0:00 [Music] I'd like to begin by reading a verse in Isaiah and chapter 55. There's a very simple truth here 0:24 that it'll help us greatly if we remember it always and that is in verse 8 and 9. Isaiah 55 verse 8 and 9. 0:42 God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." That's a very important uh truth 1:01 to remember always because many things happen in our lives even as Christians that we cannot explain. Many have the question, why hasn't God healed though I prayed for so many days? 1:18 Why did my child finally die? Or why is this incurable disease affecting my child? The answer is here. God says my ways are not your ways. And if you can believe what we said 1:37 yesterday, consider during this past couple of days that a loving father will never give anything evil to his children. If he asks for bread, he will not give him a stone. And God is better than the best earthly father. 1:57 So when we ask, sometimes we don't know what is good for us. And uh if he can remember that the difference between God's way of doing things and my way of doing things and God's thinking and my thinking is as 2:15 high as the heaven from the earth. So I'll tell you honestly I've been a Christian as I've said for 66 years but there are numerous things I cannot understand. I cannot understand why God allows so much of suffering in the world. 2:32 I cannot understand why so many poor people are being exploited by rich people. How so many people are made slaves. How children are being kidnapped and sold into prostitution. 2:51 Not in tens and 20s but in thousands. I mean in my heart I get mad when I read of what people do to little children. And I say, Lord, when? How long? How long, oh Lord, shall we wait till all 3:07 this gets set right? But I know one thing with all of my heart, that one day all these things will be set right. And when Jesus comes back 3:23 and I see the full explanation of everything that happened on earth, not only from the time of Adam, but from the time of the creation of the angels and why he allowed Satan to exist, why he allowed so many angels to become 3:41 demons because they rebelled against him. and why he allowed those demons access to the earth to torture and trouble people and possess people and destroy them. I don't know the answer today. But I know one thing. God is a good God 4:01 and his ways are perfect. His wisdom is far superior to mine. It's just like our own little children. Some of the decisions we take as parents, our children can't understand. Take for example, we've all had the 4:19 experience of taking our little child to the first day of school at the kindergarten and that kid in India and all they take them to the kindergarten at the age of three and they take them to the school 4:36 and then the kid doesn't know that he's going to be left there for the whole day and the mother walks away and is crying and say why in the world do my mother walking away. Am I going to be here in this strange place? I don't know anybody 4:49 here. And the mother w the kids crying and crying and crying and the mother walks away. One day the kid will understand that the mother had the child's best in view. One day when the child grows up and graduates and gets a good job somewhere, 5:07 then he'll know why at the age of three he left mother left him there instead of taking him home. That's just a small example that an adult can understand many things a child cannot understand. Why we give injections to children? Why 5:25 we put medicines that are painful or medicines that are bitter get a child to drink it. They can't understand it. And those are little proofs of the fact that just like a child can't understand an adult, we who think we know everything, 5:40 we are little little kids, children compared to God and his ways are perfect. So I have just come to the conclusion uh it's a correct accurate conclusion that God's ways are perfect and he makes our way perfect 5:59 and I will not know on this earth no matter how spiritual I become the answers to everything. I in fact I all the experience and study of scripture I have I still feel I understand only a fraction a small teeny weeny fraction of 6:17 God's ways and so it's always good to bear this in mind so what I want to share with you today very briefly is from the book of Zechariah I hope all of you brothers Brothers and 6:37 sisters have the habit of reading the Old Testament. There are some precious gems in the Old Testament which have application in the New Testament. Here's one of those wonderful chapters. And in this chapter, it's one of those 6:54 rare places in the Old Testament where you read about Satan. See, Satan occurs in the book of Genesis, in the book of Job. and in one Samuel in one place that's