mount is so important. That's why it's very important to go through Matthew 5, 6, and 7 - to see whether you're obeying these things. That will prove whether the Lord knows you, whether you know the Lord, whether you have a bridal relationship with Him, and if so, then He will receive you. He will not say to you, “Oh, but you never cast out demons,” or, “Oh you never prophesied.” He is never going to say that. That's not important. If God gives you the gift, then you can do that. The important thing is the bridal relationship with Him.

Chapter 30

Building on the Rock

In the last paragraph of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them can be compared to a wise man who built his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7:24). This is referring to a Christian who goes to church and reads the Bible. He hears the words of Jesus, specifically the Sermon on the Mount, which begins in Matthew 5:3, and does them. He is like the man who built his house on a rock. “The rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew against that house, but it did not fall.” But the one “who hears these words of Mine,” - which means, he reads the Sermon on the Mount, he believes it as the words of Jesus, he goes to church and listens to the preaching, and reads the Bible, but he does not do it; he just understands it and is excited about it - “but he doesn't do it, is a man who built his house upon sand. The rain descended the floods came the winds blew against that house and it fell - and great was its fall” (Matthew 7:25-27).

Obedience - Not Just Understanding and Excitement - Is Building upon the Rock

So what is the difference between these two? There is a children’s chorus called, “Build Your House on the Rock.” It goes, “The wise man built his house upon the rock, the foolish man built his house upon the sand,” and then it goes on to say, “so build a house in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Many people think, “If I have accepted Christ as my Saviour, I have already built my house on the rock”. There's a sense in which Christ is our foundation. He is the only foundation. But here, if you read carefully, what Jesus says is that the proof that a man has built his house on the rock is that he obeys - not that he just said, “Lord I'm a sinner please come into my heart and forgive my sins.”

There are multitudes of Christians who have said those words, and who imagine themselves to be born again, but who don't care one bit for the commands of Jesus mentioned in Matthew 5, 6 and 7. They don't seek to overcome anger, they don't seek to overcome sexual lust, they are not careful about speaking the truth, they don't love their enemies, etc. But they've said, “Lord Jesus come into my heart.” They are living in a world of deception. They are like a man who hears these words and does not do them. They may understand them and may even be excited about them.

In our previous study, we looked at a man who said, “Lord, Lord” (Matthew 7:21-22). When he says, “Lord,” it means his intellect is right and he has understood the truth. When he says, “Lord, Lord,” it means his emotions are right and he is excited about it. But his will is strong. Our human personality (our soul) consists of three parts: mind, emotions, and will. We may have understood the truth in our mind, and be excited in our emotions about it, but if we don't yield our will to do the will of God, we are deceiving ourselves.

The wise man is the man who penetrated all the way through the sand and hit rock. This becomes clear when you read the parallel passage in Luke 6. There it says, “The wise man is the one who dug deep and hit rock and there lays foundation on the rock” (Luke 6:48). In other words, they were both building in the same area, where the surface was sand. The foolish man built on the sand, while the wise man dug through the sand till he hit rock, blasted the rock, and laid his foundation there.

What is the sand? The sand is our intellectual understanding of God's Word. The sand is our emotional excitement about God's Word. You can intellectually understand everything. You can hear these words of Jesus, understand them, be excited about them, and call Him, “Lord, Lord,” but you are still on sand. It is when your will is blasted, when you yield your will and say, “Lord, I will not do my will but Your will” -- when your self-will is shattered, you die on that cross, say no to your will, and do God's will -- that is the moment you hit rock.

That is what Jesus is saying here. “One who hears these words and does them,” not just hears and is excited. In other words, it’s the yielding of the will that finally plants our house on the rock. It’s the yielding of the will that goes beyond saying, “Lord, Lord.”

The Veil of Self-Will

In the Old Testament tabernacle, the soul was represented by the Holy Place, the body was represented by the Outer Court, and the spirit of man is represented by the Most Holy Place. In between the Most Holy Place and the Holy Place there was a thick veil which was closed in the Old Testament times, but it was torn when Jesus died on the cross. What did that tearing of that veil symbolize when Jesus died on the cross? Hebrews 10:20 explains it to us: “Jesus inaugurated a new and living way into the Most Holy Place through the veil, and that symbolizes His flesh (and flesh means self-will).”

Jesus did not have sin in Him when He came to earth. He was born, as the angel Gabriel said, a Holy Thing, but He did have a self-will. Otherwise He couldn't be a man like us, which the Bible calls flesh. When it says Jesus came in the flesh, it means He came with a will of His own. He said that very clearly in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” He had a will of His own that had to be denied because it was contrary to His Father's will. That's what we see in Gethsemane, “Not My will, but Thine be done.” He didn't want to drink the cup, so He struggled for one hour and said, “Father, if You want Me to drink the cup, I'll do it.” He denied His Own will and did the Father's will. But that was not only true in Gethsemane; it was true all through His life. The essence of temptation is to do your own will and not to do the will of God. In Genesis 3, God's will was, “don’t eat from that tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Eve wanted to eat the fruit. It made her mouth water. The devil told her that it would make her wise, and she did her own will. That was the origin of sin - doing her will and denying God's will. Salvation came when Jesus did the opposite - He denied His will and did God's will. It's as simple as that.

True Worship

It’s the will that's important, not how much you understand God's word or how excited you are about it. You can feel so spiritual when you're emotionally thrilled, singing songs on Sunday morning in your church service, which you call praise and worship. That is not worship at all. That's only emotional praise or thanksgiving; it's not worship. Worship comes when we deny our own will.

The first time the word “worship” occurs in the Bible, it cost Abraham something - Isaac on the altar. When Abraham offered Isaac on the altar, giving up his own will, he said, “I am worshiping God,” (read Genesis 22). This is the meaning of worship. It is the denial of one’s will which opens the way into the Most Holy Place. So when the veil was rent, when Jesus died on the cross, He said, “It is finished.” What He was saying was, He faced the entire range of temptations that any human being can ever face (Hebrews 4:15) – not necessarily all the circumstances, but all the temptations - and He said no to His Own will in every one of those thousands or millions of instances in thirty-three and a half years. He never did His Own will, or in other words, He never sinned. He said no to His will, which is like the veil, and so the veil was rent. The veil being rent was symbolic of the fact that Jesus never did His own will in His entire life, and when He died on the cross, He opened what Hebrews calls “the new and living way.”

The New and Living “Way”

What is this new and living way? The veil is a “way,” not a door. The word, “way” means something that we have to walk on consistently. It is the way of denying our own will and doing the Father’s will so that we can live in the Father's presence forever - in Whose presence there is fullness of joy, and at Whose right hand there are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). Why do people seek the pleasures of the earth? It is because they haven't seen the eternal pleasures in the Father's presence. Why are people discouraged and gloomy and in bad moods? It is because they haven't enjoyed the fullness of joy there is in the Father's presence, because they do not deny their own wills. The devil has fooled even Christians by saying, “You will be happy when you do your own will.” It is a lie. You’re miserable when you do your own will. Jesus was constantly happy, always rejoicing, because He did His Father's will.

This is the point: “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them…” If he doesn't do them, he is still on sand, regardless of how much he may have understood them, or how much he may be able to take a Bible study on the Sermon on the Mount, or how much he may be excited about it.

Review of Sermon on the Mount

Here is a quick look through what we have covered in our study of the Sermon on the Mount:

Nine Right Attitudes

Seeking for poverty of spirit - a constant sense of our own need

Mourning for our sins, that we are not more Christ-like

Being meek, so that we don't fight for our rights

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness, not for money or healing

Being merciful to others, no matter what wrong they've done to us, and forgiving them

Being pure in heart, wanting only God and not anything else (a good conscience means I'm free from sin; pure in heart means more than freedom from sin: it means I desire nothing but God)

Becoming peacemakers, always pursuing after peace with all people - believers and unbelievers

Being willing to stand up for righteousness, even if it means persecution suffering loss

Being unashamed to confess Christ, even if it brings loss and persecution

These are the nine right attitudes, by which we can be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-14) Then he goes on to speak about the nine wrong attitudes that we can have.

Nine Wrong Attitudes

Anger

Sexually sinful ways of thinking

(Lord I want to have a radical attitude towards sexual thoughts, towards pornography, etc. I want to cut it off completely. I want to be as radical as pulling out my eye and cutting off my hand I want to take sin as more serious than losing my hand. How many of you believe that sexual sin even in the thoughts is more serious than losing your right hand or losing your right eye? The wise man does that. If you don't have that attitude to sin, you're not a wise person. You are not building a house on the rock. Many people take this so casually).

Lying

Taking Revenge

Hatred

Seeking the honor of men (Matthew 6:1-18).

The wise man seeks to be completely free from seeking the honor of men, just like he seeks to love all his enemies. He wants to be completely free from the honor of men.

Love of money

The wise man doesn't just hear about it, he wants to be completely free from the love of money. It's not a question of whether you're wealthy or poor. Poor people love money and wealthy people love money. It's possible to be poor and free from the love of money and it’s possible to be wealthy and free from the love of money. 1 Timothy 6 says, “Charge those who are rich not to give up all their riches but to share what they have with others and to provide for the need of other poor believers.”

Anxiety

It's an evidence of a lack of faith in our loving Father when we're anxious. To say, “What's going to happen to us in the future?” shows that we can’t trust that God will provide all our need, even though He feeds the birds and cares for the flowers. Jesus said even the hairs on your head are numbered. You're of more value than many sparrows.

It's a great insult when a person believes that his Heavenly Father will not provide for him. When you go and ask people for money, like a lot of preachers do, you're saying, “I'm not content with what God has given me or God has let me down.” Can you imagine Jesus going to somebody in the days when He was preaching and saying, “Can you give Me some money because I'm a bit hard up? My Heavenly Father has let me down”? It's so ridiculous to even think of that. But that's how it is when many preachers and many people go begging for money. A lot of Christian preachers are just dignified beggars. What about your Heavenly Father? Isn't He the One Who rules the universe? Doesn’t He care for you? If the richest man in the world’s son came to you asking for money, what would you say to him? “Hey, aren’t you the son of the richest man in the world? Why are you asking me? Has your Father disinherited you? Is that why you're hard up?” When a Christian goes begging for money from other people, what he is saying is, “My Heavenly Father has disinherited me. I am no longer His child. He has given up on me and that is why I'm hard up. I'm like the prodigal son, far away from the Father's house, and I have to eat what the pigs are eating. I have to go around begging for money.” Every Christian who has to go around begging for money is like the prodigal son far from his Father's house. Can you imagine a son who is in his father's house having to beg for money? Completely out of the question! If you have to get into debt and beg and borrow, it is one indication that you are far away from the Father’s house.

And if you're anxious and worried about where your provision will come from, you're not in the Father's house. Anyone who's in the Father's house is not anxious. The prodigal son was anxious not when he was sitting at the Father’s table. He was anxious when he was far away. And so anxiety is a wrong attitude.

Judging others

The Bible says “There is only one judge. Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law” (James 4:11-12). The law says that you must love your brother as yourself, but he who speaks against his brother judges him. You're judging the law itself - the law of God. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge” (James 4:12). This is an important word because lawgiver and judge are put together here. When the Bible says, “Do not judge” (Matthew 7:1), it’s saying there is only One Lawgiver and Judge. Remember that. A judge has a right to lay down the law. You and I don't have any right to lay down a law.

When Christians make rules for other Christians - like Christian preachers who make rules for Christians which are not found in Scripture - they have become law givers. This is the mark of the legalist. A legalist lays down rules for other people which are not found in Scripture. To teach the principles that Jesus lived by and to explain to people how that principle applies in a particular situation is a different thing, but to lay down a law for other people in an area where the Bible doesn't lay down a law (but gives us a guideline) makes you a lawgiver. There are many areas where lawgivers also judge other people when the other people don't keep the laws which they have made. Are you a lawgiver? Then you are taking the throne of God. You are sitting like God on His throne. We have no right to make laws for other people except what is written in Scripture. And if somebody does not obey that law, we have no right to judge him. God is his Judge. The only exception is if God has appointed us as a sub-judge, as it were, in a sphere where God has given us responsibility, like a father over his children, or like an elder over his local church, or like an employer over his employee. Outside of that, we are not called to judge. This is so important.

The Hidden Life Is What Really Matters

A man who hears all these things and does not do them is like one who is building his house on sand. One day the flood will come and everything will collapse. His house may look like the wise man’s house on the surface. The superstructure may look alike. But the wise man is a man who paid a price which is invisible. The most important part of our house is its foundation, which teaches us that the most important part of your life is that part which other people cannot see. Every house has two parts, one which can be seen above the surface to the ground, and one which cannot be seen. The most important part is what is beneath the ground.

In all these areas - what we have considered in the Sermon on the Mount - if you hear these words and you do not do them, you are like a person who has no foundation underneath his house. You are not obeying the things that are written here, in your inner life, but your superstructure looks good because you are serving God, going to church, singing in the church meetings, and doing many things that Christians do. You look like a Christian in all your activities, but one day God is going to test, not the superstructure, but the foundation.

What did the flood test? The flood did not come and test what material the superstructure was made of, or how attractive the superstructure was. The point of this is, the flood came and tested the foundation. You will find in the final day, when Christ comes again, that what is going to be tested is not what other people thought about our lives - the outward part of our Christian life - but that which nobody could see (1 Corinthians 4:5). The hidden part - which is under the ground, the foundation - which nobody sees. Even your wife or your husband do not know what your inner life is like.

Pay the Price of Obedience to Build on the Foundation of Christ

The Sermon on the Mount ends by emphasizing that “the foundation is more important than the superstructure.” You must be willing to pay a price to go through the sand and blast the rock. The man who is not willing to pay a price for his inner hidden life is a foolish man. Many people don't want to pay a price to walk that inner walk with God. They are foolish. When Jesus finished these statements, the multitudes were amazed at His teaching because He was teaching them as One having authority. The great need today in the pulpits in Christendom is spiritual authority. Jesus had lived what He had preached. One paraphrase says, “it was obvious that He was living every word that He was preaching.” That is how we get spiritual authority. When preachers have lived every word that they are preaching, then they will have spiritual authority. That is the type of authority we need in our pulpits, and that is sadly lacking because people want to have a cheap and easy way to minister God's word. They go and study in some Bible School, get a degree, and preach. It costs far more than that to minister with authority. We have to pay a price - of yielding our will in our hidden life - to every one of these points that Jesus brings out in the Sermon on the Mount, and obey them. If we do that, great will be our reward and great will be the long-term permanent eternal results of our ministry.

Chapter 31

Humility, Compassion and Faith

We Are to Follow Jesus’ Life, as Well as His Word

Starting in Matthew 8, Jesus came down from the mountain, and great multitudes followed Him. A leper came to Him and bowed down to Him saying, “Lord, if You're willing, You can make me clean” (Matthew 8:2). And Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing, be cleansed.” Immediately the man’s leprosy was cleansed. Jesus then said to him, “See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded for a testimony to them” (Matthew 8:2-4).

When we think about all that Jesus taught, we need to see that Jesus taught not only by His words, but also by His actions - the way He related to people, and what He told them to do. It was by His life that He taught, in addition to His words. So when we consider studying “all that Jesus taught,” we need to look at His life and the way He conducted His ministry as well, if we are to follow Him in the same spirit.

For example, we see that Jesus healed the leper in Matthew 8. It is a fantastic thing when every sign of leprosy disappears from a man immediately! You may have seen lepers, how they are, with fingers eaten away, nose eaten away, and disfigurement on their face. For all of that to disappear in a moment is really a supernatural miracle! If that happened today, people would be so excited that they'd ask him to go and testify to everyone, and to make sure that he tells everyone who it was who prayed for him! This is how so many Christian preachers seek honor for themselves. You see that particularly in the so-called “Great healing campaigns.” As soon as someone has some type of minor healing (almost insignificant), the preacher gets up and stands in front of the microphone, and he proclaims that this person is healed so that the preacher himself gets honor.

Things were so different with Christ. All that Jesus taught was by His life. He was not excited at the power that went out from Him; He was excited that a poor suffering leper was healed. This is the Spirit of Christ - where we are concerned that somebody else is blessed, and not so much that he was blessed through me, or that people should know that I was the channel whom God used. There is, unfortunately, so much of that in Christian circles, in Christian preachers, in Christian organizations, churches, and missions everywhere. When God blesses someone, and we’re not excited that God has blessed them, but instead, we want everybody to know that we were the ones whom God used, that's not the spirit of Christ. Where we see something like that, we need to recognize that is a trace of the old Adam still in us, and if we don't cleanse ourselves from it, we will never be more Christ-like.

Jesus even told him, “Don’t tell anyone.” Have you ever heard that type of instruction from any person who has been instrumental in praying for somebody who was sick? This is the Spirit of Christ. The other thing we see in this exchange is that, since the old covenant was still in operation in Israel, and the new covenant had not been established, Jesus lived under the law, the Bible says, and so He told the one who was cleansed to do exactly what Moses had commanded in the law, (to go to the priest and show himself) because the priest had to declare him cleansed, exactly as Moses commanded.

There are many things in the Gospels that Jesus said to people because they were still under the law, which we mustn’t forget. For example, He told the Pharisees to pay their tithes (Matthew 23:23). He said that it's not enough to pay tithes of dill and cumin, etc. but also you also need to fulfil the weightier matters of law; you need to do both. Some people use that as an excuse to say, “Jesus commanded people to tithe.” Yes, He did, because they were under the law. But that's been abolished in the new covenant. The old covenant has disappeared, so the command to tithe is no longer here today. In the same way, there's no need to go and show yourself to a priest if you're healed today. It’s exactly the same thing, because the law is over. This is the main thing that we want to see from this passage.

The second thing we want to see is that the Lord always desires something good for us. When the leper said to Him, “If You are willing,” there was no lack of willingness on Jesus’ part. The Lord immediately said, “Of course I'm willing” (Matthew 8:3 paraphrase). How does that apply to us? It means that whenever we have a need in our life and we go to the Lord and say, “Lord, are You willing to meet this need?” the Lord says, “Yes, I'm willing.”

God Always Seeks the Greatest Good for Us in the New Covenant, Even If There Is Suffering

Under the new covenant, we see that there are times when the Lord allows us to suffer for some greater good. For example, not every sickness is necessarily healed. Even the Apostle Paul's thorn in the flesh was not healed (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), and Timothy's stomach infirmities were not healed (1 Timothy 5:23), because some greater good, which was more important than the healing, was what the Lord wanted to accomplish in their lives. That happens even today. It’s just like martyrdom under the old covenant. We read that when Daniel was thrown into a den of lions, the lions couldn't touch him throughout the night. But in the early days of Christianity (in the Roman amphitheaters) when Christians were thrown to the lions, the lions ate them up immediately. Daniel and three friends went through the fire untouched. But when Christians were persecuted in the early centuries and burned at the stake, the fire burnt them up. This is because in the new covenant, there is a greater glory that will come to God through Christians going faithfully through suffering and sickness. There are cases where even in the new covenant, the Apostle Peter, for example, was delivered from prison supernaturally. Paul was delivered from the Philippian prison supernaturally, but the same Paul later on, when he was in prison in Rome, was not delivered supernaturally - he had to spend several years in prison.

God's ways are not always the same. He's always seeking to accomplish His purpose for the greater good of us, and of those whom He wants to reach through us. For example, in the Philippian jail, the reason why Paul was delivered supernaturally was because the jailer had to be converted. In the Roman jail, he was not delivered supernaturally, because he had to be the witness to the Roman guards so that they would be converted. God's ways are always for His greater glory, and the greater good of humanity, and it's not always for our own comfort. We need to keep that in mind and not say, “Well, Jesus healed everybody who came to Him, therefore everybody will be healed today.” That's actually not true. Anyone who gives people that impression is not speaking the truth. That's often taken as an example, but we need to understand all that Jesus taught.

The Centurion’s Humility and Faith

Another case of healing is when Jesus entered Capernaum and a Centurion came to Him and said, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain” (Matthew 8:5-6). Jesus told him that He would come and heal him. Something wonderful that we see about the Centurion is his humility. Remember, he was a Roman military man who was in charge of around one hundred (a Centurion has perhaps a hundred) soldiers under him. This was a man who was used to exercising authority, and yet we see his humility in being willing to travel all the way from wherever he was going to meet Jesus, just to tell him about his servant who was paralyzed and lying at home.

For a military captain to be interested in a slave working in his home (this was probably a Jewish slave) is an amazing thing! You see his humility. That's the first thing we need to see, and we see his humility further in verse 8, when he replies to Jesus saying, “I'm not worthy Lord that You should come under my roof. But just say the word and my servant would be healed.” Before you see his faith, I want you to see his humility.

If Jesus were to say to you or me, “I want to come to your house,” we would say, “Sure Lord, come!” But look what this Centurion says. He certainly would have loved for Christ to come to his house, but instead he says, “I'm not worthy. You're so holy, and I don't feel that I can really receive You, such a holy Person, into my house” (Matthew 8:8 paraphrase). The reason I mention that is because this demonstrates the great connection between humility and faith. Then you see his faith when he says, “Lord, you just stand here and speak the word and he'll be healed, because I'm also a man under authority, and when I tell a soldier under me to go, he goes immediately without any delay. Being under authority if somebody tells me to go, I go as well. That's the point. If I tell another soldier to come, he comes while I tell a slave to do this, he does it” (Matthew 8:8-9 paraphrase). There, he was recognizing two things, though he didn't understand it fully.

Military men usually can recognize other military men. There’s something about their bearing (the way a person walks and conducts himself) that indicates a military man. This Roman centurion couldn't understand it, but there was something about Jesus’ bearing that indicated that He was a Man subject to some authority. He didn't know what it was, and that's why he says, “I too.” What does that mean? He is saying, “Lord, like You, I'm also a man under authority” (Matthew 8:9). The authority Jesus was under, the Roman centurion couldn’t recognize. He didn't know anything about the Trinity, or the Father, or any such thing. But he recognized this is a Man Who didn’t seem to be doing whatever He felt like doing. He seemed to be a Man Who was guided by somebody else. It's amazing that he recognized that! That's why he said, “I also am a man under authority.”

The other thing he recognized was that when a man is under authority, he has authority over other things or people. He had obviously heard about Jesus healing the sick, and he recognized that it was because Christ was under authority that He had authority over sickness. He knew that with that type of supernatural authority from heaven, you don't have to be actually physically present near the sick person. The sick person could be many kilometers away, and you could just speak the word and the person will be healed. It is remarkable faith!

In many cases, people brought the sick child or man right up to Christ for Him to touch, but this is an amazing case where this man didn't bring his sick servant. He probably could have brought him in a chariot, but he didn't. He said, “You don’t have to come to my house, (maybe five kilometers away) but if You speak the word here, I know my servant will be healed.” He said, “Therefore, I ask you to do it.” When Jesus heard this, it says He marveled.

The Importance of Faith

There are only two places in Scripture where it says Jesus marveled. It is very interesting to see that. It says He marveled when he saw faith like this! Imagine doing something to make Jesus Christ Himself marvel!

The other example is in Mark, where we see that He marveled at the unbelief of those in His hometown (Mark 6:6). These are the only two places in Scripture where we read about Jesus being surprised, or wondering. One is a case where He saw amazing faith, and the other where He saw amazing unbelief. Faith meant so much to the Lord. He was always excited whenever He saw people who had faith, and terribly disappointed when He saw people with unbelief.

He marveled and said, “Truly, I say to you, I've not found such great faith with anyone in Israel” (Matthew 8:10). He's comparing a Roman military man, who never read the Bible, who doesn't know anything about Moses or the prophets or any such thing, with all of Israel. This was including the great scholars who had studied the Scriptures and regarding this man, He said, “I found more faith in this man, who hardly knows anything about Scripture, than all the rest of you who have read the Bible for so many years!”

The Danger of Being Cast Out

I wonder if that can be true even today. Does Jesus have to rebuke us, Christians who read the Bible so much, and study the Bible so much, that we don't have the faith that sometimes even a non-Christian may have in what God can do? In so many situations, even today, there are non-Christians who believe God will help them, and many Christians who get into a panic, and are anxious and fearful. I say to you, there is more faith in those people than you who know the Scriptures. And the Lord goes on to say, “I say to you, that many from the east and west will sit at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, and those sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, the place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:11-12).

We must take seriously what Jesus said, that the sons of the kingdom will be cast out (Matthew 8:12). There are some people who feel Christians (sons of the kingdom) can never be cast out. They will always be in the kingdom. But consider what Jesus said - that the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. Why are they cast out? In this context, it’s because they don't have faith, whereas the one who has faith (who is not one of the sons of the kingdom, who comes from east and west) is going to sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (who are the sons of the kingdom) in the kingdom of heaven, while the others will be out where they will be weeping and gnashing their teeth. He is speaking about hell. It is very important to understand this. Very often we think that just because we know so much of the Bible and we understand so much truth intellectually, that Lord must be very happy with us, and accepts us without any reservation.

But that's not what He looks for. We see in the Roman centurion three very important characteristics that Jesus looks for and appreciates: first is humility, the second is faith, and the third is a concern for the poor. This military man had a concern for a poor slave, he was a humble person who did not feel that Christ was worthy to come under his roof, and he had faith to believe that Christ could do anything, even from a distance.

When we apply that to ourselves today, we can have the same qualities if we want. This is what Jesus appreciated. He appreciates it even today, whenever He sees people who have a concern for those who are the outcast of society, those who are on the fringes of the society, those who are poor and weak, like this military man had. Those who have the humility to recognize that they are nothing in His presence, those whose faces are in the dust before the Lord, and those who have the faith that it’s not only from five kilometers away, but from millions of kilometers up in heaven that Christ can speak the word today!

Jesus said to the Centurion, “Go your way, let it be done to you as you have believed” (Matthew 8:13), and the servant was healed that very hour. We see something else in this story, which we hardly ever find (almost never) in the Old Testament; we see it right from the beginning of the New Testament: how much Jesus appreciated faith. You see that right through His entire ministry. Wherever He saw faith, He appreciated it tremendously. Salvation is by faith. Everything we receive from God is on the basis of faith. The words that Jesus spoke to the Centurion “Let it be done as you have believed,” He spoke to more than just one person.

What did Jesus teach regarding this? Very often we have a wrong understanding. It’s not “as you have earnestly desired” that you receive, and it’s not “as God has earnestly desired for you.” Sometimes we think, “I earnestly desire this.” It could be anything. Well, you don't receive according to your desire. God earnestly desires many things for us, but we don't get them, because the law is “not according to your earnest desire,” or “according to God's earnest desire.” The principle is according to how much you have believed for. Let it be done for you as you have believed.

We receive according to the measure of our faith, and that is why we find that some people receive much, and some people receive very little. It's like if the rain is falling heavily outside, and one person puts a cup outside, another person puts a bucket, and a third person puts a huge tub. They're going to get different quantities of water. It’s not because God is partial to one; not at all. The same rain is falling everywhere, but the size of the vessel is different, and that determines how much each person gets. It's exactly the same in the Christian life: if you find a difference between one Christian and another, then it’s because there's a difference in their faith. According to their faith, they have received.

That being said, our faith (I want to mention this also) must be based on the word of Jesus. Jesus had spoken this word to Him, and the Bible says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). It's not that I just try and work up faith in my heart for anything I want. This is the foolishness that is found in so many Christians. They desire and covet so many earthly things, and they try to imagine that their working up faith to believe God to get that thing. That's not correct. Romans 10:17 is clear: faith can only be based on hearing the Word of Christ. We must have a very definite promise to have confidence that we will receive what we have faith for.

Abraham did not have a son at the age of 100 simply because he worked up faith for it. God had specifically told him that he would have a son, and it was only then that he could have faith. Faith is always based on the word of God. Here also, it's the same principle. It’s according to what you believe, and that faith must be based on the Word of Christ.

This faith is coupled with humility. If we don't have humility, then it's very difficult to have faith. There is a close connection between the two. It’s not only here, but in a number of places we see this. You see this in the case of another woman, who was a Canaanite woman. Jesus tries to test her by saying, “We can’t give the children's bread to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26) and she willingly took that position. ”Ok Lord, I may be like a dog, but can’t I get the crumbs that fall from the table?” and she received according to her faith. It was humility again, to be willing to take the place of a dog at the foot of the table and say, “I don't deserve the bread, give me the crumbs.” Her faith was great. These examples of great faith and humility were two non-Jewish people. Jesus appreciated their faith. We can learn from the example of this Roman centurion practical principles that can help us in our daily Christian walk.

Chapter 32

How God Answers Prayers

In Matthew 8:14, Jesus goes to Peter’s home and finds his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. He touches her hand, the fever leaves her, and she rises to wait on Him. It is a beautiful picture of what should happen when the Lord touches us. Apply this to your own life. We are sick with sin, and Jesus comes by, touches us, and raises us up, delivering us from it.

And as soon as Peter’s mother-in-law got up, she didn’t wait; she immediately started serving Jesus. It’s a beautiful picture of how it should be whenever the Lord touches us and raises us up from our sin or our problems.

By the time evening came, news had gotten around that Jesus had come and had healed Peter’s mother-in-law as soon as He had arrived. Many were then brought to him who were demon possessed, and He cast out the spirits with a word. He healed all who were ill, in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases” (Matthew 8:16-17).

How Jesus Healed

We can learn much here about what Jesus taught, not only by His words, but by His life. It says that they brought many to Him. If you look at the parallel passage of this incident in Luke's Gospel and compare Scripture with Scripture, you learn something that is not mentioned in Matthew. We read in Luke 4:40 that He laid His hands on every single one of them. There were many people brought who were demon-possessed or sick, but we read that Jesus did not say a mass prayer to heal all of them at once. Instead, He laid hands on each one individually. He wanted each person to feel that God was interested in them personally, and so He gave each a personal touch.

We also notice that Jesus did not heal only 1% of those who came to Him, as we see so often today with those who claim to imitate His healing ministry. Instead, every single one was healed. He healed all of them; every single person who was sick was healed. This was the ministry that Jesus accomplished.

Be Honest About Your Measure of Faith and Gifts

Why is it that we don't see the same type of ministry today? It is because Jesus had total faith, and we do not. We must be humble enough to acknowledge the difference.

Once, there was a family who called me to come and pray for their daughter who was sick. I don't have a healing gift, but in James 5, we read that when someone is sick, they should call an elder to pray for them and anoint them with oil. The prayer of faith will save the sick. Therefore, I went, not as one who had a gift of healing, but as an elder obeying the command in James. When I went there, I saw this 16-year-old girl curled up in the bed, and they told me she had suffered a head injury at birth and had never walked, or talked, or done anything. For sixteen years, she had been curled up like that and had to be fed, clothed, and more because she could not do anything herself. Then I had to tell them—“I don't have the faith to make this girl get up and walk, I might as well be honest with you.” I told them that I could pray for God to give them grace to look after this child, but that I didn’t want to deceive them into thinking that as soon as I prayed for her, she would get up and walk for the first time in her sixteen years.

We must be honest and humble about the measure of our gift and the measure of our faith. I told them that if Jesus Himself had been there, He would have made her walk immediately. What is the difference? Jesus had complete faith that there was no sin in His life. So much of our problem is that our mind and heart are polluted by sin. There are so many things in us that make us unclean. It could be selfishness, it could be pride, it could be an attachment to this material world, which Jesus was so completely detached from. He walked on earth as One Who was totally heavenly, and as a result, His word had authority.

Distinguishing Between Jesus’ Life and His Ministry

We need to humble ourselves and acknowledge that we cannot do all that Jesus did. Yet, we can certainly live the way He taught us to live, because He gives us the provision for it. In other words, we can follow Him in His life, but not necessarily in His ministry. We need to distinguish between the two. When Jesus said that we should follow Him, He meant that we should follow the example He set in His personal life. In the same way, Paul wrote, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1), and “Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us” (Philippians 3:17). He did not mean that we should seek to have his ministry, but to live like he did.

In this life, we are to walk as Jesus walked, but we cannot serve with all of the gifts that He had. He had all of the gifts, but today the Body of Christ is much larger than any one person. In Him, there was the complete body of Christ housed in one Person. Now, the gifts are distributed, and so, no one should feel condemned if he prays for someone and they are not healed.

Our aim is still to walk as Jesus walked, so we need to distinguish between His life and His ministry. It is clear that we cannot follow Jesus in His ministry. He died for the sins of the world—can we follow Him in that ministry? Obviously not! And we can’t follow Him in any other ministry either—not even in healing all the sick. We might as well acknowledge this limitation, because a lot of Christians are being deceived when they are told that we can do everything that Jesus did in His life. Yes, we can overcome sin as He did, but we can’t perform His ministry. That's the honest truth, and anyone who says otherwise is actually trying to deceive you.

Clarifying Isaiah’s Prophecy Concerning Christ’s Ministry

After Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law and the crowds who were sick, we read in Matthew 8:17 that a prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled, “HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES.” It comes from Isaiah 53, and it is often misquoted and misused by preachers. They say that Jesus took away our infirmities and carried away our diseases on the cross. But He did no such thing. We read in Matthew that the prophecy from Isaiah was fulfilled when Jesus healed the sick in His earthly ministry, years before He went to Calvary.

There are a number of verses in Isaiah 53 that do relate to the cross, but there are also others that do not. Let us examine these verses carefully so that we can understand the truth and not fall into bondage by believing a false teaching—the truth will set us free.

In Isaiah 53:2, we read that Jesus grew up before Him like a tender shoot. That was not on the cross; that was in Nazareth. And in verse 3, He was despised and forsaken by men. That was throughout His life; it was not on the cross. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and throughout His life men hid their faces. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Isaiah also prophesied that He was to be oppressed and afflicted, yet He would not open His mouth (v4). This did not occur on the cross, but when He was being tried in court. Therefore, all of Isaiah 53 does not relate to the cross. Some of it is relates to other periods of His life.

There is no verse that says that Christ took our sicknesses with Him on the cross, even though it’s a popular belief, particularly in Pentecostal and charismatic circles. Yet, if we look through Scripture, we can’t find it anywhere in the New Testament. It's amazing how many Christians believe things not written in Scripture, just because they've been brainwashed by some preacher. Let us be careful to read Scripture exactly.

Can we still pray for healing? Of course! We can pray for anything that will help us to serve God better. I myself pray for healing every time I'm sick, and I’ve found that many times God has healed me. We won’t always have perfect health. And when we’re seventy years-old, we can’t expect to have the health of a twenty-five-year-old, and we can certainly still ask God for healing.

Deliverance from Sin - Not Sickness - Is Jesus’ Promise

The point is this: I cannot ask God to take away every single sickness in the same way that I can ask Him to take away every single sin. Scripture clearly teaches that Christ died for our sins, but there is no verse that says Christ died for all our sicknesses. If there were such a verse, we would have every right to ask the Lord to take away every single sickness. That includes poor vision—so I wouldn’t be wearing glasses—and hair loss!

A lot of Christians don't love the truth, which is why God allows them to be deceived (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). I want you to know the truth in this area so that you won’t be fooled. It’s important because suppose you were to tell a non-Christian that Christ can take away all your sins and heal all your sicknesses. You have scriptural support for the first statement, but no scriptural support for the second, even though you've heard it preached. Let’s say that this non-Christian, who knows nothing about the Bible, believes you. He asks you what he should do, and you tell him that he should turn from his sin, ask Christ to forgive him, and receive Him as Savior. After he does all that, you tell him that on the basis of the God's Word, his sins are blotted out. And it’s true. We read in 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Everything you have told him so far about the forgiveness of sins is grounded in Scripture.

But what if you go on to say, Christ has also died for your sicknesses? Perhaps he has some serious sickness, tuberculosis or cancer, and you tell him to pray for healing in the same way he prayed about forgiveness. Then, he prays and tells God that he has the same faith that God will take away his sickness as he has that Christ took away his sins. You had already told him that sin is a greater problem than sickness, and he thinks to himself that if Jesus could take care of the bigger problem, surely, He can take care of the smaller one.

He leaves believing you when you said his sins were forgiven and also believing you when you said that his sicknesses were healed. Yet, he might go to the doctor a week later and hear that his cancer is worse. What is he going to think about your gospel then? He's going to say, “This Christian fooled me! He said that Christ has taken away my sickness, but He hasn't!” Then the new believer might think that perhaps Jesus hasn't even taken away his sin, because He could not take away the smaller problem of sickness.

You can now see how this type of preaching, which mis-quotes Scripture, confuses people. It is this type of deception that I want to deliver you from, and you should spread this message to others. Don't try to have faith for something that Scripture has not promised. Look for God’s promises in Scripture, and when you find them, see if they apply to you. Is this something Jesus accomplished on the cross? In this case, the prophecy in Isaiah that He Himself took away all our infirmities and carried away our diseases, was fulfilled before the cross, when Jesus was physically on earth healing some people.

Why God Doesn’t Grant Some Requests

In Philippians 4:19, Paul writes, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” That’s a specific promise. He doesn’t say that God will give me all that I want; he says that his God will supply all that I need. There are many things that we think we need, but God knows otherwise. It’s just like how little children come to their father, telling him about their “needs,” when they’re really only asking for things they want.

A good father doesn’t give his children everything they ask. Only a foolish father would do that. Sometimes, we give our children painful experiences like an injection or surgery. It is extremely painful, but necessary for them. They don't want it, but they need it. That's how a good father is. The child might not understand why they need to go through the surgery or take the painful injection, but still the parent says that they need it.

God is like that. He's a loving Father, and we are His children. We don't always know what's good for us. Even so, God has promised to give us everything we need. If He sees that I need healing because it will further His purposes and is for my greater good, He will always heal me. However, where He sees it is not necessary, He may not.

I have discovered that God allows me to go through certain difficulties here on earth so that I can understand the difficulties that other people are going through. If by prayer we could escape every problem, every difficulty, every sickness, and every trial, it would be incredibly difficult for us to have compassion on those who must go through such things.

Some years ago, when I was just in my late twenties, I was in the middle of a conference, speaking to young people, and I had to go change my train ticket. It required that I go to the railway station, and I prayed, asking God to make sure the queue there was short so that I wouldn’t have to waste much time there. And when I arrived, the queue was so long it went outside the station. I ended up having to stand in the sun for quite a while before reaching the counter to change my ticket. When I came back, I asked the Lord why He hadn’t answered my prayer. And I got a word from Him that I've never forgotten. He told me that if He were to deliver me from all the problems that my fellow countrymen face, then I would never be able to empathize with them, I would never be able to understand what they go through. He said that there would be many prayers of mine that He would answer, but there would be some that He would not, because He wanted me to experience what others went through, so that in the midst of those sufferings or difficulties, I still know how to trust Him and thank Him.

It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten. When I travel in crowded trains and face other difficulties common here in India I say, “Lord, thank You. I understand what other people are going through, and therefore I can sympathize with them.” Remember that if God hasn’t healed your sickness, or if He hasn’t solved some other physical problem, it's because He wants you to understand what other people in your country are going through, so that you can be more sympathetic in how you minister to them.

When it comes to sin, the word of God is clear, absolutely clear: every sin that you confess will be immediately forgiven; there's no delay. When you pray for a sickness, the Lord might take some time to heal you. However, when it comes to sin, forgiveness for past sins is immediate. And when it comes to overcoming sin, Romans 6:14 plainly tells us that sin will not rule over us, and we can claim that promise.

God Answers Every Prayer

When we pray, there are some requests that God will grant immediately, some that He might perform slowly, and some that He might not do at all. It can be confusing, and we might wonder whether God actually answers prayer. God answers every prayer, but not in the way we might expect. I find His answers to be similar to the traffic lights we see at a traffic intersection. Sometimes the light is red, and that’s God saying no. It is an answer, but the answer is “No.” Other times, the light is orange or yellow, and then God is saying, “Wait. Not yet. I'll give it to you when the time is right.” Then there are times when the light is green and God gives to us right away. God answers every prayer, and His traffic lights are always working. Don't think that He didn’t answer you when the answer is no. He did answer; it was just a “no.” If my little son came to me asking me for something, and I told him that I couldn’t give it to him, he wouldn’t be able to say that I didn’t give him an answer, because I did. The answer was “No.”

Remember this: God answers every prayer. Sometimes the answer is, “Yes.” Sometimes the answer is, “Wait.” And sometimes the answer is, “No.”

When it comes to sin, God’s answer is always, “Yes.” It’s always the same because Christ came to the world to save us from sin. I must emphasize the distinction between what Christ came for and what Christ does. He blesses us in many ways. Some of these blessings are promised to us, and some are a matter of His goodness, for God is a good God. He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). God does many things for unbelievers and even might answer their prayers. For example, Cornelius was a totally unconverted military man, yet we read that God heard his prayers (Acts 10:31). God may grant many requests, but from Scripture we know without a doubt that when it comes to the forgiveness of sins or becoming a child of God, His answer is an immediate, “Yes!”

I want to make sure there is no confusion about any of this. If we equate sickness with sin, as many Christians do, we’ll be confused about why our prayers for healing are not always answered. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t pray for healing or material things. Many people pray for houses, land, cars—all types of things. And we can certainly ask for them.

I always say that you can ask God for anything, absolutely anything under the sun, provided that you conclude your prayer saying, “But Father, not as I will, but as Thou will.” If you can conclude your prayer with that sentence, then you can ask for anything. Some things are not God's will. What we think is good for us might not be. Freedom from sin and forgiveness of sin are always good for us. God will grant those requests 100% of the time. But oftentimes, what we think is good for us may not be what is best for us, and God will deny those requests in order to fulfill His best in our lives.

Chapter 33

Having the Right Word for Every Situation

When Jesus saw the crowd around Him in Matthew 8:18, He gave orders to depart to the other side, and a certain scribe (‘scribe’ refers to someone who is a scholar of Scripture, who spent years studying the Bible. There were many people like that in those days, like there are Bible college graduates today) came and said to him, “Teacher I will follow You wherever You go.” Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” He immediately told him the price he would have to pay if he was to follow Christ. Jesus never hid from people the price of physical inconvenience or physical loss that they would suffer if they were going to follow Him. A lot of people today try to hide that, but not Jesus.

Different Sicknesses Call for Different Treatment

Right at the outset, for example, He told a rich young ruler, “If you want to follow Me, you have to give up all your money.” He didn't say that to everybody, but in that rich young ruler’s case, his love of money was so deep-rooted, like a cancer where the whole organ has to be removed, that he needed such radical surgery. In the case of a man like Zacchaeus, the Lord accepted him when he said that he would give half of his goods to the poor. In the case Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, the Lord did not ask for anything. Spiritual cancer has progressed to different degrees in different people. So we find the Lord was willing to tell a person to give everything he had when He sensed some cancer in that person.

The Lord had such tremendous discernment, that He spoke to people exactly according to their needs. That's one thing that happens when we walk with God for many years. This is part of prophetic speaking. Prophetic ministry is not only in the pulpit. Prophetic ministry is in ordinary conversation as well, where you discern (by God-given discernment) a person's need, and God gives you exactly the right word which that person needs.

When the Lord said this, it was not a standard reply that He gave to everyone. He didn't tell this man to “Go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor.” That He said to another person. To this person, He says, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests.” Scribes tend to just quote standard Scriptures. They've been taught in seminary, “for this problem, quote this Scripture,” “for that problem, quote that Scripture,” and so their ministry to people is based on academic understanding of the Bible, just like some people are employed by computer companies to answer customers over the phone: the customer asks about a problem, and the employee looks up that particular problem on the computer. They enter that into the computer, get a reply on the computer, and then read that answer to the customer.

We Need Anointing to Have the Right Word

This is not how we're supposed to do ministry. Ministry is to be done by supernatural discernment. That's why we need the anointing of the Holy Spirit to have exactly the right word, like the Old Testament prophets. When they were anointed by the Holy Spirit, they had exactly the right word for each person who came to them. Ministry is a very costly affair. It's not something you can do just by studying the Bible.

You have to walk with God. When you walk with God, that fellowship with God will give you the right word for each occasion, and that's why you find Jesus always said different things to different people. For example, when there were Pharisees who wanted to stone a woman caught in adultery, Jesus didn't give them a big lecture on legalism. He didn’t give them a big lecture on compassion. He sought the Father, He waited for a few moments (that's why He was scribbling on the sand, to be clear in His mind), and as soon as He heard from the Father, He just said one sentence: “He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.” That’s all. And they went away one by one. It wasn't a sermon that solved the problem. It was one sentence.

This is an example of the way we can walk in our ministry as well, if we walk with God. But there's a price to be paid to have that kind of wisdom and authority. We have to keep a clear conscience, we have to walk in humility, we have to be free from the love of money, and we have to be totally committed - no area of our life must be free from surrender to the Lord. That’s how Jesus walked.

When the scribe came, Jesus discerned something in him, and so He said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” He discerned that this man was a Bible-seminarian-scholar-scribe, and that he thought he could live comfortably while serving the Lord. Jesus said, “No, you may not even have a place to sleep.”

Beware Deceptive Teaching About Riches

This is an answer to many people who are teaching nowadays that Jesus was a very rich person. That type of teaching - which was introduced in the last 25 years or so - was never heard of before in Christendom. That's because we're now living in a day when a lot of preachers have become fantastically rich through receiving tithes and offerings from their followers. And how do they justify their millions and still say that they are following Jesus? The only way to do it is somehow find Scriptures from here and there to prove that Jesus was a rich Person.

For example, they say things like, “the Roman soldiers did not tear up His inner garment because it was a branded type of garment that Jesus was wearing.” It is ridiculous. Here is a clear proof of how He lived - “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” He didn't always find a place to sleep. He was not a wealthy man. He was not a person who could go and stay in some five-star inn in those days by spending the money that he collected from the people. He was a very simple Preacher.

Jesus Had No Complaints About His Material Circumstances

In John's Gospel, we read of the great sermon He preached in the temple. On the last day of the feast, He said, “If anyone is thirsty, come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37). There were many other words He preached. It was so impressive that the multitudes said in John 7:40, “This is certainly the Prophet.” When the Pharisees and others had sent some people to catch him, the officers came back empty-handed in verse 45, and they asked them, “Why didn’t you bring Him?” Even those military officers who had gone to capture Jesus came back saying, “Never did a man speak the way this man spoke” (John 7:46). They were impressed by the tremendous sermons He preached at that particular occasion in the temple. We read at the end of that chapter, ‘After everything was over, everyone went to his own home” (John 7:53). Remember, Jesus is in Jerusalem, and His home is more than a hundred kilometers away, in Capernaum. “Everyone went to his own home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives” (John 7:53 - 8:1).

These two sentences are actually one sentence even though it's been split by the chapter division there. Have we ever thought of that? A Preacher comes from another town and preaches these powerful messages that bless everybody, and at the end of the day, nobody asked Him, “Where are You staying tonight?” They just ignore Him and go home. Jesus didn't have a home in Jerusalem. So what does He do, when everybody's gone and nobody has invited Him to their home? He says, “Well, it's not raining. I can go to sleep under the trees on the Mount of Olives.” He goes to the Mount of Olives and sleeps there under the trees. The Son of Man had nowhere to lay His head. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but Son of Man had nowhere to lay His head.

Why didn't He spend some of that money which Judas Iscariot had in his bag at this time, and go and stay in an inn? He wouldn't do that because a lot of that money that came to Judas Iscariot came from poor widows who had put in their mites, and He would never think of using those poor widows’ mites to stay in some posh hotel. He would rather stick it out. It's that type of faithfulness that you see in Jesus. I'm not saying it’s wrong to stay in a hotel. There is a time and a place for that, where it’s needed, but in this particular case, He was led by the Father to think, “I shouldn't use that money. Let Me go and sleep under the trees.”

The next morning, in John 8:2, He came back again to the temple, the people came to Him, and He began to teach them again. The interesting thing I see here is, nobody asked Him, “Lord, where did You sleep last night, by the way?" No. It’s amazing, the callousness of people. We see that He just continued to teach. He did not have a complaint about it. Isn’t it wonderful to follow His example? That people could ignore you even though you are a great invited preacher, and you don’t have a complaint against anybody about anything? It's a wonderful way to live, and I encourage all of you who are preachers of God's Word - if you expect people to do so many things for you and expect so many things, and you're disappointed when they don't do it, or if you have a little complaint or a little grumble in your heart - follow Jesus. Be satisfied with what you have, and don't expect anything, and then you'll always rejoice in the Lord. You’ll never have a single murmur of grumbling or complaining in your heart EVER.

When Jesus said in Matthew 8:20, “the Son of Man has no place to lay His head,” it was literally true as we just saw in the Gospels (and probably many other times; we don't have a full record of His three and a half years of ministry). What He was telling this man is, “You want to follow Me wherever I go? Do you know what it is going to cost you? You won't be able to exploit poor people and take advantage of their money and live in great style yourself. No, if you want to follow Me, be willing to be inconvenienced, be willing to give up some of your comforts, be willing to deny yourself a good bed, deny yourself good food, and many other things like that” (Matthew 8:19).

Be Willing to Be Inconvenienced

Next, we read in Matthew 8:21, “Another of the disciples said to Him (this was a disciple, not a scribe; the first was a scribe) “Lord permit me first to go and bury my father.” I don't know exactly what was meant by that. It is very difficult to say, because I cannot imagine that, if his father had died and if it was just a matter of going for the funeral service, Jesus would be so hard-hearted to say, “You can't even go for the funeral service of your father if you want to follow Me.” I don't think it's exactly that. It is difficult to say. Perhaps (I'm only saying perhaps) it meant, “Let me wait until my dad dies and I bury him, then I’ll come and follow You. You know I’ve got certain obligations at home. My dad's old, and when he dies and I have buried him, I'll follow You.” And the Lord said, “Follow Me now. Allow the dead to bury their own dead.” Whatever the reason for that be, one thing is clear: there are times when the Lord speaks to us and says, “Following Me in My ministry is more important than a social obligation, like burying your father.”

Sometimes it happens like that. I remember I was in the middle of a conference when I heard that my mother was dying. She was in her last moments. She had been sick for a while, and then I heard she died. I sought the Lord about it that morning I said, “Lord, what shall I do? I'm sure that everybody in this conference will understand if I walk away from it, because I have to go for mother's funeral, and nobody will object to that.” But the Lord gave this word to me. So I wrote to my brothers, sister and my sons who were there, “I can’t come. You please take care of it,” and I continued with the conference. I'm not saying that's a rule. But there are times when God Himself tells you something, and if you're a disciple, you must be willing for anything. So I didn't go, and I don't have any regret. I'm going to see my mother in heaven. She was saved and she went to be with the Lord. For me, it’s just like traveling to another country. If I couldn't be there to send her off, that is fine.

Dear brothers and sisters, if you're going to be a radical disciple of Jesus Christ, if you want to walk as Jesus walked, if you want to accomplish what God has planned for you in your one earthly life, I want to tell you that you can’t live by certain social rules. Don't quote me and make this a law in your life now. I've not made it a law for anybody, but you must be willing to be inconvenienced, to sacrifice anything, if you want to follow the Lord. Jesus said, “If you love your father or mother more than Me, you're not worthy of Me.” This is radical teaching, but that is the type of discipleship that is so lacking in Christendom today. That's one of the reasons why there is such shallowness in the life of most Christians, and that's why there are so few Christians in the world today who can say to others, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” The world needs more Christians like that.

Seek the Anointing of the Holy Spirit, Not Rules

Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their dead.” Then He got into His boat and the disciples followed Him. Very often Jesus would just say one word to someone. There is nothing more to be said, though Jesus may not have given that same answer to someone else who also wanted to go and attend his father's funeral. Jesus had an appropriate word for each person. We don't live under the law in the New Testament. In the Old Testament there were laws - in such a situation you do this, and in some other situation you do this - it was clear-cut; but in the New Covenant, we’re led by the Holy Spirit, and in one particular set of circumstances the Lord may tell us to do something, and in a similar set of circumstances, on another occasion, the Lord may tell us to do the exact opposite. This is the beauty of being led by the Holy Spirit. At one time, He may tell you to attend a funeral, another time He may tell you not to attend it.

Many Christians unfortunately still seek to live by rules. That's why, whenever they hear a preacher or a hear a sermon, they're looking for rules. I want to emphasize that I'm not teaching rules in this study. Jesus didn't. We can learn from this. What shall we learn from all that Jesus taught by His life? Basically, listen to the Holy Spirit. He will lead you moment-by-moment. The Bible says in Romans 8:14, (and it's a beautiful verse. You need to understand it properly). “Those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” What about all the others? They are children of God, and there’s a difference between children and sons in the New Testament. “As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to be children of God.” As soon as you receive Christ, you become a child of God. You're born again, but if you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you thereafter day by day, then you're a mature son. Many Christians are still babies. That's why we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to live under the anointing of the Holy Spirit every day. If there's one thing that we can learn from the way Jesus lived (all that He taught by His actions), it is to be led by the Holy Spirit moment-by-moment. Even in the one-sentence answers that He gives to people, which were exactly appropriate according to their needs. Do you believe that God can give you that type of anointing, where you have a word according to the need of everybody?

God Will Give You Utterance, If You Meet His Conditions

A verse that has been a great help to me in my own life is Luke 21:15. It's a promise I have claimed many times in my life. Not for public ministry alone, but even for private conversation with people who come to me asking questions. The Lord says, “I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your enemies will be able to resist or refute” (Luke 21:15). For me it's been a great promise in my life. If you don't believe that the Lord can do that for you, then you won’t experience it. Like taking a check to the bank, claim this promise saying, “I want to cash this, because it’s been signed by Jesus Christ!” Take it to the bank of heaven and say, “In Christ's Name, I claim this. This promise is for me, that I can have an utterance and wisdom for every situation which nobody will be able to resist or refute. They may hate me and they make call me all types of names (Beelzebul perhaps, like they called Jesus), but it doesn’t matter. I know that what I will say will be the wisdom of God.”

Dear brothers and sisters, long for this. The Bible says sisters can prophesy in the New Covenant, and that doesn't mean getting up in the pulpit and teaching; it means having a word according to people’s needs. That’s the prophetic word. So that's a great thing that we see in the way Jesus answered these two people with two different needs. The Spirit of God gave Him discernment.

Two things I want to say in conclusion. The Lord has spoken to me when I was seeking to know, “How can I have a word for every single occasion that I am to speak, whether it's individually to people, or in a TV program, or in a pulpit in a conference?”

And the Lord said, “First of all, your heart must be filled with My Word.” God's Word must fill your heart. Secondly, “Your heart must be filled with love for My people”. That's it. We must be anointed with the Holy Spirit (that's of course primary and you don't just rely on that), but we must also study God's word - fill our mind with God's Word - and let the Spirit of God fill our hearts with love for God's people. I can assure you that God will always give you a word according to the need of the people you speak to. I have experienced that for years, and God has no favorites. What He does for me, He will do for you. I believed many years ago that what God did for Jesus, He would also do for me. I want to encourage you to believe that, so that you can also walk on earth and serve the Father like Jesus did.

Chapter 34

Deliverance from Fear

In Matthew 8:24, there was a great storm, and the boat that Jesus and His disciples were in was covered with waves. But Jesus Himself was asleep (There is something wonderful to see here. Jesus was very human; He got tired. When He was tired, He would sleep. That is the right thing for us to do as well.) His disciples came to Him and woke Him up, saying, “Save us, Lord! We are perishing!” Jesus said to them, “Why are you timid, you men of little faith?” Then He rose and rebuked the winds and the sea. Then it became perfectly calm.

Is there anything wrong in being concerned, worried, and anxious when your boat is about to sink? The fishing boat was covered with the waves, and it would sink soon. These were experienced fisherman, and even they were scared! They said words like, “We are perishing!” They thought they were going to drown in the sea. If experienced fishermen say they are going to drown in the sea, it must be pretty serious.

Jesus Came To Deliver Us From Fear Of Death

The Lord does not say, “Oh well, I understand your concern. It is natural to be anxious, but do not worry.” No, Jesus immediately says, “You timid people! You men of little faith! Why are you so timid? Why are you so afraid of perishing?” Jesus came to deliver us from the fear of death. These disciples are afraid of death, and it is natural for all human beings to be afraid of death, except for true disciples of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 2:14-15 says, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

These are very important verses. I want to connect them with the apostles saying, “Lord, we are perishing.” We all know that Jesus took part in flesh and blood in order to die for our sins. There was no other way that our sins could be forgiven and removed except for Jesus dying for our sins. But there is another great truth in the New Testament which is not sufficiently preached. According to Hebrews 2:14-15, one reason why Jesus took part in our flesh and blood was to make Satan powerless. We can be absolutely sure that our sins are forgiven when we have turned to the Lord in repentance and asked Him to forgive us. Similarly, we can be equally sure that all the power Satan had over our lives for so many years is gone. This happens the moment we surrender every area of our life to Christ. Satan will only have power in the areas of your life that you do not surrender to Christ. Remember that.

Hebrews 2:14-15 does not say the devil was destroyed. We know Satan is not destroyed. He is very much alive, and he still has a lot of power. He moves around the world. He rules the entertainment industries of the world. He works through witches and all types of evil people who persecute Christians. But his power is gone. One reason why Satan’s power was taken away from him was so that Jesus might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives (Hebrews 2:15). The fear of death brings us into slavery. If you are afraid of death, you are a slave. You are not necessarily a slave of the devil, but a slave to fear. Being a slave to fear is just as bad as being a slave to the devil.

The Lord does not want you to be a slave of fear. Hebrews 2:15 says the fear of death is slavery. Jesus died to deliver us not only from sin, but also from the slavery of the fear of death. It says that the race of Adam has been enslaved to the fear of death but now, we have been delivered if we accept death, because it has lost its sting. Even though Christ accomplished this for us on the cross, it never becomes ours until we receive it by faith. Christ died for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2), but the whole world’s sins are not forgiven, even though He is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

We Must Receive the Deliverance Christ Purchased

The reason why the world’s sins are not forgiven is because the majority of people in the world have not accepted it for themselves. In the same way, Christ made Satan powerless so that all Christians can be freed from the fear of death. But are all Christians free from the fear of death? No. The majority of Christians are not free. They live in slavery to the fear of death. The fear of death is the highest of all fears. It is number one; every other fear is lower than that.

Any fear, anxiety, or tension due to any other cause is inferior to the fear of death. When the Lord delivers us from the fear of death, He delivers us from everything else as well. If the greatest fear is gone, then the other fears are gone too. When Goliath was killed, all the other Philistines ran away because their champion was killed (1 Samuel 17). When the fear of death is overcome, all other fears disappear. It is very important for every one of us to overcome this number one fear. Hebrews 2:14-15 says that Christ died to deliver us from that. I cannot free myself. It is not a matter of mentally convincing myself. You do not get freed from sin by mentally convincing yourself of anything. We do not teach psychology, but the Word of God. It is Christ who delivers us from sin. It is the same Christ who can deliver us completely from the fear of death so that we are not slaves to the fear of death anymore.

The disciples said, “Oh, save us, Lord! We are perishing!” We are not supposed to have that type of fear. Today, it may not be waves crashing into the boat. It may be cancer or something else that comes crashing into our lives. It looks as if our life is sinking, and we are finished. We do not have to get into a panic even if we say, “Oh, Lord. Please save us! We are perishing!” We can ask God to save us from sickness and even from death. But we should not ask in a panic. Instead, we should ask in faith. It is quite a different thing to ask in faith than it is to cry out in panic. The Lord said to them, “Why are you so timid, you men of little faith?” They had a little bit of faith. Jesus did not say that they had no faith. “Little faith” means they had enough faith to follow Him, but when it came to certain crises in life, they discovered that that is about as good as having no faith at all. A little faith was almost equal to no faith.

The Purpose of Storms

Jesus rose and rebuked the winds in the sea, and it became perfectly calm (Matthew 8:26). This is a beautiful picture of how the Lord wants to rebuke every storm that ever comes into your life. The Lord could have taken His disciples through seas that were calm, but they would never have learnt anything. It is because they went through stormy seas that they discovered that Christ had the power to still the storm.

This teaches us that one reason why God allows us to face stormy situations in our life is because He wants to show us that He has the power to still storms even today. So do not ever pray, “Lord, give me a safe calm passage through life.” You will never get to know the Lord. In fact, the more the Lord loves you, the more He wants to make you more like Him. He will take you through many stormy situations, difficulties, trials, and things that other human beings may never face. The purpose is to always to show you that He still has power to rebuke the storm. Whatever you are facing today, next week or next year, remember this passage: Jesus rose and rebuked the winds, and it became perfectly calm.

God’s Will: Reigning in Peace over Every Storm

God's will is that there is a perfect calmness at all times in our heart. This is not because we never face storms, but rather, peace in spite of the storms. In the middle of a storm, a person at rest in his heart is a greater testimony to God than a person who is at rest in his heart who is not facing any trials or storms. That is the thing we can learn here. The other thing we can learn here is that this is the way God wanted man to live. When God created Adam, He told him that He wanted Adam to have authority over all things on the earth and to subdue everything. Notice the exact words there in Genesis 1:26, “Let them rule.” Sometimes, we forget when God created man, God said, “Let us make man in Our image, and let them rule.” Adam and Eve were created to rule.

The opposite of ruling is to be a slave. God’s original purpose for man was that he might be a king, queen, or ruler - not a slave to anything. “Let them rule over the birds of the air, the cattle and creeping things” (Genesis 1:26). They were to rule over everything. God created man in His own image and gave him authority over everything. This is what we see in Genesis. When Jesus lived on earth, He was demonstrating on earth, "This is the way My Father and I wanted Adam to live when We created him. Now I am here on earth, showing you how he was supposed to live. He failed only because of sin. Now I have come to deliver you from sin so that you can live with supernatural authority on this earth. You can live in such a way that fears, anxieties, and storms of life do not disturb the calmness in your soul.”

Do you believe God’s will for you is to be perfectly calm and still in every storm? What a beautiful expression. I wish you would take this expression in Matthew 8:26 to heart. Say, “Lord, I want this in my life! I want You to always deliver me from storms! I do not want to escape every storm. I want to go through storms, but I want to be like You so that I can sleep through it without fear because You can still every storm.” People have never seen anything like this. Those disciples marveled saying, “What kind of a Man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” Jesus answered that this is how God wanted all men to live: with God’s authority reigning in them.

Our Times Are in His Hand

Why are you timid? Why are you afraid that you will perish before God's time? When we live in the will of God, with all of our life totally surrendered to Him, we can be totally at rest, and sleep like Jesus did, even in the middle of a storm. Jesus could do that because He knew that He could never die until God’s time had come. Nobody could kill Him until God’s time had come. No storm in the sea could drown Him.

We read of another occasion in Luke 4 where people stopped Jesus in the middle of a sermon. They pulled Him out from the pulpit, took Him to the cliff, and wanted to throw Him down. Jesus just quietly walked out from there. Imagine two hundred people grabbing one man. Jesus quietly walks out. That is the authority that we can have. Jesus had no fear. He knew they could try their best. 200 people can grab Him and try to throw Him down from the cliff. It will not happen because God's time for Jesus had not come. Have you noticed the number of times in John 7 it says, “His hour had not come”? One time, it says they could not capture Him because His hour had not come, not because they were not strong enough. They had swords, spears and armor. There were hundreds of people, but when they came to capture Jesus, they could not capture Him because His hour had not yet come. That is why, if you have surrendered to Christ like Jesus was surrendered to His Father, you cannot die before your time comes, either. This promise does not apply to people whose aim in life is to make money, promote their own honor, or live comfortably. If your only aim in life is to glorify God and to do His will, then I can assure you in Jesus’ name that you cannot die before your time comes.

Like the saying goes, “I am immortal until my life's work is done.” No one can touch us. We can walk as Jesus walked on this earth with complete freedom from fear, anxiety, and death. May the Lord never have to say to us, “Why are you so afraid, men of little faith?” You will find that there are some situations in your life when the Lord speaks a word of rebuke like that to you. Listen to that word of rebuke and take it to heart. “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith? Can’t you trust Me?” God in heaven controls all our circumstances. He controls the people who try to harm us. He controls the devil, and He will not allow us to be tested or tried beyond our ability (1 Corinthians 10:13). You do not need to hear that every now and then, like a pep talk to stir you up. It is something that we must believe constantly. 1 Corinthians 10:13 is true all the time. God will never allow us to be tested beyond our ability. Romans 8:28 says “He will make everything work together for our good if we love Him.” We want to fulfill His purpose in our life; that is why we are not afraid of perishing.

God Has Determined the Exact Days of Our Lives

In Psalm 139, it says that the Lord knew us as an unformed body in our mother's womb. Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” Before I was born, David says, the number of days I was supposed to live on earth in Your perfect will was already recorded. Before my first day on earth, it was already determined when I should die. Death is not an accidental thing for one who is totally surrendered to do God's will. There was an exact date on which Jesus was supposed to be born in God's perfect will. There was an exact date when He was supposed to die. It was already written in God’s book.

God loves us as He loved Jesus. I believe there is a book where my days are recorded. I know God determined the date when I should be born and where I should be born. He has also determined the exact date when I am supposed to leave this earth to go be with Him forever. That is why I do not live in fear that a road accident, cancer, or persecution may kill me before that time. That is impossible. I am not looking forward to death. I am looking forward to the coming of the Lord. Like Paul says, we will be alive until we are called to meet Him in the air when He returns. But if that is not the Lord’s will, and it is God’s will that I should die, then it will not happen before God's time. That is the assurance I have. I have no doubt about it at all. Jesus could not die before God’s time. It can be like that for you too.

There is no need to panic. There is no need to fear. There is no need to live with unbelief. It is an insult to God when a child of God thinks the devil is more powerful than Almighty God. That is what you are actually saying when you live in fear of circumstances, death, and sickness. You wonder whether Satan is more powerful than God. Satan is not more powerful than God. God is the only One Who is Almighty.

Jesus Delivers Us from the Storms Inside Us, Too

The Lord says to these disciples, “Why are you timid, oh ye of little faith?” Then they go to the other side in the country of the Gadarenes. They see two men who have a storm inside of them. Earlier, it was a storm out in the sea. Now, we find people with the storm inside them. The demons inside were kicking up a storm. Previously, the demons kicked up a storm outside on the lake, but here, the demons that kicked up a storm inside these people. They were hurting themselves. Scripture says they cut themselves with knives and stones, and they were exceedingly violent (Matthew 8:28). No one could pass by that road. What could they do? They cried out. It says in another place they were tied with chains, but they would break the chains and get free. Nobody could tie them down. They cried out saying, “What have we to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”

Demons recognize that there is a time coming when they are going to be tormented forever. They believe in eternal torment. A lot of human beings do not believe in eternal hell. A lot of Christians do not believe in eternal hell, but the demons know it is true. There is a time when God has allowed them to roam around until that time comes. The demons know that time is coming. That is why they asked Jesus, “Have You come here to torment us before our time?” We read about them saying, “Please do not cast us out. Do not send us to that torment now. Can You please send us into these swine? If You are going to cast us out, send us into the swine.” Jesus said, “Be gone.” The demon-possessed man was Legion. There were maybe hundreds or thousands of demons inside of him. It is amazing that with one word, all the demons inside this man left immediately.

Matthew 8:16 says, “Jesus cast out the spirits with a word.” We do not have to shout, scream, yell, and cry out for many hours for casting out a demon. That would be an indication of powerlessness. That would be an indication that we still have to fight the battle. No, the demons were defeated on the cross. Every single one of them was defeated on the cross. With one word, one who has faith, authority, and the anointing of the Spirit can cast it out. I have seen it happen numerous times in my life. With one word, in the name of Jesus, the demons go. You can have that authority if your life is clean. Surrender to the Lord and believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has defeated Satan on the cross.

Chapter 35

Casting Out Demons and Faith

In the last chapter, we considered the two demon-possessed people in Gadarenes how even though no one could control them, yet Jesus cast out the demons with a word (Matthew 8:28). This is so important. Today we have many people doing many things to cast demons out: screaming, yelling, even pulling people’s hair in such a dishonorable way, and sometimes praying and fasting for days on end.

In Matthew 17 the disciples came to Jesus with a boy whom they could not cast a demon out of. Jesus just spoke one word and the demon came out (Mathew 17:18), so the disciples asked Him why they couldn’t cast it out (verse 19). Some people say it was because they didn’t fast and pray enough. But if you read carefully, you’ll see that Jesus said it was because their faith was little (Matthew 17:20). When your faith is little, you may cry, scream, pull people's hair, fast and pray, but nothing will happen. The disciples did not pray and fast (verse 21), indicating that there was something in their life they hadn’t sacrificed or they hadn’t given up.

Prayer is an expression of our helpless dependence upon God. Fasting is an expression of our willingness to deny ourselves of certain earthly comforts, legitimate comforts, for the sake of the gospel. Is this true in your life? Are you showing your helpless dependence upon God through prayer? Are you willing to give up legitimate comforts of earth for the sake of God's Kingdom? If you are willing to fast and pray, then you will have faith. With that faith, you will not have to speak to a demon twice. There isn’t single case in Scripture where Jesus had to speak to a demon twice before the demon left.

We read one case where Jesus prayed for a blind man in Mark 8:22-25. The man was healed only partially, so Jesus prayed again, and the man was healed fully. This was to teach us that when we are healed partially, we don't have to falsely confess that we are fully healed. After praying for him Jesus asked in Mark 8:23, “Can you see anything?” The man said, “I see men like trees” - he wasn't healed completely yet. Jesus had spat on his eyes, laid hands on him, and prayed for him, but he was not healed fully! That is amazing, there was never another case where Jesus touched somebody and he was not healed fully.

That incident was specifically planned for our times, in this 20th and 21st century where people are told to confess that they're healed when they are not. Thank God for this incident, where one person was prayed for and was not healed! The man didn’t lie; he was honest, and said he wasn’t healed properly - he still confused men and trees. Did the Lord say, “No, no, no, I already prayed for you. Now just keep confessing that you are fully healed until it happens”? He never said that. That would be telling a lie.

A lot of preachers are now going around telling people to say they were healed when they really weren’t. Instead of the preacher confessing his own unbelief, he tells the sick person to keep confessing he is healed! This is tragic. Jesus prayed for the man again. He said, “That’s fine, I’ll pray for you again.” That’s what we should do when a person is sick that we prayed for and they are not healed - we don’t tell him to say that he’s healed. Jesus never asks us to confess a lie. A person should be honest, and if they still have pain, say that they still have pain; if they’re still sick, they should be honest that they are still sick. Then Jesus prayed again, and the man was fully healed and could see everything clearly.

Resisting the Devil and Casting out Demons

Jesus always spoke a word whenever He cast out a demon, and that word was enough. Today Satan has been conquered, and every demon has been defeated on the cross. Is it possible that there is a single demon who does not tremble at the name of Jesus? Even Satan does! The Bible says “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

First submit to God – it says, “submit to God and resist the devil.” Many quote only the second half of James 4:7. Make sure your whole life is submitted to God, and then resist the devil. The promise is that the devil will not just walk away, or run away, but he will flee! “Flee” is a word which means to run at full speed. The devil will not be anywhere near you, he will disappear. This promise is true, and if it isn’t true for you, then it must either be because you didn't submit to God, you didn't resist the devil, or you resisted the devil without first submitting to God.

If you submitted to God, and then resisted the devil, it is impossible for the promise in James 4:7 not to be fulfilled. I'm speaking from more than fifty years of experience. Whenever I submit to God and resist the devil, the devil flees.

One word is enough to defeat a demon who has been conquered on Calvary's cross. There is no need to scream or yell. I remember once whispering under my breath because I didn't want to disturb the whole congregation, and a demon that possessed a person 30-40 feet away from me obeyed the command. I remember another time when a demon possessed person tried to scare me with a fierce face and I was taken back for a moment. I asked myself this question just to reaffirm my faith: “did is this demon escape at Calvary, or was he conquered on the cross?” I reminded myself, “He was conquered. Every single demon was conquered on Calvary” - so I spoke to the demon to get out, and he left. In every single case I believe the word of Jesus, that you don't need to speak to any demon possessed person more than once to cast out the demon - not because of what you are, but because of the authority there is in the name of Jesus Christ, and because you believe that every demon in hell, and Satan himself, were all defeated on the cross. You have authority over them if your life is clean and if you are anointed with the Holy Spirit. The devil has to listen to your word when you cast out a demon.

If that demon does not leave, then like the disciples, you need to pray and fast and seek God. The Lord will show you something in your life that needs to be set right. There is no need to continue praying for hours for the demon to be cast out and wasting people’s time. There is no need to spend hours struggling to cast the demon out. This is the type of crazy thing that is happening a lot in Christendom.

Let’s follow the example of Jesus. In one word He said “Begone” (Matthew 8:32). Again in Matthew 8:16, it says that He cast out the spirits with one word; that’s it.

Another question we can ask ourselves here is why God allowed these demons to go into 2000 pigs, which then all ran down the cliff and went into the sea. What delight did the Lord get out of seeing those pigs perishing in the waters? There was a reason: it was to convince these two men that the demons had actually gone out of them.

When you cast a demon out of someone, other people can say that they didn’t see the change in behavior in this person. But how are these people themselves to know the demon was really cast out? Is it by a certain calmness that came into their mind right then? They may have had occasional periods of calmness even before. I have seen demon possessed people who look perfectly normal sometimes, who only get worked up when a man with spiritual authority comes to them; otherwise they are calm. Think about all the demon possessed people who sat in the synagogues in Jesus’ time. They weren’t creating a ruckus and confusion there when the Pharisees were speaking. The Pharisees had been speaking there for years and these demon-possessed people sat comfortably in those synagogues. But the moment Jesus came there, the demons got worked up because Jesus had come. So calmness in a person does not always indicate that he is not demon possessed.

How then would these people know that the demons had gone out of them? They heard the demons from within them asking Jesus for permission, “Please allow us to go into the swine.” The Lord gave them that permission as if almost He answered the prayer of these demons for the sake of these two human beings, and the demons then went into the swine.

When the two human beings who were demon possessed saw all the pigs falling into the water, they said to themselves, “Wow! They have gone! I know they have gone because I saw them getting into those swine and saw the swine falling into the water!” It’s very interesting how we then read that the herdsmen ran away, and went into the city and reported what had happened (verse 33).

Now read carefully what the herdsmen reported. First they reported everything, and then, as if it were in brackets, it says they included the incident of the demoniacs. In other words, the main thing they reported, which they felt was the most important thing that happened that day, was that they lost the pigs! The less important postscript was that two demon possessed people were healed and are now sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him. Clearly, the loss of the pigs was most important thing in the mind of those herdsmen, and the other deliverance of the demoniacs was sort of a postscript added at the end of the message.

Is that how it is with us? Does loss of property mean more to us than people delivered from the power of Satan? If you examine your life, you will find that loss of your property disturbs you more than people who are in the grip of the devil himself. That is what the Lord wants us to have a priority for the deliverance of people. Jesus did not come to protect us from the loss of material things. He came to deliver people from the power of Satan. And it says that when the people in the city heard it, their mindset was exactly the same as the herdsmen: the pigs were more important than two people delivered from demons. Jesus showed that 2000 pigs were not as important as two human beings.

Jesus Left, He Does Not Force Himself on Anyone

Mathew 8:34 says, “The whole city came to meet Jesus and when they came, they entreated Him to depart from their region.” One would have thought they'd be excited and would have praised God! No, in their minds they thought, “2000 pigs have been lost, and this Man was the cause of it. Let’s drive Him out of here before we lose more material things.” They were not bothered about the demon possessed people. There could have been other demon possessed people in this town (that could have been brought to Jesus), but the townspeople were not bothered about them. What a commentary on the state of affairs with many who were Bible believing people there! Whenever people told Jesus they didn’t want Him, He always left. He didn’t force Himself on anyone. Matthew 9:1 tells us that Jesus got into a boat and crossed over and came to His own city, Capernaum.

It's a very sad thing that many people choose material blessing over spiritual blessing. Christians refuse spiritual blessing if something material needs to be sacrificed in order to get it. This is the message of this story. The people of the Gadarenes were more interested in their business than in the deliverance of human beings from the devil’s power. There are many Christians like this, for whom deliverance of people from Satan's power ranks very low in their order of priorities. Making money - having plenty of pigs - is more important to them. Are these people believers? Are they following Jesus, or they are following these blind people of the Gadarenes?

Jesus won’t force Himself. Revelation 3:20 says, “I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me”. If someone doesn't open the door, then Jesus won’t come in. This doesn’t only refer to receiving Christ into our hearts. It can also mean allowing Him to come into areas of our life where there is an influence of Satan in our life. Do you watch pornography? That’s not demon possession, but it is a tremendous demonic influence which is affecting your mind. This influence allows you to make choices when you go to the computer to look at scenes that you could never sit watching if Christ was sitting beside you. It is wrong to do; anything that you can’t do if Jesus were sitting next to you is wrong. However much you may justify yourself, there is something sinful about that. The things you do in your financial transactions, the books you read, the music you listen to, movies and DVD's you watch - can you have Jesus there with you while doing them? If not, then they are areas of your life that Satan has some control over. Even though you may not be demon possessed, he has some influence into your life through your flesh, through the dirty desires in your heart, he has influence in those areas.

Those areas of your life are the areas where you’ll have confusion, because the Lord will not enter into an area of your life in which you do not permit Him. When you say, “Lord I don't want You to interfere in what I'm watching on the computer. I don't want You to stop me from watching certain movies. I don't want you to stop me from reading certain books,” then the Lord will say, “Fine. I'm not going to stop you. Go and do what you like.” He will get into a boat and depart, because you don't want Him in that area of your life.

We Are Protected in the Areas Where We Are Submitted

This is the reason why Satan can create so much confusion in the lives of many believers. Take the example of an umbrella. If it is raining and you stand under a big umbrella, then no part of your body will get wet. But if you put only part of your body is under that umbrella, the part that is still outside will get wet. It’s like that when you give yourself to Christ. Jesus offers total protection for our whole being, but if I offer only part of myself to Him, then only that part will be protected. The other part gets affected by the devil, and he can bring sickness, confusion, and all types of problems into that area of my life. How safe it is to be completely under Christ!

Our Sin Is Our Biggest Problem

Matthew 9 tells of people who brought to Jesus a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage My son, your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9:2). What can we learn from this? What Jesus taught us through this is that if you can't have faith, somebody else's faith can help you. It doesn't say that the paralytic had faith. It was the faith of the people who brought him. The very action of bringing that paralytic to Jesus was an act of faith. Before Jesus healed him, Jesus forgave his sins and said, “Take courage My son, your sins are forgiven.”

There's a bigger problem with you than paralysis: your sin. You need to understand that even if you are physically paralyzed, the bigger problem is your sin. Jesus didn’t heal the paralytic first, He forgave him.

And some of those around were thinking, “This fellow blasphemes” because they thought, “How can a man forgive sins?” Jesus knew their thoughts (He had discernment). The Lord can also give you discernment to know what people are thinking. What God did for Jesus, He will do for you. Jesus knew their thoughts and said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?” When it comes to words, it may be easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Forgiveness of Our Sins is Far More Valuable Than Healing

But it cost far more for Christ to forgive our sins than to heal our sickness. He didn’t die on the cross to heal our sickness. God could speak a word from Heaven and heal everybody’s sickness. It is more difficult to have our sins forgiven, but the people didn't understand that. Jesus said it in order to prove that He had the authority on earth to forgive sin. Then He said to the paralytic, “Rise up, take up your bed and walk,” and the man rose up and went home.

Thus Jesus’ forgiveness of the man’s sin was attested to by God. Many of the miracles Jesus did where an attestation by God of His ministry and spoken Word. In the very first sermon that Peter preached he said, “Jesus the Nazarene, a Man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst” (Acts 2:22). The miracles were attestation of Jesus’ ministry. That's why Jesus said, “So that you may know that this Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” Jesus made the person get up and walk, and he went away. The multitude saw this and were filled with awe. Mathew 9:8 says, “They glorified God Who had given such authority to men.”

Praise the Lord, there is something we can learn from every single action and word that Jesus spoke, which He taught by His life and by His words.

Chapter 36

Those Whom Jesus Called

“As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ And he got up and followed Him” (Matthew 9:9). Jesus did not call everybody. He lived by the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He would always be listening to the Holy Spirit. His whole life, the antenna was up to receive messages from heaven. This is how we are supposed to walk, to be led by the Holy Spirit. As Jesus moved around, the Spirit of God would point out a certain person to be an apostle.

It’s amazing how the Lord can do that even today in His sovereignty. He leads us to individuals who are to be our coworkers in the ministry God has entrusted to us, so that we can pass on to them what God has taught us so that they can continue the work. It is God's will that we pass on, particularly to the next generation, all that God has entrusted to us, especially those of us administering the word. That has been my own burden for a long time, and I want to pass on to others all that God has taught me so that they can benefit from it.

Jesus selected His disciples in the same way. He saw Matthew and there was a prompting is His heart to call him. There were many people sitting there, collecting taxes; Matthew was not the only one. But Jesus went to Matthew and called him, just like He went to the shores of Galilee, where there were many fishermen, and He only called Peter, Andrew, James, and John. He called the four of them and let the others continue with their fishing.

Jesus saw Matthew sitting in the tax office and He said, “Follow me!” It is amazing that Matthew rose and followed Him. Can you picture this in your mind? Here is a man who was probably a chartered accountant (or whatever he was in those days), writing out his accounts in the tax office where they are always busy keeping their accounts up to date, and Jesus walks in and says, “Follow Me!” And he drops his pen, gets up, tells his boss, “Sir, I am resigning. I am following Jesus,” and walks out. He rose and followed Him. It’s quite amazing. I've often thought about this. When you read Scripture, meditate and put yourself in that situation and see what you can learn from there.

Wouldn't it have been better if Jesus went to Matthew’s house later in the evening when he had finished work and returned home? If Jesus went to Matthew’s home while he was just relaxing there and Jesus said, “Follow Me,” that would have sounded more reasonable. But a lot of things that sound reasonable to human reason are not God's ways. God's ways are as different from man's ways as the heaven is above the earth. God’s way are what we need to learn from the way that Jesus called Matthew.

Jesus Always Called Working People

Every single person whom Jesus called, He called from his place of work, whether it was James or John, or Peter or Matthew, or anyone. If it was written that He had called them at home, we would not know if they were unemployed people sitting idle at home. But every person He called to be a disciple was called from his place of work.

There is not even a single exception to that in the Gospels, teaching us one thing - that the Lord calls His disciples from their workplace. God calls working people to be His servants. He is not calling the lazy unemployed people who have nothing else to do to be His servants. People like Samuel in the Old Testament and Timothy in the New Testament are probably an exception. We don't know whether Timothy was working or not. But the general rule in the New Testament is crystal clear - it’s those who are working whom the Lord calls out to serve Him full time.

I'm not saying there are no exceptions because this is not a law written in Scripture. But I see this principle from the example of how Jesus called people. In a country like India, for example, there are many people who are in Christian work today, who never did one honest day’s work at a secular job. They were unemployed, so they went to some Bible School, and then they started serving the Lord. You see the shallow quality of their work.

When a person has been employed and he leaves his job in order to serve the Lord full-time, there's a sacrifice involved. He has to give up a comfortable and consistent source of earning. That would be a pretty good indication that perhaps God has called him. But if an unemployed person is willing to get a job in a Christian organization to be a preacher or to serve the Lord, how do you know whether God called him at all? He may be looking for a job. In a country like India, there are thousands of people like that who are ready to join any Christian organization under the sun to preach whatever doctrine you want them to preach, provided that you pay them a monthly income. There are thousands of young men and women in India who would be willing to join any Bible School, not because God has called them, but because they can perhaps have free boarding and get a degree as well. What more do they want? And then they’ll probably get a job as well in some Christian organization. That is one of the main reasons for the shallowness of a lot of Christian work in India today.

Why the Disciples Were Called at Work

The first reason Matthew was called from his place of work, just like every other disciple, is because that would test whether God has really called them. A person would not give up a well-paying job or sacrifice it just for nothing, just for an empty dream. But a person may be willing to take a risk to do that if he is unemployed since he has nothing to lose. “I am already earning nothing, I don't have a degree so I might as well try out this so-called Christian work.” And that is how it is with a lot of Christian workers in India today. That, as I said, is the reason for the shallowness of Christianity in India today.

Secondly, it is only a person who has been working in a secular job who can know the pressures of work. It is not easy to work in a secular situation with difficult bosses, trials, temptations, the pressure of having to get up and go to work and return late in the evening. A person who goes straight into full-time Christian work doesn't have that pressure of waking up at 6:30 in the morning like some working people, of getting ready quickly to catch a bus, and making sure he is never late on any day. He doesn't face the pressure of difficult bosses who yell and scream at him and ask him to do all types of difficult, and sometimes unrighteous, things. A pastor doesn't face that week after week. A lot of people in India work six days a week, but a lot of pastors only work one evening and one morning a week. That is a much easier job. Wake up when you like, prepare a few sermons and preach them twice a week. A lot of people would like to quit their secular jobs because a pastor’s job is much easier.

Jesus called people who were hardworking and faithful in their jobs because they would have the experience of struggling of earning a living. Even Jesus was a carpenter Who had to struggle to support His four younger brothers, two sisters and His mother (an eight-member family). He had to work to support them. God the Father allowed Him to be tested for a number of years in that way before He sent Him out to the ministry. That is one important reason why Jesus called people at their place of work.

Jesus Came to Call the Sick

As you know, Matthew wrote this gospel. He is talking about himself in the third person when he says, “A man called Matthew.” Matthew himself was writing this account. It says, “Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house” (Matthew 9:10). Matthew doesn't tell us whose house it was, but we know from one of the other gospels that it was Matthew’s own house. His other name was Levi, and that was his own house. But he was humble enough to not mention that. As Jesus was sitting at the table (they used to recline at the table in those days), there were a lot of tax gatherers and sinners who were dining with Jesus and His disciples. Matthew was a tax collector himself, and he had a great feast in his house for all of his friends, multitudes of tax collectors. He invited a lot of others who were all well-known sinners in the town. They were all dining with Jesus and His disciples. Matthew must have been a pretty rich man to invite so many guests for a meal.

“When the Pharisee saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11). Everybody knows that the tax collectors are crooks. They look for bribes, they try to harass people. It happens even today. But Jesus was friendly with such people. Jesus is friendly with sinners. “But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13). A healthy person doesn't need a doctor; it’s the sick who need a doctor. Jesus is saying, “These people whom you call sinners -- whom you call ‘cheating tax collectors,’ -- are sick and they need my help.”

Now what about the Pharisees and scribes? Weren’t they sick? They were sicker than anybody else. They had hypocrisy and pride, the worst sins of them all. But they were not aware of their need. So Jesus was being sarcastic. There is a place for sarcasm in preaching. Jesus has taught us to be sarcastic in order to emphasize a point. He calls these terribly sick Pharisees healthy people. He was saying to them, “Since you think you are healthy, then you don't need Me, right?” That is what He was saying when He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12). He is implying, “You think you're healthy so I won’t waste My time coming to you. But you are not healthy. You are sicker than these other people, but you don't realize it. But fortunately for these sinners, they realize they're sick. It's more blessed to realize you’re sick than to be sick and not know it. These other people know that they're sick, and so they want a doctor. I'm glad to go and help them.”

The Lord then spoke to the Pharisees and scribes directly because they were passing judgment on the others. “Before you do all your prayers and sacrifices, go and learn what this verse from the Old Testament means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13). This is a quotation from Hosea 6:6. God desires compassion more than sacrifice. It says, “I want you to learn that it is not sacrifice alone that I want from you. I want you to have compassion on people and not just judge them saying, ‘Oh, they are tax collectors and sinners. We're not sinners like them.’”

For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice,

And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

(Hosea 6:6)

Jesus Was a Friend of Sinners

Jesus is always taking the side of sinners against the Pharisees. Remember the story of the woman caught in adultery? The Pharisees on one side and the woman caught in adultery on the other. Whose side does Jesus take? Whom does He defend? He drives those Pharisees away and tells the woman, “I do not condemn you.” That does not mean He condones sin. Never! He told the woman, “Don't ever sin again.” He never condoned any sin, but He never condemned sinners, either.

And once again we see the scribes and Pharisees on one side and tax collectors and sinners on the other, and Jesus takes the side of the sinners, and defends them against the accusations of the Pharisees. It is a great example for us because we find very few preachers who identify like that and who are the friend of sinners. A lot of preachers are friends with rich people. Jesus was not the friend of rich people. Pastors are friendly with the rich people and put them on the boards of their churches because they know they will get money from them. Jesus was not interested in anybody's money, so He did not do that.

Why Disciples Fast

“Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?” (Matthew 9:14). They were always coming up with a new question. I personally thank God they asked these questions, because the wonderful answers of Jesus are written in the Scriptures, and they instruct me today. “And Jesus said to them, ‘The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?’” (Matthew 9:15). Jesus is the Bridegroom and the Jewish people were the attendants of the Bridegroom. As the church today, we are the bride. We are not the attendants of the Bridegroom; we are the Bride of Christ. In those days, the church was not yet formed, so they were only the attendants of the Bridegroom.

Jesus says you can't fast when the bridegroom is with you. One day the bridegroom will go away, and then they will fast. We see that Jesus never commanded people to fast, like some preachers do, and neither should we. He just stated a fact that when the bridegroom is gone they will fast. In Matthew 6, He said, “When you fast, make sure other people don't know about it.” He did not command people. Neither did He say ‘if’ you fast, as if it was an optional thing. Even here it says, “They will fast.” It doesn't say, when the bridegroom is taken away, they may fast. That teaches us that one of the reasons for fasting is because our Bridegroom is absent. It is an expression of our longing for Someone Whom we love so much. So in that sense, fasting is an expression of love for an absent Bridegroom. That is what I learn from Matthew 9:15, “But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and they will fast.”

A New Patch on an Old Garment

But He goes on to say in the same context, “No one puts a patch of an unshrunk cloth on an old garment.” We all know that when cotton clothes are soaked in water, they tend to shrink. So if there's a tear in a cotton cloth, and you get a new piece of cotton which has not been soaked in water, and stitch it onto the cloth, that new patch will shrink and tear away the garment as soon as it is put in water.

So the point is that you can’t get in the New Covenant (which is the new garment) by taking a patch and putting it into the old garment (which is the Old Covenant). That is what some people are doing. It is a very interesting parable. A lot of Christians live under the law and are frightened when their preachers say that if they don't tithe, God will punish them, and all types of rubbish like that.

They live under laws, but then they hear a New Covenant message they say, “Hey, that's a good message. Let me take a patch from that and stitch it onto this life of legalism that I already have.” They hear some new truth like, ‘God is our Father’ or ‘we can overcome sin,’ and patch it on to the Old Covenant. They don't want to give up the Old Covenant, even though God has said the Old Covenant is abolished. They have not abolished it in their own minds. They have some place in their heart devoted to it, but they like “this new thing that Brother Zac is preaching,” so they take that and patch it on. Jesus says that won't work. It will tear the garment and the results won't be good. Ultimately it will be worse. It's far better to just stick with that old garment. What you need to do is throw away the whole garment completely.

In the Old Covenant there was a law for the Israelites to fast on certain days. There were no two ways about it. In the New Covenant there is no law that says you must fast. It just doesn't exist. It says, “When you fast,” or, “They will fast.” We need to know that distinction, because a lot of preachers today are forcing people to fast. Now fasting is a very good thing as a discipline. For example, it is a good discipline to miss all your meals one day in a week. If you can’t do that, at least start with one meal, then two meals, and then three meals. I think it’s a very good discipline. It frees us from the love of food, gives us time to concentrate on something, and gives us the opportunity to show God that we are really interested in what He has to give us.

The New Covenant Life Is Meant for the New Covenant Church

This passage is very relevant, but the point is it must not be done in the Old Covenant way - as a law. There is a difference between a discipline and a law. The other illustration He uses to answer the question about fasting is, “Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins will burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:17). This is a well-known example. When wine is put into anything, it expands, and if it is put in an old wineskin, it stretches the wineskin. Because the old wineskin is already stretched, it can’t stretch anymore, and so it bursts.