about it and then in Zechariah 7:13 Satan doesn't occur much in the Old Testament at all in the New Testament right from the time Jesus came Satan is here there demons everywhere and right up till the last book of the New Testament but in the Old Testament Satan 7:27 doesn't figure much because God didn't allow Satan to come into a world till Christ had come because people wouldn't know how to handle handle it. So God allowed the Israelites to fight with the Philistines and the Amorites and the Moabites and 7:45 all types of its but he never allowed them to confront Satan. The first time Satan confronts a person is when Jesus is on earth. Even in the book of Job, Satan doesn't confront Job. The argument is in heaven between Satan 8:02 and God. And uh after after Satan confronted Eve in Genesis 3, he doesn't occur there. And only after Jesus came to Jesus confronted Satan all the time because he was a perfect man. He could have Satan was scared of him. And then 8:20 after Jesus conquered Satan on the cross, then God allowed Satan to confront the apostles and Paul and all of us to various degrees. Um, you know, and you're dealing with I mean, I've seen situations where I have 8:40 to deal with a demon-possessed person and then the demon is speaking to me and I have to reply to the demon and cast it out. It's happened to me more than once. So God does not allow that until Satan was defeated on the cross. It's very 8:56 important to understand he will not allow us to be tested beyond our ability. And it's very important for us to know that Satan was defeated on the cross. In uh Zechariah chapter 3, we read about Joshua the high priest. And think of 9:15 Joshua the high priest as a picture of you and me. And the angel of the Lord is the word angel is messenger and it's a picture of Christ. It's not Christ himself but it's a picture of Christ and 9:33 Satan. So you have three people there. One is a picture of a believer Joshua. The other is a picture of Christ and the other is the devil. And the devil is standing there to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, "The Lord 9:50 rebuke you, Satan. Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?" And here, here's a picture of a believer. Joshua was clothed with filthy garments 10:07 standing before the angel. Now the best believer in the world has still got some sin in him and the worst believer in the world has also got sin in him to different degrees. So the filthy garments speaks 10:26 of u sin. I want to show you a verse in 1 Corinthians 4 and then we'll come back to this passage. In 1 Corinthians 4, we read Paul giving his testimony. And remember, 10:43 Paul wrote this after about 25 years after he was converted. And this is his testimony. Look, look at his testimony. What a faithful life he lived. 1 Corinthians 4:4. I am conscious of nothing against 11:02 myself. What a testimony. Do you know that a wholehearted Christian should always be able to say that I am conscious of nothing against myself. Yet I am not by this acquitted. 11:28 How is that? I'm conscious of nothing against myself, but I'm still not declared innocent. I'm not acquitted because the one who examines me is is the Lord. This teaches us some very couple of very 11:47 important truths about overcoming sin. When he says, I'm conscious of nothing against myself. He's saying that consciously I'm not aware of any sin that I have committed that I have not confessed and been forgiven of. 12:06 Paul was very careful as soon as he was aware of his sin to confess it and ask God to forgive him and it was cleansed immediately. And because he lived like that in constant repentance, he could say, "I'm conscious of nothing 12:25 against myself." And all of us should seek to live this life where as soon as I'm aware of something to immediately confess it, ask the Lord to forgive me immediately. And the cleansing is immediate. If he confess our sins, he's 12:40 faithful and righteous to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and to put his righteousness over us. So every moment of our life we should be able to say I am conscious of nothing against myself. If you are 12:58 conscious of something confess it if you have hurt somebody go and ask his forgiveness. If you haven't forgiven somebody forgive them immediately. Always live your life at this level. I'm conscious of nothing against myself at 13:14 the same time but it doesn't mean I'm acquitted. Why is that? Because we see only 10% of the sin in our system. 90% is what we would call unconscious sin. 13:30 That means areas of my life where I'm not like Christ. 