This is another picture of the Old Covenant versus New Covenant - trying to live this New Covenant life, the new wine, in the Old Covenant system (an approach of tithing and fasting and praying); the whole thing will explode. That is not the way we are supposed to live. Everything in the New Covenant life must be put into the New Covenant pattern. The New Covenant life must be in the New Covenant church. We can’t live the New Covenant life in an Old Covenant church. That is the mistake a lot of people are making. They like this life, and they try to add it onto their dead denominational church, which is an Old Covenant system. That is what Jesus is speaking of here, not only in relation to fasting, but in relation to praying and many other things. So let us take heed to these things.

Chapter 37

Being Led by the Holy Spirit

“While Jesus was saying these things (He was speaking about fasting, as we previously considered in verses 14-17), there came a synagogue official who bowed down before Him saying, ‘My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.’ Jesus rose and began to follow him, and so did his disciples. And behold, a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; for she was saying to herself, ‘If I only touch his garment, I should get well.’ Jesus turned, and seeing her, said, ‘Daughter, take courage, your faith has made you well.’ At once, the woman was made well” (Matthew 9:18-22).

Jesus Made Room for Interruptions

One thing we see here by Jesus’ actions, and something we learn of what we are to do in our life as well, is that He was willing to have His program interrupted by people in need. We can often have such a rigid program that we have made out for ourselves (of course, it is good to have a program and to be disciplined so that we don't waste time in our life), but we must at times allow those programs of ours to be modified or changed depending on circumstances, situations, and people who come to us, who are in need. If I'm so rigid in my program that I'm unwilling to interrupt it with anything - if I won't even allow a person in need to interrupt me - then I'm more rigid than Jesus Himself.

Jesus didn't have a fixed program laid out in the beginning saying, “Nobody's going to disturb Me. I'm going to do this and if somebody needs something, they’ll have to wait.” Instead, He was talking to people and He was engaged in something, and someone interrupted Him, asking that He please lay His hand on a sick child. And it says in Matthew 9:19 that immediately, Jesus rose up and went. Then, on the way, a woman who was sick touched Him and, again, He stopped and turned to speak to her, comfort her, and encourage her.

This was His whole way of life. Nicodemus came and disturbed Him probably around midnight, we read in John 3, and Jesus opened the door to His house and said, “Come right in! Let's sit down and talk.” He was not bothered about how long Nicodemus would sit and speak, or how long He would be disturbed, or any such thing.

This is a very important principle in the Lord's work: anyone who is not willing to be inconvenienced like this and to change his program will not be able to serve the Lord.

We Need Wisdom to Discern God’s Will Amidst Interruptions

At the same time, we need the wisdom to know whether we should allow ourselves to be disturbed in some cases. That's where, once again, there's no law. Even what I've said just now is not a rule, but a principle that we see in Jesus’ life. We must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit because there are multitudes of Christians and others who would like to disturb us day and night, particularly if our ministry expands, and we need to be sensitive to see which of those we should respond to and which we should not. Those of you who are more well-known among others in the ministry might get a lot of invitations from here and there, and if you decide to respond to every single invitation, you will miss God’s will for your life. You need to know which of those you should accept and which you should not. Even Jesus rejected many invitations.

For example, we read in Luke 4:42 that early in the morning, Jesus departed and went to a lonely place and He was praying there, obviously seeking the Father’s will for the day. There had been a great revival the previous evening, and He was seeking Father, asking, “Do you want Me to stay here? It looks as though there's a great moving of the Spirit here…” And the multitudes searched for Him and they tried to keep Him from going away from them. What they told Him was, “Lord, we need You here. People experienced an unexpected revival here yesterday. Don't walk away from it! You’ve got to stay and build upon the foundation You laid yesterday!” But He said to them, “No. I'm not going to stay.” He refused their invitation saying, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities where I was sent for this purpose.” So He went on.

No Laws in the New Covenant

I mention this to show that Jesus didn't accept every single invitation. He knew which ones to accept and which ones to reject. So again, we come to that principle that I've been emphasizing, that there are no laws in the New Covenant. We live by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit leads us in each particular case. Those who want to live by a rule or a law will make even these principles that I'm teaching into laws and rules, and seek to live by them, and thereby go completely out of the will of God. There is one principle in the New Covenant: we must be led by the Holy Spirit. “Those who are being led by the Spirit are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). That's more difficult.

Man would rather live by a law than by the Spirit. When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, he chose the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is a picture of the law. The law teaches us what is good and what is evil, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but Scripture says that those who try to live under the law will die spiritually. The other tree in the Garden of Eden was the tree of life, which symbolizes living by the power of the Holy Spirit. Adam faced a choice between the two trees, and he moved towards law. The Israelites then spent fifteen hundred years under the law, and even though the law was abolished about two thousand years ago - the Lord showed us in the Sermon on the Mount a higher principle to live by and an inner witness - Christians still seem to go back to the law.

I'm not saying that the commandments are not important all. What I'm saying is that you can obey those commandments in the Spirit of the Old Covenant, that is, the Spirit of the law according to the letter, which kills. 2 Corinthians 3:6 says, “The letter kills but the Spirit gives life,” and even the letter of the New Testament can kill if you try to follow it according to the letter. Look at the number of denominations and cults that have come up by people concentrating on one verse in the New Testament or something like that.

There's only one principle we are called to live by, which we see in 1 John 2:6: “He who says he is a Christian must walk as Jesus walked” - he must live as Jesus lived. And Jesus lived not according to law, but He lived by the witness of the Spirit within Him. That is the most effective way to live.

Seek the Inner Witness of the Holy Spirit

I don’t want you to misunderstand and think that whenever a person calls us, we have to interrupt what we are doing and cancel our program just because somebody has called us to visit his home. Not at all. We should understand the principle, that we must be willing to be disturbed at any time, truly any time. I remember once in my own life when I was very busy writing a Christian article that I needed to finish because there was a fast-approaching deadline, I heard the doorbell ring. I opened the door and I found someone whom I had never met in my life, a total stranger. He said, “Brother Zac, I read a book of yours as a young man and I want to have just a chat with you.” I could have turned him away from the door saying, “Hey listen, I'm busy writing a Christian article, so can you come back later?” But he had come from out of town, so I said, “Okay, come in.” I thought he would sit for two or three minutes, but he sat for a long time, and as I listened to him, I saw that he was a person with need and that I could help him. He left my home an hour or two later. Here was a person who was in need, and when he eventually went away, really satisfied and blessed, the Lord spoke to me and said, “I have asked you to go into all the world and make disciples, and here I sent someone right to your door so that you don't have to go outside. He comes to you, and then you spend the whole time waiting for him to leave (because I had been getting impatient until I saw that he was in need).” I said, “Okay, I will sit with him as long as he wants.” I learnt something that day, and I said, “Lord, let that never happen again. Whenever I see a witness in my spirit, then I must spend time with this person. I must be willing to cancel my programs or postpone them.” So I went back to my writing, just sitting up a little later that night to complete my article.

The Lord will test us in things like this to see whether we have a spirit that's willing to serve others while following the witness of the Spirit. If you don't follow the witness of the Spirit, and you say, “I've got a law that I’m going to serve everybody who comes to me,” you'll have a nervous breakdown without any doubt. You’ll wear yourself out. The inner witness of the Spirit is the ultimate thing that we learn from all these examples that we're looking at in the life of Jesus.

Discouraging Words Are Not from God

As we continue in Matthew 19, we read that Jesus told the woman who had touched Him, “‘Daughter, take courage, your faith has made you well,’ and at once, the woman was made well.” Consider that word: take courage. Jesus was always encouraging people; never did He discourage people. “Take courage” means, “be encouraged.” “Be encouraged,” He would say, “Don't be afraid. Fear not, be encouraged.” Words that people speak to us that discourage us and put fear into our hearts are not from God.

God does not give us a spirit of fear or a spirit of condemnation. You have to be very careful when you listen to a message or a word that somebody gives you. If you find it brings fear and condemnation, reject it immediately. God is a God of encouragement, not a God who discourages us or puts fear into your heart. “Be encouraged, daughter, your faith has made you well.”

Notice in all of these examples that it is faith that Jesus looked for, it is faith that He was delighted to see, and which He emphasized in each of these cases (your faith or your lack of faith). There’s one thing we learn from all this: the Lord wants us to live by faith - in total trust in Him. Leaning upon Him, depending upon Him - this is the true Christian life. All of the Bible knowledge we have, and all of the wonderful doctrines we know, and all the wonderful things we can teach and preach, are worthless if we don't know how to live in total dependence upon God.

Jesus Did Not Raise and Heal Everyone

In Matthew 9:23, when Jesus came into the house of Jairus, the official, and saw the flute players and the crowd in noisy disorder because Jairus’ daughter had died, Jesus began to say, “Depart, for the girl has not died but is asleep,” and they began laughing at Him. There were many people who died in Israel during those three and a half years of Jesus’ ministry, and as far as we know, He raised only three of them from the dead. One was Lazarus, one was Jairus' daughter, and the other was the widow of Nain’s son. Surely those are not the only three people whom Jesus heard of who had died in those three and a half years of ministry; there must be many people who died, and people must have heard about Jesus raising somebody from the dead, and they may have gone to Him saying, “Please come! Somebody has died here!” Jesus did not spend three and a half years raising everybody who died from the dead in Israel - this is very important to understand.

What was the principle at work here? It was not that these three were special to God. It was not that these three people had some special faith. We don't find Jairus (or anybody else at his house) having any great faith, and we don't find the widow of Nain, Mary, or Martha having much faith either. But again, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. He was prompted by the Holy Spirit to go and raise a particular person from the dead.

There is another instance when Jesus heard that around a hundred people died, but He had no witness from the Spirit to go there. Again, we see the same principle consistently: it's not a uniform law like “Thou shall raise everyone from the dead.” No. Neither was it the opposite, like “Thou shall raise no one from the dead.” It was always the leading of the Holy Spirit: sometimes, “Do it,” sometimes, “Don't do it.”

Consider the time when Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. We read in John 5:3 that when He went there, a great multitude (multitude means a lot people, maybe 300 - 500, I don't know for sure) who were sick, blind, lame, and withered (means paralyzed) were waiting for the moving of the water. And a certain man was there who had been there for 38 years, and Jesus went up to him and asked, “Do you wish to get well?” That man also didn't seem to have such great faith, because he made excuses saying, “I wish I could jump into the pool before anybody else. Only one man is healed when the waters move, and I never seem to get to there in time to be the first person. Somebody else comes and steps in before me, and I miss it. I have missed it for 38 years.” Jesus could have rebuked him for making excuses. Instead, He just said to him, “Arise, take up your bed and walk” and then He went away.

What about the other 500 people who were sick? Why didn’t Jesus go to them and ask them if they wanted to get well? Again we see that Jesus didn't heal everybody. He left potentially hundreds of people there sick and healed only one person. Why? The principle is that He was led by the Holy Spirit. One day when God makes everything plain, we'll understand the broader reason for this. Today we see darkly, but for us, it's enough to know that if we live by the Spirit, we’ll never miss the will of God. There are things God wants us to do, and if we listen to the Spirit, we will do them. If we don't listen to the Spirit, we will not do them. There are also things God does not want us to do, and if we listen to the Spirit, we will avoid them. If we don't listen to the Spirit, we will go and do them, and probably mess up God's work. There are things which, if we do them, will hinder God’s work.

When Doing Good Hinders God’s Work

I will give you one example of that from the Acts of the Apostles. In Chapter 3, we read that Peter went to the beautiful gate of the temple and there he saw a man who had been lame from his mother's womb, who was being carried along (Acts 3:2). They used to sit him down at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, and in Acts chapter 4, it tells us that this man was over forty years old. I don't know how many years they had been bringing him to the temple - maybe they had been bringing him every day to the gate of the temple for 10 or 20 years. He stretched out his hand to Peter, asking for alms, and Peter said, “Look at me. I don't have any money, but I'll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” And he walked (Acts 3:4-6).

Surely this man must have been there during the last 3-4 years, when Jesus regularly came into that temple. If so, Jesus would walk past that gate called Beautiful and every day, He would see this lame man sitting there asking for alms. Did Jesus say what Peter said? No. Jesus would give him some money, or He would tell Judas to give him some money, and He would move on. And He would see him the next day. For the three and a half years He was there, Jesus never healed that man. And why? Because the Spirit said, “Don’t heal him.”

Consider now if Jesus had actually healed him, then what would have happened? The revival that took place because of this healing (in Acts 4) would never have taken place. We read in Acts 4:4 that, because of this man's healing, many of those who had heard the message believed, and the number of them came to be 5,000. It was all because of this man's healing. As you read in the whole section there, 5,000 people believed it. I don't know how many actually converted that day, but maybe hundreds or perhaps thousands, and it was a result of this lame man not being healed by Jesus one or two years earlier, but instead, his being healed now by Peter. If Jesus had healed him, he wouldn’t have been at the Beautiful gate of the temple, and the people wouldn't have seen the miracle in Acts 4.

If Jesus had not listened to the Spirit, and just said, “Oh, I have compassion on this sick man, let Me just heal him whether the Spirit prompts Me or not. I have the gift of healing,” then He would have hindered the work of the Father. That's just one example of how many Christians hinder the work God by doing something, which their reason says is a good thing. What's wrong in helping someone needy? There's nothing wrong inherently. The question is whether or not the Spirit leads you to do it.

Another example is if a prodigal son is living next door to you and he is eating what the pigs are eating, you can, of course, help him; but if you keep on helping him with food, he’ll never go back to his father's house. There can be a soulish compassion, which prevents the prodigal son from ever going back to his father’s house. God was disciplining that young boy, and he needed to be disciplined so that he would go back to his father's house, but if some soulish Christian goes and helps him financially, with food, then the son misses out on going back to his father's house.

The Holy Spirit Will Lead Us as He Led Jesus

These are examples we see in Scripture of how doing things according to our own reason, and not by the leading of the Spirit, can cause a lot of problems. Jesus was always listening to the prompting of the Spirit, and this is the case with Jairus’ daughter as well. The crowd had been put out (Matthew 9:25), and Jesus entered and took her by the hands. There were only three people He took with him into the room - Peter, James and John. He drove out people who were just causing a problem there and said, “You don't believe anything, don't stand here.” He then gathered just a few, as He didn't want to show something fantastic. He didn’t think, “You know, I'm going to raise the dead and it's good that all these people see it,” for that would have been human reason-foolishness. He didn’t want anybody to see it. He went inside, He raised her from the dead, and He just moved on. He didn’t even stay there. Then this news went out into all that land.

This is what Jesus is teaching us by His life: we must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit in our ministry. We must respond where the Spirit prompts us. In my early years, I didn't understand this principle. I thought I had to meet the need everywhere - that because I have a gift and am able to teach, I must go here and there and preach. I’ve discovered that's not the way of God. The way of God is to live by the tree of life, which is by the promptings the Holy Spirit. Think of this lovely verse, Isaiah 30:21, which finds its fulfillment in the New Covenant: “Your ears will hear a word behind you saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’ when you turn to the right or turn to the left.”

That’s how we're supposed to live every day, listening to and turning to the Spirit of God as He says, “Now go here, now go there,” or, “Don't go there.” The Lord is looking for people who will respond to His call and go where He tells them to go, and who do not go where He does not permit them to go.

That is the way we are to serve the Lord. The Spirit of God is faithful. This promise in Isaiah 30:21 says, “Your eyes will see your Teacher,” that is, Jesus. You see His example -- you will see Him in the particular situation -- and then you can walk as He walked. Your ears will hear a Voice saying, “Turn to the right, turn to the left, don't go there.” This is not only in relation to avoiding temptation; it’s also in relation to fulfilling God’s will. The Spirit of God is very faithful to steer us away from places where we will be unnecessarily tempted, and to steer us away from places where we’ll waste our time.

May God help us to walk this way.

Chapter 38

Praying Specifically with Faith

Be Specific in Your Prayer Requests

“As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out, ‘Have mercy on us, Son of David!’ When He entered the house, the blind men came up to Him, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe that I am able to do this?’ They said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord.’” - Matthew 9:27-28

We see a similar incident in Luke 18:41 (and Mark 10:51), where he had asked Jesus to have mercy on him. But Jesus asked the blind man there, “What do you want me to do for you? The Lord wanted him to be specific: “What exactly do you want me to do for you?” That is very important. The Bible speaks about prayer and supplication. Here we see a general prayer, “Have mercy on me.” And then a specific prayer, “I want to regain my sight.”

“Have mercy on us” is a general prayer, but the Lord wants us to acknowledge our condition and be specific. We can say, “Lord, I am blind. Lord, I am a slave to internet pornography. Lord, I am a slave to hatred. Lord, I am a slave to jealousy and bitterness.” We like to be a little holy and say, “Lord, I would like to be free from all sin.” But the Lord asks us, “But which one? What do you want me to do for you?”

We can tell the Lord where we are constantly being defeated and be specific with the Lord. The Lord loves those who point out exactly what they are and where they are failing. That is the first principle. General prayers really take us nowhere.

Do You Believe Jesus Can Do It?

Once we have made our specific request known to God, we still do not get our request answered. There is one more step, and that is faith. Do you believe that He is able to do this? The question it is not, “Do you believe that you can do this?” The question is, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” The blind men said to Him, “Yes, Lord.”

What do we learn from this about Jesus? We learn the same principle of faith that we have been considering in all these passages. Jesus is always looking for faith. Jesus is amazed when He sees faith. He is disturbed and saddened when He sees unbelief. He is always encouraged whenever He sees faith. He encourages people by saying, “Your faith will save you. You were healed because of your faith.” Again, Jesus asks the blind men, “Do you trust in Me? Do you believe I can do this for you?”

There are many promises in Scripture you can look at and say are impossible. What about opening the eyes of a blind man? Impossible. These blind men have never heard of anyone opening the eyes of blind people in their entire life. They were trying to believe in something that everybody in Israel considered impossible, but they said, “Yes, Lord. We believe you have the power. We would not trust these Pharisees, but we trust You.” And they got what they wanted. Jesus said, “Be it done for you according to your faith.”

We Receive According to How Much We Believe, Not How Much We Want

It is not according to your desire, but according to your faith. You will receive from God not according to how much you want or how much God wants to give you, but according to how much you believe that God can do for you.

This is a principle of Christianity. No religion in the world except for Christianity teaches us that we receive from God not according to our desire or God’s desire, but according to our faith. Our desire may be huge. God's desire to bless us may be immense, but we do not get anything. For example, God wants to bless you with rivers of living water flowing through you. It is certainly His desire because we read that in John 7:38. If you only get a cup of water, that is because of the measure of your faith. You do not believe that the rivers will ever flow through you because you say, “I am so weak. I am so insignificant.” You keep looking inside. It is like blind men saying, “Lord, we struggled for so many years to see, but we have not succeeded.” Jesus said, “Do you believe I can do this for you?” He was not looking at their ability. He was asking them whether they trusted His ability. That is faith. Do you believe that the Lord can do this for you? He has promised it in Scripture.

One Eye Versus Two Eyes Opened

There are many areas where this principle – it shall be done to you according to your faith - can be applied. For example, what if one of those blind men had said, “Lord, I believe You can open one eye. But I am not so sure whether You have the power to open both. But I believe with all my heart that You can open one eye.” That blind man would have left with one eye open. If the other blind man had said, “Lord, I believe you can open both eyes,” then he would have left with two eyes open. This is what is happening in Christianity today. Some believe only one part. Some believe both parts. They separate into groups and become different denominations. The only difference is that one group believed that God could do exactly what He promised.

Rejoice in the Lord Always

For example, there is a command in Philippians 4:4 which says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” This means twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. In a sense, those who do not rejoice at all are like blind people and those who rejoice always are the ones with both eyes open. The Lord says to these blind people, “Do you believe I can do this in your life? Do you believe that I can bring you into a certain quality of life where you will rejoice always, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?” If you say, “Lord, I am not so sure. My temperament is so moody. I am melancholy. I do not think I can rejoice always.” Then the Lord’s answer will be, “According to your faith, be it done to you. You will rejoice most of the time.” Another person says, “Lord, I am more moody and more melancholy than that other guy, but I believe you can do this for me.” This man will rejoice always. He will come into a glorious life where he is never in a bad mood. He will never be discouraged, but always rejoicing. What is the difference between the two? The second man's temperament is worse, but he came into a higher life because he believed that God could do it.

There could be many similar things in your life which God has promised in His Word. But you have not experienced it because you do not believe God can do it for you. You are always looking at your own ability to see if you can achieve it. For example, God’s promise is that sin shall not have dominion over you. You can look at yourself and ask, “Can I overcome this?” But the question is not whether you can overcome this. The question is whether you believe God can do it for you. The fundamental principle is that it is not how much you can accomplish, but how much God can accomplish on the basis of faith.

From “You Shall” (Old Covenant) to “I Will” (New Covenant)

This is one of the big differences between law and grace. In Exodus 20:2-17, the law said, “I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt have no other gods, but Me. Thou shalt not worship idols. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy. Thou shalt honor thy father and mother. Thou shall not murder. Thou shall not commit adultery. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” The Ten Commandments are full of “thou shall not’s.” Israel tried to obey it for 1,500 years, but they did not succeed. They could not keep all of it. They could keep some of them, but James 2:10 says that if you keep most of them and miss out on one of them, you are as guilty as those who disobeyed everything. It is like whether you have one hole in a vessel or ten holes in a vessel. The vessel is still useless. Whether you disobeyed one commandment or ten commandments, you are considered guilty.

In the New Covenant, it is entirely different. If you compare Exodus 20 with Hebrews 8, it says in Hebrews 8 that the Old Covenant has been abolished. The New Covenant has been established because the first was faulty, and the Old Covenant is obsolete (Hebrews 8:7). The Old Covenant is ready to disappear (Hebrews 8:13), and the Lord will make a New Covenant (Hebrews 8:8). Look at the terms of this New Covenant. There is no “thou shall not.” The Ten Commandments was full of “thou shall not’s”. But the New Covenant is, “I will. I will. I will.” God says “I will” five times in Hebrews 8:8-12.

When this New Covenant is prophesied in the Old Testament in Ezekiel, notice how it is mentioned there. This is a prophecy about the New Covenant. Ezekiel 36:25 says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you. You will be clean.” This is speaking about cleansing from sin symbolically using water. Ezekiel 36:26-27 says, “I will give you a new heart. I will put a new Spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you. I will cause you to walk in my statutes and then you will be careful to keep my ordinances.”

The promises in Ezekiel 36:25-27 are fulfilled the New Covenant. God is saying, “I will.” That is the important point from I wanted you to see in the healing of the blind men (Matthew 9). It is not how much you can keep the commandments. It is not “you shall” and “you shall not”. People go to church meetings today and hear many commandments. , “This is how you must live. You must not do this and you must not do that.” This is all good.

Commandments Are like Gadgets

The New Testament has commandments as well, but the question is, “How are you supposed to keep them?” The commandments are all good. It is like having a whole lot of gadgets in your house. Suppose you have a refrigerator or a washing machine or some other electronic gadget. They are extremely useful. You might think you are better than another man who has none of these gadgets in his house. But are you? If you do not have electricity your home, it is just as bad as the other man who does not have these gadgets. Here is one person who has got so many wonderful laws like these gadgets, but he does not have the power of the Holy Spirit. Here is another person who is a non-Christian and does not have any laws or commandments. He is in the same condition as this man who has these commandments.

What is required is the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what was missing in the Old Covenant under the law. This is the main gift in the New Covenant. It is not just a new technique. It is the Holy Spirit. If we have not understood that, we have not understood the New Covenant at all.

Ministry of Holy Spirit Has Many Counterfeits Because It is Valuable

Therefore, it is not surprising that the devil has made the subject of the Holy Spirit the most controversial in Christendom. It is not surprising that there is maximum amount of counterfeit in the area of the ministry of the life and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. More than any area of Christianity, the area of the ministry of the Holy Spirit has the most counterfeit. Why has the devil made this the area of controversy? Why has he made the maximum number of counterfeits in this area? Because it is only the things that are valuable that are counterfeited. Nobody counterfeits brown paper or newspapers. People counterfeit diamonds and gold. If you find a lot of counterfeits of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you can be pretty sure that the original must be pretty valuable. But I am sorry to say that more than ninety percent of what you see today is counterfeit. You need to be very careful.

Fourfold Test to Discern Counterfeits

How do you distinguish the counterfeit from the real? In India, if you have a currency note and you do not know whether it is counterfeit or real, you take it to the Reserve Bank of India. The authority that issues the notes will tell you immediately whether it is real or counterfeit. Go to the source. In the same way, if you want to know whether some manifestation you see is of the Holy Spirit or not, go to the Scriptures. See whether Jesus did it, whether Jesus taught it, whether the apostles did it, or whether the apostle taught it. That is what I call the fourfold test. Did Jesus do it? Did He teach it? Did the apostles do it? Did the apostles teach it? If the answer is “no” on all four counts, forget it. It is questionable. What is of the Holy Spirit would have been done by Jesus or the apostles. What is of the Holy Spirit would have been taught by Jesus or the apostles. If you do not follow that rule, I can give you a written guarantee you will be deceived. The Word of God is our guideline. Please keep that in mind.

Jesus Did Not Want to Publicize His Healing

This is the principle - “Do you believe that I am able to do this for you?” (Matthew 9:28). The blind men said, “Yes.” Again, you find the simple principle of Jesus not wanting them to tell others about it. Jesus says in Matthew 9:30, “See that no one knows about this.” Earlier in this verse, it says that Jesus sternly warned them. Where in the world do you find a so-called healer today sternly warning people to not let other know that I prayed for you and you were healed? There is so little of the Spirit of Christ in the so-called healing ministries today. Almost all of it is counterfeit. The real healing ministries are being conducted today by people who are mostly unknown and unheard of. I believe Jesus heals the sick even today. But it is not through these well-known, so-called healers. The real healing is done by people who are unknown, who do not want their name to be known, just like Jesus.

Jesus Was Not Bothered by Men’s Opinion

“As they were going out, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Him.” Matthew 9:32

Here is another case of somebody who was in need. He was dumb, but after the demon was cast out again, he could speak. I believe Jesus cast out the demon with one command, “Be gone! Get out of him.” Today, we say “in the name of Jesus” because it is only His authority with which we can cast out a demon. The dumb man spoke and the multitudes marveled. There was nothing like this ever seen in Israel.

But the Pharisees were saying that Jesus casted out demons by the ruler of the demons. Jesus just ignored that and went on. We read in another passage that Jesus forgave the Pharisees. Jesus said in Matthew 12:32, “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him.” Have you spoken a word against Son of Man? You are forgiven. Jesus was not disturbed by people calling Him the ruler of demons or being in league with Satan. It did not disturb Him one bit.

I find so many Christians are disturbed if somebody accuses them of being in league with Satan. It disturbs them. But Jesus was not disturbed. Jesus lived before His Father. It did not bother Him what men thought about Him. Like I have often said, the opinions of men are fit for the trash can. Whether people speak highly of you or speak lowly about you, throw it into the trash can. It is not worth anything. The opinion of man is worth nothing, regardless of whether it is good or bad. That is another thing we can learn from the example of Jesus.

Our Kingdom Is Not of This World

“Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.” Matthew 9:35

Jesus had an amazing healing ministry. John the Baptist came proclaiming that Jesus Christ would come to proclaim a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly kingdom. For fifteen hundred years, the earthly kingdom was what Moses has promised God would bless you with. The earthly kingdom promised that God would bless you with prosperity, healing, being lifted up above the nations, etc.

Jesus did not come to proclaim an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is where heavenly things become more important in your life. This is the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. The gospel of the kingdom of heaven is very rarely preached today. In fact, the opposite is being preached. In Deuteronomy 28, it says that if you pay your tithes and follow God’s law, He will bless you materially and heal your sicknesses. If you do not do it, you will sick and be poor. That is the old gospel which Jesus gave to Israel. This is the gospel of an earthly kingdom that speaks about property, and Israelites received property in Canaan. Today, false prophets tell you that God will bless you and give you property. They say God will give you money or promotion. That is not the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. The gospel of the kingdom of heaven is that you can have a heavenly life while you are here on earth. You can have a life of peace and joy. If you believe Him, He will do it for you.

Jesus Came to Save Us from Our Sins, Not to Make Us Rich

This is the gospel that Jesus preached. Jesus felt compassion for the people because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. It is exactly the same today. There are many people and even so-called Christians, who have heard about the forgiveness of sins. Some people even speak in tongues and remove their ornaments. They think they are very holy even though they have not overcome sin. Jesus did not come just to get us to remove our ornaments or make us wear white clothes. Jesus did not come here just to forgive our sins. The angel said in Matthew 1:21, “He will save His people from their sins.” That is the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom is not Jesus will make you prosperous and healthy. He will provide you all your earthly needs, but He will help you seek God's kingdom first and His righteousness.

Real Gospel of the Kingdom

That gospel is hardly heard today. Therefore, there are multitudes who are downcast and distressed. A lot of these people who have taken off ornaments, speak in tongues and make a lot of noise in their meetings are sometimes so discouraged. Husband and wife yell at each other at home. This is not true Christianity. This is not the gospel of the kingdom. They do not have the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdom of heaven, people are not shouting and yelling at each other. What sort of home is it where the father and mother speak in tongues in the meeting on Sunday morning and shout at each other in their mother tongue on Sunday afternoon? That is a counterfeit.

Ninety percent of people who say they are filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues are living like this. The gospel of the kingdom includes tongues, prophecy, and healing. But it enables us to control our mother tongue and make us free from anger, depression, gloom, jealousy, and bitterness. Heaven is free from these things. It makes us pure and frees us from internet pornography. This is the gospel of the kingdom.

Pray that God Sends True Shepherds

Jesus looked at His disciples and said the harvest is plentiful. Look around the world today. Look at even the Christian world and see the number of people who are distressed, downcast, and like sheep without a shepherd. Most shepherds only want to fleece the sheep of their wool. They do not want to feed them in green pastures. They want to take their money because they are not shepherds. They are hirelings who are out to get whatever they can from the sheep. Hirelings are only interested in taking the sheep to the slaughter and making money out of them. A shepherd is interested in feeding the sheep.

The harvest is plentiful, but the true workers, who are like shepherds of these poor flock, are few in number. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that He will send out workers to the harvest. Only He can send them out. We cannot send ourselves out. God has to send you. He has to equip you, bring you into the New Covenant yourself, and then send you out.

Chapter 39

Principles of Witnessing for the Lord

“These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is worthy of his support. And whatever city or village you enter, inquire who is worthy in it, and stay at his house until you leave that city. As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace. Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city” (Matthew 10:5-15).

Is this particular commission that the Lord gave to His disciples, only temporarily for the period before the New Covenant was established? Or is this a commission that is valid for us today?

This is a very, very important question to answer because a lot of people have read this passage and have sought to apply it to Gospel preaching today. But such people are selective. They pick up some verses and leave out other verses. For example, they will say that Jesus said we can heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons (Matthew 10:8). Therefore, they say that we should do those things. But Jesus also said do not acquire any gold (Matthew 10:9). They leave this instruction out, and go on collecting gold. Jesus said, “Freely you received, freely you give”. But they do not give freely; they collect tithes. Jesus also said, “Do not take a bag for your journey or two tunics,” and yet these preachers have multitudes of tunics, coats, and suits bought at the expense of poor believers.

Why do they pick out only certain parts of this commission? Jesus also said in Matthew 10:5, “Do not go to the Gentiles, only go to the Jews. Do not even go to the Samaritans. Go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” They ignore this part as well. Whenever you find Christians making this commission for today, there is something wrong. They should either take the whole thing, or dump the whole thing. Jesus also said that you should not take any sandals, staff or money (Matthew 10:9-10). But when you compare Scripture with Scripture, Jesus changed this at the Last Supper. It is very important to understand that. In Luke 22:35, Jesus said to His disciples at the Last Supper, “When I sent you out without purse, without a bag, without sandals (referring to Matthew 10), did you lack anything?” The disciples said, “No, nothing. The Lord provided for our needs all along.” But there is an important phrase in Luke 22:36. Now things are different. We are coming to the end of the Old Covenant. Jesus was about to die the next morning. In a few days, the New Covenant would be established when the Holy Spirit would be poured out. Jesus said, “But now, if you have a purse, take it along. If you have a bag, take it.” Not only that, but Jesus said some amazing words, “If you have no sword, sell your robe and buy a sword.”

Disciples Can Defend Themselves When Attacked

What does that mean? That means be prepared to defend yourself when you are attacked. When Peter took that sword, they said, “Lord, there are two swords here” (Luke 22:38). Jesus said, “Two swords is enough.” Jesus was saying that when you go in to the Garden of Gethsemane, the Roman soldiers might take out their swords to fight against you. If you lift up your hand in defense, your hand will get cut. If you lift up a sword and defend yourself, you can protect your face and your hands. Otherwise, they will slash your face. Jesus said that as a principle for ministry in this New Covenant age. We can defend ourselves if we are attacked. When Peter took out that sword and began to attack the Roman soldiers and cut off somebody's ear, Jesus said, “Put it back. He who takes the sword will perish with the sword.” But Peter could have turned to the Lord and said, “Lord, You are the one who told us to take a sword.” The Lord would have told him, “Yes, but I did not ask you to bring a sword to attack people. I asked you to bring a sword so that you could defend yourself when others attack you.”

We are not called as Christians to attack others. We are permitted to defend ourselves if we are attacked. This is something that many Christians do not understand. They point out verses like Matthew 5:39-40 which says, “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.” But they do not compare that Scripture with this Scripture in Luke 22:36, which says, “If you do not have a sword, sell your robe and buy a sword.” We need to put both Scriptures together to understand what Jesus is saying. Our attitude is one where we do not sue people, and we do not attack people. But if people do attack us, we defend ourselves. If people take us to court, then we seek to defend ourselves in court. But we do not desire any evil for others.

The Commission in Matthew 10 Was Temporary

Jesus modified the instructions He gave in Matthew 10 because that was only for the period when they were going to the nation of Israel. After the New Covenant was established, He was going to send them into the entire world, into lot of non-Christian nations. Previously, the disciples needed to proclaim, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 10:7). That is not the message we are preaching today. Today, we preach that the Kingdom of Heaven has already come on the day of Pentecost. We can have a heavenly life now on this earth. Christ is risen, and He can lift us in our spirit into the heavenlies. That is a big difference. Do not go to Matthew 10 to get your commission for preaching the Gospel today. That is not for today. It was for that particular period. It is like some of the other things that Jesus spoke when He was on earth. For example, Jesus told the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests. He also told the Pharisees to pay their tithes. That all changed after the day of Pentecost.

Satan quoted a verse of Scripture to Jesus and said, “It is written”. But Jesus responded by saying, “It is also written.” We need to understand this principle. The whole truth of God is not found in, “It is written,” but in, “It is written,” and “it is also written.” Two passages of Scripture related to one another need to be considered simultaneously to understand the truth. You must bear that in mind when studying the Bible.

Principles New Covenant Believers Can Draw from Matthew 10

Despite this passage being a specific instruction for a particular period, yet there are certain principles here that the Lord wants us to live by. For example, Jesus said the laborer is worthy of his support (Luke 10:7). That is something that is quoted later in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul. In 1 Corinthians 9:14, Paul says, “the Lord Himself has directed that those who preach Gospel are to be supported by the Gospel”. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul speaks about the laborer being worthy of his support. Paul said that those who serve the Lord are entitled to be supported. This is not to get the highest salary possible, but they can receive gifts from people who want to support them.

We must compare Scripture with Scripture to understand the whole truth. For example, Jesus spoke about this principle of going to a house where there is peace. “If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace” (Matthew 10:13). How do you find out if a house is worthy? We can find out by comparing Scripture with Scripture. In Luke 10:6, Jesus gave similar instructions about going to a house. He said that if a man of peace is there, stay in that house. If it is a quarrelsome house, do not stay there. Jesus said further in Luke 10:7 to not keep moving from house to house, because you will hardly find any houses with peace like that. You would be lucky if you find one in the village.

That principle remains even today. Jesus Christ seeks for houses where there is peace. The responsibility for that peace is primarily upon the man of the house. In other words, the responsibility is primarily upon the husband or the father. This is almost the most important thing that a man should seek to have in his house. There should be peace. There should not be quarreling, fighting, murmuring, or grumbling. It is the responsibility of every head of the house to ensure that his house is a house of peace. That is where the servants of the Lord should stay. That is where the Lord Himself stays.

For people who reject those who bring God's Word, “it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city” (Matthew 10:15). This is because those who preached to Sodom and Gomorrah were not as important as the Lord's servants who go out today. Who went to Sodom and Gomorrah and asked them to repent? Lot was a backslidden person who was living there. Two angels went there just to rescue him. God punished them, but today God sends His servants with the Gospel. If people reject the message from God’s servants, it is a very, very serious crime.

God Sends Us out as Sheep Who Are Shrewd as Serpents

In Matthew 10:16, Jesus continues to speak to His disciples about certain principles regarding how we are to go out. These principles remain today even though Jesus changed the exact details of not taking money and sandals. Jesus did not change what He meant when He said, “I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.” That applies even today. Christians go out like sheep into a world that is full of wolves. Sheep are helpless. A sheep is a picture of an innocent, helpless person going into the midst of wolves. What is the reason for that? Why does God send His servants out like that? This is so that they will depend upon Him. Why did Israel have so many enemies surrounding them in the Old Testament period? This is so that they would not depend on themselves, but would depend on God. This is a fundamental principle that we can learn from the commission in Matthew 10.

God sends us out, but not as wolves going to the sheep. A Christian acts like a wolf when he tries to get money from others and lords it over others. Some preachers are like lions when they seek to collect money from others. They are not, however, lions, in the pulpit. The sheep does not seek to lord himself over anyone. Jesus says, “I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.” Babylonian Christianity is full of wolves. A true Christian is like a sheep in his innocence and helplessness, but he is not like a sheep in foolishness. Instead, he is shrewd as a serpent. In Matthew 10:16, Jesus says a person is like a sheep in his character when he is not seeking to fight with people. Sheep do not fight. A true Christian is shrewd as a serpent. He is not a foolish, dumb character. At the same time, he is as innocent as a dove. Notice the pictures the Lord uses from the animal kingdom. Jesus says we are to be as sheep in the midst of wolves, shrewd as serpents, but innocent as doves.

Jesus said to be careful of men. This is all that Jesus taught. This is how we must be. We must have the shrewdness of a serpent. There is no virtue in being gullible. There are a lot of deceivers in Christendom. There are a lot of deceptive reports about Christian work. These reports are distributed to wealthy countries so that Babylonian Christian workers can collect money from them. We must be shrewd as a serpent. Some of those reports may be true. But many of them may be false. We must be shrewd as a serpent in accepting what is true and rejecting what is false. We must be innocent as doves. However, we must beware of men because they will deliver you up into their courts and scourge you in their synagogues. The Lord did not promise that they will be protected from persecution. He warned them right at the beginning that they are going to be persecuted. Jesus said that “you shall even be brought before governors and kings for My sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.” Notice now He speaks about the Gentiles. Jesus has moved on from what He said earlier. In Matthew 10:5, Jesus said do not go to the Gentiles. In Matthew 10:16 and onwards, Jesus is talking about what is going to happen in the New Covenant age. Jesus said that you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to the Gentiles.

We Should Expect Persecution

When we go out in to the midst of the Gentiles, to the non-Jewish nations, we go out as sheep in the midst of wolves. We can expect persecution. Some of God’s servants in the Old Covenant were protected supernaturally. For example, when armies came to catch Elijah and Elisha, God protected them supernaturally. God protected Daniel and his three friends. God protected many others, but there were also many others whom He did not protect. For example, according to tradition, Isaiah was sawn in half. Jesus also spoke about how Zechariah was killed.

There is much more of that in the New Covenant. Through New Covenant history, true servants of God who stood up for the truth and never compromised were persecuted. They were brought before kings and governors. They were taken to court and were falsely accused. In all those situations, Jesus said in Matthew 10:19, “Do not be anxious about what you are going to speak or how you are going to speak because in that hour God, will give you words to speak.”

This is not referring to standing up in the pulpit. A lot of people misquote Scripture and do not think about what they will speak when they stand in the pulpit. There are a lot of people who do not prepare when they come to share God's Word in a pulpit. They get up and waste everybody's time. Unfortunately, a lot of preachers are like that today. You should not get up into a pulpit to preach God's Word if you are not well-prepared and live before God. The preparation is primarily living before God’s face, but also becoming familiar with His Word. When you are young, you probably need to do a lot of preparation before you get up to speak. Do not claim this verse out of its context. Do not think that in moment you stand in the pulpit, it will be given you what to speak. You will find nothing is given to you. But as you grow in the Lord and become more and more mature, you are able to discern the Lord's voice more clearly. Then you will find God speaking to you even as you get up to speak. But that is forty years after you have been a believer. It will probably not be before that.

Jesus is speaking about even a new believer who is persecuted and made to stand in a court for the sake of his faith. He does not have to prepare beforehand what he is going to say. When they ask him to give a testimony, at that moment the Holy Spirit will give him the right words to speak. That is what it is referring to here. Jesus says in Matthew 10:20 that it is not you who is going to be speaking, but the Spirit of the Father will speak in you.

The Difference Between Demon Possession and Spirit-Filling

Evil spirits can possess people. They control people and give them strength. They can even speak through them. The Holy Spirit can also dwell in us. There is one big difference, however, between the way the Holy Spirit speaks through us and the way evil spirits speak through demon-possessed people. When an evil spirit possesses a person, the person has no control over his tongue. He may want to say something, but the evil spirit overrules that and makes that person speak words that even that person may not know what they are saying. They cannot change it because the evil spirit is speaking. That is why it is called demon possession. It is a complete possession. But when the Holy Spirit comes into a person and controls him, the Holy Spirit does not possess him. He fills him. There is a lot of difference between demon possession and Spirit-filling. Demons do not fill people. They possess people. The Holy Spirit does not possess people. He fills them.

That means the Holy Spirit gives them freedom. He is not going to speak through your tongue in the same way that a demon speaks through the tongue of a demon possessed person. He will instruct you in your mind, but you use and control your tongue. This applies even for speaking in tongues. Nowhere in the Bible does it say the Holy Spirit spoke in tongues. In Acts 2:4, it says, “They - the disciples - spoke in tongues as the Spirit give them utterance.” That is the genuine speaking in tongues. The believers who spoke in tongues usually spoke to God. But the believer himself moved his tongue and spoke to God. The Holy Spirit gives the utterance. It is fundamentally different from a demon possessing a person, where the demon himself speaks. The demons can also make a person speak in tongues because they have supernatural power. There will be a world of difference. The difference is this: when a demon speaks through a person, whether in known language or unknown tongues, the person does not have any control over himself. But when the Holy Spirit gives utterance to a person to speak in an unknown tongue, he has complete control over himself because the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. When a person says, “Oh, I couldn't control myself. I just went on and on. I could not stop, that must have been a demon, because only demons control people's tongues like that. The Holy Spirit gives utterance. I have experienced speaking in tongues for 38 years. I found it is me who speaks to God - I am the one who moves my tongue, but the Spirit gives the utterance.

We need to understand this fundamental principle when the Lord says that “it is not you who speaks, but the Spirit who speaks in you. There is a difference between the way the Holy Spirit speaks and the way demons speak. Demons possess, but the Holy Spirit gives utterance and then we speak. That is a fundamental principle. Demons do not allow a person to have freedom. They completely possess people. For example, demons can control people through activities like automatic writing. There are so many things that the demons do. They completely possess the person. That is why demon possessed people can sometimes be so strong. Even if it is a woman, you need three or four men to hold them down. They have tremendous strength because demons have come and taken over. But when the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in a person, He gives the power to the person, but He expects the person to use that power himself. He gives instruction us in our mind, but gives us freedom to obey Him or not obey Him. It is same when we speak in a pulpit. The Holy Spirit can mightily anoint a person. But it is the person himself who speaks. He is using his mind, but his mind is being renewed by the Holy Spirit. This is the principle by which the Holy Spirit works. It is so important to understand this in this day when there is so much deception. People do not understand the difference between being filled with the Holy Spirit and being possessed by demons.

No Virtue in Seeking Unnecessary Persecution

Jesus also says in relation to persecution, “brother will deliver a brother to death, and the father his child” (Matthew 10:21). There will be enmity within the same family. “You will be hated by all people on account of My Name. But it is the one who endures to the end who will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). Say to the Lord, “Lord, I want to be faithful to You till the very end.” He also said there is no virtue in facing persecution and trying to be brave. Jesus said in Matthew 10:23, “If they persecute you in one city, flee to the next one. For truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes.” Jesus says that there is no virtue in standing up and facing persecution unnecessarily. If it is unavoidable, praise the Lord. God will give you grace. But if you can avoid persecution, avoid it. Do not force yourself to be a martyr to get some honor or self-satisfaction. Whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to another.

Please remember these simple principles concerning our speaking or witnessing for the Lord and how we face up to persecution. We need to face the reality that people will hate us when we stand up for the true faith. The true Christian is not going to be a popular person.

Chapter 40

Do Not Fear

“A disciple is not above his teacher, and a slave is not above his master.” This is a simple principle. How can we be above the One Who's our Teacher and our Master? “Isn't it enough that the disciple becomes like his teacher, and the slave like his master?” (Matthew 10:24-25.). This principle applies throughout the Christian age: a disciple is not above his Teacher and the slave is not above his Master.

What is He leading onto? Verse 25 continues, “If they have called the Head of the house Beelzebul (prince of devils) how much more they will call the members of His household by worse names?” “How much more” means worse names than prince of devils. Think of that. Are you looking for honor and fame as a Christian? You will get it in false Christianity, in Babylon, but if you're a true Christian who proclaims the whole counsel of God, according to the teaching of Christ, you will be unpopular. You will be called a heretic and a false teacher, just like Jesus was called a false teacher by the Pharisees. They said He was preaching heresy. Many people called Paul a false teacher in his time, and it’s exactly the same today. People who don’t know the Lord or fear Him will call the true prophets of God false teachers and heretics.

Satan Has Turned the World Upside Down

This is the standard method by which the devil has turned people away from the truth. It's amazing that Christians are more afraid of what they consider to be false teaching than of sin. The end result is that when somebody preaches that you can overcome sin, this is called a false teaching! And when somebody else teaches the opposite - “of course you’ll always keep on sinning till the end of your life” - that's called true teaching. Can you believe how the devil has turned truth upside-down?

Let me repeat this. Those who preach that you can overcome sin - that sin will not have dominion over you, that you don't have to sin, and that Jesus can deliver you - are considered heretics. And those who say, ‘Well, we’ll keep on sinning. You’ll always be defeated, our nature is bad,’ they're called the true truth speakers. This is the way that the devil has turned truth upside-down. The Master Himself was called Beelzebul (prince of devils) when He did something good (like delivering people from demons), so when He says, ‘how much more’ (Matthew 10:25), that means that the way that I know that I'm a member of Christ’s family is by being called worse names than Beelzebul, prince of devils.

You may think that you are very faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, and that you are a member of His household. Can you tell me some of the bad names that people have called you, not for the stupid things you did, but because you stood up for Christ and for the truth of God's Word? That is the way to find out whether you're a member of His family, or whether you're a compromiser who wants the benefits of the kingdom but does not want to stand up for Christ in places where it's unpopular. So many Christians seek popularity and don't know what it means to stand up for the truth. I believe we need to hear this Word today.

You Have Nothing to Fear If You Fear God

Then He goes on to speak about fear. “Do not fear” is one of the favorite words of Jesus. ”Fear not! Do not fear what people can do to you.” There may be a lot of things people accuse you of, but it says in Matthew 10:26 that there's nothing covered that will not be revealed, there is nothing hidden that will not be known, and so you don't have to be afraid of anything.

God is going to bring everything into the light. Even the hidden motives of people when they attack you, God will bring into light. Don't worry about crooked people who try to accuse you falsely. God will bring them to light. Leave it to God; there's nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. The same thing applies to our own life. If you are a preacher and there's something crooked in your life, be sure that one day it will be revealed. That is why we must walk in the light all the time.

“If I have told you something in the darkness, speak it in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops’ (Matthew 10:27). That is a very interesting word -- “what I tell you in the darkness” means in the middle of the night, when it's dark, if you wake up like Samuel and say, “Speak Lord, Your servant is listening,” and God says something to you, you are to proclaim it. Have the habit of listening when you're in bed at night and you're awake. Say, ‘Lord, speak.’ It's one of the best times to hear because the whole world is still - everybody's asleep - and you can hear God speaking to you. Proclaim in the light what you hear whispered in the ear, the gentle whisper of the Holy Spirit. Proclaim it on the housetops.

This verse teaches us that God speaks to us not with big trumpet sounds, but in a gentle voice -- softly, like a whisper, and in the darkness -- but we proclaim it publicly and don't fear. Again it is repeated, “Do not fear,” verse 26, 28). It is like when Jesus said three times not to be anxious at the end of Matthew 6. Here he says, “Don’t be afraid,” three times as well (verse 26, 28, 31).

“Don't be afraid of those who can kill your body.” Every Christian who wants to be a true disciple of Jesus must listen to this. “Don’t be afraid of people who call you Beelzebul (Matthew 10: 25, 26).” Don't be afraid of those who can kill your body because they can’t kill your soul. It is better to fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in Hell” (Matthew 10:28). Isaiah 8:12-13 in the Living Bible says, “If you fear God, you need fear nothing else.” It's a great verse. I have had it in my sitting room for forty years, and it has encouraged me constantly. I want to encourage you to believe this verse -- you need fear nothing. Terrible things are going to happen on this earth in the days to come, but you need to fear nothing if you fear God.

God’s Care Is a Shield from All Fears

Jesus goes on to speak about our personal needs. “Aren’t two sparrows sold for a cent? Not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father, but the very hairs of your head are numbered.” The Lord then says, “You're of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29,31), therefore do not fear because even the sparrow that falls to the ground, the Father is watching. It is so difficult for our mind to comprehend that of all the millions of insects and birds that are on earth, God sees even a sparrow fall to the ground! Here the Lord is teaching us of the tremendous ability the Father has. Even the hairs of your head are numbered (verse 30). Can you imagine the intense care God has over you throughout the night? A lot of people get dreadful dreams at night. If you are afraid at night, think of this verse. Even the hair that falls from your head to the pillow at night, God knew about it! This is the intensity of His care for us.

Being One Whom Jesus Is Pleased to Confess

“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father in Heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 10: 32-33). We need to see that there is a principle here - the Lord will deal with us in exactly the same way that we deal with Him. He’ll confess us before the Father in the measure in which we have unashamedly confessed Him before men. This whole section is talking about being a witness for Christ and the fear that people can have about being a witness because they think, “If I'm a witness, I will suffer some loss.” Some people are even afraid to witness for Christ in their offices, lest they lose a promotion. I've seen a lot of non-Christians in banks in other places hang a calendar near their table with picture of some Hindu idol, but have almost never seen a Christian hang out a calendar with a Christian verse on it. They’re ashamed to be known as Christians because, in a non-Christian world, they say, “I might lose opportunities for promotion; my manager won't be so happy with me if he sees that.” We’re ashamed to confess Christ, but when we have a need, of course we go to Him. That’s how it was in Israel, and the Lord said, “Why do you come to Me only when you have a problem? Why don't you go to the gods of Egypt that you've been worshipping?”

How do we deny Him? It is not by saying like Peter, “I don't know Christ.” I don’t think any of us would say that, but we deny Him very often by silence, by keeping quiet when we should be speaking, by hesitating, or by being unwilling to let people know that we are Christian. We deny Him when we are unwilling to let people know that we are Christians. If we deny Him, He will deny us. But if we confess Him before men, He will confess us before His Father in Heaven.

We need to think about this: there's a day coming when Christ will return in glory, and we will stand before Him. Who are the ones of whom He is going to be proud? Do you want the Lord to be proud of you when He comes back? Here's what Jesus taught: He will not confess before the Father those who are ashamed of Him on this earth. Remember this: that if you have not been bold enough to acknowledge that you are a disciple of Jesus and have kept quiet about your faith, then you can be sure that you have denied the Lord. You can be sure that when Christ comes back, He will deny you before the Father. You probably never heard preaching like this, but it is the truth. Whoever calls himself a Christian, and says that they are Spirit-filled, or can speak in tongues, or whatever else, if you deny Christ before men, He will deny you before the Father in Heaven (Matthew 10:33).

It’s like Jesus telling you on the final day, “I don't know you, because when you were on earth, you acted as though you didn't know Me”. It is a very serious thing. The Lord wants us to be His bold disciples. He doesn't want us to be secret disciples who hide our light under a bushel or put it under a bed where nobody can see it. He says to put the light upon the lamp stand, and if people reject you let them reject you. If they call you Beelzebul, let them call you Beelzebul. If they kill you, then be willing to be killed. Don’t be afraid of a man who can kill your body; be afraid of Him who can destroy your body and soul. If you fear God, you can be sure that nobody can touch you without His permission. And if you confess Him, if you boldly say, “Lord I am Your witness and I'm not ashamed to confess to others that I belong to Jesus Christ,” then think of the joy that’ll be yours one day when Christ returns and your turn comes up - your name is called - and Jesus says, ‘I want to confess this person boldly before You, Father, because he has been a bold witness for Me on the earth.” I hope we will hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I want to hear them, and I don't care what loss I might have on the earth because I confess Christ. Of course we will lose many things -- maybe you lose a promotion, or maybe you lose financially, or socially in the sense that your relatives will think you're crazy and off your head. Whatever it is, be bold to confess Christ, and in the long run, you will be thankful.

Confessing Christ Will Bring Division on Earth

When we confess Christ like this, there is going to come a division, even in a family. Jesus says, “Don’t think I came to bring peace.” One way He came to bring peace was “peace on earth and goodwill towards men” -- that is what the angels sang. But this was peace in people’s hearts, and between the true disciples of Jesus. But everybody doesn't want peace. Most people want war, so “don't think I came to bring peace; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword that will bring a division between those who confess Christ and those who don't confess Him, and the result will be a man will be against his father, a daughter against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law” (Matthew 10:35). This is not talking about the regular daughter-in-law mother-in-law fights which are universal among non-Christians everywhere; this is talking about one of them standing up for Christ, and therefore a division coming between that person and the other person who doesn't want to follow Christ all the way. We see this happening all the time.

Take for example, a son who is gripped by the truth of the Gospel, who wants to take baptism. He wants to really live for God, give up sinful ways, and wholeheartedly follow the Lord, but his father doesn't want that. What is the result? A division comes between the father and the son. That's where the sword comes in. You have to love Jesus more than you love your father or mother, and “a man's enemies will be the members of his own household” (Matthew 10:36). Throughout these two thousand years of Christianity, it has been true that the true disciples of Jesus love peace - they want peace - but their relatives (so-called believers) will turn against them. It’s religion that will make people turn against the true disciples of Jesus. History is full of examples of unconverted religious Christians who persecuted the true disciples of Jesus Christ -- very often much more than the heathen and the non-Christians. If a man loves his father or mother more than he loves Christ, the Lord says, “You're not worthy of Me”.

I don't want to ever hear Jesus say to me in the final day, “You're not worthy of Me; you loved your father or mother more than Me, and you wanted to please your father and mother more than you wanted to please Me..” Will the Lord have to say that to you? “Whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Do you compromise your Christian convictions in order to please your son or your daughter? Then you're not worthy of Jesus Christ. I don't want the Lord to say to me in the final day, “You're not worthy of Me.” I want to love Jesus more than I love my parents and more than I love my son or daughter. If they are wrong, I have to stand against them and say they're wrong. So many Christian parents are partial towards their children and don't stand up for the Lord against their children. The end result is that those children go away from the Lord and the parents go away from the Lord. But if the parents stood up for the Lord and loved the Lord more than they loved their children, their children would have become disciples of Jesus. Have you been soft towards your children, compromised, and lowered Christian standards? If you don’t stand up for the Lord when you see your daughter dressing in an immodest way and following the fashions of the world, then you love her more than you love the Lord and His testimony. That will determine whether the Lord will deny you in the final day.

Die to Your Self-Life to Find Your Life

In Matthew 10:38, Jesus says, “If you don't take up the cross and follow after Me, you’re not worthy of Me.” That's the message that we need to hear today. The main missing message in Christendom today is the message of the cross. “Take up your cross daily and follow Me,” Jesus said, “otherwise you cannot be My disciple.” That means you must die to yourself (your self-will) and do the will of God. Otherwise it is impossible to follow Him. If you imagine that you are following Jesus without denying your own will every day, and doing the will of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, then you are fooling yourself. You are not following the Lord. When Jesus speaks about finding our life in Matthew 10:39, He is speaking about this earthly soulish life, which includes our reputation, our honour, our dignity, etc. If we try to preserve our reputation, honor, and our dignity (this is what Jesus calls finding our life), we’ll lose it. But we should be willing to lose our reputation, dignity, and honor for the sake of standing up for Christ. That is what it means to lose our life. Then we will find it. So “losing your life for Jesus’ sake” means that you stand up for the Lord, and you “lose your life” because you are treated like garbage by the people of this world, and you are spoken evil of, and you are persecuted. Such people will find life.

Rewards of Receiving Godly People

Then Jesus says, “He who receives you receives Me” (Matthew 10:40). What an honor. Do you know that if you are a true devoted servant of Jesus Christ, and faithful to Him, anyone who receives you is receiving Christ, and anyone who rejects you is rejecting Christ? It's an amazing thing. Similarly, “He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward” (Matthew 10:41). If you honor a prophet of God because you recognize that this is a man who is speaking as the mouthpiece of God, and you honor him as that, you can get a reward just for that! If you receive a righteous man here - if you find a man who is standing up for holiness and purity, and standing against sin, and you receive him as a righteous man whom you respect because he is standing up for the Lord - you will receive his reward. These are amazing words.

And in verse 42, He includes an ordinary disciple and even a little child! Notice the order here: apostle, prophet, righteous man, and a little child. The easiest thing to do is to give a little child a cup of cold water, and even just this act will receive a reward. What the Lord is saying is, if you honor God’s servants, God will honor you. If you do something for His servants - help them in some way, even such a small thing like giving a cup of water - God will make sure that He repays you because God is not a debtor to any man. That's a wonderful truth that you can always be sure of, if you've done anything for the Lord or for His people or His servants, you can be absolutely sure that the Lord will repay you (I’m talking about the true servants of God, not the multitudes of fake preachers and crooks that go out in the name of Christ today, which constitute 90% of today's preachers. Steer clear of them. Don't believe every spirit but discern and honor the true servants of the Lord).

Chapter 41

John the Baptist

Introduction

“When Jesus had finished instructing His twelve disciples, He went on from there to teach and preach in their cities” (Matthew 11:1). Here you see something of the tireless nature with which Jesus served during the three and a half years of His ministry. He never took a vacation. He was constantly on the go with a burden to complete the ministry the Father had given Him to complete on this earth, and every true servant of God will have that same passion. Jesus taught us by His life to be tireless in our service for God. It says that He went about teaching and preaching in all the cities.

John the Baptist’s Doubts

When John the Baptist was in prison and he heard about the works of Christ, he sent word through his disciples to Christ in Matthew 11:3, “Are you the expected one or shall we look for someone else?” This is interesting because Jesus later says that John the Baptist is the greatest man born of women and the greatest prophet ever up until that time. Yet this man who was the greatest prophet had doubts about Christ. He wondered whether Jesus was the Messiah even though he had seen those supernatural signs at Jesus’ baptism. He saw the dove coming down, he heard the voice from Heaven, and he had the sense in his own spirit that this was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

If that’s the case, then why did this doubt come into John's mind? First of all, remember that he was under the old covenant. We cannot compare ourselves with him because, in the new covenant, we have the Holy Spirit, and we have many privileges that people under the old covenant just didn't have. So we're not here to compare ourselves with him. But the reason John doubted is because when he was in prison, he expected Jesus to deliver him. He expected God to deliver him from prison because he had faithfully fulfilled his ministry. Why was God allowing him to be in prison now?

The Ability We Have in the New Covenant

Paul never had that type of question when he was in prison. Peter didn't have that type of question when he was in prison. This wasn’t because they were better than John the Baptist, but because they had the Holy Spirit. That's why we must never compare ourselves with Old Testament saints and prophets when we see the mistakes they made. Even when David committed adultery, he was under the old covenant. Many Christians don't understand the distinct difference between old covenant and new covenant. The privilege we have today, of being filled with the Holy Spirit from within, they never had in the Old Covenant. When it says that John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb, it means that the Spirit God was upon John; but He was not within him. Today, we have the Spirit within.

In the old covenant, there was a veil between the soul and the spirit, so the Holy Spirit could not penetrate through into man’s spirit and dwell within him. The Spirit could only be upon people, flow over them, and be a blessing - perhaps to thousands. In the new covenant, the Spirit comes within because the veil has been rent between the soul and spirit. Man can now have God dwelling right within his spirit, and from his innermost being rivers of living water flow. That's the difference.

Because the Spirit was not within him, John the Baptist had this doubt, and he wondered, “Why am I still in prison? I’m supposed be the forerunner for Christ and now I want to complete my ministry.” He didn't realize that he had already completed his ministry.

When he asked if Jesus was really the Messiah, Jesus doesn't say to him, “Don't you remember what you saw at the baptism?” No. He understands the struggle people under the old covenant had, and He says, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” That’s the greatest of all, in ascending order - the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, the lepers cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead being raised up, and then the greatest of all: the poor have the gospel preached to them.

The Lord was saying, “Here are other signs that prove that I am the Messiah.” All of the signs mentioned in verse 5 were not necessarily to be repeated throughout the Christian era for 2000 years. It’s not that Christians would go around giving all blind people sight, making all deaf people hear, cleansing all lepers, and raising all dead people. That's not the meaning. These were specific signs that were meant to endorse the fact that Jesus was the Messiah Himself, which is very clear because He was answering the question, “How do we know you're the Messiah?”

It’s important for us to understand what Jesus was teaching, so that we don't live under the false illusion that a lot of Christians live under today, that every single Christian who is sick must be healed. It doesn't work, and preachers who preach that are leading others into deception. These were emphasized as the signs that endorsed the fact that Jesus was the Messiah.

Jesus goes on to say in verse 6, “Blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me.” In other words, blessed is the one who doesn't get offended with something Jesus does or doesn’t do. It is very easy for Christians to be offended when they expect God to do something and He does not do it. For example, in John the Baptist’s case, he was expecting Christ to deliver him from prison. It didn't happen as he anticipated, so he was disappointed and offended perhaps. It's in this connection that the Lord is saying, “Blessed is he who never gets offended with Me.” This is something that Jesus taught that we need to practice in our own life. Whether God does not do what we expect Him to do or He does something that we don't expect Him to do, we shouldn’t get offended. We must believe that He is sovereign, and that He knows what is best for us. We may not know it ourselves, but He knows what is best, and He will do what is best for His children.

Beware of People-Pleasing Preachers and Churches

As Jesus and His disciples were going away, Jesus began to speak to the multitudes in verse 7 about John. He said to them, “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? Were you looking for a reed shaken by the wind?” Many preachers are unsteady people, bending whichever way the wind is blowing. The Lord was asking, “Is this the type of person you went out to see?” There are many preachers, He implies, who are moved by the wind of public opinion. If people are craving for something, this kind of preacher gives them what they want to hear.

Today we hear of seeker-friendly churches that say that they are fulfilling Christ’s ministry of being the friend of sinners. But you don't become the friend of sinners by compromising your convictions. Then you're not a friend of sinners at all, because you don't deliver them from their sin or their worldliness! Seeker-friendly churches and seeker-friendly attitudes result in the compromise of our convictions and we become like reeds that are swaying with the wind. If the wind blows to the left, we move to the left. If the wind blows to the right, we move to the right. We see so much of that today. For example, there has been a craze suddenly of people falling down on the ground and laughing uncontrollably. Other preachers have seen it and said, “Hey, if this is the way things are going, we better manipulate and produce that in our congregation as well.” Then, after a while, you see Western cultures laying hands on people and pushing them down. Then you find in many third world countries people begin to imitate that as a way to gain popularity. In other cases, someone hears someone elsewhere talking about the prosperity gospel or healing and they begin to preach that here. These are not prophets of God; these are people who preach to those who want their ears tickled.

Seeker-friendly messages are meant to please man. The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 1:10, “If I seek to please men, I cannot be the servant of Christ.” It is very, very important to remember that if I ever seek to please human beings, I can never be a servant of Jesus Christ. This is a fundamental principle. It's not that I can be an inferior servant; it means that I cannot be a servant at all! A man has to choose when he preaches God's Word whether he's going to be a servant of God or servant of the people. He should not be like a reed swayed by the wind or shaken by the wind. God wants people who are upright like firm trees rooted in the ground that even a storm will not shake.

So Jesus says, “Did you go out to see one of these regular preachers that you've seen in your synagogues when you went out to the wilderness? No, that’s not John. Then what have you gone out to see? Did you go out to see a man dressed in soft clothing? All those who wear soft clothing are in king's palaces.” In other words, He said, “Did you expect to go and see a preacher who is dressed in the latest style with branded suits and very expensive clothes made by the most expensive tailors? He says that these people are not true servants of God. They just collect tithes from the poor people and buy expensive clothes and cars and houses for themselves.” He says those are not true prophets. There are plenty of them today, and we need these warnings about what Jesus considered to be the marks of a true prophet. “But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Well I'll tell you something, John is one who is more than a prophet.” It’s amazing that Jesus referred to John the Baptist as someone who was more than a prophet. In the Old Testament, the prophet was the greatest servant of God, who expressed God's mind.

What does it mean to be greater than a prophet? Jesus says, “This is the one about whom it is written, ‘I send My messenger before My face who will prepare your way before you.’” All the prophets prophesied about the coming of Christ, but John the Baptist was unique. He came to actually prepare the way just before the Messiah came. He was the last of the prophets of the old covenant and had the unique privilege of preparing the way for the arrival of the Messiah. He's the one who preached, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” None of the Old Testament prophets preached about the kingdom of heaven, they preached a kingdom of earth. They preached that if you honor God, God will give you the land of Canaan, He will deliver you from your earthly enemies, He will kill the giants in Canaan, He will give you rain from heaven, He will bless and prosper you, and He will heal you of your sicknesses.

These are the things the Old Testament prophets prophesied, but John the Baptist preached about the kingdom of heaven. He said, “You have to repent. You have to turn around from living for these earthly things. Something new is coming. The Messiah is now coming and He's not going to deliver you from the Romans; He’s going to deliver you from sin. He's not going to help you to have beautiful land, better than the land of Canaan. He's going to lead you to a heavenly life on this earth.” You are not going to get much of this earth with this new message, but you are going to get all of heaven.

For this reason, John the Baptist was the greatest prophet of all, and that's why Jesus said he was more than a prophet. He was one who prepared the way before Jesus. Jesus goes on to say in verse 11, “Truly I say to you, among those who are born of women there is no one greater than John the Baptist. But the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” That’s an amazing statement. We who belong to the kingdom of heaven are greater than John the Baptist. We have the potential to be greater than John the Baptist. It's an amazing statement.

Greater Than John the Baptist

John the Baptist was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, and we can be greater even than him! In what way? John the Baptist could only say, “Get ready, for the kingdom of heaven is near,” whereas we can say, “The Kingdom of Heaven has come. It is right here.” Now we can enter in. We can live this heavenly life right now, whereas John the Baptist could not lead people into heavenly life. He could only prepare the way. That is the way in which we have a greater ministry than even John the Baptist, because while he could only say, “Christ is coming now,” we can say, “Christ has come, risen, and ascended, and you can receive Him into your life. You can receive the Holy Spirit into your life and come into a glorious new life.” This is what we preach.

John the Baptist had the Spirit upon him, whereas we can have the Spirit within us. This is a very fundamental difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. If you're only interested in ministry, then you need the Spirit upon you. In the Old Testament, people had tremendous ministries with the Spirit upon them, but that didn't change their inner lives. Samson blessed Israel in many ways, but his inner life was full of lust. Even David delivered Israel from many of its enemies, but he was defeated within by sexual lust.

This is not to be true of any servant of God in the new covenant. When you hear of a preacher today falling into adultery or some other sin, he's living like an old testament person even if he has been a blessing to millions. There were a lot of people in the Old Testament who were blessings to many, many people, but the Spirit was not within them.

That is the sense in which we are greater than John the Baptist; but that doesn't mean that every Christian is more wholehearted than him. What it means is that there is greater potential. For example, we have access to computers today, so we can do calculations far better and quicker than great mathematicians who had lived a hundred years ago. But this doesn't mean that we are greater mathematicians than them. It means we have greater resources, and because we have greater resources, we can do some things that those great minds that lived a hundred years ago could not. If you compare yourself with Albert Einstein, who was one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, we can do calculations faster than him, not because we're cleverer than him, but because we have access to certain gadgets like computers which he didn't have access to.

It's in this way that Jesus is saying that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. A little boy using a computer today can calculate things faster than the great scientist, Albert Einstein. In the same way, with the potential we have in the new covenant, we can rise higher than John the Baptist in our inner life. For example, in this particular matter of doubt, we can come to a life where we never doubt whether Jesus is our Savior or not (as John did while he was in prison), even if we are in prison for years. We know of great signs of God in many lands where Christians were persecuted for the faith, and they were imprisoned for many years, even ten, fifteen years, but they never lost their faith. They never asked the type of question that John the Baptist asked. It's not because they were greater or more wholehearted than John the Baptist; it’s because they had the Holy Spirit within them.

This is the meaning of Matthew 11:11. We must not misuse this verse. Also, we must not come short of what God's expectation is in the new covenant. He wants every one of us to rise higher than John the Baptist in our inner life. What a challenge that is! You cannot imagine John the Baptist running after women or running after money, so a Christian who claims to be under the new covenant should be way above that; when they're not, they are sinking below even old covenant saints. It's foolish to say that we're in the new covenant when we live at a lower standard than the people in the old covenant.

Jesus explains that when He says, “From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and violent men take it by force, because all the prophets in the law prophesied until John” (verse 12). He was saying that John was the dividing line between old covenant and new covenant. The law and the prophets is the Old Testament (the old covenant), and was in effect right up to John - John marked that dividing line. From that time onwards it’s the kingdom of heaven that is preached, not the kingdom of earth.

If your mind is set on earthly things, and what you're preaching is an earthly message of prosperity and healing, I want to say that you are more than two thousand years outdated. That is an old covenant message from Deuteronomy 28. It is not the message of Ephesians 1:3, which says that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. It is not the message of Ephesians 2:6, which says that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. This is the message we're supposed to preach; the kingdom of heaven that is already come.

Violence in the Inner Life

One last thing we see here is that Jesus said the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and that violent men take it by force. In general, Christians are people of peace. We don't fight with human beings. We concentrate on fighting with the devil. The Old Testament saints fought with human beings, but not us. We fight with Satan. But in Matthew 11:12, we read that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence. What does that mean? It’s inward violence against Satan and against the flesh (the lust in our flesh). We fight with them violently. This is the mark of those who are seeking the kingdom of heaven, and these are the ones who get the kingdom of heaven. Many people do not possess the riches of God's kingdom because inwardly they are not violent against the lust in their flesh and against satanic attempts to tempt them and make them fall.

This is speaking about whole-hearted people. The kingdom of heaven is possessed by men of violence and this may be the reason why you have not come into this heavenly life so far - you're not a person of violence in your inner life, against your own lust. You're not a person who is radical and has a violent attitude towards satanic temptations that come your way. Unfortunately, many Christians are more violent in their speech and behavior towards other people, very often to other Christians. These people are old covenant people, or probably not even converted. A new covenant person never is violent against human beings. A person who fights with his wife or husband is not a new covenant person at all. A new covenant person is one who does violence in his inner man, to the lusts in his flesh, and towards satanic temptation. Such people possess the kingdom. This is what the Lord is emphasizing here.

Chapter 42

The Spirit of Elijah

In Matthew 11:11, Jesus describes John the Baptist as the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets and then He goes on to say in verse 14, “if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come.” There is a prophecy in Malachi 4:5 -- almost the last words of the Old Testament -- where the Lord says, “Behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.” This is not referring to the first coming of Christ, because the first coming of Christ is not “the great and terrible day of the Lord”; it is the second coming of Christ, when He will come in judgment. “Before the great and terrible day of the Lord” means that just before the second coming of Christ, the Lord is going to send Elijah the prophet, and one of his main ministries will be within families to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. It also refers to the church, where the generational gap between spiritual fathers and spiritual children will be removed in the sense that they will both have fellowship with each other.

Elijah’s Ministry Restores Fellowship

Unfortunately in many churches, the older brothers don't have much fellowship with the younger brothers. Their hearts are distant from the younger brothers, and the younger brothers despise the older brothers as old-fashioned. However, it says that Elijah will come and remove that distance, and restore the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest “I come and smite the land with the curse,” the Lord says. In other words, it's a serious thing in God's eyes when, in a family, the parents are distant from the children. That is not a good testimony for any Christian family.

Parents and children must be very intimate with each other, and very often, distance comes because parents do not continue to keep the fellowship with their children from childhood. When a child is born, the parents hug and kiss them and talk to them frequently even before the child knows how to speak, but as the children grow up more, there is less and less communication between parents and children. By the time the children become teenagers, there is a distance, and when the children are in their twenties, they hardly ever talk to their parents. This is really sad. The Lord says that He is so sad as a result of this that the earth should be smitten with a curse for this type of thing. Yet many parents don't seem to see the seriousness of it, and they don't see how important it is to restore that relationship with their children. It must begin with the fathers - it’s not the children's responsibility - whose hearts have to be turned to his children, and then that will result in the children’s hearts turning to their fathers.

God Ministers Through the Body in the New Covenant

This is a very important ministry of the last days, and this is what the Lord is going to send Elijah to do. When it refers to Elijah, Jesus said about John the Baptist, “If you accept him (meaning if the Jewish nation Israel accepts John the Baptist), then it would be the fulfillment of that prophecy.” However, we know that they did not accept him. They rejected him, and finally Herod beheaded him. So there's going to be another Elijah who is going to come before the second coming of Christ, and that will not be one person. In the Old Testament, the Prophets were individuals - Jeremiah, Isaiah, Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist; but as soon as Jesus came, He never sent out His disciples one by one, but always two by two. That is what is carried on in the Acts of the Apostles. The Lord sent out His first missionary teams always two by two - Paul and Barnabas, Peter and John, going to the temple. You read in Acts 3, after the day of Pentecost, it was always two by two, and that is because in the New Covenant, the Lord ministers through a body, not through an individual. This is never true in the Old Testament, as the Prophets all worked individually. The only exception could be just before the New Covenant began -- Haggai and Zechariah -- otherwise, all the Old Testament Prophets worked individually. In the New Covenant, however, it’s never individual; it's a body.

So the anointed body of Christ on earth, the new man, is going to be the Elijah. It's a church of living, powerful, anointed, Spirit-filled people that is going to be the Elijah in the last days, proclaiming, bringing together spiritual fathers with spiritual children and earthly fathers with earthly children and preparing the way again for the second coming of Christ. This is the important thing: that just like John the Baptist prepared Israel for the first coming of Christ, the church is going to prepare people for the second coming of Christ saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” And just like John the Baptist’s message was one of repentance, the main message that the church has to proclaim in this day and age just before the coming of the Lord is, “Repent.” There is a tremendous need for the Spirit of Elijah to be manifested in the proclamation of the gospel to Christians today.

The last messages of Jesus to the church in Revelation 2 and 3, to the five churches that were backslidden, was, “Repent.” Repentance is the last message that Christ gave to the church. When He was on earth, He was preaching repentance to sinners; in the Acts of the Apostles, they preached repentance to sinners; and in the book of Revelation, the same message is given to the church: the church needs to repent. This is also the message of John the Baptist, and the church, in the Spirit of Elijah, needs to proclaim it as well, just like Elijah just stood on Mount Carmel and said to the Israelites, “Choose whom you want to serve - Jehovah or Baal. You cannot serve both” (1 Kings 18:21).

No One Can Serve Two Gods

We think we understand this very clearly. As we read that, we say, “it’s obvious that people could not serve Jehovah or Baal. Today we don't pray to Jehovah; we pray to our Heavenly Father. We don't call God “Jehovah;” we call Him “Father.” What is Baal representing today? Baal represents money and material wealth, or what Jesus called “mammon,” which is everything connected with earthly wealth. Jesus said in Luke 16:13, “No man can serve two masters - or have two Gods,” just like Elijah said on Mount Carmel, “You cannot serve Jehovah and Baal.” Jesus saying, “You cannot serve God and mammon” is the exact equivalent of what Elijah preached on Mount Carmel. So when the church comes in the Spirit of Elijah in the last days, the prophetic message of the church, which hardly anybody is preaching today, is this: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear: you cannot serve God and mammon. If your heart is set on material wealth, forget about serving God, and if your heart is serving material wealth, just go ahead and serve that god like businessmen”. For example, in the world, they serve the god mammon so devotedly, that they dream about it, live for it, and work day and night for it. Where do we have Christians who work day and night to serve the true God and who are not at all interested in mammon? Most businessmen in the world are not interested in God; they're only interested in mammon and money. Why don't we have equally devoted servants of God who are not at all interested in mammon or money? Where do you find such preachers? This is the sad lack in Christendom. The Apostles were like that - they served God. You never find any collection being raised for the Apostles in the entire New Testament. All the money raised in the Acts of the Apostles and what you read about in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 was always for the poor.

Look to God to Meet Your Needs

The Apostles were servants of God, and they had to trust God for their needs, that God would move people to meet their needs. The Philippians, for example, sent gifts to Paul. He and the Apostles trusted God and didn't live by salaries nor served God and mammon. This is a tragedy in Christendom today, which has ruined God's work. We have multitudes of preachers today who are not trusting God for their needs. They trust some organization, or they are looking to U.S. for help. “Where shall my help come from? Shall I look up to the hills?” the Psalmist says, “No, my help comes from the Lord.” But today's preachers say, “Where shall my help come from? Yes, it comes from this organization; it comes from America; it comes from some western country.” It’s not from God. The tragedy is that they don't look to God, and that's because the church is not coming forth in the Spirit of Elijah saying, “You cannot serve God and money.”

This is such an important message, and the reason why I believe this is needed is because Jesus said to the Israelites, “If you accept him, this is the Elijah who is to come,” but they did not accept him. Therefore, this message needs to come forth in these last days, the message of repentance and the message of choosing today whom you will serve, God or money. Jesus says at the end of Matthew 11:15, “He who has ears, to hear let him hear.” What does he mean by that? What I've just explained above is not something that every Christian wants to hear. Perhaps as you hear it, you may think it is too radical a message, and not so important. If so, then you don't have an ear to hear it. The Lord says, “Forget about you, but there may be someone who is listening to this who does have an ear to hear.” It is only those whom the Lord is trying to reach; He ignores all the others. Even when He was on earth, so many people heard His message and they had physical ears to hear, but inwardly - spiritually - they had no ears to hear. What the Lord was saying to His people then is exactly the same today, and that's why He says, “He who has ears to hear let him hear.” He is speaking about inward ears.

Resist a Critical Attitude Towards God’s Servants

Then He goes on to say in Matthew 11:16, “To what shall I compare this generation?” Remember we are trying to understand all that Jesus taught and trying to study, in depth, what Jesus taught, verse by verse, so that we can practice it ourselves and then proclaim it to others. “What shall I compare this generation to? It’s like children sitting in the marketplace who call out to other children saying, ‘We played the flute and you did not dance, and we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.’” Imagine children saying, “Hey, listen, we're playing a game here. When we play the flute, you must dance, and then when we sing a dirge, you must mourn.” And then the other children don’t cooperate. Then the first children start playing and singing and saying, “Hey we we're over here playing a flute, you should be dancing, but you are not dancing! And we are playing a dirge and you're not mourning!” In the same way, the Lord says that John came neither eating nor drinking. He is comparing them to these children who, whatever you do, think that is wrong. John did not eat or drink - he was fasting and eating locusts and honey in the forest - and they still said he has a demon. Imagine a man resting in camels’ skin and eating all that type of stuff in the wilderness, he might seem like he's got a demon. Jesus comes exactly the opposite of that and verse 17, we see the comparison of two opposites: one is the dance and the other is a funeral song. He is comparing the two, John the Baptist who came fasting and living very simply, not even wearing regular clothes but camel skin etc. and the Son of Man who came wearing the same type of clothes as everybody else wears, eating and drinking and not emphasizing fasting or a simple lifestyle and all that. And the people said, “He is a gluttonous man and a drunkard.” And on top of that, John the Baptist was not a friend of sinners - he had nothing with to do with sinners - but Jesus was.

Christ is Our Example of a Perfect Preacher

Jesus is saying that whatever God's servants do, people can always find something to criticize. This is the attitude of many Christians. Their whole mind is a critical attitude, and whichever servant of God it is, they'll find something to fault him. You may find yourself like that my friend, that every preacher has something wrong with him, and you are the great expert for giving marks to the different preachers saying, “So-and-so gets 30% or 80% or 75%.” You're giving marks, criticizing everyone because it depends on what you want to hear. If you're comparing preachers with Jesus and the Scriptures, that's a very good thing to do. In fact, we should do that. I do it all the time. I seek to compare preachers with Christ. I see Christ as the example of a perfect preacher, Who really showed us how we should serve God, so I seek compare every preacher with Christ. I see whether that person is free from the love of money, like Christ, whether he is humble and approachable, and things like that. We can also compare a person's teaching with the Word of God and see whether it is according to Scripture.

But the attitude that Jesus is criticizing is different; the attitude of always trying to find fault. It says about the Pharisees that they would look carefully to see if there was some way in which they could catch Jesus in some word that He said or something that He did. They were watching carefully, and there are some Christians like that who’ve got shrewd eyes. They don't have ears to hear the truth; they're only watching and listening for something to criticize. Most of these are not even converted people; they only think they are Christians. They may say they are born again, but if they were really born again, they would be delivered from this destructive critical attitude. There is a constructive criticism which always seeks to go directly to the person and speaks in an encouraging constructive way, but there's a destructive criticism which usually speaks behind a person's back and it is only interested in tearing people down and tearing down the work of God. There is a big difference.

Jesus Came to Draw People to Repentance

The Lord says, “John the Baptist came like this and you found fault with him. I have come in a different manner, and you find fault with Me. Well, who is going to satisfy you? Nobody will satisfy you,” and those are the people who don't have ears to hear anybody. If Almighty God came down, they wouldn't listen to even Him, and so He says, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” It is a difficult verse to fully interpret. There could be a depth of meaning in that simple sentence, which is capable of more than one interpretation, that is, the wisdom of a person's life, we could say, will be manifested by the results of his life. Whether a man has wisdom is seen in his deeds, his actions, and in how he lives. The very fact that people who claim to have wisdom are so critical proves that they don't have any wisdom. Those who really have wisdom will behave like Christ and see things to appreciate. They will see what is godly in a person and accept it.

It goes on to say in verse 20 that “He began to reproach the cities in which most of His miracles were done because they did not repent.” It’s very important to understand that the purpose of the miracles, according to Matthew 11:20, was to lead people to repentance. It was not to show people what a great person He was, unlike a lot of so-called healers with fake miracles. They're more like magicians who stand upon a platform and do a magic show to impress people - “You see how cleverly I can fool all of you” - a lot of today's healing ministries are like that, fooling people. A lot of today's so-called supernatural ministries of pushing people down are like a magic show on a platform. We must not be deceived by that. Jesus did miracles in order to lead the people to repentance, and He didn't care what they thought about Him. If they repented, that was it and He wasn’t gathering crowds to demonstrate His healing powers. He was gathering people constantly to repent, and He reproached them because they had seen His miracles but had still not repented.

Jesus mentions the names Chorazin and Bethsaida saying, “Woe unto you! Woe unto you because if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon that had occurred near you, they would have repented.” Tyre and Sidon were non-Israeli cities outside the boundaries of Israel, and sometimes in the Old Testament the prophets denounced them for their sins. The Lord is saying that if these miracles had been done in Tyre and Sidon, those heathen nations, the cities would have repented. “You guys have seen these miracles, and you have heard these wonderful messages, so your responsibility is greater.”

To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Expected

The simple principle in Scripture is that to whom more is given, more is required. The more God has done for us and taught us, and the more we have received God's Word, the more we are answerable to Him for what we have heard. God is not going to judge all people equally. He is very clear in Luke 12 that “To whom more is given, more is required, and to whom less is given, less is required.” It's as simple as in a school, a 3rd standard student is expected to know less mathematics than a 10th standard student. Because the 10th standard student has been taught more, more is expected of him. Less is expected of the 3rd standard student because he's been taught less. This is a very elementary principle, which you understand in schools.

It’s the same thing in the Christian life. There are many Christians today who claim to belong to separate assemblies who know the Word of God better than other groups. They look down on other denominations of churches saying, “We know more than you.” That's probably true, but if you do know more than them, then your standard of life must be much higher than theirs. But is that true? Very often it's not true. There are people who look down on others saying, “I'm filled with the Holy Spirit and I speak in tongues.” If he does, fine for him, but I hope his standard of life is at least a hundred times better than another person whom he accuses of not being filled with the Holy Spirit. If the fullness of the Holy Spirit does not make your life at least 100 times better than the lives of other people who are not filled with the Holy Spirit, then I question what type of spirit you have received.

The Holy Spirit Makes Us Holy

That guy quarrels with this his wife, and you quarrel with your wife. That guy loves money, and you love money. So what has the so-called “fullness of the Spirit” done for you? What has the so-called “speaking in tongues” done for you? If it hasn’t delivered you from anger and from lusting after women, what has it done? It is one of the great deceptions of today, people thinking, ‘Oh, I got a little shaking, a little experience, and I blabbered something, so I'm filled with the Spirit.” Don't be deceived. The Holy Spirit makes us holy. Many people understand that an evil spirit makes people evil, an unclean spirit makes people unclean, and a deceiving spirit deceives. So what does the Holy Spirit do? He makes people holy, not just make a lot of noise. Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people think, that when the Holy Spirit comes, we make a lot of noise. You go to a church’s Sunday meeting where everybody is making a lot of noise, and you think, ‘Oh, they’ve got the Holy Spirit.’

I remember a man once came to our church in Bangalore and said to me, “You don't have the Holy Spirit here.” I said, “How do you know? Have you seen how I speak to my wife at home? Do you see how I handle money? Those are the ways we find out whether a man is filled with the Spirit or not. You don’t know any of those things, so how can you say that?” He said, “Well, you don't have enough noise in the meetings.” “Ha!” I said, “Your trinity is Father, Son and Noisy Spirit. My Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's the big difference. You can follow your trinity if you like, but it’s a false trinity. The Holy Spirit does not make people noisy; He makes them holy.” We may or may not make noise - that depends a lot on our temperament, what we're used to in our life, and factors like that - but holiness is something which the Holy Spirit communicates to every single one whose life He fills. This is so important to understand.

The purpose of the miracles and this message is that we might come to repentance. Otherwise, the Lord says, “These heathen nations are better than you. And you, Capernaum, who have been exalted to heaven, you shall descend to Hades.” Capernaum is full of people who think they're holy, but they’ll go to hell. He says, “If the miracles done in you were done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have remained until today, but in the day of judgment, it'll be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.” I believe that's the word many Christians need to recognize, that it is going to be more tolerable for non-Christians in the day of judgment than for many Christians. How many Christians believe that in the day of judgment it's going to be more tolerable for non-Christians because they never knew the truth, and because they never understood these things? But we understand.

May God help us to take this seriously and really repent.

Chapter 43

Revelation from God

“At that time, Jesus said, ‘I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Your sight’” (Matthew 11:25-26).

This is a fundamental principle for understanding Scripture - God has hidden His greatest truths from clever and intelligent people. In the world, you need to be clever and intelligent in order to understand many things and to work in any earthly occupation. But in spiritual matters, that is no advantage. It can be a handicap. I do not think most people realize this. Many people think that because they have a clever and intelligent mind, they can understand the Bible better. But it is exactly the opposite. The cleverest people in Israel were the Pharisees, and they could not understand Christ. They studied the Old Testament carefully and read the Scriptures every Sabbath (Acts 13:27), but when Jesus Christ (Whom the entire Old Testament spoke about) came into their midst, they thought He was the prince of devils. How much more wrong can anyone be than those people who considered the Son of God to be the prince of devils? Those are complete opposites!! On the other hand, the Roman centurion at the cross, who had never read the Bible in his life, said, “You are the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). So we see that clever and intelligent people in Jesus' lifetime missed the truth, while simple people received it.

When Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15), Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are the Messiah.” How did he know that? Was he cleverer than the Pharisees who studied the Scriptures? The Pharisees studied the Scriptures much more than Peter. Peter was a fisherman. He was not a scribe or a scholar, but God revealed Jesus to him. Jesus said in Matthew 16:17, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father Who is in heaven.” In other words, “Your human cleverness and intelligence did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven revealed it to you.”

There is a great word in the New Testament called revelation. You do not find it so much in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the important thing was understanding. The Old Testament tabernacle had three parts: the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place. This corresponds exactly to man, who was created to be the tabernacle of God. The outer court was visible to everyone, symbolizing the body, which is visible to everyone. The Holy Place and the Most Holy Place were covered by a tent. This tent had two parts, not one. These two parts symbolize soul and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 makes this very clear: man is composed of spirit, soul and body. In that Old Testament tabernacle, there was a thick veil between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, which also symbolized a thick veil between the soul and the spirit.

This meant that man could not go into God's presence - into the Most Holy Place - and that God could not come and dwell in man’s spirit. This is because there was a big veil between the soul and spirit. This thick veil is what we call “self-will” or the “flesh” in the new covenant. In the New Testament, the word “flesh” symbolizes self-will. When the Bible says that Jesus came in the flesh, He did not have any sin in Him. There is no sin in Him at all, but He came with a will of His Own, which He had to deny. Jesus said in John 6:38, “I came from heaven not to do My Own will.” He never did His Own will. As far as He was concerned, the door to His Spirit was constantly open to the Father. Jesus was in perfect communication with the Father. The more self-will you have, the less communication you have with God. Also, pride is one of the big things that block the spirit from being open to God. Jesus had zero pride in Him. We can say that the veil was completely open and rent. The more pride we have, the less communication with God we will have in our own lives.

Why is God against clever and intelligent people? It is not because of their cleverness and intelligence. We have an example of the opposite of Peter, which is the Apostle Paul. Paul had a brilliant mind. He was one of the cleverest and most intelligent people in his generation. If he were living today, he would have been a top computer scientist or rocket scientist or some type of top businessman. He had such a brilliant mind, but he received revelation just like Peter. Paul writes in Galatians 1:16 that it pleased God to “reveal His Son inside me.” Paul got a revelation inside as to Whom Jesus was.

God is not against cleverness and intelligence, because that is something we are born with. You did not create your cleverness or intelligence. Neither did you acquire it by study. It is something you were born with, exactly like the color of your skin or your height. These are natural characteristics that are in us. Some are born with higher intelligence and some are born with less. So how in the world could God be against someone whom He Himself created with greater intelligence? He is not against intelligent people. Why then does Jesus say to God, “You have hidden these things from the clever and intelligent”? Please pay careful attention to this - it is because the more one has which others do not have, the greater the tendency there is for pride in him. If you are a student in a class and everybody is more intelligent than you, you will not be proud. You would be pretty humble. But if you go to another school where everybody in your class is less intelligent than you, you will be proud. Pride comes by comparison. But humility comes by comparison too. When a person is very clever and intelligent, and he compares himself with other people around him, he tends to be proud. It is pride that hinders him from getting revelation.

In another place, Jesus said that it is difficult for a rich person to enter God's kingdom (Matthew 19:23). Some people have inherited a lot of money. They did not chase after money. Maybe their father was a rich man. They inherited a lot of money and are rich. Many millionaires are born into rich families. What can they do? Is God against them because they were born into a million-rupee inheritance? No, but the more wealth a person has, the more he tends to look down on people who are poor. When Jesus speaks about riches, it could be riches of intelligence. It could be riches of money. It could be riches of beauty, personality, attractiveness, gifts or whatever it is that makes us rich compared to others. If it makes us proud, it is impossible to enter God's kingdom. This makes both riches and intelligence dangerous.

That is why God hides things from certain people. You see the truth of that in the rest of the statement – “You have revealed them to infants.” Notice that word, “revelation.” Revelation is a word used in the New Testament to mean God showing something to us that cannot be understood by mere academic study. You can read the Bible and become a scholar. You can get a PhD in biblical studies just like a person can get a PhD in chemistry or physics. It is just academic study. I remember in my younger days, I used to see a lot of Christian workers reading their Bible on their knees and spending hours studying the Bible. I thought they would be very holy people. But I would watch them during the day. They got angry and upset. They loved money. There was every evidence of carnality in everything in their life - competition, jealousy, etc.

I was in my twenties and I was confused. I said, “Lord, what is this? How is it that people who spend so much time with Your Word behave like this?” The same day, the Lord spoke something to my heart that really opened my eyes. The Lord said that even though they are on their knees, they are reading a book. It could be a chemistry book or a newspaper or the Bible. But they are not getting in touch with God reading the Bible like that, anymore than they get in touch with God when they read the newspaper. I discovered that just because you read the Bible on your knees or read it for one hour, it does not mean that you contact God. If you contacted God, your life would be changed! I have experienced times when I have spent 15 minutes listening to a really godly man. The effect of it sometimes lasted for years. 15 minutes with a godly man changed the direction of my life sometimes. Can you imagine what will happen if you spend 15 minutes with God Himself? Here are people spending half an hour reading the Bible, but their lives have not changed. They are not spending time with God. They are using their cleverness and intelligence to read the Bible. Perhaps you are reading the Bible like that. You have a lot of information, but you still fight and quarrel at home. You criticize, backbite, are jealous, and are in competition with others. You have not received revelation. You have a lot of understanding, but the Bible says in Proverbs 3:5, “Do not lean upon your own understanding.” Your own understanding will lead you astray. Trust in the Lord.

Characteristics of Those Who Receive Revelation

What we need is revelation. In Matthew 11:25, the Lord describes those to whom He gives revelation. Jesus taught that with your cleverness and intelligence, you cannot get revelation. What you need is the characteristic that babes have. The Father reveals His truth to babes. What do babes have which clever and intelligent people do not have? Is there any book that only babes can understand, but clever and intelligent people cannot understand? Can you think of any book on any subject that only babes or little children can understand, but clever and intelligent people do not understand? There is only one book like that in the whole world: the Bible. For every other book in the world, if a babe can understand it, any clever person can understand it too. But the Bible can only be understood by those who have this one characteristic of babes. Jesus emphasized that in Matthew 18:3. Jesus picked up a child and said to humble yourself like this little child if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven. The primary characteristic of a babe is humility. There are other characteristics too. For example, a babe has simple trust. A child simply trusts his mother or father. Whatever the mother or father teaches the child, the child believes because he or she trusts. Even if the child is given the wrong information, the child will still believe it. It is simple trust. We cannot trust human beings like that, but we can certainly trust God because God will never give us wrong information. A child has that simple, trustful attitude.

Another characteristic of a child is that he or she is constantly open to understanding truth that it does not know. A child does not think it knows it all. As people grow up, they think they know it all. There are many Christians I met who think they know it all. They will not get any more revelation. They can read the Bible and not get revelation. I have been reading the Bible for 53 years. I find I still get revelation on it when I read it now because I see a lot of truth here that I still do not know. Come to Scripture like a babe, with the recognition that there are a lot of things you do not know. That is how a little child learns. Come to the Scriptures with humility, a simple trust in God, and in openness.

God’s Humility

Jesus said in Matthew 11:26, “Yes, Father, for this was well pleasing in Your sight to do this.” The reason that God gives grace to the humble is because God is a humble Person. How do I know? It says in John 1:18 that Jesus explained the Father. Jesus also said in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Jesus is saying that if you want to know what the Father is like, just look at His life. You do not need to see the Father. When I look at Jesus’ life, the characteristic that that strikes me the most is humility. Jesus, the Son of God, had tremendous humility to wash the dirty feet of those poor fishermen. Jesus said that, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Jesus said those words immediately after washing their feet (He washed their feet in John 13 and said those words in John 14). “Have you seen Me washing their feet just now? That is what the Father is like.” When you see God the Father in heaven one day, you will see that He is a very humble Person. He is not arrogant or dictatorial like so many Christian leaders are. No, these leaders give a false picture of Jesus Christ and God.

God Himself has that nature of humility. He fellowships with people who have that nature. God can give us His nature and we can partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). How do you know that you have partaken of the divine nature? It will make you tremendously humble. If your Christianity has not made you humble, you have not partaken of God's nature. You still have the old Adamic nature of arrogance, pride, and looking down on others. That is a characteristic of Adam. Most so-called born-again Christians that I have met do not know the slightest little thing about partaking of God’s nature. I have seen a lot of others who do not have so much understanding of Christianity or do not claim to be filled with the Spirit and speak in tongues, but they have humility. They partake in God's nature. That is more important than all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This is the way to get revelation. Revelation is the most important thing in the New Testament.

It is through revelation that we get true salvation. It is through revelation that we partake of God's nature. It is through revelation that we build the church - the body of Christ. Very often, we find that churches are congregations and not functioning bodies. The reason is because they do not have revelation. Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:17, “Blessed are you because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.” Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, after speaking of this revelation, “On this rock - the Christ revealed by the Father - I will build my church as the body of Christ”.

Why is it that we have churches where people fight and quarrel with each other? Your two hands have never fought with each other all your life because they are members in one body. When we recognize ourselves as members of one body, we do not fight with each other. As long as we are on this earth, we may not always agree with each other, but we love one another. We may not be able to work together with all believers for various reasons, but we love one another. Every part of this body loves the other part of the body. If you cannot love fellow Christians who disagree with you, I wonder whether you have partaken of God's nature at all. I would even question whether you are born again. The Apostle John tells us in 1 John 3:10 that we know that we are the children of God in that we love our fellow believers.

That this view of life and our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ is the result of revelation. Revelation produces everything in the new covenant. There was no need for revelation in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, only the prophets had revelation. If you wanted to know God's will, you went to a prophet. Today, the Holy Spirit dwells in all believers. You do not have to go to any prophet. Through the Holy Spirit, you can even know God’s will for yourself if you have humility.

The Humility of Jesus

In Matthew 11:26 Jesus said, “All things have been have handed over to Me by My Father.” The Father has given everything into the hands of Christ. The Father has given the entire universe and all authority to Christ. Jesus said that before He went up to heaven as well. Jesus said in Matthew 28:18, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me.” Jesus did not say, “I have it.” He said it was given to Him. There is humility in Christ in saying that it was given to Him. It is so different from the attitude of many Christians and Christian preachers who act as though they have acquired this through a lot of study, fasting and prayer, and other stupid, foolish things that they boast about. Jesus never said that. He never said that He received it through many times of fasting and praying when He was Nazareth. There was no empty boasting in Christ. Everything He did was in secret before the Father. Jesus gave the glory to God by saying, “All authority in heaven has been given to Me, and all things have been handed over to Me by My Father.”

It is so wonderful to see this. Dear brothers and sisters, if you can see it and be gripped by it, it will change your life. It will make you a deeply humble person who is constantly grateful to God for everything that you have, even for physical health. We need more Christians like that in India who are thankful, humble, and grateful - who have this attitude, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.”

Revelation of the Father

In Matthew 11:27, it says, “No one knows the Son except the Father.” Do you think you know Jesus Christ? If you really know the real Christ, that must have come through the revelation of the Father. I do not mean the external Christ. Hindus and Muslims also talk about the external Christ. Even in the Koran, they talk about Jesus being born of Mary and the miracles He did, etc. Many Hindus respect Jesus Christ. I do not mean knowing Christ in that way. A lot of Christians know Christ only in that way, as the external Christ. They have not received revelation like Peter, who received revelation that Christ is God Almighty Who became a Man so that I can become a son of God - One Whose nature I can partake of. They have not received that. They do not know Jesus that way.

No one knows the Son except the Father, but the Father revealed the Son to Peter. We see that in Matthew 16. What He did for Peter, He can do for you and me. He can reveal the Christ to us as well, and that is what we need. Further, Jesus says that no one knows the Father except the Son, and to anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. It is the other way too. A lot of Christians do not know the Father. They say, “God is our Father.” But how can you know whether you really know God as your Father? Do you get anxious about something? Do you get into a panic in different situations? Then I want to tell you that you do not know the Father. When you have a problem, do you turn to God first or you turn to man? If you turn to a man, you do not know the Father.

These are the practical ways we can discover whether we know the Father. If your own father was the prime minister of India and you had a serious problem with the government, would you go to the local inspector of police, or would you ring up your dad, the prime minister of India? You know that you would not go to some junior person. You would not even go to the director general of police, who is a junior person compared to the prime minister of India. You would say, “Why do I need to go to the director general of police? My dad is the prime minister!”

Do you believe that Almighty God is greater than all the rulers of earth and all the greatest dignitaries and powerful men in society? Is He really your dad? Do you know Him as “Dad”? The Bible says in Romans 8:16 that the Spirit within us cries out saying, “Abba!” “Abba” is a Hebrew word which means “Daddy” in English. The Holy Spirit comes within us crying out, looking up to God saying, “Daddy! You have become my Father! You have become my Dad!” It is not the formal title of father, but that intimate title of “Daddy!” The person whose heart cries “Daddy” is the person who knows the Father. The test is in the different circumstances of life. We can pray every day to “Our Father who art in heaven.” I prayed that for years before I knew God as my Father. I accepted Christ when I was 19 and a half, but I would say for sixteen or seventeen years after that, I really did not know God in a personal way. I did not know God as my Dad, to Whom I could go to anytime with any need. If I was sick, I could go to Him and ask Him to heal me. If I had a financial need, I could go to Him. If people were troubling me, I did not have to hate them. I would not have to go here and there. I go to my Dad because He is the most powerful Person in the universe. When you see Christians and Christian preachers begging others for money, is that not an insult to their heavenly Dad? Suppose your father was the richest person in the universe, would you go to some man for money? Never. These are some tests by which we know whether the Father has been revealed to us. Let us go to the Lord and say, “Lord, reveal the Father to me.”

Chapter 44

The Rest That Christ Gives

The Test of If We Know God as a Father

“No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27).

You may think you know the Father, but the tests of whether you really do are two-fold. First, it’s whether He’s the first one you go to whenever you are in need, and secondly, it’s whether you are free from anxiety and fear. When you are sick, do you go to a doctor first or do you go to your Dear Father? There is nothing wrong in going to a doctor. There is nothing wrong in taking medicines. There is nothing wrong in seeking human help. But we must develop the habit of going to our Father first. It is like a little child turning to his parents first when he is in need instead of first going to strangers or neighbors. That is the test of whether we really know the Father. Since no one knows the Father except for Jesus, we need to ask Jesus to reveal the Father to us.

This is the most important need among Christians. A lot of competition, jealousy, and strife exist because of insecurity in many Christians. I have observed that for more than fifty years. I was myself insecure for many years after I was born again. In those years when I was insecure, I wanted to impress people. I was jealous, competitive, afraid, anxious, and defeated in everything. But when I came to know that God is my Father intimately, that became the foundation of my life. Jesus has revealed the Father to me. When God filled me with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to see my Abba - my Daddy in heaven - it changed my whole life. It became the foundation of my life. This is so important. Just like how the Father reveals the Son, the Son reveals the Father. That is connected to what Jesus says in the next verse. Sometimes many people take Matthew 11:28 all by itself. It is one of the bad habits that Christians have. They know individual verses. They memorize verses, which is a very good thing, but very often those memory verses become isolated verses completely out of context. If you meditate only on that verse without seeing the context, you may get some truth, but miss out on the whole truth.

Coming to Jesus for Rest

The Lord Jesus says there, “Here, come to Me. I want to reveal the Father to you, so come to Me. Come to Me, you who are weary, heavy laden with sin, defeated, and insecure with strife and problems in your life.” That is not a verse primarily for unbelievers. What does this verse say that Jesus will do? He will reveal the Father to you. The result of that is that you will get rest. Jesus will give you rest and that rest comes through knowing the Father. There is a connection between Matthew 11:27 and Matthew 11:28 that you will not understand if you just memorize Matthew 11:28 by itself. I myself did that for many years. Jesus wants to bring us to a life of rest.

The Bible says in Isaiah 57:20, “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’”

Unrest and turmoil in the heart is the identifying mark of an evil man. When we talk about evil people, we often think of only terrorists and murderers. But anyone who has insecurity, jealousy, and strife in his heart is to some degree evil. He may not be as evil as a terrorist, but the Bible says if a person’s heart is like the tossing sea, that person is wicked.

Do you find at any time that your heart is disturbed with somebody else? Are you disturbed with what somebody has said about you or did to you? Are you disturbed when you expected somebody to do something, and he did not do it for you? You become disturbed and your heart is like a sea in turmoil. You have seen pictures of roaring waves in a troubled sea. If your heart is like that, then according to Isaiah 57:20, there is some wickedness in it. I do not want to call you a wicked person, but it is wickedness that caused that kind of restlessness inside. God’s will for you is that you might be at rest. Compare that type of troubled sea with another sea described in Revelation 15 where the righteous, godly people are standing. Revelation 15 is a beautiful contrast. Here it describes those who overcame and came out victorious. Revelation 15:2-3 says, “I saw… those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on a sea of glass, holding the harps of God and singing.” This sea of glass is the exact opposite of Isaiah 57:20.

I remember the years when I was in the Navy. I was on ships where I have seen seas in great turmoil. The waves were ten feet high with the ship going up and down, making one seasick. I have also seen seas that are exactly like glass, without a ripple right up to the horizon. There is a great contrast between a troubled sea and a sea like glass. God's will is that we come out victorious from everything that is the opposite of Christ, which is symbolized by the beast. Our inner life will be like standing on a sea of glass, without a ripple, an anxiety, or a fear. You may say that such a life is impossible on this earth. In that case, according to your faith be it done to you. It will be impossible for you, but it will be possible for someone else who has ten times more problems than you and yet says, “No, if God says it is possible, then it is possible.” According to your faith be it done to you. You will have a life like a sea of glass. It does not depend on how serious your problems are. It depends on how much you believe.

Complete Rest is Possible Only for Those with Faith

Jesus says, “I will give you rest.” When the Lord says, “Come to Me, and I will give you rest like a sea of glass,” the next question He asks you is, “Do you believe I can do this for you?” In the story of the blind men in Matthew 9:27-30, Jesus asked them this question, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” They said, “Yes.” Then Jesus said, “According to your faith be it done to you.” That is the law with God - according to your faith be it done to you. It has nothing to do with the number of problems you have or the difficulties or sicknesses you have. I am not saying you will get perfect healing from all your sickness, but I believe you can have perfect rest. Whatever your problems may be, Jesus has promised that He will give you rest.

There is no promise in the New Testament that Jesus will heal all our sicknesses. That does not work on earth (we need to face reality), but He has promised to give us rest - that is a clear promise. We can claim it just like a check signed by Jesus Christ. We can take it to the bank of heaven and say, “Lord Jesus, You said if I come to You, You will not only give me forgiveness of sins, but You will also give me rest. I want it. You said that You will reveal the Father to me. I want to know the Father.” How did you get forgiveness of sins? You came to Christ, and you believed that He would give it. Why is it so many other people in the world for whom Christ died have not received forgiveness of sins? It is because they do not believe; but you believed. It is according to your faith, not according to what we asked for. A lot of people ask and never get anything. If you ask and you do not believe, you will get nothing. We have to ask in faith.

“Come to Me, and I will give you rest.” There is no partiality with Christ. If you come to Him with all your heart and say, “Lord, I am so insecure in my life. I am backsliding. I am failing. I am insecure. I am jealous. I have not been saved,” and if you are honest and tell the Lord the whole thing and say, “Lord, I want to know the Father,” then He will reveal the Father to you. Your life will move to a much higher plane than you have ever known so far. Jesus says, “Come to Me.” Do not go to men. Do not go to preachers. Do not ask some preacher to lay his empty hands on your head. You will get nothing from him. Go to Jesus and ask Him to lay His nail pierced hands on your head. That is how I received the anointing. I did not ask any man to put his hands on my head. I asked Christ to lay His hands on my head.

There is Only One Way to the Father - Through One Mediator, Jesus

I am not saying that God does not use the laying on of hands. But if you do get laying on of hands, make sure it is a really godly man who lays his hands on your head. They are very rare on earth nowadays. A lot of people who lay hands on peoples’ heads only bring confusion into their lives. Come to Christ. Go directly to Christ. You do not need a second mediator. A lot of Christians do not go directly to Christ. Jesus says, “Come to Me.” Who do Christians go to? They go to their pastor. When Jesus says, “Come to Me,” they go to their pastor. No wonder you have problems! I am not saying we should not seek counsel from godly men. Do it by all means, but if you want rest, you have to come to Christ. Unconsciously, sometimes people have made their pastor a second mediator between them and God. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 2:4-5, “There is only one mediator between God and man. That is the Man, Jesus Christ.” He is the only mediator between God and man. I can go to God directly through Jesus Christ.

Our Roman Catholic friends say we have to go through Mary in order to come to Christ. This is a second mediator. You go to Mary, then go to Christ, and then go to God. A lot of Protestants despise that Roman Catholic teaching, but they are doing the same thing themselves. They go to a pastor who then goes to Christ. They go to some so-called prophet, which is usually a false prophet. They ask him, “Can you find out what God wants me to do?” They do not go directly to Jesus. They go through a prophet, and that person is very often only interested in your money and trying to fool you. If you have to go through a second mediator, I would suggest you go to Mary rather than that pastor, because Mary at least was a godly woman! (I am saying that sarcastically..) You do not need a second mediator. Go directly to Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to Me. I will give you rest. Take My yoke up on you and learn from Me. And you shall find rest for your soul.”

This rest is not something that comes automatically without us doing anything. The two mistakes that Christians make (particularly in this realm) are first, to believe that God will do everything, and I have to do nothing. Or second, they think that I have to do everything – “It all depends on me and not upon God. God has finished everything on the cross, but now I have to do everything from now on.” Both are completely wrong. The Christian life is a partnership. What Jesus did on the cross was a finished work. I do not get the benefit of that finished work until I take His yoke upon me. What does it mean to take His yoke upon me (Matthew 11:29)? Unfortunately, we who live in cities hardly ever see two oxen plowing a field. Farmers use tractors these days, but in Jesus’ day, and even today in the villages of India, oxen are used to plow the fields. A yoke is on the neck of the two oxen, and they plow the field together. If an ox dies and a junior ox takes the place of the dead ox, the senior ox has to teach the junior ox how to plow a straight furrow. The senior ox tells the junior ox, “Learn from me. You do not know how to plow a straight furrow, but if you take my yoke upon you, you can learn from me. I have enough experience here. I have done this for years. You are just coming in to learn. Learn from me. Take my yoke upon you, and make sure you do not rush ahead of me or lag behind. When I move forward, walk in the same pace with me step by step. Make sure you do not veer off into some other direction. Stick with the direction I am going. You will find perfect rest. You will be able to do a great job. You will not make a zigzag furrow through the field. It will be absolutely straight.”

His Yoke Is a Partnership, Where We Follow His Lead in Every Situation

That is the picture Jesus is using. He says, “Take My yoke upon you. Learn from Me how to walk straight and upright without any crookedness. Trust Me. I am a Partner with you.” Isn’t that wonderful? A lot of business people would be delighted if the top businessman in the country asked them to be partners with him. They would think, “Wow! The top businessman in the country wants me to be a partner with him?” That is unheard of. The top businessman would not come to some businessman who is just starting to do business and say, “Be a partner with me.” On top of that, the top businessman says, “In this partnership, I will do all the investing with my money. You have to put in nothing, but we will share the profits.” That is unheard of. How in the world can any businessman be willing to do that? But that is what Jesus said. He said, “Come to Me. Take My yoke upon you. Let us form a partnership. You do not have to invest anything, but simply be a partner with Me, 100%. Let us proceed doing God's work together.” This is the way to serve the Lord.

“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me for I am gentle and humble in heart,” Matthew 11:29.

How do we come to this life of rest? It is not by study. It is by the character of our heart changing through our fellowship with Jesus Christ. Taking Christ’s yoke upon us is a picture of fellowship. We have to be very careful not to rush ahead or lag behind. Fellowship means walking with Him and not going off in some other direction. For example, one day you want to watch some television program or a movie. But you are absolutely sure in your heart that Christ would not be willing to sit and watch with you. If He were in the room, He would walk out. What are you doing then? You are letting Him go. You are going off in some other direction. You will not have rest in your soul. You may enjoy the movie. Your carnal self may enjoy the movie, but you lose your rest. That is just one example.

Or suppose that you come into a situation in the office where you are asked to do something unrighteous. Your conscience says no. But you can do it and think to yourself, “Well, I will get some benefit out of it. My boss has asked me to do it. I will get some profit out of the whole thing.” You know that Jesus would not do it. If Jesus were sitting there with you, you would not sign that paper. But you go ahead and sign it because of the benefit you can get. You have veered off into another direction. No wonder you get unrest!

There are many other instances like that. For example, you could be tempted to speak a rude word to somebody in your home or in your office or on the road when somebody violates the rules of the road. These are the occasions in life where we tend to veer off. “I want to go in my own direction. I want to say what I want to say. I want to let that person have a piece of my mind.” That is how we miss God's will. That is how we come into unrest.

Learning Two Things: Gentleness and Humility

This is a great verse: “Learn gentleness and humility from Me.” Jesus never told us to learn how to preach from Him. A lot of people spend hours trying to learn how to preach. They spend even more hours learning how to sing and how to play instruments. That is fine, but the one thing Jesus did tell us was to learn was gentleness and humility from Him. It is more important in your life to learn gentleness and humility than to learn to play a musical instrument or to learn to sing perfectly. All that is good, but the good can be the enemy of the best. The best is to learn gentleness and humility, because that will help you in your life. Singing and playing musical instruments will only help you to have a ministry and get some honor from men. Are you willing to come to Christ and say, “Lord, I want to learn two things fundamentally from you”? “I do not primarily want to learn all the details about prophecy and doctrines, but I want to learn about gentleness and humility”? Many other things will fall into place when you learn these two. These are the two primary things that Jesus said we must learn from Him. This is because what we have inherited from Adam is the exact opposite of these. The nature of Adam has made us hard and proud. We are very hard on people. We are not hard on people whom we are afraid of, but we are hard on people who are gentle and quiet. We take advantage of them.

That shows just how evil we are. We are hard on people. We are very proud of any little thing that we accomplish which makes us better than somebody else. This brings pride into our heart. God is the enemy of the proud. If God is your enemy, you will never have rest. Jesus said to learn from Him the two opposites of the nature of Adam: humility and gentleness. This is the fundamental difference. If you want to come into a life of rest, you better take this seriously. How do we learn from Jesus? Jesus is not here physically. It is not by sitting and waiting for some revelation from God to know what Jesus is like. We learn from Jesus by reading the Scriptures (especially the gospels), and by seeing how Jesus conducted Himself. See how Jesus spoke to others. See how Jesus related to people. See His attitude towards all types of people from Pharisees to prostitutes to evil people to money changers to lepers to sinful people. There I can see His gentleness and His humility. And if I am willing to learn from Him, I will come to a life of rest. That is God's will. It is God's will that we should come to a life of rest.

Hebrews 4:9 says, “There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” This is not the rest that Joshua gave to the Israelites in Canaan (Hebrews 4:8). That is only a picture. If Joshua had given them that rest, then he would not be speaking again of a rest after that. In Psalms 95:7-8, it says “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” The rest that Joshua gave to the Israelites in Canaan was only a picture. There is another rest symbolized by the Sabbath. That is the rest that we can experience in our lives. This is the rest Jesus spoke of. The Old Testament Sabbath is a very important law, but like everything in the Old Testament, it is a picture of something we can experience today. We can experience this life of rest today.

This is what Jesus taught. He said to go into every nation and teach people what He has taught. This is one of His commands. “Come to Me and learn from Me,” are commands. Jesus said to go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them and teach them to do everything He has commanded. This means to teach them to come to Him. This means to teach them to learn humility and gentleness from Him. That is what we are going to do right now. And finally, Jesus said, “When I tell you to take my yoke upon you, it is not going to be like the yoke of the law. It will not be full of ’Thou shall, thou shall not, you shall, you shall not.’ It will not be with a heavy burden. My yoke is easy, and My load is light.”

The commandments of Jesus are not like the commandments of the Law in this sense. It is like the verse of a poem I read: The Law commands us to run, but Jesus commands us to fly much higher. The Law says do not commit adultery, but Jesus says do not even lust with your eyes. The Law commands us to run, but Jesus commands us to fly.

There's one big difference, however. The Law commands us to run, but it does not give us feet or hands. How can you run if you do not have feet or hands? Jesus commands us to fly, but He gives us wings. Which is easier? Is it easier to run without legs or to fly if you have wings? Definitely it is easier to fly with wings. The new covenant command is to fly. The Old Testament commandment is run. The New Testament command is to fly, but the difference is that the Law could not give us legs. Jesus gives us wings.

Chapter 45

True Sabbath Rest and Dealing with Legalists

Jesus tells us that we will find rest when we take His yoke upon us (Matthew 11:29-30). It’s a great word for us, and it is so applicable to the time in which we live. We are living in a time of tremendous turmoil, and there are many events around the world that can bring a lot of fear into our hearts. Jesus warned us that there would be much perplexity on earth and that men would faint from fear and expectation of what is to come upon the world (Luke 21:25-26). What a prophetic word for the times in which we live. There is fear of depression, financial recession, and other calamities. People are in perplexity, and they are afraid in such a time as this. This is just the word we need. The Lord says, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:29-30).

The Apostle John lived to be ninety-five or older, and it was around that age that he wrote the first letter of John. In that letter, he writes that God’s commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3). He had probably been filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and now after sixty-five years of living with the Spirit and obeying God, He can still say that God’s commandments are not burdensome. John was able to say from first-hand experience, that Jesus’ yoke was easy, and His burden was light, because that was how it has been for him.

Do you find any commandment of God to be a burden? Have you read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and felt that some of them are incredibly difficult to obey? Is it difficult to live by God's standards? Many Christians say that it is. There are people who have come to my church in Bangalore and told me, “Brother Zac, your standards are too high!” I respond that we’re just preaching God's Word. We never go beyond His Word. If we go beyond God’s word, we will be legalistic. Instead, we preach exactly to the level of His Word. We're not going to lower the standard to please anyone, because if we were to lower it, we would no longer be the church that Jesus wants to build.

Where Do You Insist Upon High Standards?

We teach total freedom from sin. When people say that this church has too high a standard, I compare such complaints with refusing to go to a hospital because its standard for hygiene is too high. If the treatment were free, would you ever say that you would like to go to a hospital that is a little dirtier? Would you complain against a hospital because the standard is too high? Or, would you complain against a school, because its standard of education is too high? You wouldn’t go to the principal and say that you can’t admit your child there because the standard of education or the standard of discipline is too high, because you want your child to get a good education and to be well-disciplined.

Why is it that we always want the best standards for our schools and hospitals, but when it comes to the Christian faith, we're willing to take lower levels of spiritual hygiene, lower levels of spiritual education? It’s because we value health and education, but we don't value our spiritual lives. That’s the plain truth, and it’s why we might say such ridiculous things as, “I’d like to attend the same church my grandfather and great-grandfather always belonged to.” Really? Would you like to go to the same school that your great-grandfather attended? Would you put your child in the same hospital that your great-grandmother was admitted to when she was sick? No—you want to go to a better school and a better hospital today. It’s because you value health and you value education, but you don't look for a better church because you don't care for spirituality and you don't care for God. You might not have heard the plain truth before, but you can hear it today, because we seek to proclaim the whole truth that is in God's Word.

Two Powerful Prayers to Pray

I have told God that before I leave this earth I want to obey every single commandment He has given for Christians to obey. Not the ones He gave to Israel, such as killing lambs and paying tithes, but everything that He gave Christians to obey—to give cheerfully, to make inner sacrifices hidden from men, to never lust with my eyes, to never to tell lies, and to never be angry—I want to obey all these commands before I leave this earth. I don’t want to leave this earth with any of these commands unfulfilled in my life. I want to encourage you to pray that little prayer.

I've also prayed, “Lord, I want to claim every promise You have given for Christians on earth.” If you get ten checks in the mail, you don't go and cash just five of them. You go and deposit all ten of them. There are many promises in Scripture, and just like the checks, I want to cash all of them before I leave this earth, because each of them is meant for me. You also would do well to ask God to help you obey every commandment in the Bible before you leave this earth, and also to help you claim every promise for Christians before you leave this earth. His commandments are not burdensome. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. Come to Him, and He will give you rest (Matthew 11:28-30).

True Sabbath Rest

In Matthew 12, Jesus contrasts this kind of rest with the false rest of the Pharisees, who were trying to keep their understanding of the Sabbath. In Him is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Sabbath. If you come to Him, you will stand on a sea of glass where there is no fear, anxiety, tension, bitterness, jealousy, nor turmoil inside your heart, but in their place, there is rest. The Pharisees didn't understand the real meaning of the Sabbath, and Jesus exposed them through two incidents that took place on the Sabbath day (Matthew 12:1-13) that came right after He invited the weary and heavy-laden to come to Him and to take His yoke upon them so that they would find rest for their souls.

In Matthew 12:1, Jesus walked through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and His disciples, becoming hungry, began to pick heads of grain and eat them. In the Old Testament, there was a law permitting you to pick food from another person's field to eat. You couldn't take a basket and collect food from their field to sell or take home, but you could pick something to eat then and there. It was a law God gave to teach people to be generous. Therefore, what the disciples were doing was perfectly lawful. The problem was they were doing it on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees accused them of doing something unlawful, saying that you can’t pick the heads of the grain on a Sabbath day, even if you're hungry. Jesus defended His disciples, just as He always defended those being attacked by legalists (even sinners). When legalists wanted to stone a woman caught in adultery, Jesus quickly came to the side of the woman, saying, “He who is without sin can throw the first stone” (John 8:7). They all went away, beginning with the eldest, because they knew that if they picked up a stone, Jesus would have revealed all their sins.

Jesus always defends His people from legalists. His disciples were not perfect, but Jesus defended them. He is always against legalists—remember that. He would rather take the side of the sinner and try to save them, than be with the legalists, who try to condemn the sinner. On the Sabbath day in the grain fields, when the Pharisees accused His disciples, Jesus reminded them what the Bible had recorded about David. When he was being chased by Saul, he and his companions entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread (1 Samuel 21:6) because they were hungry. In those days, there was no temple, but David came to the tabernacle and asked the priest there for any food they might have. All that was available was the consecrated bread, and it was not lawful for any non-Levite priest to eat it. God Himself had given the law that permitted only Levites to eat the consecrated bread placed on the table in the Holy Place. Yet, David took and ate it, and God didn't kill him. Then, Jesus gave the Pharisees another example: He reminded them of how, on the Sabbath, the priests go into the temple and perform their service there without breaking the law. He finishes by telling them that something greater than the temple had come—the Son of God— so if the priests could do what they did for David in the Old Testament temple without violating the Sabbath, then surely His disciples could eat from the grain fields as they walked through them on the Sabbath.

God didn’t make man after He made the Sabbath. The Sabbath wasn’t created on the sixth day, and man on the seventh. God didn’t think to Himself, “We made a law, now we’ve got to make man so that there can be someone to obey that law.” It wasn't like that. Man was made on the sixth day, and the Sabbath was made subsequently, to bless man. It was created to be a day of rest for him, to have fellowship with God. But the Pharisees had made it into a rigid commandment, bringing bondage.

Do Not Judge by Appearance or Man-Made Rules

Jesus sees what they are doing and says to them, “If you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT A SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (Matthew 12:7). He is quoting Hosea 6:6 here. The same desire to condemn innocent people can be found among many Christians today. They look at someone, judge him, and condemn him. One of the commandments that Christians disobey most today is the commandment in John 7:24, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” Jesus didn't say that you can’t judge. He only said to judge righteously, and not just by what we see on the outside.

Often Christians will just look at someone and will have already passed judgment. They will consider external things, such as what a man is wearing. He might have on jewelry, which the one passing judgment chooses not to wear. Or, he might wear a t-shirt when he goes to church on Sunday morning, and the other man thinks that he must a wear a long-sleeved shirt to church, or some other stupid rule like that, not found anywhere in Scripture. You’ll only find one rule in Scripture about how to dress, and it’s not on how to dress on Sunday mornings, but about how women should always dress modestly, every hour of every day, and especially when they’re in public. Other than that, there's no law on how to dress.

Even so, Christians make all types of rules. They are religious legalists, and they pass judgment on others who might be ten times more spiritual than them in their private lives, just as we see in this incident with the Pharisees. To such Christians, I would say what Jesus said—Go and learn the meaning of “I desire compassion and not sacrifice.” Stop condemning innocent people for breaking religious laws that God has not made. You have taken God’s laws and made them into something much bigger than He intended.

That's what the Pharisees did. The Sabbath was one of God’s laws. God instructed man not to work on the Sabbath, because God wanted him to have at least one day of the week to spend in fellowship with Him. That was the purpose of the Sabbath, but the Pharisees didn’t bother about fellowship with God. If they had had fellowship with Him, they wouldn't have condemned the disciples. Instead, they made all sorts of nonsensical rules about what you could and couldn’t do on the Sabbath. For example, one of God’s laws concerning the Sabbath prohibited you from lifting a burden on the Sabbath day, meaning that on that day you should not be carrying around heavy items, such as suitcases. They began to nitpick the law and even set standards for how much your shoes could weigh, because if they weighed more, you’d be lifting a burden whenever you walked. Can you imagine a more stupid rule than that? And these Pharisees would sit down and try to decide whether you could eat the egg that a hen laid on the Sabbath, given that neither you nor a Gentile employed by you could work on the Sabbath. You see how stupid these people were, and you will find so many Christian legalists today, who examine others with all types of silly standards, while they themselves are committing much bigger crimes. They lack compassion, and they think that God cares primarily about our sacrifices. Yet, Jesus taught compassion (“I desire compassion and not sacrifice”), and we must pay attention to all that Jesus taught.

Jesus ends by saying, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8). Jesus reminds them that He is the Lord of the Sabbath, and as the One who gives of all the commandments, He is far greater than the commandments themselves.

Jesus Wants to Heal Lives Withered by Sin

Departing from the place, He enters their synagogue and finds a man there with a withered hand. To me, this man is a picture of many of the Christians sitting in churches today, whose lives are withered by sin. Their sins are forgiven. They are born-again Christians. But, they are perpetually defeated by sin, perpetually lusting with their eyes. They are slaves to internet pornography, slaves to anger, slaves to an unforgiving spirit. And they are withered exactly like this person here. This man’s hand was withered, but the whole soul and spirit of each of these Christians is withered, which is much worse. It is much better to have a withered hand than a withered soul and spirit.

Jesus wants to come and heal these born-again Christians, yet the religious leaders don't want that. They will not permit someone who preaches total deliverance from sin to come and preach to their churches, because it would expose how the religious leaders themselves are defeated. The preacher would get up in front of the church and ask the pastor— “What can you teach these people if you still shout at your wife?” The pastor sitting there would feel condemned because he shouts at his wife and doesn't preach victory over sins. That’s why he won’t let such a preacher come to his church. He will allow everybody in the church to remain in their withered lives, so long as they pay their tithes, and he continues to get receive his salary, in order to live comfortably. Instead, he’ll continue preaching the forgiveness of sins and reassure them that the rest that Jesus taught is not important.

Legalists Are Fault-Finders Who Broaden God’s Commands

That’s the condition of many churches today, and we see that it was the same with the legalists that Jesus interacted with The Pharisees knew that Jesus would heal the man with the withered hand, so they questioned Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” They wanted Him to say something so that they could accuse Him. We still have sharp-minded Pharisees in Christian churches today who want to find some fault with God’s servants. They look for some fault so that they can accuse. Their whole purpose is to accuse because they are in fellowship with Satan; because he accuses Christians day and night, they also accuse their brethren with him.

Jesus asked them a question. “If one of your sheep were to fall into a pit on the Sabbath, would you leave the sheep there for twenty-four hours? Would you say, ‘Today is the Sabbath day, I am not supposed to do any work, so I won’t pull him out today. I’ll wait till the Sabbath is over before I pull him out’? Wouldn’t you instead pull out the sheep immediately, without bothering about whether it was breaking the Sabbath or not? Don't you think a man who has fallen into a pit, as this man has, is of more value than a sheep? Is it wrong to pull this man up and make him healthy? Rather, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day”.

We may not have the same problem with the Sabbath, because most of us have nothing to do with it, but we can nitpick over other laws. We make these laws stricter than God has made them, and we condemn others when they don't obey them. It's very easy to slip into this sort of legalism. I am not encouraging you to disobey small laws, because Jesus said that if you keep the least of God’s commandments, you will be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:19). Yet, if you cancel even the least of His commandments, you will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. You won’t go to hell, but you will be called least in the kingdom. There are commandments that are small, and there are commandments that are great. Jesus Himself makes it clear. And if you ignore even the least of these commandments, you will lose your position in heaven.

I'm not encouraging you to disobey the small commandments, and I am also warning you not to make any commandment broader and stricter than God has made it. Leave it just as it is.

An Example of Broadening God’s Commands

There is a commandment given in 1 Corinthians 11 that a woman should veil her head when she prays or prophesies. It’s a very clear commandment, and Paul explains the meaning of it right there in the letter. A woman’s head covering is a symbol of her submission to her husband or to a man's authority in the Church. However, people can expand that commandment and say that women should have their hair covered all the time, even when they are not praying or prophesying. That’s ridiculous! Those are the Pharisees of today. I’ve met some of these people, and they ask me whether my wife veils her head all twenty-four hours of the day. I respond, saying that she covers her head when she prays or prophesies, and she covers it when she sings praises to God during a church service. Then they’ll say that the Bible tells us to be praying always. See how they misuse this other verse? I have to ask them, does your wife veil her head when she’s in bed or asleep? Once someone said, “Yes, my wife covers her head even then.” I said, “Amazing! Let me ask another question. Does she veil her head when she's taking a shower or bathing? Shouldn't she be praying even then?” I got no reply to that question.

This is how Jesus silenced legalists, and that’s how I've been able to silence them as well. We have to be very careful to not stretch God's commandments beyond what He says. That's what we can learn from Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in the grain field and in the synagogue. Jesus instructed them to teach even the least of the commandments in their entirety, but not to make them bigger and stricter than God made them.

Legalists Seek to Destroy God’s True Servants

Jesus told the man with the withered hand to stretch out his hand, and when he did, it was restored. Imagine how excited you’d be if you saw someone with a withered hand healed. You’d be shouting, “Hallelujah!” And everybody else should be excited too. But the Pharisees went out, and they counseled together against Jesus, the One Who healed him, as to how they might destroy Him. What a strong word, “destroy.” Must they not have been inspired by the devil himself? Great Bible scholars can be inspired by the devil when they want to hurt others. Here, these scholars wanted to kill Jesus physically, and today many great Bible scholars may try to kill other servants of God with their words. The tongue is the weapon they use, rather than a dagger nor a spear. In their messages, books, and essays, they hit out against people proclaiming total freedom from sin, the healing of a withered life.

Don’t Take Unnecessary Risks

Jesus was aware of their intentions, and so He went away from there. He didn't stay to prove that He was a brave person. Jesus said that when you are persecuted in one city, go to another. If someone in a place wants to kill you, don't try to show your bravery by remaining there. And Jesus, knowing the Pharisees sought to kill Him, withdrew from the place and went somewhere else. In John 7:1, we read that Jesus was aware that the people in Judea wanted to kill Him, and so He stayed away from there. Why should He go there if they were going to try to kill Him? But later on in that same chapter, Jesus did go to Judea, when His Father told Him to. We learn from His example that we are not to take unnecessary risks. We must be willing to go anywhere the Lord tells us to go, knowing that He will protect us. However, we should not take unnecessary risks to show how brave we are or to show off our faith.

Chapter 46

Healing and Compassion

Jesus Healed All - as an Attestation

“Many followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matthew 12:14-15). This is one of those places in Scripture, similar to the passage in Matthew 8, where not a single person remained without being healed. Today, all those who claim to be healing people like Jesus are just deceiving you because in all their healing ministries, not even 1% of the sick people are healed. Even in the churches that proclaim Jesus as Healer, not even 1% of the sick people there are healed. That's not the healing ministry of Jesus. Don't be fooled. Jesus heals people and we can ask the Lord for healing. I have experienced healing myself and I've seen people healed. But this happens in 1%of the cases or less, I must be honest.

Sometimes God Chooses Not to Heal

There could be many reasons for this. Sometimes it could be the sin in someone’s life, or sometimes God may, as in Paul's case and Timothy’s stomach infirmities, allow it for a particular purpose. There could be many reasons that we don't know. But when Jesus healed in these incidents, He healed them all as an attestation of the fact that He was the Son of God. This is not something that He told us to imitate. In the history of Christianity, nobody has ever imitated it. Even the Apostle Paul could not heal the stomach aches of his co-worker, Timothy. A man like Paul, who raised Eutychus from the dead, could not heal a small thing like a stomach ache. Scripture also says in 2 Timothy 4:20 that Paul left his co-worker Trophimus sick in Miletus.

So we must not be confused by the attestation of Jesus’ ministry by total healing and imagine that we ought to do the same thing. Otherwise you will live in a world of delusion and fool other people into trying to live a type of Christianity that is not being lived by anybody. If you believe in such a lie, you can be led astray in many other areas as well. I mention that as a word of caution. Don't go to one extreme where you say every sick person will be healed and don't go to the other extreme where you say no sick person will be healed. Both are wrong - the narrow way lies between the two. God still heals, but He doesn't heal everyone, for reasons best known to Him.

Jesus Warned People Not to Speak of Healing

Then, “He warned them not to tell who He was” (Matthew 12:16). Jesus warned them whenever He healed people. What a strong word! He didn't just tell them, He “warned” them. It's like warning people against a danger. He warned them not to make this known. He never said that when people were telling others that He was the One Who forgives sins or that He was the Messiah. Philip went and found Nathanael and said, “We have found the Messiah.” Jesus didn’t say that was wrong. He never prevented anyone from saying that He can forgive sins. But He did warn them whenever He healed people. He said, “Don't tell anyone that I healed you.” Why was that? Because if He didn’t, then a lot of people would come to Him, not for something spiritual, but for something physical. That's the great tragedy. A lot of people today are being drawn with the message of, “God will bless you physically and materially.” It is the very thing Jesus said not to teach. He said, “I will heal you spiritually, I will give you rest, I will make you gentle and humble like Me, I will make you spiritual and holy; but don't advertise the other things too much.” Of course there were some people who disobeyed in Jesus’ time, and a lot of people disobey it today.

Look Carefully at Jesus

It says, "This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: 'Behold, My Servant Whom I have chosen; My Beloved in Whom My soul is well-pleased'” (Matthew 12:17-18). This is a quotation from Isaiah 42:1 – “Behold My Servant,” which means “Look carefully at My Servant.” It is a wonderful exhortation to look carefully at Jesus. All of us need to obey that exhortation. Look carefully at Jesus, “Whom I have chosen. I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel, nor cry out; Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets” (Matthew 12:18-19). God says, “Look carefully at My Servant, Who never quarrels with anyone.”

My brothers and sisters, why do you quarrel with your husband, wife, other sisters or brothers, neighbors or coworkers in the office? It’s because you do not look carefully at Jesus. He says look carefully at My servant Who will never quarrel with people. He stood for the truth -- He drove out the money changers from the temple -- but He never quarreled with people when they spat on His face and called Him a devil. He was not going to fight with any of them. He did not fight with flesh and blood because He was leading us into the New Covenant. He is the mediator of a better covenant. The Old Covenant involved fighting with the Goliaths and Canaanites and Midianites etc., but in the New Covenant, we fight with Satan. He did not quarrel at all.

I want to encourage you that there is a great need for such Christians in our land, who look carefully at Jesus, to stop quarrelling, to finish with it in their lives permanently. It is possible, and I have found it true in my own life. It was not true for many years because I did not look carefully at Jesus. I looked at other Christians, and I found most of them quarrelling. I followed them in my blindness and stupidity, until I learned to look carefully at Jesus. He did not quarrel, He did not cry out, nor would anyone hear His voice in the streets. You don't have to shout and yell to impress people with the power of the Holy Spirit. It says here Jesus did not raise His voice and shout. If He was preaching inside a house, they wouldn't hear Him on the streets. Isn’t it wonderful that His preaching was not with the yelling and shouting and frequent “Hallelujahs”?

Many people think that if a person yells and shouts and bangs the table and says ’Hallelujah’ every two minutes, then he is a mighty servant of God. This is absolute rubbish. Jesus was not like that. In all of His sermons, He never said a single Hallelujah, nor did He raise His voice. There may be a place where you raise your voice for emphasis, but to think that this is the time when you are really filled with the Holy Spirit is wrong. There are a lot of churches where they think if the noise level during a time of singing raises up to a very high level and the emotional pitch becomes very high, that the Holy Spirit is come. This is a deception. The Holy Spirit's presence is not recognized by the decibel level of the sound or the emotional high that people are having. It is by purity and by a Spirit of praise, genuine praise, which makes people fall on their faces and worship God, and recognize the holy presence of the Son of God in the midst of the meeting. That is the mark of the Holy Spirit. It is very important to understand what Jesus would and would not do. These are some of the things He did not do; but what did He do?

Jesus Has Not Given Up on You

“A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out, until He leads justice to victory” (Matthew 12:20). That means, He would take a battered reed and make it holy, and He would blow a smoldering wick to a flame. What are a battered reed and a smoldering wick? People who are discouraged and failures, who have made a mess of their lives like many Christians, constantly defeated and without hope. I've had numerous letters from people on the verge of suicide; they are the battered reeds. They have been battered by preachers who condemn them. Once upon a time they were smoldering wicks where the flame was burning, but it died out due to circumstances, difficulties, problems in marriage etc. But the Lord says, “Don't give up! Don't get discouraged! I can help you.” He can take the most battered or broken reed and fix it. Most people would just throw it away and pick another reed, but the Lord says, “No! I will fix that broken reed and blow a smoldering wick to a flame.”

I want to say to you who are discouraged and defeated, and feel that your life is a total failure, that you may have done so many wrong things in your life (you may have tried to get victory for a long time and you never obtained it, you may have heard messages of victory and their effects seem to only last for a very short time), but Jesus has not given up on you. I don't care how battered you are as a reed. I don't care if the flame is gone out from your life and you're just a smoking wick now (which is worse than a wick that is not smoking - a wick that was never lit - because smoke is very uncomfortable).

The Lord says, “Even if you're like that, I will blow you to a flame. I can put the fire of God back into your life.” I hope you will hear this word from the Lord to you, that He will repair that broken reed. He will blow that wick back to a flame. The Lord can do it! I would ask you the same question that He asked the blind people, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” Do you believe that even though your life is so utterly defeated and a failure in the eyes of men, and probably a bigger failure in your own eyes - because you know all the secret sins in your life – even still, do you believe that the Lord says, “I can lead you to a glorious, holy life”? That was my experience forty years ago. Even as a Christian, I was thoroughly defeated. I had no fellowship and I was not part of a living Church. I did not have a spiritual father or a godly example that I could follow, and I never had anyone explain the New Covenant to me and tell me that I could have a life of victory. I was defeated and utterly backslidden as a born-again Christian. But at the depth of my defeat, when I was at rock bottom, this is what the Lord did:

The only righteous thing that God could have done to me when I was at rock-bottom as a hypocrite, preaching things that were not true in my life, was to have sent me to hell. But He didn't do that. If He had only forgiven me completely, that itself would have been more than enough. But He did more than just that. He not only forgave me completely, He also filled me with the Holy Spirit, teaching me that God does not give the fullness of the Holy Spirit to those who deserve it or those who earn it through years of fasting and prayer. He gives it to those who desperately need it. I certainly did not deserve it and I certainly did not spend years in fasting and prayer, but I desperately needed the power of the Holy Spirit. Oh yes, I certainly needed the power of the Holy Spirit. I learnt through this that God meets people at the place of their need - when they are not looking at others and judging them, when they are not trying to earn the fullness of the Spirit, but saying, “Lord I need it, because if there is anyone on earth who needs it, it's me. I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Here is an illustration: Suppose you are working at a company and you’ve done a lot of wrong things - you’ve broken some of their machines and ruined them. They had to spend a lot of money, maybe hundreds of thousands of rupees, fixing all those machines because you ruined some of them. But they still have not fired you from your job. So you should be thankful for that. Then one day you carelessly do something, and ruin one of their most expensive machines that cost millions of rupees. Now you're sure they will sack you because you messed up so badly. Then you get a call from the managing director and he says, “I want you to come and see me.” You know what he is going to say. Not only are you going to be sacked, but you are going to pay huge fines etc. or you’re probably going to jail if you can’t pay the fines. But you go there and you get the surprise of your life when he says, “That’s okay, I have forgiven you for what you did, and not only that, I want to make you the deputy managing director of this company.” You would think he's joking. But he says, “No, I'm not joking. I'm giving you a big raise in your salary.” There is no company in the world that will do that. But this is exactly what God did to me, and this is exactly what God has done to many people around the world. He can do the same for you too.

Encouragement for Battered Reeds

I write this as an encouragement to you who are battered reeds and smoking wicks. I was more battered than all of you and the fire had gone out from my life long before. I was a thoroughly backslidden, defeated Christian. More than forty years ago, God met with me, filled me with the Holy Spirit, and turned my life around. He can do that for you as well. It has never been the same. Once God touches you and fills you with the Spirit and you realize that you received what you don't deserve, you will never look down on another battered reed again. I have seen a lot of battered reeds in the last thirty-seven years, as I have planted churches in different places, but God is my witness: I've never despised or looked down on any of them, as though they are inferior to me. I've seen smoking wicks in whom the fire has gone out years ago. I don't despise them because I know what a smoking wick and battered reed I was, and yet God never despised me. I have hope for every backslidden Christian in the world. I have hope for the worst sinner in the world because I know what God did for me. I can understand a little bit of what Paul said when he said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am the chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). That is the message of the gospel. It says, He will not give up or be discouraged “until He leads us to victory, and in His name the gentiles will hope” (Matthew 12:20-21). I hope you trust in this Savior Who can lead you to this wonderful life. This is what Jesus taught, and this is what we need to experience and proclaim wherever we go.

Pharisees Were Jealous

In the next verse, “a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus” (Matthew 12:22). It's amazing that there are cases where a demon possesses a person and the person becomes blind and also mute. It is very rare to meet a person who is both blind and mute. I have never seen someone who was both blind and mute. I've seen people that are blind and people that are mute, but a person who is blind and mute is such a rarity. But here was a man who was blind and mute because he was demon-possessed, and Jesus healed the man. He cast out the demon with a word, the man's eyes were opened, and he could see. “All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, 'This Man cannot be the Son of David, can He?'” (Matthew 12:23). But the Pharisees were jealous.

There are a lot of preachers who want all the admiration of people for themselves but they cannot bear to see somebody else drawing people to a better gospel and turning away from the inferior gospel that they presented. So they become jealous and their jealousy makes them judge others. Don't be disturbed if you are the object of jealousy by others or if they call you bad names. Has anybody called you “the prince of devils?” They called Jesus by that name. It says here that when Jesus did this good thing that so many people appreciated, the religious leaders said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons” (Matthew 12:24). They were saying that Jesus performed the healing by the power of the devil, that He is just in league with the ruler of demons. They said, essentially, “He is hand in hand with Satan, and that is how He does this.” But Jesus didn't get upset with that. He knew they were blind. How can you get angry with a blind man if you have sight and another person is blind? You say this wall is white and that man says it’s black, because he is blind. How can you argue with him? How can you convince a blind man that the wall is white? You would be stupid if you get angry with him and call him crazy. He is not crazy; he is blind. That is why Jesus wasn't upset with them when they called Him the prince of devils -- because they were blind. He was the Son of God, pure and clean, but they called Him dirty.

Jesus wasn't upset with them, teaching us that it is foolish to be upset with somebody who insults you. Jesus replied in a very rational and calm way, and said, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?" (Matthew 12:25-26). Jesus was saying that Satan is not so foolish.

One Thing We Can Learn from Demons

Christians fight with each other, but the demons don’t. That is something you can learn from the demons. Don't fight with one another when you are fighting for the same cause. The demons are fighting for one cause - for the glory of Satan - and they are united. Christians are supposed to be fighting for the glory of God, but they fight with each other. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand; a house divided against itself will fall. Husbands and wives who quarrel with each other need to hear this word, “A house divided against itself will not stand.” That means your children will suffer. Don't be foolish; learn from the demons to not fight with each other nor to cast each other out.

God Writes His Law on Our Hearts

He went on to say, “If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges” (Matthew 12:27). I don't know the exact details of what was happening there so I can’t talk about the things that are not written in Scripture. I don't have an explanation. But He said, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). In the gospel of Luke, in the similar passage, He said, “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20). When you put these two verses together, you find that the “finger of God” is the Spirit of God. Just as God wrote the Ten Commandments with His finger on tablets of stone and gave it to Moses, today, in the New Covenant, He writes His laws with His finger (the Spirit of God) on our hearts. It is wonderful to compare Scripture with Scripture and see that the finger of God is the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the Person through Whom God writes His laws in our hearts, so that we can obey them.

Then Jesus said, “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house” (Matthew 12:29). If Satan has not been defeated, how can you take possession of what he has taken or robbed from your life? Suppose the devil robbed you of many things in your life (and he has robbed all Christians). How can you go and take it all back, if Satan himself is not bound? That is why people could not overcome Satan in the Old Covenant. In the New Covenant, we know that Satan was defeated on the cross, and therefore we can take back everything that he has taken away from us. Satan has no authority over us anymore; he has been defeated on the cross.

He then spoke about their sin, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:30-32). What I want you to see is that when they cursed Him -- called Him the prince of devils -- He forgave them. That's the difference between Jesus and the Old Testament prophets. When Miriam cursed Moses, Miriam got leprosy; when somebody cursed Elisha, he was eaten by bears; but Jesus gave forgiveness. That's how a New Covenant servant lives.

Chapter 47

Wholehearted Disciples

Who Is for Jesus and Against Him

In the verses leading up to Matthew 12:30, the Pharisees have accused Jesus of casting out demons through the power of the prince of demons, Satan. When Jesus said that a house divided itself cannot stand (verse 25), He taught an important principle, of who is with Jesus and who is not with Him. In Matthew 12:30, He says, “He who is not with Me is against Me.” On the surface, this appears to contradict what Jesus said in Luke 9:50, when his disciples were concerned about someone who was not following them, and Jesus said something which appears to be very different. When He heard of certain people who were casting out demons but not following Him, Jesus said, “Don't forbid him.” Paraphrasing Jesus’ words, He said, “Don't follow him, don't forbid him, because it doesn't matter if he doesn't preach discipleship, he is casting out demons. That's fine because he who is not against us, is for us.”

That appears to contradict what it says here, “He who is not with Me, is against Me.” but when we see two apparently contradictory verses in Scripture, we must remember that both are true in the context in which Jesus says each. In Luke 9:50, He was replying to the disciples, who said in the previous verse, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons and we tried to hinder him. We wanted to stop him because he doesn't follow along with us.” In other words, if I were to paraphrase it, this man’s ministry seemed to be casting out demons, and he didn’t seem to be emphasizing discipleship. So what do we do when we find someone like that today? They just go around casting out demons, and they're not teaching people to follow Jesus and to be disciples. The word of the Lord to such is, “Don't hinder him, because he who is not against you is for you.”

In other words, He was telling the disciples that this man is not against you - he's not speaking against you. He's doing a certain ministry (casting out demons), so leave him alone. The principle is - don't hinder him, and don't join him. That's important to remember. He didn’t say, “Okay you fellows, go and join him and do the same thing.” No, leave him alone. Let him do his work, but you do what you are called to do, which is make disciples. It doesn't mean that we have to work together with people who have a different vision, because if we did that, then the work would get diluted. If God has called you to make disciples, you must stick to that. But we don't hinder or speak against others who are casting out demons. We believe that ultimately the Lord wants to make disciples. That was the commission that He finally gave to His disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, but remember this instance took place long before the final commission, long before the day of Pentecost. There was no commission at that time to go and make disciples. So if people were casting out demons, that was fine. If they didn't join up with Jesus and become His disciples then, that was okay. But today, the situation is different. We still follow the principle that we don't hinder someone who is doing another ministry, but we can’t say that that person is fulfilling God’s full purpose.

The full purpose of God is: cast out a man’s demons, bring him to Christ, make him a disciple, baptize him, and make him a disciple. If that's not done by someone else in their ministry, we don't hinder him, but we will make it clear that that's not the calling of the church. And we have to make this distinction clear to people who may be deceived by such a ministry also.

We must remember when we’re reading the Gospels that certain things are permitted at that time. Jesus permitted for example, the payment of tithes, and for lepers to go and show themselves to the priests. There was even an instance in Mark 10 when one rich young ruler came to him and said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus told Him to keep the commandments. What would you answer someone who asked you today, “How can I have eternal life?” Would you tell him to keep the commandments? No, but that's what Jesus said to him. That's one of the many examples that show that the new covenant age had not yet started. It started only on the day of Pentecost. So until then, Jesus’ attitude was; if somebody spends his time casting out demons and is not interest in discipleship, don’t hinder him - let him do that.

The Great Commission - Discipleship

Now we have to urge everyone to make disciples, because that's the Great Commission. So it is in that connection that Jesus says in Matthew 12:30, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.” It is in regards to following Jesus in building His church that if you're not wholeheartedly with Him, you’re in a limited way against Him. The non-Christian is obviously against the Lord. He is not even claiming to have anything to do with the Lord. But when a Christian claims to belong to the Lord and claims to be doing the Lord's work, and yet he's not gathering together, he can actually be a hindrance.

Consider the example of a building site. Suppose you’ve got twenty workers there, and 10 of them are working hard, and 10 of them are sitting around and doing nothing but talking, wasting people's time, and getting in the way of other people doing their work. Would you say, “They’re doing no harm”? They’re doing a tremendous amount of harm! They are against the building of that building because they are hindering the ones who are working. They're wasting their time talking about lot of things. If they had gone away from that site, the remaining ten people could have done a better job. That is an example of “He who is not with Me, is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.” If you're gathering from the fields (the harvest), and there are lot of people hanging around in the fields not doing anything, just standing in your way, they are hindering the work. They are going to stumble others and hinder them, and whatever they gather will slip out of their hand and scatter.

Examples like this indicate that if you are not a wholehearted disciple of Jesus, just forget about being a Christian. We must have no interest in going around gathering people whose only aim is to go to heaven. I personally said that openly to the Lord: “I’ve no interest at all in gathering together people who just want to go to heaven when they die”. Is there any human being in the world, out of seven billion people, who doesn’t want to go to heaven when they die? Every single person wants to go to heaven! Nobody wants to go to hell. If that is the only reason for which people are coming, then I'm not interested because Jesus said, “Go and make disciples.”

Therefore, we're not really interested in people who just come along because they want to go to heaven when they die. That's not the gospel we preach, but unfortunately that is the gospel being preached by lot of people today. The Great Commission is, “Go and make disciples, and teach them to do every single thing that I have commanded.” Very few people are doing that today, but those are the people who are really doing God's work. You may not realize it because the work is small. Obviously, it’s small because they're concentrating on quality and not on quantity. The world emphasizes quantity. Every company examines its progress by what the balance sheets show, and how much their profit is. When a Christian church goes that way – keeping balance sheets of converts - it has gone the way of the world. Jesus made disciples. It's not quantity, but quality that He looked for. Whenever He saw huge numbers, He turned around and said to them some of the hardest words that He ever said. Luke 14:25-26 is an example of this: great multitudes followed Him and He turned around and said, “You can’t follow me if you don’t hate your father, mother, brother, sister, wife and children” (paraphrased). Is that the type of sermon any preacher would preach to great multitude following him? No! Jesus was not interested in quantity; He was interested in quality.

I heard a little story of a mother rabbit talking to a lioness, saying, “I had 20 little rabbits last year, you know rabbits multiply very fast. How many did you have?” The lioness said, “I had only one last year, but that one was a lion.” Do you see that's the difference? Are we gathering a lot of rabbits, or do we have some lions? Are we making disciples, or a great crowd of people sitting in our Churches whose only aim is to go to heaven when they die? They want preachers who will tell them how to go to heaven when they die, and I want to say this also, that most of them are not going to go to heaven when they die, because their preachers have deceived them. Is it enough to believe in Jesus? Even the demons believe (James 2:19). That type of belief is not going to take anyone into God's kingdom. The safest thing is to be a disciple and to make disciples. Then, you are sure of where you're going. So, “He who does not gather with Me, scatters.” A person is hindering God's work if he's not gathering wholehearted disciples.

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit

“Any sin can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven” (Matthew 12:31). There is only one sin that Jesus said will never be forgiven, and what is it? From the context, what we see here is an attitude towards the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is working, and you stand against it. The Holy Spirit is trying to say something to you and you resist it.

There are two types of sin: sins of action, and sins of attitudes. For example, telling a lie is a sin of action. Or slapping somebody, that’s a sin of action. Adultery is a sin of action. But there are other sins that are sins of attitudes, such as hatred, bitterness, jealousy, an unforgiving spirit, pride, and selfishness. These are sins of attitude.

Is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit a sin of action, or a sin of an attitude? I believe it's a sin of an attitude because that's what these Pharisees were demonstrating - an attitude against the Holy Spirit. It need not be just in the way they spoke to Jesus. Today it could be in an attitude where you resist the pleadings of the Holy Spirit until you cross a line and the Holy Spirit stops pleading with you. That can happen. Now the important thing is not to define what the sin against the Holy Spirit is. What is more important is to know whether you've committed it or not. It doesn't matter the definition, definition is not important. For example, the definition of humility is not the main thing, the important thing is to be humble. So in the same way, in this area, the important thing is not a definition (which is all that a lot of people seek). What is the sin against the Holy Spirit? That's not important to know, because it's not very clear what exactly it is, and we don't want to be wrong here.

But one thing we can be sure of, we can know definitely whether we have committed it, and that's enough. How do we know whether we've committed the sin against the Holy Spirit or not? It is the Holy Spirit who brings us to repentance. Look at this verse for example in Acts 11:18, (the last part). “God has granted to the Gentiles repentance that leads to life” (that is - through the Holy Spirit’s working). All the working of the God today in the world in people's lives is through the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit led people to repentance.

So if you find in your heart a desire to turn from sin, to repent, then you can be absolutely sure that you've not committed the sin against the Holy Spirit. No matter what you have spoken against the Holy Spirit, or what you have done in your life (however great of a crime you have committed), you have not sinned against the Holy Spirit if there is the slightest desire in you to turn around and come back to the Lord. That is the test. Because in a person who has committed that sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will stop pleading with that person and he will never have a desire to repent. He will be hard, and he can sin and he’ll have no desire to repent, and he will make a joke of sin.

I think in my whole life I can think of only one person whom I've ever met like that who could sin and make a joke of the whole thing. I was amazed he could go and commit adultery and make a joke of the whole thing, and he was supposed to be a Christian. In that case, I would say it's possible that he had committed a sin against the Holy Spirit, that he resisted the Holy Spirit so long that his conscience is hardened and he had no desire to turn.

But we're not here to judge who has committed that sin or not. The important thing is that we can definitely know about ourselves. You may not be able to know about another person, but you can definitely know about yourself, whether you have committed that sin. I say this so that you don't let the devil bring you under unnecessary condemnation, making you feel, “Oh I committed that sin, now there's no hope for me!” I've had a number of people in my life ask me, “Do you think I have sinned against the Holy Spirit?” I ask them one simple question: “Do you have a desire to turn from sin and trust in Jesus now?” If they say “yes,” then I say, “Well, I can assure you that you've not sinned against the Holy Spirit.”

In Matthew 12:32, Jesus says, “Whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven, in this age, or age to come.” Again, I think that speaking against the Holy Spirit is a deliberate knowing, standing against the work of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes there are these fake preachers who do all types of crazy things like pushing people down with their hand and saying, “This is the work of the Holy Spirit!” They say, “Don't you dare speak against the Holy Spirit (referring to their false works), because you'll never be forgiven!” It's a verse which many preachers use to scare people, and so people get scared and say, “Okay, I will not speak against it.” I've spoken against that type of garbage all my life, and when people try to scare me with these words, I say, “You know, there's another verse in 1 John 4:1.”

The devil also quoted verses to Jesus saying, “It is written,” and Jesus replied saying, “It is also written.” So when people speak to me and say, “Don't speak against these things, because it is written that if you speak against the Holy Spirit, you won't be forgiven!” I say to them, “It's also written in 1 John 4:1, ‘Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,’ and that's what I'm doing - I want to test every action. Is that from the Holy Spirit”? For me, this is a four-fold test to see whether it’s something from the Holy Spirit: Did Jesus do it? Did Jesus teach it? Did the apostles do it? Did the apostles teach it? And if it's “no” on all four counts, then I say “I reject it. That's not from the Holy Spirit, because if it is from the Spirit, I'll see it in one of these four areas”. We should not be afraid to test the spirits. If you don't, you're disobeying 1 John 4:1, and you deserve to be deceived because you are not obeying God's Word. That’s how so many people are deceived, because they're scared by this verse. Don't allow anybody to scare you by quoting Scripture to you. Remember that there's another Scripture that tells you to test every single spirit, and every single manifestation, because there's a lot of deception going on in Christendom right now, just like the Bible says. Deceiving spirits will flood Christendom in the last days.

Jesus’ Attitude of Forgiveness

Jesus also said, “Whoever speaks against the Son of Man will be forgiven.” That is an amazing verse! He's not just telling the Pharisees that they are forgiven for speaking against him at that time, and calling him the ruler of demons, or working with the ruler of demons. He is saying that whoever (for the next 2,000, or 10,000 years) speaks a word against the Son of Man is forgiven! Jesus is offering forgiveness to every single person who speaks against Him. What an attitude to have! Every Christian says they want to be like Jesus. What does that mean, practically? Here's one area where we can be like Him that we should decide right at the outset. We must have this attitude: whoever ever speaks against or harms me in any way, right now I say, “He is forgiven.” I have nothing against him. I'm not going to hold anything against him. I will not keep a grudge against him for a single moment, leave alone for a single day!

This is the attitude we must have - this person who harmed us is forgiven. He is forgiven because he doesn't know what he's doing, and does not know what a serious crime it is to speak against the child of God. He doesn’t know it. If he knew it, he wouldn't dare to do it, but he is so blind. He is so lacking in spiritual intelligence, that he speaks against God's children. Forgive him! He's a spiritual idiot! What do you do with an idiot who comes and says some foolish things to you on the road? You don't pick a fight with him. In the same way, that’s how to deal with spiritual idiots who keep on criticizing God's people and criticizing God’s servants and finding fault with them: leave them alone. Just treat them like the dumb idiots you meet on the road perhaps, and ignore them. Forgive them, and don't take seriously what they say, because there is spiritual idiocy, just like there is normal idiocy.

Cleansing the Inner Life

In the next verse (Matthew 12:33), He continues to speak on the same subject. He says it’s not just a question of slightly changing your external life - your words and your behavior. For example, a person when recognizing their sin may simply say, “Okay, in the future I won't do this particular thing.” That doesn't solve the problem though, because that is only external refinement. Management seminars are often conducted by companies for management. Executives teach people there to refine their external behavior so that sales can improve, and working together in a company can improve their sales. They're all seeking their own gain, benefit, and profit. But here Jesus says that this is not going to solve the problem as far as Christianity is concerned. “You have to make the total tree good, and then its fruit will be good. Or make the tree bad, and the fruit will be bad. The tree is known by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33).

For example, if you have a tree in your garden that's producing bad mangoes. As soon as fruit comes out, it's rotten. You can see that it’s rotten. It’s very, very bad, and you can do nothing about it. You can keep cutting off the fruit, and go and buy some really good mangoes in the market and tie your tree up here and there in the branches, and fool everybody who passes by your house that you have a fantastically rich mango tree. You can make them think it produces so much fruit, and such luscious fruit, but it is a deception. The real tree is producing a lot of corrupt mangoes, but you're not letting anybody see it because as soon as fruit comes up, you cut it off. You are buying some good mangoes from the market, and tying your tree up here and there carefully in the branches, and people are thinking that's the fruit of the tree.

This is a perfect picture of many, many Christians. They cover up all the wrong things that they do in secret and darkness, and in their homes and many other places, but they put on all these good fruits in the presence of the others to fool passers-by. They want to fool others who know them, and make them think that they are godly people. And Jesus said that that's not the answer. You need to make the whole tree good. That's why John the Baptist said, “The axe is laid to the root of the tree” (Matthew 3:10). We can say that in the old covenant under the law, God gave Israel a pair of scissors to cut off bad fruits as soon as they came. So, when the Israelites obeyed God, you found hardly any murder, adultery, theft, etc. because of the commandments that they obeyed. That is like scissors that cut off the bad fruit immediately. Meanwhile, the other nations around Israel, who didn’t have these commandments, kept living with these terrible sins. So Israel was just as bad as the other nations on the inside, but they had a pair of scissors to cut off the bad fruit so that it didn't continue to grow and develop. So while that gave the nation of Israel a good testimony externally, it did not make the tree good.

In the new covenant, God has taken away the pair of scissors. Jesus came with an axe (as you read in Matthew 3) and laid it to the root of the tree, to cut it from its root. Once the bad tree is cut from the root, it can’t produce any bad fruit. And now, Jesus has planted a good tree - a tree that produces good fruit. Now you don't have to go to the market to buy good mangoes to fool people, and you're not interested in fooling people now anyways. You’re interested in having a really good tree. That's the point here. Make the tree good, and then its fruit will be good. But if the tree is bad, you know the fruit will be bad. The tree is known by its fruit.

We cannot examine another person's inner life, or his heart. God alone knows the heart. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. We can’t see people. That heart means the root of a tree. We don't know anything about the roots of the tree. Whenever you see a tree, you don't see its roots, but we look at the fruit. By the fruit you can gauge what the tree is like. So in a sense, you don't have to look inside a person's heart. The fruit that comes out of that tree is an indication. Jesus says, “By their fruit you shall know them.” You shall know the tree by its fruits. He warned us against false prophets in Matthew 7 by telling us to look at the fruit in their life. So remember this: the main thing we should look for in one another is not gift, but fruit. By fruit, we know whether a person is godly or not.

Chapter 48

The Importance of Our Speech

In Matthew 12:33, Jesus says, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.” Then He says, “You brood of vipers!” (He's talking to the Pharisees, who had said that He was casting out demons by the prince of demons, and He calls them brood of vipers.) There are many people who feel that Christlikeness means that you never speak strong words. If a preacher ever got up and said, “This group of people is a brood of vipers!” there are lots of Christians who would jump on him and say, “Brother, be more Christ-like!” But what does it mean to be Christlike? This is Jesus Christ Himself saying, “You brood of vipers!” That is a Christlike statement when it is made to those who deserve it. You don't call those who don't deserve it by that name, but Jesus called those who did deserve it by a very strong name. Or if someone were to turn the tables of money changers today, people would say, “You need to be more Christlike.” The people who say these words don't realize that Jesus Himself has turned the tables of money changers in the temple. People’s understanding of Christlikeness is from their own head. They think Christlikeness means, “Just be gracious and let the devil run the church. Don't say anything, keep quiet!” Is that really Christlikeness? That's a lot of garbage! That's the garbage that a lot of Christians believe is Christlikeness.

Christlikeness includes gentleness, but it also includes firmness. It’s tough love that is like Christ, not a wishy-washy, sentimental type of love that ignores the glory of God. So Jesus turns around to these people and says, “You brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak what is good? The tree will only give forth the type of fruit depending on what type of tree it is, and the mouth speaks out that which fills the heart” (Matthew 12:34). Everything that comes out of our mouths comes from within our hearts, because the mouth is the overflow valve of the heart. If your heart is filled with evil, evil will come out of your mouth. If your heart is filled with anger, anger comes out with your mouth. If your heart is filled with goodness, goodness comes out of your mouth. Of course, we can act, and say things that are not in our heart - by a certain measure of self-control, I can suppress what is in my heart, and speak words that are not really a true reflection of my heart. Sometimes, diplomatically, we say things we don't really feel for some personal gain. But whenever you see a person suddenly out of control, bursting out with something, you can be sure that has come from his heart.

Shaking Reveals What’s Inside

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Someone has used this illustration: if I'm carrying a jug of sweet water, no matter how heavily somebody shakes it or shakes me, only sweet water will spill out. How can the sweet water in my jug suddenly become bitter just because somebody shook me? When somebody irritates us, what comes out is what is truly in our heart – likely something that we never conquered, like Irritability or anger. That is revealed to be what’s really in our heart. It was carefully hidden and submerged, but someone approaches us, and said or did something, and out it came out like a flood. We should never say, “somebody irritated me and therefore I said this.” The truth is, somebody shook you, and what was already inside your jar came out. Thank God that this person shook you so that you could discover what was inside your jar! You should be thankful to that person. Otherwise, you would have remained constantly ignorant of what was in your heart. All the nice people around you who never shook you -- never shook your jug -- never gave you the opportunity to discover what was in your heart; then this evil man came along and shook you really hard, and out came all those bitter words for you to discover the bitterness that was in your heart. So should you be thankful or not? If somebody came into your room and a toppled the cupboard, and a snake came out from underneath there that was living there all along, would you be thankful to that man who toppled that cupboard? Sure! You would say, “Hey, thank you very much! I never knew there was a snake living underneath there all these years.” So if we take that attitude, we can cleanse ourselves. But if you get upset with the person who revealed the snake, then you have it all wrong. ”The mouth speaks out of the abundance that fills the heart,” is a principle we must remember.

“The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good.” Naturally, if the tree is good, it will bring forth good fruit. The evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil. Just imagine this, that a man can have evil treasure in his heart. One wouldn't think that evil is a treasure. Good is a treasure that we can understand. Good thoughts about people and good attitudes to people are certainly a treasure; but imagine this: people can be so bad that they have evil attitudes and evil thoughts about others, and they call it a treasure! This is satanic. From that evil treasure, when some pressure comes (like you squeeze a toothpaste tube), out comes what is inside. That's it.

The Way We Speak Is Very Important

If you think that the way we speak is unimportant so long as we’ve done a lot of good things, then you must be believing that the same thing that many religions believe - that in the final day of judgment, God is going to take a weighing balance, put all your good deeds on one side and all the evil words you spoke on the other side, and then weigh the two. If the good deeds outweigh the evil deeds, you go to heaven. If the evil deeds outweigh the good deeds, then you go to hell.

That's what many religions really believe deep down, and that could be your belief too, even though you're a Christian. Even though you say salvation is through the death of Jesus Christ, you may feel, “Oh these bad words I've spoken are taken care of by all the good that I have done which God will see.” Well your faith is then the same. But look at the words of Jesus. “I say to you” - Jesus sometimes uses that expression to emphasize that which most people wouldn't believe – “that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36). I have sometimes wanted to write a little article on all the verses that born-again Christians do not believe and do not take seriously, and this would be one of them. I don't know if you who are really born again. Believe this, that in the day of judgment, you’ll have to give an account for every single careless, useless word that you spoke in your life. Jesus forgave them for calling Him Beelzebul, but they would still have to give an account for it in the day of judgment. That they cannot escape, because forgiveness has two directions: whenever you sin against a human being, you first sin against God and then against the human being. So forgiveness has both a vertical and a horizontal component, like the arms of the cross.

Every sin is against God, but some sins are only against God. For example, if you have dirty thoughts or you do something that harms your body, that's a sin against God. But if you hate another person in some way with words or actions, then you’ve sinned not only against God, but you’ve also sinned against that person. That person can forgive you only the horizontal element of that sin, that is, the man-to-man part. He cannot forgive you your sin against God. How can he forgive you what you've sinned against God? That's impossible. So when the Pharisees spoke against Jesus, or when you speak against somebody, that person may forgive you, but that's forgiveness for only the horizontal aspect of that sin. The vertical aspect you're still responsible for. When Jesus said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing,” He was forgiving that horizontal element. He is saying, “As far as I'm concerned, I’ve forgiven them.” But there was a vertical element to it, in the sense that they had crucified the Son of God, which was a terrible sin against God, and one day they will all answer for it. The Jewish nation answered for it also forty years later. After the forty years God gave them to repent, He scattered them all over the world. God is very righteous in these matters.

Defining Careless Speech

We will have to give an account for every careless word that we speak, and in the context, it appears to be words of accusation that are carelessly spoken. Have you carelessly spoken against God's people, against God's servants, without thinking about how serious of a sin that is? You haven’t known all the facts, yet you’ve judged and criticized people based on hearsay. That's what I mean by careless speaking. “Careless” means you don't take care to find out if that thing is true. You don't take care to think, “Is this something which I can stand before God and say, ‘it’s the truth,’ or is it something I just heard and I am spreading scandal, or is it something that I feel about this person? I feel this is the prince of devils operating here.” Your feeling is unimportant. Do you have some evidence for it? That’s a test. So He says that every careless word that men shall speak they shall render account on the day of the judgment. In other words, think of all the words you've spoken every day. We have to be very careful that we don't speak words that hurt people unnecessarily. Though sometimes there's a need to speak strong words like Jesus spoke to even Peter saying, “Get behind me Satan!” (Matthew 16:23).

God is the judge of the motive with which we have spoken different words, but you can be pretty sure that the words we have spoken are being recorded, somewhere in our memory perhaps, and they will be played back on the day of judgment. Every human being is going to be judged on the basis of those words. We're not referring to humor here. For example, God is the one who created humor, and I believe there's a place for humor in the Christian life. So if you crack a clean joke which doesn't hurt anybody, that's a good thing. It sometimes builds relationships. That's not a “careless word.” We're talking about words that are spoken instigated by Satan, or designed to hurt people, etc.

Next, Jesus speaks some very important words. We have all heard of justification by faith (Romans 4), and we've all heard of justification by faith that produces works (James 2), and that we are justified by works that come out of faith, but have you ever heard of this? “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:37). Jesus is saying what is also in James 2 - the works that we do include the words that we speak. This shows how important our words are, that they are going to determine in the final day, whether we are going to be justified or condemned. In other words, our words are the fruit that determine what type of tree we are. If you listen to a person's words, then you can pretty much tell what type of tree he is. If I can listen to a man for 15 minutes and gauge pretty much where he stands, then imagine God’s understanding! He can see much more!

Our words are a very important revelation of our nature, and our character, especially the words that we speak when we are under pressure. So be very careful with your words.

Speak Words Rich in Grace

Colossians 4:6 is an amazing verse which says how we are to speak. It is a verse that most Christians don't take too seriously: “Let your speech always be with grace.” “Always” means 24/7. Every sentence we speak must be with grace; seasoned, as it were, as with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person. When grace is lacking in our speech, it is like salt missing in the food. It is tasteless. So it's not just speaking about evil words; we can also speak tasteless words. God wants us to speak words rich in grace. They can be strong words, like, “Brood of vipers!” spoken to wake people up to see reality, but they are spoken in love. Or they could be gracious words, like, “Neither do I condemn you.” So by our words we can encourage people, by our words we can condemn people. Let's make sure our words are always words of encouragement, of challenge, of comfort.

Craving for a Sign

In Matthew 12:38, some of the scribes and Pharisees (who were always trying to catch Jesus in some thing or the other) came to Him and said, “We want to see a sign.” Remember we're trying to understand all that Jesus taught, and Jesus taught a lot here about our speech, which is very important. “Teach others to do what I have commanded you, teach others to speak like I've taught you” (Matthew 16:20 paraphrase). So how did Jesus speak to a group of people who wanted to see a sign? They wanted to see some type of miracle. They thought Jesus was some type of magician who had come to show a magic show on earth, and He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign, and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.” Do you know that it is an evil and an adulterous generation that is always looking for signs? To ask God, “Please do a miracle! Please do a sign for me!” is to be a part of an evil and adulterous generation. When God has given us His Word and spoken to us through Christ, there's no need to ask God for a sign. He has shown us His will in the Scriptures, through the life of Jesus and through the words of the Holy Spirit. An evil and adulterous generation ask for a sign, and He says, “the only sign you will get is the sign of Jonah the prophet,” and that is the sign of resurrection. “As Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster for three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and then He will come out.” That's a sign. Jonah came out of that sea monster’s mouth, and the Son of Man will come out after three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. That resurrection is the only sign that God is going to give to an evil and an adulterous generation.

Clarifying Two Misunderstandings About the Resurrection

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a very, very important aspect of our witness for Him. He says to hear about Jonah being in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. A lot of things that Christians believe and practice are tradition - and not according to Scripture - and this is a perfect example. Many people think Jesus was crucified on what they call ‘Good Friday,’ and that He rose from the dead on a Sunday. Now if you calculate using simple arithmetic, you will see that Friday to Sunday morning is not three days and three nights. It's only two nights - Friday and Saturday. But Jesus said so clearly that it would be three days and three nights that He would be in the heart of the earth. So it is obvious. We know definitely that He rose on the first day of the week. That's clearly written in John's gospel and in the other gospels, but if that is the case (which we know is true), then Jesus Christ was crucified on Thursday afternoon, and at three o'clock in the afternoon, He died. So that would be part of Thursday (first day), Thursday night (first night), Friday (second day), Friday night (second night), Saturday (third day), and Saturday night (third night). That's three days three nights. Then, early Sunday morning before dawn, He rose up from the dead. That is the only way it could be three days and three nights.

I don't have the slightest doubt in my mind that Christ was crucified on a Thursday. It says in John 19:31 that, Jesus was crucified on the day of the preparation for the Sabbath the next day, and that the Sabbath was not a regular Sabbath, but a high day. So the next day Sabbath was not the regular Saturday Sabbath day, but the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, according to the Law. And the day after the Passover was to be the regular Saturday Sabbath. So there were two Sabbaths here on this “high day,” which also explains why the women couldn't come to anoint the body of Jesus until Sunday morning. So Jesus Christ died on a Thursday. He was three days and three nights in the grave, and rose on Sunday morning.

The other question people have is this: “If Jonah was alive in the belly of a fish, does it mean that Jesus was alive in the grave?” But it doesn't say He was “in the grave for three days and three nights.” They have read carelessly. It says that He was in the heart of the earth. The heart of the earth is the center of the earth, where at that time all departed spirits went. It had two sections - one was hell, and the other was what was called Paradise, or Abraham's bosom. Those who qualified to be in Paradise went there (like the thief on the cross), and the others went to hell. Jesus made it very clear to the thief on the cross that that very day, they would be together in Paradise, and here it says, “in the heart of the earth.” So from that we know that paradise at that time was in the heart of the earth, and that is where Jesus was alive (He was alive in His spirit; His body of course was in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, but He Himself was not in his body). The Son of man was alive in the heart of the earth, where Paradise is. Three days later, He came into His body in the grave, and rose up from the dead. That's how, if you don't read Scripture carefully, you can be mistaken there.

By the way, Paradise was then taken up to the third heaven when Jesus ascended. Ephesians 4 says He took all those captives captive, and ascended with them. When the Apostle Paul was caught up to the third heaven, he found Paradise was there. So Paradise is no longer in the heart of the earth after the ascension of Christ; it is in the third heaven. We go up to be with the Lord now when we leave this earth.

In Matthew 12:41, Jesus says, “The men of Nineveh shall stand up with this generation at the judgment, and shall condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” To whom more is given, more is required. If the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of an ordinary preacher like Jonah, and here people are listening to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and they don't repent, then their crime is greater. He goes on in verse 42, saying, “The Queen of the South -- Queen of Sheba -- will rise up in judgment and condemn this generation because she came all the way all those many kilometers to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and someone greater than Solomon is here.” So amazing, how even today we find so many Christians who ignore the privileges they have right in their own town. Sometimes the gospel is being preached even on their own street, and they don't realize it. There may be a man of God living next door and they don't realize it. Their judgment will be greater.

Don’t Leave a Cleansed Spirit Empty!

Lastly, Jesus says that unclean spirits, when they leave a man, are always looking for somebody else to possess. Evil spirits have a longing to possess human beings. They pass through waterless places seeking for someplace to settle down, and they don't find it. They go back to visit the man from whom the unclean spirit was cast out, and they find that the man has not surrendered his life to Christ and that he has not been filled with the Holy Spirit, so they take along seven other spirits more wicked than themselves and go and live there. This is the way with this evil generation. This is how it happens with many individuals as well. When we cast out an evil spirit, if we don't replace that with something good, we'll find that we’ll get into worse evil. I come across cases like that of demons that are cast out of somebody who did not seek to surrender their life to Christ afterwards, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The demons possess them all over again, sometimes, in worse ways. This is not only a warning about demon possession. For example, if we get rid of the habit of grumbling, we must replace it with a habit of thanksgiving, and then that grumbling attitude won't come back. But if you just try to get rid of grumbling and don't replace it, but instead remain empty, you’ll find grumbling comes right back. This is something that happens in the realm in the world of the spirits, which Jesus knew better than any of us. I don't try to understand it or argue with One Who knows everything about this realm of spirits, but it is a warning that comes to us, that when we cast out something evil, we must replace it with something good.

Those Who Have Known the Way of Righteousness

In 2 Peter 2, Peter speaks about those who have known the way of righteousness. 2 Peter 2:20 says, “If a man, after escaping the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (something evil has been cast out from his heart), “is again entangled in them and overcome” (he remains empty, and other worse spirits come and take over, and he is overcome), the last state of that person has become worse than the first.

In such a case, Peter says that it would be better if such a man had never known the way of righteousness at all than to have known it and to turn from the holy commandment delivered to him. Is that possible for a believer? It certainly is, because he's speaking about someone who escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He was born again, and then was entangled in the same sin and was overcome. His last state is much worse than his first because he knew the truth. It would have been far better if such a person had never known the way of righteousness at all, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to him. This shows us what an awesome responsibility it is to know the truth. It's a very, very serious thing to know the truth and to turn from it. If you didn't know the truth at least you could be forgiven. But in this case, “It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘a dog returns to its own vomit’” (1 Peter 2:22). If you found something wrong in your life and you threw it out, and then you go back to it again, that is like the dog returning to what it has vomited, or a pig that goes back to wallowing in the mire after it has washed. These are strong words that Peter uses to warn believers who play the fool with sin after they have come to know the Lord. He says in that case it would have been better if you don't know the Lord at all. He connects it by quoting the same expression from Matthew 12:45, “the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

Chapter 49

Holding Faithfully to the Truth

Jesus’ True Family

“While Jesus was still speaking,” we read in Matthew 12:46, “Jesus’ mother Mary and brothers were standing outside seeking to speak to Him. Someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But Jesus answered, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’” It's amazing that Jesus could speak like this! If a Christian spoke like this today, someone would tell him to be more Christlike. This is how Christ Himself spoke, “‘Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand towards His disciples, He said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! Because he who does the will of My Father in Heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.’”

Jesus was saying that the spiritual relationship He had with those who are seeking to do the will of God was closer than a physical earthly relationship. This is one of the marks that a person has really become a child of God. It is good thing for you to check yourself on. Can you say that your spiritual relationship with God's children after you are born again is stronger than the relationship you have with your blood brothers and sisters? If not, you may be born again, but your birth is a very poor birth. It may be a premature birth, and there is something lacking in it. If you think that wholehearted disciples are not as close as to you as your own blood brothers and sisters, you need to seriously question your salvation, because Jesus said that those who hear the Word of God and who do the will of His Father are His brothers and sisters.

These are strong words, and Jesus said that if you want to be a disciple, you have to love Him more than your father and mother and brothers and sisters, more than all your earthly relationships. Many Christians do not grow as much and as quickly as they should because their earthly relationships continue to mean much more to them than their spiritual relationship with brothers and sisters. One may find it difficult to say this because there are so many hypocrites among professing believers; I'm not talking about your relationship with such people. But don't you know at least a few wholehearted radical disciples of Jesus? What is your relationship with them?

If you say there's nobody like that in your church, then you shouldn't be in that church. Find a church where there are at least a few wholehearted, radical disciples. You will never find a church where everybody's a wholehearted, radical disciple. Even Jesus’s Church of twelve had a crook in it. That is an 8% rate of hypocrites in a good church. You will never find a perfect church, but if you find a church where there are number of radical wholehearted disciples, that is where you should seek fellowship, because those relationships should be more important to you than any earthly relationship.

A Word About Coming to Jesus Through Mary

Regarding the claim that the way to approach Jesus is through His mother, Mary, you see that even while He was on earth, there are two occasions where His mother explicitly tried to approach Him: one was at the marriage of Cana, and Jesus turned around and said to her “woman what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4), and the second is here, in Matthew 12, where His mother just wanted to talk to Him and He rejected her request, saying that His mother and brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it. So it's not a good plan to try and approach Jesus through Mary. It is clear in Scripture for those who have eyes to see.

Parable of the Sower/Soils

In Matthew 13, we have a number of parables that Jesus spoke to explain different aspects of God's kingdom. Jesus explained one or two of those parables, and the others He left unexplained, leaving it to us to seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to understand them and apply them to our lives.

The first is the parable of the sower and the seed. “A sower went out to sow. As He sowed seeds, some seeds fell on the road and the birds came and ate it up, that is one type of bad ground. Others fell on the rocky places where there was not much depth of earth, and they sprang up quickly because there was not much depth and withered away when the sun rose. The third seed was sown among thorns where there was depth of earth, but as it came up the thorns came and choked it” (Matthew 13:3-7). There were three bad grounds, and then He describes three good grounds.

Some people think there was only one good ground, but there were three. One that produced a hundredfold crop (where one seed produced a hundred seeds), another ground where one seed produced 60 seeds, and another ground one seed produced 30 seeds. They are not all the same quality. They were all good, but there were different degrees of goodness, just like the bad soil, where there were different degrees of badness. Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Explaining the Parable of the Sower

Mind the Birds!

Then Jesus began to explain the parable of the Sower. He says the first type of ground is one who listens to God's Word very casually. He is not serious. People come and sit in a meeting, and their mind is not on what's being proclaimed there; their mind is wandering. Demons are there in every meeting to take away what we hear, that's what Jesus says here, ‘the evil one comes and snatches away what is been sown in the heart’ (verse 19). When there is a preacher preaching something, and the Word of God is going in to your heart, the devil comes to snatch it away. This is pictured as the birds of the air coming and eating up the seed that is sown on the roadside. Some hearts are like that: they go into a meeting and hardly get anything out of it. Even if they do, before any of that seed can produce any fruit in their life, the devil has taken it away. This is the first type of heart. We need to be very careful that our heart is not like that.

Remember, the same seed is sown in all the six types of ground, and yet the results are entirely different. It depends on the response from the hearer. If the hearer is sluggish in his response to God's Word, then of course there is not going to be any fruit; neither will there be if he allows the devil to take the Word away. If you look back at all the messages you’ve heard in the past, you have to acknowledge that there are some wonderful messages which you have heard, where you took decisions, and said, “Lord, I want to wholeheartedly respond to that and live for You,” but then, a few weeks or months later, the effect of that message is gone from your life. The birds of the air have come and succeeded in taking away the seed. Remember that the birds of the air are there in every single meeting. Every single meeting we ever go to, the demons are there to try and take away that Word.