90% of my life is like that. But God allows us to see 10%. And that is the area where God asked me to confess it. sin where your Holy 13:48 Spirit convicts you. You have done this wrong. Immediately ask the Lord to forgive you and to cleanse you in the blood. You're clear. God does not hold you responsible for areas you don't have light on. And the illustration that has expressed 14:06 it best to me is a cube of ice. Supposing you put a cube of ice in a glass of orange juice or grape juice. About 10% of that ice is above the surface. That's all you can see. 90% is hidden. That's a picture of conscious 14:24 sin, unconscious sin. You know, you see 10% of your the sins in your life. That's what should keep us humble. There a lot of sin in your life. You don't see like the part of the ice cube which is under the surface. But if I deal with that top 10%. 14:46 What do I mean by that? I confess this Lord I failed here. I failed here. It's like taking a sharp knife and slicing off that top 10% of the ice. What will happen then? You know what'll happen? A little bit of that which is underneath comes up 15:05 again. I mean the ice cube has become smaller but still you see only 10%. 90% is hidden. And if you deal with that top 10% again a little bit comes up. This is the perfect picture of spiritual growth. In spiritual growth, I'm discovering 15:24 more and more of hidden sin in my life. Things I did not know were sin or which I in the beginning I thought was not sin. But as I come closer to the Lord, I see it is. Oh, this is sin. And if you're not discovering more and 15:43 more sins in your life, that means you're not slicing off the top part of the ice cube. You're not dealing with conscious sin. That's not why that's why you're not discovering more. Spiritual growth means you discover more uncristlikeness in your 15:59 life. Sin is uncristlikeness. Anything unlike Christ is sin. So for example, if you have a grumpy attitude, you haven't hurt anybody, but just you're very grumpy and sour, that's unclikeness. Now, you may not 16:19 harm anybody or hurt anybody, but many people never think of confessing that is a sin. They say, "Well, I never hurt anybody." But it's a dishonor for Christ for a person to go around with a long face and looking grumpy and angry. 16:34 That's not the way God wants. Jesus didn't go around like that. And if Jesus didn't go around like that, then that's unlikeness. I I I shouldn't be like that. We think of sin is only where I've hurt somebody or did something wrong to 16:45 someone. It's a lot more than that. So if I say anything uncristlike is sin. If I crack a joke, it's perfectly all right to to joke with one another. But if you crack a joke, which you think Jesus would never crack a joke like 16:59 that, I believe Jesus did have a sense of humor. Think of when he said about, you know, swallowing a camel. Have you read of Jesus speaking about swallowing a camel and filtering out a gnat mosquito? I think it was pretty humorous. Or to 17:16 have a beam in your eye. So there's nothing wrong with humor provided it's clean, provided it doesn't hurt anybody. But if I hurt somebody else with humor, then it is sinful. So spiritual growth is where I constantly 17:35 discover more and more of what is hidden in my life. And I I think I've been a Christian now for at least 50 years after I discovered these truths of conscious and unconscious sin. The earlier part of my Christian life for 16 17:47 years I never knew the difference between these things and there could have been a lot of areas where I could have grown but I never had a spiritual father to guide me. And I decided when these things became true in my life 50 17:59 years ago, I said I'll devote all my life to teaching as many people across the world by every means possible about how we can grow spiritually. So here is uh Joshua coming back to Zechariah in chapter 3 18:18 standing before the Lord and there are filthy garments and that could include conscious and unconscious sin. Let's let's look at it as unconscious sin. He's filthy. And the Lord says to those standing before him, remove the filthy garments. 18:37 Zechariah 3:4 and he says to him, "See, I've taken away your iniquity and clothed you with festal robes. That is the righteousness of Christ." See what happens when I confess a sin and I acknowledge, Lord, that was my fault. 18:51 The only sin that God cannot forgive you, listen, the only sin God will not forgive you is the sin you will not confess. The sin that you say that's his fault. You keep saying that is his fault. You will have those dirty robes around 19:11 around you all the time. The filthy dress will be upon you. We are not here to blame other people. God will take care of the other person. You to confess your sin. Even if the 90% was the other person's fault, you confess your 10%. That's all. If a 19:27 husband and wife have a conflict and 99% was the husband's fault and sister 1% was your fault, you confess your 1%. That's it. You don't have to confess your husband's 99%. He's got a rel has to have his own relationship with God. Confess your 1%. 19:44 Don't glory in the fact that you're you're not as bad as him and he's 99 times worse than you. So what? You still got 1% filth in you. Confess that and get rid of it. and don't find fault to the sins of others. God will deal with them. So the Lord says 20:01 then he removes the filthy garment and clothes him with the righteousness of Christ. And the wonderful thing I see here is this is all happening before Zechariah was a young man. This guy was who was a prophet. He was a very young 20:13 man when the Lord called him. We read read that in Zechariah chapter 2 verse4 where the angel said go and run and speak to this young man. So we know from that that Zachariah was a young man. A young man can be a prophet. That's an 20:29 amazing thing. And even in the New Testament age also some young people have become prophets. It's a calling of God. And so when Zachariah saw this Joshua standing there with filthy garments and he sees this vision of the uh devil accusing him and 20:49 Jesus saying remove the filthy garments and clothe them with beautiful garments. See what Zachariah does. He does the opposite of what many believers do. Many believers have the habit of blaming others. But Zachchariah says, "Hey, that's great 21:05 that his filthy garments have been removed. We should be excited when some brother has become a little more spiritual that he was and he's confessed his sin and he's cleansed." And Zachariah says, "Not filthy garments alone. Not only clean garments, Lord." 21:22 Verse 5, "Put a clean turban on his head as well. This is the ministry of making your brother glorious." How many of you have done that? A brother who was filthy and who's now come to the Lord and been cleansed in the blood of Christ and become a 21:39 disciple and is a member of your church say I want to make him more glorious. The Lord's already put clean garments on him. I want to put a turban on his head. Isn't that amazing ministry to bless a person when he comes to your 21:52 church to make the person welcome and to help him to be more spiritual than he is? put a turban on his head. Make him more glorious. Because we live in a world where even Christians, they're always finding fault with the believers. 22:06 This is wrong, that is wrong. This person, I see something wrong. Yeah. Yeah. He's good in many areas, but I see a teeny weeny thing here. We got eyes for all these small little things. And this is the wonderful thing I see here. 22:17 There are So, we see here a picture of what's going on in the heavenlies. The devil is always there to accuse. That's one thing we learn here. And if you turn to the book of Revelation, you see that expressed more clearly 22:34 in Revelation and chapter 14. Sorry, not chapter 14, chapter 12. Revelation chapter 12. Here Satan is called 22:51 a dragon. Verse 7, verse 9. the great dragon, the serpent, the devil, Satan. So many names given to him. And he is called here in verse 9, the deceiver of the whole world. That's one of his titles in the middle of verse 9, 23:10 deceiver of the whole world. His ministry towards the world is to deceive people. That's one ministry. That's towards the worldly people. He deceives believers, too. He deceives the whole world. It says and believers are included in that. 23:25 Many believers are deceived by the devil. But then he's got a special ministry for this small group of believers in the world. Then the number of believers in the world is probably less than 1% of the world's population. 23:39 And the devil's got a special ministry to this 1% of believers. There he's called not he not only deceives them in the middle of verse 10, he's called the accuser of the brothers. deceiver of the world and accuser of the believers. 23:56 So the devil is always trying to find fault with believers and he not only accuses them to themselves and to others. It says he accuses them before God. In other words, you see devil's got all his demons all over the world look 24:13 especially watching out for believers. And if he sees some believer doing something wrong, maybe he sees a a man yelling at his wife at home, nobody else hears, even the children don't hear it. And the man's yelling at his wife or 24:25 saying something foolish and stupid, getting angry and something, the demon is there immediately and reports it. And the devil accuses him to God. The devil says, "God, you see that guy there? You say he's your child. You 24:45 say he's born again and he also says he's born again. But do you see how he spoke to his wife just now? God, did