Beware of Superficial Exuberance with No Depth

The second type of ground is pictured in the seed that fell on rocky places – “It immediately springs up.” There is a great excitement. Such people say, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! This is a great message,” etc. Some people’s temperament is like that. They quickly express their appreciation, and are very excited about what they have heard. But a little while later, when some persecution arises, they don't have roots. Beneath the surface, they are very shallow. There is a lot of superficial exuberance and apparent interest in God's Word, but the Word of God does not go deep into their heart. Because they don't have a firm root, when the sun rises (persecution), they wither and fall away. This teaches us that if we allow God's Word to take deep root in our hearts, then when persecution comes, we will not fall away. We don't have to worry about it. That's why the time to prepare for persecution of Christians is now, when there is no persecution. In times of peace we must prepare for war.

Beware of Riches Choking out the Word

The third type of ground is the one on whom seed was sown, and it responds. He’s got depth of earth. He is serious, not like shooting stars that suddenly appear in the sky for a while, and are very bright, but then disappear. I have seen many believers like that, who come to our meetings and are apparently so gripped in the beginning, but in a little while, they are no longer there. They are like a shooting star that crossed the sky and then is gone, and destroyed. We do not have to be like that. This third soil was not like that. He heard the word, appreciated it, listened to it, and allowed the word to sink deep and come up well. Maybe he was converted when he was very young, when he didn’t earn money. He was gripped by the truth and allowed it to sink in, and he would meditate on God's Word. Everything was going wonderfully - this plant was coming up and growing well. But then he got a job with a really good salary, and that becomes like a thorn that chokes the fruit that was coming up, because now he feels that he has to spend so many extra hours at work. He spends that extra time there so that he can advance in his profession. He decided he has to give more time to his profession, and gradually the deceitfulness of riches, the lust for other things, and the worries of the world came into him and choked this wonderful fruit. I have also seen wonderful young believers who are wholehearted and radical, but then the love of money grips them, or all types of worries from the world, and desire for many other things chokes the Word.

Faithfulness Determines Good Soil’s Fruitfulness

The last soil Jesus refers to is the good soil. There are three different types of good soil. These hear the Word, understand it, and bear fruit. They are careful of the thorns that try to choke them, too. Every Christian faces the danger of being choked by the thorns of riches, worries and cares of this world, and the desire for many things contrary to God's Word. These things are constantly trying to choke the Word. How is it the devil didn't succeed with these people? Because they watched over the Word and prevented him from crushing the seed. Why did some produce a hundredfold, some sixtyfold and some thirtyfold? Some were faithful, but then occasionally careless; some were faithful, and not so careless; and some were utterly faithful. Thus even among believers, there are different degrees of faithfulness. God is looking for those who will be steadfast in continuing to be faithful in keeping His Word, watering it, preserving it, meditating on it, and allowing it to grow up to be a strong tree for the glory of God.

The Purpose of Parables

The disciples also asked Jesus why He spoke to the people in parables. Some Christians think Jesus spoke in parables so that people would able to understand spiritual truth, but that's not true. Jesus said, “To you it is being granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not been granted” (Matthew 13:11). There are many mysteries in God's kingdom. A mystery is something only God can reveal to you by the Holy Spirit. If it is not revealed to you, you can never understand it. You can go completely wrong if you try to understand it without God's help, without the help of the Holy Spirit. Much of the New Testament is like that. You cannot understand it without the Holy Spirit explaining it to you. When people go to the New Testament, or even other parts of Scripture, with their human reason, and find inconsistencies, they begin to doubt God's Word. God allows them to be deceived, because fundamentally, they don't love the truth.

But the mysteries of the kingdom were revealed to the disciples. Was that because they were the cleverest people of all? Not at all! They were following Jesus Christ. They loved Christ more than their parents, brothers, sisters and even their own jobs and themselves. Therefore the Lord gave revelation to them.

Jesus Explains Why He Speaks in Parables

Jesus goes on to say, “Because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, and they do not understand” (Matthew 13:13). It’s as if Jesus speaks in parables so that the people don't understand what He says. This is the very opposite of what we think. This is not like in illustration in a message to clarify something. Jesus said that a parable is to actually confuse people! “And in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled which says, ‘You will keep on hearing but you will not understand; you will keep on seeing but you will not perceive; for the heart of these people has become dull, with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes, otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return (that is, turn from their sin), and I would heal them” (Matthew 13:14-15, Isaiah 6:9-10). It is because of their wrong attitudes to sin that they're not able to understand God's Word. Remember that the more radical your attitude toward sin is, the more you will understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. This is the secret. But if your heart has become dull, if you don't listen to your conscience anymore, if you are not really interested in hearing what God is saying, and don't take time to read the Scriptures, then you will be deceived and led astray.

Jesus Was Not a Communist

In Matthew 13:12, Jesus says, “Whoever has, to him shall more be given, and he shall have in abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall to be taken away from him.” This is so contrary to spirit of communism in the world -- Communists say whoever has, from him we must take away so that we can give to the one who doesn't have -- and that's why I have stated that Jesus was not a communist or a socialist. The kingdom of heaven had certain values. It rewards hard work. It doesn't take what a man earned through his hard work and give it to a poor lazy man who didn't have anything because he was too lazy to work. That is not what Jesus taught.

What did Jesus mean when He said, “To whomever has, to him will more be given”? The meaning is that if you're faithful with what you have, God will give you more. Some people have very little, like the man with one talent who buried it. He was not faithful with the little he had, and then one day even that one talent was taken away. When God gives you something, whether it's time, money, energy, or something that you can use for Him, and you don't use it (or you just use it on yourself or live selfishly), then even that little opportunity you had to serve God will be taken away from you. You will just drift along waste your life. But one who is faithful, even if just to help one or two people, God will begin to expand his boundary, and he will be able to help more and more and people, and will become a very useful servant of God one day.

Gratitude for Hearing the Truth

The Lord said to His disciples, “Blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear” (Matthew 13:16). Then Jesus says that in ancient times, “many righteous men and prophets desired to see what you're seeing, and they did not see it, and to hear what you are now hearing and did not hear it” (verse 17).

I have to say this many times to many people in our churches who hear the most amazing truths. Some of you who are reading this are reading some of the most amazing truths that can be known, and yet you can take it lightly, as if it is someone’s opinion. Or you can take Scripture exactly like you've been hearing it and say, “Lord I have been tremendously privileged to hear these things.” Even a hundred years ago, our ancestors couldn't hear these things. For hundreds of years during the time of Christianity, how many of your ancestors do you think heard the type of things you're learning through this teaching? We need to be deeply thankful that we are able to see these things, and respond in gratitude by saying, “Lord, I want to live for You because of the truth that You have taught me.”

Chapter 50

Parables Continued

The Parable of the Tares

In Matthew 13:24 Jesus presented a second parable to His disciples. He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprang up and bore grain, the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

We need to understand what this is a picture of. The tares are those that look like the wheat. There was a danger that if the workers went and pulled out the tares, they could accidently pull out some genuine wheat crop as well. In verse 36, Jesus left the multitudes and went into the house, and His disciples came to Him and asked Him to explain the parable of the tares of the field. Jesus answered and said, “The One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.” Just like in the previous parable (the parable of the sower), Jesus is the One who sows the seed. Jesus also says that the field is not the church - this is the most important thing to understand in this parable.

There are many who interpret this saying that the field is the church. They haven’t read the explanation Jesus gave. They say in the church there are both tares and wheat, but this is not what Jesus said. If you read Scripture carelessly, or try to imagine you have a better interpretation than Christ Himself, you can be sure you are wrong.

The field is not the church, it is the world, and the good seed are the sons of the kingdom living in this world. They are very few in number. They are the good wheat, the people who belong to the kingdom of heaven, whose mind is heavenly, whose heart is set on heavenly things because their treasure is in heaven and not on this earth. For a lot of people, their treasure is on this earth, and so their heart is on this earth. The sons of the kingdom of heaven are those who have their heart set on things above. The tares are the sons of the evil one, the devil. The sons of the evil one are the children of the devil. There are children of God, and children of the devil, as John says in 1 John 3:10, “The children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.” And Jesus explains: “The enemy who sowed the tares is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are angels. Just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age that the Son of man will send forth his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all the stumbling blocks and all those who commit sin and will cast them into the furnace of fire in that place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father. He who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13:39-43).

Through this parable, Jesus taught that He allows evil people to grow up side by side with His children in this world (again, this is not talking about the church). When there is an evil person in the church, we know very clearly what the Holy Spirit has said. There was a case like that in the church in Corinth, where a man was living in sexual sin without repentance. When Paul heard about it he said, “I have already judged him in the name of our Lord Jesus and with the power of our Lord Jesus. I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Put that evil man out of the church” (1 Corinthians 5:4-5). Paul said that such a person must not be kept inside the church; he must be put out completely.

Was Paul contradicting what Jesus said about removing the tares lest they make a mistake of the wheat? No, because the field is not the church! The field is the world, and the meaning is that God doesn't send His servants to pull all of the wicked people out of the world, and destroy them straight away, leaving only God's children here on the earth. He is giving them time because there are some who are not really wholehearted yet - they are wheat but can look like tares. It is sad that they are like that, but God says He gives them time and opportunity to develop to become wholehearted.

God does not bring about His judgment on people now. He waits until the end of the age before He separates the wheat from the tares. But this must not be so in the church. The church must be kept pure at all times. There is a place for putting out people who live in sin and pollute the church. When people don’t do this, the church gets destroyed. A person who claims to be a believer but is living in sin inside the church must be disciplined or be put out of the church completely. Otherwise, a little leaven will leaven the whole lump (1 Corinthians 5:6), or like the English proverb says, one bad apple can spoil all the other apples in the basket. You must remove it and throw it out. Otherwise it will corrupt everything else.

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

The next parable is in Matthew 13:31. This is another parable that is misunderstood. If we compare it with other passages of Scripture, we can find the answer. For example, it says in Matthew 13:31 that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which is a very small seed - smaller than all the other seeds. A man takes it and sows it in his field, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. A regular mustard tree is not a very big tree. How is this that it has become much larger than all the other trees and the birds of the air can come and make nests in it?

I believe that this refers to a mustard seed which has artificially been made to grow. The end result is that you have a huge tree in which the birds of the air come and make its nests. This is not a picture of the development of the true church because Jesus never referred to the church as something that grows up to be a huge tree. Jesus always said the way to life is narrow and there are few who will find it. Thus the Church would be more like a small plant or a very short tree, not a huge one. The huge tree is referring to the false Church, what the book of Revelation calls Babylon, which is huge in size. How can a so-called Christian Church, which is supposed to be preaching the narrow way (which Jesus said very few would find), suddenly have thousands of people in it?

The Narrow Way

This is happening because the gate has been made broader. When you make the gate broader, many people come in and the tree becomes huge. When this Babylonian Church becomes so big in size, the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. What is meant by ‘birds of the air’? We don't have to try and reason what they are because Jesus Himself told us about the birds of the air in verse 4. They were the birds that came and ate up the seed. Jesus explained that the birds of the air are the agents of evil. The evil one his demons come and take away the seeds (God’s Word). The same birds of the air are in this parable, they are demons settling inside churches. They have occupied certain areas, and on certain branches they've settled down.

This has happened in many churches. Demons are very happy there because the narrow way to life is not being preached, in order to please people. Seeker-friendly churches preach that which will draw the crowds. They compromise in music standards because they want to draw the young people. The result is that many young people come to the church not because they are interested in holiness, but because they are interested in good music. A church should not be known for good music. It should not even just be known for good preaching! It must be known for leading people to holiness. If a church is interested in leading people to holiness, then it is not going to be a very large church, because Jesus Himself said, “The way to life is narrow and few there be that find it” (Matthew 13:14).

How small is this narrow gate? Jesus spoke of a camel trying to go through a needle’s eye in Mark 10:25. The gate is so narrow that it’s like a needle's eye - that is the size of the gate that leads to eternal life. A camel cannot go through! When the preacher widens the gate so that the camel can go through, then you have thousands of camels in there who are really not God’s children. The camel cannot go through because it is so big! Anyone who is very big in his own eyes - very important in his own eyes - will not be able to get through in this narrow gate. There are many Christians who are self-important and think the world of themselves. They are deceiving themselves when they think that they are born again Christians. A true disciple of Jesus can never be big in his own eyes. He will be small in his own eyes.

Many creatures cannot crawl through this needle-sized gate, either. But an amoeba (which you can only see through a microscope) can get through easily! When an amoeba comes near, the needle’s eye looks like a huge door! It’s like a man walking through a fifty-foot door. The camel thinks it too small, but the amoeba can run through it! Hundreds of amoebas can get through it because they are all very small.

Thus, when we are small in our own eyes it becomes very easy to go through into God's kingdom. God gives grace to the humble, but He resists the proud. That's the thing we learn in Matthew 13:31-32 - the tree has become so huge that the demons can settle in. There are many churches like this, where there is conflict and strife. This is all because discipleship is not preached and because they don’t teach everything that Jesus taught. If you want to build a church that is going to please the Lord, where the Lord can say to it, “I am with you always till the end of the age,” then it must be a church that preaches discipleship and everything that Jesus taught.

The Parable of the Leaven

In Matthew 13:33, Jesus spoke another parable saying that the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven in its outward expression here on the earth, not in its total purity in heaven. In that purity there will not be any tares, like He said in the previous parable. There will not be any birds of the air - demons making a nest there. The kingdom of heaven being referred to is in its outward expression on the earth, where there is bad ground and there are tares - demons making nests there. It is the outward expression of what we call the church, and a lot of it is Babylonian.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.” Throughout the New Testament leaven is a symbol of something that is bad. In the Old Testament the Israelites were told that on Passover day they must make sure there's no leaven anywhere in the house. I have seen pictures of Jewish people lighting a lamp and looking underneath the bed here and there just in case some leavened bread was thrown around by the children somewhere. That's how careful they were to remove leaven from their houses on the Passover day - on the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. Christians need to be just as careful to remove leaven from their lives, their homes, and their church.

Jesus further describes it as leaven that a woman took and hid. Whenever you have to hide something, you know there is something wrong. This woman hid it in in three pecks of meal until the whole thing was leavened. This could refer to Jesus prophetically looking towards the future to different aspects of Christianity. We don’t know exactly what is meant by the 3 measures of meal, but broadly speaking in the world there are three major streams of Christianity - Roman Catholic, Protestant, and the Pentecostal - and leaven has spread into all three. Each group thinks the leaven is in the other denomination, but it is actually in all three. Jesus said it would be, therefore we have to be very careful.

1 Corinthians 5 explains this clearly: “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). This is speaking of the leaven of wickedness and malice, hatred, strife, bitterness in the church. The devil introduces these things: wickedness, malice, hatred, strife, bitterness and competition, and the end result is that all things are leavened. But unleavened bread is total sincerity and truthfulness. The solution to this is to make sure that sin is constantly judged. This is the way to preserve a church in purity and to prevent the whole measure from being leavened.

“All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables and He did not speak to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet ‘I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world’” (Matthew 13:34-35).

The Parable of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price

The next parable is of hidden treasure in Matthew 13:44.”The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in the field, which a man found and hid; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.” One of the things this teaches is that you have to pay a price. There are many things in the Christian life that are free - like forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this parable, Jesus speaks of something you have to buy - something for which you have to sell everything in order to buy. To be a wholehearted disciple of Jesus, there are certain things we have to give up. This is the price we pay. Sometimes we have to give up even legitimate things. Paul once said that if I have given up sin in my life, there are many things I can do, but I don't do all of them. From all the lawful things I can do, I pick out the things that are profitable and I do only what is profitable. A wholehearted Christian is like that (1 Corinthians 6:12). Paul speaks there about picking out only the profitable things from what is lawful so that he can find fulfillment in his Christian life.

Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.” Note that the treasure is hidden; it is not obvious. What you see on the surface is superficial. There is treasure hidden in Scripture by God. Once you discover what a treasure there is in Christ and in God's kingdom you would be willing to give up everything you have to get it. Why is it you find so many half-hearted Christians who are not willing to give up some sin or habit that may be legitimate but is not helpful for spiritual growth? Why do they always ask questions about what they can and cannot do? Asking in such a way is like asking how close they can get to the edge of the cliff before falling over! It's all because people haven't seen this treasure that is hidden. If only they saw it, they would be glad to sell everything to get it. Suppose a property developer discovers that in one piece of land there is a hoard of gold hidden underground, which nobody knows about. He would be willing to pay any price to get that land because when he gets the land he gets all that gold hidden under the ground!

The man who has discovered something that no one else has discovered is willing to pay any price to get it. He is willing to sell all his property to get it. Jesus spoke about buying something from Him in Revelation 3. There was a backslidden church that was dead and wretched and miserable in Laodicea. The Lord told that church, “I advise you to buy from me gold and white garments, eye salve, etc” (Revelation 3:18). Thus there are certain things that have to be bought if we are to possess God's kingdom.

The same principle is repeated a second time in Matthew 13:45-46. “The kingdom of heavens is like a merchant seeking very fine pearls - and then he found a pearl of great price.” The pearl is a picture of Christ Himself. The merchant has found Jesus Christ, and has seen Him to be so valuable that he is willing to sell all that he has in order to gain Him. In other words, nothing is more important to him than Christ. It’s like the Psalmist says in Psalm in 73:25, “Whom have I in Heaven but Thee? And there is nothing on earth I desire besides Thee.” Many Christians haven't seen the value of Christ like that. That's why they are always saying, “Lord, how much do I have to give up? Do I have to give up this, do I have to give up that?” Many young people don’t think the pearl is worth so much. They put a low value on Christ, and so they are not willing to give up many things. They miss the greatest treasure of all. One day when we stand before the Lord we will discover what a tremendous loss was ours because we did not see the value of Christ. This is why it is so important for us to see the value of Christ right now.

The Parable of the Dragnet

The last parable Jesus spoke about was the dragnet - the final day when the Lord will bring everything in and separate the good fish from the bad fish, and those who are bad will be cast into the lake of fire. Then Jesus asks them if they have understood all these things, and they said yes.

Lastly, He said in conclusion that once you have understood these things, you must become a disciple. The scribe must become a disciple. He must become a disciple, not just understanding Scripture but practicing it. Thus these parables are meant for practice, and once we have practiced, from our understanding we can bring out treasures, both new and old (verse 52).

Chapter 51

A New Covenant Servant of God

At the end of the parables, Jesus asks His disciples, “Have you understood all of these things?” (Matthew 13:51). It is quite amazing that they said that they had understood all of His parables. Then Jesus said that the scribe must become a disciple (Matthew 13:52). What Jesus meant was that a scribe is one who understands everything: he has used his mind to grasp the intellectual part of the Scriptures. But the scribe must become a disciple; that means he has to obey what he has understood. Though the disciples said they understood, Jesus said that they must practice what they understood. You have to apply the truth of these parables to your life.

Scribes May Understand the Parables, but Disciples Apply Them

For example, if you say you have understood the parable of the treasure in the field, how do you apply it? You must be willing to give up everything because you recognize that Jesus Christ Himself is that hidden treasure. The same goes for the parable of the pearl. If we see Christ as a pearl of great price, we will be willing to give up everything on earth in order to have Him. We will say like the Psalmist, “Whom I have in heaven but Thee, and on earth, there is nothing that I desire beside Thee” (Psalm 73:25). The mark of a true disciple is that he can sincerely say this to the Lord from his heart. We can understand the parable of the soils in our minds, but we have to make sure that thorns like the deceitfulness of riches and the anxieties of worldly things don't grow up to choke our Christian life. Then we become disciples. Otherwise we can preach wonderful messages on these parables, but we're just scribes. That is why after ending this section on the parables, Jesus said, “the scribe must become a disciple.”

Jesus taught that it is not enough to be a scribe. You have to be a disciple. Once you are a disciple, then you have treasure, which is what we experience from putting these teachings to practice in daily life, through trial and temptation, and overcoming. Then we have a treasure, and from that treasure we can bring forth and make other people rich with what we have practiced and understood. “New and old” (Matthew 13:52) means we have experiences from past years, but we must also be continually having new experiences with the Lord. If you only have old experiences with the Lord, you're probably a backslider. A person who is walking with God does not only have experiences with the Lord to talk about from last year or year before that; he must be having current experiences (not necessarily every day but something recent) of what the Lord has spoken to him and done to him and for him; these are his “treasures new and old.”

Needed: New Covenant Disciples Who Minister God’s Strength

Remember that in the New Covenant, ministry does not come by study, or even by waiting on the Lord and hearing His voice - that is Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant, ministry was by hearing God speak through the prophets. Moses would go up to the mountain, and then come down and tell people what the Lord had said. In the New Covenant, ministry comes through the trials God takes us through. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1 that God allows us to go through all types of afflictions so that He can strengthen us. In 2 Corinthians 1:4, the word “comfort” means “strengthens” and “encourages”. The word “fort” is within the word comfort, meaning a fort of strength. “God strengthens us in our affliction so that we may be able to strengthen those who are in an affliction themselves with the same strength that we received when God strengthened us.” The word “comfort” or “strength” comes in that verse four times. The strength we receive in the trials we go through is the basis of our ministry to other people.

People don't need an intellectual knowledge of God. They need to know how to overcome in their trials, and that can only come through what we have experienced. That is why Jesus Christ Himself had to go through every temptation that any man can ever go through. He was tempted in all points as we are (Hebrews 4:15). That is how He can run to the aid of those who are tempted today (Hebrews 2:18). If we are to run to the aid of the people who are in trial and temptation today, we must be mini-forerunners for others. We must be able to say to others, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” Paul could say that, and from his trials, Paul the scribe became Paul the disciple.

The great danger of many preachers today is that they are scribes and not disciples. They have lot of head knowledge and can beautifully arrange a sermon, but they have very little to speak about from practical experience of the Lord, how He took them through triumphantly in different situations, helped them to overcome sins, or help them to come to a glorious family life, etc. If we don't have such a message, we are still scribes, and that is why the church suffers so much today. There are too many scribes, or like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:15, “You have 10,000 teachers but only one father.” What the church needs is fathers and disciples who can bring forth out from their treasure experiences from the past, as well as current experiences of what the Lord is teaching them right now.

Jesus’ Ministry Overflowed from His Life with God

Matthew 13:53 says, “When He finished these parables, He departed from there. He came to His hometown and He began teaching them in their synagogues.” Jesus was constantly teaching. He was never tired of teaching because He knew that people needed to hear. He had gone through thirty years of walking with the Father in Nazareth, and was rich in practical experience of walking with God as a man. He had to come as a man, and go through many trying experiences, and only then could He teach. He didn't rush out and teach as soon as He knew the Bible. He knew the Bible when He was 12 years old, but then He would have only been a scribe. To be a disciple of the Father, Jesus had to go through another eighteen years in Nazareth, practicing everything that He studied. Then God sent Him out. Today, we have many people who think that they are ready to teach others after three years in a Bible School. Like Jesus, we have to go through experiences in life in order to lead other people to a Godly life.

Those Who Will Despise Prophets

Matthew 13:54 says, “And when He came there, the people in His hometown were astonished and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ The people only knew Jesus as a poor carpenter's son. Carpenters were not considered high up in the society. Jesus’s family were not scholars or rich people, so Jesus was just a poor carpenter's Son from a town called Nazareth, which is a despised town. We read that Jesus had at least four brothers and was therefore a member of a family with at least seven children. When they asked, “Where did this man get all these things?” and took offense at Him, Jesus responded, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own family” (Matthew 13:57). This has been true through two thousand years. People who have seen a prophet (in his hometown or in his family) grow up from a little child always think of him as the little child they knew; but God may have raised him to be a prophet. Family members usually despise a true prophet of God. In the town in which the prophet grew up, they have seen him from childhood as a little school boy, and they despise him. Other towns that have seen him as a grown man recognize that he is a prophet straightaway, and tend to respect him; and this was true in Jesus’ time as well. Everybody in Nazareth had seen Jesus as a little boy. His family members and relatives had also seen Him as a little boy, and so they did not respect Him as a great prophet.

It is the same today. Many people despise a true prophet of God within his family and in his hometown. If you are a true servant of God and God has given you a prophetic ministry, you shouldn’t be surprised if you are not valued in your home town. As the English proverb says, “familiarity breeds contempt.” We don't necessarily get respect in our hometown and from our own family members. That is just following in the footsteps of Jesus.

Unbelief Prevents God’s Work

In Matthew 13:58, it says, “He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.” What do we learn from Jesus’ life? Though He wanted to do miracles for some people, yet He could not do so. He was prevented from performing miracles, not because He didn't want to, or because they didn't have need - He greatly wanted to do a miracle for them, and they had great need - but because they wouldn't believe. It is quite amazing that in Jesus’ Own hometown, where they should have had the maximum blessing, they got the least. Imagine that, that in all the towns and villages where Jesus ministered, the village that got the least amount of blessing was Nazareth, where Jesus had lived for thirty years. They wouldn't accept or believe in Him.

Wherever you despise a true servant of God, you will be the loser. If a man is a genuine, true man of God anointed by the Holy Spirit, and you look down on him for some reason, you will be the loser. There is no man without weaknesses. Every servant of God in the history of humanity, including the Apostle Paul, had weaknesses. Jesus wanted to do many miracles there, but He could not do them. This also teaches us that we need to ask ourselves, “Is there something God wanted to do for me, but which He couldn't do, because I wouldn't trust Him?” Perhaps there is a difficult problem you are facing, and you really want to be delivered from it. God also wants to deliver you from it, but you are not delivered from it because of your unbelief.

I have often thought about this verse in relation to the final day of judgment when I stand before the Lord. When the Lord reviews my life on the day of judgment, will He say, “I could have done something for you there if you had trusted Me,” or, in this other place, “If only you had trusted Me, things would have turned out very differently from the way they did, but I couldn't do anything for you. My hands were tied because you wouldn't trust Me. You depended on man to help you. You looked up to the hills for your help. You went to Egypt instead of coming to Me.” Will that be true? I can't do anything about the years gone by. Many years of my life were wasted in unbelief. But at least in the years to come, I want to trust God first in every situation, whatever my need is - physical sickness, problems with other people, difficulties with children, or any type of problem I may ever face, “Lord, I want to trust You first. I know that You are Almighty God. You taught me to pray to ‘our Father who art in Heaven,’ Who can do everything.”

Dear brothers and sisters, please consider whether there are things in your life that the Lord could have done differently if you had only trusted Him. It is a very challenging verse to me, and one of the saddest verses in all the four Gospels. “He could not and did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). Mark 6:5 says, “He could do no miracle there, except that He healed few sick people. And He wondered at their unbelief.” He was amazed at their unbelief. Do you recognize that you tie the hands of Christ when you don't trust Him?

Jesus Found Strength for His Sorrow in His Father

Matthew 14:1 says, “At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the news about Jesus, and said to his servants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’ It is quite amazing that Jesus was mistaken for another human being. What a man John the Baptist must have been for somebody to think that Jesus was John the Baptist! John never did a miracle. But Jesus did miraculous things all the time. That's a real challenge - a wholehearted servant of God being considered equal to Jesus by a heathen man.

Matthew 14:13 says that when Jesus heard about the beheading of John (the story of his beheading is found in Matthew 14:1-12), He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself.” Jesus was human, and that is why He was so grieved that when He heard about Herod killing His forerunner, John the Baptist. He had to withdraw Himself. That is a good thing to do. We can learn from the life of Jesus that whenever we feel some pressure of sorrow because of some circumstance or death, etc., we need to withdraw and get alone with God and overcome it. Cast that sorrow into the Lord's hands. The Bible says, “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you,” because otherwise, we can be overwhelmed with sorrow. There are many Christians who face some difficult or sorrowful situation. They become so overwhelmed that they are incapacitated and useless for weeks. To avoid this, we need to get alone in the presence of God. Even Jesus needed to do this when He heard that John the Baptist had been killed. He withdrew Himself and went alone to be with the Father in prayer. This shows me His tremendous identification with the human race, that when He experienced our weaknesses and our sorrows, He knew how to weep and felt the feelings we feel in such situations. He knew the answer was to get alone with the Father.

When He had finished His time of grieving and seeking comfort and strength from His Father, Jesus saw the multitudes that had followed Him and He “felt compassion for them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). Within a short time, Jesus was back into the ministry. He didn't let the sorrow of John’s death overwhelm Him. That is what we learn from the life of Jesus. He teaches us even by the little actions of His life, just as much as He does from His words.

To Serve God, Be Willing to Be Inconvenienced

“When it was evening, the disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This place is desolate, and the time is already past; so send the multitudes away, so they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ But Jesus said, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat’” (v15-16). Jesus’ response should be the attitude of every servant of God. Many would say, “Send them away,” but Jesus says to give them something to eat before sending them away. A servant of God must be one who is hospitable; one whose home is open to serve others who come, to feed them and take care of them. If you are unwilling to do that, you cannot be a servant of God. If you are always thinking that it will be inconvenient, or will involve sacrifice, forget about serving God. If you want to be a servant of God, you must be willing to be inconvenienced. You must be willing to sacrifice time, energy, and money, etc.

Jesus said to bring the five loaves and two fishes they had to Him. “Ordering the multitudes to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the multitudes, and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And there were about five thousand men who ate, beside women and children” (Matthew 14:18-21). What we learn from this is that if we seek to be hospitable, God can even supernaturally help us to bless other people. That is what we learn from Jesus. Honor God and say, “Lord, I want to serve others and bless them,” and you will find that God does amazing, supernatural things to help you.

Chapter 52

Secret Prayer, Purpose of Storms, and Overcoming the Law of Gravity

Immediately after feeding the multitude, Jesus, “made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side while He sent the multitudes away. And after He had sent the multitudes away, He went up to the mountain by Himself to pray” (Matthew 14:22). This is something that Jesus often did. After He had done some tremendous miracle, like healing many sick people or feeding 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, He would go be alone with the Father.

Why Jesus Slipped Away to Pray

Do you think Jesus was tempted to be proud? If you read Hebrews 4:15, you’ll know the answer. He was tempted in all things exactly as we are. Suppose you had fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. Would you be tempted to be proud? If you had healed hundreds of sick people miraculously, would you be tempted to be proud? You know the answer; we would be! Jesus too was tempted, but He never became proud for even a single moment. But let’s not imagine that this was automatic for Jesus. Holiness was not handed to Him on a platter.

What do we learn from Jesus’ life? What does He teach us from His life? We learn that after God has used us, we must get alone with God and give Him the glory, and acknowledge that it was done through His power. Remember that Christ lived on earth as a Man. That is why He could say to us, “Follow Me.” If He lived on Earth as God, He would never need to pray. He would never be tempted because God is never tempted. He could never say to us, “Follow Me.” An angel flying with wings across the river could never ask us to follow him. And if Christ had come to earth as God, He could never say the words “Follow Me.” We could boldly say to Him, “Lord, we cannot follow You. Don't tease us. You had powers that we don't have.” But Jesus could say to all His disciples, and to us today, “Follow Me.”

In What Way Do We Follow Jesus?

We don't have the same ministry Jesus had. Even I don't have the same ministry. As human beings, we all don't have the same ministry. You can’t do what I do. I can’t do what you do. We have different functions in the body. The hand cannot do what the liver does. The legs cannot do what the kidneys do. We have different functions in the body. In the body of Christ, we also all have different functions. When it comes to ministry, we can’t do what Christ did. Also, you can’t do what I am doing, and I can’t do what you're doing. So ministry is different for different people, but I can follow your example if you're following Christ. You can follow my example if I'm following Christ. I can follow Christ in the way He lived and by the principles by which He lived.

We read in Luke 5:15, “The news about Jesus was spreading further, and great multitudes were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.” Thousands were being healed. It was not this fake type of healing seen in healing campaigns today where someone’s invisible backache is healed or a little hearing problem is improved 10%. It was not a fake healing or psychosomatic healing where a changed mental attitude brings healing. These were absolutely supernatural healings. People born blind or lame were being raised up and healed completely. Hundreds and thousands were healed immediately. It was not a gradual healing that took place over a period of months. This was immediate, instantaneous, and miraculous healing of hundreds and thousands. Was Jesus tempted to be proud? Sure, but He never became proud. He did not have an atom of pride in Him, not for even a fraction of a second. That is because, as Luke 5:16 says, “He would often slip away into the wilderness to pray.”

The Right Way to Slip Away

This is what I have learned from Jesus’ life. He teaches me that when I am used by God in some wonderful way, I need to slip away into the wilderness and pray. I like the words, “slip away.” This is what “slip away” means: for example, a number of people are talking together and Jesus is involved in the conversation. All of a sudden, they look around and say, “Where’s Jesus? He left us. When did He leave us? We don’t even know when He left us.” That's the meaning of “slip away.” It is not getting up and saying, “Hey fellas, I'm going for a time of prayer. Please excuse Me.” It wasn't like that. No, there was not an announcement. He just left quietly, while the conversation was going on. He would slip away quietly in such a way that they wouldn't even know that He left.

That is the way to get alone with God and pray. Do not make big announcements and speak about it later on, “During my time of prayer, God spoke to me…” and all this pompous stuff. Or, “While I was fasting for three weeks, the Lord said this to me…” All this type of garbage is complete disobedience to what Jesus says in Matthew 6 - “When you fast, don't tell anybody about it. When you pray, don't let anyone know that you're praying.”

I have seen that Christians who fast and pray are the ones who disobey that command the most. They have a tremendous lust to inform others about how long they fasted and how long they prayed. How do you know these men of God prayed for two hours every day? They must have told someone. Their family members may know it. If others speak it, it's okay. But if they themselves inform others, they are violating and disobeying Matthew 6. Jesus said, “When you pray, don't let anybody know about it. When you fast, don’t let anyone know about it. When you give money, don't let anyone know about it.” These commands are often disobeyed by Christians.

Secret Prayer Is a Protection from Pride & Temptation

Jesus would slip away and pray. After feeding the 5,000, it says in Matthew 14:23, “He went up to the mountain to pray, and when it was evening He was there alone.” That's why Jesus never sinned in His entire life. There was no pride in Jesus, not even for a fraction of a second. He was tempted. I am sure thoughts of pride would be flashed into His mind by the devil, but He overcame them because He would get alone with His Father. If He was not like us and He had come here as God, then He would not need to get alone like that in prayer. Prayer is the expression of weakness and helplessness. It’s only a weak person who prays. It is because we think we are so strong that we don't pray very much. It is because we think we are so capable that we do not depend upon God for our service. That is why our results are so shallow. That is why we so frequently fall into pride and many other sins.

But Jesus recognized His limitation as a human being. He told His disciples in Gethsemane, “Watch and pray. Otherwise you will fall in the time of temptation. You will definitely fall.” But Peter, James and John were self-confident, like a lot of Christians today. In the Garden of Gethsemane, they said, “We are okay. We are praying. We are not going to fall.” And then they went to sleep. But Jesus prayed because He said, “I am a man. I am weak. I need to pray.” The disciples did not recognize their weakness, and they slept. What happened in the moment of temptation? Peter took out his sword and chopped off somebody’s ear. He fell in the moment of temptation. But Jesus did not because He had prayed. He healed the man's ear.

This is the difference. I want to tell you in Jesus’ name that the reason why you keep falling into temptation is because you have not listened to the words of Jesus saying, “Watch, be alert, and pray. Otherwise, you will fall into temptation.” Recognize your weakness. Recognize your helplessness and lean upon God, and especially after God has used you in some wonderful way. This is what Jesus has taught us by his life, and we need to practice it.

Jesus Secretly Insisted Upon Secret Prayer

It was Jesus who urged His disciples to get into the boat. There is a very interesting word in Matthew 14:22. In the margin, it says the literal Greek word means compelled. “He ‘compelled’ His disciples to get into the boat and go to the other side.” Just think about it. That means they did not want to go. They said, “No, no. We’ll stay here.”

“No,” He says, “You must go. You must get into the boat and go.”

They said, “No, no, no, Lord. We’ll stay here.”

“No, you have to go.” He compelled them. Finally, they reluctantly got into the boat and went off.

There were two reasons for this. First of all, Jesus wanted to be alone. There are times when we need to send everybody away. Even when they don't want to go, you have to compel them to leave and say, “Listen, I need to be alone right now.” He didn't tell them why He was sending them away. So the first reason is that Jesus wanted to get alone for prayer.

The Lord Sends Us into Storms

The second reason was that He wanted to teach them something in the lake. “When the boat was already hundreds of feet from the land, it was battered by the waves, for the wind was contrary” (Matthew 14:24).

What do we learn from this about Jesus’ dealings with us? If they had disobeyed God and not gotten into the boat and gone into the lake, they wouldn't have faced the storm. They would not have been battered by the waves. It is when they obeyed the Lord that they faced the problems. Do you see that? He compelled them to go. Finally, they went and they faced the waves battering their boat. It says, “The wind was contrary.”

When do we face storms, contrary winds and trials in life? It is when we obey the Lord. If you disobey the Lord, you probably won't face many problems. That is what we learn from this passage. When we obey, we face storms and the winds battering our life and our home. Disobedient people usually have a comfortable life, at least temporarily. In the long run, they reap what they sow and find judgment, sorrows, and problems. Wholehearted disciples face more earthly problems than half-hearted ones. Half-hearted ones tell lies, compromise, do wrong things, and have a pretty easy way through life. It is the wholehearted, radical ones who face storms, battering waves, and many, many, trials in their life. But they are the fortunate ones because they are the ones who experience the Lord stilling the storm and quieting the waves. They are the ones that experience the Lord calming everything and solving the problem.

Storms Give Jesus an Opportunity to Demonstrate Power

Would you rather go through life without problems, as a lot of Christians would like? Or would you like to face problems and see Almighty God delivering you from them, one after the other? You can have a remarkable testimony to give to others. So don’t ever pray, “Lord, don't give us any problems.”

Think of Sunday school children who would be taught stories about Jesus like this: “Jesus went to a marriage in Cana. Fortunately, they had ordered enough food and wine for everybody. They never ran short.” The children say, “That's a boring story. I don't want to hear that.” But when the children hear, “Hey! The wine ran out and Jesus turned the water into wine! Wow, look at that!” Imagine a story like this: “There were five thousand men, and many women and children, who were sitting and listening to Jesus. Then they were all hungry. Fortunately, everybody had brought their lunch packets so they opened them and started eating.” That's boring. But “Jesus took five loaves and two fish from one little boy and fed the five thousand!” That is the interesting story.

When we face shortage, trials, difficulties, and limitations, we can experience the mighty power of God. This is what Jesus teaches us through these experiences that are written down in the Gospels for our instruction. It was when the the wind was contrary in the fourth watch of the night that “Jesus came walking on the sea” (Matthew 14:25).

Jesus Can Overcome Every Law We Face

Every miracle is also a parable. (We saw a list of parables in Matthew 13.) This miracle is also a parable because no human being can walk on the sea. That is impossible. The law of gravity pulls everybody down. They'll drown in the sea. Look at the millions of people that have drowned in the sea. It is because gravity pulls them down. It is not land. Nobody drowns on land, but millions of people have died in the sea through the years, pulled down by gravity. When Jesus walked on the water, He was saying, “I can overcome the law of gravity.” The law of gravity is still operating. It’s not cancelled out, but Jesus could overcome it by the power of God. The parable is this: the law of gravity is like the law of sin, which also pulls us down all the time. Paul speaks about the law of sin and spiritual death in Romans 7. The law of sin and spiritual death is operating in every part of the world and is always pulling us down like the law of gravity, every single moment - 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Just as the law of gravity operates upon us, the law of sin and death operates upon every human being, Christians included, all the time.

The law of sin and death tugged at Jesus over and over again (He was tempted in all points as we are – Hebrews 4:15), and sought to bring Him down, but He never sinned. He walked over it. It says in Hebrews 5:7 that, “Jesus prayed with loud crying and tears to be saved from that law of sin and death, and He was heard.” The law of death couldn't pull Him down. He was heard because of His godly fear. He overcame the law of sin and death constantly, all the time, every single moment. Right after Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus never sinned, we are urged in verse 16 to “therefore go to the throne of grace and ask God for the same grace.” That is the point. We don’t look at Jesus as Someone Whom we admire, but Someone to follow. Jesus never said, “Admire Me.” Never! He always said, “Follow Me.” We are not to set up our lives for others to admire either, but rather, for them to follow.

Don’t Just Admire Jesus

Jesus never said, “Admire Me.” If you are only admiring Jesus, you are not a disciple. When you break bread at the Lord's table, you are not admiring Jesus. Rather, you are saying, “Lord, I want to go the same way: I want to be broken the way You were broken.” When you drink the cup, you are saying, “Like You shed Your blood, I want my life to be poured out for You.” If you are only admiring Jesus, then you must look at the bread when it comes to you, admire it, and pass it on to the next person without touching it. This is because you don't want to follow Jesus; you just want to admire Him.

Be honest. If you're taking part in the breaking of bread, then you’re saying, “I want to follow Jesus.” To follow means that you believe, “I can also overcome like Jesus did.” That is the most important part of this miracle. When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were frightened. They said, “It is a ghost,” and they cried out in fear (they had a fear of ghosts way back in the first century too). Immediately, Jesus spoke to them saying, “Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.” What a word! Never be discouraged because the Lord says, “It is Me. I am yours. Do not be afraid. As long as I am here, you don't have to be afraid.” Peter was bold and said, “Lord, if this is You, command me to come to You on the water.”

Be Bold to Expect to Be an Overcomer, Too

I want to apply this spiritually. Bold Christians look up to Jesus and say, “Lord, if You lived on earth as a man, and You only had the same resource that Christians have today - the power of the Holy Spirit - then bid me also to step out and overcome the law of sin and death like You did. If You can do it, I can do it.”

That is the boldness of faith, and Peter was the one who said it. The others said, “Oh, we're not so sure. We’d better stay in the comfort of this boat because the law of sin and death will take over and we’ll drown. The law of gravity will take over.”

But Peter said, “If You can do it, Lord, then I can do it. Tell me to come.”

And the Lord said, “Come.”

Some of you are defeated by sin. The law of sin and death is pulling you down every single day. You're falling and getting discouraged and downcast. The Lord is saying to you, “Come and overcome the law of sin and death. Look at Me. Look at My example, and I will give you the same power to overcome.” Peter stepped out. I don't know how many others in the boat called him a heretic for believing that he could overcome the law of sin and death. Certainly, it happens today. Romans 6:14 says that grace is more powerful than the law of sin and death. If anyone preaches that sin shall not have dominion over you because you are under grace, others will call him a heretic for believing Scripture.

This is the tragic state of Christendom today. If somebody preaches that we can never overcome sin or we will keep on sinning till our dying day, others call that person a true servant of God. The Devil has succeeded in turning the truth of God upside down. The true servants of God are called heretics, and the heretics are called true servants of God. Can you imagine what a work the devil has done? I'm surprised at the thousands of blind and dumb Christians who sit like idiots and believe all this rubbish that is contrary to God's Word. They are like those disciples who like the comfort of the boat. Thank God for every man like Peter, who steps out and says, “Lord, if You can overcome the law of sin and death, so can I. You were a Man like me, and the power of the Holy Spirit worked in You. You have given the same Holy Spirit to me today.” This is unlike the Old Covenant, where they did not have the power of the Holy Spirit.

Peter steps out. That is a greater miracle than Jesus walking on the water! For Jesus to walk on the water is not such a great thing, but for Peter to walk on the water is an amazing thing. For Jesus to overcome sin is not such a great thing, but for us to overcome sin is really amazing. That is what the Lord says He’ll do for us. It is not without His power, but it is guaranteed with His power.

Keep Your Eyes on Jesus, and Cry Out as Soon as You Sink

Peter walked on the water and came to Jesus. Then, he made a mistake. As long as we run the race looking unto Jesus, as it says in Hebrews 12:1-2, we will endure till the end without falling or sinking. But we can turn our eyes away from the Lord like Peter did and begin to look at the wind and the waves. When we turn our eyes away from Christ and His example, we can begin to compare ourselves with other people who are drowning in the sea and become proud. You can think, “‘I'm not drowning.” At that very moment, you begin to drown through pride. Or you look around at others and start criticizing them for something. Again, you’ll drown. Or you look around at others and listen to their opinions about you and you get discouraged. Again, you’ll drown.

What is the solution? Don't look at them. Don't listen to them. Look at Jesus. Let us run the race, as one translation says, “Looking away from everything else, unto Jesus”. Look away from everyone else unto Jesus. Fix and focus our vision on Christ alone Who has overcome everything. He has overcome sin, the world, and the devil. Our flesh, the world, and the devil have all been overcome. And He says to us, “Follow Me.”

It says that Peter began to sink. What shall we do if we fail? There is a message here for the entire Christian life. What shall we do if we did turn our eyes away from the Lord in stupidity and we begin to sink? If we begin to feel is all hope gone? Do we have to drown? No! You just have to cry out, “Lord, save me.” I love that word, “immediately” in Matthew 14:31. “Immediately, Jesus stretched out His hand and said, ‘Oh, you of little faith. Why do you doubt Me?’” He took hold of him first. He did not give him a warning or exhortation first. He held him and made him stand. Then gave him the rebuke. He didn’t rebuke him first, because if He had done that, Peter would have sunk to the bottom by then. The Lord holds us first and then rebukes us. Isn’t that wonderful? He makes us stand first before correcting us. But you have to cry out saying, “Lord, save me,” immediately. Peter said that when he was beginning to sink, not when he hit the bottom of the sea. Don't wait till you hit the bottom of the sea before you call out. Ask Him now, while you're beginning to sink. Call out to Him and say, “Lord, save me.” And immediately, you will find He stretches out His hand to help you.

Chapter 53

God's Word Over Man’s Tradition

Cry Out to the Lord Immediately When Beginning to Sink

When Peter began to sink, he just cried out, “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30). That is all you have to do when you have failed or when you are slipping. The important thing is to call on the Lord when you’re beginning to sink, not after you hit rock bottom or the bottom of the sea. Many people ask God to help them and to be merciful to them after they have completely fallen and messed up their life. The best time to ask God to help you is immediately when you are beginning to sink.

For example, in practical terms, this means to cry out, “Lord, give me grace. Lord save me!” when you're facing a particular pressure. It could be pressure to become angry, or to watch internet pornography on a computer, or some type of pressure like that. You are trying to resist it, but you find you are slipping and falling. The pull is becoming greater and greater, and you fear that you may fall, that is the time to cry out, “Lord, give me grace. Lord, save me!”

The words are not important. The Lord hears the cry of your heart. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be delivered. That is a promise in Scripture. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be delivered (Romans 10:13). As soon as Peter called on the name of the Lord saying, “Lord, save me,” the Lord took hold of him, and then He proceeded to give him a rebuke. That is always God's Way. He’ll definitely correct you - He’ll rebuke you for your unbelief - but He will first hold you; and then after that, He will correct you. Jesus held Peter and then spoke to him. He didn't speak to him and then hold him because by the time the Lord said those words, Peter would have gone right into the sea!

Faith for What He Promised

Jesus held Peter and then said, “Oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt?” We have seen this again and again in the Gospel of Matthew. The Lord rebukes people for unbelief. The Lord admires faith. What is the overall message that comes to us through this? What is Jesus trying to teach us through all these incidents put together? It is that Jesus greatly appreciates faith - specifically, faith which is based on His Word. If the Lord had not told Peter to come, but he stepped out on his own initiative, then that would be a different thing altogether.

Unfortunately, a lot of people today are doing things that the Lord never told them to do. They are trying to have faith for things God never promised. No wonder they are sinking! They make a mess of their lives because they are trying to do things that God never told them to do. They are jumping off of the roof of the temple and trying to claim a promise. Then they crash and break their bones and wonder why the Lord did not protect them. Well, the Lord has not promised to support our stupidity. If there are steps provided from the roof of the temple, you should use the steps. You should not jump off and ask the Lord to protect you, trying to claim some promise of His. It is when we have faith based on a promise of God or a command that says, “Come and do this,” that we can be 100% sure that God will give us the resources to do it. Whatever He has commanded, He gives us the resources to do.

In Acts 20:32, Paul uses a lovely expression to refer to God’s Word. He says, “I commend you to God and to the Word of His Grace.” That is a lovely expression for the Word of God. It is the ‘Word of His Grace.’ This means that every command in His Word will have the promise of grace attached to it. If you find a command, you can expect grace is available to keep that command. There is no command in the New Testament for which grace is not available.

For example, there is a command to, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4). That means there is grace available to rejoice in the Lord 24/7. You may not have availed of it. That is another thing. Or take Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing.” There is grace available to live a life completely free from anxiety. That may not be your experience because you do not avail of that grace. You do not cry, “Lord, save me.” You do not believe that the Lord can do it. You look at the circumstances like Peter did. You look around at people and circumstances, and you drown in anxiety or fear or grumbling and complaining when there is absolutely no need to. There is no need to live on this Earth having a bad mood even one single time in your life. Can you have a bad mood and rejoice in the Lord always? That is impossible. Can you be gloomy and depressed and rejoice in the Lord always? Can you be anxious and fearful yet obey the command that says be anxious for nothing? No. What is the secret? The secret is to look at Jesus, and see how He lived. Obey His command and trust Him to give us the grace to live by that standard. This is what Christendom needs to be challenged to do. This is the message that is missing in Christendom today.

Matthew 14:33-34 says, “When they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And those who were in the boat worshipped Him, saying, ‘You are certainly God’s Son!’ When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. There the men at that place recognized Him, and they brought to Him all who were sick. They began to entreat Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak.” They did not even touch His body; they just touched the dress He was wearing. There was so much power that was transmitted through His body and through His dress. “As many as touched it were cured.” In other words, every single person was cured. They were all healed. All types of terrible diseases were healed by touching the hem of His garment. Blind people’s eyes were opened. Deaf people began to hear. Dumb people began to speak. Lame people began to walk. Those with internal diseases and aches were healed.

God Promised That We Can Follow Jesus’ Life, Not His Ministry

This was an attestation by God of the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. It is not something that we can repeat. It is not something that has happened again throughout 2000 years of Christianity. It happened only in the time of Jesus. God has occasionally given such supernatural powers to some people according to His sovereign choice, but nobody had even 1% of the extent to which it was seen in Christ. There has never been an apostle or servant of God, who has been able to manifest the power of healing and miracles that flowed out from Christ’s life and body even 1% of which He did, to even one thousandth of that! We need to humble ourselves and acknowledge that we cannot do that. Jesus never asked us to do it. He never asked us to follow Him in His ministry. Jesus asked us to follow Him in His life and the way He lived. Let’s keep that in mind.

Finding Fault in Others

In Matthew 15, some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem. They were always trying to find fault with Him and His disciples. There are some Christians like that too. They’re great Bible scholars like the Pharisees. You can ask yourself whether you are one like that. The Pharisees disagreed with Jesus. They did not quite agree with what He was doing and preaching. When you find someone whom you disagree with, ask yourself whether you are acting like the Pharisees acted towards Jesus.

Are you trying to find some fault or some little thing that you can nit-pick? Are you trying to find an error in some little sentence someone said? If so, very often you will find it is caused by jealousy. The Pharisees were tremendously jealous of Jesus because He was so popular. You could be jealous of someone whose ministry is more effective or more anointed than yours. More people are listening to him than to you and you want to do something to tear him down. There are lots of Pharisees like that in the world today. The Lord would say to you, “You generation of vipers! How will you escape the damnation of Hell?” You need to take that seriously. These things are written for our instruction. What we learn from here is not only from Jesus’ life. We can learn from the reaction of other people to Jesus’ ministry. These lessons are for our own salvation, if you're interested.

Tradition vs the Word of God

The Pharisees came to Jesus and said in Matthew 15:2, “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” The tradition of the elders was most important for the Pharisees. It was not the Word of God or the Heart of God or the Spirit of God, but it was the tradition of the elders. I find many Christians with this problem. The tradition of the elders is what people have believed in our church from ancient ages. In some churches, people say “Our church started a hundred years ago. This is what our senior elders have taught and this is what we believe. This is the tradition of the elders.” But is it found in the Word of God? That is the question.

Jesus broke with tradition. He said the Word of God is more important than tradition. That's why they killed Him. They didn’t kill Jesus because He was washing the disciples’ feet. They didn't kill Him because He said love your enemies. They didn’t kill Him because He said don’t lust after women. They killed Him because He said the tradition of the elders is a lot of rubbish and it violates and contradicts the Word of God. Jesus said you need to throw it away. You need to understand the spirit of God's Word.

This phrase, “the tradition of the elders,” is a very important thing to the Pharisees and to today's Pharisees also. You will find it in your own heart too, if you respect human tradition and have no Scriptural foundation. These traditions can hinder you from following the Lord, particularly if we hold onto traditions that contradict Scripture. There are a lot of traditions that have nothing to do with Scripture. By all means you can follow them, but traditions that contradict Scripture must be thrown into the garbage bin. There are a lot of things in Christendom today that need to be thrown in the trash can if we want to follow the Lord. If you do not do that, you will not be able to follow Jesus. You will be following the tradition of the elders. One day you will stand before the Lord and discover that you did not obey God's Word. You just obeyed the traditions of your church. So be careful that does not happen.

One tradition the Pharisees emphasized was that they did not sit down to eat without first going through a ritual washing of their hands. But the disciples were pretty careless about all that. Jesus answered and said to the Pharisees, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” He says to them, “I'll tell you other areas where you are breaking God's Word with your traditions.” For the disciples to not wash their hands ritualistically was a small thing. The Pharisees were not bothered about hygiene. They were talking about a ritualistic washing of the hands in a certain way for a period of time before they eat. It is one thing if one washes hands for the sake of hygiene. But this was a religious ritual, and the Pharisees were wondering why the disciples didn’t follow it. Jesus said, “That's not a serious thing. I'll tell you the Word of God that you cancelled with your tradition.”

Jesus then taught them in Matthew 15:4, “God has said, Honor your father and mother. He who speaks evil of his father and mother should be put to death.” God takes very seriously this matter of speaking disrespectfully to your parents or about your parents. Speaking evil of your father and mother does not mean saying that they worship idols. Maybe they do and that is the truth. That's not speaking evil of them. That is a fact. But when you denounce them by criticizing them him in a bad way, that is speaking evil. That is a very serious sin in God's eyes. Jesus was pointing out there to the Pharisees that they teach children, who need to support their parents financially, to say, “I’m sorry. Anything of mine that I could have sent you to help you, I have given it to God.” Wow! What a spiritual answer to give! Your parents are in need. They hardly have enough to eat. You are earning a good salary, and you do not help them because you say you have given that money to God.

That is religious garbage! The Lord said a person who does this is not honoring their father and mother. He said, “You Pharisees teach him to not honor his father mother. There you invalidate or cancel the Word of God for the sake of your tradition. You are so greedy to get that person’s money that you don't even allow him to support his parents!”

Traditions and Giving to God

This is happening today. There are so many churches that are so greedy for people's money that they do not allow them to use it for legitimate needs in their family. That is not the way we do it in our church. We tell people that if you have legitimate needs in your family, God is not a greedy Person asking you not to meet those needs, but to give it to God’s work instead. No - take care of your needs, clear your debts, help your children get a good education, and then give to God cheerfully as much as you can give. That is the New Testament teaching. Forcing people to give ten percent is a tradition of men carried over from the old covenant.

It is amazing. Why do people take just one commandment from the old covenant about paying your tithes? What about other commandments like keeping the Sabbath by not doing any work, or not lighting a fire on Saturdays? What about other commandments like killing a lamb or goat every time you sin? That has been all fulfilled in Christ. The lamb and the goats being slain is fulfilled in Christ. The same applies to the Sabbath and to tithing. It is all fulfilled in Christ.

The Law is over, and the old covenant has been abolished (Hebrews 8). We are not supposed to tithe today. “Are we not supposed to give to God?” you ask. Yes, you can give cheerfully. Whatever you give, give cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9:7). In the Old Testament, the important thing was how much you gave. Strictly giving 10% is like paying income tax. It is a fixed rate. The Israelites were paying income tax to God. In the new covenant, our relationship with God is not like a servant paying income tax to his master. It is like the relationship a wife has to her husband. A wife does not pay income tax to her husband! She loves her husband and says, “Anything I have you can have.” It is a bride to a bridegroom relationship.

Do you want to go back to the old servant-master relationship with God and pay income tax to Him? If not, forget about tithing and say, “Lord, I have a relationship with you where all that I have is yours! Tell me how much I can use for myself.” Can you imagine a husband allowing his bride or his wife to starve because he wants her money? That would be an evil husband. God is not like that. Christ is not like that. Here we see an example of human traditions that have cancelled out God’s clear Word in 2 Corinthians 9:7, which says that God loves a cheerful giver. You must not give grudgingly. You must not give out of compulsion because somebody forced you to give. God’s Word has been cancelled out by greedy preachers and pastors. But who is willing to proclaim that? If anybody proclaims it, those pastors and preachers will jump on him and call him a heretic. If you're afraid of that, you'll never be a servant of God. That is the modern-day application of this teaching.

When you say you have given it to God and yet you don't help your own family, Jesus said you have actually cancelled out the Word of God. It says in 1 Timothy 5:8 (paraphrase), “He who does not provide for his own family is worse than an infidel, an unbeliever, or an atheist.” We need to know these verses of Scripture, which a lot of pastors won't tell you. Jesus says in Matthew 15:8-9 (paraphrase), “You hypocrites! Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, ‘These people honor Me with their lips. They say a lot of nice things about Me, but they do not know the Scriptures. They do not know what My Word says and their hearts are far away from Me. In vain do they worship Me.’” They say they are coming on Sunday morning for praise and worship, but what do they do after that? They teach as doctrines the commandments of men. They practice what some preacher teaches them from the pulpit and it is not even found in the New Testament.

The Teaching of Human Tradition vs the Teaching of God’s Word

That is so true even today. We need to apply these Scriptures to our lives today and see all that Jesus taught. He taught us to give up human traditions that cancel the Word of God. There are a lot of traditions that have no conflict with God's Word, so they are fine. But whenever a tradition conflicts with the Word of God, we must be willing to stand against relatives, church leaders, or anybody else and say, “I'm not going to do that.” This is because there is a higher authority than father, mother, pastor, preacher, bishop, etc. The authority is in God's Word, and that is the highest authority there is in this universe. I'm going to obey that and not obey a tradition passed down through centuries in some church.

This is what Jesus taught. We are to do it and to teach other people all that He commanded. The traditions of men can cancel out or invalidate the Word of God (Matthew 15:6). These are the things that made the Pharisees furious. That is why they called Him the prince of devils. These are the things that make a lot of Christian leaders, Bible scholars, and fundamentalist preachers (who came through Bible school, etc.) furious too, because they expose their error and their greediness. They will call you similar names like Beelzebul, the prince of devils, etc. for exposing them, but if you follow Jesus, that won’t disturb you one bit. It will be like water off a duck's back. You carry on and stand true to what God has told you to do. You continue to proclaim the truth. This is how it must be.

The Spirit Behind the Word of God

In Matthew 15:10-11, Jesus called the multitudes and said, “Hear and understand. It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles a man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles a man.” There were a lot of laws in the Old Testament, particularly in Leviticus 11, which had specific instructions about not eating certain types of meat and food. It was all meant to teach people the principle of being sanctified or set apart from sin. That was the purpose of giving such laws as, don't wear clothing made of half-linen and half-wool. There is nothing sinful about wearing half-linen and half-wool. Today, we wear mixed material clothing all the time, and it’s ok. But the Lord was trying to teach the principle of separation and of staying away from uncleanness. In order to drill that into the minds of people, He told them not to eat certain types of birds, fishes, and other animals. We can make a law out of that today, and there are people who do. They say do not drink coffee, do not eat pork, etc. But the Lord says, “It is not what goes into a mouth that defiles a man” (Matthew 15:11).

We make so many laws about these little, little things. That is not the issue. It’s what proceeds out of the mouth that defiles the man. You can take that Word and misuse it. You can misquote even Jesus Christ. There are people who can take harmful drugs and say that Jesus said what goes into the mouth does not defile the man. That is right. Taking a harmful drug will not defile you spiritually, but it'll ruin your body. It’ll kill you. It is like taking poison. So don't misuse the Word of God. Jesus did not say what goes into a mouth won't harm your body. He said it won't defile you spiritually.

What is it that defiles us spiritually? It is what comes out of our heart. “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). It is not what we eat that defiles us. That may cause an upset stomach if the food is not good. But what defiles us spiritually is not ritualistically avoiding of certain types of food. Even eating food offered to idols does not defile us spiritually because an idol is just a block of wood or stone. But what can defile us is what comes out of our heart. Out of the heart comes forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, etc.

Then the disciples came and said in verse 12, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?” This means the Pharisees were offended that Jesus spoke so much against tradition. They really hated him for that. That is what finally made them kill Him. The disciples were disturbed when they saw the Pharisees were terribly upset at Jesus’ preaching against tradition, so they came to Him and said, “Lord, be careful. These guys are terribly upset, and they'll do something to you.”

Be Careful to Follow Good Teaching of God’s Word, not Traditions

Jesus said, “Every plant that my Heavenly Father did not plant shall be rooted out.” We must never forget that. If you're following a tradition that God did not plant in His Word, one day it will be pulled out. You would have wasted your life following something that God never said nor planted. If you are trying to have faith for something that God never promised, you are going to be frustrated. “Every plant that my Heavenly Father did not plant will be rooted out.” If you are doing a work that God never told you to do, one day it will be rooted out. All your work will be rooted out. Seek God to see whether what you are doing is what God has told you to do or not.

Jesus also said, “Don't worry about them; just leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” It is very, very important that you do not follow blind leaders. And in the context, who are the blind leaders? The blind leaders are those who follow traditions and not God's Word. Who are the leaders who can see? They are those who see the Word of God and follow that. Be careful which type of leaders you follow because you are going to end up where they end up. If they are in a pit, you'll be in a pit too. We need to be careful about what type of leaders we are following. We need to see whether they are showing us what is written in God's Word, or whether they are showing us the traditions of men.

Chapter 54

Sickness or Sin?

In Matthew 15:11, Jesus said that it is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth. Peter could not understand that. He said, “What does this parable mean? What does it mean that only what comes out of the mouth defiles the person?”

Jesus explained the statement in Matthew 15:16 saying, “Are you still lacking in understanding also?” Jesus was always speaking strong words. “Why can't you understand that? It is so simple. Don't you understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated? If there's something defiled, it gets pushed out.” But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and these defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, and slanders. These are the things that defile the man. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”

It is good to wash your hands so that you do not get sick, but that is not as serious as our heart being defiled by impurity. There’s a little principle here that we need to ask ourselves to see whether we have understood. We are all very careful to ensure that germs don't get into our body. That is why we wash our hands and the plates that we eat on. You do not put today’s food on yesterday's unwashed plates. You wash the cups, plates, and vessels. You don't allow food to remain there for days and keep that vessel unwashed. You will get sick. We are so careful to cleanse and wash our plates, spoons, vessels, and utensils every single day. Why? Because we know that little, teeny weeny germs can get inside us and make us sick.

If I were to paraphrase Jesus’ words, what the Lord is saying is, “You are so careful about washing plates and utensils to make sure that defiling things do not go in your body, which would never ruin you spiritually. Why aren't you careful about the things that get into your heart, which do defile you spiritually? Are you more afraid of sickness that comes through bad food than of sin that comes through reading and seeing things that are not good? For example, movies and pictures on the internet that defile you? Are you more disturbed by that? You are very careful about food, but you are careless about something far more serious.”

Attitude Towards Sin Shows True Spirituality

Here is where our Christianity is tested. If you are really a spiritually-minded person, this is one good test to find out whether you are deceiving yourself or whether you are really spiritual. If you are really spiritual, you will be more afraid of sin than of sickness. You will be more afraid of sin that defiles your heart than sickness that comes through something you ate. Maybe you got typhoid, jaundice, or hepatitis because of something you drank or ate. Are you careful about that and immediately seek to cleanse yourself and to avoid it? Look at the number of injections people take in order to avoid these sicknesses. But you are not anywhere as careful about the things that enter through your eyes into your heart and the things that you read, which defile you. There are movies with five or ten seconds of a sex scene to stimulate people. And people say that most of the two hours of the movie is fine; it is just five or ten seconds. It is like saying that a glass of milk with just a couple drops of poison in it is perfectly fine. When people want to poison somebody, they do not give them a whole glass of poison. They put one drop of poison in a glass of milk. That is enough to kill somebody if it is a strong enough poison. Sexual scenes are pretty strong poison. The five seconds of a sex scene in a two-hour movie is all that you will remember for the next fifty years. When you have forgotten the story of the movie, it is the five seconds that will remain in your memory because that is something that appeals to your lusts. That is why we need to be more careful about what goes into our hearts than we are about what goes into our mouths. Because once it comes into the heart, from that heart will come out that which defiles our whole system.

This is what Jesus taught. Be more careful of your heart than your stomach. Be more afraid of sin than of sickness. If you are more afraid of sickness than of sin, you are not really spiritual. You are just a carnal Christian. You probably never heard anybody say that, but that is the truth. One mark of a spiritual man is that he hates sin more than he is afraid of sickness. It is good to be careful about sickness. We want to remain healthy. But I will tell you honestly that I am far more interested in being holy than in being healthy. If there is a flu around town, it is possible that we can pick it up if we are careless. If we are weak and our immune system is not so strong, we can pick it up. That does not mean you are unspiritual. But there is defilement worse than the flu, particularly in the entertainment world and what comes over the television. If you are more worried about a flu or a chicken pox going around town than about the defilement that is constantly coming in the air through TVs, movies, music CDs, etc. I wonder whether you are even born again.

The Holy Spirit Makes Us Sensitive to Spiritual Rottenness

A born-again person is very sensitive to these things. A dead person is not disturbed by corruption around him. If you are healthy, you will immediately react. If some spoilt, rotten food were put into your mouth, you immediately feel the taste. You say, “Hey, this is bad food.” What do you do? You do not swallow it. You do not taste it for a few more seconds. You spit it out immediately. It is an immediate reaction as soon as bad food touches your tongue. God has given us a sensitive tongue that can immediately detect bad food. This is why He has given us a sense of taste. We immediately spit it out. That is a form of protection. Our sense of taste is a protection for us. In the same way, as soon as anything sinful comes to defile our heart, we should spit it out immediately. Do you do that? If so, you are a spiritual man. When you read or see something in a magazine that tempts you and you turn the page immediately, then you are a spiritual man. It is like spitting out something from your mouth. If you do not do that, and you are just happy that you go to church, sing songs to praise the Lord, and everybody is happy with you, you are just a Pharisee. You are just fooling yourself that you are a Christian. You are a Pharisee, and the end of the Pharisees will be your end too. This is what Jesus taught, and we need to take that very carefully.

The Syrophoenician Woman

In Matthew 15:21, there is something wonderful that we can learn from the actions of Jesus. We can learn from Jesus’ words and actions too. “And Jesus went away from there and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon” (Matthew 15:21). Tyre and Sidon were outside the borders of Israel. Jesus hardly ever went outside the borders of Israel. This is one of the only times He went. And it is interesting why He went. Jesus says in Matthew 15:24, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” That’s it. Then why did He go to Tyre and Sidon when He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? That is a very interesting thing, particularly when you see where He was. If you compare this with other gospels, He was by the Lake of Galilee or the Sea of Galilee. If you look at a map, Tyre and Sidon is probably about 80 kilometers away by road. Jesus did not travel by chariots. There was no other mode of transport available to Christ other than His Own two feet. Imagine how long it took for Him to walk 80 kilometers. Even if it was 60 kilometers, it would have taken him a whole day. If He was continuously walking, it would have taken 16 or 17 hours. Why did He walk such a big distance? It is a very interesting question.

There He beheld a Canaanite woman. The Canaanites were the people whom the Israelites were supposed to destroy completely. In the Old Testament, all the Canaanites were supposed to be killed. But the Israelites did not kill them all. Because they did not kill all of the Canaanites, some of the Canaanites survived. Here is a Canaanite woman whose ancestors survived from Joshua’s time (1500 years earlier!) down to this generation. She came out from that region. She had heard about Jesus, and she came to Him and said, “Have mercy, Oh Lord, Son of David.” She was not an Israelite, but she recognized Jesus, and she said, “Oh, Son of David, my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.” She did not bring her daughter with her. Her daughter was in the house maybe a few kilometers away. She came alone to where Jesus was staying. “He did not answer a word. His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, ‘Send her away. Send her away. She is just following after us and shouting at us as we are going down the road.’”

Jesus Tests Our Persistence, Humility, and Faith

He answered and said to her, “I was not sent to you, folks. I was sent only to the sheep of the house of Israel.” One would think that Jesus is being a little hard here, but very often when Jesus spoke to people, He was testing them. Remember this, when Jesus speaks to you, He is testing you as well. He was testing her. She did not know that Jesus had walked a whole day, almost 17 hours, only to help her. We know this because we read that immediately after that, they departed and went back to the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 15:29). He walked 80 kilometers up, and 80 kilometers back, a total of 160 kilometers. Jesus walked at least 120 kilometers just to help one person. How can we say that a person who walks 120 kilometers to help one person was despising that person? He was testing her, and that is why He said, “I was not sent for you.”

She began to bow before Him and said, “Lord, please help me.” She would not give up. This is something that God always appreciates. God appreciates when you come to Him in prayer and you persist even if it looks as if He has not answered your prayer. Do you do that when you pray for something? Or do you give up because you prayed once and you did not get it? You did not get it because you gave up. It looked as if the Lord rejected your request. The Lord loves those who seek Him with all their hearts because when you continue to seek God, you are thereby expressing your faith in the fact that God is a good God. If you pray once, don't get what you asked for, and then give up, you are thereby saying, “Well, I don't know whether God is a good God. He does not seem to care for me.” But when you persist, you are saying, “I am convinced that God is a good God.” That is why Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray and never to faint” (Luke 18:1).

Keep on asking like that widow who went to the judge again and again and said, “Give me justice against my enemy.” The judge finally answered, and Jesus said, “How much more your Heavenly Father will do for you?” (Luke 18:1-6) In another parable, we read of a man who went to his neighbor's house at midnight and kept on banging at the door saying, “I want some bread.” (Luke 11:8)

In both of these parables on prayer, Jesus emphasized persistence. I believe you will discover in the day of judgment, when you stand in Heaven, that there were so many things that God would have done for you if you had persisted a little more in prayer instead of being lazy about it, asking once, and giving up. If the woman had only asked once and then given up, the Lord would have replied that He was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She would have gone back to a demon-possessed daughter and said, “Sorry, my girl. I went to Jesus, but He said He could not help us.” But this mother would not let go. Thank God she did not let go. Are your children suffering today because you gave up on praying for them? You prayed to Jesus once or twice for a son or daughter who had gone astray. You did not get the answer immediately, and you gave up. You never experienced a miracle in your home. Your daughter and son would have been changed if you had persisted in prayer.

These are the lessons we learn from this example of a woman who persists in prayer for her daughter. What a lot a mother can do for her children. Then Jesus said in Matthew 15:26, “It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” One more insult. It was a test. “Let me see what she says. First of all, let me see whether she is persistent. She passed that test. Now let me see whether she is humble.” Two tests. Are you persistent? Are you humble? And she passed that test too. How wonderful. Both were tough tests, but she passed. The Lord said, “You are a dog, I cannot give it to you.” And she said, “Yes, Lord. I take that place of a dog. I am nothing. I am a nobody. I deserve nothing from You, but cannot the dogs get at least the crumbs that fall from the table?” And see how excited Jesus was when He heard that reply. That is what He was waiting for. When He first tested her, He wanted her to pass the test of persistence. When He tested her the second time, He wanted her to pass the test of humility and faith. Humility and faith are very closely linked together, as we have seen again and again. She passed the test, and she said, “Lord, just give me a crumb. I'm not asking for the children's bread. One little crumb is enough to cast the demon out of my daughter.”

Seek for More Than Crumbs

Physical and material blessings are the crumbs that fall from the table. We are not dogs. We are sons and daughters of the living God. We have a right to eat the children's bread. We do not have to sit at the foot of the table like dogs and eat crumbs. The crumbs are material blessings. “Lord, bless me materially. Give me a better house. Give me a better car. Give me physical healing of my sickness.” I want to tell you, in Jesus’ name, these are the crumbs. A lot of preachers are preaching the crumbs and treating people like dogs. They are saying, “Hey, you dogs, here are the crumbs the Master is throwing down from the table for the dogs.” Is that what you want? Or do you want the children's bread? What is the children's bread? The children's bread is to partake of God's own nature. 2 Peter 1:4 says there are magnificent, precious promises that enable us to partake of God's Own nature, and help us to manifest the life of Christ in our earthly bodies. That is the children's bread. And all the other blessings God gives us are the crumbs that fall from the table.

When she said that, Jesus said, “Oh, woman, your faith is great.” It is very interesting to see that the only two instances where Jesus ever told anybody, “Your faith is great,” were both to non-Israelis or non-Jewish people. One was a Roman centurion (Matthew 8) and the other was a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15). Is it possible today that Christ would say to a non-Christian person, “Your faith in Me is great! Some of these Christians who claim to be born again believers do not have 10% of the faith that you have.” I have seen non-Christian people who have trusted the Lord for something and found remarkable answers to prayer. I have seen born again Christian people who trust in themselves and are proud that they are born again, but who do not get 1% of what another person got who came from a non-Christian faith.

What I want to say is this. If we come with persistence, faith, and humility, there is a lot that we can get from God that we will not get if we don't come with that persistence, humility, or faith. It says, “Her daughter was healed at once. Be it done for you as you wish, according to your faith. You get it.” How terrible it would have been if she had gone away and missed that opportunity, because Jesus never came back to Tyre and Sidon again. Sometimes there is one last opportunity. You have to trust God and expect Him to do a miracle for you. And you can miss it.

Jesus’ Ministry Gave Glory to God, Not Himself

In Matthew 15:29-30, it reads, “Departing from there, Jesus went along the Sea of Galilee, and having gone up to the mountain, He was sitting there. And great multitudes came to Him and bringing with them the lame, the crippled, the blind, the dumb, and many others. And they laid them down at His feet; and He healed them all, every single one.” The number of times we read this happening in the Gospel of Matthew is an attestation by God of the Messianic ministry of Jesus Christ. Matthew 15:31 says, “The multitude marveled as they saw the dumb speaking, the cripple restored, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.”

That is wonderful how Jesus deflected the glory away from Himself and made them glorify God for healing. This is so different from today's preachers, who seek to turn all the glory upon themselves when they fulfill a ministry. They get people to get up and testify, “Hey, how were you when you came to this meeting? Do you have some sickness? And how are you now? You’re healed!” And though they say, “Let's praise the Lord,” the person is actually trying to get glory for himself. Here it says they “glorified the God of Israel.” They glorified the God of Israel when they saw these amazing, genuine healings of hundreds of people. There are many things we can learn from what Jesus taught us by how He lived.

Jesus Was Concerned for the Multitude

In Matthew 15:32, it reads, “And Jesus called His disciples, and said to them, ’I feel compassion for this multitude, because they have remained with Me now for three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not wish to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.’” Look at the consideration that Jesus had. “These guys have been with Me for three days. They have not eaten a thing. Now if they walk back, some of them will faint on the way. The strong ones may get home, but some may faint along the way,” and Jesus did not want that to happen. So He says, “We have to give them something to eat.” And He said, “I don’t want to send them away hungry.” And the disciples said to Him, “Where can we get so many loaves in a desolate place to satisfy such a great multitude?” And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.”

He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks. This is Jesus’ habit. He always gave thanks before eating. “Father, I deserve nothing, but You have given me food. Thank you so much.” Thanksgiving is the expression of a humble man acknowledging that whatever he has is a gift of God. This is a wonderful habit to develop. “He gave thanks, broke the bread, and started giving it to the disciples. The disciples gave it to the multitudes, and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, seven large baskets full. Those who ate were four thousand besides women and children. And again He sent away the multitudes and then He got into the boat” (Matthew 15:36-39). This is the second instance where Jesus fed the multitude. He was always concerned.

There’s another thing to notice here: Have you ever seen anyone spending three days at a conference without eating? They were not thirsty. They probably drank something, but they were hungry and yet they never complained. And it is not a small number. There were four thousand men plus women and children (Matthew 15:38). It probably means seven to eight thousand people were there. They were with Jesus for three days listening to Him morning, noon, and evening. They were sleeping on the hillside in the evening. The children did this too. Waking up the next morning, they had another day of the same. They slept there, woke up the next day, and did the same thing again. It was a three-day conference, morning till night, and with no food. We will have a revival if we have conferences like that, where food is not the main thing, but where we are all so eager to hear the Word of God.

Chapter 55

What to Seek to Build the Church

“The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven” (Matthew 16:1).

It is interesting that the Pharisees and Sadducees were never eager to sit at Jesus’ feet like Mary to learn from Him. Imagine that! They had the greatest Preacher in the world, the greatest Man of God, the Son of God Himself, walking in their midst, and yet all the Pharisees and Sadducees did was spend their time arguing with Him and testing Him. I see the same thing happening today. There are some wonderful godly men -- but not many -- here and there across the world. They stand for the truth and are real prophets who speak the truth of God without any compromise. There are many believers who pick holes in some doctrine of theirs or find some little fault in them to criticize. Instead, they could have gotten so much more if they were just willing to sit at the feet of these men and learn what God had to teach them. Examine yourself and see whether you are guilty of that crime.

The Danger of Seeking for Signs

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Him, and they asked Him, “Show us a sign or do a miracle for us.” Jesus did not always give the same answer every time. He began by saying, “When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather because the sky is red. In the morning, you say there will be a storm today because the sky is threatening and red. Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?” In other words, Jesus is saying, “You guys are so sharp in the things you can see with your physical eyes, but you are totally blind in your heart. You cannot understand the signs of the times in which you live.” Notice that expression - “signs of the times.”

We also need to recognize the signs of the times in which we live. Jesus said there will be a great falling away from the faith. Deceiving spirits will come in. Paul spoke about deceiving spirits coming into Christendom and great apostasy before the coming of the Lord. Do you recognize the signs of the times? Do you recognize the drift we see in Christendom today, away from godliness and holiness, towards entertainment, superficial Christianity, academic study of the Scriptures, and knowledge rather than experience? It is one of the signs of the great falling away that people are more interested in prosperity, money, and healing than they are in holiness. People try to cover their lives by supporting things like orphanages, Bible schools, and mission work, but they are hard set on their own covetousness. This is all an indication that Christianity has fallen away from the truth. Christian leaders are more interested in pushing people down and demonstrating their so-called psychic powers in a meeting rather than leading people to a godly life. Do you recognize the signs of the times?

Jesus said in Matthew 16:4, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign.” We are not supposed to seek God for a miracle. If you do, you are a part of this evil and adulterous generation. God will do a miracle when He feels like it, when it is His will. He will do a miracle when it will accomplish some purpose of His. But He is not going to do miracles according to our whims and fancies. God will not do a miracle every time we ask for one. “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for miracles, and no miracle or sign will be given to them except the sign of Jonah.”

In the margin of my Bible, the word “sign” is an “attesting miracle.” Many people look for that. If you look for that, you are part of this evil and adulterous generation.

Jesus said there is only one sign that will be given, and that is the sign of Jonah. In an earlier study, we discussed that Jonah coming out of the fish’s mouth is a picture of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a picture of Jesus coming out from three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Resurrection is the main sign to which Jesus referred. That is why the apostles always spoke about themselves as witnesses of Christ’s resurrection. We must also be witnesses of Christ’s resurrection.

Beware of Hypocrisy

The disciples came together and had forgotten to take bread. Jesus said to them after this discussion to watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The disciples began to discuss among themselves. They said, “Hey, He must be saying that we were foolish not to take some bread with us to eat along the way.” I am surprised that those disciples thought that the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees was referring to bread. I know leaven is used in bread, but the Pharisees and Sadducees were not bakers or sold bread in some store. No, a young person would have said, “Hey, that does not refer to bread.” But somehow, they began to think of bread, and Jesus was aware of this. Jesus said, “You men of little faith! Why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread? Do you not yet understand that bread is no problem for me? How many baskets did you pick up after I fed the five thousand with five loaves? Do you not remember the seven loaves that I used to feed four thousand? How many large baskets did you pick up then? How is it that you still think that food is the thing that I am talking about?” (Matthew 16:5-11)

Jesus was not speaking about food. He said, “Do you not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? I was speaking about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” What is the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? Luke 12:1, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” The leaven of the Pharisees is hypocrisy. What does leaven do in a bit of dough? It spreads and puffs up the whole thing. When you do not use leaven, the bread is flat, and it is normal size. When you put leaven in the bread, it puffs up with a lot of empty holes in it just like regular bread.

That is what hypocrisy does. You don't need much leaven to blow up a bit of dough. A little of bit of leaven in our heart is going to make us appear very big in the eyes of others, but we will be like bread with a lot of holes inside us. There will be a lot of empty spaces. This is how most Christians are. They like to make a big impression on people. Their doctrines are right. The Pharisees certainly had right doctrines, but this leaven puffed them up. Jesus said, “I was trying to warn you about getting proud, and not asking whether we had enough bread.”

Hypocrisy Is Worse Than Starvation

It is very important for us to see this. Which is more important? Food, or freedom from hypocrisy? That is basically the question here. What did Jesus teach here? Even if you do not have food to eat or if you forgot to bring bread, never mind. Make sure you do not have hypocrisy in your life. If I am free from hypocrisy, it does not matter even if I starve to death.

I do not know if you believe that. I do not know whether you believe that it is better to die without food than to have hypocrisy. Many people do not seem to hate hypocrisy like that. Food is necessary for life, but Jesus told us to beware of hypocrisy. Do not worry that you did not bring bread to eat. Beware of hypocrisy. That is more dangerous than even not having enough food to eat. That is basically what He is trying to say here. If you have understood that, then you have understood the message from this passage. “Then the disciples understood that” (Matthew 16:12).

Revelation Comes from God

Matthew 16:13 says, “Now when Jesus came to the district of Caesarea Philippi, He began asking His disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’” Jesus didn't ask this because He cared about what people thought of Him. He never cared for people's opinions, not even once. He could not care less for what people said or thought about Him. But He was trying to ask His disciples how much people in Israel understood about who He was, and hardly anybody seemed to know who He was. Some said Jesus was John the Baptist. Others said He was Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets who had come back to life.

Then Jesus asked the question He really wanted to ask. Jesus said, “Who do you say that I am?” In other words, “Forget what the others are saying, but who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter got up and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And immediately, Jesus said, “You are blessed, Simon Barjona, because you did not understand this with your human cleverness. It is not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven. Give the glory to the Father who allowed you to know who I am” (Matthew 16:15-17).

It is very, very important to always recognize that whatever we know about Jesus has come by divine revelation. It is not because we are cleverer or smarter than anybody else. It is because God was pleased to give us revelation as to who Christ is. There were so many cleverer people than Peter who did not recognize Jesus as the Way of forgiveness. There are lots of people cleverer than you and me around us here on earth who do not know Christ. Jesus said, “You are blessed, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.”

The word “revelation” is fundamental here. It is by revelation that we know Christ. It is not by intellectual study or argument. This is why, when people come to argue with me about something in the Bible, I say, “I am not interested in argument, because if I convince you by some argument from Scripture, it will only prove that I am cleverer than you or that I know the Bible better than you. It does not mean that truth has triumphed. What I say may be the truth, but argument only proves who is cleverer.” It is revelation that leads people to know, “Oh, this is Jesus.” Revelation comes to those who have a need in their life, not to those who just study. So please bear this important thing in mind: whenever you read the Scripture, read it to get revelation, or its inner meaning. Revelation on Jesus, which only God can give you, comes through the Holy Spirit.

The Church Is Built on the Rock of Revelation

Jesus then speaks about the church in Matthew 16:18, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.” Jesus is saying, “Peter, you have seen Me as Christ, the Son of the living God. Now I say to you, you are only Peter or Petros. You are a small little stone, but on this rock, (“Petra,” not “Petros,” which is Peter’s name), I will build My church.” In other words, Jesus would build His church based on this revelation that Christ is the Son of the living God. Jesus was contrasting the two. Jesus is not saying, “You are Peter, and I will build My church on you.” This is the way some people have interpreted it, which is totally wrong. Peter is such a shaky person. I would not want to be a part of a church that is built on him. The church is built on the revealed Jesus Christ. What Jesus was saying to Peter is that he received a revelation from heaven about who Jesus was. “On this rock -- of revelation of Who Christ is -- I will build My church.” You cannot build a church without revelation from heaven as to Who Christ is.

Jesus Christ: Fully God and Fully Man

In those days, the important question was whether Christ was God, because He looked like an ordinary man. The people said, “This cannot be God.” In spite of the attesting miracles, they did not accept Him as God, and they killed Him. Today, however, the question is, “Is Christ really a Man?” In those days, there was no doubt that He was a man; the question was whether He was God. Today, Christians say that Jesus is God, but most Christians have not understood that He was also a Man. We need to see Christ revealed from heaven as a Man today just as much as He was revealed to them as God then. Let us understand this very clearly. Christ was fully God and fully Man. We need to get equal revelation on both. Because He is Almighty God, we worship Him. We pray to Him. We believe He can do anything. We believe He has authority over everything on Heaven and Earth. We believe every name must bow at that name and acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord because He is God.

Because Jesus is Man, I can follow Him. I can overcome sin like He did. I can serve the Father like Jesus served the Father. I can be loved by my Father as Jesus was loved on Earth. I can be filled with the Holy Spirit like Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit on earth. I can have gifts to serve my Heavenly Father like Jesus had. Most Christians have seen Jesus as God, but they have not seen Him as a Man. That is why they live defeated lives.

We need to see Christ as totally God and totally Man. Blessed are you who have received revelation from God the Father that Christ came to earth as a Man and lived on earth as a Man. He was tempted like us to sin, but did not sin, and overcame temptation as a Man. When you get that revelation from God, you will come into a life of overcoming sin. The main reason why a lot of sincere Christians live lives defeated by sin is because they accept defeat. The tragedy is not that they are defeated by sin. The tragedy is that they accept it. They say, “We cannot live better lives than this.” The great tragedy is that they accept it. They believe that Christ overcame sin because He was God and that He could not possibly be tempted to sin like we are, even though the Bible says that plainly. All such people live defeated lives.

They could be better than others. There could be a measure of holiness in them, but there is no spiritual development in holiness. That is what I have seen through many years of observation of Christians. We need revelation that Christ is God. And we need revelation that Christ was Man who came in flesh like us. Christ did not come in sinful flesh. There was no sin in Him. He was born holy, but He had a flesh, which is one’s own will. Jesus had to deny His will every single day of His life in order to please His Father.

It is on this rock of revelation that the church is built. You cannot build a church if you do not see Christ as totally God and totally Man. On this revelation from heaven, Jesus will build His church. All the gates of hell, or the powers of spiritual darkness, will never be able to prevail against that church. It is a very comforting thought that the church Christ is building will last forever. Powers of darkness will not be able to prevail over it in eternity, or even now. Is this the type of church you belong to?

Seek a Church That Jesus Is Building

If you belong to a church that is full of strife, quarrelling, hate, backbiting, gossip, and fighting going on all the time, that is not the church that Jesus is building, because it says here, “The church that I build, the powers of darkness will not be able to overpower it” (Matthew 16:18).

That means these sins will not be able to come into that church. Why is it like that in so many churches? It is because it is not the church Jesus is building. We need to be a part of a church that Jesus is building, where spiritual death does not have power, because we live in resurrection power. Resurrection power can overcome the forces of spiritual death. They did not have such overcoming power in the Old Testament because Jesus had not risen from the dead. But when Jesus rose from the dead, He communicated that resurrection power to all His disciples. If you are a wholehearted disciple of Jesus, you can have an experience of that resurrection power in your spirit fully here on earth and a taste of it even in your body. This is God's will.

Authority to Build the Church

The Lord said to Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). Keys are a symbol of authority in the Bible. Wherever there is a mention of keys in the Old Testament, it speaks of authority. Jesus says in Revelation 1:18, “I have the keys of hell and death.” He is the one who determines when a wholehearted child of His dies. Those keys are in His hands, and until He opens the door, a wholehearted disciple of Jesus cannot die. There are people whose aim in life is different; they call themselves Christians, but their real aim in life is to make money or something like that. They will perhaps die before their time. The gates of death may be open for them before that. But for a wholehearted disciple of Jesus, it is pretty clear: you cannot die before your time.

Keys speak of authority. The Lord said to Peter, “I am going to give you authority, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in the heavenlies.” It is not in the third heaven where God is, but in the heavenlies, where the devil dwells. The devil is not in Hell; he is in the heavenlies. It is probably the second heaven between what we know as the sky and God's presence.

Jesus said, “I will give you power and authority to bind those satanic forces that seek to bring confusion on earth. I will give you power to loose certain people who have been gripped by Satan here on this earth and set them free.” What this teaches is that, in order to build the church, we need spiritual authority. Without spiritual authority, we cannot build the church. No matter how gifted you are or how much of the Bible you know, you cannot build a church without spiritual authority.

The Lord commissioned Peter to build His church. He gave him authority. If the Lord commissions you today to build His church, He will give you authority. Without that authority, you will not be able to build His church. In order to have that authority, we must seek God for it. We need the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to live a clean life because if our life is not clean, the Spirit of God will not support us or endorse us.

The Way of the Cross

Jesus then warned His disciples not to tell others who He was. The other thing that is required to build the church is an understanding of the way of the cross. Spiritual authority alone is not enough. A true disciple of Jesus who wants to build the church of Christ must have spiritual authority. However, he must also know the way of the cross. That is why it says in Matthew 16:21, “From that time…”. This means that from the time that Jesus spoke about building the church, He taught His disciples about the fact that He is going to go to the cross, suffer, die, and be raised up on the third day. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. He could not understand that. He said, “What do you mean about this cross? I thought You just gave me authority to bind all these forces of darkness. How can anybody come and take You, then? No, I'm going to defend You. God forbid it! Lord, that is never going to happen to you. I am not going to let anybody take You and spit on You or kill You” (Matthew 16:22). Peter spoke in love. He really loved his Master so much.

But Jesus turned around and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me” (Matthew 16:23). Everyone who avoids the way of the cross is a stumbling block to Christ. Their mind is set on their own interests, and not God's interests. There we understand what is the meaning of the cross. When the cross comes into our life, our mind is no longer set on our interests, but on God's interests. If your mind is set on your own interests in life, no matter what you may say, you have not understood the way of the cross.

This is why Jesus rebuked Peter and called him Satan. Just a few couple of minutes earlier, He said, “You are blessed, Simon Peter, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.” A few moments later, Jesus called him Satan. It is interesting how the Lord called His closest co-worker Satan because he was trying to prevent Him from going the way of the cross. Jesus went on to say in Matthew 16:24, “This cross is not only for Me. If you want to follow Me, you need to take up the cross too.” What does that mean? Matthew 16:23 explains it. When you take up the cross, you stop seeking your own interests, and you begin to seek God's interests. That is the mark of a man who has taken up the cross. Now you understand the cross. If you are seeking your own interests in life, you have not understood the cross. In fact, you are a stumbling block, according to Matthew 16:23. Any Christian who is seeking his own interest is a stumbling block to God’s work on earth and a stumbling block to building the church. Let us take that seriously. May God help us.

Chapter 56

Wholeheartedly Seeking God’s Interests

In Matthew 16:24, Jesus tells the disciples for the first time about building the church. This is the first time in His life, and the first time in the Bible, that the word “church” occurs. They probably did not even know what it meant. Jesus did not come to make holy individuals alone. He came to build holy individuals into a fellowship called the church, which is the family of God. In other places, this is called the body of Christ. The relationships between the members of the church were to be exactly like the members in our body. Many people have not understood what Jesus meant when He spoke about the church in Matthew 16:18. We need to look at Matthew 16:18 before we look at Matthew 16:24 because it is all in the same context. We looked a little bit in the previous chapter, and saw that first of all, we need revelation from heaven as to Who Christ really is in order to build His church. Christ is fully God and fully Man. He is the One Who we have to worship and Who we can follow in our daily life and in our family life. We also need spiritual authority to build this church. You cannot build this church with human wisdom.

Qualifications to Build the Church

First of all, we need revelation from heaven. You cannot build the church simply because you studied the Bible. The Pharisees studied the Bible, but they could not build the church. Peter received revelation from heaven. That is the first thing. On that rock, the church is built. Unfortunately, Christians have moved away from revelation, towards mere study and understanding. That is the reason for the drift in Christianity towards the compromise of Babylon.

Second, we need authority. Jesus said in Matthew 16:19, “I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”) We cannot build the church without spiritual authority that God has given us to do His work. You cannot do it with human authority. You cannot serve God just because somebody appoints you as a director, pastor, or bishop. That is a human appointment. You cannot build the church with that. You need spiritual authority that Christ Himself gives you from His nail-pierced hands. If you do not receive that, then you are not going to build the church.

Defining the Church

Let me reemphasize what I mean by “the church is the body of Christ.” I am not referring to individual holy people sitting together in a building. That is a congregation. Today, we think that a church is a building. Or we may think the church is a denomination, like the Methodist Church or the Baptist Church. The church that Jesus spoke about is a body. It is not an organization. It is an organism, like the human body. Different members of the body are all functioning together perfectly because of one reason: they are all connected to the head. The only reason my two hands work together is not because they are always hanging around with each other. It is not because they are good friends. What many Christians have is nothing more than friendship. It is like two hands hanging around with each other. But fellowship is where these two hands can work together perfectly, like hands playing a piano, because they are both perfectly connected to the head. If one hand is paralyzed, its connection with the head is gone. It cannot work with the other. It is always because of a break of connection with our Head, Jesus Christ, that we cannot work together with someone else.

Building the church, which is the real body of Christ, is not the same as building an organization called a church. The real body of Christ is where the people in a local congregation are fitted together like members of a body working together. That can only happen if each member is directly connected to the Head. It is paralysis that prevents one member from working with another. Whether it is 10 people (or 11 in Jesus’ case) or a hundred people, a church is where people can work together. To work together is like building a house. There is a lot of difference between 20,000 bricks lying on the roadside, and those 20,000 bricks built together in a house. This is because the bricks used to build a house are interconnected in the walls and in the concrete in the roof. A house is made of little stones put together along with steel rods. Otherwise, the bricks are just stones on the road. Anybody can walk off with them.

That is what happens in many churches. People say, “You have stolen one of my sheep! Why did you take this person from my church?” Have you ever tried stealing a brick from a solidly built house? How in the world can you steal a brick from a solidly built house? It is impossible. You need to use a hammer and break that house to take a brick out of it because it is stuck with cement and a lot of other bricks. But anyone can walk off with bricks that are lying loose on the roadside. If anybody says, “Somebody has taken one of my members from my church!” it is because they were not built into a body. They were a loose pile of bricks lying there. In the same way, our human body is another picture of the church. The church is a house, and the church is a body. Can somebody detach my hand and take it off? Yes, he can if it is an artificial hand. They make artificial hands now-a-days which look so similar to human hands. They have exactly the same color and shape. But nuts-and-bolts are used to fit it into my body. If it is fitted with nuts and bolts, then somebody can unscrew it and take it off of the hand. But a real hand, which is a part of the body, connected to the head, can never be taken. You have to cut it off or amputate it, but it cannot walk off on its own, and you cannot simply take it out.

When people talk about somebody being “taken away” from a church, I say, “That is not the body of Christ.” That is the tragedy today. When Jesus said, “I am going to build My church,” He was talking about building His own body, His spiritual body. He had a physical body when He was on earth, and He fulfilled God's will on earth. Then He went up to heaven, and He sent the Holy Spirit to build a spiritual body, which is the church, the body of Christ. The purpose of this body is to continue doing the same thing that He did when He was on earth. What did Jesus do when He was on earth? He denied His Own will. He did not seek His own interests, but the interests of God. He completed the work God gave Him to do. That is why He told Peter in Matthew 16:23, “If your mind is not set on God’s interests, you will be a stumbling block to Me. You will not be a help to Me. You will be a stumbling block. You will be an agent of Satan.”

Seek God’s Interests

The important things needed for a person to build the church are revelation (Matthew 16:17) and authority (Matthew 16:19). We also need people who are not seeking their own interests. In other words, people who take up the cross. This is the meaning of the cross. Do you want to understand the cross? Just read Matthew 16:23 and Matthew 16:24 together. A person who had revelation (Matthew 16:17) and was given authority (Matthew 16:19) became the voice of Satan one minute later. How quickly a person who has received revelation and been given authority by the Lord can become the voice of Satan! How so soon? Because he was seeking his own interests, and not the interests of God.

This is the tragedy in so much of Christendom today. That is why Jesus said in Matthew 16:24-25, “If you want to follow Me (and certainly if you want to build My church and be a co-worker with Me), then you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me. You cannot follow Me without denying yourself. Denying yourself is saying ‘no’ to your own interests.” Every human being on earth seeks his own interests right from childhood. Children are always grabbing for things. They will grab toys. They will fight and push other people away. They will even take other people's toys. That is how children are. We have this habit of grabbing and seeking our own interests. “What is good for me?” Then, when we are married and have a family with children, we are always thinking, “What is good for me and my family?”

The whole race of Adam is only seeking their own interests. They will fit in other things where it is convenient. Basically, their whole life is surrounded in seeking their own interests. Of course, they will have a little interest in doing a few other things. Perhaps a little social work, giving a little money to missions, giving a little money for the poor and the orphanages, and maybe going to the church service on Sunday. But basically, the center of their life is seeking their own interests. Such people can never build the church. What they will build is an organization. This is a dead system, and no such person can be a true servant of God.

A true servant of God is one who is not seeking his own interest in any area. He has given up his own interests, and he is seeking God’s interests because he has taken up the cross. He has denied himself. Here is where the failure comes in so much of church building nowadays: we are seeking to save our life. That is what Jesus said in the next verse, Matthew 16:25, “Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.” My “life” means not just my physical life. It could be physical, but it is also this soul life of mine. This means that I want to save my reputation and my dignity. I do not want anyone to dishonor me. “Saving my life” is saying, “I have all these interests and ambitions, and I want to save all of them!” The Lord says that if you are interested in all that, then forget about building the church. You are going to lose it one day. But the one who is willing to lose his self-life and not seek his own interests will find it. He will find it in a better way as he builds the church, which will last forever.

The Church Is like the Ark

I have often thought about the days of Noah. I have said, “Lord, if I were living in Noah’s day, what would I do?” Well, I would earn my own living. I would plow the fields, and plant vineyards or something to take care my family. But my main aim in life would be to build the ark. I would go to Noah and say, “Hi Noah, I would like to cooperate with you in building the ark because I know that is the only thing that is going to remain when the flood comes and destroys everything else.” So while I would take care of my family, my main goal in life would be to build the ark, and to spend as little time as possible for my own interest to provide for my family’s needs. But I would dream about building the ark and sleep at night thinking about new ways to help build the ark.

That is how a true Christian should live today. He does the minimum necessary to take care of his family, but his mind will be set on, “How can I build the church? How can I build fellowship? Not a church building, but to build God's people into a fellowship related to one another like the members of the body. How can I build them like stones and bricks that are taken from a pile on the roadside and built into a building? How can I do it better?” This is the person who is seeking God’s interests.

God or Mammon?

We can compare this desire to a person who is seeking business interests. The reason why I make this comparison is because Jesus said there are only two masters in the world – God and money (Luke 16:13). There are only two masters, and the second master is not the devil. It is money. Christians are not at all in danger of serving the devil. Christians are in great danger of serving money, earthly things, and material things. And most of them do. How do you know which of these two is your master? Is God your master, or is money your master? Suppose God calls you here, and money calls you there, at the same time. Which one do you listen to? That is your master. If two people are calling a slave in two different directions, it is very easy to find out who is his master. The one he listens to is his master. Let us suppose money calls you in one direction, and God calls you in another direction. If you listen to money, you are a slave of money, whether you know it or not. You need to be honest with yourself and ask yourself whose call you are responding to day by day. Whose call are you responding to as you think about your ambitions on this earth?

Timothy: A Faithful Servant of God

This is why there are so few really faithful servants of God on this earth. Most of them are servants of mammon, material things, and money. See what Paul said in his day about Timothy, in Philippians 2:19. We are considering the way of the cross, not seeking our own interests, denying ourselves, not trying to save our life, but willing to lose it for the sake of the Gospel. In that connection, Paul is thinking of sending somebody as his representative to Philippi to encourage them, and to learn about their condition, so that he himself can be encouraged by hearing about the condition of the Philippians. Paul writes in Philippians 2:19, “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly so that I may be encouraged when I learn of your condition.” He says, “I want to send somebody to you, not just to find out how things are going on there. Anybody could go and find out. But I want to send someone who is spiritual enough to come, build them up, and discern what their condition is.”

It really requires a spiritual man to discern the condition of a church. The ordinary man cannot understand it. Paul wants to send somebody to learn of the condition of the Philippian church. What is their real spiritual state? He says, “I have to send somebody who is really spiritual.” Only a spiritual man can have discernment. The other people will say, “Well, there were 135 people meeting. There was so many children. This is the program they have for the children. These are the days of the meeting,” and many other external things which do not reveal their spiritual condition. A person with spiritual discernment will not be counting attendees or what programs they had or what times they met on Sundays. These are not the things that he would be concerned about. He would be concerned about, “What is the spiritual state all these people in this church? What is the spiritual condition of the elders?” Only a spiritual man can discern that. He says, “I want to send somebody to find out about your condition. I cannot find a single person among all my co-workers.”

Paul was not looking among unbelievers for a representative. He is not even looking at the believers. He is looking at his co-workers and saying, “Which of them can I send to find out the condition of the Philippian church? Only Timothy. I have no one else of kindred spirit (this means one who has the same spirit as me, one who has the same spiritual vision, longing, and ambition that I have). There is nobody else. Here is somebody who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.” Now if Paul had said, “I am just concerned for your welfare,” that would have been enough. But some people pretend to be concerned. Paul was one who is genuinely concerned, and he was looking for someone like-minded to send, but he had to conclude, “They all seek after their own interests.”

Remember what the Lord told Peter, “You set your mind on your own interests, not God's.” We see the same thing in Philippians 2, where Paul’s co-workers are seeking their own interests, not God’s interests, and not those of Christ Jesus. In Philippians 2:21, we see the same contrast between the two interests that we saw in Matthew 16:23. What type of person can build the church? One who is not seeking his own interests. The entire race of Adam seeks their own interests. As I said, they are always thinking, “What is best for me and my family? I will go wherever is best for me and my family. I will do whatever is best for me and my family.” That is fine for them, but if you want to be a true servant of the Lord, you need to ask yourself, “Since God will take care of the interests of me and my family, what is the best for God's interest on this earth?”

Seek to Be One of God’s Few Wholehearted Servants

There are very few like that. There were very few like that in the 1st century, and there are very few like that in this century, whose whole minds are set on what is best for God's interests. “How can I be available for God's interest in my life?” I want to ask you, dear friend, do you want to be a wholehearted, radical servant of God, and spend your earthly days in the best possible way? Then be dedicated completely to God’s interests. Put to death every interest of your own, 100%. That is the way. Be genuinely interested in the things of God, and His interests. And then you need not ask, “Who is going to take care of my interests?” God will take care of your interests.

Do you think God can do a better job of taking care of your family than you, yourself? I can testify to this. I quit my job in the Navy forty-six years ago. I was married forty-four years ago, and I have four children. We were very poor when we started, but my wife and I decided to honor God at every single step. We have sought to put God’s interests first in our life for all these many years, and especially in the last 37 years since, God filled me with the Holy Spirit and showed me what it was to build His church (or local churches in different places). I have discovered one thing: the more I set my mind on God's interests (which required me to sacrifice a lot of time, money, and energy that I could have had for my family), I found God took care of my family, and He did a far better job than I could have ever done. It is like saying, “God, I will take care of Your interests, and You take care of mine.” Isn’t that a good exchange? You take care of God’s interests, and He takes care of yours? The other option is you take care of your own interests and God says, “Ok, you do that.”

Timothy was interested in the things of God. Timothy was always thinking of God’s interests. If there is a clash between God’s interest and my interests, I will put God’s interests first. That is the meaning of seeking God's kingdom first. I may have to deny myself of certain things. I cannot do this or that for my family. Do not worry. God will do something better. That is what it means to live by faith.

That is such an essential characteristic to build the church. There were very few in Paul's day. Imagine, even among Paul’s own co-workers, that he could not find anyone with that type of passion. There was just one - Timothy. And even today, there are very few whom God can find like that. I urge you to be one like that because then you will not have any regret in eternity. You will live a wonderful life on earth and come through to a glorious life at the end of it all.

“If you seek to save your life - or seek your own interests - you will lose it. But, if you are willing to lose it for the Gospel’s sake or for Christ’s sake, you will find it” (Matthew 16:25). It is a life of faith. That means you trust that as you give up something for God, He will never be in debt you. Remember, Jesus said that even a cup of water that somebody gives will get a reward. Imagine if you have given up all of your interests to seek God’s interests. What your reward will be here on this earth! He will take care of all your needs.

The Foolishness of Gaining the World

“What will a man be profited?” (Matthew 16:26) Supposing the Lord said, “you set all your mind on your own interests and pursue it. You ultimately end up gaining not only wealth here and there, but the whole world! Yet you have lost your soul.” We often quote that verse to an unbeliever. I want to quote it to believers. What does it mean to gain the whole world? You spend all your life pursuing earthly things. You get all that and ultimately, you wasted your one earthly life. God gave you one life to live for Him on this earth. When you waste it, you have lost your soul. You have wasted the one thing that you should live for. What can you give in exchange for this one earthly life that could be lived for God? What can you give in exchange for your soul?

Then Jesus said in Matthew 16:27, “Think of the final day.” That is what we must always think of. One day, the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels. He will reward every man according to his deeds. What did he live for? Did he seek his own interests (in the whole context of this passage)? What did he live for? What did he seek? His own interests? Did He give a little money in the offering box? Did he go to church every Sunday? That is not the point. The Pharisees went to the synagogue every Saturday. They gave money, tithed, prayed, fasted, but they went to hell. That is not the issue. The issue is whether your mind set on the things above, on God’s interests. Did you trust God? Did you live by faith? Did you believe that He would take care of your interests?

Jesus then says in Matthew 16:28, “I want to say to you, there are some of you standing here who will not taste of death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” How is that? That is referring to the day of Pentecost. The kingdom of heaven came to earth when the Holy Spirit was given. Jesus is saying, “Some of you standing here will be able to experience that. Jesus called the day of Pentecost the coming of the kingdom of heaven. The Son of Man, Christ, coming in a body through 120 people on earth. He says, “Some of you standing here (not all of you, but some of you, as some may die) will see that.” We are living in that age, where we can see the power of the Holy Spirit operating. Be open, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and seek with all your heart not to seek your own interests anymore, but to say, “Lord, I want to seek with all my heart the things of the kingdom of heaven, and to build Your church, the body of Christ, with the one earthly life I have.” You will never regret it in eternity, when the Son of Man comes in the glory of His Father and His angels, sets up His kingdom, and rewards you publicly for what you did. Live for Him on this earth.

Chapter 57

The Transfiguration and Spiritual Authority

“Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, ‘Get up, and do not be afraid.’ And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone” (Matthew 17:1-8). Here is the important principle that we need to recognize. We can say that Moses here represented the Law and Elijah represented the prophets. There is a frequent expression that in the Bible, the Law and the Prophets, which refers to the Old Testament. The first five books are called the books of the Law and then there are history books and then the Prophets. This is a general description for the Old Testament. Moses is known throughout Israel as the lawgiver, and Elijah is the most well known prophet, who is even quoted in the last verse of the Old Testament.

Jesus Is Higher Than Any Book or Man

We see this symbolically on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter was so excited that he was putting Jesus on the same level as the Law and the Prophets. He wanted to make three tabernacles for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, with all three on the same level. As soon as he said that, a cloud overshadowed them and a voice came from the cloud, as if saying, “Don't ever do that! This is My beloved Son. He is not in the same class as a book or a man. This is My beloved Son, listen to Him” (Matthew 17:4-6). What Christians can learn from this is that it is possible for us to be so taken up with a man of God, who has been a tremendous blessing to us, or maybe a great prophet, that we unconsciously put him on the same level as Jesus in our lives. We may criticize the Roman Catholics for making Mary a second mediator, but a lot of Protestants make a pastor a second mediator between them and Christ. When a man becomes equal to Christ, a cloud comes immediately and the Lord says, “You can’t do that. This is My Son. He is in a class by Himself. You cannot equate Him with any man.”

The second thing, which is more subtle, is Bibliolatry - where we worship the Bible. That may not seem as serious because the Bible is the word of God, but the Bible itself says, “The letter kills” (2 Corinthians 3:6). That means that if you take the letter of Scripture and live by it, it can kill you. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't obey God's Word, but obedience must be in the spirit. There are so many legalists who take little verses here and there and build a legalistic system in Christianity, or build a cult. This is one of the lessons that comes through this story - you cannot put the Bible or even the greatest man of God on earth on the same level as Jesus. These are all meant to direct us to Christ. The greatest, most effective man of God and prophet in the Old Testament was John the Baptist. He pointed to Christ Jesus saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” “I am not worthy to untie His laces,” or “Here is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” He was a pointer.

No prophet was meant to be a destination in himself. They are like the signposts that point to a city. As you drive down the road, there are these signposts saying where the city is. So a prophet is like a signpost saying, “Christ is there, go in that direction.” The one who draws people to himself is a hindrance to God's work. We also shouldn’t get so taken up with the letter of Scripture that we don't understand the spirit of what is written. This was the problem with the Pharisees. They were taking the letter of Scripture and were criticizing Jesus Himself saying, “You are not obeying God's Word - You are not keeping the Sabbath, You are not doing this or that,” whereas Jesus was the One Who obeyed the Law completely. He said, “I've come to fulfill the Law.” But He obeyed the spirit of the Law. There's something we can learn from that. It says that when the cloud appeared, they heard a voice saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” God may use a prophet, He may use the Bible, but ultimately you must listen to Jesus.

Hearing By the Holy Spirit

The Bible says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Faith doesn't come by simply reading the Bible. It does not say, “Faith comes by the word of Christ.” There's an in-between step. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” The word of Christ refers to the New Testament, and as you read it you must hear the Holy Spirit speaking to you. That is how faith comes. But mere academic study of the word will not produce faith in anybody. There are a lot of people who study the word academically and yet are not spiritual. They are just Bible scholars. There are those who study chemistry books and get a PhD in Chemistry. Similarly, you can study the Bible and get a PhD in Theology, but that won’t make you spiritual. It is very important to remember that study of the Bible by itself will not produce faith; it will only produce knowledge that puffs us up. It is the Holy Spirit that must speak to us through Scripture.

Further, “When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus” (Matthew 17:8). The others had disappeared, and that's how it must be. It doesn't say “let us run the race looking at any man of God;” it doesn't say “let us run the race looking at the Bible.” In fact, for 1400 years there was no printed Bible. Most Christians never had access to a Bible in their homes like we have today. We have access to so many translations today. We must never forget that for 1400 years most Christian did not have a Bible at home. How were they supposed to follow the Lord for those 1400 years? If the Bible was so essential for following the Lord, God would have allowed printing to be discovered at least a hundred years before Christ came.

I have seen the result of dependence on the Bible firsthand. I grew up in an assembly where they studied the Bible thoroughly - and I’m very thankful for it - but it took away the dependence on the Holy Spirit. That is the balance we need. I believe in the study of the Scriptures. I've studied the Bible from cover to cover, and I still study it. I believe I’ll never exhaust the depth of the Bible, but I am looking for the Spirit to speak to me through it at all times. Otherwise I will be putting Moses on the same level as Jesus. In the same way, I’ve been tremendously blessed by some wonderful, godly men who I respect very highly. There are very few really godly men, men of God who know God intimately and whose writings and lives have blessed me. But I've always gone beyond them to Christ. Like Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” We can follow a man as long as he is leading us closer and closer to Christ. If he drifts away, we stop looking at him and continue to follow Christ. Thus we will never go astray. A truly godly man will never seek to draw you to himself. He will always point you beyond himself to Christ.

Submit to Your Leaders

However, I want to also warn you because there are many people who can take advantage of this. There are many independent spirits in Christendom who love to hear something like this and say, “I don't follow any man.” That sounds exactly like what I’ve written here. But what they mean is, “I don't submit to anybody. I am alone by myself.” These are the worst of the lot. They are the biggest hindrance to the body of Christ. There is a balance in the teaching of the Scripture. When Satan quoted Scripture to Jesus he said, “It is written,” and Jesus said, “It is also written.” The truth is found in both - “it is written,” and “it is also written.” It is true that it is written, “We run the race looking only unto Jesus,” (Hebrews 12:2), but it is also written, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your soul as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief.” (Hebrews 13:17).

There must be a balance. God has given us human leaders, apostles, etc. Paul, for example, had such authority over the church in Corinth that he could hand over a man in that church to Satan from many hundreds of kilometers away. That's the authority that God gives an apostle. He could tell them, “For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). That was inspired by the Holy Spirit. We also see the balance here. Paul was not attaching people to himself; he was leading people to Christ. But there was an authority that God gave Paul that a spiritual person would recognize and submit to.

Learn from Jesus’ Life, and Not Just His Teaching

When we try to understand all that Jesus taught in the gospels, there were situations and circumstances that the Lord led His people into. For example, during the storm in the lake, Jesus was teaching the disciples that He could still the storm, through His life, through His circumstances and through His words. So all that Jesus taught combines all these things together. It's not only His spoken words. There are a lot of things we learn from the circumstances like this incident on the mount of transfiguration.

“As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, ‘Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead’” (So Peter kept it to himself and only spoke about it in his Epistle). And His disciples asked him, “Why then do the scribes says that Elijah must come first?’” (referring to the prophecy in Malachi). And He answered and said, ‘Elijah is coming and will restore all things; [in the future] but I say to you Elijah already came (that is referring to John the Baptist) but they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is also going to suffer at their hands.’ Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:9-13). This teaches us that John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah, preparing the way for the first coming of Christ, “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5). This means a ministry like Elijah's, which is not going to be one man, but a whole church - the body of Christ - that understands God's purpose together, will be the new man. That is the Elijah of the last days. It won’t be one person, it will be a prophetic ministry coming forth from the church, preparing the way and preparing people for the second coming of Christ. That is the ministry of the church today.

Mountain Tops Prepare Us for Valleys

“When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him’” (Matthew 17:14-16). This is why Jesus told his disciples that they could not stay up on the mountain forever. Peter said it was good for them to be up there, “Let's just settle down here, this is a wonderful place, it's the spirit of heaven out here on the mountain top.” But Jesus said, “No, we need to go down.” This is how we feel sometimes when we have mountain top experiences with the Lord. It's so wonderful to be in His presence, in the presence of His people, especially when we have godly men near us like Moses and Elijah. It's wonderful to be with such people. But the Lord says, “You can’t be there forever, because this is only a preparation for a ministry down in the valley.” Every mountain top experience that we have, even with godly men or with Christ Himself, is only a preparation for a ministry to needy people in the valley. God has not called us to only bless ourselves. The blessing of Abraham was, “I will bless you and you will be blessing to all the families on the earth” (Genesis 12:3). And that is the blessing that comes to us through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit puts within us a spring of water that springs up to everlasting life. But then that same spring flows out from us and becomes rivers of living water that bless other people. That is how it must be in our life. If it only remains as a spring satisfying ourselves, we have frustrated the ultimate purpose of God. It must flow out from us to bless others because there are needy people down in the valley.

Consider the man whose son was lunatic: how would he be helped if Peter, James, John, and Jesus stayed up on the mountain forever? This is a lesson for those who are taken up by the mountain top experiences. Every experience like that must lead us down to serve people oppressed by the devil in the valleys.

Christians Have a Responsibility to Deliver Others

When they go down, they find this man who could not be helped by the other disciples. Remember we saw in Matthew 10, that Jesus had given the disciples specific authority to cast out demons, just like He has given us as believers today. Every believer must believe that Satan (and every demon) has been defeated on the cross, and that his power has been taken away. Can I cast out demons in Jesus’ name? The demons are not afraid of man, but they are afraid of the mighty name of Jesus and the authority behind it. Yet the disciples couldn't cast it out even though God had given them specific authority that they could exercise. This man had brought his son to the disciples, and His disciples could do nothing.

This is true even today. There are many demon-possessed people in the world and sometimes they bring them to Christians, only to find that many Christians are powerless. They don't know what to do. This is because these Christians have never been baptized in the Holy Spirit and fire and have never known the anointing of God and the authority that Christ has given us over satanic powers. Non-Christians say, “I brought somebody to Your disciples and they couldn't even help him.” And the Lord says “O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me.”

Very often the Lord says similar words today. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. When He sees needy humanity bringing people to His children for deliverance and help from Satanic oppression, a lot of people can’t help them. He says the same words, “O unbelieving and perverted generation - you Christians who call yourself by My name - how long shall I put up with you?” It's very sad. I believe that it is our responsibility to take this seriously and say, “Lord, I want to be able to meet the needs of those whom You send to me, according to Your purpose for my life. I want to seek You so earnestly, that You will anoint me for my calling.”

I am not supposed to do everything in the body of Christ but only my particular function. That is something all of us who are believers must recognize, that every single believer has some function. Preaching wonderful messages is not the only thing. There are many, many functions in the body of Christ, and if you can recognize your particular function, say, “Lord, I want to be able to exercise that function to deliver people who come across my path from the oppression of the devil. I want to be available for You, and I want to be anointed by the Spirit for that.” Then you will not frustrate God's purposes. But a lot of Christians are frustrating God’s purposes because they are not thinking in terms of their responsibility to deliver others from the oppression of Satan. They are only thinking of being with Moses and Elijah on the mountain top. Every now and then, we have wonderful experiences. When we go to church on Sunday, we have lot of clapping and wonderful music, but what about being useful to the people oppressed by the devil in society around you? That's an important part of our calling too.

Demons Flee at One Word

And then the man was brought to Jesus, “And Jesus rebuked the demon and cast it out at once” (Matthew 17:18). You see this principle throughout Scripture, that Jesus cast out the demons with a word. I believe that it is a great testimony to the heathen when those who cast out demons cast them out with one single sentence and not by screaming, yelling, and hours of prayer and fasting. You never see Jesus spending hours of prayer and fasting to cast out one demon. We must manifest the authority of Jesus, where with one word or sentence, the demon goes away. I can tell you that it is true in my life. I never had to say more than one sentence to the number of demons that I have cast out. This is not because I'm special; it is because of the name of Jesus. They fear and tremble at the name of Jesus. We must have faith in that; if we don't have such faith, then it won't work. Then, even hours of prayer and fasting are not going to solve the problem. You need to go away from there and say, “Lord, I did not have faith,” and you need to pray and fast in secret, so that you will be equipped, and then, the next time you encounter a similar problem, you can deal with it. There is a place for prayer and fasting in secret: prior to handling these situations.

Jesus cast out the demons with a word. It was always like that - one word. The Bible says, “As Jesus is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). If we are anointed with the Holy Spirit, our conscience is clear, and we are walking in humility with the Lord, we have the same authority that Christ had. That is what it means to use His name. It should not be said about us that, “Somebody brought this to one of Your disciples and he couldn't cast out the demons.”

There may be numerous reasons why God does not allow some sickness to be healed. In Paul's case, his sickness was not healed. In Timothy’s case, his sickness was not healed. But there was never a single case where God allows a demon to possess a person. That is 100% against God's will. Just as God does not want us to be a slave to a single sin in our life, I have no doubt in my mind that God does not want any human being to have one single demon in him. But it is the responsibility of Christians to cast out the demon in the name of Jesus, whenever they encounter one. We do not go around looking for demons all over town, but when they come across our path or people bring them to us, we should have the authority to cast them out. That is why we need to walk with the Lord continuously, because we do not know when that occasion will arise and when we will be called upon to cast out a demon.

Authority Comes By Faith

“Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not drive it out?’” (Matthew 17:19) We are trying to understand all that Jesus taught, and here, He is teaching us about casting out demons. It is a very important aspect of the ministry, particularly if you minister in the villages in India. It is very important to know how to do it. “And He said to them, ‘Because of the littleness of your faith’” (Matthew 17:20). He did not say, “Because you did not pray and fast.” That is how some people misunderstand it. “Your problem is you don't believe I gave you such authority (mentioned in Matthew 10). Then, of course nothing will happen.” It is possible for the Lord to give you authority, and yet you don't believe it. That was the situation here. Did the Lord give them authority? Sure (Matthew 10:1)! Then why couldn’t they cast it out? Because they didn't believe that the Lord had given it to them. If you don't believe, then nothing happens.

This is a principle in the Christian life. You can access anything in the Scripture by faith alone. Christ died for your sins, but if you don't believe it, your sins are not forgiven. Christ can fill you with the Holy Spirit, but if you don't believe it, you won’t be filled with the Spirit. Christ has given you authority over demons, but if you don't believe it, you will never have authority over demons. ”If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you” (Matthew 17:20). The mountain is something that is a hindrance to my fulfilling the will of God in my life. There are some obstacles that God Himself places in our way. If He closes the door, there is no use trying to bang at that door, since God Himself has closed it. But there are some mountains that the devil puts in our way, that hinder us from moving on in God's purpose for our lives, and those mountains have to be removed in Jesus’ name. We have to pray against them and make sure they get out of the way, because they are hindering us from fulfilling God's will.

How do you know whether this obstacle is from God or from the devil? There is absolutely no way to know it except by walking in the Holy Spirit. That is why I say there is no rule book here. You have to learn to live by the Holy Spirit, keep a clear conscience, and walk in humility, and the Holy Spirit will tell you. “Those who are led by the Holy Spirit, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14), and to come to that faith, you need to pray and fast (Matthew 17:21). There is a place for prayer and fasting in secret, but not in public, while trying to cast out the demon. You must be prepared in private, before the time comes. Jesus prayed and fasted in private, and so, when the time came, He had the authority to cast out demons. We must recognize that it is God's will for us to have authority over all of Satan’s power. I believe that God will help, if we trust him. Believe that for yourself!

Chapter 58

Become Like a Child

Matthew 17:22 says, “While they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill Him and He will be raised on the third day.’ And they were deeply grieved. When they had come to Capernaum, those who collected the two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, ‘Does your teacher not pay the two drachma-tax?’ He promptly said, ‘Yes.’ And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first saying, ‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do the Kings of the earth collect customs or poll tax? From their sons or from strangers?’ Peter replied, ‘From strangers,’ and Jesus said to him, ‘Consequently, the sons are exempt, but lest we give them offense, go to the sea and throw in a hook, take the first fish that comes up and when you open its mouth, you'll find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for you and Me.’”

Don’t Offend People Unnecessarily

We see something here of Jesus’ attitude towards things that He didn't have to do. He says, “I don't have to pay the tax when I'm a son, but to avoid giving them offense, let’s pay it.” Sometimes in the Christian life we may have to do certain things, which we are not required to do, but we want to avoid giving offense. It is a great example Jesus has given us here by His life: that we don't stand on our rights. The question He asked was, “Do Kings ever collect tax from their own sons? No. Then the sons are exempt. So I really don't have to pay tax, but I don't want to give them offense, so let’s pay it.” Many people sometimes stand on their rights and they think that is standing for the truth and standing for the faith. Sometimes it can be pretty stupid. A true Christian should be gracious. They would say, “Ok and I don’t want to cause offense. It is a small thing. It is just a money matter. Take it, I’ll pay it off, no problem,” instead of standing on some imaginary right that they think they have. There was one person who did not need to pay tax - it was Christ the Son of God. But He had this principle: “Lest we give them offense.” Was Christ trying to please men? No. But He didn't want anyone to cause anyone to stumble over a small thing like this. His aim was to win people to God. Our aim is to win people to Christ, and we want to make sure that nothing we do or stand for, causes offense to people unnecessarily. There is an offense called “the offense of the cross” that we are willing to accept, but we don't want to create offense for unnecessary things that don't relate to the offense of the cross. And that's where we need to be wise because some Christians are foolish and stand on certain rights they think they have, and they're very poor witnesses for Christ as a result. You can apply that to your own life.

For You and For Me

The other beautiful thing I see here is that Jesus was so considerate. He said, “When you take that money, that will cover tax for you and for Me.” Notice how He said, “For you and Me” - what a beautiful expression. Jesus entered into partnership with Peter and paid His debt as well. I like that because this is how the Lord treats you and me, too. You can take that for yourself. The Lord says, “That’s for you and me. I'm in partnership with you in this ministry.” Peter had forsaken everything to serve the Lord. Previously, Peter was a man who was spending his life making money as a fisherman. There would have been no requirement then for the Lord to say that to Peter. But since Peter had now forsaken everything for the Lord's sake, the Lord says to him, “Don't worry, I'll take care of your tax as well.”

What about you? Do you sometimes try to cheat on your taxes? The Lord says, “You don't have to. There's no shortage of money with me. I can get money out of a fish's mouth to pay your tax. I have a shortage of honest people, so don't add to that shortage by cheating on your taxes yourself. I'll give you the money to pay the tax. I can even get it out of fish’s mouth. I can provide it to you supernaturally, but I don't want you to cheat and be crooked and don't cause offense to people.” So there are some wonderful lessons here.

We're trying to learn all that Jesus taught so that in our lives, we walk as Jesus walked. That's our goal. 1 John 2:6 says, “Everyone who says he is a Christian must live like Christ lived,” as the Living Bible paraphrases, “Must walk as He walked.” We want to live by the same principles by which Jesus lived. This is the purpose of our study.

Do Not Seek Honor

Matthew 18:1 says, “At that time the disciples came to Jesus saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’” This seems to have been an issue with the disciples many times. It’s an issue with many Christian leaders. Who is greater? You or me? There are a lot of people who say they've come to serve the meek and lowly as Jesus who washed the disciple’s feet when they come into Christian ministry. They’re always thinking, “Who is senior, you or me?” and there's a great lust for seniority. Similarly, during the last supper, they were discussing who is the greatest. James and John wanted to sit on the right hand and the left hand of the Jesus as greatest in heaven. That sounds like a good thing! They were saying “I don’t want to be great on earth, I want to be great in heaven,” but even that is wrong because they were seeking honor. Wherever you seek honor, whether you seek it on the earth or in heaven, it's wrong (this includes when James and John's mother came to Jesus and said, “Put my sons on either side of you in the coming kingdom”).

I'm sorry to say that I've seen this kind of honor seeking in every single denomination, and in every single church - in the purest, and in the most corrupt. This desire for position and power by the leaders and to be recognized as a leader among others is the exact opposite of the spirit of Christ.

Seek to Be a Child

Jesus takes the most unlikely person on earth to be the greatest. He called a little child unto Himself (we don't know how old that child was - this child must be a very, very little child), and He set the child before them and said, “Listen fellows, forget about being the greatest. If you want to even enter the kingdom of heaven, you have to be converted from your way of thinking and become like children. This little child is not talking about being great.” Jesus started with what it means to enter the kingdom. To enter the kingdom, you must change your entire way of thinking - that's the meaning of being converted. Your whole mind and thought process must change. Your value system must change completely until you become like little children. Little children may fight for toys and all, but they're not seeking for honor in this world; they're not seeking to be great people in the church. Isn't it wonderful? Have you ever seen a little child wanting to be an elder in a church or wanting to be a leader in a church? No. A little 1-year-old or 2-year-old child, or a little child lying in a cradle, doesn't want to be a leader anywhere. That's the spirit that’s going to take you into God's kingdom. That’s stage one. And then after entering the kingdom, if you want to be the greatest in the kingdom, then you have to keep humbling yourself like this child (verse 3). You must be converted and become like this child first (exhibit the same helpless dependence a child has on its parents) to come to a life of helpless dependence upon God. That’s how you enter the kingdom. That's what faith means. Then you keep humbling yourself and humbling yourself and gradually you become the greatest in God's kingdom.

Humility, Humility, Humility

It is by humility that you become the greatest. I've often said, the three secrets of the Christian life are first: humility, second: humility, and third: humility. That's it. That is the way, and I have preached this for years, but I find even those who’ve heard me preach this for twenty to thirty years are still seeking to be great in their church. Jesus once told a parable (at the end of Matthew 19) where the rich young ruler went away saying, “I can’t give up all that I have to follow you.” Peter went up to Jesus and said, “Hey Lord, this guy was not willing to give up everything He had to follow You, but we gave up everything to follow You. What are we going to get?” And the Lord said, “Okay, I'll tell you what you’re going to get. If you’ve given up house and land, the Lord will give you back house and lands and persecutions here on this earth, and also eternal life” (Matthew 19:29). And then He said, “I'll tell you a parable about this business of wanting to get the highest reward and be greatest in the kingdom.” He tells the story of the laborers and the people who came last, which we’ll come to in a later chapter.

Humility is what Jesus was constantly emphasizing. It's not the people you think are right in front who are going to be greatest in God's kingdom. It is the one who is humble, the one who was really willing to take the low place. He doesn't want fame and is not trying to get his name in the newspaper. A little baby is not bothered whether people photograph him or not. He is not trying to get into every picture. He is not trying to be somebody great. He is just a little child. I often meditate on a little one-month old child in a cradle. I say, “What type of thoughts are going through this child's mind?” He is not thinking, “What a great smart guy I am,” or “How handsome I am,” or “Look how much people admire me,” or “How many people are photographing me?” There's not a single thought like that in the mind of that one-month old child. If you pinch that child today and go away, then come back tomorrow, you’ll see that when you come, he will smile at you! He doesn’t even remember that you pinched him yesterday. What a wonderful thing it is to be like a little child in total humility - no grudges, no complaints, no memory of some evil that you did to it yesterday. That is true humility, and such a person is the greatest in God's kingdom.

Receive a Child in Jesus’ Name

Jesus goes on to say, “If you receive one such child in My name, you will receive Me” (Matthew 18:5). You’ve got to compare this with the other verse when Jesus said to His apostles, in Matthew 10:40, that “Whoever receives you, receives Me.” That means when you receive an apostle of Jesus Christ, you’re actually receiving Christ. But there are not many apostles in the world - I can count on my fingers on one hand the number of apostles I’ve met in my life of 53 years as a believer. There are not at all many apostles in the world. So how in the world can you receive Christ? Well, you can receive a little child. It is the same word, “Whoever receives an apostle receives Me” and “Whoever receives a child also receives Me.” Plus, children are more abundant than apostles. They're everywhere!

If you want to receive Jesus, receive a child in Jesus’ name. When you have a baby born into your home, what is Jesus teaching? Receive that child in Jesus’ name. You know how it is in India, if it's a girl they say, “Oh no, another girl.” That's not receiving a child in Jesus’ name. Certainly not. But that child is God's gift to you. God is the One Who determined the sex of that child. God is the One Who determined that it had to be a girl. Whatever heathen tradition and philosophy and religion may teach, God creates men and women. God created male and female in His image and lot of Christians also sometimes think that God created only males in His image and not females. So when a little girl is born, they’re disappointed. They may not express it, but in their heart, they're disappointed. That is evil. It is not just a weakness, it is one 100% evil! It is the mark of an unbeliever, it is the mark of an atheist who doesn't believe in God. If you get a daughter and you say, “Oh no, why another daughter?” God decided that you needed a daughter and God’s going to fulfill a great plan through that little girl. It's very sad. I can understand heathen people - godless atheists - having that attitude, but when Christians have that attitude, I'd say they are no better than those godless atheists. They’re Christians only in name. In actual fact, they are godless atheists who have a Christianized religion. But they're not spiritual.

Receive a child in Jesus name and don't say, “Oh, how dark that child is!” Does God create dark children? Does He create only white children? What wrong ideas! These are born-again Christians have who behave exactly like the heathen when it comes to this area. Receive that child in Jesus’ name and don't judge your child just because he is not as intelligent in school as somebody else's is. Everybody’s child cannot come first in the class. Accept your child with whatever measure of intelligence God has given him. Receive the child in Jesus’ name. This is a fundamental aspect of true Christianity.

Jesus goes on to say a number of things about little children. First He says, “To enter the kingdom of heaven, you must be converted and become like little children.” Then He says that If you want to be great in the kingdom of heaven, you’ve got to keep on humbling yourself in every situation like little children who are perfect examples of humility (Matthew 18:4). That humility means helpless dependence. A little one-month old child is so helpless in a cradle, he is not ashamed to admit “I need my mummy for everything,” and in that way, I need to say that I need God for everything. If I want to know what to do next, God has to tell me. This is humility. Humility is not bowing your head down and talking softly. That's all counterfeit. Humility is that helpless dependence on God, saying, “I need God's help for every little thing just like a little child.” If you keep walking like that, you'll be great in God's kingdom.

Causing Others to Stumble

Jesus goes on to speak about receiving children in His name and He gives a warning: “If you cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble…” Deep down in a child's heart, I believe it has some awareness of God in heaven. I don't know, but I believe that God has put that awareness in a child and I believe what Jesus said, “If you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it is better for you to tie a heavy millstone around your neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea.” These are very strong words. Do you stumble little children by anything you do or say? When a father and mother fight in the house, what are they doing? They are stumbling their poor little children in the house showing them that Christianity does not deliver you from anger, it does not deliver you from foul filthy mouth; it just teaches you to sing a song on Sunday. You're stumbling those little children! When you dress in an immodest way, you're stumbling little children in your church. The six-year-old girls and 10-year-old girls go to their dads and say, “Why can’t I dress like that sister?” You're a stumbling block when you dress immodestly, when you expose parts of your body that you shouldn't be exposing. Girls, when you wear tight-fitting clothes around the upper or lower part of your body to provoke men to lust, you're stumbling other girls who are younger than you. You're making it difficult for the fathers of those girls to protect them from such things because you (an older sister in the church) are setting such a bad example. And some older sisters dressed like this may even be teaching Sunday school! That compounds the error - the crime - when you dress like that and dare to teach Sunday School. Sunday School teaching is not just sharing academic knowledge of the Bible; it’s your whole appearance and bearing.

If you are like that, let me tell you what you should do: you should go to a hardware shop and buy a millstone and make sure it's really heavy, something like twenty kilograms. Get a really heavy stone and get a rope, tie it around your neck, and go jump in the sea! Those are the words of Jesus. He is not telling you to actually do that, but He’s saying, “It's better you do that than be a stumbling block to these children.” See the strong words He uses. Sometimes people tell me, “Brother Zac, you speak so hard and strong.” I say, “You haven't heard Jesus!” Have you ever heard me say anything like this: “Tie a millstone around your neck go jump in the sea?” That’s very strong and I would never say that to anyone, but Jesus said it. He was trying to emphasize how terrible it is to do something that would stumble little children. I don't know whether you realize the seriousness of that crime.

Then He goes on to say in Matthew 18:7, “There'll always be stumbling blocks. As long as this world exists, there will be stumbling blocks that you can’t avoid.” In your church, there will be stumbling blocks. No matter how much we preach and no matter what they hear, there will be still some stubborn girls and young women who will defy authority and misbehave and dress the way they like and stumble younger people. What shall we do? Woe unto the world because of its stumbling blocks - it is inevitable. “These stumbling blocks will come, but woe to that person through whom this stumbling block comes” (Matthew 18:7). There's a real woe and curse on any brother or sister who stumbles little children by their conduct, by their anger, by their misbehavior or by their immodest dress.

So what should you do? Here is the solution (Jesus’ solutions are always radical): Jesus says, “If it's your hand or your foot is causing you to stumble, just cut it off.” Dear brother or sister, have you ever heard preaching like this? “If your hand offends you cut it off; if your foot offends you cut it off.” I think people would say to such a preacher, “Be Christlike, man, when you're preaching.” They don't realize that this is Christlike; This is exactly what Jesus said. If your hand offends you, cut it off; if your foot offends you cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled or lame than to have two hands and two feet but go straight into the eternal fire of hell.

He's talking about offending others by our conduct. Do you know that you can go to eternal fire by offending others by your conduct? Therefore, this is something that we need to take very, very seriously. He says further, “If it’s your eye (whether it's your hand or your feet or your eye) that causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you.” It is better for you to enter life without eyes without hands without legs than to have all these members of your body and go to hell.” What’s the subject He is talking about? He's talking about offending little children, so He comes back to it.

Jesus says, first of all, “See that you don't stumble one of these little ones” (Matthew 18:6). Then He goes on to say, “Don't despise one of these little ones - don't look down on little children.” Woe unto that church which despises or looks down upon their little children! I often say in our church the children are all flowers. We may not be rich enough to put real flowers in our church, but we can have these little children. These are all our flowers and as Jesus said, “See that you don't despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). So it appears to me that every child has an angel, at least one, maybe more. That angel is always in the presence of the Father and, at the same time, available to this child on earth to protect it from harm and danger and every type of evil. So He said, “Be careful that you don't despise one of these little ones because the angel will report you to the Father, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.” This is a beautiful section here on children, emphasizing that Jesus came even to save little children. So I would encourage you to meditate on this passage to understand what Jesus taught about our attitude toward little children.

Chapter 59

Authority in the Local Church Body

Bringing Children to Faith

In Matthew 18:11, Jesus said, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Remember that in the previous ten verses, He was talking about little children. Jesus even came to seek and to save them. When you read that verse in the context of the previous verses, you find He is talking about seeking and saving little children and bringing them to faith. There are lot of people who don't believe in bringing little children to faith, but Jesus did. He was interested in seeking and saving them! It is better to see what Jesus says rather than to see what clever preachers today have to say on the subject.

Consider verses 12-13, remembering that the subject is little children whom the Son of Man has come to seek and to save. “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray (let's assume that one lost sheep is actually a little lamb, not even a sheep), doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? And if it turns out that he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.” We should rejoice over one little lamb, one little child, that has found Christ and surrendered his or her life to Christ. Verse 14 says, “Thus, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” Again, the emphasis is almost as though the Lord knew that in the 21st century, a new teaching would arise among some evangelical Christians that we should not tell little children to receive Jesus as their Savior, because it doesn't mean anything. Yet Jesus clearly says that it is not the will of your Father that even one of these little ones perish. It’s almost as though these folks have never read these verses. We praise God for Sunday schools and for all those who work among little children, so that they can put faith into their hearts.

I remember that when I was a little boy in Sunday school, many times I asked Jesus to come into my heart. I did not know what the right time was, and the assurance of my salvation came into my heart much later, but I know it was that Sunday school teaching which protected me from gross sins when I joined the military. In the military academy and in the navy, many of my colleagues went into gross sins. What protected me was the teaching that I received in Sunday school. In those days, I was not even really converted perhaps, but the little fear of God that was put into my heart protected me even though I was unconverted. I thank God for those teachers in Sunday school who put a little fear of God into my heart, and I want to say to all of you who work with little children. Be encouraged by Matthew 18:14, “It is not the will of your Father that even one of these little ones perish.” God wants every one of those children to be saved. Pharaoh told Moses, “Your men can go and serve the Lord if you want, but leave the little ones here.” Do you think Moses would do that? A lot of people today leave their little ones in Egypt and don't seem to be bothered by it, but not Moses. Moses said, “We're not going to be leaving our little ones behind. We're going to take them out of Egypt.” That's the passion you must have, dear brothers and sisters. If you're an elder in a church, dear brother, or if you're a father or a mother, brother or sister, then you need to have that passion. We're not going to leave our little children behind in Egypt. It is not God's will that even one of these little ones perish eternally. The Good Shepherd wants to go out to those little lambs, put them on His shoulder, and carry them home. He does that through His servants nowadays, and so, I want to encourage you to understand what Jesus taught about leading little children to faith and repentance, because they have things to repent of as well. They may have things to go and apologize to their parents and teachers about, and then they can turn to God.

Discipline in the Local Church

Jesus then goes on to speak in verses 15-20 about local church situations where discipline is needed. There are only two times, by the way, when Jesus spoke about the church. He used the word “church” in the Gospels only twice, once in Matthew 16 and once Matthew 18. In Matthew 16:18, He speaks about the worldwide Church, the entire body of Christ, many of whom are already in heaven and many of whom are in different countries. But here, in Matthew 18, He speaks about the local church. He speaks about both the universal Church and the local church. The universal Church is the total body of Christ mentioned in Matthew 16:18. The local church is the local expression of that body of Christ which Christ mentions in Matthew 18:17.

This is a church of people to whom you can speak. You can’t speak to the worldwide Church, because it is spread out all over the world. Nobody can ever speak to the worldwide church - many of them are in heaven anyway - but you can speak to the local church. This passage is referring to people in a local church, in a situation where a brother has to be disciplined. This situation arises when a brother in a church sins. “Go and reprove him in private” (Matthew 18:15) is the principle that we must follow in all disciplinary matters in the church. The Lord recognizes that even a brother may sin. We don't believe that believers will never sin. Believers can do wrong things, and it goes on further here to say that some of those believers may be so stubborn that they won't even listen when the elders go and speak to them. So, He says that if a brother sins, go and reprove him in private. “If he listens to you, you’ve won your brother. If he does not listen to you,” what should you do? There is a possibility that a brother may not listen to you and is stubborn in his disobedience and rebellion. In this case, “take one or two more with you, so that, in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to this group, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then let him be to you as a gentile and a tax collector, as an outcast” (Matthew 18:16-17).

So, there are three stages. First, you speak to him personally. If he doesn't listen you, speak to him with two or three others. If he still doesn't listen, then the next stage is to speak to the church, and tell the church that this brother, who is not listening, who's not responding to correction, is no longer a part of this church. He is like a tax collector. He is an outsider. He is not part of the body of Christ here anymore. What God does with him is God's business, but as far as this local church is concerned, we’ve relieved ourselves of all responsibility. As far as he's concerned, he is out.

The Authority of the Church

In that connection, Jesus says that the church has authority. These are similar words to what He spoke in Matthew 16:19, when He spoke to Peter. In this passage, He’s speaking to the elders of the church (obviously the two or three who go and speak to this man are all the elders of the church). If the person doesn’t even listen to the elders, then all the elders can do is tell the church. Then He says the elders of the church can exercise the authority to bind and to loose. Whatever they bind on earth will be bound in the heavenlies and whatever they loose on the earth will be loosed in the heavenlies. We can put a person out of the church and we have spiritual authority to bind satanic powers in the heavenlies that try to cause confusion in the church through disobedient people. That's why in one case we read, in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul handed over a person to Satan. He had that authority. He was exercising the authority that the Lord has given to apostles and elders.

“Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven,” (Matthew 18:19). Consider this binding, and the authority that these people have. Binding in such a situation, the Lord says, is best exercised by at least two people. That means there are two godly men who are in agreement, and they ask that in a situation when Satan attempts to bring confusion into the church, that he be bound, and that people who are in bondage be released. It may be that many people in a church are in bondage because of one person. God gives us the authority to release those people, because where two or three are gathered together in Jesus’ name, He is in the midst (v20). Now you see the whole context of this. Jesus is talking about the church, and verse 20 is almost like a definition of the church: it’s two or three gathered together. If the Lord had said, “Where 200 or 300 are gathered in My Name, there I am in their midst,” then I would never be a part of a small church. I would look for a minimum of 200 people if that was the standard Jesus set, but thank God that He said, “two or three.” In many of the early churches and some of the churches we've seen in different countries, they started with two or three gathering together in the name of Jesus. Christ was in the center, the Lord was present, and they exercised authority in His name.

Conditions of Spiritual Authority in the Church

We need to understand what it means to gather together in Jesus’ name. First of all, what does the name “Jesus” mean? The meaning of Jesus’ name is found in the very first chapter of Matthew. In Matthew 1:21, the angel said, “You shall call His name Jesus, because He's going to save His people from their sins.” So, a group of people who are gathering together in the name of Jesus, the One Who's come to save His people from their sins, is a group of two or three people who want to be saved from their sins. It is not just two or three people who are carnal and worldly and living for themselves who can say, “We come in the name of Jesus.” That type of religious group could be Babylon. They don't have any authority at all. It is two or three people who have understood the meaning of the name of Jesus, and who have come together in His name. Never forget this. This verse is used glibly by many Christian groups that only imagine Jesus is in their midst. Don't you think the church in Laodicea invoked this verse in their meetings whenever they met together? The church in Laodicea, described in Revelation 3:14-22, would gather together and say, “We thank You, Lord. You're in our midst. Your Word says that ‘where two or three are gathered together in Jesus’ name, He is in the midst.’” But He wasn't in their midst. Jesus tells them, in Revelation 3:20, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me.” So where was He? Was He inside or outside the church? He was outside, seeking for entrance into individual lives, because the church itself had rejected Him.

A lot of churches today who claim to have Christ in their midst don’t actually have Him in their midst at all. He is outside the door, or perhaps nowhere near the door. He had left it and gone away long, long ago. He has given up trying to enter that church because of the hopeless situation. So, it is not just a question of religiously using the Name of Jesus. Have you come together with the understanding of the meaning of that Name, which means to be saved from our sins? That's very important.

The Measure of Forgiveness that Jesus Commands

Then Peter came and said to Jesus in Matthew 18:21, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” Remember the Lord has been speaking about a brother who sins in verse 18. A brother who sins in the church may have hurt somebody. So, Peter is asking the question, “Suppose a brother keeps on doing something, more than once. How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” Maybe he repents and comes back, and says, “I'm sorry.” The Lord said that we can forgive a brother if he repents and comes back. I want you to compare this verse with Luke 17:3, “Be on your guard!” Jesus says. “If your brother sins, rebuke him…” This is similar to what we read in Matthew 18:15, “and if he repents, forgive him.” What if he doesn't actually repent?

This is the question. How often shall my brother sin, and I forgive him? Okay, he repents, and I forgive him. But how often should we do this? Suppose he comes to me many times a day. Jesus said, “Peter, you have tried to be very gracious and say, ‘Shall I do that seven times in a day?’ No. I tell you seventy times seven times.” If you look at the parallel passage in Luke 17, it says there that if your brother sins against you seven times in a single day, you must forgive him. If a day is 12 to 14 hours, this means that every two hours, he does something wrong against you. Every two hours, he does something wrong and comes to you and says, “I'm sorry.” Two hours later, he again does something similar and says, “I'm sorry. I repent.” Again, after two hours, he does the same thing. I would imagine that by the third or fourth time he comes, you couldn’t even trust him. But, the Lord says in Luke 17:4, if he comes back to you seven times, forgive him. Then, the apostles said in verse 5, “Oh Lord, increase our faith. Please, help us to believe that this guy is genuine. When He comes back seven times in a day, give us faith to believe that. It is very difficult to believe when he comes back seven times, that he is genuine.”

We read similar words here in Matthew 18. How often shall I forgive him? Up to seven times in a day, perhaps? And Jesus said to him, “I don't say to you seven times, but up to 70 times 7 times (490 times in a day), if he comes and asks for forgiveness.” This would mean that every few minutes, the person repeats the same thing. He says, “Oh, I'm sorry. Forgive me.” Then a few minutes later, he does the same thing. 490 times. What is the meaning of this? I mean, nobody does the same thing 490 times a day. Not even the worst husband and wife clash 490 times a day. So, what the Lord meant is an infinite number of times, because that's how God forgives us. You can go to God a million times in a day, and He will forgive you. He is always there to forgive.

Why We Must Forgive

Then Jesus told a story about the basis of forgiving others. It’s very important to understand what is the basis on which we forgive others. Why should we forgive others constantly? Jesus told the story about this man who was a king, who wanted to settle accounts with the slaves. When he began to settle them, there was a man who owed him ten thousand talents. That's a lot of money, equal to a billion rupees. So, here's a man who owes 1 billion rupees, and he didn't have any means to repay even one rupee. So, the king commanded him to be sold along with his wife and children, until he had made repayment for everything. The slave, therefore, fell down and said, “Please have patience with me. I will repay you everything.” First of all, this is a ridiculous statement. How in the world is he going to repay 1 billion rupees when he doesn’t have anything to pay right now? And he is a slave. The lord of that slave felt compassion, released him, and forgave him his debt. He said, “Okay, you're free. You don't have to be sold as a slave and you don’t have to go to jail. You are forgiven. Go home and be free with your family.”

That slave went out and found another fellow slave who owed him a hundred denarii. One denarii is one day's wage for a laborer. Not a skilled laborer; just an ordinary laborer. Let's say this man’s wages for one day was a hundred rupees and he owed his Lord 10,000 rupees. Now, 10,000 rupees is not a small amount of money. It is quite a bit of money. 10,000 rupees for a laborer is three months’ salary. And the slave caught his fellow slave by the throat and said, “Pay back my 10,000 bucks!” The fellow slave said exactly the same thing as the first slave. He fell down before him and said, “Please have patience with me. I'll repay you.” Exactly the same words the first slave had spoken to the king. But the slave was unmerciful, and he said, “No. I will not let you go. You have to pay up right now. You don't have any choice.” And he took him to court, got him convicted, and put him into jail until he could pay back everything that he owed (v30).

Some of the other slaves heard about this and saw what happened. They were very grieved, and came to the king and said, “You know what this guy did, whom you forgave so much?” The king called that slave back and said in verse 32, “You wicked slave. I forgave you all the debt, because you entreated me. Don't you think you should have had mercy on your fellow slave even as I had mercy on you?” Be merciful to others just as God had been merciful to you. And the king was so angry with this unmerciful slave that he didn't just put him in jail, he said, “Get the torturers.” In those days, there were people who not only put people in jail, but who tortured these people in jail. So, it was a double punishment until he repaid those 1 billion rupees, which he'd never be able to repay in his lifetime in jail.

The Consequences of Unforgiveness

What is the point of this story? Jesus said, “So will My Heavenly Father do to each of you, who does not forgive his brother from his heart.” So, this is talking about a believer not forgiving another believer who has done some wrong to them. It’s talking about forgiving, not just externally, but from your heart. It doesn't matter what the crime is. It is still less than 1/1000th of what you have done to God. Maybe you feel that that person has done a terrible crime against you. But it is like the 10,000-rupee debt. It may be a big thing; 10,000 rupees is a big amount of money. But, when you compare it to 1 billion? It’s 1/100,000th of it. That means what we owe to God is 100,000 times what anybody could ever owe us.

Why can't you forgive, if God has forgiven you so much? That's the point of the parable. Who are these torturers in the spiritual terms? They are the demons. This means that God can actually allow demons to torture believers because of an unforgiving spirit they have towards others. That, I really believe, is the reason why many believers are sick. That is not to say that all sickness is caused by sin or an unforgiving spirit, but I’m absolutely convinced that a lot of sickness among believers is caused by an unforgiving spirit. This is the cause of maybe 20% of illnesses among believers. Then maybe 80% of illnesses are caused by the fact that we live in a world that is under the curse, and there are germs and illnesses all around that anybody can get. That's true, but at least 20% of illnesses, I think, are caused by sin; sinful attitudes, bitterness, anxiety, worry, fear, and an unforgiving spirit of bitterness against other people. I also believe this is the reason why a lot of prayers are not answered. The Bible says that you can move a mountain with prayer, but before you can move that mountain, you must forgive others. That's what Jesus said.

Do you find your life being tortured? Is your mind being tortured? Is your body suffering with lots of illnesses? Consider this possibility: there may be people whom you have not forgiven in the same way that God forgave you. Maybe you superficially said that you forgave them, but you have kept a secret grudge against them, and you still want to fight with them. Well, the torturers will keep troubling you until you release those people. You may say that they've done such terrible harm to you. They have not done more harm to you than the harm that you've done to God! If we compare what others have done to us with what we did to Jesus (at Calvary when our sins were put on Him), then it becomes easy to forgive other people. I hope we learn a lesson from this, and that we will make sure that, because God has forgiven us so much, we openly, gladly forgive others.

Chapter 60

Forgiveness, Divorce, Children, and Possessions

Forgiving Others Is Absolutely Essential

It is important to recognize that if you do not forgive others, God will not forgive you. After teaching about the master’s anger towards the unmerciful slave, who would not forgive a fellow slave after he had been forgiven so much, Jesus said, “So shall My heavenly Father do to you if you do not forgive a brother from the heart” (Matthew 18:35). At the end of what is commonly known as the Lord’s prayer, Jesus said, “If you do not forgive men their sins (not only brothers, but to all men), your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matthew 6:15). “Your Father” means He has already become your Father. You can be born again, but God will not forgive your sins -- even though He is your Father -- because you did not forgive somebody else.

What happens if you die in that state (you had become a child of God and at the time of your death, you have not forgiven somebody, but instead kept an unforgiving attitude and bitterness)? Personally, if you ask me, I have absolutely no doubt where you go. You go to hell. Because there is no chance after death for God to forgive you. The only place where God can forgive somebody is here on this earth. But you say, “What if that person lived 40 years in faithfulness to the Lord and then he did not forgive somebody?” Then you probably believe the teaching of all the religions in the world that God weighs all the good deeds versus the bad deeds. You believe that God will say, “Oh well, he has done so many good things for 40 years, but he did not forgive somebody. So we'll ignore that.” Is that the religion you believe?

That is not Christianity. No, we are not saved on the basis of good deeds versus bad deeds. It does not matter if you have lived a hundred years in faithfulness. The Word of God is still true. Jesus said, “If you do not forgive men, your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” I would even say that, in the final day, if God does forgive those who did not forgive others, then He turned out to be a liar. That means Jesus was a liar when He said that your Father would not forgive them, if He finally ends up forgiving them. Don’t take a chance with unforgiveness. Believe God's Word. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My word will not pass away” (Matthew 16:35). You have a Heavenly Father and can pray to Him saying, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” But if you do not forgive men, your Father will not forgive your transgressions. There are lots of believers who are living under the delusion that just because they asked Christ to come into their life, they are guaranteed to go to heaven. These people believe that it does not matter how they live. They believe it does not matter how many people they do not forgive.

I want to tell you in Jesus’ name that is the greatest delusion that is being preached in Christendom today. There are more people who go to hell because of this “once saved always saved” doctrine than perhaps any other doctrine under the sun. They live in sin. They do not forgive others, and they think they are going to heaven. Where do you get that in Scripture? “If you do not forgive men, your Heavenly Father will not forgive you.” Please keep that in mind. Let the word come in the day of the judgment to remind you that somebody warned you about it before you got there. Now is the time to set matters right. Forgiveness is such an easy thing. You do not need to go meet that person. You may never meet that person in all your life. From your heart, forgive him. That is it. It is an act of a moment. You can do it on a death bed, but do not wait until your death bed. Do it now.

Pharisees Try to Trap God’s Servants

“When Jesus had finished these words, He departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan; and large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there” (Matthew 19:1-2).

This is another example of Jesus healing, as far as we know, everyone. Some Pharisees came to test Him. Just notice the number of times these Pharisees are out to catch Him. In my life, I have seen so many people who try to come after me in the same way. They are testing, provoking, trying to find out, and asking questions exactly like how the Pharisees tried to catch Jesus in some word. They then quote that and try to tear apart that person’s reputation. The Pharisees are around today. The generation of vipers are still alive. You may find them attacking you as well, if you are a true servant of God.

Some of the Pharisees came to test Him saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?” God never commanded divorce. He hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). There was a law in the Old Covenant which said that if a man divorces his wife, he should give her a certificate of divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1-4). I want to show you something in this connection about how people quote Scripture, because this happens even today. In Deuteronomy 24:1-4, it says that if a man takes a wife, and it happens that she doesn’t find favour in his eyes (because he has found some indecency in her. It is not specified what this is. It could be sexual immorality prior to marriage), then he must write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of the house. She leaves his house and becomes another man's wife. If the latter husband turns against her, writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of the house -- perhaps if the latter husband dies -- then her former husband who originally sent her away is not allowed to take her back again to be his wife, because she has been defiled, and that is an abomination before the Lord. Deuteronomy 24:4 says, “You shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.”

Was He commanding divorce there? Not at all. He is saying that if a man sends a woman away, make sure he at least gives a certificate of divorce before he does. Do not send her away without it. But see how these Pharisees have taken that, twisted it, and made it sound as if Moses commanded divorce (Matthew 19:7)? Why does Moses command him to give her a certificate of divorce before sending her away? Yes, Moses did command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away, but they are implying that Moses permitted that divorce. He did not.

God’s Plan Gives the Answer

Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all? Jesus answered very clearly in Matthew 19:4, “Have you not read that the one who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” The answer to all these things can be found in God's original plan right in the beginning. When you have any doubt about some things, go back to God’s original plan. What was God's original plan for Adam? In many areas, that gives us the answer. We do not have time to look into all those areas. What was God’s original plan for man regarding marriage? Did God make a number of women so that if Adam got fed up with Eve, he could get rid of her and marry another, and if he becomes unhappy with one of them, he can marry another? No, that is not what God planned for man in the beginning. God made one man and one woman. That is what the Lord is saying. From the beginning, God made it this way. There is no question of being unhappy with the one God gave you. God gave one woman to Adam and said, “This is your wife.” That is it. She may have weaknesses. So do you. That is what the Lord would say to anybody today.

Agents of Satan, Or Servants of God?

Therefore, since God did that, He also says in Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” Jesus quotes that in Matthew 19:5. There is no question of them separating since they are no longer two, but one. Before they got married, they were two individuals. Once they became one flesh in marriage, they have become one. They are no longer two. Therefore, God has joined them together. Let not man separate them. Nobody should separate those whom God has joined together. Any man who comes between a husband and wife is an agent of Satan. I have no hesitation in saying that. If a father-in-law or a mother-in-law comes between a husband and wife, they are agents of Satan. If a father or mother comes between husband and wife, they are agents of Satan. If a brother, neighbor, pastor, or anybody else comes between a husband and wife, he or she is an agent of Satan.

The job of every true servant of God is to bring husband and wife closer to each other, not come between them. You may be permitted to come between a man and his son if the man is rebellious to God and the son wants to be faithful. But you must never come between a man and his wife. They must remain together. Suppose the husband is an idolater and the wife is a true believer. What shall you say? Separate from him? Certainly not. She should not bow down to idols like he does because there is an Authority above him in all matters, which is God. But she should co-operate with her husband in other matters.

Jesus said that what God has joined together, let no man separate. This does not matter where they were married. They may have been married in a temple, mosque or a court. Whenever they were married legally, they are joined by God. It is not only Christian marriages that are accepted by God. Every marriage is accepted by God.

The Whole Truth Concerning Divorce

Then the Pharisees said to Him, “Why did Moses then commanded us to give a certificate to divorce and send her away?” They have taken half of the truth in the Deuteronomy 24, as the man himself was the one who decided to send her away. Moses did not command the man to send her away. The man decided, “I do not want this wife so I will send her way.” Moses said, “In case you do that, give her a certificate of divorce.” Jesus said, “It is because of your hardness of heart that Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not this way” (Matthew 19:8).

In Old Testament times, people’s hearts were hard. They were not soft. They could become soft only when the Holy Spirit came. God wrote His laws upon rocks. It was as if He was telling human beings, “I cannot even write My laws in your hearts. Your hearts are harder than these rocks. I can write My laws on these rocks, but not in your hearts. Your hearts are hard.” But there is a promise in Ezekiel 36:26 where God says, “I will take away that hard heart, and I will give you a soft heart. I will put My Spirit there.” This has taken place now that we are living in the age of the Holy Spirit. “Anyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9). There is no doubt about it. If you divorce your wife and marry another woman, you commit adultery. That is crystal clear and is very, very important.

The disciples said, “If the relationship of a man and his wife is like this and he can never leave her, then it is better not to marry.” They said this because they must have seen so many unhappy marriages. They said, “It must be very difficult to remain married then, if you can never get rid of your wife.” However, to stay single, Jesus said that is not something that all men can accept, but only those to whom it has been given. There is one thing that is very clear as far as divorce is concerned, and that is that God hates it. It is not God's will. If a wife has given her body to another man, then her covenant of being “one flesh” with her husband is broken. In such a case, Jesus permits divorce. That is the only situation in which He permitted divorce. He did not permit a husband to divorce his wife for any other reason.

We find so many Christians divorcing left, right, and center nowadays. We can see how far Christianity has drifted away from God. We see Christian leaders standing in pulpits who are divorced men. We can see how far Christianity has drifted from God. I am not saying that a divorced person cannot be restored to fellowship with God. But he cannot be given responsibility as an elder because his whole testimony is bad. He divorced his wife. That is very important to bear in mind in our day, when standards are being lowered everywhere.

The Grace to Remain Single

Jesus said to them that not all men can accept this statement, concerning the benefits of remaining single, but some to whom it is given. Then He goes on to say that there are eunuchs who were born that way. “There are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have chosen to remain single, as it were, for the kingdom of heaven. Only one who is able to accept it should accept it” (Matthew 19:12). The apostle Paul was one of those people who felt he had the grace to remain single without burning. How do you know whether you have grace to remain single? You will not burn.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:9, “It is better to marry than to burn.” If a man is burning with sexual desire that he cannot control, then that is an indication that he is not called to a single life. If he is called to a single life, then he will not be burning with sexual passion. Such a person can choose a single life. But if there is burning of sexual desire within, which is perfectly normal, then that is an indication that one should look for marriage. Jesus is very practical.

Christ’s Attitude to Children

Jesus then speaks about children. He sees children, and then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them. The disciples had seen the Pharisees always driving children away and say, “We do not have time for little children. We are serious. We can talk to adults, but we will drive away these little children.” The Pharisees did not even have time for young people perhaps. All these old men would huddle together and talk. The disciples had seen that the great rabbis did not talk to children. And so, when the children were brought to Jesus, the disciples drove them away. They said, “Get away from here. Do you know that He is a rabbi?” Jesus said, “Do not do that. Let the little children come. Do not hinder them. Let them come to Me, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).

This is Christ’s attitudes to children. Your attitude to children is a pretty good indication whether you are a real man of God or a hoax. If children are not drawn to you, if you do not treat children nicely and kindly, if you do not welcome them, or if you are not warm towards them, I would say you do not know Christ at all. Children must not be afraid of you. They must be warm towards you when you see them, and they see you. That is one mark of a Christlike person. A Christlike person is always very happy to be with children, not just with older people. That is one way by which you can make out a fake man of God from a real one. This is not the only way, but one of the ways. Then after laying hands on all these children, He departed from there.

Rich Young Ruler

This is a very interesting story because the rich young ruler is a very unusual person. First of all, he was rich. Second, he was young. Third, he was a ruler. He was a rich young person of position in society. He is a person whom any pastor would love to have as a church member – rich, young and a person with an eminent position in society as a ruler. He came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, what good things shall I do so that I may obtain eternal life?” In other words, what is the one thing I can do to get eternal life? And Jesus said to Him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good?” There is only One Who is good, and that is God. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.

Jesus was not saying, “I am not God.” There could be a number of other interpretations. Why do you call Me good? Do you believe that I am God? There is only One Who is good, really, and that is God. Do you believe that? It could be the reason why He mentioned it like that, but if it is not mentioned here, we do not want to speculate. But He did tell him that if you want eternal life, keep the commandments. They were under the Law. There is no other message that could be preached in those days. It is not the message we preach today. And then the young ruler said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother.” In other words, love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 19:18-19). Jesus mentioned five commandments. You remember that there are Ten Commandments altogether. The first four commandments were probably written on one tablet of stone. They were related to man's relationship with God. The other six related to man's relationship with his fellow man. The two big commandments are to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. The first four are related to that first great commandment. The remaining six are related to loving your neighbor as yourself. Hardly anybody in Israel was ever guilty of disobeying the first four commandments. They accepted Jehovah as the only true God. They did not take the Lord’s name in vain. They do not worship idols and obeyed the Sabbath. Generally speaking, most people obeyed these.

The Lord does not even ask him about those four commandments. They have no other gods, do not worship idols, do not take the Lord's name in vain, and keep the Sabbath. Everyone in Israel kept these four commandments. There was no need to even ask anyone in Israel to keep them. That was understood, and people kept it. There was no problem.

That is why Jesus deals only with the second tablet, which contained the six commandments given to man: “You shall not commit murder,” “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” and “You shall honor mother and father.” There is one more commandment. You notice the one that is left out? “You shall not desire your neighbor’s wife.” You shall not desire anything that belongs to your neighbor. Jesus knew that there is not a single human being who could ever keep that commandment, because this is speaking about inner lust. Lust is just a word that means “strong desire.” The first nine commandments were all external, but the tenth commandment was one commandment which referred to an inner life. The Lord kept it there to test people to see how many people would honestly acknowledge that they could not keep the tenth commandment. Nobody in the world could keep the tenth commandment. They could only keep the first nine.

Because of this, Jesus mentions only the five external commandments related to man, and leaves out the sixth one about desiring your neighbor’s wife. The young man says, “All these I have kept.” This was an amazing young man who had kept all the commandments faithfully. Jesus said, “There is one more thing. You have a tremendous love for money. In your case, it is so serious that the only way to get rid of it is by giving it all away.”

That is not the case with everybody. There is a little bit love of money in everybody, but in some cases, the situation may not be so bad. The cancer may not have spread so much that you have to eliminate an entire organ or something like that. If it is in its early stages, then you do not have to do such radical surgery. In the rich young ruler’s case, though, it was a terrible disease. The whole thing had to be given up. “Jesus said, ‘Go and sell all your possessions. Give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow Me.’ But when the young man heard this, he went away grieved for he was a man who owned much property” (Matthew 19:21-22). He said, “Well, if that is the price for eternal life, then forget it. I am not interested. I am interested in this life. I want to have a good time here on this earth.”

Having, Not Possessing

That was the test. Do you want this life? Do you want a good time on this life, or do you want eternal life? The young man said, “I want a good life here on this earth. I do not want to give up everything I have. I do not want to sell all that I have.” Now what does it mean to have eternal life? I do not have to sell everything I have. There is no command in the New Testament Epistles to sell all that we have. But I must not possess something as if it is mine. I must keep everything I have in an open palm and say, “Lord, I have it, but it is not mine. I do not possess it. I keep it in an open palm. It is Yours. I am a steward, and I hold it.” There must not be a single thing of which I say, “That is mine. I will not let go. Almighty God cannot take that away from me.” If I do, then I cannot be a disciple of Jesus. I have to forsake all that I possess. I do not need to forsake all that I have, but all that I possess in order to be a disciple. I can have things, but not possess them.

Don’t Negotiate with Half-Hearted Disciples

When the man went away, Jesus did not go after him. Jesus did not say, “Hey, why don’t you come back? Let’s talk about it. Maybe you can give 10% now, and another 10% next year. Then, in a few years, you can give up everything.” No, it was radical discipleship. “In your case, the sickness is so bad that you have to be freed from it right now.” Jesus says, “Give it all up.” He never went after him. This is one of the things we see about Jesus and all that Jesus taught by His actions. We do not go after people who are not willing to pay the price for discipleship. We do not go begging and pleading with them. We do not say, “Okay, we will lower the standards slightly for your sake.” Nothing of the sort. If they do not want to be a radical disciple, forget it. Jesus made the conditions of discipleship plain right at the outset. He did not wait until the end to slowly indicate what the cost of the discipleship was.

Chapter 61

The First Will Be Last, and the Last Will Be First

The Rich Young Ruler

Referencing the rich young ruler, who had turned away because he couldn't give up all his possessions, Jesus said, “Truly I say to you it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:23). Wealth could refer to material wealth, intellectual wealth, beauty, or position. Many things can make us rich in ourselves, and these riches tend to make us proud. Pride makes us big, like a camel. That is why Jesus said in the next verse that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. It is difficult for a camel to go through the eye of a needle because it is so big! But a small amoeba would run in and out of the eye of a needle, it would feel that needle eye was a big 20-foot wide door because it's so small! There is a lot of difference between a camel and an amoeba. Smallness is what enables us to enter into God's kingdom. When we have high thoughts about ourselves (which is very common among all the children of Adam) it is impossible to enter into God's kingdom. This is because God resists the proud and gives grace only to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). We can say that God gets behind the humble and pushes them forward, but He gets in front of the proud and pushes them backward. That is the reason they can’t get into God's kingdom. Any type of wealth tends to make us to be proud because we compare ourselves with others who are not as wealthy. Self-exaltation and comparing ourselves with others hinder us from entering God's kingdom.

If I do not know what it is to say, “Lord, I do not have an interest in any of these things. I want You more than everything else,” then it is very difficult to enter God's kingdom. The disciples said, “In that case, who can be saved?” Jesus said, “It is true that with men, this is impossible, but it is only possible with God” (Matthew 19:25-26). God can save anyone. God can deliver a man from attachment to material things. Do you know that attachment to material things can hinder you from God's kingdom? It is not preached so much today, but it is the truth. May God help us be free. With God, all things are possible.

Even when the disciples heard this, they wondered how anybody could be saved, because many of them were rich in something. Jesus looked at them and said, “That’s right - with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” God can take that huge camel and reduce it to the size of an amoeba so that he runs through the eye of a needle. So even though we are so big in our own eyes because of various abilities we have, God can do a miracle and reduce us to such smallness that the narrow gate looks very wide to us and easy to go through. It all depends on how much we are willing to let God break us, humble us, and make us small in our own eyes.

This is the answer, this is the way to find salvation; to enter through the narrow gate and also to walk along the narrow way. The way is so narrow that a camel would find it difficult, whereas an amoeba can run along at full speed. So it depends on how small we are. There are people who sometimes initially come through the narrow gate because they're willing to humble themselves and to be small and acknowledge they are sinners, but after a few years when God has blessed them and things have gone well with them in their family, for example, then they suddenly get puffed up and their heads become big. We have to remain small if we want to continue along the narrow way.

In Matthew 19:27 Peter asked Jesus what he would get as a reward, as one who did leave everything to follow Him. Jesus gave two answers to this question, and we need to understand both answers. First He said, “Truly I say to you, you who have followed Me, in the regeneration (the new kingdom, the final heaven and earth), the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne in the millennial kingdom, and you shall sit on the twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone (that applies even to us today) who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother or children or farms for My namesake will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life.” If you have given up brothers, sisters, children and farm for Jesus’ namesake, God Himself will give you many hundreds of other brothers and sisters in many other parts of the world, brothers and sisters in Christ. So we're not going to lose out that way and we will inherit eternal life which is worth more than anything we have ever given up.

This is Jesus’ initial answer to Peter’s question as to what we will receive. But He continues to say one more thing before concluding His response to Peter: “Many who are first will be last in that day and the last will be first.” How is it that there's going to be this difference? The chapter division here is very unfortunate because Matthew 20 is really a continuation of Jesus’ answer to Peter. To explain the second part of His answer, He uses a parable.

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

He says the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He made an agreement with the laborers saying he would give them one denarius (a laborer's wage for one day) and sent them into the vineyard. At about nine o'clock in the morning, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace and said to them, “You too go into the vineyard and whatever is right I’ll give you.” Here too he promised them some payment. A third group went at three o'clock in the afternoon, and another group went even later. Altogether four groups went, and it says that he said the same thing to each of them. All four agreed to work for a wage, that's the important thing to notice. All four agreed to work if they were paid for their work; otherwise they may not have gone to work in the vineyard. At the eleventh hour (5 o'clock in the evening), with just one hour more of work remaining, he went out and found some others standing around and said, “Why have you been standing here all day doing nothing?” They said, “Well nobody hired us,” and so the landowner told them to go into his vineyard to work as well - with no promise of reward. That's the important thing to distinguish between the last group and the first four groups of people. The first four all went to work for pay and for reward; this group went with the promise of nothing. They just went to work. It’s very important to notice that, because this is what makes the difference finally. This is how the last becomes first and the first becomes last.

When the evening had come (at six o'clock), work was over and the owner called the laborers and paid them their wages starting with the last group to the first. When those who were hired at the eleventh hour came, they were surprised that they got a full day's wages. They received twelve times what they deserved! One denarius was wage for twelve hours of work; they worked only for one hour but got a full day's wages! Those who were hired first thought they would be paid generously also (perhaps twelve denarii) since this man gave one denarius to people who worked for only one hour. But when they came, they also received one denarius each. So they grumbled and went to the landowner and said, “These last men worked only one hour!” You see comparison here. All problems come when we compare ourselves with others and wonder why God has done something for them that He's not done for us. Here's where the problem arose. They went and checked for themselves and said, “How much did these guys get? They all got one denarius too, you’ve made them equal to us!” Here's the other problem: being upset that God makes somebody equal to us. We see a lot of that in Christian churches today. People who think they are senior workers deserve greater honor and respect and more reward than those who came later.

The Motivation for Service

The landowner answered and said to one of them, “Friend I am doing you no wrong. When I called you at 6 o'clock in the morning didn't you agree to come for one denarius? Well I've given you one denarius. I didn’t cheat you. Take what is yours and go your way. If I decide to give the last man as much as you, what's that to you? Don't I have the right to give my money to anyone I like? Are you envious because I'm generous?”

This is how Jesus explained, “The last will be first and the first will be the last.” So what is the point of this parable - who is going to be first in the final day? It’s those who served without hope of reward - those who did not serve for pay or for what benefit they could get from serving the Lord. There are two categories of people serving the Lord today around the world: those who work because they get paid for it (with some honor, position, or perhaps a reward in heaven), and then there are others who say they will serve the Lord even if they get nothing out of it, who are not doing it to get a gift. They will struggle with poverty if necessary, and will serve the Lord even if they starve.

These are two completely different categories of people. One serves for what they can get out of God. For example, there are people who are told by preachers that if they give a tithe to God, He will bless them and prosper them in their work or reward them with 100 times as much money, or something like that. Such people are doing business. You can’t do business with God - giving tithes and expecting a return. Such people will be last. But those who don’t expect anything or want anything in return, they are saying, “Lord I don't want anything in return. You’ve already done enough for me on Calvary. Why should I expect anything more than that? I want to just serve You and spend my whole life serving You, showing my gratitude to You.” Such people are like the people who came at the eleventh hour, serving without any hope of any gain. And that was Jesus’ second answer to Peter after he asked the Lord what his reward would be.

This is a very important principle for all born again Christians. You need to ask yourself, do you expect the Lord to do something for you because of what you've done for Him? Sometimes we expect the Lord to bless us in some way and answer our prayers because we have served Him faithfully. The best way to serve the Lord is to expect nothing in return, and if we do, then we will never have a problem or complaint against Him, like many Christians have. When you come to the Lord, do you inwardly think, “I've served the Lord faithfully for so many years, surely the Lord will do this for me”? If that’s the case then you're coming to the Lord not in Jesus’ name, but in your own name. You are not coming to Him on the merit of Jesus Christ but on your own merit because you've served the Lord for many years and therefore God should do something for you. This is why your Christian life remains so shallow. If you want a rich Christian experience, then come to the Lord expecting nothing in return and say, “Lord what I deserve is Hell, but You gave me everything better than Hell. I don’t deserve what You have given me, so I don't ask for anything more.” Christians who come to the Lord like that are the happiest Christians on the face of the earth! It is because people don't come with this attitude that many Christians are miserable. That is an important lesson we can learn from this parable.

“As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves and said to them, ‘Behold, we're going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes’” (Matthew 20:17). From chapter 16, where He spoke about the church for the first time, immediately He started speaking about the cross for the first time. It is very significant that when He spoke about the church and His going to the cross, was also the first time that He spoke of His disciples having to take up the cross. It was also in connection with building the church. After this time we find Him repeatedly mentioning this.

Seeking for Honor

Again Jesus says, “Chief priests and scribes will condemn Him to death, deliver Him to the gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He'll be raised up” (Matthew 16:21). Imagine when hearing such a word about the suffering, the mocking, the scourging, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ - one would expect that His disciples would be in such sorrow and grief! But instead we see the mother of James and John seeking her own, coming up to Him and asking if He could put her sons on His right and left hand in the final day. It is a complete rejection and lack of understanding of the parable which Jesus just spoke. Jesus just taught that we should not serve for reward, not even in heaven - not even seeking for the reward of sitting on His right side or left hand. But she just didn't understand it.

In Mark it says that James and John went and asked Jesus for it (Mark 10:35-41) - it was not just their mother. James, John, and their mother all went to Christ and said, “We want to sit on Your right hand and left hand.” They didn’t understand what Jesus just spoke about regarding not serving for a reward. James and John were some of the finest of Jesus’ disciples. They were part of the inner three with whom Jesus was constantly working in fellowship with, and even they had this self-seeking attitude. Do you know why? It was because they had not yet been filled with the Holy Spirit. They loved the Lord. They had given up their jobs to serve Him. They were willing to trust Him for their needs. I’m sure they lived much more simply than when they were fishermen and they were willing to sacrifice all of that, but yet in them there was still this desire for honor.

I have seen this in many Christian workers who have given up their jobs and are willing to sacrifice and go through many hardships for the Lord, that deep down there is yet a desire for honor and position in Christendom. That is what destroys them. These things are warnings for us. Jesus is trying to teach us through this example in Scripture, “Beware of this attitude of seeking a reward for your service.” The reward could be honor on earth, in heaven, financial reward, or some other type of reward for our service. Reward should never be the motive for our service. We must serve the Lord because we are grateful for all that He's done for us. It is like if a man gave you billions of rupees and asks you to do a little service for him - would you ask for payment? Imagine some man who was so generous that he cleared a billion rupees of your debt one day, and one day he asks you to do some small thing for him. You would be ashamed to ask for payment! He has already spent a billion rupees clearing your debt, why do you need payment for that small work that you did for him?

This is how we must look at our service for the Lord. He has cleared so much of our debt. Are you expecting a reward now? Do you want honor or position, to be a leader, or honor in the church here or in heaven? Shame on anyone who feels like that! Jesus told this woman she didn’t know what she was asking. Jesus had just spoken to her about the suffering He was to go through, about the way of the cross. Then He asked James and John, “Are you able to drink the cup that I'm able to drink? Are you willing to go through this way of the cross?” And they boldly said they were able. They were quite arrogant to say that and didn't realize that without the power of the Holy Spirit it would be impossible. But they said they were able because they wanted those positions of honor. Look at Jesus’ humility here. He replied by saying that maybe they could drink His cup, but “To sit on My right hand and My left is not Mine to give.” I see the gentleness there of Jesus in not rebuking them for their covetousness. He is so gracious! “It is not mine to give but it is for those for whom the Father has prepared it.” The Bible says, “Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient unto death - even the death on a cross. For this reason, God has given Jesus a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:8-10). How did He get to that throne? By humbling Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Who will be sitting on His right hand and left hand in glory? It will be those who have humbled themselves the most in these years of human history. It could be some poor widow from Africa, for all we know. It will be those who have humbled themselves the most in their earthly life. God, Who is not partial, will exalt them. It is a principle that God exalts those who are humble. Such people will be closest to Jesus in eternity.

The reward we should long for should be closeness to Christ, not to sit with authority over people. When the other ten disciples heard this request of James, John, and their mother, it says that they were very indignant and angry with these two brothers (verse 24). Why was that? It’s not because they were any more spiritual, but because they were disturbed that these two got ahead of them, asking for those seats before they did. They wanted those seats for themselves. Even at the Last Supper the disciples were discussing who was going to be the greatest. Everything changed after Jesus died, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Though these apostles were very dedicated and very sacrificial, yet they were not spiritual. It can be like that with people today who are willing to sacrifice many things for Christ. Many people think of their sacrifices and hardships for the Lord, but it does not mean they are spiritual. If deep down in your heart you are seeking a reward, you will be among the last in the final day. This instruction is continuing on from the previous parable, and reinforces the principle that Jesus mentioned - those who will be first and those who will be last. The ones who are seeking for some position and honor now or in eternity will be last.

Then Jesus called the disciples to Himself and said, “You know the rulers of the gentiles, how they Lord it over others, and they think that great men are those who exercise authority over others and sit on thrones. But it must never be like that among you. But whoever wishes to become great, let him be a servant” (Matthew 20:25 paraphrase). This is greatness in the kingdom of God - to be a servant, to have the attitude of a servant. Whoever wants to be first - learn to be a slave to others, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus told His disciples to look at His example. He didn't come here to earth to get position. He already had position in heaven and gave it all up! This is the spirit we must all have. It's a shame for a person to call himself a representative of Jesus Christ on this earth, and yet seek for position. Anyone like this cannot claim to be following a Master Who gave up the greatest position in the universe - being equal to the Father in eternity - and then came down and became a Man like us; and not only that, but our Servant as well.

May God help us to learn this lesson so that we can follow in our Savior's footsteps.

Chapter 62

Cry Out to God Who Supplies Your Needs

“As they were going out from Jericho a great multitude followed Him. And behold two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out saying, “Lord have mercy on us, Son of David!” and the multitude sternly told them to be quiet. But they cried out all the more saying, “Lord have mercy on us, Son of David!” and Jesus stopped and called them and said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They said to Him, “Lord, we want our eyes to be opened.” And moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him” (Matthew 20:29-34).

Cry out to the Lord Who Supplies All Your Needs

There are 3 or 4 things we need to learn from this story. First, when we are in need, we must cry out to the Lord for help even if we have found no solution to our problem in all of our life thus far. That's what these blind men did. And when they cried out to the Lord and others tried to stop them, they cried out all the more. That's the second thing we need to learn when we are asking God to meet a genuine need. We have a promise in Philippians 4:19: “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches of His glory in Christ Jesus.” He hasn’t promised to supply all that we want but certainly all that we need, just like a good father will not give his children all that they want but he’ll give them all that they need. There’s a difference between our needs and our wants. Many times, we pray for what we want; but the promise in Philippians 4:19 is that God will give us what we need. So here is a genuine need - blind people need sight - and they cried out to God.

However, the people said, “Stop, don't do that. Don't disturb Him.” There could be many reasons why other people tell us not to cry out to God, but we must ignore them and carry on crying out to God for our need. That's the very important lesson that we need to learn first. Just imagine if they hadn't done that, if they just listened to the advice of others instead - they would have missed out all their life on what God wanted to do for them. It's possible that you have missed out on what God wanted to do for you thus far because you listened to other people. Why don't you go to Scripture and see what Jesus says instead of listening to wrong advice from your parents, relatives, priest, or pastors. Go to God's Word and you'll find what God has in store for you. Don't miss out on that because people around you give you some contrary advice. That's a very, very important lesson to learn. Otherwise you'll miss out on something that could be yours, which could be a life-transforming experience for you. I’m sure these folks never regretted the fact that they ignored what people said and instead did what their hearts said. It says they “cried out all the more.” So when people tell you not to seek God for something, just ignore them and cry out to God all the more.

Notice also what we’ve considered before, that when we come to the Lord and pray a general prayer like, “Lord have mercy on us,” or “Lord, bless us,” (these are most of the general prayers that people pray, “Lord bless me. Lord bless me.”) the Lord says, “What exactly? Specify what blessing you want. What do you want Me to do for you?” (verse 32). We have to be specific: “Lord, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit.” “Lord, I want to be anointed to serve You.” “Lord, I want the gift of prophecy, which You have told me in 1 Corinthians 14:1 to seek for.” “Lord, I want a heart that can forgive other people completely, which You have told me to seek for, so that I can be forgiven myself.” “Lord, I want my heart filled with love for You and love for God's people.” Ask for it. Be specific, and don't just say, “Lord, bless me,” or “Lord, have mercy on me.” Very often we don't get what we ask for because we are not specific.

Acknowledge Your Need, Believe, and Follow

“What do you want me to do for you?” They said to Him, specifically, “Lord, we want our eyes to be open.” That's a point I want to stress, that we must be willing to acknowledge our need. “Lord, I am blind” - that's what they were saying. “I want my eyes to be opened.” Acknowledge your need. “Lord, I'm a very lustful man, people in the church think I'm a very holy man, but You know I'm a man full of sexual lust and I'm not able to overcome it in secret. Lord I confess I'm watching internet pornography, I confess I lust with my eyes.” Be honest, whatever your sin is. Confess it and then the Lord will deliver you. But if you sort of beat around the bush and say, “Yeah, I'm a sinner” sort of thing, you remain in your sin. Be specific and say, “Lord, this is my problem: my anger. I just cannot control my tongue. I speak in tongues in the church, but here, I can’t control my tongue at home. My problem is not with other tongues, my problem is with my mother tongue.” Be specific and ask the Lord to deliver you, whatever your problem is, be specific. “Lord, my eyes are blind I want them to be opened.”