you see it? That's how the devil accuses. Please remember this is next time husbands or wives when you speak to each 24:59 other and you think nobody's listening. Somebody is listening. Not only listening, somebody's accusing at that moment. You think nobody's listening. You think your children didn't hear it. Sure, children didn't hear it. Good. and 25:13 nobody else heard it. But there were demons there in that room. The demons are everywhere who report it immediately to Satan. Satan accuses you to God. You call that person your child. God, look at him. If you think of that, I think you'll be 25:32 a little more careful next time the way you speak or behave with people. That's what we saw in the book of Zechariah. Satan accusing. See, and Jesus is the intercessor because if that person, husband or wife 25:50 or anybody is aware immediately, the Holy Spirit convicts him. Hey, that's not the way to speak to your wife or that's not the way to speak to your husband. And you immediately say, Lord, I'm sorry. And you ask forgiveness from your 26:04 partner. I'm already sorry for I'm sorry that slipped out of my mind. I'm sorry the way I spoke to you. Immediately Christ you with his garment of righteousness. This is real. Don't think I'm telling you stories. This actually happens. It's invisible, 26:23 but it is real. That's that's the picture we read in Zechariah. He's clothed because Jesus intercedes for him. So if the devil is the accuser of the brethren, we read in 1 John and chapter 2, 26:41 1 John chapter 2 and verse one, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous. So think of a court scene, a scene in a court where God is the judge sitting on the judge's throne 26:59 and we are the ones who guilty. And there's the accuser who's accusing us to God. He did this. He said that rude word just now or he looked at that filthy picture just now and Jesus is there waiting to cover us. 27:19 Provided, provided, provided you confess your sin. Jesus will never forgive a sin that you do not confess. If we confess our sins, you see that two verses earlier, 1 John 1:9. If we 27:37 confess our sin, God is faithful. Jesus is faithful. God is faithful and righteous to forgive us immediately and to cleanse us. Blot it out. But if you don't confess it, you stand in the court and the accuser accuses you 27:54 to the judge saying this guy did this or said this or acted like this and you try to justify yourself and say no no but it was because of this reason and because of that reason then you stand there guilty condemned. But if you say yes that's right I I'm 28:10 sorry I slipped up and failed. Lord please forgive me. And you tell your husband or wife darling I'm sorry I hurt you. Please forgive me. It's over. You're cleansed immediately and the righteousness of Christ is put upon you. 28:24 This this may be simple. I don't mind repeating it 10 times because it'll change your life in your home and in your office. If you hurt somebody in the office, do the same thing. You you need you want to be living where this the 28:36 righteousness of Christ is always upon you. That gives you tremendous authority and power. As a Christian, I I don't want to live a single moment of my life without that righteousness of Christ clothing me. I don't have any righteousness of my 28:52 own. The righteousness of Christ must clothe me. And it's so easy to do it. I all I have to do is admit my fault. Confess it and rectify it as soon as possible by asking forgiveness from that person. If I've stolen something, by 29:06 returning it. If I hurt somebody, asking forgiveness from that person. Even if it was accidental, I'm sorry, please forgive me. Be quick to do that and have this great longing to have the righteousness of Christ. Like you see in the book of Zechariah, 29:23 righteousness of Christ upon us and crown upon our head spiritually speaking. That's how we are to live every moment of our life. And it's so easy. You just have to acknowledge. It's so difficult sometimes to for people to acknowledge their sin. 29:39 Haven't you seen that with children? Sometimes your own children, they do something wrong and you ask them, "No, mommy, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it." And yeah, I know you did it. And finally, they admit it. Grown-up 29:55 people are like that towards God. It's very important to be quick to confess. So we see here that the devil is 24 hours accusing people all over the world, believers especially. 