“And the Lord, moved with compassion, touched their eyes.” I'm sure He asked them, (though not recorded here, we know that He asked from Matthew 9:29), “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” He always asks that. Once we are specific about our need, He will ask us, “Do you believe that I can do this for you?” And when we say, “Yes, I believe You can do it,” we get what we ask for. God is a good God. Most of the areas we know what His will is. He wants the very best for us.

And the last thing I want to say in this section is: when you get what you want, do what the blind men did. What was that? It says, “When they regained their sight, they followed Him.” They said, “Hey, now that we can see, we can follow Jesus. Until now, we couldn't see. Why has God given us sight? So that we can see Jesus and follow Him.” They had such wisdom. They saw the reason why God gave them sight, which was so that they could see Jesus and follow Him. The reason why God blesses us in any way is so that we can follow Jesus a little closer than we ever did before. There are many things we can learn from all that Jesus taught through circumstances. Here's a classic example of what Jesus taught His disciples through circumstances, which they didn't understand then, but when the Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost, their eyes were opened to see the meaning behind all these little, little incidents that took place in their walk with Jesus for three and a half years.

Jesus is a Humble King

“They approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives and then Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, immediately you'll find a donkey tied there and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to Me and if anyone says something to you, you shall say, “The Lord has need of them,” and immediately he will send them’” (Matthew 21:1-3). The spiritual lesson here is that when Jesus decided to make a triumphal entry as the King of Zion into Jerusalem before His crucifixion, He did not travel into Jerusalem like all kings do - on horses, the grand animal that kings and generals ride on. Every king and general in the history of the world has ridden on horses; it’s a magnificent animal. But Jesus chooses a donkey, which has the reputation for being the most stupid and clumsy animal. Why did He do that? It says in verse 4 and 5, “What was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled” as it was prophesied in Zechariah 9:9, “Say to the daughter of Zion, behold your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” The King of the Jews, the King of Israel, the King of Zion, the church, comes riding on a donkey.

God Can Use a Donkey

Can you imagine how humiliating it is to ride on this stupidest animal of all? The devil chose a serpent to come into because it says, in Genesis 3, that that was the cleverest of all the animals. And Jesus chooses the stupidest and the dumbest of all animals to ride on. That is humility. In this, we see the pride of Satan and the humility of Jesus Christ. And if you are proud of your cleverness and your wisdom, like the serpent, you’re a candidate for Satan to get into fellowship with you. I'm not saying we have to become like donkeys, but we must recognize that when it comes to spiritual matters, we are like donkeys, however clever we may be in earthly things. If you take that position, God can use you. He said that when the donkey was to be set free from being tied up, “If anyone asks you, just say the Lord has need of them” (Matthew 21:3). What’s the word? The Lord has need of that donkey. Look at yourself like that. Lord, You have need of me? Some of you may have a very low self-esteem. You may say about yourself, “Lord, I'm not like these gifted preachers. I'm just a useless ordinary person, a poor helpless widow or just very simple uneducated illiterate woman here in this church; what can I do for you? I'm like a donkey.” Aha! The Lord is in need of you, and that's the word in verse 3. If you feel like a donkey, the Lord is need of you. Remember that, take that word from the Lord: The Lord has need of you. Human beings may not have much need of you except to treat you like a beast of burden, but the Lord has need of you, not to treat you like a beast a burden, but to ride on you in the city. And we know that Jesus rode on that donkey. Interestingly, even in the Old Testament, we read of God using a donkey to speak to Balaam the prophet. Imagine a donkey speaking to a prophet! That’s an amazing story. It's the first instance we know of in Scripture of an animal speaking in an unknown tongue, a language that it never learnt. It began to speak to the prophet. Donkeys don't speak in any language, they began to speak in human language supernaturally, and this donkey rebuked and corrected the prophet. God can use a donkey, that's the message from the Old Testament. It's the message from the New Testament, too.

Looking Carefully at Your King

In both cases, we see the Lord using a stupid animal to speak His word and to be used for the Lord of glory to ride on. This teaches us that a servant of God must always seek to have a low profile before men. We must not seek the high positions and seek to be like others riding on horses. There are a lot of Christian preachers who want the latest cars, and want to use the money they get from other people to live in grand style themselves, completely contrary to the Spirit of Christ. If you're doing your own business and you’ve worked hard and you’ve earned money through your own business, live as you like - that's up to you. You decide your standard of living and I certainly won't dictate that to you. But if you are living on the offerings of poor people, then you better be careful how you live, because that's not your money. It is the money that poor people have given to God, and you cannot use that to live in grand style yourself. You have to humble yourself and say, “I can’t use other people's money to live like this.” It’s good for all servants of the Lord to take a low profile and to learn from Jesus. “Behold” it says (Matthew 21:5), which means, “look carefully.” Look carefully at your King. This is the One Whom you call your King, so look how He is coming: gentle, mounted on a donkey. We need to have this painting before our eyes always, Jesus riding on a donkey all the time.

A Donkey’s Honor Is Only Because of the Lord

And the disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them and brought the donkey and the colt and laid on them their garments. Jesus sat upon them and then the multitude spread their garments on the road so the donkey didn't have to walk on the dirt road but could walk on the coats and shirts and scarves of the people. The donkey was being treated like a royal animal. People wouldn't throw their garments in front of the horse even when the kings rode on horses. But when Jesus came on a donkey, they threw the garments in front of it and respected Him, a waving their branches and spreading them on the road as they were crying out saying “Hosanna to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the highest!”

I have often thought that that donkey could have suddenly had high thoughts about itself, saying, “Wow, what an important person I am! People are throwing their garments in front of me and shouting, “Hosanna!” and waving palm leaves. I must be really a important person!” That's unfortunately how many Christians and Christian preachers behave when other people give them honor for their service. Maybe God is pleased to ride you like He rode that donkey, and give you gifts to serve Him. Has that gone to your head, and have you begun to think that you're a very important person? Especially when a lot of people honor you and exalt you, it’s natural to begin to think that you're an important person. What happened to the donkey as soon as Jesus got off of it? Everybody forgot about it and nobody cared for him. He just wandered and he didn't know what to do after that. All of a sudden, he found that nobody was throwing any garments in front of him and nobody was waving palm leaves and singing, “Hosanna,” because the Lord was no longer sitting on him. In the same way, it's good for us donkeys to recognize that it is because the Lord is upon us and in us that people give us honor. We should never imagine that it is because of what we are or who we are that people honor us. Let's be humble enough to give the glory to God and remain broken and humble saying, “Lord, by ourselves, we are nothing, we are unprofitable servants.” That's the other thing we can learn from this circumstance.

What were the people shouting? “Hosanna to the Son of David, Hosanna in the highest.” “Hosanna” is a Hebrew word, which means “save us now.” They said, “Oh Son of David, save us now, oh, Son of David,” because their understanding of salvation was to be saved from the Roman rulers who were ruling Israel. They were not asking to be saved from sin. Jesus didn't come to save them from the Roman rulers; He came to save His people from their sins - that’s the meaning of the name of Jesus. But they were saying, “Save us now, Son of David, save us now, You Who’ve come from the highest, save us now and blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” That's the meaning of Hosanna.

Mean the Words You Say to God

A lot of people sing that word in Christian songs today without understanding what it means. Don't ever sing something to God, which you don't mean. Do you ever go up to your dad or mom and say something that you don't mean? Do you ever use a meaningless word to your dad or mom? Do you go to them or to a brother and use a word you don't even understand just because other people are using it? That's foolish. When we speak to someone, we are to always know what we're talking about and to speak in language that we understand. We should never use words that we don't understand. Even if you say, “Hallelujah,” you must know what Hallelujah means. That's not an English word. It's a Hebrew word - a combination of three words, actually - which means “Praise the Lord.” “Amen” is also not an English word. We know what it means. Amen means “it shall be so” - it's an expression of faith. “I believe what I prayed, therefore “it will be so.’”

It's important for us to understand everything we say. There's nothing wrong in using these words - you can pray to God and use words in any language. You can speak in an African language if you like or Russian or what you like, but know what you're saying. That's the important thing. By all means say, “Hallelujah,” if you want to say, "Praise the Lord.” And by all means say, “Amen,” if you mean, “I believe it shall be so.” And by all means say, “Hosanna,” if what you mean is, “Lord, save me now” from something you want to be saved from. There’s nothing wrong in saying any of those things if you mean them. But don't ever sing meaningless words to God like multitudes of Christians are doing today. That's what I'm saying. People get taken up with a word and they keep on singing. Particularly in singing, I find multitudes of Christians saying meaningless words to the Lord because for them, it’s just the tune and the words and the swinging of the hips and the playing of guitar that's more important to them. They don't even think about the word they’re saying. That's carelessness, and I want to encourage you to be more careful. The Bible says we must be careful with our mouth when we go into God's presence. “Guard your steps when you go into the house of God. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. Because God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2). When you promise something to God (Ecclesiastes 5:4), “Do not be late in paying it, for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow.” It is better that you don't make a promise to God than you make a promise and you don’t keep it. So be very careful because (verse 7) “in many words, there is emptiness, so fear God.” There can be a lot of emptiness in many words. Particularly in prayer, people pray all these flowery words trying to impress God, but God is not impressed. He is more impressed by a sincere cry that comes out from somebody's heart; God is not impressed or in love with flowery language. He's a Father, and just like we don't go to our earthly fathers with flowery language, we go to God as our Heavenly Father, and we must mean every word that we say. I mention this because I see so many people using words like this, which they have never bothered to find out what they mean.

“When He entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, ‘Who is this? Who is this coming on a donkey?’ People waving their palms and throwing their garments on the ground and the multitudes were saying, ‘This is the Prophet Jesus, who has come from Nazareth in Galilee.’ And Jesus entered the temple and He cast out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you're making it a robber’s den.”’ And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them” (Matthew 21:10-14).

This is the second time that Jesus cleansed the temple. He cleansed it once before in the beginning of His ministry. In John 2, after the marriage in Cana, He made a whip and chased people out. That's the first time He cleansed the temple right at the beginning of His ministry. He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers seated. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out and He poured out the coins of the moneychangers, and said, “Take these things away! Stop making my Father's house a house of merchandise” (John 2:14). But now it's not a house of merchandise. He says in Matthew 21:13, “You made My Father’s house a robber’s den.” Things have changed terribly since that time, near the end of His ministry. So Jesus had to cleanse the temple a second time. He turned out everybody right at the beginning and then, when some time had gone, they came back into the temple and started doing all those things all over again, and then He had to drive them out a second time.

There's a constant need for cleansing in the Lord's temple. It's not enough just to have done it once; there's a need again and again and again for the house of God to be cleaned. For our heart and life and in the church, there needs to be a prophetic word cleansing the temple of God again and again and again. That's what we learn from the two cleansings of the temple. We should pursue that way ourselves, so that we can keep our temple as the Father's house and never let it become a robber’s den.

Chapter 63

The Balance and Compassion of Jesus

The Balance of Grace and Truth in Jesus

As we read about Jesus driving out the money changers in the temple, we need to understand Jesus completely and in a balanced way. He was full of grace and truth; not just grace, and not just truth, but grace and truth. He knew how to speak compassionately to lepers and adulterous women or divorced women like the woman in Samaria. He also knew how to call the Pharisees a generation of vipers and to overturn the tables of people who were making money in the temple in the name of religion. This is the balanced understanding of Christlikeness that every Christian must have. Very often, when we use the word “Christlike,” we only think of the tenderness with which He speaks to simple people, or we think of Him putting His arms around lepers. That's the only understanding of Christlikeness that most (I would say 99. 99%) Christians have. You would never think that someone is Christlike if he called people a generation of vipers. You wouldn't think that somebody who turns over tables and tells people to get out of the temple is Christlike. That is where the devil has hidden true Christlikeness from the minds of most Christians. The end result of that is that most churches are in a pathetic state when it comes to purity. The church needs cleansing, but there's nobody to cleanse it because everybody is trying to be Christlike in a false way.

There is a lot of preaching that says we must be gracious and gentle. That is true, but the other aspect of the Christlikeness – of being hard against Pharisees and money changers - is a calling that at least some people in the body must fulfill. I'm not saying that everybody in the body of Christ has to or is called to fulfill this ministry, but there must be some. There is a pathetic lack of preachers in the church today who will drive out money loving preachers who are out to squeeze money from poor people in order to live in grand style themselves, especially a lot of Christian television preachers, who keep asking people for money and take money from poor people to live in a grand style themselves. These are the equivalent of the money changers of today. Jesus drove them out twice, at the beginning and at the end of His ministry. He drove out of the temple those who were making money in the name of God. That is exactly what He would do today and He does it through His body. If God calls you to such a ministry, fulfill it and don't care what men think about you.

“And He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer;” but you are making it a robbers’ den’” (Matthew 21:13). The church has truly become a den of robbers. Many preachers are robbers who are taking money from poor people. They send reports from India to Western countries, for example, and report all sorts of things in order to get a lot of money to line their own pockets. They talk about their orphanages and their Bible schools, some of which only exist on paper, fooling simple gullible people in the West. This kind of preaching – where we expose such money changers - is offensive to some people because they haven't seen what Christlikeness is. We need to be Christlike in cleansing the Church of God. At the same time, you see the balance immediately after that, “The blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He was so tender, and He healed them” (Matthew 21:14 - paraphrase). Jesus could immediately switch from one to the other depending on who was in front of Him. This is how it must be with us too - that when the spiritually blind and the spiritually lame come into the church, we must be tender and kind, and with encouraging words lift them up, just like we use strong words to drive out the crooks.

There were two sides to what Jesus did - one was driving out these crooks, and the other was healing the blind and the lame. “But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ (Hosanna means ‘save us’), they became indignant” (Matthew 21:15). Imagine that - they became angry because they saw children praising the Lord. They thought children must keep quiet. “They said to Him, ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have prepared praise for Yourself?’” (Matthew 21:16).

Compare Scripture with Scripture

This is a quote from Psalm 8:2. If you look carefully at Psalm 8, you learn something very interesting. Whenever you read a quotation from the Old Testament in the New Testament, go back to the Old Testament and look at that verse and you will find something very profitable. This is a great example: Jesus says in Matthew 21:16, “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have prepared praise for Yourself;” however, in Psalm 8:2 where this is quoted from, it says, “From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength (or a bulwark, which is a strong wall of defense) because of your adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease (or to keep quiet, or to cease their activity).” This verse speaks about “Strength to silence and defeat our enemies.” Remember that! From the mouth of infants and nursing babes comes strength to defeat our enemies. And Jesus said from the mouth of infants and nursing babes comes praise for God. Putting the two together we learn that the way we silence Satan and overcome him is by praising God.

We learn something there by comparing Scripture with Scripture, both verses inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus preferred to use praise, which is how we silence Satan. Whenever you find that your prayers don't seem to be going through or you find yourself heavy or sleepy in the time of prayer, or you don't seem to make contact with heaven, don't kneel down. Get up, walk up and down, raise your hands and start praising God! You will find it is very easy to contact heaven when you praise God. It may be difficult when you pray, but once you have established contact with praise, the enemies are cleared and the way into heaven is cleared. Then you can pray. This is the way we should do it. We learn something here just by comparing the quotation in the New Testament with the Old Testament. There are numerous examples of this throughout the New Testament that I’ve found in my own study.

“Then Jesus left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. Now in the morning when He was returning to the city, He became hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves” (Matthew 21:17-19). Here we see something of Jesus’ humanity. Because Jesus was completely a man, He did not use the resources and power that He had as God while He was on this earth. He could have used it, but He chose not to. He refused to use that power because He had relinquished it voluntarily when He came to the earth. It is like when a billionaire from some western land comes here, to teach people in the slums how to live a clean and simple life, with very little income (say a thousand rupees a month). He comes here and works like them and earns a thousand rupees a month and teaches people how to live on a thousand rupees a month and live cleanly in a little hut in the slums. He is still a billionaire who has a credit card but He does not use it. This is how Jesus lived. He never used His heavenly “credit card” as God. He was like a billionaire who had a credit card but would never use that credit card when He lived in this slum called earth, in order to teach people how to live without using any of His own resources as God. He lived, first of all, with the limitations we have, tempted as we are, being tired like we are tired, hungry like we are hungry and with all the desires and passions that normal human beings have, apart from sin. Yet He did not sin even though He lived on earth as a Man. He came in the flesh and His spirit was pure. This is the secret of godliness (1 Timothy 3:16).

Cursing the Fig Tree - Lessons on Faith and Religiosity

Jesus came near a fig tree in order to see whether there was fruit on it. If He had used His resources as God, He would have known whether there was fruit on the fig tree from a million miles away. But He had to get near it and then He found nothing on it except leaves. In little things like these we see the fact that He was 100% human, just like us. “And He said to the fig tree, ‘No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.’ And at once the fig tree withered” (Matthew 21:19). This isn’t Jesus acting as God; this is Him acting as an Anointed Prophet of God. God can do this through a prophet even today. So even in the supernatural things that Jesus did, He did not act as God. The only place He acted as God was when He forgave sins and He received worship. In everything else He did, it was as an Anointed Prophet of God - the supernatural things which God can do through any man.

“Seeing this, the disciples were amazed and asked, ‘How did the fig tree wither all at once?’” (Matthew 21:20). The root had withered as soon as Jesus spoke, but the tree itself took about a day to appear withered. We know this because in another passage it says that the disciples asked this question on the next day (Mark 11:20). So how did the fig tree wither up? “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, if you have faith and you do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen. And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive’” (Matthew 21:21-22).

Some people think that Jesus was angry because He could not get fruit from the fig tree. This is not true. Jesus was not a slave to food. He wanted to teach His disciples a lesson on faith and it was worth withering up a fig tree to teach His disciples and all Christians this lesson. That is why He cursed the fig tree and caused it to be withered up. It was to teach His disciples that if you have faith, you can have authority over situations like this. You can even tell a mountain to get out of the way.

The other reason He cursed the fig tree is this: in the Old Testament the fig tree is a picture of Israel, just like the wine is a picture of the church in the new covenant. Symbolically speaking, Jesus came to Israel looking for fruit. That means He was looking with a spiritual desire and a spiritual hunger for the glory of God. But what did He see in this fig tree, Israel? He saw the leaves of religion and religiosity, empty religious rituals, and traditions. Therefore He cursed the tree, that religious system which was driving people away from God. Even today, He curses every single religious system in the church that turns people away from God, where there are only leaves and no fruit. A lot of churches today and a lot of Christians only have leaves. Leaves refer to empty rituals such as going to church, praying, singing songs, reading the Bible, and lot of other activity, but which are not for the glory of God. They do not bear the fruit of purity, victory over sin, a godly peaceful life, and godly children being brought up in a home, for example. They only bring forth a lot of leaves of activity, such as singing and praising with emptiness in the heart. Jesus curses that even today.

In Matthew 24 Jesus said, “Now learn the parable from the fig tree; when its branch has already become tender and put forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matthew 24:32-34). Jesus is talking about His second coming and certain signs that would take place in the world before He returns. One of the specific signs He mentioned was that Israel, which was withered up, would come back and become a nation. From the history of Israel we know that they were already being ruled by the Romans when Jesus was alive. They were not really a free nation, but forty years after they rejected Christ and crucified Him, they were scattered by God all across the face of the earth. The fig tree had truly withered. The root had withered as soon as they crucified Christ, but it only became evident forty years later. Like it says, the fig tree they saw on the next day was withered, so it happened to Israel – they were scattered all over the earth.

Jesus told His disciples to keep a watch on the fig tree because one day you will see it putting out leaves again, without any fruit, but the nation of Israel will come back to the land to be a religious nation again, just as they were in Jesus’ time - an independent nation. Now this took place in 1948, and the Jews returned to the city of Jerusalem in 1967. These are signs that Jesus spoke about. It is a sign that the second coming of the Lord is very near, and the generation that observes these signs will not pass away until all these things are fulfilled. Jesus said this two thousand years ago, and that is why we who have seen these things take place have the hope that we will see Christ return in our lifetime. If our understanding of this prophecy is right, then we see the fig tree is putting forth its leaves. Thus Jesus was teaching them faith, and as they would understand it later, it was also a parable of the nation of Israel.

Jesus Answers Questions by Listening to the Holy Spirit

“When He entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, and asked Him, ‘By what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?’” (Matthew 21:23). I ask this question: why did the chief priests and scribes allow these people to make the courtyard of the temple a place of merchandise and business? In my opinion, it is because those traders were giving the chief priests and scribes a huge commission for allowing them to do that. I can’t imagine the chief priests and scribes allowing them to run their business without a commission. This is exactly what happens in a lot of Christian churches today. Pastors receive a commission for allowing activities in the church that Christ would never allow. They receive their salary and their mouths are shut against the rich people in the church who cannot be rebuked anymore, for they are the ones who pay the pastor's salary. There is hardly anybody like Jesus today, who will come up and denounce everything and call it Babylon.

Jesus refused to answer their question because they would not understand Him. He said to them, “Before I answer you, I want to ask you something. Tell Me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” (Matthew 21:24-25). The answer was clear because everybody knew it was from heaven. “But they began reasoning among themselves, saying, ‘If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe in him?’ (Because they had rejected John the Baptist). But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet’” (Matthew 21:25-26). They were caught in a dilemma. They could not say yes or no, so they told a lie. They knew it was from heaven but they said, “We do not know.” They were being diplomatic just like a lot of today's preachers. “He also said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things” (Matthew 21:27).

Jesus’ life shows us that when people came to Him with these difficult questions, He could discern whether this was a genuine question or whether they were trying to trap Him. Every true servant of God, preacher or prophet who wants to live for God needs to have that same discernment when people come to him with difficult questions. Are they trying to trap you? We need to seek God at such times and say, “Lord, give me a word to reply them.” This is how Jesus lived. He lived in constant touch with His Father, so He knew exactly what to say to each person. He did not live by a law that gave Him a set of rules as to how to speak to people. Neither must we live by rules. We must live by the leading of the Holy Spirit and then we shall have the same wisdom and discernment that Jesus had, because the same Holy Spirit that dwelt in His earthly body is the One Who is now dwelling in us. This is the wonderful truth that from the day of Pentecost, the same Holy Spirit that lived in Jesus’ body for 33.5 years has now come to dwell in the bodies of Christians. That is why we need to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to keep our conscience sensitive to sin, and to keep ourselves pure - so that the Holy Spirit can have free rein in us and so that our minds will be sharp. That is the only way we can effectively serve God in this sin-cursed earth with so many deceptive spirits roaming around in Christendom.

“Then Jesus said, ‘But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, “Son, go work today in the vineyard.” And he answered, “I will not;” but afterward he regretted it and went. The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, “I will, sir;” but he didn't go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said the first. Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him’” (Matthew 21:28-32).

Very often, those to whom God comes first reject Him. He came to the Jewish people first and they rejected Christ. Then He moved on to the Gentiles and they accepted Him. This is what Jesus is trying to say to the religious people who thought God would only accept them. This is a mistake that a lot a Christian groups can also make. Just because God has used us to restore some truth that was unknown to others or made us a blessing to others, we can begin to think that we are God’s special favorites and that God can only use us. This makes us casual in our attitude towards sin. This is a picture of people who say, “Once saved, always saved.” Jesus says, “Son, go work today in the vineyard,” and they say, “Yes, sure,” but they don't do it. This means they ask Christ to come into their heart but they never obey Him, and they think they are okay. Then there are others, who may not have responded initially, but who later repent. The important thing here is that they repent, and their repentance leads to life and they obey the Lord. Which of these did the will of God, the first people, or the second? The answer is, the second people. Thus Jesus said to these religious people, who knew so much of the Bible, that the tax-collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before them. The crooked cheats and the prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before the religious people who always preach the Bible. This is a very important word that needs to be preached in churches today. We need to understand - this is the God we worship and this is the One we must proclaim.

In Matthew 21:31, Jesus was saying to the religious people of His day that the tax collectors and prostitutes would go into God's kingdom before them. It is a word that the Lord has to speak to many Christians today who imagine that they are going to God's kingdom because they are religious, know the Bible, and go to church regularly, but there is no repentance in their lives. This is the contrast like in the case of the wise man who built on the rock and the foolish man who built on the sand. The contrast is between words of understanding and obedience. Here also, there were words. In Matthew 21:29-30, one son said, “I will do it,” but he never did anything. The other one initially said, “I will not do it,” but later on, repented and did it.

The emphasis is on obedience. It is the one who obeys who finally is accepted, not the one who says nice words. Today, we have a lot of Christians who speak nice words in prayer, singing, fasting, and preaching, but there is very little obedience in their private lives. That is the important thing. That is why Jesus said that the repentant cheats and prostitutes will get into God's kingdom before the whole lot of religious people. Religious people think that they will enter God’s kingdom because of their religiosity and religious activities. This is the great deception that needs to be exposed in our day.

Jesus then reminds them of John the Baptist, and He says in Matthew 21:32, “You did not feel remorse.” Again, the emphasis is on remorse and repentance, just like in Matthew 21:29.

Chapter 64

The True Church, Brokenness, and Justification

God’s New People Are the Church

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it. He dug a wine press in it, built a tower, and rented it out to wine growers and went on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to receive his produce. The vine-growers took the slaves and beat one and killed another and stoned the third. (This is referring to the Jewish people who killed the prophets that God had sent to them.) Then he sent another group of slaves larger than the first and they did the same thing to them. (They rejected the Prophets that came to them one by one from God.) And then finally, the landowner said, “I will send my son. They will respect my son.” But when the wine growers saw the son, they said, “Hey, this is the heir! Let's kill him and seize his inheritance. We will not be slaves anymore. We will be partners owning this property.” They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers? Jesus said, “That is right. The stone which the builders rejected had become the chief corner stone’” (Matthew 21:33-42).

Jesus is telling them the time has come when the God is going to put them all out. God will do this because they did not give to Him the produce of the field which God gave them to cultivate for Him. They treated His prophets badly. “I am the Son of God, and since you are going to treat Me badly, God will take this vineyard away from you and give it to others.” He has given it to the church. He replaced Israel with the church. We need to understand that clearly. This parable makes it clearer than anything else because some people do not believe it. They do not believe what Jesus said. There is no Jew or Gentile today. There is no special favorite of God. No nation is His favorite. He has promised an earthly blessing to Israel, and He has given it to them (He gave them the land), but spiritually, in the body of Christ, there is no Jew or Gentile. God is not looking for any particular group of people today. Nobody is a favorite. It is very important to understand that. Israel has been replaced by the church. It is so clear.

The other thing I want you to see is that the Master Himself never came to collect the produce. In Matthew 21:34, it says He sent His servants to receive the produce. God sent His servants, who are His representatives. He does not come Himself. As far as God is concerned, the way you treat His servants is the way you treat Him. We must bear this in mind. I am not talking about every pastor, preacher, or anyone who calls himself a servant of God. Ninety-nine percent of them are crooks, but there are some true genuine prophets and servants of God in the world today. There are apostles and prophets even today. God takes the way you treat them very seriously. We must bear that in mind. He will bring them to a wretched end. The Lord said, “That is right.”

Matthew 21:42 is a quotation from Psalm 118:22-23, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone. This is the Lord’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.”

Jesus explained that saying in the Scripture. In the Old Testament times, the most important stone in the construction of buildings was the cornerstone. They did not have concrete pillars. Those days, they never used concrete in buildings. They built with the foundation and with stone pillars. The most important stone was the cornerstone, which they put in first in the corner of buildings. That stone had to be perfectly shaped in three dimensions with perfect right angles in all directions. If it was slightly crooked by one angle, then all the stones in that line would become crooked. The cornerstone was the most important stone. There were perhaps different stones that were shaped and cut until you could get one which is perfect to be the cornerstone.

Jesus is talking about a situation where the builders wanted to build a big temple. The builders looked at one particular cornerstone after another. They rejected that and finally took this one. But then they find this one is leading the temple of the building to be built at an angle. So they threw it away, look back, and then they have to pick up the stone that they first rejected. That was the one that was perfect. That is what Jesus is referring to. The stone which the builders rejected became the chief cornerstone. That is what the Lord did. The Christ whom the Jews rejected has become the cornerstone of God's house.

Matthew 21:43, “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it.”

God has given His kingdom to those who will produce fruit for Him. Please remember this. He is always expecting fruit. Jesus once said, “I have chosen you and ordained you that you must go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit might remain” (John 15:16). God does not want us to live fruitless lives. It is God's will that every single one of us bring forth fruit in our lives for the glory of God.

Brokenness Is Key to Producing Fruit

Jesus then says, “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.” He is now using another picture. First, it was a picture of a cornerstone which is the most important stone in that building. Now He is using a picture of a stone over which you can fall and be broken. If you do not fall and become broken on that stone, that stone will fall on you and crush you like dust. When we come to the Lord, the Lord has to break us before He can use us. It is the fundamental principle in all of God's dealings with man. We have to be broken before we can be used. The Lord took the bread and blessed it. That is the first step. Then He broke it and fed the multitude. It is not enough to be blessed. We need to be broken. I see so many people who have been blessed by God and anointed with the Holy Spirit, which is a mark of God's blessing. But because they are not broken, the multitude cannot be fed. Let it be blessed and broken. Only then can the multitudes can be fed.

Brokenness is a very, very important part of the Christian life. God Himself arranges circumstances for us to be broken. Even Jesus needed to go this way. For 30 years, He had to live in submission to imperfect parents. Remember, Joseph and Mary were imperfect, Old Covenant parents. But He had to submit to imperfect parents so that He could be broken. It is interesting to understand that even Jesus needed to be broken. It says in Isaiah 53:10 that it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It pleases the Lord to bruise us too. You can fall up on this stone, on Christ, and say, “Lord, I want to be broken. I want to be totally broken like You were.” The Lord will use circumstances and people to break you. If you are young, the Lord might use your parents. If you are a little older, the Lord might use elders who misunderstand you. God can use all types of circumstances and situations in order to break you into pieces. If you do not respond to that, then the stone falls on you and crushes you into nothing. It is much better to be broken. There are only two options. If you fall on this stone, you will be broken. If you are not broken, then the stone will fall on you, and you will be crushed. It is far better to be broken, so seek for brokenness. This is what all of us need more than anything else. God seeks to reduce us to zero before He can use us.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. They were offended that He was trying to say things about them. When they sought to seize Him, they feared the multitudes because they all said that He was a prophet. Even today, when some people hear a strong, convicting word from God, they feel disturbed saying, “This preacher is trying to speak to me.” I remember once when some men came to me at the end of a message after I had preached somewhere. He said, “Brother Zac, were you preaching to me?” I said, “That is absolutely right. I was preaching to you and to all the other people sitting here. I was not preaching to the pillars and the chairs over here. I was preaching to all of you who were sitting here and listening to me.” When somebody says, “Are you preaching to me? I hope your answer is, “yes.” We are preaching to the people who are sitting in front of us. We are not preaching to the walls. We are not afraid of people who try to manipulate our words. God will keep us from any harm that comes through that.

When the chief priests understood that He was speaking about them, their anger made them want to grab Him and kill Him, but they were afraid of the people. The chief priests’ actions were often determined by what the people said. When a Christian preacher’s actions and words are determined by what people say or think, then you know he is not a servant of God. He is a servant of men.

Justification by Faith

“Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son’” (Matthew 22:1-2).

This is another very interesting and important parable because Jesus is speaking about the great truth of justification by faith. This speaks about how we can be clothed with the righteousness of Christ so that we can stand before God. I want to explain the meaning of this parable in a nutshell before we go into it. We have two things that hinder us from being able to stand before God, not just one. It is not just the sins you committed in the past. The filthy nature that we have inherited from Adam also prevents us from standing before God. In my flesh, there is nothing good. How can I stand before God with that filthy flesh, even if my past sins are forgiven? My number one requirement is that all my past sins must be forgiven. Then something needs to be done about this nature of mine. Even if my sins are forgiven, I cannot stand before God with this filthy nature. That is why God justifies us. He clothes us with the righteousness of Christ. Christ becomes our righteousness. We are placed in Christ. Christ dwells in us, and Christ Himself becomes our righteousness. In other words, we are clothed with Christ’s righteousness. Then we can stand before God.

God does two things for us: He forgives us and justifies us. Both are necessary. Otherwise, we cannot stand before Him. First, He cleanses away of all our past sins right up to today because we confess them with the knowledge that we are sinners. Second, He clothes us with the righteousness of Christ. Keep that in mind as we come to this parable.

In this parable, the king sent out his slaves, which represent his prophets, to call those who were invited to the wedding feast. They were unwilling to come. This represents the nation of Israel who were the first people God invited. They did not come because of various reasons. He sent slaves again and told them to tell everybody, “I have prepared my dinner. The oxen and fattened livestock are butchered and everything is ready. We have taken so much pains to prepare this feast for the wedding of my son.” In Matthew 22:5, it says that they paid no attention. They completely ignored the message of the prophets. They went their own way. One went to take care of his farm. Another went to his business. The rest of them caught the slaves and mistreated them. They even killed some of them. When the king heard this, he was angry. He sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and set the city on fire.

In all these parables, Jesus was trying to show how the initial people whom God called have failed, and that God is now rejecting them. From the parable of the two sons to the parable of landowner to the parable of the marriage feast, the initial people whom God called, the nation of Israel, were rejected. They did not respond to the invitation. So the king goes to invite others. Then he said to slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.” The Jewish nation was not worthy. They went after their business. The king continued, “So go into the main highways and bring in as many as you can find there to the wedding feast. There are people on the streets. There are beggars and tramps. Go to the parks and go to the streets. Pull out everybody and ask them to come for a wedding feast.” Of course, the tramps were delighted. They thought, “The king is inviting me for a wedding feast!” Every beggar was delighted to come. In Matthew 22:10, is says, “Those slaves went out into the street and gathered together all whom they found, both evil and good.” This means they picked up good people along with murderers and thieves, and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. These people were tramps and beggars. You cannot come into the feast of a king in those filthy clothes. Although it is not written here, we can deduce that the king at the gate of the palace offered a free beautiful white robe to every single invitee because most of them were poor. He says, “I would like you to put on this robe when you go in. Then your nakedness and your filthy dress will not be seen.” The beggars whose clothes were all in rags were absolutely thrilled. They said, “Hey! This is a great! I thought I would be embarrassed throughout the feast because of my clothes. But the king has been so good! He clothed me with this garment.” And so they wore that robe and went into the feast. This robe is a picture of the garment of the righteousness.

One man came along who was not a tramp or a beggar, but was invited as one of the other guests. He came dressed properly, maybe in a suit and tie. He said, “I do not need your garment. I am quite ok as I am.” The king’s servants said, “No, the king has asked everybody to put on these garments.” This man said, “No, I think my dress is good enough.” He goes and sits there in that dress. When the king came to look at all the dinner guest, he sees everybody in white except this one guy sitting over there who is without the wedding clothes. He asked him, “How did you get in here? How did you come in here without the wedding clothes?” He was speechless. He could not say nobody offered it to me because it was offered at the gate freely to everyone. He could not say I did not have enough money to buy it because it was offered freely. What excuse could he give? Nothing. The real reason was he thought his dress was good enough. The king said, “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

This is a word to self-righteous people who feel that, “I am not as bad as these other sinners.” The dirty, ragged clothes on some people symbolize people who have lived in gross sin. This well-dressed man symbolizes a righteous person who probably grew up in a God-fearing family from childhood and therefore, has not committed all those terrible sins that other people have committed. In a sense, his clothes are not ragged. Like the Pharisees, we could say we fast, tithe, pray, and keep all the requirements of the law. We are pretty good as we are. We can come to God just as we are. Jesus demolishes that idea that they can come to God just as they are because it says in Isaiah 64:6 that our righteousness is like filthy rags in God's eyes. This is speaking about our righteous deeds, not our bad deeds. If bad deeds are like filthy rags, that is understandable. But Isaiah 64:6 says that all our righteousness is like filthy rags. When we bring all the good things we have done before God, it is equivalent to filthy rags. It could have been done with the wrong motive and for our own glory.

What if there is a person whose hand is infected with a disease and pus is oozing out of that hand. If that person offers you a beautiful apple in that hand, you will say, “No, thank you. I do not want it.” But he says, “It is a beautiful apple.” That is right, but the hand is infected with pus. Therefore, the apple is good, but it becomes bad because it is coming from your hand. That is how our good deeds are corrupt in God's eyes.

It is very important to see that. We may look pretty clean like this man who felt like he was dressed very neatly and not like these other fellows living in sin. That is right, but there is filth in our nature. That corrupts even the good deeds that we do. That is why it is very difficult for those who are externally righteous to see the need of a Savior. They think, “I am alright as I am. Why do I need a Savior?” Everyone needs a Savior. Romans 1 & 2 deal with two types of sinners. Romans 1 is dealing with the godless sinner. Romans 2 is dealing with the righteous sinner or the religious sinner. In Romans 3, it says that both are guilty and need to be justified and clothed with righteousness. That is the practical application of this parable.

The interesting thing is that this person who came with his own clothes was not just thrown out and asked to leave the palace. He was bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:13). If he had never gone to that feast, that would be one thing, but because he went there, he got thrown into outer darkness. The Lord is saying that the self-righteous people in the church are the ones who are going to be thrown out. People can come into the church and sit there for many years. One day, they will be thrown out because of self-righteousness. They look down on others who they think are not as holy as they are, and they are proud of their own righteousness. That is the message in this parable.

Then Jesus concludes by saying in Matthew 22:14, “Many are called but few are chosen.” It is not that God arbitrarily chooses some out of the many who are called. Not at all. There is no partiality with God. The fact remains that among the many who are called, only a few are chosen because only a few respond and say, “Lord, there is nothing good in my righteousness. I want all of You.” There is a very strong message that comes through in this parable. The basis on which God accepts us is that we acknowledge not only that we have sinned, but also that we have no righteousness in ourselves, and that Christ Himself is our righteousness.

Chapter 65

His Word, His Power, and His Wisdom

Our Righteousness Is Christ

In Matthew 22:1-14, Jesus teaches a parable in which a man without a wedding robe is cast out. It is very, very important to understand that the only way we can stand before God is if we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. It is not enough to just have our sins forgiven. That is why we need to be forgiven and justified. Many Christians do not see the difference between these two. Forgiveness deals with our past sins, which are blotted out through the blood of Christ through His death on the cross. But to stand before God, I still need to have my sinful nature covered by the righteousness of Christ. In other words, Christ’s righteousness needs to be put to my account, or I need to be clothed with Christ’s righteousness, in order for me to stand before God.

This is what it means to be “in Christ” or “Christ in me” or “Christ, my righteousness.” This humbles the upright. We must remember throughout our lives that Christ alone is our righteousness. I can never, in my earthly life or even in heaven, stand before God on the basis of my righteousness. God imparts His righteousness to us little by little throughout our earthly life - that is a progressive sanctification - but throughout our lives, we need to stand before God only in the righteousness of Christ. Our own righteousness is like filthy rags. But once we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, we need to surrender to the Holy Spirit, seek to walk in God's will, and deny our own will. Then as we become more and more sanctified, our righteousness, which was once like filthy rags, will become our sparkling wedding garment on the final day (Revelation 19:8).

This is what the Bible teaches about human righteousness and about Christ's righteousness. This is how we can have our own life transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we partake in God's nature and bring forth a righteousness that is acceptable before God. This is an amazing truth. I would encourage you to read this section and understand it thoroughly so that we never boast before God as if we are standing before God on the basis of something we have done or accomplished.

The Humble Are Chosen

Matthew 22:14 says, “Many are called but few are chosen.” This means that God invites everybody, but very few seem to be willing to accept the righteousness that Christ gives and to stand only on the basis of that. What would be the mark of someone who stands on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone? What is the mark of someone that had a secret trust in their own righteousness? I think it is very easy to know. Do you look down other believers? Do you feel that you are more accepted by God than other believers because of your holiness or righteousness? Do you feel more accepted by God because you did not commit such gross sins as the other people? Then you are definitely standing on your own righteousness. Think of these beggars who came to the wedding with different degrees of dirt, filth, and torn clothes. But once they put the wedding garment on at the feast, then they are all the same.

In the story in Matthew 22:14, a free wedding garment was given to them at the gate to cover their filthy robes and rags. When they put that on, what's underneath is not visible, and so when they look at each other, they're all exactly the same. The one who's been a believer for 50 years and the one who came to the Lord today are accepted on the same basis. The one who has been sitting at the wedding feast for 50 years is accepted on the basis of the white garment that he's accepted and the other one who just came in this morning, he is accepted on the basis of the white garment. They are equal. This is the problem today, like in the story of the laborers, that the people who came in first say, as the laborers who came in the first hour said in Matthew 20:12, “You have made these last fellows equal to us.” Many Christians don't like other people being made equal to them who they feel are junior.

This is one of the great sins in Christendom. We find in many churches people thinking, ‘I'm a senior worker, so I must have more respect,’ but the seniority is in government service and not in the church. In the church it's a question of who is more spiritual, not who's more senior. Not who's been in the church longer, but who has grown in grace and become more spiritual and has been gripped by the truth of God. That is the test. It's very important for us to understand this right at the beginning, and that's why it says, “Many are called but few are chosen.” The ones who are chosen are the ones who remain humble. Humility is the great secret here.

Do Not Be Trapped by Men

“Then the Pharisees went and counselled together how they might trap Him in what He said” (Matthew 22:15). This happens again and again in the Gospel of Matthew - the religious people are always trying to trip up Christ in some way, trying to catch Him in some word or some sentence He said. It is exactly like a lot of religious people today who don't like preachers who preach holiness, victory over sin, building the body of Christ, and freedom from the love of money. They’re always trying to trap them in some way, but God doesn’t allow them to trap His servants.

They sent their disciples to Him along with the Herodians, and they wanted to trap Him into saying something which would bring the wrath of the government upon Christ. That's also a trick that a lot of religious Christians try today on fellow Christians. ’If we can get the government itself to turn against this group which we don't like, that would be great. Then we don't have to deal with them, the government will deal with them.’ And so they came very subtly asking Him a question about taxes and, of course, they start with their usual, hypocritical flattery. They didn’t believe in one word of it, but they said “Teacher, we know You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and You defer to no one; You are not partial to anyone” (Matthew 22:16). Be careful whenever anybody comes and praises you like that. People who use language like, “You're the greatest man of God, etc.” can be some of your biggest enemies. So be careful. They say, “Teacher, we know You're truthful and that You teach the way of God in truth and defer to no one and You are not partial to anyone” and they think that by that, they can soften up the ground and get Jesus to reply to them, but Jesus can see through all that. If you're a servant of God, you need to see through the flattery of other people as well, otherwise you will get trapped.

“So tell us, therefore, what do you think, is it lawful to give a poll-tax to Caesar?” That's what they wanted to ask. What is the need for all that introductory flattery? That was to try and get Jesus to become weak so that He'd give up a foolish answer, but the Lord was not interested in the praise of men. They didn't realize that Christ was so far above all this flattery and empty praise, He wouldn't care less; even if it is genuine praise would have never affected Him.

That's how we must be: free from the opinions of men. Yes, people want to appreciate us and are thankful to us for what we’ve done for them - that's great! We don't stop them, and we don’t tell them to keep quiet. It's the right thing for people to express appreciation and thankfulness to a servant of God, for the benefit they've received from him. But we must be careful that that doesn’t go to our heads. We just pass it on to the God and say, “All the glory belongs to God” and move on, otherwise we'll get trapped.

God Can Give You Wisdom in All Situations

“Tell us, therefore, what do you think? Is it lawful to give poll-tax to Caesar or not?” And you know that whatever He says He's going to be caught. If He says, “No,” the government can catch Him and say to Him, “Hey, You're telling people not to pay their taxes.” If He says, “Yes,” they can get the Jews to say, “Hey, this guy is telling us to serve these Roman rulers who are ruling over our country” and get one group or the other against this preacher. These people are playing politics. It's an interesting word: “He perceived their wickedness.” There was wickedness there.

Can you imagine there is wickedness in people who say, “Oh, we know that you're truthful and teach the way of God in truth, defer to no one, you’re partial to no one.” Can you see wickedness in those statements? That shows Jesus had discernment, and that's what we need. He perceived their wickedness and their malice, and so He said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” He was straight with them and there was no question of beating around the bush in Jesus’ words.

“Show me the coin used for the poll tax” and they brought Him a denarius. “Here it is, this is what we pay as poll tax.” He sees them and says, “Whose likeness and inscription is on this?” They said to Him, “That’s Caesar’s.” “Well, then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s; and give to God the things that are God’s.” They marveled at that answer. What could they say to that? The government could not catch Him for saying that because He said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's” and the Jews could not catch him for that because He said, “We must give to God what is God's. You decide what is Caesar’s and what is God’s.”

If we trust in God and say, “Father, I want to walk on earth like Jesus walked. I want to have a word ready for everybody who comes and asks me a question,” I want to tell you, in Jesus’ name, that the Father will give you the same ability that Jesus had to be able to answer questions like this when people come to you with difficult questions. He will give us the same ability that He gave to Jesus Christ. Let me show you a promise in Luke 21:15: The Lord says, “I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.”

I have claimed that promise numerous times when I've had to reply to people who seek to attack me in one way or the other. I said, “Lord, give me a mouth and the wisdom which will shut their mouths,” and again and again and again, God has done that. You can’t get it if you don't ask for it. You don't have because you don't ask. You don’t ask for wisdom, so you don't get it, or you ask and you don't believe God will give it to you. But if you ask and you believe God will give it to you, James 1 says, “He will give you as much wisdom as you want,” but if you ask and you don't believe, “let that man not think that he will receive anything from the Lord.”

We can have the same wisdom as Jesus had to answer people accordingly when they try to trap us somewhere or humble us somewhere by their religiosity. I remember once, I was in a meeting somewhere with a group in the United States where everybody wore beards, all in that particular group (there is one particular verse that says every man must have a beard). I said, “I've got no objection to that. Everybody's can have their own convictions on these matters.” But, I was speaking in this church in a whole-day conference and during the lunch session, we were sitting at the table and I was the only man without a beard. All the others were there with beards, and some of them had not liked what I had taught in the morning session there because it was contrary to a lot of doctrines they believed in. And one man sitting there in front of me wanted to humiliate me in the presence of all the others and so, within the hearing of the others while we were having our meal, he asked me a question: “Brother Zac, did God make a mistake in giving you hair on your face or did you make a mistake in cutting it off or shaving it off?” And I quickly, inwardly, said, “Lord, I’ve got to get an answer for this. You’ve got to give me a mouth and wisdom now.” And immediately, God gave me a word and I said to him, “Brother, did God make a mistake in giving you nails in your fingers, or did you make a mistake in trimming them and cutting them off?” Silence, just like here. What could he say? It was a ridiculous question he asked me, so I gave him a ridiculous answer. This is not the only occasion when I have found God has given me a right answer to people, because I had asked for it and I believed God would give it to me. I mention that in order to encourage you. Of course, when I discovered that he was embarrassed and the tables were turned on him, I immediately changed the subject so that I would not embarrass him any further. I began to talk about something else so that he didn't feel awkward because of me, because I didn't want to lose him as a friend, and there was a lot of blessing in the afternoon session after that. So I want to encourage you that by that testimony. God can give you wisdom in all types of situations when you find people are trying to trap you in something.

His Word and His Power

“And hearing this they marveled and left Him and went their way. And then another group came.” The Pharisees and the Sadducees were always after Jesus (the Sadducees are the people who say there's no resurrection). The Pharisees are a picture of the fundamentalists and evangelicals who believe all the right doctrines, and the Sadducees are picture of the liberals who called themselves Christians, like they called them “Jews.” They didn’t believe in the resurrection just like liberal Christians today don't believe in miracles, etc.

On that day, some Sadducees who say there's no resurrection came to Him and questioned Him. They said, “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies and he has no children, his brother as next-of-kin shall marry his wife and raise up an offspring to his brother” and then they tell this unimaginable, fictitious story: “There were seven brothers they say with us and the first married and died and had no offspring. He left his wife to his brother and like that, the second and the third down to the seventh all died.” Now, this obviously is fiction, but they spoke as if it actually happened. “Then the woman also died. Now, in the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be, because they all had her?” And Jesus answered them, “You are mistaken because you don't understand the Scriptures and you don't know the power of God.” There are two things we need: understanding of the Scriptures and the power of God.

This is a beautiful verse (Matthew 22:29), and before we look at Jesus’ answer to this question, look at Jesus’ rebuke to them. He says, “Your problem is that you don't know God's Word and you don't have His power.” Do you know the two things we need in our life to serve God and to understand His ways? We need to know the Word of God and we need the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. One alone will not do. It’s like if you want a railway engine to move from one station to another, there are two things that it requires: one is the rails and the other is power from steam or diesel or whichever engine. If you have only one of these, it can’t move from one place to another. Which is more important? The rails or the power? Well, you need both, and we find in Christendom, there are different emphases. Some groups concentrate on the rails - their only interest is the Word of God, and every Sunday, they come and keep polishing the rails, but the engine is not moving because they don't have any steam. But they look down on others who ignore the rails. They say, “The rails are very important.” Then at the other extreme, you have certain other people who say, “Well, the steam is very important. What’s is the use of having an engine without any steam?” And so they fill it up with steam, but they say, “Rails are not important” and the result is that they drive off in any direction, derail over time, and get stuck in the mud. They're also stuck just like the other group. The other group is stuck because they didn't have steam; this group is stuck in the mud because it ignored the rails and went off the rails. But the second group, because it has steam, can blow the whistle and make a lot of noise in their meetings. They make a lot of noise, but they are in the ditch as well. Both don't move forward. You see them ten years later, the people in these churches, and there's no spiritual growth. You see they've not become holier, they’ve not got a greater understanding of God, they’re just pulling the whistle and blowing the steam, and the other group is polishing the rails every Sunday. Is this Christianity? It's important to emphasize both, and not either or. We need to understand the Scriptures and we need to experience the power of God. It's a beautiful verse. We need to know God's Word and we need to have the power of the Holy Spirit. The devil tries to make us concentrate on one or the other and miss out on what God wants us to have.

After rebuking them, then He answers their question. “In the resurrection, they’re not given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven. There's no sex there to produce children and to be married. No, in the resurrection of the dead haven't you heard what was spoken to you by God saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” When He says “I'm the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob,” He is not talking about dead people; He's talking about people who are still living in heaven, and that's what Jesus said. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living in Heaven - not in their bodies, as their bodies were on earth - but in the spirit.

“And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.” In everything Jesus says, there is a lesson to learn. For example, in the earlier point that we considered where Jesus said in verse 21, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and God that the things that are God’s,” it was an answer directly from God. But it does more than just answer and silence those people. There is a principle we can learn as well, which is that before we give to God anything, we must give to Caesar what is his. What does that mean? That means that if you have borrowed money from somebody (take Caesar as representing a human being), you owe them money and you haven't paid him back. God says, “Don't give me that; don’t put money in My offering box because you're putting his money into My box that should righteously go to him. You're putting in My offering box, so I don't want that guy's money. You go and give him that his money, and then give me what's yours. If you want to put something in offering box, put your money, not his.” Do you understand that when you're in debt, what you're giving to God is somebody else's money? I'm not talking about where you're paying a monthly mortgage on your house or your car or something like that, which is a fixed amount that you give and the rest of the money is yours. In that case, you can give to God, and that's okay. Rather, I'm talking about where you borrowed from some human being and you haven't given back. Or you cheated the government of some taxes and you haven’t repaid it. Then, what you're giving to God is somebody else's money - it is Caesar’s. The Lord says whom you should you put first: Caesar, then put God after. That means don't give God somebody else's money. It's a very simple principle and we must remember that that God doesn't want what belongs to somebody else. That's why it's so important to be free from debt. The same way, here, you see in this statement, what an important principle it is. You must know the Scriptures and you must know the power of God. There is such a depth of meaning in these replies that the Lord gave, if you meditate on them. There's more than one meaning in a single verse of Scripture.

The Great Commandment

When the Pharisees heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together and said, “Hey, we’ve got to trap Him in some other way.” They were always out to trap Jesus. When the Sadducees were silent, they said, “Okay, let's get somebody else now. Then a lawyer came up (in those days this was somebody who really studied the law) and he asked Him a question saying, “Teacher, by the way, which is the great commandment in the law?” For the Jews, the Great Commandment was keeping the Sabbath. That means you don't get anybody to heal on the Sabbath day and you don't allow a man to carry his bed on the Sabbath day. He also said, “Of course, you pull out your sheep from the ditch on the Sabbath day if it falls there,” but they wanted to see what He was going to say thinking, ‘Are You going to say Sabbath or something else?’

And Jesus said, “The great commandment in the law is you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” That's the great and foremost commandment. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. These are like two arms of the cross: love God with all your heart, the vertical arm; love your neighbor as yourself, the horizontal arm. That's the cross and you can’t separate it. It’s not just loving God, it’s not just loving your neighbor and it’s not loving your neighbor first. Those who think social work is the most important thing to do are setting loving their neighbor up as the first commandment. And those who just sit in a monastery and just say, “I'm just going to talk to God all the time,” are also wrong. You’ve got to love God and love your neighbor, and loving God comes first.

“On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). Everything in the Bible is summed up in two commandments. It’s wonderful to know that. Every commandment in the Bible can be put in a nutshell in these two commandments: “Love God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and love others as yourself.” What does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind? I’ve got to love God with my mind. My mind is important. I got to love God with my heart. My love and affection for God is important. Jesus said, “if you love Me, keep My commandments.” That means with all my strength, I've got to do God's will. This is what it means to love God, and if I love God, I will love my fellow believers. “If somebody says that he loves God, but he can’t love his fellow believer, he's a liar,” John says. So let's keep this in mind.

Chapter 66

Marks of a Pharisee – Part I

God Has Answers for Every Question

It’s very interesting to go through Matthew's Gospel keeping in mind and understanding what Jesus taught, so that we can learn what to do in our life. We learn from His words, His life, His actions, and from the circumstances through which He took His disciples. We also learn something from the way He dealt with difficult circumstances and the way He answered questions. His dependence upon God, the Father, for a right answer without going into complicated reasoning. So often, when people ask us questions, we go into so many complicated reasoning’s to give an answer. Jesus, very often, answered with a brief story or a brief answer, and that is the best way to answer.

In Matthew 22:41, the Pharisees were gathered together, and after they had asked Jesus so many questions, He asked them a question. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” Christ is another word for the Messiah, whom the Jews were expecting to come. Knowing the Scriptures, they said, “He is the Son of David.” Then He said to them, “Why then does David, in the Spirit, call Him Lord, when he says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I put thine enemies beneath thy feet”’ (Psalm 110:1)? If David calls Him Lord, how is He then his Son?” They didn't know. They couldn't answer that. They were confused, and from that day onwards, no one dared to ask Him another question. He silenced them forever.

God has an answer to every question, and the more we are in touch with God, the more we will know the answers. I remember in my early Christian life and soon after, I was born-again but I did not know the answers to many things in the Scriptures. But today I know a lot more. Not everything, but a lot more as I have studied the Bible. And I’ve not only studied it, I’ve also sought to live before God and to know God better. The Word of God has become clearer, and I know the answer to many, many things that puzzled me in my younger days. There's absolutely no contradiction in God’s Word. I can tell you that after 53 years of studying it. There is no contradiction. If you think you see a contradiction, it’s because you haven't understood God’s word properly. There is an answer for everything that appears to be a contradiction in Scripture, and there's an answer in Scripture for every one of life's problems. I can’t say I’ve found all the answers, but I’ve found many which I didn't have 50 years ago. So, don't reject something just because you don't know the answer. Be humble enough to say, “I’m not yet mature enough to know the answer for that.” You know, it's like a child studying mathematics in school in the second standard. It doesn't know algebra or geometry yet, and it may think that algebra and geometry don’t make any sense. The child knows that 2+2=4 and 2*3=6, but algebra and geometry are rubbish as far as he’s concerned. That's what he sincerely thinks, because he’s only in the second standard. When he gets up to the eighth standard, he has studied algebra and geometry quite a bit and they make sense to him. But, then he says at that stage, “What is all this calculus, differential calculus, and integral calculus? It's all rubbish.” Once he gets to the eleventh or twelfth standard, he’ll understand those.

If you think anything in the Bible is absolute rubbish, give it four or five years, and if you walk with the Lord, you’ll discover the truth of it. It's good, when we are young, to be humble enough to say, “I don't know. My spiritual understanding has not yet grown to the level where I can understand that, but there must be some truth in it.” I’m talking about when you go to Scripture, and you find something you can’t understand, or you find something that looks like a contradiction. Don't be so arrogant as to think that it is a contradiction just because you can’t explain it. It seems like a contradiction because you're immature. You are in the kindergarten class, perhaps. No wonder you can’t explain it. Someone else who is more mature and has walked with God and progressed in the Christian life understands it very clearly, but proud people can never accept that person’s answer. They think, “If I’m smart and I have the intelligence to understand math, science, physics, and things like that, I’m sure that I can understand the Bible.” No. God hides these things from the clever and intelligent and reveals them to humble people. Please remember that. Once you understand that, Jesus will silence you just like He silenced all the Pharisees.

Matthew 23:1 says, “Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, and He said, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.” This is the definition of a hypocrite. He preaches things that he does not practice and says things but doesn’t do them. He teaches but he doesn't do. This is the opposite of Acts 1:1, where we read about Jesus, “He did and taught”. Compare Matthew 23:3, which says, “they teach but do not do,” with Acts 1:1 which says, “Jesus did and then taught.” A lot of us are in one of these two categories. If you're a Christian, you either preach a lot of things you don't practice, or you first practice something and then preach it. In one case, you're just a Pharisee and in the other case, you're following Christ. The descendants of the Pharisees spiritually are common in the church today. There are lots of them, even millions of them who preach a lot of things on the pulpit, but they don’t practice what they preach in their lives. There are very few people who are following Christ, who first do and then teach, who have decided that they'll never teach what they haven't done or what they're not aspiring to do and accomplish.

Two Good Things in Pharisees

The other thing I wanted you to notice here is that the Pharisees had a couple of good qualities. Not everything was wrong with the Pharisees. There were some good qualities in them. The first thing Jesus said is everything that they tell you to do, do. Jesus wouldn't say that about the Jehovah’s witnesses or Seventh day Adventists or the Roman Catholics. He wouldn’t say everything they teach is correct, so you can do it. It's not correct to teach that keeping the Sabbath is a way of salvation. To teach that Jesus Christ is not God as Jehovah’s witnesses say is not correct. To teach that Mary is a mediator between God and man is also not correct. So Jesus will never say about these groups that we should do whatever they say. He would not say that about the liberal Christians either, but He would say that about evangelical Christians. They've got the right doctrine, but they could be Pharisees, because Pharisees had right doctrine as well. That’s the first good quality Jesus saw in them.

The second good quality He mentions is in verse 25. He says, “You Scribes and Pharisees clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is full of robbery and self-indulgence.” So this was hypocrisy. The inside is dirty, but the outside is clean. You have to give credit to them for cleaning their outside. Here was the certificate that Jesus gave: Your external life is good, you keep the law, and you do everything the law commands on the outside.

These are the two good qualities about the Pharisees that Jesus Himself gave a certificate about. First, their doctrines were all correct (Matthew 23:3) and second, their external life was clean and upright (Matthew 23:25). Most Christians that I have met, even evangelical Christians, glory in these two things. Their doctrines are all correct and their external life is clean. That qualifies you to be a Pharisee, the group to whom Jesus said, “You snakes, you generation of vipers, how will you escape the damnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33). Would you believe it if Jesus came into an evangelical church and said that to evangelical Christians, who have got all their doctrines right and whose external life is clean? Have you understood Scripture? What did Jesus look for? The inner life. Is your inner life clean? The inside of the cup, is that clean? That's what the Lord was looking for then, and that's what the Lord is looking for today. So let's stop gloating about the fact that our doctrines are right and our external lives are clean. Those are essential. We may not be like the Sadducees who are like liberal Christians, but we are like the Pharisees. We’re not Christ-like, we're not true Christians, if we don't take care of our inner lives. That's the difference between a Pharisee and a Christian. A Christian has his doctrines right and his external life is clean, but the inside of his cup is also clean. That's the big difference. This is how you distinguish between a Pharisees and a true disciple of Jesus. And you can ask yourself which you are.

A Key Mark of a Legalist

In Matthew 23:3, we see a mark of legalistic people. There are millions of legalistic preachers in the world. Matthew 23:4 says, “They tie up heavy loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.” That means they preach very high standards and tell people, “You must do this.” Do you know that there are a lot of people who preach tithing but never tithe themselves? Do you know that? They don't pay a tithe themselves. But they teach other people to pay their tithes. They’re absolute hypocrites. I don't believe tithing is part of New Testament teaching at all. It was abolished with everything else under the law. Today, we don't give 10%. We give whatever we are happy to give, according to 2 Corinthians 9:7. That's new covenant teaching. But there are a lot of pastors and preachers who tell others to tithe when they don't do it themselves. Ask yourself, if you are a person who is very eager to promote tithing, do you give 10% of all your income to God? 10% of everything you earn? It’s a very searching question. Even if you do, you’re just keeping the law. I’m not under the law, and you’ll never bring me into bondage to that. You may be able to get a bunch of ignorant Christians who don't know the new covenant nor the Bible to obey your laws, but you can’t get me to, because I know the new covenant.

It says they bind heavy burdens on people, and they don't lift them with the finger. That means they put unrealistic demands on others that they never practice themselves. I remember once when I was at a young people's camp, I was there with another speaker who was a bit of a legalist and a hypocrite. We were the only two speakers, and He preached that we must not only tithe our money, we must also tithe our time. We have 24 hours, so 2.4 hours every day must be given to spending time alone with God. I knew that he was not tithing his income, because he was a very rich doctor, and he was definitely not tithing his time. So what happened? I didn't say anything when he said that. I disagreed with it, but I kept quiet, because he was the other preacher with me. I didn't want to humble him or humiliate him publicly, so I kept quiet. But these students were sharp. During one of the Q&A’s, one of them said, “I want brother Zac to answer this question. Is it right, what the other speaker said, that we have to tithe our time?” I was put on the spot then, so I said, “I don't agree with it. There's no verse which says that in Scripture.” Then I turned around to the other speaker and said, “Brother, do you spend 2.4 hours every day with God?” Sheepishly, he said, “No, brother, I don't.” I had to expose him for the sake of these poor people, on whom he was putting a heavy burden that he hadn’t lifted with a little finger.

That's what I mean. There are plenty of preachers like this. Don't allow anybody to put a burden on you. The yoke of Jesus is easy and His burden is light. You are weary and heavy laden, dear friend, because you've allowed all these hypocrites to put burdens on you that they themselves don't lift with a finger. All their deeds, they do to be noticed by men (Matthew 23:5). All their deeds, they do to be seen by men. Whenever we do things for men to see us, we are like the Pharisees. We are to live our life before God. I’m not saying men won't see us. If they see us, we can’t help it, but we don't do it in order for men to see us. That's the point. It is not that men don’t see your good deeds. We can't help it sometimes, but we don't do it in order to get their approval. There's a little book that I’ve written called 50 marks of Pharisees, and it's a very interesting study to see the characteristics of Pharisees. It’s very enlightening. I find it very profitable to study what the New Testament speaks about Pharisees, and that's how I compiled that book. A number of those characteristics are in Matthew 23, such as binding heavy burdens on people which they don't lift with their own finger, doing deeds to been seen by men (Matthew 23:6), loving the place of honor at banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues, wanting respect in the synagogues, to be recognized as elders and pastors who always want to sit on the platform during events. Do you like that? Jesus said to go and take the last seat. Where are the Christian leaders who obey that? Almost all Christian leaders want titles and want to sit on the platform to be respected by others. They love the chief seats in the synagogues and you can apply that to the churches. These are Pharisees. They love respectful greetings in the market places and being called Rabbi. They love greetings, they love to be greeted by others, and they want honor. Everything they do is for honor. The chief seats in the synagogues are for honor, being greeted by others is for honor, and having fancy religious titles is for honor. Everything is for honor. That’s the motive behind all their actions, which God sees. God doesn't care what seat you sit on, but He sees what your motive is in everything. What's your motive? If you are trying to convey a message to people, and the most convenient place is to stand in the front of a church, then that's okay. If that's your motive, and you stand on a little elevated platform so that everybody can see you, that's okay; but if you're standing up there because you want honor, that's a completely different reason. God looks at the motive, the heart. Man looks at the outward appearance.

Only Two Titles in the Church

Jesus said, Don't ever be called Rabbi, because One is your teacher, and you're all brothers” (Matthew 23:8). We're all supposed to be brothers. That’s the one title he has given us. We are brothers and it is a wonderful thing in the new covenant to be called a brother. See, when somebody calls me a brother, and I call somebody a brother, we're referring to each other as younger brothers of Jesus Christ, Who was our eldest Brother. According to Romans 8:29, He is the firstborn among many brothers. So that's why a brother is the highest title you can give to any human being. Brother means, “younger brother of Jesus Christ.” That's why He said, “You're all brothers and don't call anyone on earth your father, for One is your Father. He is in heaven.” It's question of addressing a person as father. Jesus said don't do that, but people could be spiritual fathers even though you don't address them as father. Paul said to the Corinthian Christians, “Although you have 10,000 teachers, you don't have many fathers. But I have become your father through the gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). He also writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:2 inspired by the Holy Spirit, “to my beloved son.” So we see that Paul would not allow anyone to address him as father Paul. He was an apostle, but he was a brother. He was a brother in Christ.

He said, Don't call anyone on earth your father. Don't be called leaders, for One is your leader, that is Christ. The greatest among you must be a servant” (Matthew 23:9-11). Do we take all these words of Jesus seriously or do we just ignore them? Most Christians just ignore them. They say, yeah, that's not important. What is not important? What is the word you can say is not important? Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. Do not be called leader, father, or teacher.” You may have those functions. You may be a teacher of God's Word, you may be a spiritual father, and you may be a leader. That's fine, but your attitude must always be that of a brother and a servant. “The greatest among you shall be a servant.” That's how it is to be in the Christian life. If you're a real leader, you're going to be a servant of everybody else. There are two titles that God has given us: brother (verse 8) and servant (verse 11); and all of us must be both in our relationship to other people. We must be brothers and we must be servants. We must not take up a title that elevates us above other brothers and sisters. We may have a function that may be the most important function of all, or you may be an apostle, or a prophet, or a teacher, but you're still a brother.

Take the Apostle John, the great apostle. See how he speaks about himself. He says in Revelation 1:9, “I, John, your brother.” A 95-year-old man served God faithfully for over 65 years and what is he at the end of all that? A brother and a servant. This is how the great apostles were. You see, while these titles don't matter, Jesus called it exalting yourself. Matthew 23:12 says, “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” These are not the most important Commandments in Scripture - it’s more important to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself - but we should even obey the small commandments. Jesus said if you ignore the least commandments, you will be called least in the kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:19).

We're trying to understand all that Jesus taught, not 90% of what He taught. Go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach them to do every single thing that I have commanded you. Every single thing. It's very, very important. Look at Christendom today, where numerous preachers and leaders take upon them all types of titles. Do you think that's God's will? I’m not here to judge them. But compare it with God's Word in Scripture. “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

As you go through this chapter, you find He begins with denouncing the Pharisees. Then He goes on to say, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut off the kingdom of heaven from men. You don't enter in yourself nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13). Jesus spoke like a prophet, and I’ll tell you that when a prophet speaks, a lot of people are going to get offended. But Jesus was showing the way into God's kingdom. He was saying, you Pharisees don't enter the kingdom yourselves, and you close it up to others who want to go in. How do they close it up? With all the legalistic rules and regulations that they made, binding heavy burdens on people instead of showing them the way into God's kingdom. We need to understand this even today. A legalist, though he appears to be very righteous, is in many ways actually closing the door into God's kingdom. These are people who analyze small, little things and make them bigger than God has made them. Like I said about the Sabbath, the Pharisees made the Sabbath much bigger than God had made it, and they were actually closing up the kingdom to the people who wanted to enter in. That's what Jesus says here: You don't enter in yourself, and you don't let others enter in either.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you’ll receive greater condemnation” (Matthew 23:14). This is another thing they did: they would squeeze money and rent out of poor widows and then to cover up their troubled conscience, they would come to the synagogue and pray long prayers. They prayed to cover up their unrighteousness in money matters, the way they were troubling and squeezing money out of poor widows and young people and other people who are poor. God sees all this, and these kinds of things are still happening today. Jesus taught all these things and many others as you go through Matthew 23. There are many, many things that He wants to deliver us from. If we really love Him, we will keep all His commandments.

Chapter 67

Marks of a Pharisee – Part II

In Matthew 23, Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees. He did not speak to the Pharisees. He spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples about the characteristics to the Pharisees. It is a very instructive passage because the Pharisees were people who had right doctrine. Jesus commended them for what they taught. Jesus said that everything they taught was right (Matthew 23:3). The only thing is that they did not live according to what they taught. Their external life was good and the outside of their cup was clean, but the inside was dirty (Matthew 23:25). You can have the correct doctrine and a good external life, but you can still be a brood of vipers ready to go to hell (Matthew 23:33). That is what many evangelical Christians do not understand. You can be evangelical in doctrine and good in external life, but be a thorough Pharisee on your way to hell.

It is quite a revealing chapter if you are honest enough to face it. The devil will not let you face up to the truth. He would like to fool you so that you can spend eternity with him. So you have to be careful that you do not allow the devil to deceive you. It is the inner life that matters. The one thing that would have delivered the Pharisees from Phariseeism is if they had not only preached the right doctrine, but if they had practiced it as well. Also, they would have been delivered from Phariseeism if they were not only concerned about their external life, but their inner life as well. These two points, which were their strong points, were also their weaknesses. If they had faced up to that, they would have been delivered. If the evangelical Christians whose doctrine is right would practice what they believed and if their inner life corresponded to their external life, then they would be freed from Phariseeism.

Corrupted Evangelism

In Matthew 23:15, Jesus says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees because you travel about on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

The scribes and Pharisees were missionaries. In the eyes of men, this was another good quality. Whenever you hear someone going out into the mission field, you have a respect for him. There is an automatic respect for someone who leaves his country and crosses land and sea. It must be a sacrifice. They had to give up their job and inconvenience their family. So many sacrifices are involved to go to another country. They go in the name of religion and not to do business like a lot of people do. Most people would have appreciated that. Here is a man with the right doctrine, who has a clean external life, and is going abroad for a religious cause at great sacrifice and suffering for his family. The average Christian would admire that type of missionary, but not Jesus. He asked, “What type of convert do you make when you get there?” That is the important thing. That is what I would say to all mission work in India, “What type of convert do you make when you get to the mission field? Is the convert a two-fold child of hell?”

Is it possible for a missionary who has the right doctrine to go and make a convert who is a two-fold child of hell? According to Matthew 23:15, yes. We cannot play with people's lives. It is a very serious thing to play with people's lives.

If you go out in the name of Christ, it is very important that you present a true gospel and obey what He said, which is to go into every nation and make disciples. Disciples are those who love Jesus more than everyone else. Luke 14:6-33 lays down the conditions of discipleship, which include loving Jesus more than father, mother, brother, sister, wife, and children. This is the first thing you must do when you go out as a missionary and preach the gospel anywhere. Whether it is in our home town or around the world, we need to make disciples. We need to get a convert to the place where he loves Christ more than father, mother, and all his relatives. Jesus said, “If a man loves father or mother more than Me, he is not worthy of Me.” We do not want a whole bunch of people in church who are not worthy of Jesus Christ and who, according to His Own words, are not disciples. This means to love Jesus more than his wife, children, brothers, and sisters. That takes a while.

Secondly, a disciple is one who takes up his cross every single day and follows Jesus (Luke 14:27, Luke 9:23). If a person is not willing to die to himself daily, you have not even taught him what discipleship is.

The third condition is that a disciple must not hold onto possessions. He has to give up his possessions. If he holds on to those possessions, he is not fit to be a disciple. This is what is lacking in so much of Christian preaching and missionary work. They are making converts by saying, “Ask Jesus to come in to your heart and ask Him to forgive your sins.” That is fine. If that was all that the Lord wanted, why in the world did He tell us to go and make disciples? A disciple is a learner and a follower. Why in the world did He tell us to go into all the world and teach them to do every single thing that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:18-20)? This is the neglected part in the Great Commission.

If I neglect this part, it is possible for me to cross land and sea as an evangelical Christian and make someone two-fold a child of hell. I have often thought about that. How does a person become a double a child of hell? A child of hell itself is bad. How does he become double a child of hell? Have you ever thought of that? Twice as much a son of hell? Everyone born into the world living in sin is on his way to destruction. According to the expression that Jesus uses, he would be a son of hell. But if you go there as an evangelical Christian, you might brainwash that person into believing that just because he has mumbled some words, he is now a child of God, even though he has not become a disciple at all. He does not even understand what taking up the cross means. He does not know what it is to die to himself. He does not know what it is to love Jesus more than everybody on earth. But you convinced him that he is ok. You have immunized him that moment to hearing the gospel any more because he says, “I am a child of God now. I am okay.” He thinks he is a child of God when he is not a child of God. He is not a disciple, but you have convinced him with doctrinal brainwashing that he is a child of God. This is what it means to make a person two-fold child of hell. The other person who is not doctrinally brainwashed still says, “I am a heathen. I am not a Christian.” He is a single child of hell. The double child of hell will never be converted. There is a possibility of the single child of hell getting converted because he does not even believe he is converted. When you make a person believe that he is converted and a disciple when he is not a disciple, you have really made him a two-fold child of hell.

A lot of that is happening around the world. It is not a question of the percentage of Christians that needs to increase in any land. It is the quality of the individual Christian that is important. Jesus was always more interested in quality. He never sought for numbers. He always spoke the hardest words when the great multitudes came to follow Him because He said there is a price to be paid to follow Him. For the pearl of great price, you need to sell everything that you have. If we do not proclaim the whole counsel of God, then we are going to have converts who are twice the sons of hell. We have to be careful that we do not come under the same condemnation that Jesus gave to the Pharisees.

Loose Speech

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the offering on it, he is obligated.’ You blind men, which is more important, the offering, or the altar that sanctifies the offering? Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells within it. And whoever swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it” (Matthew 23:16-22).

Jesus is talking about little subtle changes of words and things that are not even mentioned in the law. The Pharisees made little rules saying, “This is okay, but that is not ok.” This is also very common among many Christians. You can nit-pick about words, about whether you have said something the right way or not. In those days, they were swearing, but Jesus taught in Matthew 5 that we are not to swear at all. When you say “yes” it must be yes. When you say “no” it must be no. But in those days, swearing was accepted under the law because most of the time, they told lies. When a man was swearing, what he really saying was, “Most of the time I tell lies, but right now I am going to speak the truth.” That is the purpose of swearing. That means he is acknowledging that when he does not swear, he will be telling lies. Now we do not need that type of thing today at all. We do not swear by anything. We speak the truth whether we swear or not. My spoken word is as much of a commitment to what I believe in as if I had given a signed statement in court on a proper stamp paper with lot of witnesses. My spoken statement is as good as that. That is how a Christian should be. I gave my word, and I will keep it.

There is a verse in the Psalms that is a very interesting verse in connection to our spoken word. It says in Psalm 15:1, “Who will dwell (or abide permanently) in God's tent? Who will dwell in God's holy hill?” One of the conditions is in Psalm 15:2-3, “He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, he does not take up any evil or reproach against neighbor etc.” And then it says in Psalm 15:4, “The one who honors those who fear the Lord… He makes a promise, and when he discovers that keeping that promise is going to hurt him, he does not change. He still goes by his word.” Amazingly, only such person can live in God's holy hill.

I remember once some years ago, I was selling some item. It is a fairly expensive item in my house that I did not need anymore. It was some type of musical instrument with its stand and box. I offered it to somebody for certain price. Afterwards, I discovered that it actually cost much more than that. A few days later when he came to me, I realized that I offered a much lower price. He was late, and he had not made an agreement with me or anything like that. When I discovered that this price was much higher than what I had offered, I realized I made a ridiculously low offer, and he came to get it. This is what the Lord said to me, “You gave your word. Keep it. If it is loss, let it be a loss. It is more important for your integrity as a Christian that you are known as a man who keeps his word.” I sold it to the man. I said, “I do not care if I lose a few thousand rupees. I want to be known as one who speaks the truth. I want to abide in the holy hill of the Lord. I do not have to swear to do that.” I could have told him, “Listen, I have changed my mind on that. I am not selling.” Or I could have provided some other excuse so that I could change the price. But I had given my word.

I find that the Lord tests us in these little things. I believe the Lord tested me. What He gave me in terms of anointing, holiness, and power was a million times more valuable than that little bit of money. I wonder whether you realize how much you lose when you are not a person of integrity, when your “yes” is not yes and your “no” is not no. You change your mind just because you feel, “I am going to make a little loss, but I can make a little profit by changing my word telling a little lie. I can be more accepted.” There is so much of that in Christendom. There is subtle lying even among co-workers. This makes the Lord take away His anointing from people. Very often, it is not obvious until a long time afterwards that this brother has lost the anointing. What is the reason? It is because of these little, little things. He did not keep his word.

For us in the New Covenant, your “yes” must be yes, and your “no” must be no. When you make a promise, you do not break it. Suppose you have made a promise, for example, to some cult or satanic organization. When you become a Christian and you discover that was wrong, you can break it because you are trying to be faithful to God. I am talking about examples where you are seeking your own.

Suppose you break a promise because you are seeking to honor God’s Word. For example, suppose you were engaged to be married to an unbeliever. You had given your word to someone saying, “I will marry you.” You have not gotten married yet. Then you become born again and you discover that you are not supposed to marry an unbeliever. You can break your word because now you have to obey God, who is a higher authority. God said in 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” Now you are born again. The situation is different. Therefore, you cannot marry because you want to obey God, and you need to break your word. This is different. You can say plainly, “I would very much love to marry you, but I am sorry, I cannot because my loyalty is to God first. He has told me that I must not marry an unbeliever.”

There are situations where we obey higher authority. In these situations, breaking your word because you want to obey God is perfectly ok. But other than that, situations where you want to break your word because you are going to get more profit or seek your own gain or gain some position is completely wrong. It is better to suffer loss.

Putting the Right Weight on Things

Matthew 23:23-24, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”

Is there anything wrong in tithing mint, dill, and cumin? No. Remember, in those days, tithing was not money. They were not office workers earning a salary. They were not factory workers. They were farmers, and their income came from their crops. Their profit came from selling their crops and farming the land. The crops were also their food. Ten percent of that was what they called the tithe. They would carry the grain up to Jerusalem and give it to Levites who did not have any farms. It was perfectly right to be very exact to include even the small little garden plants they were growing in their kitchen garden. They would find out how much they had and give 10 percent of their crops to Levites. They were very particular about weighing of ten percent of these little things like dill and cumin, which were small little seeds. But they were not concerned about being merciful to others. They were very hard on people. They were not concerned about faithfulness in little things. They were not concerned about being righteous and just in their dealings with others. They were not concerned about all that. But they were very concerned about these little, little things. They would say, “That is a little one gram less. That is a little more. Let us make it exactly one tenth.”

The Lord said there are some weightier matters in the law. In Matthew 5:19, Jesus spoke about the least of the commandments. Not all commandments have the same importance or value. Similarly, Jesus also said here in Matthew 23:23 that there are weightier matters of the law. There are some commandments that are the least and some which are greater. There are other weightier provisions in the law and not so important provisions of the law. All need to be kept, but some are more important than others. That is very clear. Similarly, in the New Testament, some of God’s commandments are more important than others.

If we keep the small things and neglect the big things, we are Pharisees. That does not mean we should keep the big things and ignore the small things. Some people feel this way. When we talk about some of the small commandments, they are not the weightiest commandments, but should we neglect them and just keep the big ones? There are many small commandments like a woman must veil her head, or call no man on earth “Father.” They are small commands. It is not the biggest thing in the world. The biggest thing is love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says you must keep the big ones, but do not neglect the smaller ones, because if we neglect the smaller ones, we will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

Many people say, “Jesus said you must pay your tithe of the small things.” That is right. Jesus also told the cleansed lepers to go and show themselves to the priest. Jesus also told the rich young ruler who was seeking the way to eternal life to keep the commandments. These are all different from what we would say today. We do not tell any person who is healed to go and show himself to the priest. We do not tell people who want eternal life to keep the commandments.

Start with the Inside

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25).

In the Old Covenant, you could only clean the outside of your life. You could not clean the inside. In Exodus 20, there were ten commandments, and nine of them related to the external life. The last commandment was, “You shall not desire your neighbor’s wife or anything that is your neighbor’s.” That was referring to the inner life, and it was put there just to teach people in Israel that the commandments do not finish with number nine. God’s standard is much higher and deals with the inner life, but nobody could keep it, not even the great apostle Paul. Paul could say, “I have lived with good conscience till today” (Acts 23:1). He also said in Philippians 3:5-8, “According to the righteousness of the law, I am blameless.” Yet Paul says in Romans 7:7-8 that when it comes to coveting, Paul says, “I found every type of coveting in my heart. I found I was disobeying the Ten Commandments left, right, and center even though I was very good on the outside.”

The great Apostle Paul could not keep the tenth commandment, but he was honest about it. He cries out in Romans 7:24, “Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I want to be free, I want to live a pure life.” Therefore, God delivered him. He says in Romans 8:4, “The law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of the sin and death. Now, as I walk in the spirit, the righteous requirement in the law, ‘Thou shall not covet,’ can be fulfilled inside me.” But the Pharisees were not concerned about that. They were not even seeking. They just gave people a pretense that they were really holy on the outside, but the inside was dirty. Jesus said you must start with the inside. Always start with the inside and then the outside will be automatically clean. If our mind is clean and our thoughts are clean, then the outside will be clean. That is the right order.

Chapter 68

Marks of a Pharisee – Part III & Signs of the End Times - Part I

Clean the Inside of the Cup

In Matthew 23:26, Jesus said, “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may also be clean.” Jesus called them hypocrites in Matthew 23:25. The mark of hypocrite is his inner life does not correspond to his outer life. Unfortunately, this is true of the vast majority of people who call themselves believers. The really sad thing is they do not even seem to be concerned about it. If they were concerned about it, the Lord would have led them into victory, but because they are not concerned about it, the Lord does not lead them further. This is the tragedy. To clean the inside of the cup means to concentrate on the inside first and not the outside.

Which part of your life do you concentrate on? Which is more important? A skyscraper may have 70 or 80 floors that are visible. Underneath all those floors is a foundation. Which do you think is more important, the upper floors or the foundation? Any contractor or engineer will tell you that the strength of the upper floors depends 100% on the strength of the foundation. If the foundation is weak, even a building with one floor will collapse. That is why engineers concentrate on laying a good foundation.

Jesus also talked about laying a good foundation, but on that foundation, we must build a superstructure. Jesus once spoke about someone who did not want to be a disciple. How did He describe him? In Luke 14:29, Jesus says this person just lays a foundation, but does not build anything. There is no superstructure. In Matthew 7:26, Jesus also described a foolish person who built a house but had no foundation. These are two opposites. Both are foolish. We need a foundation, and on that we need to build a superstructure.

In this passage, the Lord tells the Pharisees to first lay the foundation, but do not stop there. Build a superstructure. We can apply it to our life like this: if you take care of the inside, the outside will automatically take care of itself. There is no doubt about it. If you put a seed in the ground and water it, it will automatically come up. For example, if I allow my mind to be renewed so that I am not angry with people, I will not commit murder. If my inner attitude were right, then my outer life would be okay. If I do not lust after women in my inner life, then I am not in danger of committing adultery. If I decide to love my enemies, I will have no problem externally loving my neighbors.

You do not have to try to clean up your external life if you clean the inside. For example, the law was like a tube of ointment that I could use on my body whenever I have a sore. It is a very effective ointment. If I rub the ointment on the sore, it goes away. Tomorrow, if I get another sore on my other hand, I can rub the ointment and it goes away. So I need this tube of ointment all the time to keep my external body looking clean, but the inner disease that causes these sores on my hands is never healed. I go around rubbing this ointment every day. That is how the law was. All the “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not’s” were meant to prevent sin from coming forth and destroying the nation. That is why we have all the laws in different countries. If you violate them, you are punished. You can preserve countries with certain laws and orders. All those laws are basically based on the ten commandments.

But Jesus came with an axe, saying, “I want to deal with the problem at its root.” It is like a doctor saying, “There is a new antibiotic that has been discovered. If you take it, it will deal with the problem that is causing the sores inside your body. Then you will not need this tube of ointment. You can throw it out because the problem is solved inside with the antibiotic. Then you will not get the sores.” This is the difference between the law and grace. So which is better? The antibiotic or tube of ointment? Which is better? Grace or law? It is so clear.

But when people they talk about grace, a lot of them throw away the tube of ointment, but they have not taken the antibiotic. They keep getting sores. And that is why the life of the average Christian is a hundred times worse than the life of a God-fearing Jew, who lived under the law. At least that God-fearing Jew had the tube of ointment. Here is a Christian who talks about grace but does not take the antibiotic and does not even use the tube of ointment. We should throw away the tube of ointment only when we have taken the antibiotic. We can throw away the law when we have the inner grace that has purified our inner life. Otherwise, you better keep the law.

That is what Jesus is saying in Matthew 23:26, “You clean the inside of the cup and the dish so that the outside will automatically be clean.” Notice the words “so that.” If you deal with the inside, the outside will be clean. He does not say to first clean the inside and then go clean the outside. There will be no need to clean the outside. The inside will be automatically clean the outside.

In Matthew 23:27, Jesus says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, for you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear so beautiful.” Some tombs are so grand on the outside, but the inside is full of dead men’s bones. Look at the illustrations the Lord uses. There is death inside, but such beautiful decorations on the outside. This is a perfect description of many Christians who want to look so nice on the outside with their singing and preaching. They give a good external impression of Christianity with their grand cathedrals and buildings, but their inner lives are corrupt. Even so, many of you outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly, you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The Life of a True Prophet

Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 23:29-30, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Consequently, you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.” This is a very common thing. It is very easy to admire the saints who lived hundreds of years ago who are dead. In their lifetime, those saints were called by all types of bad names such as heretics, false prophets, Beelzebul etc. But now that they are dead, people sing their praises. This is true of all the great men that evangelical Christians admire whether it is Martin Luther or John Wesley or William Booth or D. L. Moody or Charles Bernier. It is very easy to admire all these ancient prophets, who were God’s men whom God raised up to stand for Him and to bring forth a certain truth in their lifetime. All those men were called heretics, false prophets, and all types of bad names while they were living. Now we sing their praises.

The living prophets today are maligned in exactly the same way. If there is a living prophet anywhere in the world, he is invariably called a heretic, false teacher, cult leader, etc. just as past prophets were called hundreds of years ago. But once this prophet dies, fifty years later, people will acknowledge him as a prophet. This is how Christians have dealt with the dead and with the living through 2,000 years of church history. This is what Jesus is saying.

The Pharisees said, “We would not have murdered those prophets who lived in ancient times like Isaiah and Zechariah. They were killed by our fathers, but we would not have done that. We would have made monuments and tombs on these people.” But consider how they were treating Jesus Christ, the greatest of all Prophets, Who was walking among them! That showed their hypocrisy.

Jesus says in Matthew 23:32-33, “Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?” We are trying to understand all that Jesus taught by His life, by the way He spoke, and by the words He spoke. A Christlike person is one who behaves like Christ and talks like Christ. What would you say about a preacher who looked at people and said, “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell,” to religious people sitting there with their Bibles in their congregation? Would you ever think that person could be Christlike? He may be the greatest prophet in your generation as Jesus was in His generation, but because of faulty understanding of Christlikeness, you would conclude that he lacks grace and is not Christlike. The word “Christlike” is used by people who do not know what Christ is like. That is how they deceive themselves and deceive others who do not know the Bible and have not read the Gospels. We need to have a balanced understanding of what it means to be Christlike.

Jesus says in Matthew 23:34, “Behold, I am sending you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.” This is the lot given to any true prophet whom God sends. Notice how Jesus says, “I am sending,” meaning, “When I send you a prophet who preaches and lives according to Scripture, you will kill some of them. You will crucify some of them. You will scourge them in your synagogues. You will persecute them from one city to another city and call them all types of names. You chase them around here.” Jesus said in Matthew 23:35-36, “So that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation.”

The Lord was saying that this would be the fate of a true prophet of God. A true prophet is never popular in Christendom. Those who really fear God will love Him and respect Him, just as the people who really feared God in Jesus’ time, loved and respected Him. These were people, like the eleven disciples, who were willing to lay down their lives for Him. But the multitudes of people who studied the Scriptures and were evangelical in their doctrine, like the Pharisees in their time, thought He was a prince of devils and called Him all types of names. It was exactly the same in Paul's time. The religious Jews thought Paul was a false teacher and heretic, but those who really loved Jesus and were the true disciples of Jesus felt Paul was an apostle of God. The way you look at a true servant of God is a pretty good indication of your spiritual condition. If you despise him, you reveal your spiritual condition. If you value him, you know your spiritual condition.

When God’s Patience Ends

Jesus does not say all this without any heart. There is a beautiful balance between truth and grace in the same chapter. He speaks so hard against the Pharisees right up to Matthew 23:36. And then you see these tender words, “Jesus wept over Jerusalem” (Luke 19:41), and “He lamented over Jerusalem,” saying in Matthew 23:37-39, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling! Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!”

A time comes when the patience of God comes to an end. The Lord waited three and a half years for the people of Jerusalem and the religious people to turn and accept Him. But they rejected Him. They wanted to have nothing to do with Him. He was patient with them for a long time. He wanted to gather them like a hen gathers her chicks under wings to protect them from danger and to lead them to God, but they did not want it. He says, “How frequently I wanted to do this! How much I went here and there, travelled here day and night, not serving you for money or any gain, but wanting to bless you. But you are not interested. Now your house is left to you desolate. It is not My Father's house anymore. Once upon a time He called it ‘My Father's house’. Now it is your house.”

It is a sad thing when the Lord turns around to a church and says, “This was My church. Now it is yours. Go and do what you like.” Do you know that the Lord has said that to many churches? If you do not listen to the Word of God, your church can become like that. God sends you prophets to speak the word. The word of a prophet will not be something that tickles your ears. It will be a hard word to remove the cancers from your life. If you keep rejecting it, one day, God's patience will come to an end. He says, “Your house is left to you desolate. From now on, you will not see Me anymore. I am going.” Soon after that, Jesus ascended to heaven. Jesus said, “You will not see Me again until one day you see Me coming in glory (in the second coming) and you will say ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name the Lord.’” By that time, that generation and many other generations would have died and gone to hell. It is a tremendous tragedy when a generation of leaders rejects the Word of God. It affects so many other people. Every pastor, elder, and servant of God must take seriously his responsibility to lead people to the truth of God.

In Matthew 24, Jesus came out from the temple where He was speaking. He was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him saying, “What a beautiful building this is!” Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” He was prophesying this temple will be torn down completely. There would not be one stone left on top of the other. It was something that was going to take place in the future. We know from history that this took place forty years later when the Roman generals came and destroyed the temple. Jesus was prophesying as the Spirit inspired Him about what was going to happen.

When Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, and said, “Tell us, when is that going to be? When is this temple going to be destroyed?” They thought the temple would be destroyed at the second coming of Christ. The disciples also asked, “What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” They asked three questions there. They thought it was all together, but it was not. The temple was destroyed forty years after Christ’s death. The second coming of Christ has still not taken place after two thousand years. The end of the whole age of human history will not happen for another thousand years beyond that.

These were three separate questions that they thought were all one. The temple was such a big thing to them. When it is destroyed, they thought that is the end of the world. But it wasn’t like that. Jesus answered and said, “See to it that no one misleads you.” And in the rest of that chapter, He was answering all three questions together. If we combine the last two questions, we can say Jesus was answering two questions. When will the destruction of the temple happen? When will You return?

The Primary Sign of the End Times

Jesus said, “First of all, I want to say to you do not be deceived. Many will come in my name saying, ‘I'm Christ’ and will mislead many” (Matthew 24:4-5). We need to understand this verse properly. How many people have you seen stand up and say, “I am Jesus Christ”? I think in the history of the world, there may be a handful of lunatics who have said that. How many people would be misled if some person got up in the pulpit and said, “I am Jesus Christ”? I do not think any Christian I know would ever be deceived by that, and certainly no born-again Christian would. So what did Jesus mean? I think we misunderstand that verse. What Jesus is saying is, “Many will come in My Name and say that I am the real Christ and that ‘Jesus is the Messiah.’” Let me read it like this, “Many will come in My name, Jesus’ name, and say, ‘That is right. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah’ and then they will go around misleading people.” If they say Jesus is not the Messiah, then of course they are not even Christians. They are not the ones Jesus is warning about. He is warning about people who accept Jesus as the Messiah and the Christ, and then mislead others.

“Many will come in My Name and say, ‘Yes, it is true that I am the Christ.’” When Jesus is saying “I”, He is referring to Himself, that He is the Christ. Then they will mislead many. That is how you should read that verse, and then you can understand it. There have been many people like that throughout history who have said, “Yes, Jesus is the Christ.” And then they go around with all types of wrong doctrines that have misled millions in these last two thousand years.

What will be the sign of His coming? Widespread deception. Again, Jesus says in Matthew 24:11, “Many false prophets will come and mislead many.” Notice that word “many” is used in both Matthew 24:5 and 24:11. That is the first warning He gave.

In Matthew 24:24-25, Jesus says, “False Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and mislead, if possible, even the elect. I have told you in advance.” It is interesting that although He spoke about many signs like famines, earthquakes, persecution, and wars (Matthew 24:7), the one thing that He keeps repeating at least three times is deception. So what are the primary characteristics of the last days? Will be there be a tremendous amount of deception in Christianity? There will be all types of false teachings. How shall we escape this deception? I think that is the thing that we need to really understand. How shall we escape this deception?

Before we go into what are all types of deception, it says in Matthew 24:24 that there will even be people showing great signs and wonders. Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2:9 that the coming of the anti-Christ will be with a whole lot of false signs and wonders. 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says, “The one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders.” There are going to be a lot of false miracles and counterfeit healings. All types of people will come in the name of Jesus saying, “Jesus is the Messiah,” and deceive many people. How shall we escape such deception?

Escaping Deception

This is answered subtly in 2 Thessalonians 2:10, which describes those who will perish and why. Here is a very important phrase. “Because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” Saved from what? Not from hell, but from sin. Jesus came to save His people from their sins. “For this reason, they did not receive the love of the truth to be saved from sin. Therefore, God Himself will send on them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false.” Ephesians 4:22 says that our lusts are deceitful. Revelation 12:9 says that Satan is a deceiver. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is deceitful.

Our lusts, the heart, and the devil are all trying to deceive us. Our only hope is that God will protect us, but it says that there comes a point when God Himself will turn around and deceive us. Then there is no hope. We have got these three forces deceiving us: our heart, our lusts and the devil. On top of that, if Almighty God also decides to deceive us, then there is absolutely no hope. God is the source of light. If He turns off His light, it becomes darkness. Then we will definitely be deceived. On whom does God send His deluding influence? Those who “do not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”

This is the secret of how to escape deception. First of all, love the truth and seek to be saved from sin. That is it. If you love the truth and seek to be saved from sin, I can guarantee that you will never be deceived. I am absolutely certain because of that verse. God will not deceive you. All these other forces may try to deceive you, but God will keep on giving you light to show you those deceptions. What does it mean to “love the truth?” When God shows you something in yourself, say “Lord, that is true.” Perhaps God shows you something in a meeting or when you are reading the Bible. Or perhaps He shows you in some circumstance that you are selfish or proud or seeking your own. Just be honest and say, “Lord, that is true.” Second, if you see something in Scripture that is contrary to what you have believed all your life, and after you have studied the Scripture carefully, say, “That is the truth.” Love the truth and stand up for it, even if you have to publicly acknowledge, “I was wrong.”

Love the truth. Do not seek your own honor. You will never be deceived. Seek to be saved from sin more than to be saved from sickness and poverty. O Lord, save me from sin. If you follow these two rules - to love the truth about yourself and what you see in God's Word and if you seek to be saved from sin - you can be absolutely sure that in the last days, you will not be deceived. That is our only protection from Satanic deception in the last days.

Chapter 69

Signs of the End Times – Part II

In Matthew 24, Jesus answers the disciples’ question about when the temple would be destroyed and when He would be returning. The first thing He mentioned repeatedly was deception. This is one thing that we should be extremely careful about. A person who goes to buy diamonds or gold is concerned about not getting cheated. Maybe he takes an expert with him who knows all about diamonds and gold. In the same way, if we want to avoid deception, we need to know the Word of God, love the truth, and seek to be saved from sin. We do not escape deception by intellectual sharpness. Many clever people are deceived. The devil came through the serpent. The devil is sharper and cleverer than the cleverest human being. We cannot overcome the devil by cleverness. He is much cleverer than us. He can deceive the cleverest of Christians, and a lot of clever Christians are deceived. We must love the truth, seek to be saved from sin, and seek to obey God. Then we will know the doctrine. This is the word that Jesus spoke in John 7:17, which is relevant in this connection. He says, “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” If I am really desiring deep down in my heart to do the will of God, then I will know the truth.

Wars and Persecution

Jesus says in Matthew 24:6, “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened.” One of the things that Jesus constantly spoke of in relation to the last days with disciples was, “Do not be afraid.” “Fear not” is word that comes many times in His messages, and when He speaks to people. This occurs even in the Old Testament. Do not be afraid. God will be with you. Jesus continues in Matthew 24:6-7, “These things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes. All these things are the beginning of birth pangs.” Wars and rumors of wars is not the end. The second coming of Christ is compared to the birth of a baby. When a mother is looking forward to the birth of a baby, she realizes that before the birth of the baby, she is going to have a period of intense pain. Then only the baby is born. When Jesus speaks about the birth pangs, He is equating wars, rumors of wars, and all these things with only the birth pangs that precede the birth of the baby, His return.

He then speaks about persecution in Matthew 24:9, “They will deliver you to tribulation and they will kill you and you'll be hated by all nations on account of My name.” Do we look forward to tribulation? No. Does the mother look forward to the birth pains? No. What is she looking forward to? The birth of the baby. But she knows that the birth pains will come before. She definitely knows that. We do not look forward to tribulation, but we know the tribulation will come before the coming of Christ without a doubt. It is one of the signs of the last days.

This is one of the clearest things that Jesus spoke. speaks of wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines, but nobody speaks of the fact that there will be tribulation (a great tribulation) before Christ comes again, and yet Jesus spoke about it so clearly. The reason is because the devil has deceived the vast majority of Christendom saying, “You will not go through the great tribulation. Christ will come and secretly rapture all of you. You will escape the tribulation.” There is not one verse in Scripture that teaches that! It is a lie of the devil! He has fooled many evangelical Christians with it. Jesus said that they will deliver you up to tribulation. In John 16:33, Jesus said, “In the world, you will have tribulation.” Tribulation is not the judgment of God. Christians will never face the judgment of God. Tribulation is always from men. If there is a tribulation from God, that Christians will escape. Wars and famines are not tribulation from God. There are many wars and famines that have taken place in history where even Christians have suffered. It is not a judgment from God. Far from it.

Jesus says that at that time, many will fall away and we will deliver up one another and hate one another. One reason people fall away at that time is because their leaders never prepared them for tribulation. They were told that Christ would come in secretly and rapture them. They were waiting for that and when tribulation came, they were not prepared and they fell away. This actually happened in China, where for many years, the missionaries taught them that Christ would come and rapture them. Then when tribulation came, many of them fell away from the faith. Whose failure was that? It was the failure of the missionaries who did not teach them that there would be tribulation before the rapture and Christ’s second coming.

Enduring to the End

Jesus said in Matthew 24:10-12, “At that time, many will fall away, not just a few. They will hate one another and deliver up one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness has increased, most people's love will grow cold.” There is going to be a lot of sin in the world, particularly through the entertainment industry in movies, music, internet pornography, and other types of entertainment. Sin is going to increase and abound with adultery and homosexuality. The love of many will become cold. Instead of loving Jesus fervently, they will cool off. They may not give up Christ completely. It does not say they will forsake Christ. They will just cool off in their love for God, and they will cool off their love for one another. They will hate one another, but the one who endures in love to Christ and to one another will be saved. In the context, Matthew 24:13 is referring to love. Most people's love will grow cold, but in the context, “the one who endures to the end will be saved,” means that the one who endures in fervent love for Christ and for others, no matter how people treat him, will be saved.

Salvation comes to the one who is willing to endure in love until the end. That is why love is the greatest. It is not understanding of doctrine that is greatest. It is fervent love for Jesus and fervent love for one another. This is the message we have to proclaim in the last days to preserve people from cooling off. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world, not the gospel of escaping from hell. There is a lot of difference between the gospel of escaping from hell, the gospel of financial prosperity, and the gospel of healing, and the gospel of the kingdom of God. What is the gospel of the kingdom of God, which Jesus said had to be preached in the whole world for a witness? Do not say everybody will be converted, for the way to life is narrow and very few find it. But it will be proclaimed as a witness. This is the gospel of the kingdom as described in Romans 14:17, “The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

What is going to be proclaimed in the last days? It is the gospel of the kingdom of God. This is the gospel of righteousness. This is a gospel of peace, peace with God and peace with men. This is a gospel of peace in your heart with no strife, panic, turmoil, and peace in the home. This is a gospel of joy, of perpetual joy under all circumstances. This is the gospel that is going to be preached in the last days. You should belong to a church that is preaching righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is the church you should belong to.

In Matthew 24:14, Jesus said that this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed as a witness to all nations. God does not want the gospel to go everywhere. The ultimate result of it is that there will be a pure testimony for the Lord in every nation. There must be a testimony for the Lord in every nation for a witness to all the nations. It does not mean everybody will be converted. I do not think everybody will even get an opportunity to hear. But there will be a witness to the Lord in all nations. Unfortunately, many people's emphasis is more on the quantity. People say, “We must get the gospel to everybody!” This is a good desire. Jesus Himself said to take the gospel to all creatures. That is fine, but in a country like India, where we have one child born almost every second or 3,600 babies born in an hour, you need to reach 3,600 people in an hour to be able to reach India alone, let alone all other countries! We do not want to deceive ourselves. It is almost impossible to reach every single individual with the gospel, especially with all the different languages out there. But we can have a witness in every nation, a pure, uncompromising, quality witness for Christ. That is the great need of the hour. If we do not concentrate on that, we will be trying to spread a wishy-washy, third-rate, useless Christianity everywhere. We have a social gospel that includes doing good, which the world will appreciate. They will give you awards for it. But that is not the gospel that Jesus preached. That is a by-product of the gospel. We are not against it, but the gospel must produce a pure witness for Christ.

Jesus next speaks about the destruction of the temple, which is another question the disciples had asked. He says in Matthew 24:15, “When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand).” The holy place is in the temple. It is only referring to the Jewish time, because now there is no temple for a church. The church does not have a holy place, but Jesus is answering that first question about when the temple will be destroyed. He is answering that the temple be destroyed when you see the abomination of desolation in the holy place, which refers to the most holy place that is. I have heard it said that there was a pig sacrificed on the altar in the most holy place to desecrate that place in the eyes of the Jews. That is probably the abomination of desolation that happened in the time when the temple was destroyed. He says that when you see that, “let the reader understand.” You will understand it when it happens. Jesus was speaking about something that would take place forty years later. Jesus then says, “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” He is speaking specifically to the Jewish people. This is not for the last days. This is not the answer to the second question of His second coming. It is the answer to the first question of when will the temple be destroyed.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:16, “Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and if you are on the housetop, do not wait to go down and get anything.” In other words, just run. If you are out in the field, do not turn back to your house. Just run because it is going to be a time of persecution. Woe unto those who have a child in those days or are nursing babies. It is going to be tough for them because now they are going to run with their babies. Jesus said, “But pray that your flight will not be in the winter because it is going to be difficult to run in winter. Pray that your flight will not be on a Sabbath day because you will easily be detected” (Matthew 24:15-20 paraphrase). This is referring to the Jews. The Jews did not move on a Sabbath day. If the Romans see people running, then the Romans will detect them. So pray that it will not be like that.

Prayers can change things, and those who took that seriously would have prayed, because Jesus said that then there will be great tribulation such as not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will be. Now He is answering the second question. Jesus in Matthew 24:21-22, “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” Jesus is referring to a time two thousand years later from the time the temple was destroyed. There is a fixed period that God has determined for the elect to go through tribulation. When the Lord was speaking to the churches in Revelation, He says to the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2:10, “You are going to have tribulation for ten days.” It is for a fixed period. God allows it, and then it will be over. This is the great comfort we have in any tribulation we go through. God will not allow us to be tested beyond our ability. It is a fixed period determined by God before it starts. Now we do not know when it ends, but God knows already when the end is. In one way or the other, God will put it to an end. We have seen that happen in different countries that God puts it to an end after some time. You see that happen in Rome. There was terrible persecution in the second and third centuries. In the beginning of the fourth century, God put it to an end. Similarly, this time will be cut short.

In those days, if anyone says, “O, He has come! He is there!” or, “The rapture has taken place!” do not believe it. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 about the coming of Christ and our rapture and being taken up to be with Him. Now Paul writes starting in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, “Now we request you brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus and our gathering together to Him. Do not be shaken from your composure or be disturbed, either by some person claiming to speak in a spirit, or a message saying that the rapture has taken place and the day of the Lord has come, and you fellas are left behind. Do not believe it. Let no one deceive you, because that day will not come until first there is a great falling away in the church (we see this happening now), and until the man of lawlessness, the son of perdition and of destruction who opposes and exalts himself, is revealed. That day will not come until the antichrist is revealed. Do you not remember that while I was with you, I was telling you these things? You know that now that the power of God is restraining him until that particular time when that power will move out of way so that he can be revealed.”

God restrains many things in this world. He restrains demons from possessing every human being. There is a restraining force on earth, and there is a restraint upon the coming forth of the antichrist. He has waited for two thousand years. One day that restraining force will move out of the way, and the antichrist will be revealed. Some people say the Holy Spirit will be removed, but no, the Holy Spirit will be here because nobody is going to be converted without the Holy Spirit. People will be converted in the days of the antichrist because the Holy Spirit leads people to repentance. The Holy Spirit will be here very much so.

We hardly hear anybody telling us of the tremendous time of persecution that we will face, a time so difficult that Jesus says, "And unless those days had been cut off, no life would have been saved" (Matthew 24:22).

The Rapture

Jesus says in Matthew 24:24-27, “False Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, and mislead, if possible, even the elect. I have told you in advance. I warned you in advance. There is going to be deception, fake miracles, and do not believe anybody who says ‘He is coming here,’ or ‘He is coming there,’ or that the rapture is taking place in secret. Do not believe it if anyone says ‘He is in the wilderness,’ or ‘He is here! He is in the inner rooms!' Do not believe it when somebody says, ‘Christ came to my room and sat beside me.’ Do not believe it because when He comes, it will not be in secret. Just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so will the coming of Son of Man be.”

It is such a crystal-clear statement of the Lord. I cannot understand how anybody in the world can believe that the coming of the Lord is secret. The coming of the Son of Man will be like lightning. The teaching of a secret rapture is only about a hundred and fifty years old in Christendom. The early apostles never believed it, and the early Christians never believed it. Nowhere is that written in the Scriptures! People in persecuted countries never believed it. It arose in countries that never had persecution for years, such as England and America. That is where the teaching of a secret rapture originated. But because they had a great influence on Christianity around the world, they spread that doctrine around the world. People spread it through the Scofield Bible and gradually, everybody began to believe it. But it is not the truth, and a lot of people have been deceived. They will not be ready for the tribulation because the devil has fooled them to believe that they will never face it. It is better to believe what the Bible says.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:28, “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” Jesus is using an illustration. The vultures gather where there is a corpse. Perhaps it means that it will be a time of great judgment, and many will die when Christ comes. Or perhaps it means that we will be drawn to Christ just like vultures are drawn to the corpse automatically. We do not know exactly, and we would not like to be dogmatic on that interpretation. As to when the rapture will take place, the answer is here in Matthew 24:29, “Immediately after tribulation (the great tribulation He mentioned in Matthew 24:21), the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then (only then!) after that, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. All the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”

That is the time when His elect are going to be gathered up in rapture. This fits in with what is written in 1 Thessalonians 4, where we are told about the details of the rapture, but not about the time. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16, it says that the Lord Himself will descend. He speaks with a shout, the voice of the Archangel, and the trumpet of God. Notice these expressions, “Lord will descend,” “the Archangel,” “trumpet of God,” and “we who are alive will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Notice the same things are mentioned in Matthew 24: the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky (Mathew 24:30), the trumpet (Matthew 24:31), and the angels and the elect being raptured up (Matthew 24:31). When will it take place? It is not mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4, but mentioned in Matthew 24:29. The rapture will happen immediately after the great tribulation, after the antichrist is revealed. This is similar to what is written in 2 Thessalonians 2.

It is so crystal clear! I do not know how in the world Satan has managed to fool millions of Christians. I will tell you how. They do not study the Bible. They just believe what some preacher says. If you have a Bible in your own language and you do not read it, then you deserve to be deceived. That is clear. I want to encourage you to read the Bible so that you will never be deceived.

Next, He speaks about one single sign, the sign of the fig tree. “When its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near” (Matthew 24:32). That is referring to the nation of Israel. We considered the fig tree being cursed earlier in this study. But it will “put forth its leaves” again. This is not referring to something spiritual in the nation of Israel. There is no fruit there. But Israel will come forth as a nation again. That dead fig tree is going to be revived. “Then you know that summer is here. Even so, you know when these things happen, recognize that Jesus is near. His coming is near. That generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matthew 24:33-34). That is why we feel that we are in the last generation. How long until that is going to take place? Whether this generation is for seventy years or forty years, I do not know, but it is going to be the last generation. We see all these signs. Jesus said in Matthew 24:26, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. But that day and hour no one knows.” No one knows the exact date. That is clear. All these people who claim to predict an exact date are just fooling you.

But He said “you will know when He is near.” There are two truths here in Matthew 24:33. You will know when He is near, but the exact day and hour no one will know. We are not to look for an exact date like some people saying that on such-and-such date, Christ will come. Through the years, so many people have predicted Christ’s return and all that turned out to be false. But at the same time, we are not to remain in ignorance of it saying, “Well, it is just the same as it has always been.” Peter says that critics will say that a lot of people have been talking about the coming of Christ for ages, but everything is going on just like before. In 2 Peter 3:4, Peter writes, “Where is the promise of His coming? Since the fathers fell asleep everything is going on just like in the beginning of creation…”. But it escapes their notice that God is waiting patiently.” We will know that the coming of Christ is near, but we do not know the exact date. Let us be ready for His coming.

Chapter 70

The Second Coming of Jesus

Jesus Gave up His Omniscience

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matthew 24:36). This is another proof that Jesus Christ had become completely man and temporarily gave up the privileges of deity. One of the privileges of God is omniscience - the ability to know everything. God knows everything, and Jesus Christ, being equal with the Father from all eternity as Son of God, knew everything when He was in Heaven. When He came to Earth, He took upon Himself the limitations of man. One of the limitations of man is that we don't know everything. Our mind is limited in knowledge and understanding, especially of the future. So Jesus could say as a man that He didn’t know the date of His second coming (Matthew 24:36); but that's not true today, because Jesus has gone back to Heaven. He has gone back to the position of being equal with the Father,

End Times like the Days of Noah

In Matthew 24:37-39, Jesus says, “But the coming of the Son of Man is like the days of Noah. For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying, giving in marriage, until that day Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.” This means that judgment will come suddenly. The people who were in Noah’s time saw the animals getting inside the ark. At least that should have woken some of them up to come to Noah and repent in the last minute. But their hearts were so hardened that even when they saw that, they did not repent of their sin. Rain had never fallen on Earth since the days of Adam (Genesis 2). There was no rain those days, but still Noah was preaching that there was going to be rain, and all of a sudden, the rain came and flooded the earth, and everybody was killed.

It is going to be like that when Jesus comes again. The warning signs will be there, but people will ignore them. “In that day two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding in the mill; one will be taken and the other will be left” (Matthew 24:40,41). Suddenly, judgment will come, and some will be taken up to be with the Lord, while others will be left behind. Some will be judged, and some will escape judgment. So what shall we do? We should not concentrate on trying to find out when these things are going to take place, because nobody knows the exact day or hour. We just see the general signs - the nation of Israel is becoming one - and we know that He is near.

Wait Faithfully for the Lord

The whole purpose of the Lord talking about His second coming was to enable us to be on the alert. We don't know which day He is coming, so we must always be on the alert. That means we must be ready at all times. It's something like a bridegroom who is engaged to a girl. He has gone on a long journey to a far country and tells her to wait for Him. The faithful virgin will wait faithfully until he returns. She will refuse other offers for marriage because she is waiting for her bridegroom. That's the way a true Christian should be waiting, not allowing the world and other things to drive him away from devotion to Christ.

The Lord is testing His bride to see whether she will be faithful. What would you think of a girl who is engaged to a man but is also fooling around with other men? One would call her a harlot, and that's what you read of in the last chapters of Revelation - “Babylon the harlot” and “Jerusalem the bride.” In the period before Christ comes, there are two attitudes that people who call themselves believers can have. One is of devotion to Christ and faithfulness to their absent Bridegroom. The other is of playing the fool with the world and living for oneself, thinking that because the Bridegroom's coming is delayed, it doesn't matter how they live. Such people will get a tremendous shock when Christ comes back. Therefore Jesus says to “be on the alert, for you don't know when the Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).

He Will Come like a Thief to Unbelievers

“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you be ready too; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will” (Matthew 24:43). If a thief had given advance warning to a house saying, “I'm coming there at 2:45 tomorrow morning, so be ready,” the house owner would have been ready. But no thief gives any warning like that.

The coming of Christ is likened to the coming of a thief in the night for the unbeliever. Many Christians misunderstand that, and think Christ’s coming will be like a thief in the night even for believers, but that is not so. 1 Thessalonians 5: 2-4, “You yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.” For the unbelievers the day will come like a thief, but we should be expecting it. We are sons of light, sons of the day. We don't belong to the night or the darkness. So then let us not sleep spiritually as others do, but always be on the alert and sober. “For those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having as a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:5-8).

It is very clear that for believers, the coming of Christ will not be like a thief in the night. A person who is a child of light is not living in darkness; his life is in the light all the time. Jesus compares His coming to the suddenness and unexpectedness of a thief in the night for the unbeliever. It is very important for us to understand this as we read Matthew 24:43.

The Faithful and Unfaithful Slaves

Then, in Matthew 24:45, Jesus says, “Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master will put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time?” This is a very important verse for all true servants of the Lord. A servant of the Lord must be faithful and a wise steward. Faithfulness in small things and the ability to handle everything (his time, life, money, etc.) in a wise manner is very important. The Master puts such people in charge of His family. The Master doesn't handle everything in the family Himself. He has appointed apostles, prophets, and elders to be in charge of His family, and their job is to give the household the right food at the right time. This is the calling of every true servant of God. God needs someone who is faithful and wise, and who will stick to doing the job that God has given him to do. “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes” (Matthew 24:46). This means that, when the Lord comes, he is faithful to do that particular thing which his Master called him to do. What will the Master do when He sees His servant faithfully serving Him when He comes? He will put Him in charge of all His possessions.

“But if that slave says, ‘Well my master is not going to come for a long, long time,’ and instead of being faithful to his job, he plays the fool and begins to enjoy himself, and beats his fellow slaves and eats and drinks with the drunkards…” (Matthew 24:48-49). What does it mean to beat fellow slaves? A lot of preachers beat people in their messages. We're not supposed to beat people. There is a contrast given here between feeding them the food at the proper time (verse 45), and beating them (verse 49). If you preach God's Word, do you feed, or do you beat? If you beat, you’re neither a faithful slave nor a faithful servant of God. You have to feed the people, not beat them. This shows the difference between a true faithful servant of God and one who is not.

Those of you who don't preach but are listening to other preachers -- keep your ears open. Do you sense that the preacher is trying to beat you? Then he is not a servant of God, and you should just ignore him. If, however, you find that he is feeding you, then he is a true servant of God. Sometimes when a preacher tries to challenge you, it may feel like you’re being beaten up, but you can sense in your spirit that he's trying to encourage you to a higher life. We need to distinguish between that feeling and the beating that some people give from a pulpit accusing people that, “you're like this,” and, “you're good for nothing,” etc. You have to be careful.

“The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know” - this is the word to all those preachers who beat others from the pulpit - “he will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:50-51). It’s a pretty serious thing to beat God's children from the pulpit, and God takes it very seriously. Brother, be sure when you speak God's Word that you don't beat people but feed them. Be a faithful servant. God needs such faithful servants in the last day.

Jesus replies to the question about the second coming over the course of many verses, and He focuses much more on how to be ready than on the details of His coming. A lot of people are very excited to study the signs of the second coming of Christ - there are people who write books on it and become millionaires, but that's not the point. We are called to be ready for a second coming, not just to know all the signs.

Parable of the Virgins

Jesus speaks about being ready for His second coming as a servant of God in Matthew 24:42-51. Then in Matthew 25, He teaches three parables that speak about being ready for His coming in different aspects. The first is concerning our inner life. In Matthew 25:1-13, Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven can be compared to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.” This is a picture of Christians waiting for the coming of Christ, “five of them were foolish, and five were wise or prudent.” And their foolishness and wisdom were seen in that, “The foolish took their lamps as they were burning, but they didn’t take any extra oil (more than what was in the lamp) with them. The wise took oil in a small flask along with their lamps (perhaps they had a little pocket in their gown or robe in which they put this flask of oil). And while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep (the bridegroom delayed, he didn't come when they expected him to come). And at midnight there was a shout saying, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all the virgins rose and trimmed their lamps (all ten began to trim their lamps because their lamps had been burning), but the foolish said to the wise, ‘Our lamps are dying out, please give us some of your oil’ (this shows that their lamp had been burning all that time, but now they were dying out)….”

This is not talking about believers and unbelievers. Virgins whose lamps are burning, who go out to meet the bridegroom, are obviously born-again Christians. But something is missing in five of them: a flask full of oil.

“…The wise answered them saying, ‘How can we give you the oil? There won't be enough for us. This is not something we can give you. Go to the dealers and buy some for yourself.’” The man who found the hidden treasure in the field sold all that he had and bought it. The man who found the pearl of a good price bought it. Paul says, “I count everything as loss, as rubbish, for the sake of Christ whom I have found” (Philippians 3:8). There is a price to be paid here. Revelation 3:18 says, “I counsel thee to buy from Me gold tried in fire and buy from Me eye salve to anoint your eyes, so you can see…” There are certain things in the Christian life that have to be bought, that you have to pay a price for. Forgiveness of sins is free, receiving the Holy Spirit and baptism in the Holy Spirit are free, but there are many other things in the Christian life for which you have to pay a price. To develop your character to be more like Christ, you have to pay a price. And so the wise people say, “Hey, there were dealers all along who can give you oil.” And I believe that the dealers of the oil are the trials and the circumstances that we face in life. If we ignore them, we won’t get oil. We must make use of all these dealers that come our way. There are many trials and circumstances that we face in our life, and we can get oil from each one of them so that we can be ready to meet Jesus when He comes.

“…While the unwise virgins were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut (there is a time going to come when the door will be shut). Later the other foolish virgins also came saying, ‘Lord, lord open for us,’ but he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’ So be on the alert, for you do not know the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:1-13).

Jesus taught that there will be people who would not be ready for His coming, even though they were virgins, and even though they had their lamps burning in the beginning. Suppose the bridegroom had come one hour earlier, at 11pm. The five foolish virgins would have looked like wise virgins because their lamps were burning. When they started out, all 10 had their lamps burning, but it was the delay of the bridegroom that revealed the folly of the foolish virgins.

Time Reveals True Heart Condition

Time has a way of revealing many things. Many believers may seem to be very wholehearted and zealous. I always say, wait and see. Time will show whether a person is faithful and steadfast; fruit will come from his life. Do not form a quick judgment and assume that he is wholehearted, because many who appeared to have their lamps burning don't have any oil in secret; they don't have any hidden life. The wise virgins had a lamp burning on the outside and a flask of oil in their pockets. It's a picture of a believer who's got a lamp - the light of his life burning clearly as a testimony to others - but he also has an extra supply, areas in his life which are yielded to the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit -- that's the flask full of oil. Oil is a picture the Holy Spirit. This person has a flask full of oil and inner devotion to Jesus Christ, the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit, and love for God and for others. The foolish virgins just live for the moment. They are not worried about the future, and just make sure there's enough oil to burn right now. Their life is very superficial, and time is what exposes them. Time is a great revealer. Some Christians are like shooting stars - they suddenly appear in the sky and they seem so zealous and on fire, but a year later, you don't know where they are. Their lamp has died out. Time is a great revealer of everything, and when Christ comes, then it will be too late to go and “look for oil,” to seek for the fullness of the Spirit and be ready in our inner life.

To Be Ready, Be Filled with the Holy Spirit

Now is the time to make sure your flask is full of oil, that your heart is full of love. Now is the time to make sure that there is no bitterness, no unforgiving spirit, and no jealousy. Make sure that every nook and corner of your heart has been filled by the Holy Spirit and the love of God, for that is the flask of oil that will prepare you for the last days. The five wise had a flask full of oil symbolizing the fullness of the Holy Spirit; a heart full of love that enabled them to endure until the end. That links with Matthew 24:12-13 because sin is going to increase in the last days and most people’s love will grow cold. The flame is going to die out. If you don't have a fullness of the Holy Spirit within flooding your heart with God's love, as it says in Romans 5:5, you will not be able to endure until the end. The one who endures until the end will be saved. The five wise virgins endured till the end because they had a flask of oil, symbolizing the fullness of the Holy Spirit that floods our heart with love for God and love for one another. That's what we need to seek earnestly in these days, and that is the way to be prepared and alert for the coming of the Lord. It is not just keeping our good conscience, but also really seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit within, and to have the love of God within our hearts.

There is so much deception in the world today; make sure your heart is filled with the genuine Holy Spirit. Many are going around leading people to counterfeit experiences of “the fullness of the Holy Spirit.” If it is really the fullness of the Holy Spirit, it will make the lamp burn bright. The light is the life of Jesus. “In Him was life and that life was the light of men” (John 1:4). That life is the thing that we need, and for that we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is God's will. So I want to encourage you to seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, seek that your flask is full of oil so that your light can burn bright, and that the life of Jesus can come forth from you. This is the only way to be ready for the second coming of Christ.

Chapter 71

Parable of Talents

Proper Stewardship of God’s Gifts

The first parable that Jesus spoke in relation to being prepared for the second coming of Christ was in Matthew 24:43 onwards, about a servant who is always ready serve people. He knows the Lord will come suddenly and gives the people food at the proper time. Next, in Matthew 25:1-13 Jesus speaks of our personal life and our walk with God. In verse 14 onward, He talks about our ministry and the gifts God has given us. Each of these parables has a different aspect of the Christian life, the first for those who are given responsibility in God's house to serve God's people, the second one about the virgins, about our personal life, and the third one about being faithful with the gifts God has given us.

Matthew 25:14 says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who is going on a long journey,” that's the picture of Christ who is going to heaven and will return after two thousand years, “who called on his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.” The gifts of the Spirit are God's possessions. They are not ours. He has entrusted them to us to be used as stewards for His glory. We are not supposed to use any gift that God gives us for our own glory, yet so many people do that. They use God’s gifts, whether preaching or healing, to get honor and glory and a lot of money for themselves. That's a sin. It's a crime. When it comes to gifts, God gives different numbers of gifts to different people. Some have more and some have less. Not all are equal.

There is another parable in Luke 19 where everybody gets the same amount. In Luke 19:11 onwards, Jesus speaks about a man who called his slaves and gave them each of them one mina. There, everybody was equal. That refers to areas in our life where we are all equal as believers. For example all of us have 24 hours a day. What we do with our time is up to us. It could also refer to temptation. The range of temptations is exactly the same for all human beings. We are all tempted to anger, lust, be selfish, proud, bitter, jealous, etc. Different people overcome to different extents.

God's Sovereign Choice of Gifts

In this parable, Jesus is talking about different levels of gifts that He has given to different people. To one He has given five, to another two, and to another one. We may ask why God has given more to some and less to others. That is His sovereign choice. 1 Corinthians 12 says that the Holy Spirit sovereignly chooses whom to give what gifts to and we cannot question it. He chooses one to be an apostle and another to be just a help, which is also a gift (1 Corinthians 12:28). God sovereignly chooses that; we cannot decide what we want. The Bible does say that we can all seek to prophesy. We can’t be prophets, but we can all seek to prophesy. Other than that, it is God Who sovereignly chooses to give gifts to each person. Think of a man like the Apostle Paul. He was an apostle, prophet, evangelist, teacher, and shepherd all rolled into one. He had all five. Some have received two, and some have one.

What matters is what we do with these gifts. The one who received the five talents went and traded with them and gained five more talents. It was something immediate; he didn't waste time. It is a wonderful thing when God gives us the Holy Spirit's power and certain gifts that we immediately begin to use them to serve and earn something for the Master. This man was not earning for himself. The five talents that he got were to be given to the master; that is the important thing. We must remember that when God gives us a gift and we get something from it, it's His! Whatever profit you get from the exercise of your gift does not belong to you. It belongs to the Lord. The one who is faithful will recognize that. He won't take the credit or glory to himself. He will give it all to the Lord. We are earning for the Lord; we are seeking the preeminence of Christ in everything. In the same manner, the one who received two talents went and gained two more. He also did it immediately. But the one who received one talent went away, dug it in the ground, and hid his master's money.

This is the person who perhaps used his one talent to get some honor for himself. “Dug it in the ground” means he connected it to this earth, and used it in a very earthly way. How do people use earthly gifts? For themselves! They don't use them for the glory of God or for others. Worldly-minded people don't seek the glory of God. This is a picture of a man who had a gift and he buried it in the ground. He behaved just like worldly people with that gift. He used it for his own glory, honor, or to make money for himself, and there are millions of people like this, or who just don't do anything with it. God gives them a gift and they just bury it and forget it because they're busy making money or doing something else in the world.

So he dug it in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of the slaves came and settled accounts with them (Matthew 25:19). “The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents saying, ‘You entrusted me five talents, see I have gained five more talents.’ His master said, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with the few things, I’ll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master'. The one who received two talents came up and said, 'Master you entrusted me two talents, see I have gained two more.’ His master said, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your lord.'”

Notice that the reward or commendation that he gave to the person who earned five was exactly the same as what he gave to the person who earned two. When you see a man has two talents and someone else has five, you think the second man has more; yet in God's eyes, they are the same. That is why the one who has five should not look down upon the one who has two or think he is better, because God has given him more! That is why he has more. God has given this man less because He is expecting less from Him. Ultimately, it's a question of percentages. If you produced a return of two more from an initial two, you obtained a hundred percent increase. If the man with five talents produced only two more, he only got forty percent. His reward will be much lower than the man who earned two.

This teaches us that we cannot compare the results of our service with one another. Unfortunately there is a lot of comparison amongst Christians. One church compares itself with another church. Secretly one preacher compares his ministry with somebody else's; he thinks he has accomplished so much for the Lord. It is very difficult to assess. It is almost impossible because God alone knows how much He has given us, and it is percentage return that matters, not how many talents you have. If God gave five and we get five, then it is a hundred percent. If God gave that man only two and he got two that would be 100 percent, and the man who got one only needs to get one more. He would get exactly the same reward and commendation as the other two. It is very important to recognize this; any type of comparison of our own ministry and especially success in our ministry with somebody else's is absolutely foolish.

Why Talents Get Buried

It says further, “When the master came to the person who had one talent, the man said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, gathering where you scattered no seed. I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, what you have is yours.’ His master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival, I would have received my money back with some interest. So take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has ten talents’” (Matthew 25:24-25).

What do we learn from this? The man said, “I knew you to be a hard man.” He had a wrong concept of God! That is why he buried the talent. He thought God was a hard and demanding taskmaster who reaped where He had sowed nothing. God isn't like that. God is so tender, compassionate, totally understanding, and forgiving. He's not a hard Person at all. When we have a wrong concept of God, the result is that we waste our life and we waste the talents God has given us. So it is very, very important to have a proper understanding of God as a very loving Father.

Do you know God as a very, very loving Father? That is so important if we are to be effective in our service and if we are to be ready for the coming of the Lord. Everything hinges on knowing the true nature of God. There are many Christians who think of God as a very hard, legalistic Person Who is sticky about rules, and that is because many preachers have portrayed Him that way. The way many preachers are sticky about little rules gives people the impression that God is like that. But He is not. God is totally unlike any preacher you have ever seen. He is the kindest and most compassionate Person in the universe, a Person Who is very easy to talk to, One Who understands everything about us – “like a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him,” the Bible says. Like a mother cares for a sucking child, God cares for us, but this person did not know that. It was a wrong understanding of God that prevented him from making use of what God had given him. And that’s possibly true in your life as well. God has given you things and you have not been able to use them to their full potential, not because you're not faithful, but because you have a wrong understanding of God. It is very important to recognize that.

What does the master call this person? He calls him a “wicked, lazy salve.” To be lazy is to be wicked. Why was he lazy? Because he couldn't bother about trading that money. Serving God is a lot of hard work. There is no doubt about it. There is a certain amount of risk involved in serving God as well. When you try to trade money, there is a certain amount of risk involved, but if we really trust God, He helps us. This man was wicked and lazy, and that is what the Lord is going to say to anyone who has not used the talent God has given him. You need to ask yourself whether you are using whatever God has given you. It may not only be in spiritual gifts. Maybe He has given you money to use for His service. To some He gives in abundance, to some a little less, some much less. But everyone has something that they can use. You have free time, energy, and spiritual gifts. Are you using them all for the glory of God? That's a very, very important question.

If you don't, God says to take it away and give it to the one who already has ten, "For to everyone who has, shall more be given, and he shall have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. Cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 25:28-30). That's a pretty terrifying thing; that if God has given us something and we just don't care for it, if we waste it and spend it on ourselves, we can end up in outer darkness for all eternity.

We are answerable to God; that is what many Christians don't realize. The very fact that we have life, that God has allowed us to be born on earth and we have the resources of earth God has given us brings upon us a tremendous responsibility. We are answerable to God for how we use the one life God has given us. If we neglect and bury it and don’t care for God, outer darkness is our eternal destiny.

The meaning of verse 29 is that to everyone who has something and is faithful with what he has, God will give him more. “To everyone who has shall more be given.” Someone who has something, and is very faithful in using that thing for the glory of God, will have more given to him. But if someone has something, and he doesn't use it at all, then gradually he can lose even what he has. We need to heed the parable of the talents.

Day of Judgment

Then we have another picture of the final Day of Judgment, the basis on which God judges us. This is the message of the four parables beginning in Matthew 24:45. The faithful slave who serves the master’s food to those at the table, the wise virgins, using the talents God gives us faithfully, and next, Jesus speaks about the way we treat others who are in need around us. “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels He will sit on His glorious throne and all the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats" (Matthew 25:31-32). This is one place in Scripture where Jesus talks about sheep and goats. Sheep are generally a picture of those who are His children, and goats a picture of those who are not.

When all the nations gathered before Him, He is going to separate them one from another like sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right side and the goats on the left. The King will say to those on His right, the sheep, “Come you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” There is a kingdom prepared for some people from before the worlds were created. Before Genesis 1:1, God reserved something for certain people whom He was going to create. Not just for anyone, but for those who used their life in a particular way. It says here, “I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me.” These are called the righteous in verse 37.

So what does the righteous do? They see Jesus in their fellow believers - that's the first thing you need to see. “The righteous say, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and gave You a drink, or when did we see You a stranger or naked, see you sick or in prison?’ The King will answer and say, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me.’” When we do something for a brother, even giving a cup of cold water, Jesus said we're doing it unto Him. If you give me something in my hand, you are giving it to my body, and that includes my head. So when you help a brother in Christ, the head takes note of what you've done for one of His children! “When that hungry brother was there, it was Me. You saw Me and you fed Me, when that thirsty person was there that believer you saw Me!”

This is not referring to general social work; very often this passage is misunderstood. People think from misunderstanding this passage that those who do social work are going to God's kingdom and those who don't do social work will be lost. But read carefully. Foolishness comes when people don't read Scripture carefully. What does it say here exactly? Jesus said, "In as much as you've done it to the least of these brothers of Mine" (Matthew 25:40). Not to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, or beggar, “in as much as you helped all these people in the world,” or, “In as much as you helped all these creatures of Mine…” No, His comments are limited to a certain category of people. “To the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine…” Who are the brothers of Jesus? Jesus already defined that. Earlier we saw that Jesus said that those who do the will of God are His brothers (Matthew 12:50). The brothers of Jesus are His disciples. So this passage is referring only to those who helped His disciples, not to those in social work for everybody in the world. You may say “God doesn’t care for the people in the world?” He certainly does, but this parable is not referring to that. Galatians 6:10 says, “Do good to all men, but especially to the household of faith.”

Then the goats come and the Lord says, “’Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; because when I was hungry, you didn’t give Me anything to eat; I was thirsty, and you didn’t give Me anything to drink; I was sick and you didn’t visit; I was in prison, and you did not come and see Me.’ And they say, 'Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty?’ And He says, ‘In as much as you didn't do to the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ They will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” There is eternal punishment and there is eternal life. Just like eternal life exists forever, eternal punishment is a punishment that goes on forever; that's pretty clear.

This is a contrast with another group that we considered earlier, in Matthew 7. When the Lord reminds the righteous of what they did for Him, they don't remember it. Righteous people don't keep a record of the good they've done, whereas in Matthew 7, the group of people who are standing at the judgment seat of Christ remember very well what they did - that they prophesied, cast out demons and did many miracles (Matthew 7:22). And yet the Lord says, “Depart from Me, for I don't even know you.”

Do you keep a record of all the things that you have done, which you think you've done for the Lord, all the sacrifices that you have made? Or are you in the category of this the group mentioned in Matthew 25:35-40 who say, 'Lord we don't remember what we did for You'? May the Lord help us to do good, and then to forget about it. Then we'll be ready for the coming of Christ.

Chapter 72

God’s Sovereignty, Poured out for Jesus, Danger of Getting Offended

Key Messages in Jesus’s Last Words to His Disciples

“When Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion’” (Matthew 26:1-2).

“When Jesus had finished all these words” refers to the last words that He spoke before He went to Gethsemane and before He went to Jerusalem for the final days before the crucifixion. There was a time when someone anointed His feet with oil. Then we read of the last supper and then He went to the cross. This was just a short while before He went to the cross. These were the last messages He spoke to His disciples. In the Last Supper, He spoke to them about the coming of the Holy Spirit, etc. in John 14:15-16. We also read His prayer in John 17.

Prior to all that, it is very interesting to see that the last words that Jesus spoke were related to faithfulness and being ready for His coming in our personal life, as described in the story about the virgins. He spoke about the use of the gifts God has given us in the story of the talents. He spoke about our relationship with others who are needy in the church and how we treat and serve the sick. It is very interesting to see the contrast between those who enter God's kingdom and those who do not. The ones who entered God’s kingdom simply visited the sick. In Matthew 25:36, Jesus said, “I was sick, and you visited Me.” All they did was to visit the sick, and they get into God's kingdom. Whereas in Matthew 7:22, those who heal the sick go to hell. Isn’t that interesting? Those who healed the sick went to hell (Matthew 7:22), and those who visited the sick went to heaven (Matthew 24:36). What is the reason? First of all, motive. Second, the quality of their inner lives. If there is sin in the inner life, all the exercise of gifts becomes worthless. If the motive is honor for oneself and not the glory of God, then the use of gifts does not count for anything.

In Matthew 7:22, those who are cast out boast, “Lord, we healed the sick, and we did miracles.” Yet in Matthew 24:39, the ones admitted into God’s kingdom say, “I do not even remember when I visited the sick. When was that?” It is very important to see that God does not see the way man sees. God does not evaluate our service and our life the way man evaluates. It is completely different. That is why it is important to study Scripture so that we get God's perspective on things. Most Christians do not have God's perspective on things. They evaluate their service and their life very often exactly like the way worldly people evaluate their life and service. But we need to reorient our thinking so that we begin to think more like the way God thinks so that we do not waste our earthly life.

Having said and finished these things, Jesus then said to the disciples, “After two days, the Passover is coming.” These words were spoken just a couple of days before He went to the cross and was delivered up to be crucified. The chief priests and the elders gathered together in the court of the high priest and plotted to seize Jesus by stealth to kill Him. But they were saying, “Not during the festival, lest a riot occur among the people.”

It is very interesting to see how religious people, who were supposed to be servants and representatives of God among the people, could scheme to hurt a prophet of God. It happened in Jesus’ time. It happens even now where religious people get together to scheme to hurt God's true servants. But they do not succeed. They may hurt him physically, but they will only fulfill God's perfect plan for that person.

Resting in God’s Sovereignty

Any true servant of God who really seeks to follow Jesus will find similar experiences to what Jesus experienced as well. Religious people may hate you. They may scheme and do all types of things in order to get at you or to trouble you in some way. They may take you to court. They may scheme and manipulate things in order to take you to court. There will be bribery, corruption, etc., but God Who is watching the whole thing will turn their plans into foolishness. That is a wonderful thing. We can actually pray for that.

An example of this is when one of David’s friends, Ahithophel, left David and joined up with his rebellious son Absalom in 2 Samuel 15 and 17. David prayed that the Lord would turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness (2 Sam 15:31). God did that, and the scheme to kill David did not succeed.

“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord” (Proverbs 21:1). Everybody’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. He can make people act in a certain way when they try to harm you. He will not allow the godly to be touched without His permission. Of course, when the time finally came, God allowed them to kill Jesus, Paul, the apostles, etc. But this did not happen before God's time. It is very, very important to understand that. Very often you read in the Gospels, Jesus said, “My hour has not yet come.”

All these people were scheming, but they could not do it until God's time. I want you to see, in this connection, an incident in the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts 2:22, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, says these words concerning Jesus the Nazarene, “A man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst.” There are a number of things Peter reveals here about Jesus’ ministry.

The first thing Peter says, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is that the miracles that Jesus did were not primarily examples for all of us to follow, because in the history of the Christian faith, nobody has ever been able to have the type of healing and miraculous ministry that Jesus had. We can preach as He did, but we cannot heal as He did or do miracles as He did. Peter says that those miracles were signs to attest to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, and were not something for us to copy. When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” He was not telling us to follow Him in doing miracles. He was telling us to follow in the way of the cross. Jesus walked the way of the cross all His life.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Peter says in Acts 2:23, “This Man was delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.” The other thing we see is that Jesus’ capture was not an accident. “It was part of God's predetermined plan, and you nailed Him to a cross.”

The Bible speaks about the Lamb being slain from the foundation of the world in Revelation 13:8. This means long before time began. “Slain from the foundation of the world” means that long before Genesis 1:1, God knew that Adam was going to sin, and God made provision for Adam and His race to be redeemed from their sin. There would be those who wanted to respond. God had already determined that Christ is going to be crucified. In Galatians 4:4, it says, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son.” There was a particular time in human history when God planned that Jesus Christ should be born on this earth, down to the exact date on which He would be crucified. It is also mentioned in Daniel 9:26 that the Messiah will be cut off. It is all planned according to the predetermined plan and foreknowledge the God, Who can see the future. It was part of His plan.

In Matthew 26:3-4, Caiaphas and the chief priests and elders plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth and kill Him. They thought that they were planning something that God did not know about, but God knew about it before He created Adam. They only fulfilled God’s predetermined plan according to His foreknowledge. If we understand that, we will not be worried if we are serving God. We are His children. If you hear that somebody is scheming and plotting something against you, what in the world are they going to do or accomplish? Only that which God's predetermined plan and foreknowledge has planned for your life. They will not be able to do anything outside of that. That is a great comfort for us to know.

There are little glimpses here of the total sovereignty of God. “Our Father, Who art in heaven.” That is how He taught us to pray. When we pray, we must not only look to God who is our Dad, but also to One Who is sovereign and has control over all circumstances, Who determines even if somebody's plotting to kill you. If you believe that, you will never be anxious. Whatever people are scheming or planning, you will say that is just the predetermined plan of God according to His foreknowledge. I live in the center of God's will. Therefore, nothing can happen to me and nobody can ever do anything to me without God's permission. That is so important for us to know, especially in times of persecution. If you are established in this faith, then you will not be in a panic or anxiety even in times of persecution. When we face the little trials that come our way now when we are not being persecuted, we will say that God has planned this well ahead of time. Romans 8:28 says that God makes everything work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

The chief priests and elders were planning to kill Him on the Passover day. Initially, they did not want to kill him during the festival, lest a riot occur among the people. But Jesus had to be killed on the Passover day. The exact date on which Jesus was to be killed was determined before the world was created. In fact, the Israelites came out of Egypt on the 14th day of the first month. The Passover day was determined on the basis of when Christ would die 1500 years later. That is how the date Christ would die was determined 1500 years earlier. God sees in His foreknowledge and says, “That is going to be the date when I am going to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt. That is when the Israelites should kill the lamb and put the blood outside the door.” This was the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. Here it looked as if it may not be like that. The chief priests and elders said, “We should not do it during the festival.” But finally, they did it on the Passover day even though they had some discussion about that by initially saying they would not do it then. However, God had planned it. Jesus was crucified right on the day of the Passover. God’s timing is perfect in everything, even despite the scheming and planning of others.

Poured out for Jesus

The next incident happened just before Jesus went to the cross. When Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume. She poured it upon His head as He reclined at the table. But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste?” This is possibly the same event that is mentioned in John 12. In John 12, it was Judas Iscariot who said, “Why should this be wasted because this perfume could have been sold for high price?” We know from John 12 that it was 300 denarii or a laboring man's wage for 10 months (if you exclude the holidays, one-year’s wages). It could have been sold for one full year’s wages, and the money be given to the poor. John 12:6 says that Judas Iscariot said that not because he cared for the poor, but because he could swipe that money and use it for himself, just like he was doing with the rest of the money in the bag.

Jesus was aware that these people were speaking like this. They felt this money was wasted by being poured out on Jesus’ head and flowing down His whole body. What a waste of such an expensive perfume. In a moment, it is all gone. One year’s wages are gone in a moment. Is it worth wasting our lives on Jesus like that? Jesus said to them, “Why do you bother this woman? She has done a good deed. The poor you always have with you. You do not always have Me.” We should not think that lavish spending on Christ and for His Glory is a waste. We can think that helping the poor is the only good thing that a Christian can do. That is where we need to hear this word. This woman did not give it to the poor. She poured it out on Jesus’s body. That is a picture of the body of Christ today. We are the church, the body of Christ. To pour out an ointment and to bless and anoint the body of Christ is worth it. We may think that money should be given to the poor, but that is not necessarily always God's will. Of course, Jesus was the first person to help the poor. All the disciples were eager to help the poor, but there is a place for anointing the body of Christ with something valuable, sacrificial and expensive.

Don’t Wait!

Notice something else: when she poured the perfume upon Jesus, Jesus said in Matthew 26:12, “For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial.” Jesus was crucified on Thursday and there were two Sabbaths after that, a special Sabbath on Friday and the regular Sabbath on Saturday. It is interesting to note that when Jesus rose from the dead, the women could not go to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, because they had to bury Him in a hurry on Thursday. When they really finally went to the tomb on Sunday, they found it was too late. He had already risen. There was no way to anoint the body of Jesus, but there was one woman who did it. She was able to do it because she did it before He was crucified.

Jesus said, “She has anointed My body with perfume, preparing it for burial,” but He was not even dead. Why this question of burial? Jesus knew none of the other women would get a chance. She did this before the crucifixion and thereby, His body was anointed. The lesson we learn from this is to take the time and opportunity to serve God. Waste your life on Him when you have the opportunity. If you wait for some later time, you may not get the opportunity at all. Those who waited for a later time to anoint the body of Jesus after His crucifixion discovered on resurrection morning that they missed the opportunity. It was gone. Sometimes, you wait for a future time to do something, and you will not get the opportunity.

Now is the time. This is always the case. If you have the opportunity to do good to the members of the body of Christ, do it now. If you postpone it, you will not get the opportunity. That is the message in this incident. She did not know it. She had the money with her and she thought, “Let me do something for Jesus.” She bought the perfume and poured it out upon Him. Little did she know that she would be the only one who could anoint the body of Jesus for burial. Jesus said that.

Jesus said in Matthew 26:13, “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will be spoken of in memory of her.” That has been fulfilled over the last two thousand years. The Bible has gone across the whole world in hundreds of tongues and languages. What this woman has done is being proclaimed all over the world. What was that? When she had an opportunity, she anointed the body of Jesus with a very expensive perfume. What we do one day will resound at the judgment seat of Christ one day. Take this to heart. When you have an opportunity, that is the time that you need to do good to the body of Christ. Do not postpone it, because what you postpone, you may never get the opportunity to do.

This anointing is an act of worship. We can learn something about worship there. Worship is always something costly and sacrificial. It is something that requires giving that which is very valuable to us to the Lord. David said once in 2 Samuel in 24:24, “I will not offer to the Lord that which cost me nothing.” This woman could have taken a very cheap perfume and anointed the body of Jesus. But she did not. She had saved up one year's wages. I do not know how many years she took to save one year’s wages. Think about yourself. How long does it take? What is your salary in one year? Ask yourself how long will it take for you to save that much money? A number of years. Maybe it was her life savings. It probably was. She went and spent it all in the market to buy a very expensive perfume. She poured it on the head of Jesus. This teaches us that worship is something that involves sacrifice.

The Great Danger of Getting Offended

“Then one of twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests…” (Matthew 26:14). The word “then” is very important. If you compare this passage with John 12, you see that it was Judas Iscariot who primarily said, “This could have been given to the poor.” The disciples probably agreed with him, but he was really saying that so that money could come into his bag. When Jesus said in Matthew 26:10-13, “Why do you trouble this woman? She has done a good deed. Why do you bother her? She has come to anoint my body for the burial and you are stopping her. Whatever she has done is going to be proclaimed throughout the whole world,” Judas was offended because he was corrected publicly. Do you get offended if somebody corrects you publicly? Judas was like that. As soon as he got offended, it says, “then” he went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him up to you?”

Judas was offended because he was humiliated publicly by being corrected. It was a very small thing. Compare his reaction to correction with Peter’s reaction to correction. In an earlier study, we saw how Jesus once turned around to Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan!” That is a very strong correction and a very strong public rebuke much worse than this. This was hardly a correction at all. But Peter’s reaction to that was, “Lord, to whom shall we go? These are the words of eternal life. I am not going to be offended. What You said is right. I was thinking in a satanic way and seeking my own interests.” Here was something much smaller, but when Judas was corrected, he got offended and he immediately went to betray Jesus. He began looking for an opportunity and the chief priests said, “Sure, we would like you to betray him to us.” They gave him thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15) and from then on, he began looking for a good opportunity to betray him.

We see the Peter’s reaction to correction in Matthew 16, and then Judas’s reaction to correction later. When you combine Jesus’ correction in Matthew 16, “Get behind me Satan,” with Peter’s response in John 6, we see that Peter’s heart was, “Lord, to whom shall I go, if I get offended with your corrections? You give me the words of eternal life.” But with Judas, Jesus gave a mild correction - “Leave this woman alone. She has done a good thing. Do not think only of giving money to the poor.” - yet Judas took offense at that and betrayed Jesus.

It is a pretty serious thing to be offended by a little correction. You can ask yourself what your attitude towards correction is when an older brother who loves you, perhaps the elder in your church, corrects you about something. If you get offended, you can follow in Judas’ footsteps and destroy your life. On the other hand, you can say, “Those are the words of eternal life,” just like it says in Psalms 141:5, “Let the righteous smite me. It will be like oil upon my head. I am going to receive the correction from a righteous godly man because that is like somebody pouring and anointing me with oil.” What a wonderful way to react to correction. Let us learn that lesson here and react like Peter did. Let us realize that every word of correction is a word of eternal life.

Chapter 73

The Lord's Supper

Obeying God in the Small Things

“On the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?’” (Matthew 26:17) The Passover was a feast that God had ordained for the Israelites from the day they left Egypt. It was to be a constant memorial or remembrance of how God had delivered them. It was a simple feast, but it was to remind them of their deliverance from Egypt. God had instructed them that when their children asked, “What does this mean?” they were to explain how God, with His mighty hand, brought them out of Egypt and that was repeated year after year after year for 1500 years, right up to the time of Jesus. Jesus was leading people out of the Old Covenant into the New Covenant, but as long as the New Covenant was not established, He continued to obey the laws of the Old Covenant that were given for the Jews. Whenever people came to Him for anything, He would teach them to obey the Law. For example, to the lepers who were cleansed, He said, “Go show yourself to the priests.” He told Pharisees, “You must pay your tithes,” and in everything, He obeyed the law; even here we see He is keeping the Passover.

So we see how even though the Passover was just a little ritualistic feast, Jesus kept it and there is something we can learn from what Jesus taught by His example: even something small, which doesn't really have any moral value, if it is commanded by God, we do it - that's what we learn from Jesus. For example, the breaking of bread or baptism, these are two things that Jesus instituted. There's no moral value in them, but because Jesus commanded it, we do it. That's what we learn from the example of Jesus keeping the Passover.

In Matthew 26:18, He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is at hand; I am to keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.”’ It is wonderful that in a land where almost everybody rejected Christ, there were still a few who were willing to open their homes for Christ, where Jesus could even say, “I want a room in your house.” Imagine the freedom that this man had given to Jesus, that “anytime You want a room in my house, You can come and take it.” It's wonderful. There are people like that today, as well, who say to the Lord, “Anything Lord, in my home, in my life, is always available for You.” Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have taken the liberty to tell His disciples to go to that person and say, “I want to keep the Passover at your house” (because this is Jerusalem, and Jesus was living in Capernaum, so His house was not in Jerusalem; but still, He could tell someone, “I want a room in your house”). And it is wonderful if we can be available to the Lord like that, when the Lord can tell us, “I want this from you,” and immediately we'll do it.

Judge Ourselves First

And the disciples, verse 19, did as Jesus had directed them and they prepared the Passover. When evening had come, He was reclining at the table with the twelve disciples. And as they were eating, He said, “Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me.” This is the first time that He made it clear to His disciples that somebody from among the twelve was going to betray Him, and it's very interesting to see their reaction. They didn’t look at each other and say, “I wonder who that is, who is going to betray Him. Of course it won’t be me” - that was not their reaction. With all the faults that these disciples had, there is one good thing we can see about them: they did not judge each other, but judged themselves. Each one began to say, “Surely, not I Lord. Is it I, Lord?” And not only that, they were deeply grieved and shocked to hear this. For the first time, they were hearing that one of them is going to betray Him, and so, they were grieved and said, “Lord, it can’t be me, can it?” That’s a wonderful attitude to have. This is where the Lord instituted the Lord's Table, and when we come to the Lord's Table, the Bible says, “Let each man examine himself and so let him eat the bread.” And we see an example of that in the disciples when, at the first breaking of bread, each one of them examined himself and said, “Lord, is it I?” This is the spirit with which the church is built. Peter says in 1 Peter 4:17, “The household of God is one where we judge ourselves first.” We see a wonderful example with this spirit of self-judgment in the disciples.

Betraying Jesus for Money

Jesus goes on to say “He who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will betray Me” (Matthew 26:23). What is betrayal? Why is it so serious in this particular case? In John's gospel, chapter 13, in connection with the Lord's Table, the Old Testament verse from Psalm 41 is quoted that “The one who eats bread with Me will betray Me.” To betray Jesus Christ in any way is a serious thing, but to eat bread with Him and then betray Him is very much more serious. Some of us may not realize the seriousness of this as much as the people in the culture of the Middle East at that time. There is a story that comes from about a hundred years ago from Arabia of a man who was wanted and on whose head there was a very high price. So he was very careful not to be caught and he would cover his face and travel through the desert, but he knew one thing that the Bedouin Arabs who lived there: they had a principle that if someone ate bread with them, they would never betray him. So this man, when he was hungry, covered his face so that people wouldn't recognize him easily. The Bedouin Arabs who lived in the tents were very hospitable to even strangers, so he walked into a tent, sat down, and they didn't know who he was, so he ate with them. Once he had eaten with them, he could take of the shawl from his face and let them see whom he was. He was absolutely convinced that those people would never betray him because he had broken bread with them. No matter what the price was on his head, no matter how much money they could get if they betrayed him, they would not do it.

And that is the meaning of that verse in Matthew 26: He who has eaten bread with Me has betrayed Me. It is a very serious crime. So, in the breaking of bread, we are speaking of a commitment to Jesus, and not only to Jesus, but to the others around us. And Judas betrayed Jesus for money. Jesus said, “There are only two masters in the world, God and money,” and we see the beginning of that right here, that there were those who wanted to follow Jesus and here was one person who was willing to betray Him for money. What does it mean to betray Jesus for money? That means to deny Christ by my life, by my action in today's terms in order to gain some money. In Judas’s case, it was thirty pieces of silver, but it could be even less than that in our case. For example, in your office or business, if you can make a little profit or some gain for yourself by cheating or by signing a false statement, if you do so and call yourself a Christian, you’ve betrayed Jesus. And that's what Jesus is teaching here.

For the sake of money, Judas betrays Jesus. In the history of Christianity, in the past 2000 years, there are so many believers who don't realize it, but they have betrayed Jesus for just a little bit of earthly gain. It is really true: there are only two masters, God and money and it is impossible to serve both. Judas strived to serve both, but he discovered, finally, that he was actually serving money, and all those who try to serve God and money today will discover in the final day that they're also actually only serving money. And so, Jesus says in verse 24, “The Son of Man is to go, just as written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” What a word to say that it was better that this person was never born.” Do you see how serious it is to betray Jesus Christ? To deny Him by your action for some earthly gain or profit, whatever it is, to deny your faith in Christ and to stop following Him just for little gain? Nobody may know it, but you have to take these words seriously: if you betray Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter whether it was Judas then or anyone else today, the principle is the same: it is better for that person if he was not even born. That's what Jesus taught. It's a very serious word that Jesus taught so we have to be very watchful that we do not betray Jesus Christ by any word or action. I don't want to be categorized by the Lord as one about whom it's better that I was not even born.

We see the hypocrisy of Judas in Matthew 26:25: “He was betraying Him and assured, ‘It is not I, Rabbi?’ And Jesus said, ‘You have said it yourself.’” It’s possible that people can be so clever that they can be betraying Jesus in secret, having already collected the thirty pieces of silver, and yet they can sit in the midst of God's people, breaking bread, acting in every way like a believer, and be such good hypocrites that they can ask in just the same language as the others, “Lord, It is not I, is it?” Hypocrisy is there. The sins that have plagued the Christian Church for 2000 years begin here: betraying Jesus for the love of money and hypocrisy. It began with Judas Iscariot and it's better that such people were never born.

The Breaking of Our Will

“And while they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after blessing, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body’” (Matthew 26:26). The broken bread symbolized the broken body - “This is My body broken for you.” The physical body of Jesus was not broken at that time and even on the cross, His body was not broken; it was just pierced at five points but not broken. What did He mean by saying, “This is My body broken for you?” There was something inside Jesus’ body that was broken for 33 ½ years: His Own will. We do many things with our bodies, but fundamentally, we either do our own will or God's will. In everything we do, we're either doing our will or God's will. The Bible says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God and be renewed in your mind so that you may prove the perfect will of God” (Romans 12:1-2). So there's a connection between the body and doing the perfect will of God. It begins with using our body, and ends with doing the perfect will of God. So Jesus yielded His body, we read in Hebrews 10:5, “A body that was prepared for Me, ‘Lo, I come to do your will, O God.’” In other words, right from birth He was saying, “With this body, I'm going to do only Your will.” In order for us to do God's will in our bodies, there's something inside that has to be broken constantly as well: our will.

That's the meaning of taking up the cross every day. When Jesus said, “This is My body broken for you,” they didn't understand it fully then. Jesus told them at the last table, in John 16, “There are many things I want to say to you, but you cannot bear them now, but you will understand later on.” And we understand it now, after the Holy Spirit has come, that brokenness is within. “This is My body broken for you.” When we partake in the broken bread, we’re saying, “Lord, in my body also, I want my will to be broken. I want to do Your will.” That's the meaning of taking communion.

“And when He had taken the cup and gave thanks, He gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you’” (Matthew 26:27). He took the bread, gave thanks, and broke it. He took the cup and gave thanks. There was a spirit of thankfulness in going to the cross. We who have seen the way that Jesus walked will have a spirit of thankfulness in going to the cross because we know, certainly, that if we die with Him, we will live with Him. Believers do not experience the resurrection life of Jesus because they're not willing to go this way - the way of the cross. They think this is a way of death and doom and that it’s disgusting. No! It's a way of life if we can see it. And that's what we testify to in the breaking of the bread.

The Cleansing Blood of Jesus

When He took the cup, He said, “This is blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). This teaches us the meaning of that blood, that cup symbolizing the blood of Jesus, which is going to be poured out on the cross - He relates it to a covenant. In the Old Covenant, the blood of animals was sprinkled on the tabernacle and on the altar and here again Jesus was saying, “I'm establishing a New Covenant and that is through laying down my life, through sharing My blood, the blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for the forgiveness of sins.” In the Old Testament, sin was only covered. Psalm 32 says, “Blessed is the man whose sin is covered.” But in the New Testament, sin is not covered; it is cleansed. There are people who sing songs like, “I'm under the blood.” That is an Old Testament expression where they put the blood on the door so that the angel of death would not come into their home. But today, I'm not under the blood. The blood is not over me, the blood doesn't even cover me; it cleanses me! So never speak about being under the blood or being covered by the blood but being cleansed by the blood. That is the New Covenant, cleansed by the blood.

So this is the New Covenant and Jesus poured out His blood on the cross, every drop of blood was poured out, for the forgiveness of sins, for the total cleansing of all of our sins. This means a new attitude toward sin. That is what the New Covenant means, that I think of the price paid to deliver me from sin. It was not just the blood of bulls and goats, it was the blood of Jesus Christ and therefore, I take sin very seriously.

The breaking of bread is very meaningful, it is not something we can take very lightly. Many Christians come to the Lord's Table without taking the whole issue very seriously. Once we come into the New Covenant, we discover that this bread not only symbolizes the body of Jesus that was broken, but also the body of Christ today - the different members of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). We are all breaking that one bread, which means there is a commitment to the body with whom I'm breaking bread. This shows that there is a double meaning in the breaking of bread. The disciples could not understand it then because they did not have the Holy Spirit. But we understand this now.

“The body of Christ,” firstly, relates to the body of Christ in which His will was broken for 33 ½ years, and secondly to the body with which we meet today, when we break the same bread. This is the opposite of betrayal. Every believer must choose to walk the way Jesus walked and commit to the body of Christ. If not, the only other alternative is by Judas’ betrayal. A person who does not break bread, a non-Christian who is out there in the world, cannot betray because he does not claim to be following Christ. But if a person pretends to be a Christian and does not walk this way, he is a betrayer.

Then Jesus said, ”I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). This is a reference to the cross as well as to the second coming of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 11 we’re told that, “you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). We proclaim the Lord's death, which is the past, until it He comes, which is the future. So the breaking of bread points backward to the death of Christ as well as forward to the coming of Christ. Many people never think of that, because once Christ comes this will be over. It's a testimony that I believe in the death of Christ for my sin and I also believe that Christ is coming back one day when this will be over. A time will come when His kingdom, His Father's kingdom, will be established and He will drink of the vine with you. We will be feasting and drinking when Christ comes again.

“After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Matthew 26:30). It is very interesting to see this little expression just before Jesus went to the cross. He wasn’t gloomy; He was singing a hymn. Imagine praising the Lord when you know you are going to be betrayed, captured and killed the next morning. That is the spirit in which we go to the cross. We go to the cross singing a hymn, singing praise to God because we know that nothing can happen to us without God's perfect plan. As it says in Acts 2, “Jesus was delivered over and crucified by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). There is nothing that can happen to us that is not in God's predetermined plan, and we know that there will be a resurrection. There are many wonderful things that Jesus taught us here; they could not be fully understood by the disciples then, but we can understand them now.

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, “I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.” But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee’” (Matthew 26:31-32). This is a quotation from Zechariah. “Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered” (Zechariah 13:7). The devil always seeks to hit the shepherds in a church. So shepherds: be careful, be watchful, and don't betray, but be loyal and true, and walk the way of the cross. Otherwise your bad example can cause the sheep to be scattered.

Chapter 74

Prayer at Gethsemane

After Jesus and His disciples had broken bread together and Jesus had passed the bread and the cup around, they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.’ But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee” (Matthew 26:31-32). This was a prophecy relating to Christ, that the Shepard would be stricken and the sheep would be scattered. When Peter heard this, he said, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away” (Matthew 26:33). Peter was a very self-sufficient, self-confident type of a person. He was unprepared at that time to be the leader. Any self-confident, self-assured person is totally unfit for Christian leadership. He may be fit for leadership in the business world but not in the Christian world. In the Christian world, the most important requirement is a total lack of confidence in oneself, coupled with a total confidence in God.

True Circumcision

There are three types of people: one is like Peter, fully self-confident, but useless to God. The other is totally lacking in self-confidence, but he is also useless to God. It is the third category of people who are useful to God. They are totally lacking in self-confidence, but have complete confidence in God. This is the meaning of circumcision. In Philippians, we see the New Covenant meaning of circumcision. Paul says, “We are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). We put no confidence in flesh, just like circumcision in the Old Testament was a cutting off of the flesh and casting it off. The spiritual meaning of this is that we have no confidence in the flesh; we have no confidence in ourselves but in the things of God. We recognize that without Christ we can do nothing. We don't lean upon our own understanding, but we trust in the Lord with all our heart (Proverbs 3:5).

This is how it is for a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Peter needed to be broken of his self-confidence; that is why God allowed him to fail three times, denying the Lord. It broke him completely and shattered all his self-confidence. He was the one who boasted saying, “’I’I will never fall away,’ and Jesus said, ‘This very night you will deny Me three times.’ Peter said to Him, ‘Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You’” (Matthew 26:34-35). He was so self-confident that even though Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God, said he would deny Him three times, he said, no. But he did deny the Lord, and that shattered him so completely that he lost all his self-confidence in one moment. He went out and wept bitterly - he was broken, he was brought down to zero - then he was ready for Pentecost, to be a leader.

This has been God's way with all His leaders, whether it was Jacob who had to become Israel when his hip was broken or Moses who had to spend 40 years in the desert to get rid of all his self-confidence. This has been God's way with all great leaders. If you have any type of responsibility among God's people and you are confident in yourself and in your abilities, you are not fit. You are not fit until you have come to the place where you are shattered and your self-confidence is all thrown away. Then you are truly circumcised spiritually and it is only then that you can serve God. The Old Covenant law was very clear that if you were not circumcised you could not be a part of God's people. In the New Covenant, the spiritual meaning is that only those who have no confidence in the flesh can really serve God. It wasn’t only Peter who said this; all the disciples said the same thing too. They didn't say it as strongly as Peter, but they all said, “We will not deny you, we will not a fall away,” but yet they all ran away from Gethsemane when the soldiers captured Jesus.

Jesus at Gethsemane

“Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ And He took with Him Peter, James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, ‘My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me’” (Matthew 26:36-38). He was human and it is human to be grieved and distressed. This is an amazing example, not only of His humanity but also of His humility. His humanity is shown in that He was deeply grieved. It is possible for a godly man to be deeply grieved and to not sin. Jesus never sinned to have deep grief. To be distressed is not sin because He was preparing to bear the sins of the world. He was bearing the burden of others, and anyone who selflessly seeks to serve others will at times go through grief and distress, like Jesus did. It is only a person without feeling who will remain without grief and distress. God has created us with feelings, and if we love others deeply, like God loves us, we will go through times of grief and distress. But the humility of Christ is seen here in that He was willing to ask His disciples like Peter, James and John to pray with Him. Why in the world would He want these immature people to pray with Him? Unbroken people like Peter, who just manifested how confident he was in himself! Yet Jesus selected these weak stumbling disciples for some spiritual fellowship. Value the weaker members of the body of Christ

This teaches us that we must value the weaker members of the body of Christ. Think of the difference between Jesus and Peter, James and John. It is such a huge difference spiritually. The difference between you and someone else in your fellowship whom you look down on is much smaller than that. There may be a difference - you may be better, you may be more spiritual - but the difference is so tiny compared to the difference between Jesus and Peter, James and John. Yet Jesus was willing to seek fellowship with Peter, James and John and even ask them to stand with Him while He was praying. That teaches us of His humility. There we see our own pride, when we think we are so spiritual that we can’t pray with some of these other people. I find some believers like that who think no end of themselves, that there are only certain elite upper-class believers who can pray with them. They have not understood what Jesus did at Gethsemane. Jesus told them to keep watch with Him. That means to wait on God and be alert. Keeping watch is an expression for being alert. It's always easier to be alert in prayer, when you are with others than when you are alone. When we are alone we tend to go off to sleep easily but when we are with others it's easier to be alert in prayer. “And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will’” (Matthew 26:39). He repeated this prayer more than once in verses 42 and 44. This was obviously a big struggle that He was going through. ”Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?” (Matthew 26:40).

We need to realize that Jesus’ prayer was not just a one sentence prayer that finished in half a minute, it went on for one hour and the substance of His prayer was, “O, please take this cup away from Me, I don't want to drink it, but if it's Your will, then I will drink it.” He told His disciples to keep watching and praying that they may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, keep being alert in prayer, don't doze off to sleep, be alert spiritually and pray. Prayer is to ask God for help, to recognize your need for God's help, because however willing your spirit may be to live for God, to be useful to God and to be pure and overcome temptation, you must recognize that your flesh is weak. The flesh is weak - that is why we lose our temper so easily and that is why we don't trust in God. Our self-confidence is a mark of the weakness of the flesh. But the disciples didn't believe that. They said, “we are fine.” And He found them sleeping. “He went away a second time and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.’ And He came and found them sleeping for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed the third time saying the same thing once more” (Matthew 26:42-44).

Be Persistent in Prayer

There are number of things we can learn here. One is that, there is nothing wrong in praying for the same thing again and again, even for one hour, and going back and praying again, and going back and praying again. Jesus taught us the necessity of persistence in prayer. We see two instances of that. One is in the story of the widow who wanted justice in Luke 18. An enemy had probably encroached into her property knowing she was a helpless widow with no man in the house, no husband or son. If she had a son, her son would be the one in the parable going to the judge. She has to go by herself because she has no male member in the house and an enemy took advantage of that and probably encroached upon her property. She goes to the judge and asks for legal protection against her opponent. She persisted and persisted until she wore out the judge by going to his house at odd hours of the night and the morning. Finally he gets fed up and says, “Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow continues to bother me, I will give her legal protection” (Luke 18:4-5)

That was a parable on prayer, where Jesus was trying to teach them “men ought always to pray and never to give up or lose heart” (Luke 18:1). The other parable on prayer is in Luke 11, and there again the message is the same. A man is going to a neighbor's house to get some bread for a visitor who has come at midnight. He keeps on knocking till the man opens the door. He knocks unashamedly till the man opens the door and gives him the bread (Luke 11:5-8).

In both of the parables where Jesus spoke on prayer, the emphasis is on persistence - pray for the same thing again and again. Jesus Himself is doing exactly the same thing for maybe two to or three hours. The substance of His prayer throughout that time was, “Take away this cup,” and “I don't want to drink it, but not as I will but as You will.” I've often said, you can ask God for anything under the sun - anything, anywhere - provided you conclude your prayer with, “Not as I will but as You will.” If you can pray that as your last sentence, you can ask God for anything because then you've submitted to His will and said, “Lord, I really don't want my own will but I’m happy to accept what You give me.”

Value of the Fellowship with the Father

The important question is, what was this cup that Jesus was so reluctant to drink? It is so important to understand that. Was He afraid to go to Calvary? Was He afraid of the pain of death? Impossible! We have heard of martyrs who have joyfully gone to the stake to be burnt and joyfully sung songs when they were thrown to the lions in the Roman amphitheaters, in the second and third century. Jesus surely wasn't a coward. He would have been ready to face a thousand deaths on Calvary for us because He loved us so much. It's obviously not physical death that He was shrinking away from. A lot of people have tried to meditate and study to understand what this cup is. Another theory is that Jesus was so drained of blood at this time, as He was sweating like great drops of blood, that He was so exhausted and weak and afraid that He would die right there and so He prayed that God would not let Him die but help Him to drink and avoid that cup.

None of these answers really satisfy. There was something that He was struggling with and it was not premature death on the cross. He was not afraid to die for the sins of the world. He came for that purpose. But there was something else that bothered Him. When we pray with tremendous burden for something, it is usually something that touches what we value most in life. What is it that Jesus valued more than anything else in His life? It wasn't comfort, it wasn't His own life, and it definitely was not money or property. There was only one thing that Jesus valued more than anything else in His life: His fellowship with the Father. From all eternity, He had been in fellowship with the Father, forever and ever, but that fellowship was going to be broken on the cross. He knew it would be broken for a while because He's going to take the sins of the world. The punishment for sin is not physical death because if the punishment for sin were physical death, then when we die we would have already paid the punishment for our sins. This means every man who dies has paid for the punishment for his sin and every man who dies has to go to heaven because he died.

Physical death was not the price Jesus paid for our sin. We know that the punishment for sin is eternal separation from God, being forsaken by God for all eternity. So if Jesus did not suffer eternal separation from God on the cross, He did not pay the price for our sin. The price for our sin is not physical death. It is not even three hours in hell. It is the eternal cutting off from God because of our sin. That is what hell is. Jesus used pictures like fire and worms to teach us how horrible hell is - being forsaken by God. There is no place on the earth that is a God-forsaken place. Hell is the only truly God-forsaken place. It is awesome to think of what it will be like in hell. In this world, even among unbelievers and atheists, there is a certain grace and mercy of God, there is a certain restraining force of God that prevents evil from coming upon people, even on unbelievers. Otherwise the devil would make every unbeliever possessed with a demon. There is a restraining force through the mercy of God on the earth, but in hell it is all completely removed. Eternal hell is the punishment for sin.

How then did Jesus suffer eternal hell? He suffered when He hung on the cross for three hours. There He said, “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?” He was suffering being forsaken by God. That was hell for three hours, and three hours became eternity for Him because He is an Infinite Being. For a man, three hours is only three hours, but for Almighty God, who is an Infinite Being, three hours was eternity. Jesus experienced in three hours the eternal pangs of being separated from God forever - the sorrows and pains of billions of people being separated from God forever and ever. Jesus took that on Himself. He took it as God because only God could take the punishment for our sin. Nobody else could suffer eternity in three hours. It would be unrighteous for God to punish somebody else for my sin; it would be completely against the principle of every law. But God Himself could take it. That is what proves that Christ was no created being or no angel. He had to be God Himself. If it was not God Himself Who died as a Man on the cross, then your sins are not forgiven. This is where we disagree with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others who talk of Jesus as a created being. If it were so, their sins are not forgiven, because it is totally unjust of God to punish another created being for my sin, just like it would be unjust for a judge to punish one man for my sins. However, because Jesus was God, He could take that punishment on Himself. Thus in those three hours, what had never taken place in all eternity took place for three hours. That is why the earth shook and there was an earthquake and there was darkness, because the Father had forsaken the Son. There was a break in fellowship. It is absolutely unimaginable to understand what Jesus went through. The Bible says, “God is the head of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:3). So it was like the head being wrenched off the body, spiritually.

That was the very thing Jesus dreaded. He dreaded being cut off from fellowship with the Father more than anything else. He was willing to suffer any pain, any ridicule, anything but being cut off from the Father. That was the cup He referred to when He said, “Please take it away.” He struggled to find if there was any other way. He was willing to go through anything other than this break of fellowship from the Father. When I picture this for myself, I make it personal just like the cross of Calvary. When I think of Jesus going through Gethsemane, I make it personal for myself and I say, “What He went through there was for me.” I try to imagine a conversation going on between Jesus and the Father, in Gethsemane. He is saying, “Oh Father, I never want to lose My fellowship with You. I’ve had this with you from all eternity. It is the thing I value more than anything else and I don't want to drink this cup. I just don't want it.” I can then imagine the Father saying, “Well that's fine then, You can come right up to heaven from Gethsemane. You don't have to go to the cross at all because You have lived a perfect life and you have not sinned. You can come right up from Gethsemane to heaven, but Zac will go to hell.” Then Jesus says, “Oh, he'll go to hell? In that case I'll drink the cup, I'll go to the cross. I am even willing to go through that which I hate - being cut off from You. Father I’m willing to do that for Zac’s sake.”

Make it personal my friend. Make Gethsemane’s agony and Jesus’ death on the cross personal, and then you will understand true Christianity. Otherwise you won’t understand it. Most Christians talk so glibly about Christ dying for their sins. They don't understand what that death meant, to be separated from God the Father, because that's the price for our sin. I see the love of Christ for me in Gethsemane, which led to Calvary, where He said, “I will do Thy will.” Finally, a third time He was convinced, that for my sake He had to go to the cross. “Then He came back to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going; Behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!’” (Matthew 26:45-46). He gets up and goes for me and for you. He goes through, determined, setting his face steadfastly to go to the cross, to be willing to be forsaken.

We must remember this. It is only when we see Jesus face to face one day that we will see love personified. That day, when our mind becomes clear, we will see how much He loved us, to be willing to suffer the greatest agony that any human being could ever face - eternal hell for three hours on the cross - just because He loved you and me. May the Lord help us to respond to Him in love.

Chapter 75

No Confidence in the Flesh

In Matthew 26, Jesus went through Gethsemane dreading the break in fellowship with the Father that He would experience on the cross. What do we learn from that? That fellowship with the Father is the most important thing that we can ever desire on earth. It is what we must value more than anything else on the face of this earth. Everything else is unimportant. We don't understand the value of this fellowship and that's why we sin so lightly. Every time we sin, our fellowship with the Father is broken. We must learn to intensely value fellowship with the Father. It’s what will help us hate sin, and it is what Jesus Himself dreaded so much, drinking the cup of broken fellowship.

We must also come to the place where we dread any break in fellowship with the Father. It comes when we do something wrong, when we violate our conscience and do not listen to the Holy Spirit. When we sin, our fellowship with the Father is broken, and Jesus died so that our fellowship with the Father might never be broken. Look at sin from this perspective. If He died so that I might be freed from sin, it means that He died so that my fellowship with the Father might never be broken. He valued this fellowship so much, yet He was willing to break fellowship with the Father so that my fellowship with the Father might never be broken. Therefore, we must also value fellowship with the Father.

The Arrest of Jesus

After Jesus had finished praying in the garden and had woken His disciples, Judas came to betray Him (Matthew 26:47). It's amazing that Judas could betray Someone who was so kind to him. I think he was a bit disturbed that Jesus was not actually going to take power and destroy the Romans. Perhaps he thought he could be the prime minister under Jesus until he found out that Jesus was not at all interested in political power. Then he was disappointed. Jesus was only interested in changing people's souls, and Judas Iscariot was not interested in that. So when Jesus was in the garden, Judas went up to Him and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” to betray Him. Judas never called Him, “Lord.” Instead, he called Him, “Rabbi,” and kissed Him. Yet, Jesus called him, “friend.” Jesus called Peter, “Satan,” to rebuke him, but when He spoke to Judas, He told him, “Friend, do what you have come for” (Matthew 26:50). He had nothing in His heart against Judas even though He knew what Judas was about to do, and He wanted Judas to know that. But even that did not melt the hard heart of Judas in that moment.

“Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword’” (Matthew 26:50-52). Jesus says to put the sword away, but it was Jesus Himself Who told them to take swords before going to Gethsemane (Luke 22). Peter could have said, “Lord, what do You mean, don't use a sword? You're the One Who told us to take swords and that's why we brought them - to defend You.” And Jesus would have said, “That’s not why I asked you to bring the sword. You must never use a sword to attack. I asked you to bring the sword so that if the Roman soldiers tried to slash your face, you could lift up your sword to protect your face. The swords are not for attack but for defense.

Therefore, when we read the command in Luke 22 to bring a sword with you, we must also combine it with Jesus’ command in Matthew 26 to put your sword back, for those who take up the sword will perish by the sword. To take a sword with you is defense. To take up the sword is to attack someone, and Jesus says that it’s completely wrong to attack. Here’s the message for us when we put these verses together: it is wrong for us to attack people, but it's perfectly fine to defend ourselves when we are attacked. Furthermore, Jesus said that if you take up the sword, you’ll perish with the sword, so we see that it's dangerous to go about attacking.

Why was Jesus not concerned for Himself? He answers in Matthew 26:53-54, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must happen this way?” He knew that His Father could help Him, just as He had helped Hezekiah in the Old Testament. At that time, a single angel killed about 180,000 enemies of the Lord. Can you imagine what 72,000 angels could have done? Even so, the Lord decided not to ask for that sort of help, because how else would the Scriptures be fulfilled? In the same way, if I ask God to protect me from every single problem I might encounter in my life, how will the Scripture be fulfilled? How will I fulfill my ministry?

The Purpose of Prayer

Prayer is not meant to be our way of asking God to save us from all of our problems and to protect us from every calamity. No! God allows some difficulties in our lives so that we can have a ministry. If Jesus had called the angels down to protect Him in Gethsemane, He wouldn’t have fulfilled His ministry. And if God were to protect us from all of the problems found in this world, we would not have a ministry to others. Sometimes, we must experience what other people experience in order for us to empathize with their problems. That's why God does not protect His children from certain types of suffering. In India, we ride on crowded trains, stand in long queues, and wait hours on end at government offices for permits and such. That's what everybody else in our country has to go through, and very often, God doesn't shorten the process to make it easier for us by removing all roadblocks. We face the same roadblocks that everybody in our country faces, and that's how we can empathize with them. We understand the struggles they're going through, and we can say that we’ve faced the same things, but that we've learned to rejoice always. We’ve learned to trust God to help us, and we’ve learned to be anxious for nothing. If we were protected from all calamities and problems and trials by prayer, then we’d have no ministry to others.

And this is why Jesus says that He won’t call the 72,000 angels to come protect Him. Rather, He wanted the Scriptures to be fulfilled! Then, Jesus said to the crowds of people who had come to capture Him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me as you would against a robber? Every day I used to sit in the temple teaching and you did not seize Me” (Matthew 26:55). What need was there for them to come with weapons, as if He had been trying to run away from them? Jesus continues, “‘But all this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures of the prophets” (Matthew 26:56). After He finished, all His disciples left Him and fled, the very disciples who had said that they would never leave Him. His disciples left Him when their lives were at risk, and we also will forsake Christ when we face trouble, unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit, Who builds up love for Jesus Christ in our hearts. Those who are self-confident, saying, “Even if all men leave you, I will not leave you,” are usually the first ones to leave. The Bible says, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). It is good for us to have low thoughts about ourselves, recognizing that we could deny the Lord as well.

The Purpose of Temptation

“Those who had seized Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together. But Peter was following Him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and entered in, and sat down with the officers to see the outcome” (Matthew 26:57-58). Another one of the gospels tells us that John spoke to the gatekeeper to allow Peter to come. Otherwise, Peter would not have been able to enter. However, John was related to the high priest, and so he could speak to the gatekeeper to let Peter in. Consider the result of Peter coming in. Because he came in, he was questioned by various people about his connection to Jesus, and three times he denied the Lord. He denied knowing the Lord, and he let Him down. It all began with John speaking to the gatekeeper, asking him to let Peter to come in. Later, Peter must have thought, “If John hadn’t spoken to the gate keeper, then I wouldn't have got in, and I wouldn't have been tempted.” However, God allows us to be tempted. He might want to show us our weakness, if we’re too proud, or He may want to help us be strong if we’re humble. There are two ways God seeks to use temptation. If we're proud, God will allow us to fall in temptation to break us and to show us that we’re so weak that it's impossible for us to overcome. If we’re humble, God will give us grace in that temptation, to be an overcomer and to make us stronger. Temptation is meant to break or strengthen us. God gives grace to the humble, but He opposes the proud (James 4:6).

Small Additions Makes a False Witness

While Peter was waiting for the outcome, “The chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death” (Matthew 26:59). They wanted to maintain some semblance of justice, so they tried to get witnesses to tell lies about Jesus. Even then, they could not find any false testimony about Him, despite many false witnesses coming forward with all types of lies. Finally, two people came forward saying, “This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days’” (Matthew 26:61). We know very well that Jesus never said anything of that sort. What He actually said is recorded in John 2:19. He told the people, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Matthew 26:19). But according to the false witnesses, Jesus said, “I'm able to destroy the temple of God.” However, that's not what He said. Jesus He never said, “I'm going to destroy the temple of God.”

It's just a little addition, and if you couldn’t remember exactly what He had said 3½ years before—this statement was made at the beginning of His ministry—you might say, “Yes, I remember Him saying something like that.” The problem is, that’s not what He said. There's a lot of difference between saying, “If you destroy the temple, I will raise it up in three days,” and saying, “I will destroy this temple, and then I will raise it up, I’ll rebuild it in three days.” Very often you find this subtle addition or removal of a word. It could be done deliberately or unknowingly. Even today there are many bearing false witness about others in Christendom, making accusations based on false quotations. It’s all, “He said; He said; He said; He said.” It goes back and forth. We might not even be telling lies consciously, we might just have forgotten what was actually said.

Keeping Silent Against Your Accusers

In Matthew, we read that such people are called false witnesses. You might add one word to what was said, and you’re a false witness. These two false witnesses came forward, and they said what sounded like the truth, but it was not the truth. Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, "Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?” (Matthew 26:62). Jesus could have said, “Listen, I did not say I am able to destroy the temple of God, only that ‘If you destroy it, I will rebuild it.’” But, He kept silent (Matthew 26:63).

What an example He is for us. We see it again when He stood before Pilate. He would not answer a word (Matthew 27:14). He kept silent because He knew that whatever He said, they would tear it to pieces, calling Him a liar. Then, the high priest said to Him, “I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself” (Matthew 26:63). In other words, Jesus says, “Yes, I am.” He continues, “You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). He was talking about His Own Second Coming, and He told the high priest that he would see it. In response, the high priest tore his robes, which is a way of showing disgust with a witness or a criminal. He tore his clothes and said, “He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy; what do you think?” (Matthew 26:65-66). When Jesus did answer a question, we see that the high priest had been taunting Jesus, looking for an excuse to get the crowd to turn against Him.

And the crowd answered the high priest, “He deserves death!” (Matthew 26:66). The high priests and the other Pharisees had already been working them up to ask for His death, and they were just the stooges of these leaders when they said, “Yes, we want His death!” I'm amazed at what the crowd did, because I can't believe among all those people that there was not at least one person whom Jesus had healed, and not at least one with a relative whom Jesus had healed. There must have been some there like that, and they completely forgot about what He had done. Man's ingratitude is amazing, how quickly he forgets what God has done for him and what other people have done for him. These people forgot what Jesus had done, “They spat in His face and beat Him with their fists; and others slapped Him, and said, ‘Prophesy to us, You Christ; who is the one who hit You?’” (Matthew 26:67-68).

Though they taunted, troubled, and spat on Him, He never said a word. Just as it says in Isaiah 53:7, “Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.” He was oppressed and afflicted, but He didn't open His mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, He did not open His mouth. Three times in that verse it says that He did not open His mouth, that He was silent. You know, a sheep looks very beautiful when there is wool on it, but when it is sheared, and all the wool is taken away, it looks so skinny and ugly. When the people took away the beauty of Jesus and spat on Him, He was silent. When they hit His face and disfigured it, He was silent. When they despised and taunted Him, He was silent.

It requires tremendous grace to be silent under such provocations, but that's when we need to be silent. In the house of God, when we sing His praise, we need to shout with our lungs from the bottom of our hearts, raising our voices as much as we can. And when we are falsely accused, abused, and insulted, we need to keep quiet. We need to know when to raise our voices, and when to keep quiet. But alas, what do we see among many believers? We see that in the time of praise, they are usually silent or whispering, but when somebody insults them or hurts them, they raise their voice in defense. They have it upside down. When you are insulted, you should be silent, but in the house of God, you should raise your voice to praise Him. That's where Jesus raises His voice. But when He was sheared like a sheep, He stayed silent.

Peter Denies Jesus

“Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a servant-girl came to him and said, ‘You too were with Jesus the Galilean.’ But he denied it before them all, saying ‘I do not know what you are talking about’” (Matthew 26:69). Imagine saying that. We're all scared for our lives, and Peter was scared for his. He completely forgot about the matter of being faithful to Christ. He said— “No, no, I don't know what you're talking about.” Do not judge and compare yourself with him. Remember, we are living after the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God has come into us. We have a certain strength that Peter did not have. He was still under the Old Covenant, and under the Old Covenant, you don't have the strength and power that you can have with the Spirit of God dwelling in you. Every true, born-again believer has the Spirit of Christ within him, giving him strength. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are strong, and we can stand true to the Lord in the time of temptation. Otherwise, we will deny Him, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Peter denied Jesus a second time. “When he had gone out to the gateway, another servant-girl saw him and said to those who were there, ‘This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.’” She said that she was sure she saw him with Jesus of Nazareth, and again he denied it. “’I do not know the man.’ A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter, ‘Surely you too are one of them; for even the way you talk gives you away.’ Then he began to curse and swear, ‘I do not know the man!’ And immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, ‘Before a cock crows, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:71-75).

Peter’s strength in himself shattered. His self-confidence shattered too. He was being circumcised inwardly. God was bringing him to a place where he had no self-confidence at all, a wonderful place where there is total dependence upon God alone. Notice also how the Lord reminded Peter through the crowing of a rooster (Matthew 26:74). Afterward, he went out and wept bitterly. God can use simple things to make us remember promises we have made that we have broken. Has He ever used some little thing in nature or some other little unexpected thing to remind you of a promise that you have broken to the Lord or somebody else? God does that. He speaks through animals too: the cock crowing and the donkey speaking to Balaam.

I also wanted to point out verse 73. One of the bystanders came up to Peter and told him that the way he talked gave him away. Apply that to yourself. I thought of it this way, “Lord, I want to be such a wholehearted Christian that the way I talk gives me away.” People should say, “Here’s a Christian. This guy is a disciple of Jesus. By the way he talks, he is obviously a believer.” It's a wonderful thing to have that testimony, that the way we live and the way we talk give us away. People should say that this person is different. I believe this can only come about if we are first totally circumcised of all confidence in the self. We must be shattered, and we must have given up.

Heed God’s Warnings

Peter had three chances. But after the first time, he never asked himself, “What’s happened to me? I denied the Lord, and the Lord warned me that I would deny Him three times.” Peter didn’t take it seriously, so he denied him a second time. Again, he didn’t ask himself, “What’s happening?”

The Lord gives us warnings along the way. If we don't heed them, we will eventually fall over the cliff. That's exactly what happened to Peter. Every time we fall and slip, we should judge ourselves and go to God. I believe that judging ourselves should be a way of life for us. All the time, we must go to God, and say, “Lord, what are You trying to tell me? I want to hear what You're trying to say to me.” If I fail once but listen to God, I may not fall a second time.

Peter was self-confident even after the first, and then the second, denial. He remained self-confident instead of recognizing that he was close to falling away. But, to his credit, after Peter had denied the Lord three times, he remembered the word that Jesus had said to him. When we fall into sin, it is good to remember what Jesus has said. Peter went out afterward and wept bitterly. He was thoroughly broken. That was the beginning of his turning around. When we learn to weep bitterly over our failure and sin, then we too have begun the way back to the ministry that God has for us.

Peter denied the Lord three times. What do we learn from that about Jesus’ ways? He warns us in advance of dangers that we are going to face. He allows us to fall so that we can be broken. This is what we can learn about Jesus’ ways from the way He allowed Peter to fall. He never prayed that Peter would not fall. He prayed that after Peter fell and hit rock bottom, Peter would not lose His faith. Jesus prayed that Peter would still believe that the Father loved Him, and Peter would come back to Him. This is what we see in the way Jesus dealt with Peter, and that is how He deals with us as well.

Chapter 76

Jesus Our Forerunner in the Courts of Injustice

“When morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders took counsel against Jesus to put Him to death; and they bound Him, and they led Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate the governor (Pilate was the only one who could sanction the death penalty). Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, and confessed to them saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to that yourself!” (Matthew 27:1-4)

Go to Jesus for forgiveness

I have a feeling that Judas Iscariot probably thought that Jesus escaped out of situations like this many times. Judas thought Jesus could escape somehow or the other this time too. And Judas would get 30 pieces of silver because he did his job. He was so greedy and covetous. When he discovered that Jesus did not let Himself escape this time and allowed Himself to be captured, then Judas felt remorse because he thought of all the goodness that Jesus had shown him through many, many years. Then Judas went to the priests. This is the first case that we read of a man who has sinned and went to a priest to confess. Instead of going to the priest to confess his sin and saying, “I have sinned,” (Matthew 27:4) Judas should have gone to Jesus, just like the thief on the cross who went to Jesus. Judas could have gone to Jesus and said, “O Lord, I am sorry I betrayed You!” Judas’ end would have been so different. If he had only turned then! But he would not. The Lord knew in advance that he would not. That is why He said, “He is the son of perdition,” and “It would be better if he was not even born.” What was Judas’ problem? It was not that he fell. It was not even that he betrayed Jesus. Judas’ problem was that he would not repent. That is why he went to hell. People do not go to hell because they sin. They go to hell because they do not repent of their sin.

Our sins have been paid for on the cross. There is no need for a single human being to go to hell because all sins have been paid for. What about that terrible sin of betraying Jesus Christ? It can be forgiven. Jesus said that whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven. Whoever does something to Son of Man, it will be forgiven. Judas had heard all that. He could have gone to Him and said, “O Lord, I am sorry that I betrayed You! I thought You would escape again!” But he did not do that. Instead, he went to the priests and he confessed, “I betrayed innocent blood. I have sinned.” Does a person who says, “I have sinned,” still go to hell? Well, here is an example of one. Can we categorize him as a person that was better off if he was not even born? Well, that is how Jesus categorized him.

Judas threw the money, and said he would not take it. The chief priests would not take the money back. He felt guilty. He threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed. Judas then went away and hung himself. That was tragic that he went away and destroyed his own self, instead of going to Jesus and repenting. The wonderful message of the gospel is that all of us can repent. If you have a slight desire to turn to God, use it and turn to God and say, “Lord forgive me for I have failed.” Even if you have done the most terrible sin, like Judas betraying Jesus Christ, you can come back to Him in repentance. But Judas did not do that. Do not go to man. Do not go to priests. The only sin that we confess to men is that which we commit against them. Sin must only be confessed to God. There is no such thing as confessing to a priest, and there is no such thing as public confession of sin. All this is a deception. We have to confess our sins only to God, except where we have sinned against another person. Jesus said in Matthew 5:23-24 to go to that person and be reconciled. Otherwise, we do not have to go to man to confess our sin because man cannot forgive our sin. What is the point of going to him? But if we have hurt that person, then we must definitely go and ask him for forgiveness. So this is the mistake Judas made. He went to the priests instead of going to Christ. It is just like what a lot of people do today.

When Judas threw the money away, the chief priests said, “We cannot put this money into the temple treasury because it is the price of blood.” These religious leaders were such crooks, just like a lot of crooked religious leaders today. They counseled together, and with the money, they bought the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. For this reason, that field has been called the “Field of Blood” to this day.

Matthew 27:9 says, “Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, ‘and they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel.’” There is an Old Testament prophecy on this in Zechariah 11:12.

Matthew 27:10 says, “And they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.” That is prophesized in Zechariah 11:13. These things were all written in the Old Testament prophets.

Responding to Questions, but Silent to Accusation

“Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor questioned Him, saying, ‘Are You the King of the Jews?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘It is as you say’” (Matthew 27:11). When He was asked who He was, He said, “This is what I am,” but then when He was being accused, He kept quiet. You see the difference. When He was accused with all those false accusations, He made no reply. But when He was asked about Who He was, He replied. It is the same thing we do today. Somebody asks us, “Are you a Christian?” We should respond, “Yes, I am a Christian.” I am not ashamed to be known as a Christian. But if they accuse us falsely, we follow Jesus and we do not reply, particularly when religious people accuse us. I am not talking about a false accusation in your place of work where you probably need to state that you are not guilty of that. Say “No!” to that crime or whatever they are charging you with so that people do not get a bad opinion and you lose your testimony as a Christian. We must not misunderstand this. If people accuse you falsely in your office, do not keep quiet because then the testimony of the Lord is dishonored. Then you need to defend yourself and say, “No, I did not do that, sir.” But otherwise, when Christians accuse you saying you are a false prophet, etc. follow Jesus’ example and be silent. Let them shear all the wool off you.

Matthew 27:13 says, “Then Pilate said to Him, ‘Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?’” It was not just one thing. There were many, many things that they were charging Him with. Jesus did not answer Pilate with regard to even a single charge. The governor was amazed. Pilate had seen many trials in his life, but he had never seen a prisoner like this, who would not reply to a single charge, not even one! Matthew 27:14 is a great verse to bear in mind when people accuse us of something. It is the sort of reply we need to give to people, who know the Scriptures When they accuse us falsely about many things, we can say, “Matthew 27:14 is what I live by.”

“Jesus did not answer Pilate with regard to even a single charge” (Matthew 27:14) because He lived before God's face. Similarly, we should commit our cause to Him who judges righteously and not give a reply. 1 Peter 2:21 says that we have to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. When we see what Jesus did and how He acted, His life is not just something to admire. We say, “Lord, we want to do that ourselves.”

1 Peter 2:21 says, “Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example to follow in His steps.” How do we do this? The following verses say, first of all, “in His steps, Who committed no sin.” We must really seek to follow in His steps, Who committed no sin. We must also follow in His steps, “in whose mouth was found no deceit or deception.” We must follow His steps, Who “when He was reviled, did not revile in return.” We must follow His steps, Who “while suffering uttered no threats.” We must follow in His steps, Who “kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.”

Leave It to God to Repay Evil

This is where we have to follow in His steps by saying, “Father, this charge these guys have brought against me, I leave that with You. You will take care of it.” There are a number of times when people have sought to harm me, or done some evil, or spoken or written some evil against me, and the Lord has asked me, “Do you want Me to deal with them? Or do you want to deal with that yourself?” I said, “Lord, You deal with that. I am not going to deal with it. I want to follow Jesus, Who kept silent.” Let us follow that example in faith.

“Now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the multitude any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they were holding at that time a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. When therefore they were gathered together, Pilate said to all the people, ‘Whom do you want me to release to you?’ There is a custom in the feast to release one prisoner. Shall I release Barabbas, who is a well-known notorious criminal? Or shall I release Jesus and let Him go? One of these I am going to let go” (Matthew 27:15-17). Pilate recognized that Jesus was not the criminal. He was brought up because of the jealousy of Pharisees, who could not have the type of ministry He had. Even a man like Pilate recognized that this was sheer jealousy. While he was sitting there, and before the crowds could answer that question, his wife sent a message to him. Look at the number of warnings that came to Pilate. She said to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous Man because last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him” (Matthew 27:19). I do not know what exactly she dreamt, but she suffered. She felt that there was some person her husband was judging who was absolutely righteous. It was a great crime that was being committed. She sent that message to him, but he ignored it.

Jesus as the Forerunner

The chief priests and the elders persuaded the multitudes to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. There must have been many people who had been healed by Jesus or were part of the 5,000 who were fed. Many of those people had experienced those blessings! But they had forgotten all of it. Now they were just going along with the crowd to be popular. They said that if everybody is demanding His death, we will demand His death too. The chief priests urged them not to ask for Jesus, but to ask for Barabbas. Let Barabbas be released. So they asked for Barabbas. Pilate was longing so much to release Jesus, especially after hearing from his wife. If you and I come into a situation like this, where we are falsely accused, and they prefer a criminal in place of us, we can be sure there is Someone, a Forerunner, Who is going ahead of us. I remember when religious people took me to court. The Lord said to me that religious people have taken Him to court as well. He said to Me, “If you look for My footsteps, you will see My footsteps in that court.” And I did. I looked for the footsteps of Jesus in the court, and I saw them: forgive and love, forgive and love, forgive and love.

Jesus is an example for us. He has gone ahead of us. He is a forerunner who has gone through every temptation we have gone through and showed us an example how we are to be. Now we have to follow in His footsteps and be an example to others who come behind us. He never said a word when He was falsely accused. A criminal was preferred in place of Him. Can you imagine that? A criminal being preferred in place of the Son of God? He just said, “That is fine. God is sovereign.” Remember this: we can never follow Jesus if we do not believe in the total sovereignty of God, Who controls all circumstances and events relating to our lives. If you believe that, then you will be able to accept that God has allowed this, and in His sovereignty, He will bring out something wonderful out of it.

Pilate asked the crowd, “Okay, if you want Barabbas, I will release him. What shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?” The crowd had been instigated by the religious leaders, and they all said, “Let Him be crucified!” Pilate was longing to let Him go. He said, “Why shall I crucify Him? What evil has He done?” But they kept shouting all the more, “Let Him be crucified! Let Him be crucified!” When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing and a riot was going to start now, he took water and washed his hands in front of the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves” as if he could get away with that. He had the right to release them. He could have released Jesus and Barabbas. But he wanted to be popular with the people. That is what we see here. He wanted to be popular with the people, and he was willing to condemn Jesus. Pilate washes his hands in public and says, “I have nothing to do with this.” And all the people said, “That is fine. His blood be upon us and on our children!” That is exactly what happened. These were Jewish people who had crucified Christ, and they said, “We are the ones who support His crucifixion. If there is any guilt, let it be on us and on our children.” And it happened exactly like that. The guilt was on them and on their children. Pilate washed his hand and said, “I'm innocent of all this myself.” He released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he delivered Him up to be crucified.

“Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. They gathered all the Roman soldiers. They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. They wove a crown of thorns and put it on His head. They also put a reed in His right hand, kneeled down before Him, and mocked Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ (This can happen also to people who are persecuted for Christ’s sake. They are taunted and ridiculed). After that, they spat on Him, took the reed, and began to beat Him on the head” (Matthew 27:27-30).

Why Jesus Had to Suffer

We can ask us ourselves why did this have to happen? We know that Christ had to die for our sins, but why does God have to allow Him to go through this painful way before He dies on the cross? “Couldn’t God have protected Him from at least all this ridicule, etc. before the cross?” This was not necessary. But God's way is that Jesus was to be a Forerunner for all the martyrs in Christian history. Therefore, because He had to be an Example for every one of them, He had to suffer through this ridicule, etc.

If you are a Christian leader, you are also called to be a sort of mini-forerunner. You have to be one who is looking at Jesus, the Chief Runner, as a mini-forerunner so that you can look around at other people, especially younger people behind you, and say, “Follow me as I follow Christ. I also do not defend myself. I keep quiet when I am falsely accused.”

“He was led away to be crucified. As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear His cross” (Matthew 27:31b-32). Remember that the cross that Jesus asks us to bear is not something forced on us. The Roman soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene to bear the cross, and they forced Jesus to bear the cross; but the cross that Jesus asks us to take is not something that is forced on us at all. You do not have to take it if you do not want to. Jesus said, “If any man wishes to come after Me, let Him take up his cross and follow Me.” That leads to the crucifixion. There is a voluntary choice. You do not have to go to the cross if you do not want to, but if you want to follow Jesus, there is no other way.

“When they had come to a place called ‘Golgotha’, which means ‘Place of a Skull’, they gave Him wine to drink mingled with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink” (Matthew 27:33-34). Why was He unwilling to drink that wine? He did not want to be dulled on the cross - He wanted to be alert on the cross. There were a lot of things He had to accomplish. This was a little act of mercy that they gave Him. It was some type of anesthetic, given so that He would not feel the pain so much. But He just tasted it, and He knew that this was an anesthetic. He did not want this. I believe the Spirit of God prompted Him at that time, “Do not take it.” There was a need for that. He had to speak from the cross, forgive them, and say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He would not have been able to say that if He was anaesthetized on the cross. He had to take care of His mother and say, “Woman, I want to ask John to look after you.” And most important of all, He had to forgive a repentant thief on the cross. How could He do that if He was anesthetized?

Jesus Was Sensitive to the Holy Spirit

“They gave Him wine to drink mixed with gall; but after tasting it, He said, ‘No, I do not want it’” (Matthew 27:34). But later on, after everything was over, after He had forgiven the thief on the cross, after He made provision for His mother, etc. then we read in John 19:29, “There was a jar full of sour wine standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop, and brought it up to His mouth and He received it.” Then it was okay, but at the beginning it was not. This teaches us that even when Jesus was hanging on the cross, He was very sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, like He had been from the beginning. Jesus asked, “Father, should I take this or not?” And the Father said, “No, do not take it now.” We see the reason why the Father told Him not to take it till the end of six hours on the cross. This was because He had to forgive a thief, take care of His mother, and forgive the people who crucified Him. Jesus needed to be alert to pray, “Father, forgive them,” and to encourage the thief on the right side to assure him that he would be with Him in paradise. Jesus wanted to provide for His mother and to tell John to take care of His mother. Jesus wanted also to cry out those words, “My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken Me?” So then, after He had finished all of this, they gave Him something to drink (Matthew 27:48), and He was willing to take it. This demonstrates His sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit even when He was hanging on the cross. If a man is offered some type of anesthetic to relieve the pain, it is normal for a man to take it. But as soon as He was offered the anesthetic, Jesus heard the voice the Spirit saying, “Do not take it.”

It is wonderful to live like this. We have seen this again and again in the life of Jesus. This is the Christian life. What we learn from Jesus is not to live by certain laws, but to live by the prompting of the Holy Spirit in every little thing. From the time we are born again right up until the moment we die and even on our death bed, we need to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. So much is missed if we do not listen to the Holy Spirit. God has called us on earth to be a blessing to other people. If we listen to the voice of the Spirit, we can complete our earthly tasks fully. The great thing in the Christian life is to learn to be led by the Holy Spirit. This is the whole secret of the Christian life. If we have learned the secret, then we have learned the most important thing.

Chapter 77

Scripture Fulfilled in Jesus’ Suffering on the Cross

Scripture Was Constantly Fulfilled in Jesus’s Life – Even His Crucifixion

“And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots” (Matthew 27:35). In the book of Matthew, many times we find this phrase, “so that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” For example, we saw that Matthew 1:22-23 says the virgin shall be with child so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. In Isaiah 7:14, it says that, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”

Also, Jesus’ birth was in Bethlehem was so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. Matthew 2:5-6 says, “They said to him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, Are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; For out of you shall come forth a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.’” This fulfills what is written in Micah 5:2 which says that Jesus should be born in Bethlehem.

Jesus went to Egypt and came out of Egypt as it was written in Matthew 2:15 so that the Scripture, the word of the prophet, might be fulfilled. The prophet Hosea had written in Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt, I call My Son.”

In Matthew 2:23, Jesus resided in Nazareth so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: “He shall be called a Nazarene.” And even when He moved to Capernaum from Nazareth in Matthew 4:13-14, it was so that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled. Again, Matthew 12:17 mentions that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled. We see this through the whole Gospel of Matthew right through until the end.

Now we come to His time when He was hanging on the cross. Matthew 27:35 says, “They divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots.” This is not what Jesus was doing. It is what those Roman soldiers were doing. Even that was done in order to fulfill Scripture.

In the Old Testament, Psalm 22 is the Psalm of the cross. It begins with, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It is a prophetic reference to how Jesus would be forsaken on the cross by the Father for our sins. Psalm 22 is a mixture of prophecy plus David's own experiences. So not all of it is prophetic. Here and there you find something that is prophetic, but not all. In Psalm 22:16, it says here, “For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.” This is a clear reference to the cross. It was not David’s experience; nobody pierced his hands and feet.

Psalm 22:17-18 says, “I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; they divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.” This is referring to the time when Jesus was hanging on the cross. This is exactly what happened in Matthew 27:35. Even the Roman soldiers were unconsciously fulfilling a prophecy that was written by David one thousand years earlier. We see this repeated reference, “So that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

If you compare Matthew 27:48 with John 19:28-29, this was also so that Scripture might be fulfilled. John 19:28-29 says, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth.”

There was a specific plan that God made for Jesus life right from the time of His birth in Bethlehem all the way to the time when He was hanging on the cross, and even to His resurrection. God planned for even what others would do to fulfill Scripture related to Christ. For example His being taken as a baby to Egypt, His being brought back to His living in Nazareth, and His move to Capernaum was all done to fulfill Scripture. We also see this in Matthew 12:18-21 where His actions and preaching were written down.

What can we learn from this? Jesus recognized that God the Father had a plan for His life. In fact, that is something that applies to all of God's children.

Psalm 139:13 also says, “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.” This is referring to the time when David was in his mother’s womb. Then Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” This is the book in which God’s plan for David was written. For example, David should be anointed maybe around 19 or 20 years of age. David should be king at 30. David should be king over all Israel at 37. David should die perhaps around 70. All written that was written, and that applies to every child of God. The earlier in your life you believe this, the better, because you can seek to fulfill God's plan for your life.

Trusting God’s Leading

We have often considered this great truth, which I believe is the greatest truth in the whole Bible: John 17:23 says that God loves us as He loved Jesus Christ. There are many verses that tell us that God loves us. But John 17:23 is the only verse that tells us how much God loves us. God loves us as much as He loved Jesus Christ. Because that is true, we know that if God had a specific plan made out for Jesus’ life from birth to death, then we can be absolutely sure that God has made a specific plan for us. But that will not be fulfilled unless you believe it and you seek it. Jesus was always seeking to find that will. That is why He prayed often. That is why He sought, cried out and kept Himself from sin so that His mind would be clear, so that He would be sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

In little things, He would walk down a road and the Spirit of God would say, “Stop, look up into the tree.” Jesus would do that. The Spirit of God would say, “There is a man up there. Ask him to come down. Go and stay in his house.” This is how the Holy Spirit led Him. He would be by the Sea of Galilee and the Spirit of God would say, “Go to Tyre and Sidon.” This was a 70 kilometer journey, and He would walk there and come back. This is how He lived His life. He has given us an example of how God wants us to live our life by constantly listening to God.

We have a destination to become completely like Christ. The Bible says in Romans 8:29 that God has predestined us to become like Jesus Christ. Like the GPS that we have in cars nowadays that guides the driver where to turn, the Holy Spirit is there to guide us through our life, right up to the last day, if we will listen. But the driver in that car may not listen to the GPS. Usually they do, but if they do not listen, the GPS does not get upset. It says, “I will recalculate. I will bring you back to the right path.” That is how the Holy Spirit is. If we have gone astray somewhere and we do not listen, He does not get upset with us, but He guides us back to the right path. He always desires to bring us back into God's perfect plan for our life. That is what we learn from the oft-repeated references to, “As it is written in the Scripture,” and, “So that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

We must also come to the end of our lives with numerous instances the Holy Spirit having clearly led us. As the Holy Spirit told Jesus to go, so He walked. “As it was written in the book of God's plan for His life,” Jesus went here and there, and Jesus did this and that. We need to walk like that at least from the time we are born again. We cannot do anything about the years before we were born again. Acts 17:30 says, “God overlooks the times of ignorance, but from the time we have light, He wants us to repent.” He wants us to turn around from that independent way of life, seek Him all the time, and not decide on our own. This is how Jesus lived so differently.

What can we learn from Jesus? What did Jesus teach us? Jesus taught us to not live like Adam. Adam had the choice of two ways of life. The two trees in the Garden of Eden symbolized two ways of life. One is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, where you take the knowledge of good and evil within you. You do not have to consult God anymore. You just use your reason, go where you like, and use your mind to find out what is best and do it. This is how every human being lives, and many Christians live like that too. The other is the tree of life, where we seek for the power of the Holy Spirit, seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and allow the Spirit of God to lead us every single day. God wants to lead us every single day. This is pictured in the Old Testament with a pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that led Israel day by day. God did not give a map to the Israelites to go from Egypt to Canaan. No, then they would not have depended on God. That would have been like the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We can think, “I have everything I need before me. I do not need to consult God.” But God gave them a pillar of cloud that led them moment-by-moment. They would not even know where they were going to be in the evening. The pillar of cloud may move up and move on. There is a beautiful verse in the Book of Numbers that tells us about this; it is a beautiful verse that should be fulfilled in our lives:

“Whenever the cloud was lifted from over the tent, afterward the sons of Israel would then set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the sons of Israel would camp. At the command of the Lord the sons of Israel would set out, and at the command of the Lord they would camp; as long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped” (Numbers 9:17-18).

Think of this as a picture of the leading of the Holy Spirit in Numbers 9:18-23. It says, “At the command of the Lord, they would set out and at the command of the Lord, they would camp. As long as the cloud settled over the tabernacle, they remained camped. When the cloud lingered over the tabernacle for many days, they would stay there many days. Sometimes, the cloud remained just a few days and according to the command of the Lord, they remained camped. Then according to the command of the Lord, they set out. If sometimes the cloud remained from evening until morning, then when the cloud was lifted in the morning, they would move out. Or if it remained in the daytime and at night, whenever the cloud was lifted, they would set out. Whether it was two days or a month or a year that the cloud lingered over the tabernacle, they stayed over there. The sons of Israel remained camped and did not set out. But when it was lifted, they did set out. At the command of the LORD, they camped and at the command of the Lord, they set out.” This is how they reached Canaan. It is an amazing passage.

Sometimes the cloud would remain from evening till morning. That means the cloud stopped in the evening. Remember what they had to do: they had to pitch their tents. It took quite a while for all these two million people to pitch their tents and settle down. Lo and behold, just as the night is over, they wake up in the morning and the cloud is moving. They have to pack up the tents again and roll it up even though it was just pitched last night. Sometimes, they will stay at a place for will be a whole year (Numbers 9:22). They go to some place, pitch their tents, look up in the morning, and wonder, “Are we going today?” No. What about the next day? No. They would be there for 365 days. God did not show them where they were going to go next. This is a beautiful picture of how the Holy Spirit leads us. He does not give us a plan for our future, but He leads us step-by-step. This is what we learn from Jesus. This is what Jesus taught us. We are not to live like Adam by the knowledge of good and evil, but to live dependent on the Holy Spirit. As many as are led by the Holy Spirit, they are the sons of God.

Using the Ridicule of People for Eternal Gain

“They put above Him the charge against Him which read, ‘THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.’ And at that time, two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and one on the left. Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him and wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:37). This also is fulfilling Scripture. Psalm 22:7-8 says, “All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, ‘Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him.’” That is exactly what they said. Matthew 27:43 says, “He trusts in God; let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” It is amazing how when we walk in the will of God, even other people around us are just fulfilling God's plan for our life. God knows exactly what they are going to say, and exactly what they are going to do. They are going to cast lots for garments. They are going to say, “He trusts in God. Let Him deliver Him.” So many words in Psalm 22 are literally being fulfilled here.

They made fun of Him saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple, rebuild it. Let us see if You are the Son of God. Come down from the cross.” In Matthew 27:41, the chief priests, scribes and others were all mocking Him, saying, “He saved others. He cannot save Himself. He is the king of Israel. Let Him come down.” And the robbers also who had been crucified with Him were casting the same insults at Him.

Initially, both robbers were making fun of Him along with the crowd. What is it that made one robber finally change and said, “Lord, remember me when You come in Your kingdom”? I believe it was this: despite all the sneering, mocking, ridiculing, and saying, “If You are the king of Israel, come down,” Jesus remained absolutely silent, just like He was silent before Pilate. He was silent in front of the chief priests in those courts when the charges were made before Him. He was silent on the cross, and one thief got convicted. He probably never knew much about Jesus, but he saw this Man hanging on the cross completely silent, not replying to any of the charges, mocking, sneering, etc. He hears Jesus saying, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” He sees Him caring for His mother saying, “John, will take care of you. John, please take care of My mother.”

The thief sees all this and is convicted. He says, “This is no ordinary Man.” That is why he said on the cross to the other thief in Luke 23:40-41, “Do you not fear God? We are receiving our sentence justly, but this Man has done nothing wrong.” In Luke 23:42, it says, “And he was saying, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom.’” The thief said, “This Man has done nothing wrong.” How in the world did he know that? Jesus was quiet, and did not reply to numerous charges made against Him. And instead says, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” The Holy Spirit gave revelation to that thief that Jesus was the Son of God. That is how any true child of God behaves when other people accuse him and ridicule him. He only says, “Father, forgive them.” He does not respond and retaliate. Is that how you behave?

This is what we learn from Jesus and all that Jesus taught. When He was hanging on the cross, He taught us how to behave towards those who ridicule us and make fun of us.

The Father Forsook Jesus and Then It Was Finished

Then from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?” That period of darkness was when Jesus suffered the pangs of hell. In three hours, He experienced the concentrated punishment of eternal hell that human beings would suffer in eternity because He was an infinite being. He could experience in three hours what finite beings experience in eternity. It was awesome. It was truly terrible. We will never know the depth of that suffering until we see Jesus face to face one day. If you see it, you will realize how much He loves you.

Jesus cried out, “My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken me?” In His entire life, He had never called God, “God.” He always called Him, “Father.” This is the only time that He called Him God. Why was that? Because He was standing before God as a convicted criminal for the sins of others, before the Judge of the universe. He had voluntarily decided to take the sin of humanity upon Himself, so He was like a criminal, as it were. He was standing before the Judge of the universe, so He addresses Him as God. But there was no rebellion there. He did not say, “O God, O God, why have You forsaken me?” That would have sounded rebellious. He says, “My God, My God,” which means, I cannot understand why You have forsaken Me. At that moment when God forsakes a person, his thinking is not clear at all. He was literally forsaken, but there in the midst of it, he says, “You are still My God. I do not know why You have forsaken Me, but You are still My God.”

This teaches us the submission of the Son of God. Even when He cannot understand something, He says, “My God, My God, You are still My God, even though I do not understand why You have forsaken Me.” But we know now why He was forsaken. It was because of our sin. He was experiencing hell, and there we learn something from Jesus. What can we learn from this example of Jesus? There are times in our life when we cannot understand why God is dealing with us in a certain way. That is the time we say, “You are still my God. You are still my Father.” We know that at the end of that time on the cross, His relationship with the Father was restored.

Matthew 27:47 says that some were thinking He was calling for Elijah. He was not. He was saying “Eli.” Somebody ran with the sponge and gave it to Him. He drank and the rest of them said, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to Him and save Him.” Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His Spirit.

What did He say at that moment with a loud voice? We know the answer from one of the other gospels. John 19:30 says that Jesus said, “It is finished.” The work of salvation and redemption was over. In Luke 23:46, Jesus cried out saying, “Father, into Thy hands I commit My Spirit.” Jesus was saying “Father,” not “God.” The relationship had been restored by the end of the three hours.

It is very beautiful to see what happened on the cross, comparing Scripture with Scripture in the different gospels. The relationship with the Father was restored and as He cried out, “It is finished,” the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). The veil was the thing that blocked off the presence of God from people in Old Testament times. God dwelt in the Most Holy Place the tabernacle. When it was rent, it showed that the way into the Most Holy Place was now open. You can go right into God's presence. Man could come into God's presence now and call Him Father, something that they could not experience before. That was the price that had to be paid. Hebrews 10:20 says that this veil symbolizes the flesh of Jesus. That is a big subject in itself. But the flesh of Jesus was symbolized by that veil which was torn, and the way was opened into the Most Holy Place.

Matthew 27:51 says that the veil was torn from the top to the bottom, signifying that it was God who did it, not man. God did it, and then the tombs were opened. At that very moment, the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised after the resurrection of Christ. They came out of the tombs. The tombs were open, but those saints could not come out until Christ was raised from the dead because He had to be the First. First Christ and then the others. Even though the tombs were opened at that time, the bodies came out only after His resurrection. Saints who had died in the past came out in the resurrection of the bodies. There are people in heaven now whose bodies were resurrected, and they appeared to many other people in the city. The Centurion who saw all this, the earthquake, etc. said, “Truly, this is the Son of God.” Imagine a Roman soldier who did not know anything about the Bible saying, “This is the Son of God.” It is wonderful to see what events took place at the cross.

If we are faithful until the end, God will make our witness shine as well, so that even heathen military people will recognize that we are children of God.

Chapter 78

The New and Living Way Through the Veil

God’s New Temple

In Matthew 27:51, we read that the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom which is described in the other gospels as well. What was the significance of this? One thing, as we saw in the last chapter, is that the way into the Most Holy was opened. This is what it says in the book of Hebrews. The veil indicated that, in the Old Testament, the way into the Holiest was not open. In Hebrews 9:8 it says, “The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the Holy Place has not yet been opened, while that outer tabernacle was standing.” That was the significance of the veil; and when that veil was rent, the way into God's presence was opened. In the Old Testament, the fire of God dwelt upon the Most Holy Place.

The Old Testament Tabernacle had three parts: the outer court, which was open for everybody to see, and then a covered tent, which had two parts: the Holy Place and Most Holy Place. Between the two was this thick veil. The high priest was allowed to go in to the Most Holy Place only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. Other than that, it was completely blocked. The mercy seat was in the Most Holy Place, and God dwelt there. He would say, “I speak from between the cherubs in the mercy seat,” which was indicating that there was something blocking man from coming into God's presence. No one in the Old Testament could understand it. What was it? What did this veil symbolize?

Everything in the Old Testament symbolized something. The Sabbath spoke of inner rest, circumcision spoke of the cutting off confidence in the flesh, the blood of the lamb spoke of the blood of Jesus Christ, the pillar of cloud symbolized the Holy Spirit, Pharaoh is a picture of Satan, and Egypt is a picture of the world, going through the Red Sea is a picture of baptism, the land of Canaan is a picture of the life of victory, the giants are pictures of the lusts in our flesh which can be defeated, going through the Jordan is a picture of going through the way of the cross, being crucified, and taking up that position permanently, the fire resting upon the tabernacle is a picture of the glory of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, et cetera. Everything has a meaning.

So what did the veil symbolize? It's very important to understand this, because when the veil was rent, something happened. The tabernacle was also of picture a man. Man is called the tabernacle of God in John 1:14. The literal translation is, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled in our midst.” That means “dwelt like a tabernacle in our midst.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says the man has three parts, just like the tabernacle: body, soul, and spirit. The body is visible, like the outer court, and the soul and spirit are covered, like the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle. Between the soul and spirit, there is a thick veil that prevents the Holy Spirit from coming and dwelling in man’s spirit. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit could not dwell in any person’s heart or spirit.

There are many implications of this thick veil. One is that man could not go into God's presence because of something blocking him, and another is that God could not come into man’s spirit because something was blocking Him. But that was removed when Christ died and said, “It is finished.” It's very important for us to understand this, because there's something in the veil being rent that Jesus wants to teach us that his disciples couldn't understand then. Jesus said in John 16:12, “There are many more things I want to say to you, but you cannot understand them now.” They couldn't understand because they didn't have the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit came, suddenly their eyes were opened and they could read. It says in 2 Corinthians 3 that there's a veil over the Scriptures as long as you're under the law. You can’t see or understand many things in the Scriptures until you turn to the Lord, the Spirit. Then the veil is taken away. If you turn to the Holy Spirit to explain the meaning of something, He explains it to you. Now we can turn to the Holy Spirit to understand the meaning of this veil. What we have to do is compare Scripture with Scripture. In Hebrews 10:19, it says, “Therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter [the Most Holy Place] by the blood of Jesus.” The Old Testament priests used to take a little blood from a lamb that was slain into the Holy Place on the day of the atonement. However, we have boldness to enter immediately into the presence of God by the blood of Jesus, “by a new and living way which He has inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh” (v20).

The New and Living Way

So there is a way into the Most Holy Place that has been inaugurated. When a road is inaugurated, it’s not just for us to admire. It’s for us to use. A way was inaugurated for us when the veil was rent, and that veil, it says, was His flesh. The word flesh is used in a number of ways in the New Testament. It is referring to meat at times, just plain meat, and at other times it's referring to the corrupt sinful flesh we have. In our sinful flesh dwells nothing good (Romans 7:18). The Bible says that Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh, but not in sinful flesh, because there was no sin in Him at all. The angel said that holy thing which is going to be born is called the Son of God. So there was no sin or sinful flesh in Jesus, but He did have a flesh. In fact, John says that any spirit that doesn't confess that Jesus came in the flesh is the spirit of the antichrist (1 John 4:2,3). It's not talking about Jesus coming in a body, but Jesus coming in the flesh.

That's the word that’s always used in 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. John always says that, “Jesus came in the flesh.” The secret of Godliness is that Christ came in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). So we need to understand what the meaning of flesh is. Galatians 5 gives a little understanding. The flesh fights against the Spirit, and the Spirit fights against the flesh. There is a conflict between them. They are in opposition to one another so that you don't do the things that you please. The flesh is what makes us do what we want to do (Galatians 5:17), and the Spirit opposes that. The Spirit tells us not to do what we want to do, but rather what God wants us to do.

Did Jesus have this conflict all His life? He certainly did in Gethsemane. We know He said, “Father not My will; not what I want to do, but what You want Me to do; not what pleases Me, but what pleases You.” That was the flesh in Jesus, this thing that we call our will. In John 6:38, you will find what I call the one-line autobiography of Jesus Christ; the one-line description of His entire 33 ½ years on earth. He says, “I have come from heaven not to do My Own will.” In other words, He denied His flesh - His flesh was His Own will. He said no to His Own will and spent His entire life doing the will of the Father. The Spirit put the flesh to death in Jesus. In other words, He put this thing called ‘My will’ to death. In Jesus there was no sin, but there was this thing called ‘My will’ that Jesus had throughout His life, and He had to deny it. “Not to do My Own will” means that He denied His Own will, that He denied His flesh.

That is the other meaning of flesh in Jesus, and that is symbolized by the veil. So what was torn in the 33 ½ years of Jesus’ life? His will. His Self-will was torn. He never did His Own will, and at the end of His life, He said, “It is finished.” That means He encountered every possible temptation that a man can face to do his own will and He never gave in. The whole range of temptation, top to bottom, was faced by Him, and, by the help of the Holy Spirit, He never gave in. Therefore, the veil – the symbol of that Self-will in the tabernacle - could be torn. The new and living way through the veil, that is, His flesh (or His Self-will), was inaugurated for us, so that we can go that way too. What is that way? The way of denying our own flesh today, denying self. ”If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). That means Jesus denied Himself too. Otherwise, how can He say, “Follow Me?” I've got to do it, because He did it. Then I can follow Him.

All the Scriptures fit together. That is what we call the way of the cross, the new and living way, and it's a way. Even though we think of the veil like an object or a door, it is not a door. It's a way. It is called a “new and living way.” It’s living because you go the way you always live in life. It’s new in the sense that it is always fresh. Every day there's something fresh, something new, and it’s living, because if I die with Him, I live with Him. It is a living way, and He leads me right into God's presence. And so we see the thing that hindered man from being able to come into God's presence was his own self-will. When Adam and Eve chose to do their own will, they went away from God. Jesus came and went the opposite way. He never did His Own will. It says in Romans 15:3 that Christ never pleased Himself. That is how the veil was rent.

Now we have a choice. God doesn't force anybody to go this way, but we have a choice. If you want to dwell in the immediate presence of God in the Most Holy Place, you can live there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as long as you go through this new and living way. That is the meaning of the rent veil in Matthew 27:51, and this way is open for us all. This is how God can dwell in our spirit too, because the innermost part of the tabernacle, the Most Holy Place, is our spirit, where God dwells. God doesn’t dwell in our body or our mind, but in our spirit. When you say God dwelt in the tabernacle, it was in the Most Holy Place. When we say this body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, we’re saying the Holy Spirit dwells in the Most Holy Place, the spirit of man. But between soul and spirit is this thing called my will, and if I allow God to break down my will, He can make me a spiritual person.

True Spirituality

Merely understanding truth in my mind does not make me spiritual. Getting excited in my emotions does not make me spiritual. It's when I yield my will to the Word that I can become spiritual. Like Jesus said, a man can understand what I say, but if he doesn't do it, his house is built on sand. But when he does it - which means he denies his will and does what God says - then his house is built on rock, and that rock is obedience to Christ.

This is the way that God wants every one of His children to walk – the new and living way. In the parable that Jesus spoke about the wise man and the foolish man in Matthew 7, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, He said, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock…” In our personality, our soul consists of our mind, emotions, and will. The will is the door to the spirit, or the veil into the Most Holy Place. My mind, emotion, and will make up my soul. Even if I understand God's Word in my mind or if I'm stirred by God's Word in my emotions, God's Word has still not penetrated my spirit until I have yielded my will. So when He says, “one who hears these words and does them,” Jesus means he understands it and maybe he is even excited about it, but there’s more: he does them. It is then that he's built on the rock. But if he only understands it (verse 26) and is excited about it, but does not obey it, he is still on sand. Sand is mind and emotions. But God's Word must go through the sand till it hits rock. Then we are unshakable.

Jesus said the same thing earlier in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father.” What does that mean? When a man says, ‘Lord,’ that means his mind is right, and he believes that Jesus Christ is Lord. When he says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ that means he is excited, and his emotions are right. But he still doesn't enter the kingdom. It's when he yields his will. ‘Lord’ is not enough. ‘Lord, Lord’ is not enough. Only after obedience, when the will is broken and the veil is torn, can God dwell in his spirit.

It is the same thing everywhere. You find Scripture teaches consistently that it is the lack of yielded-ness of our will that prevents us from being spiritual. In Christendom, two groups of people both say they are separated from all the dead denominational churches. One group concentrates on studying the Scriptures. If you go to their assemblies, they are always studying Scripture, teaching Scripture, and they have tremendous knowledge of Scripture. But it is in the mind. The other group reacts against that, saying, “That is dead academic study. We want some excitement.” They have very emotional songs and drums and beats and clapping and yelling and all types of jumping like the prophets of Baal. They think that is spirituality, but it's not. One emphasizes the mind, and the other, emotion. Where is the church that says, “Beyond emotion and mind, you have to deny yourself and take up the cross and die. Then you’ve built on the rock.” That's the church you should be a part of.

We're not against intellectual understanding. I believe in studying the Scriptures. That's why we're having this bible study. I believe in being excited about the Scriptures and stirring people emotionally. I hope you’ve been stirred emotionally as you’ve gone through these chapters. But ultimately our aim is to get you to deny your will and do the will of God. Otherwise, you'll never become spiritual. That is the whole meaning of the rent veil. That is where God wants to bring us, where Christ is Lord. And when you say Christ is Lord, it is proven not just in word, and not just in emotion, but in obedience to His Word. Jesus speaks about the wise man at the end of the Sermon on the Mount as, “Whoever hears these words of Mine and does them.”

If you are serious about following all that you've learned in this study, do what Jesus said - build on the rock. “If you hear these words of Mine and do them, you’ll build on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). That is the narrow way. At the end of Sermon on the Mount, He says, “Enter through the narrow gate…” That is the new and living way, through the veil. That is the narrow way and the narrow gate, and it relates to this chapter. So if you are serious about it, I would encourage you to read Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Go through it, verse by verse, and see if you’ve obeyed it. We went through it earlier in this study, verse by verse. See if you are obeying all that Jesus taught. If you do, your life will be unshakable, your family will be unshakable, and your church will be unshakable. It is such a life of obedience to God's Word that is not being taught sufficiently in Christendom today. It is the mark of our love for Christ.

How do you prove your love for Christ? Is it by going out as a missionary? Is it by sacrifice and offering? No. It says in Hebrews 10:5, sacrifice and offering He does not desire, but He wants your body. He wants you to obey Him with your eyes and tongue and hands. That's how you prove your love. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Many people understand love as just emotional excitement, like a cinematic type of love between a boy and a girl. They think love for Jesus is like that. That's not love for Jesus. Jesus said, love for Me is proved by your obedience. John 14:15 says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” There's no other way to prove our love for Him. Another sign is that you’ll love your brother. If you can’t love a brother whom you see, you can’t love God Who is invisible (1 John 4:20). These are the two ways by which I prove my love for God. One is by keeping His commandments, and the other is by loving your brother whom you can see. A lot of brothers whom we see may not be very lovable, but if you can’t love them, you can’t love God. The Christian life is very practical.

God Can Even Use Secret Disciples to Help Care for the Body of Christ

“And when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus” (Matthew 27:57). This was in secret, because he was in the council, and they were not followers of Jesus. A man in the council was a secret disciple, like Nicodemus, and this man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. So Pilate ordered it to be given over to him. This shows how God has some witnesses in high places to help us. If Peter had gone to Pilate’s house, the fisherman Peter, the security guards would have thrown him out of the gate. He couldn’t have gone anywhere near, but there was this influential man called Joseph. God had him there to help the body of Jesus to be taken down. It's the same today. God has some very influential people in high places who are willing to help the body of Christ today. Thank God for them. They may be secret disciples. They're not called to go out and plant churches and be apostles like Peter, but they're useful at certain times to help the body of Christ. It says that Joseph took the body. He himself came, took the body, wrapped it up in a clean linen cloth, and laid it out in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. Then he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away. Just as it was prophesied in Isaiah 53, His death and His burial were with criminals on the cross and with a very wealthy man in His burial. God cares for the poor and the rich, for extreme murderers and rich people. He doesn't exclude anybody.

“Mary Magdalene was there and the other Mary sitting opposite the grave. The next day, which is the one after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, “After three days I am to rise again”’” (Matthew 27:61-63). They were concerned just in case this was actually going to happen. Imagine that! They didn’t believe in the resurrection, but they thought something might happen. They didn’t know what, but maybe the disciples would come and steal the body or something and say that He had risen. So they went to Pilate. They were so particular to make sure the grave was protected from this type of theft and all that, which is all very good. It is good because it proved in history that the resurrection had nothing to do with anybody rolling away the stone or any disciples coming and stealing Jesus’ body. So God ordained this, that Pilate should get a security of military people to guard that tomb. They said, “Please give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest the disciples come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He is risen from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first. So Pilate said, ‘Go ahead, you have a guard; go and make it as secure as you know how.’ And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard, they set a seal on the stone” (Matthew 27:64-66). Not only did they put a guard, the Roman soldiers kept doing shifts, so that 24 hours a day there would always be someone awake, watching over that tomb to make sure no disciple came anywhere near it. In any case, one soldier alone would have been enough to drive away any disciples, but there were a number of soldiers continuously there around the tomb of Jesus for all those three days. They put a seal as well on the tomb, which if you didn’t know, if somebody had moved it or broke it to remove the stone, the seal would be broken. This was God's way of sovereignly proving that the resurrection was not a fake. Even this thing that Pilate ordered was something that God allowed so that history would record that it was not the disciples who took the body away. This was a case where the Roman authority, the government, was trying to keep anyone from coming anywhere near the grave. This was not just some cemetery somewhere where anybody could come and walk in and walk off with the body. If it was like that, people could have spread all types of stories. God allowed this to happen so that there would be clear proof that the resurrection was a supernatural event that came from God. Do you see the sovereignty of God? That's what we learn: if our lives are surrendered to God, God makes everything work for our good and His glory. His sovereignty determines and controls that.

Chapter 78

The New and Living Way Through the Veil

God’s New Temple

In Matthew 27:51, we read that the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom which is described in the other gospels as well. What was the significance of this? One thing, as we saw in the last chapter, is that the way into the Most Holy was opened. This is what it says in the book of Hebrews. The veil indicated that, in the Old Testament, the way into the Holiest was not open. In Hebrews 9:8 it says, “The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the Holy Place has not yet been opened, while that outer tabernacle was standing.” That was the significance of the veil; and when that veil was rent, the way into God's presence was opened. In the Old Testament, the fire of God dwelt upon the Most Holy Place.

The Old Testament Tabernacle had three parts: the outer court, which was open for everybody to see, and then a covered tent, which had two parts: the Holy Place and Most Holy Place. Between the two was this thick veil. The high priest was allowed to go in to the Most Holy Place only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. Other than that, it was completely blocked. The mercy seat was in the Most Holy Place, and God dwelt there. He would say, “I speak from between the cherubs in the mercy seat,” which was indicating that there was something blocking man from coming into God's presence. No one in the Old Testament could understand it. What was it? What did this veil symbolize?

Everything in the Old Testament symbolized something. The Sabbath spoke of inner rest, circumcision spoke of the cutting off confidence in the flesh, the blood of the lamb spoke of the blood of Jesus Christ, the pillar of cloud symbolized the Holy Spirit, Pharaoh is a picture of Satan, and Egypt is a picture of the world, going through the Red Sea is a picture of baptism, the land of Canaan is a picture of the life of victory, the giants are pictures of the lusts in our flesh which can be defeated, going through the Jordan is a picture of going through the way of the cross, being crucified, and taking up that position permanently, the fire resting upon the tabernacle is a picture of the glory of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, et cetera. Everything has a meaning.

So what did the veil symbolize? It's very important to understand this, because when the veil was rent, something happened. The tabernacle was also of picture a man. Man is called the tabernacle of God in John 1:14. The literal translation is, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled in our midst.” That means “dwelt like a tabernacle in our midst.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says the man has three parts, just like the tabernacle: body, soul, and spirit. The body is visible, like the outer court, and the soul and spirit are covered, like the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle. Between the soul and spirit, there is a thick veil that prevents the Holy Spirit from coming and dwelling in man’s spirit. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit could not dwell in any person’s heart or spirit.

There are many implications of this thick veil. One is that man could not go into God's presence because of something blocking him, and another is that God could not come into man’s spirit because something was blocking Him. But that was removed when Christ died and said, “It is finished.” It's very important for us to understand this, because there's something in the veil being rent that Jesus wants to teach us that his disciples couldn't understand then. Jesus said in John 16:12, “There are many more things I want to say to you, but you cannot understand them now.” They couldn't understand because they didn't have the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit came, suddenly their eyes were opened and they could read. It says in 2 Corinthians 3 that there's a veil over the Scriptures as long as you're under the law. You can’t see or understand many things in the Scriptures until you turn to the Lord, the Spirit. Then the veil is taken away. If you turn to the Holy Spirit to explain the meaning of something, He explains it to you. Now we can turn to the Holy Spirit to understand the meaning of this veil. What we have to do is compare Scripture with Scripture. In Hebrews 10:19, it says, “Therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter [the Most Holy Place] by the blood of Jesus.” The Old Testament priests used to take a little blood from a lamb that was slain into the Holy Place on the day of the atonement. However, we have boldness to enter immediately into the presence of God by the blood of Jesus, “by a new and living way which He has inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh” (v20).

The New and Living Way

So there is a way into the Most Holy Place that has been inaugurated. When a road is inaugurated, it’s not just for us to admire. It’s for us to use. A way was inaugurated for us when the veil was rent, and that veil, it says, was His flesh. The word flesh is used in a number of ways in the New Testament. It is referring to meat at times, just plain meat, and at other times it's referring to the corrupt sinful flesh we have. In our sinful flesh dwells nothing good (Romans 7:18). The Bible says that Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh, but not in sinful flesh, because there was no sin in Him at all. The angel said that holy thing which is going to be born is called the Son of God. So there was no sin or sinful flesh in Jesus, but He did have a flesh. In fact, John says that any spirit that doesn't confess that Jesus came in the flesh is the spirit of the antichrist (1 John 4:2,3). It's not talking about Jesus coming in a body, but Jesus coming in the flesh.

That's the word that’s always used in 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. John always says that, “Jesus came in the flesh.” The secret of Godliness is that Christ came in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). So we need to understand what the meaning of flesh is. Galatians 5 gives a little understanding. The flesh fights against the Spirit, and the Spirit fights against the flesh. There is a conflict between them. They are in opposition to one another so that you don't do the things that you please. The flesh is what makes us do what we want to do (Galatians 5:17), and the Spirit opposes that. The Spirit tells us not to do what we want to do, but rather what God wants us to do.

Did Jesus have this conflict all His life? He certainly did in Gethsemane. We know He said, “Father not My will; not what I want to do, but what You want Me to do; not what pleases Me, but what pleases You.” That was the flesh in Jesus, this thing that we call our will. In John 6:38, you will find what I call the one-line autobiography of Jesus Christ; the one-line description of His entire 33 ½ years on earth. He says, “I have come from heaven not to do My Own will.” In other words, He denied His flesh - His flesh was His Own will. He said no to His Own will and spent His entire life doing the will of the Father. The Spirit put the flesh to death in Jesus. In other words, He put this thing called ‘My will’ to death. In Jesus there was no sin, but there was this thing called ‘My will’ that Jesus had throughout His life, and He had to deny it. “Not to do My Own will” means that He denied His Own will, that He denied His flesh.

That is the other meaning of flesh in Jesus, and that is symbolized by the veil. So what was torn in the 33 ½ years of Jesus’ life? His will. His Self-will was torn. He never did His Own will, and at the end of His life, He said, “It is finished.” That means He encountered every possible temptation that a man can face to do his own will and He never gave in. The whole range of temptation, top to bottom, was faced by Him, and, by the help of the Holy Spirit, He never gave in. Therefore, the veil – the symbol of that Self-will in the tabernacle - could be torn. The new and living way through the veil, that is, His flesh (or His Self-will), was inaugurated for us, so that we can go that way too. What is that way? The way of denying our own flesh today, denying self. ”If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). That means Jesus denied Himself too. Otherwise, how can He say, “Follow Me?” I've got to do it, because He did it. Then I can follow Him.

All the Scriptures fit together. That is what we call the way of the cross, the new and living way, and it's a way. Even though we think of the veil like an object or a door, it is not a door. It's a way. It is called a “new and living way.” It’s living because you go the way you always live in life. It’s new in the sense that it is always fresh. Every day there's something fresh, something new, and it’s living, because if I die with Him, I live with Him. It is a living way, and He leads me right into God's presence. And so we see the thing that hindered man from being able to come into God's presence was his own self-will. When Adam and Eve chose to do their own will, they went away from God. Jesus came and went the opposite way. He never did His Own will. It says in Romans 15:3 that Christ never pleased Himself. That is how the veil was rent.

Now we have a choice. God doesn't force anybody to go this way, but we have a choice. If you want to dwell in the immediate presence of God in the Most Holy Place, you can live there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as long as you go through this new and living way. That is the meaning of the rent veil in Matthew 27:51, and this way is open for us all. This is how God can dwell in our spirit too, because the innermost part of the tabernacle, the Most Holy Place, is our spirit, where God dwells. God doesn’t dwell in our body or our mind, but in our spirit. When you say God dwelt in the tabernacle, it was in the Most Holy Place. When we say this body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, we’re saying the Holy Spirit dwells in the Most Holy Place, the spirit of man. But between soul and spirit is this thing called my will, and if I allow God to break down my will, He can make me a spiritual person.

True Spirituality

Merely understanding truth in my mind does not make me spiritual. Getting excited in my emotions does not make me spiritual. It's when I yield my will to the Word that I can become spiritual. Like Jesus said, a man can understand what I say, but if he doesn't do it, his house is built on sand. But when he does it - which means he denies his will and does what God says - then his house is built on rock, and that rock is obedience to Christ.

This is the way that God wants every one of His children to walk – the new and living way. In the parable that Jesus spoke about the wise man and the foolish man in Matthew 7, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, He said, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock…” In our personality, our soul consists of our mind, emotions, and will. The will is the door to the spirit, or the veil into the Most Holy Place. My mind, emotion, and will make up my soul. Even if I understand God's Word in my mind or if I'm stirred by God's Word in my emotions, God's Word has still not penetrated my spirit until I have yielded my will. So when He says, “one who hears these words and does them,” Jesus means he understands it and maybe he is even excited about it, but there’s more: he does them. It is then that he's built on the rock. But if he only understands it (verse 26) and is excited about it, but does not obey it, he is still on sand. Sand is mind and emotions. But God's Word must go through the sand till it hits rock. Then we are unshakable.

Jesus said the same thing earlier in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father.” What does that mean? When a man says, ‘Lord,’ that means his mind is right, and he believes that Jesus Christ is Lord. When he says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ that means he is excited, and his emotions are right. But he still doesn't enter the kingdom. It's when he yields his will. ‘Lord’ is not enough. ‘Lord, Lord’ is not enough. Only after obedience, when the will is broken and the veil is torn, can God dwell in his spirit.

It is the same thing everywhere. You find Scripture teaches consistently that it is the lack of yielded-ness of our will that prevents us from being spiritual. In Christendom, two groups of people both say they are separated from all the dead denominational churches. One group concentrates on studying the Scriptures. If you go to their assemblies, they are always studying Scripture, teaching Scripture, and they have tremendous knowledge of Scripture. But it is in the mind. The other group reacts against that, saying, “That is dead academic study. We want some excitement.” They have very emotional songs and drums and beats and clapping and yelling and all types of jumping like the prophets of Baal. They think that is spirituality, but it's not. One emphasizes the mind, and the other, emotion. Where is the church that says, “Beyond emotion and mind, you have to deny yourself and take up the cross and die. Then you’ve built on the rock.” That's the church you should be a part of.

We're not against intellectual understanding. I believe in studying the Scriptures. That's why we're having this bible study. I believe in being excited about the Scriptures and stirring people emotionally. I hope you’ve been stirred emotionally as you’ve gone through these chapters. But ultimately our aim is to get you to deny your will and do the will of God. Otherwise, you'll never become spiritual. That is the whole meaning of the rent veil. That is where God wants to bring us, where Christ is Lord. And when you say Christ is Lord, it is proven not just in word, and not just in emotion, but in obedience to His Word. Jesus speaks about the wise man at the end of the Sermon on the Mount as, “Whoever hears these words of Mine and does them.”

If you are serious about following all that you've learned in this study, do what Jesus said - build on the rock. “If you hear these words of Mine and do them, you’ll build on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). That is the narrow way. At the end of Sermon on the Mount, He says, “Enter through the narrow gate…” That is the new and living way, through the veil. That is the narrow way and the narrow gate, and it relates to this chapter. So if you are serious about it, I would encourage you to read Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Go through it, verse by verse, and see if you’ve obeyed it. We went through it earlier in this study, verse by verse. See if you are obeying all that Jesus taught. If you do, your life will be unshakable, your family will be unshakable, and your church will be unshakable. It is such a life of obedience to God's Word that is not being taught sufficiently in Christendom today. It is the mark of our love for Christ.

How do you prove your love for Christ? Is it by going out as a missionary? Is it by sacrifice and offering? No. It says in Hebrews 10:5, sacrifice and offering He does not desire, but He wants your body. He wants you to obey Him with your eyes and tongue and hands. That's how you prove your love. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Many people understand love as just emotional excitement, like a cinematic type of love between a boy and a girl. They think love for Jesus is like that. That's not love for Jesus. Jesus said, love for Me is proved by your obedience. John 14:15 says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” There's no other way to prove our love for Him. Another sign is that you’ll love your brother. If you can’t love a brother whom you see, you can’t love God Who is invisible (1 John 4:20). These are the two ways by which I prove my love for God. One is by keeping His commandments, and the other is by loving your brother whom you can see. A lot of brothers whom we see may not be very lovable, but if you can’t love them, you can’t love God. The Christian life is very practical.

God Can Even Use Secret Disciples to Help Care for the Body of Christ

“And when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus” (Matthew 27:57). This was in secret, because he was in the council, and they were not followers of Jesus. A man in the council was a secret disciple, like Nicodemus, and this man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. So Pilate ordered it to be given over to him. This shows how God has some witnesses in high places to help us. If Peter had gone to Pilate’s house, the fisherman Peter, the security guards would have thrown him out of the gate. He couldn’t have gone anywhere near, but there was this influential man called Joseph. God had him there to help the body of Jesus to be taken down. It's the same today. God has some very influential people in high places who are willing to help the body of Christ today. Thank God for them. They may be secret disciples. They're not called to go out and plant churches and be apostles like Peter, but they're useful at certain times to help the body of Christ. It says that Joseph took the body. He himself came, took the body, wrapped it up in a clean linen cloth, and laid it out in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. Then he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away. Just as it was prophesied in Isaiah 53, His death and His burial were with criminals on the cross and with a very wealthy man in His burial. God cares for the poor and the rich, for extreme murderers and rich people. He doesn't exclude anybody.

“Mary Magdalene was there and the other Mary sitting opposite the grave. The next day, which is the one after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, “After three days I am to rise again”’” (Matthew 27:61-63). They were concerned just in case this was actually going to happen. Imagine that! They didn’t believe in the resurrection, but they thought something might happen. They didn’t know what, but maybe the disciples would come and steal the body or something and say that He had risen. So they went to Pilate. They were so particular to make sure the grave was protected from this type of theft and all that, which is all very good. It is good because it proved in history that the resurrection had nothing to do with anybody rolling away the stone or any disciples coming and stealing Jesus’ body. So God ordained this, that Pilate should get a security of military people to guard that tomb. They said, “Please give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest the disciples come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He is risen from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first. So Pilate said, ‘Go ahead, you have a guard; go and make it as secure as you know how.’ And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard, they set a seal on the stone” (Matthew 27:64-66). Not only did they put a guard, the Roman soldiers kept doing shifts, so that 24 hours a day there would always be someone awake, watching over that tomb to make sure no disciple came anywhere near it. In any case, one soldier alone would have been enough to drive away any disciples, but there were a number of soldiers continuously there around the tomb of Jesus for all those three days. They put a seal as well on the tomb, which if you didn’t know, if somebody had moved it or broke it to remove the stone, the seal would be broken. This was God's way of sovereignly proving that the resurrection was not a fake. Even this thing that Pilate ordered was something that God allowed so that history would record that it was not the disciples who took the body away. This was a case where the Roman authority, the government, was trying to keep anyone from coming anywhere near the grave. This was not just some cemetery somewhere where anybody could come and walk in and walk off with the body. If it was like that, people could have spread all types of stories. God allowed this to happen so that there would be clear proof that the resurrection was a supernatural event that came from God. Do you see the sovereignty of God? That's what we learn: if our lives are surrendered to God, God makes everything work for our good and His glory. His sovereignty determines and controls that.

Chapter 79

Jesus's Resurrection

After the regular Sabbath on Saturday (before that there was a special Sabbath on Friday which was also a Sabbath because of the feast of unleavened bread following the Passover; Christ died on Thursday) – which is to say, “after three days” - Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. They brought spices because there was no opportunity during the Sabbath to go and anoint the body of Jesus. It was all done in a rush. Joseph of Arimathea just wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and put it in the tomb because it was getting close to sunset when the Sabbath would begin (Matthew 27:59). “A severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat on it. And His appearance was like lightning and His garment as white as snow; and the guards shook for fear of Him and became like dead men.” These women came looking and they saw the angel, and the angel answered and said, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus Who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying” (Matthew 28:1-6).

The Most Important Event in the History of Mankind

This is the most important event in the history of man. Christians have not sufficiently emphasized the resurrection of Jesus Christ. “He has risen, come and see. Go and quickly tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and He is going before you to Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you” (Matthew 28:7). Why do I say this is the most important event in human history? Jesus Christ is not the only One who was crucified. Many thieves were crucified. Even on that day, two thieves were crucified. That was the standard method of death that the Romans employed. Many people were crucified and many religious leaders had been martyred and killed. How do we say Jesus is different? He could be like one of the old prophets. Resurrection is different from the raising of the dead. Elijah and Elisha raised some young boys from the dead. Elisha’s dead bones raised up a dead man who was thrown into that grave. This is different from those three resurrections. In Jesus’ lifetime, Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter were both raised from the dead, and the widow of Nain's son was too. But this is different from those three as well. Peter raised Tabitha from the dead and Paul raised Eutychus from the dead, but this is also different from those two. All of these eight people - raised from the dead at one time by godly men - died again. They hadn't conquered death. They were raised from the dead temporarily to die again. They came out of the grave and then went back to the grave.

In Jesus’ case it was a resurrection. When Jesus came out of the grave, He didn’t come out in His old body. It was the same shape and appearance, but it was a resurrection body that could move from place to place and virtually disappear. It could move at the speed of lightning so that you could hardly see when it came and when it went, and there was no blood in it. It had only flesh and bones, as we considered earlier in Luke chapter 24:39. When He appeared before the disciples said to them, "See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have". You read there that He could eat a piece of fish - they gave Him a piece of fish and He ate it to show them that He was a living person. He chose to eat fish was because when you eat fish you leave the bones behind. Afterwards when Jesus disappeared and the disciples wondered whether it was a dream or something, they would see the bones of the fish and remember that He was really there because of the bones.

In the resurrection of Jesus He had a body that was not limited by time and space, without blood, a body that could never be sick and could move around without any limitation. The Bible says that when Christ comes back we're going to have a body like that. It says in Philippians 3:20-21 that “we're waiting for the Savior Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.” Our body is going to be like His in the resurrection when Christ comes back. This is the most important event in human history because there's only one human being that ever rose from the dead and conquered death.

Christians make a lot about the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus. What are the most common paintings of Christ that you have seen? The nativity scene (the birth of Christ) and the cross (the death of Christ). How many paintings have you seen of Christ coming out of the grave alive? That is most important, and yet the devil has hidden that. He always wants people to think of a weak helpless Christ; a little baby in a manger or a person hanging on the cross. But that is not Christ - the cross is empty today. He is not there. The meaning of an empty cross is that Jesus is risen. That's the message that needs to be proclaimed.

Proof of Resurrection in Romans

The resurrection is the most important truth for us to experience in the whole Bible. God loves us as He loved Jesus, and He manifested that love by giving His son to die on the cross and raising Him from the dead, proving thereby that He was the Son of God. The Bible says that the resurrection was the proof that He was the Son of God. He was “declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4). The resurrection from the dead proved that what He said was true, and what all other religious leaders said was not true because they were not raised from the dead. He rose from the dead. He conquered death. Man's greatest enemy is death. Every man dies. Man has conquered space but he has not conquered death. You can extend life in many ways with treatment and medicine, but finally man dies and you cannot conquer death. But Jesus conquered death.

Further, it says in Romans 4:25 that He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. So the resurrection of Christ is significant for us because it is how I know that I'm accepted before God, that Christ is now my righteousness, and that I'm declared righteous before God. How do I know I'm declared righteous? How do I know my sins are forgiven? Because Christ died on the cross. I can stand before God today because Christ rose from the dead and ascended up into the presence of God in a body. When Christ died, His spirit went into paradise like the spirits of dead believers, but His body was on earth. At the resurrection, His spirit came back into the body and the body rose up and was transformed into a new body. He was on earth for forty days and then ascended to heaven. That is why wherever the apostles went, they said that they were “witnesses of Jesus' resurrection.” When the apostles wanted to select someone to replace Judas, see what they said. In Acts 1, before the day of the Pentecost, Peter says that the person to replace Judas Iscariot who should "be along with us a witness of His resurrection". Not a witness of His crucifixion, but a witness of His resurrection.

Speak of Crucifixion and Resurrection

We must speak more of the resurrection of Christ than the crucifixion. The two must be spoken of together. The gospel is that Christ died for our sins and rose again, not just that Christ died for our sins. See 1 Corinthians 15:3, "I declare to you what I received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and on the third day rose again according to the Scriptures.” He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time (verse 6). So the gospel is incomplete if you don't talk about the resurrection. This is so important. I believe all preaching of the gospel must include the resurrection of Christ. It’s fundamentally important.

“They departed quickly and reported it with great joy and ran and told the disciples. Then Jesus met them and greeted them. They came up and took hold of His feet and worshipped Him and then Jesus said to them, ‘Don't be afraid’” (Matthew 28:8). Those were always His words: peace be to you, don't be afraid. Those are the most common words He used even after His resurrection. Peace and have no fear. I hope we will take those words to heart because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because He lives, like we sing in that song, we can face tomorrow. Because the One who holds tomorrow lives, there's no fear or anxiety; there is peace.

Jesus Is Our Brother Now

“Go and take My word to My brethren” (Matthew 28:10b). This is a new thing that happened in the resurrection. Until then He called His disciples “servants” and “friends,” but after the resurrection, He calls them His brothers. “Go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee and there they shall see Me.” In John 20 we read of His meeting with Mary Magdalene. He tells her in the middle of John 20:17, “go to My brethren, and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, My God and your God.’” Jesus had never used that expression before. All through the gospels and throughout His earthly life, He would talk about His Father, or sometimes He would talk to the disciples about "your Father." It was always “My Father,” or, “your Father,” but after the resurrection He combines the two for the first time: "My Father and your Father." He says we're one now and you are My brothers. In John 15 He had told them that He no longer called them servants but friends and brothers (John 15:14-15).

What does it mean when one Christian calls a person a “brother”? That is the greatest title you can ever give to a child of God: “brother of Jesus Christ.”

I wish we'd be gripped by the significance of this title, “My brothers.” We have one Father. Romans 8:29 says, “those whom God foreknew, He predestined (He determined a destination for them) that they should become like Jesus, conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.” When God sent His Son to the earth, as we see in John 3:16, He was the “only begotten Son.” After the resurrection He became the “firstborn among many brothers.” So the resurrection is very significant. Jesus was no longer the only begotten Son. Up until the resurrection He was the only begotten Son of God, but the moment He rose from the dead, He became the firstborn. We need to see the significance of His resurrection. Jesus is teaching us that we are His brothers; that His Father is our Father, and that He is our elder Brother. It is an amazing relationship; we can have the same rights as He has if we keep the same laws. God will do for us everything that He did for Jesus because there's no partiality with God; what He did for His elder Son He will do for us. When I had only one son, he was my only son; but once I had other sons, he became my firstborn. An only son becomes a firstborn when there are other sons. That is what happened at the resurrection. The only begotten Son became the firstborn. We need to see this so that we can recognize our position and our privilege as children of God.

“While they were on their way, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened” (Matthew 28:11). They said hey, there was an earthquake and an angel came and rolled away the stone and we were just frightened and the body just rose up, they didn't see the body but they couldn't see it. “When they had assembled with the elders and counseled together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, and said, ‘You must tell people that His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep’” (Matthew 28:12-13). It is a crime for a Roman soldier to be asleep when he is on duty. No Roman soldier would dare to do that, but what could they say? They couldn't say that the disciples or fishermen came and overpowered the Roman soldiers and took the body, for nobody would believe that. The guards said, “Hey, what if Pilate hears that we were asleep?” They said, “Don't worry. We'll talk to the governor and keep you out of trouble for saying that you were asleep.” Those soldiers were happy to take the money and did exactly as they were instructed (Matthew 28:14-15).

Right from the beginning there has been lying on the part of religious people. Religious people tell lies in order to defend their cause. People of all religions - including nominal Christians - tell lies. Whenever you tell a lie, remember that the father of a lie is Satan. Jesus said the devil is the father of all lies. Jesus said He is the truth. And you see lying right at the beginning, after the resurrection.

Jesus Shows Himself to Believers

The resurrection is the most important thing that ever happened. It is what gives us hope. 1 Corinthians 15 is a great chapter on the resurrection. In verse six it says that after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to five hundred brethren. Do you know that Jesus never appeared to an unbeliever after His resurrection? He didn't have any cheap desire to go and stand before Pilate and say, “You killed Me, but here I am…” He didn't have the desire to go and stand before Annas and Caiaphas or Herod either.

He did appear to people, but all the people He appeared to were believers. That is very significant. He appeared to 500 brothers, but not one of those was an unbeliever because He didn't want to score any cheap points over others. If they repented of their sins they could trust Him. He told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” "You believe,” He told Thomas, "because you've seen Me, put your hands into My fingers." Is that the more blessed thing? What did Jesus say about believing in Him? He said in John 22:29 “Blessed are those who have not seen Me and believed.” We are in that category. We haven't seen the risen Jesus but we believe. Do you know that you are more blessed than those who actually saw the physical, resurrected Jesus? I believe it because He said it. I believe with all my heart that I am more blessed than those people who saw the physical, resurrected Jesus. Some of us think they would like to have been there at the resurrection to see Him coming after His resurrection. No, you are more blessed if you didn't see, and yet believe. Those are the words of Jesus, so it must be true in some way.

We Have Hope Because of Christ's Resurrection

In 1 Corinthians 15 it says that if in this life only we have hope – if Christ wasn’t raised, then we are of all men most miserable. We have hope for the future because of the resurrection of Christ. We will be resurrected with Christ when He comes, and then comes the end. Death has already been destroyed by the resurrection of Christ, Satan’s power has been destroyed. The Resurrection proved that all that Jesus said was true, and proves that we have hope for the future. If it were not for the resurrection, we would be of all men most miserable.

Paul says he is willing to face all types of dangers because he knows there is a resurrection from the dead. In Acts 24:15 Paul confesses his hope that there is going to be a resurrection one day of the righteous and the wicked. “In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men" (verse 16). This teaches that if you really believe there's going to be a resurrection, then the evidence is that you will keep your conscience absolutely clear. Otherwise it is a nominal confession. If you really believe there's going to be a resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, you will do your very best to maintain a blameless conscience before God and men. It is one thing to theoretically say, “I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” It is quite another thing to actually believe it deep down in our heart. If you ask the devil whether he believes Jesus rose from the dead, he would say yes! Every demon in hell knows it and trembles at that truth. If you also believe in your heart that there will be a resurrection of the righteous and another resurrection of the wicked, and that not everybody is going to be in the resurrection of the righteous, how can you make sure that you'll be in the resurrection of the righteous and not in the resurrection of the wicked? There's nobody who could tell us better than Paul himself. He says in view of the hope that there'll be a resurrection the righteous and the wicked, he does his best always to maintain a blameless conscience before God and before man.

What does that mean? It means that whenever Paul’s conscience pricked him about anything that he felt had violated God's law or the life of Christ, he would immediately confess it and ask God to forgive it and cleanse it in the blood of Christ. If he felt he had hurt somebody, he would go immediately to that person and ask forgiveness and set it right. If somebody had done some harm to him and he had a little unforgiving spirit in his heart, he would immediately get rid of it and forgive that person. He made sure his conscience was always clean. It's like when a thorn gets into your foot. You don't wait to pull it out; you pull it out immediately. That is how we must keep our conscience, and that is the way anyone who believes in the resurrection will keep his conscience. As far as I'm concerned, the only way I can say I believe in the resurrection is that I keep my conscience clear. If you don't keep your conscience clear, your faith in the resurrection is only theoretical. May God help us to live according to the things that Jesus taught.

Chapter 80

Summary

We've been looking at the subject of all that Jesus taught, trying to obey the command in Matthew 28:20 where Jesus said that after you make disciples and baptize them, you must teach them to observe all that He commanded. We have studied the entire Gospel of Matthew, and we’ve seen all the things that Jesus taught by His words, by His life, by His actions, and by the circumstances through which He took His disciples and trained them. What was He trying to teach them which we have to learn? What was He trying to teach from the actions of others like the blind man who came and asked for healing, and Jesus said, according to your faith be done to you? What was He trying to teach in His relationships with people? There are numerous lessons that we've learned by considering all that Jesus taught.

It's possible for us to understand it all in our mind when we study it, like the veil that is the flesh of Jesus and the tabernacle. A few chapters earlier, we saw that there is a veil between the soul and the spirit, and to be spiritual, we must allow that veil to be rent in our lives just like the veil in the temple was rent. That means that our will needs to be yielded and surrendered. We have to say, “Not my will.” In other words, we’ve got to obey what God shows us. Then we enter into the Most Holy Place and live in God's presence continuously. God can dwell in our spirit continuously, and the glory of God fills our life. This is the truly Spirit-filled life. The Spirit-filled life is a life where we constantly say no to our own will. The perfect Spirit-filled man was Jesus Christ, and in Him we see what it means to be filled with the Spirit. In Jesus, all the fullness of grace and fullness of truth, and all the kindness and the strictness of God, was manifested in one Person. This is how all of us are to be: kind and strict, upright for God's principles, and compassionate from the depth of our hearts.

We've finally come to the last five verses of Matthew, where the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee. In the last chapter, we considered the resurrection, and how Jesus did not appear to anybody except disciples after His resurrection. He did not want any cheap publicity. He didn't want it then, and He doesn't want it now. “The eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful” (Matthew 28:16,17). This is always the case even among Christians. Some worship (which means to fall down at His feet and say, “You are our Lord”), and there are others who doubt. There are always these two categories. Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples.”

The Basis of Our Commission

Generally speaking, when people are told to go into all nations to make disciples, they’re told, “There's a need out there. Therefore, go.” Jesus never said that. Jesus never said, “There's a great need all over the world. Therefore, go.” He said, “All authority in heaven and earth is given to Me. Therefore, go.” And when you go on the basis of all authority being given to Jesus Christ, the results are much different than when you go trying to meet a need. If you go trying to meet a need, you can end up as a nervous wreck. I've seen so many missionaries who are nervous wrecks at the end of many years of labor in India. They are grumpy, sour, critical, complaining, grumbling - a pathetic testimony to Christ - and I wonder why in the world these people crossed an ocean and came to India to demonstrate this type of Christianity. It would have been far better had they stayed where they were and never came and polluted this land with the corrupt version of Christianity that they manifest. Occasionally, there have been a few really godly missionaries in India, who were sent by God and who came under the authority of Christ, but they are few and far between. The folks who come nowadays on so-called “mission trips” for two weeks are not missionaries. They’re tourists. The real servants of God are those who have gone on the basis of Christ’s authority. In other words, they submitted to Christ’s authority, and Christ sent them. Then they didn't have to send reports and beg for money and compare whether they're getting more converts or the other missionary is getting more converts - this is the type of trash I have seen among some missionaries. No. Real servants go under Christ’s authority. Anyone who's serving the Lord today and seeking to make disciples needs to ask himself, “Did I go because there was a need, or did I go because of Christ’s authority?” But people say, “But didn't Jesus say to ‘lift up your eyes and look at the harvest? The harvest is plentiful. The fields are white unto harvest’?” That's right. Let's look at John 4:35; “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? I say, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; they are white for harvest.” So what should you do? Follow Jesus, who said in verse 34, the previous verse: My meat is not to meet the need; My meat is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. He didn't say, “I'm seeing the need and I am going to rush out and do something.” No. The fields are white unto harvest, but how do you know where you're supposed to go? “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.” We have to take both of those verses together.

The other passage a lot of people quote is in Matthew 9:37, which says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” What comes next? “Therefore go”? No. He said, “Therefore pray.” There is so much misquoting of Scripture by people, and people volunteer to go out for missionary work, because they are ignorant of Scriptures. If you don't read the Bible, you deserve to be deceived. So many people have gone and made a mess of their lives, because they went out without God sending them. Why should you go? All authority in heaven and earth, Jesus says, is given to Him; therefore go. Those who have gone on that basis accomplish more than a thousand people who go out to meet a need, and they don't end their lives as nervous wrecks or with frustration or grumbling or complaining. They complete their course with joy. The fruit of their life is sanctification, becoming more like Christ at the end of their ministry. They're excited. That is how it should be and that's how it has been. I have been in full-time Christian work for 46 years, and I’ll tell you my life is more exciting today than it was 46 years ago. I have understood more about victory over sin and walking with God today than before. It's exciting, it's wonderful, and I'm healthier today. It's wonderful to serve God, but only if God has sent you. That's the important thing. “All authority in heaven and earth is given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples.”

Emphasize Both Sides of Our Commission

There are two sides to this Great Commission. I want to show you the other side first, because that's the first step. In Mark 16:15 Jesus says, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” What Jesus said to do initially is, “Go into the whole world, preach the gospel to all creation, and those who believe and are baptized will be saved. Those who don't believe (baptism is not mentioned there) will be condemned.” It doesn't say, “Those who are not baptized will be condemned.” It’s those who don’t believe who will be condemned. Connected with this type of evangelism are signs and wonders. Wherever people go and do frontier evangelism like in the Acts of the Apostles or even today, they see these signs and wonders happening even today. All these twenty centuries it has happened, because that's the way the Lord confirms the gospel, with casting out demons, speaking with new tongues, the sick being healed, et cetera. It all happened then and it's happening today. It says the Lord worked with them, confirming the word by the signs that followed (v20).

This is connected with evangelism. I would never dream of going out to preach the gospel in a completely virgin area if I did not believe that Jesus could heal the sick and cast out demons. I wouldn't dream of doing it. How could I tell those people, who have never heard of Jesus or read a Bible, that this baby born in Israel 2000 years ago was killed and raised up and is alive today? How can I prove it to them? They'll think it's a fairy tale. The only way I can prove it is by saying, “Bring your sick and your demon possessed, and I will prove to you that Jesus is alive.” Yes, it's true. It happens even today, and everyone who goes out to preach the gospel in new areas must believe this.

But the Great Commission doesn't stop there. Once these people have believed because they've seen Christ healing the sick and casting out demons, they receive Christ as their Savior and their sins are forgiven. Then what do you do? Many, many preachers just leave it at that and say, “Let's get another person to that place,” and then they have a bunch of babies, spiritual babies. They’re all born again but nobody's growing up to maturity. Ultimately this pastor has hundreds of babies lying there with feeding bottles in their mouths. They live like that for 20-30 years. Babies, not growing up, just like the church in Corinth. Paul told the church in Corinth, “I can’t preach anything to you except that Jesus Christ has been crucified. That means your sins can be forgiven, because you are babies.” And what is the reason? Because they were not made into disciples. Paul couldn't stay in Corinth all the time. If he did, like he stayed in Ephesus for three years, he would have made them into disciples. In Ephesus, he made disciples.

So the other part of the Great Commission, once you’ve led people into this type of faith in Christ - to receive the Spirit and receive Christ by His Spirit into their heart - is to make them into disciples. This is the second part the Great Commission. “Go and make disciples in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). In other words, before you baptize them, you have to tell them, “Listen. You are not just going into heaven when you die. That's not what you’re converted for. You’ve got to be a disciple. That means you’ve got to learn from Jesus and follow Him. He's your Leader. He is there up in front. He's already gone ahead of you. He came to earth as a Man, lived on earth as a Man, overcame sin, served the Father, and overcame the devil. He says, “In Me, you will have peace. In the world you’ll have tribulation,” and “Come, follow Me. Deny yourself and follow Me.”

Begin With Obedience

We have to make the claims of discipleship clear to them right at the beginning, just like Jesus did with the rich young ruler. There are three primary conditions of discipleship that are stated in Luke 14 in simple words. Verse 26 says to love Jesus more than father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and your own life. Once a person has received Christ as his Savior, he must be taught to love Jesus Christ more than he loves his father, more than he loves his mother, more than he loves his brothers and sisters and family members, and even other brothers and sisters in the church. Then secondly, he must be told to deny himself and take up the cross (verse 27). That relates to hating his own life. That means he is denying his self-life. That means he's not going to seek his reputation and his honor and his will. Otherwise he can't be a disciple. Jesus said it so clearly in verse 27. And then the third condition is in Luke 14:33: he must be taught to love Jesus more than all his earthly possessions.

Basically, discipleship is loving Jesus more than one's relatives and fellow believers, loving Jesus more than one’s own will, reputation, and life, and loving Jesus more than one’s possessions. Discipleship is loving Jesus supremely. It’s loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. That is where we have to lead people, and show them as they get light, they must seek to love Him more than everything else. It's a willingness that God seeks first, and if there's a willingness, gradually it will become real in area by area of their life. As they open every area, they'll be filled with the Holy Spirit. We must present this to them and then tell them that they have to be baptized. The command is very clear to be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We have to tell them that God is a Trinity, and they must be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Some people have a question: “Why does it say in Acts 2:38 to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ?” Again and again in the Acts of the Apostles, it says they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. When you see two Scriptures that apparently contradict each other, both are true. They don't contradict each other. I'll tell you how I baptize people. I baptize in a way that both this command and that history is fulfilled. If there is a conflict between command and history, we follow the command, because the history in the Acts of the Apostles also tells us lot of wrong things that the apostles did, such as Paul shaving his head, circumcising Timothy, et cetera. The command is always clear. If there's a command of Jesus that seems to contradict a practice of the apostles, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind which I should obey - the command of Jesus. I won’t shave my head or circumcise somebody today just like Paul did or shout at the high priests like Paul did. Those examples are all written in the Acts of the Apostles. But there's no contradiction here. The heathen have a trinity too. Hinduism has its trinity and the Egyptians have their trinity. So if you just baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that person in a non-Christian religion will say, “That's fine. That's my Hindu trinity in whose name I was baptized - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

We have to identify the Son as Jesus Christ. When I baptize people, I baptize them like this: “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. I identify that this is a Christian Trinity and not one of those heathen trinities. I baptize them in the name of Jesus Christ. That is the meaning of Acts 2:38. It does not disobey the command of Matthew 28:19. If people would only humble themselves and recognize that the Bible is God's Word and there is no contradiction in it, these things are all settled very easily. But people who use their clever brains go astray, and they deserve to go astray. People who humble themselves and come to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God shows them the truth.

Treasure Opportunities to Obey God

Once we baptize people, what is our responsibility for the rest of their lives? Do we have nothing to do? No. Jesus said, “You must then teach them to observe - to obey or to do - every single thing that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). And that's what we have studied in these 80 chapters - everything that Jesus commanded. There are many other things also in some of the other gospels that we didn't cover in Matthew's Gospel, but our goal should be to see what Jesus commanded. That's why it's so important to read and study the Scriptures. You can't know what Jesus commanded if you don't read and study the Scriptures. This is the only book that God has ever given to man, and so we should try to understand it and read it and find out the things God has commanded. If you really love Jesus, the Bible says you’ll keep all His commandments. When I say, “Lord I love you with all my heart,” then the Lord says, “Keep all My commandments.” Then I pray a little prayer. I say, “Lord, before I leave this earth I want to obey every single commandment that you have given for Christians. Not the ones you gave to Israel like keeping the Sabbath and killing lambs and circumcision and paying tithes and all that. Those are for Israel. But the things you've given for Christians, every command in the Bible that is given for Christians, I want to obey every single one of them before I leave this earth. That's how I prove that I love you with all My heart, soul, and strength.” Which other way can we prove it?

I would encourage you to pray that prayer. Do you want to leave this earth with some commands of Jesus unfinished? For example, Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” That's why God gives you enemies - so that you can love them and keep the commandment. He said, “Bless those who curse you.” That's why God allows some people to curse you - so that you can bless them. Otherwise how will you keep that commandment? I thank God for every person who thinks I'm his enemy or hates me, because I can do good to them. Those who curse me, I can bless them. They all give me opportunities to obey Jesus’ commandments. “Greet those who don't greet you.” What an opportunity to obey a commandment, when you meet somebody who does not want to greet you, who doesn’t like your face. There are wonderful opportunities we get throughout our life to obey Jesus’ commandments, to prove that we love Him. Many people say they love Jesus on Sunday morning when they sing the songs. They don't really love Him, because they're not interested in keeping His commandments. They're not even interested in finding out all that Jesus has commanded, and it says here, not only we must do them, we must “teach others to do them.” Not teach people them, but teach them to do it. Do you know the difference between teaching people swimming and teaching people actually to swim? You can explain swimming on a blackboard - explain how to move your legs and how to breathe. You can get a class of young people and explain on a blackboard, move your legs like this and breathe like this, and then say, “Go and jump in the river!” They will all drown, because you can't teach swimming on a blackboard. You have to get into the river and say, “See what I'm doing folks! See how I move my hands. See how I lift my head. See how I breathe. Follow me!”

That's the way to teach people to follow Jesus Christ. Not by preaching, but by living and demonstrating. That's why Paul said, “Follow me, as I follow Christ.” The great lack today is preachers who can say that. Dear friends, that's the greatest need. We need to belong to a church that teaches people to do every single thing that Jesus commanded. That's the type of church I want to be in. Not just a church that has good music and good preaching, but one that will help me obey the commandments.

Treasure God’s Promises

We also need to keep and claim the promises of the Bible. The second prayer we must pray is, “Lord, there so many promises for Christians in the Bible. I want to claim every one of them.” The promises in the Bible are like checks. If somebody sends me ten checks, I don't want to deposit only five of them in the bank. I want to deposit all ten, because they're meant to make me rich. If there are 1000 promises in the Bible for Christians, I want to claim all 1000 of them, not 500 of them. Not even 900 of them. I want to claim all 1000 promises that I can claim. They’re like checks for me that'll make me spiritually rich.

This is what it means to obey the commandments, claim the promises, and seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If we live like this, the promise for us is, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (v20). The promise of the Lord's presence with us is what we must long for. “Lord, I want your presence with me every single moment of every single day.” I seek to have His presence with me when I'm preaching, wherever I go, or when I’m facing a trial. What do you need the presence of Jesus for? When you face a difficulty or when you're tempted, you need the presence of Jesus. That's what will strengthen you and drive temptation away. What a promise! “Lo, I'm with you always.” Keep a good conscience, therefore, my friend. Seek to obey the commandments, and as you seek to obey, you’ll find it not so easy. That's where John 14:15-17 come to help us. “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” The Lord is saying, “Because I know it is difficult to keep the commandments, therefore I will ask the Father to give you a Helper to keep the commandments. Another helper, just like Me, Who will help you to keep the commandments. He'll be with you forever and that is the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit.”

The most important thing you need is to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. When you were born again, if you received Christ as your Savior and repented of your sin, Christ came into your heart through His Holy Spirit. His Holy Spirit came in and you were born again, but that doesn't mean you're filled with the Holy Spirit. Your heart could be like a house with ten rooms. There is light in one room where all your sins are cleansed away. The room of guilt is clean and full of light, but there are other rooms - your television room, your finances room, your library, and other areas in your heart where you may not have allowed Jesus to come and flood with light and drive away the things that displease Him. If you watch movies that Christ is not happy with, you can’t say that that area of your life is yielded to Christ. Not at all. I'm not here to tell you which movies you should watch, but make sure that Jesus is with you while you're watching them, and that you're not watching stuff which Christ Himself would not want to watch. If you do, then at that moment, Christ is not with you. What’s the use of saying, “Christ is with me,” and quoting, “Lo, I am always with you,” if you don’t open every room? He is not always with you. If you open your heart to receive Him and make Him Lord of your life and say, “Lord, I want every area of my life to be filled with light,” then why do we have to live in darkness?

I hope, dear friends, that these 80 studies have helped you understand a little more of what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus, and what it means to understand and to teach others to obey all that Jesus commanded us. Remember again, in conclusion, that it's not a question of how much we understand. To whom more is given, more is required. Now that you know so much, your responsibility has increased. It is not enough to be excited about it and say, “Wow. That is a wonderful message. I got so challenged by it.” Very often, people who say that, it is like a pep talk for them. They get temporarily stirred. If you want to endure, you need power. Just like electric power can keep up a fan running forever and ever, the power of the Holy Spirit within is what you need to seek. The greatest gift God has given us in this day, after the forgiveness of sins, is the fullness of Holy Spirit of God Almighty. The third person of the Trinity coming and living within us and filling us. Next, seek for fellowship with other like-minded people in a church that preaches these truths. Then you can grow in grace, becoming more and more like Christ as time goes on.

God bless you.