30:11 And Jesus is all the time praying for us and trying to cover us. But he can help us only if we are honest. He cannot help us if I make some excuse for my sin or if I say but he did that first. That's how children are arguing. He did that 30:29 first. So what if he did it first? You still did something wrong. So in Hebrews chapter 7, you see we already saw the ministry of the devil 24 hours. I don't know whether you noticed that. Maybe you should turn there again 30:43 once again. Revelation 12. I didn't point that out to you. That phrase there in Revelation 12:14. Sorry. Um Revelation 12 and verse 11. No, not 11. 31:03 Verse 10. The accuser of our brethren, in the middle of Revelation 12:10, the accuser of our brethren, what does he do? He accuses them before God 24 hours of the day. Did you read that? Do you know that the devil is watching 31:22 you through his demons 24 hours of every day? That's what it says there. 24 hours watching you, watching you, watching you to see some slip up, some sin. Now, you don't have to be, you don't have to live in tension because of that. 31:41 It's very easy to be cleansed immediately if you acknowledge it. So, what we learned from this is you can't fool the devil. He saw you do it. He heard you say that. Was he pretending that you didn't do it? And the devil is so smart that sometimes 32:00 he can even discover the motive. The devil cannot look inside of my thoughts. But he can detect the motive from observing so many other things in our life. And he accuses accusing accuse. Think of somebody who's always going around with 32:14 you always trying to find out where you slip up and immediately pointing it out. Ah, you did this. See what see what you said there. That's how the devil is. But I don't have to be paranoid about it and get all tense and worked up. No, because 32:29 I have Jesus with me too. But Jesus can help me. Let me repeat that a thousand times. He can help you only if you acknowledge your fault. Otherwise, he cannot help you in the court. Even Jesus is helpless to forgive you and blot out your past if you don't 32:46 acknowledge your fault. If you keep blaming the other person. This is one of the masterpieces of the devil. You do something wrong and the devil makes sure that you're not forgiven. He makes you keep on accusing the other person. He 32:57 did it or he did it first. Just like little children, grown up husbands and wives are sometimes like that, blaming each other. And so they remain unforgiven. So the devil is a 24-hour ministry of the devil in the heavenlies 33:11 is accusing, accusing, accusing. But thank God there's another 24-hour ministry going on in the heavenlies which is described in Hebrews chapter 7. In Hebrews chapter 7, we read of another 24-hour ministry going on in the 33:26 heavenlies. And that is we read about Jesus in Hebrews 7:25. He's able to draw, save us, save forever. Jesus is able, he's talking about Jesus in verse 24. Jesus has got a priesthood, permanent 33:45 priesthood by which verse 25, he's able to save forever. And that word also means completely. That's a a word which has got two meanings. He's able to save a person completely means 100%. Those who draw near to God through him. 34:02 That means those who acknowledge their fault. To draw near to God means to acknowledge Lord that was my fault. Not 99% 100% my fault. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. What does the Lord do immediately? The filthy garments are 34:21 thrown away and you're clothed with the righteousness of Christ. And it says here, he is always, that word always. You know what always means? 24/7, 24 hours a day, 7 days of the week, he is living to make intercession. 34:39 Intercession means to plead for us. So now, have you got a picture of this? You're doing something wrong. And the devil is there immediately accused. See see God see what he did. And there's Jesus immediately saying 34:56 forgive him if you confess. The devil does not bother whether you confess or not. He'll just accuse accuse accuse. But the moment you confess and say Lord that was my fault. Please forgive me. He dares to cleanse you clothed with the 35:11 righteousness of Christ. And what a beautiful picture there is of Zachariah saying, "Lord, make him more glorious." So our job when we see a believer has repented and turned to the Lord, we must make him more glorious by 35:26 encouraging him. Don't point out his previous faults. And the the devil will do his job without your help. I hope you know that the devil does not need your help to accuse somebody. You don't have to say um tell anyone she's like that, he's like that. The 35:45 devil's already doing it. Why do you want to hold hands with the devil? There's another person you can hold hands with. Jesus, who's praying for that person. So, if you get this picture in your mind and remember it for the 35:57 rest of your life, here's a person, a believer who did something wrong or said something foolishly. And there's the devil immediately jumping on him, accusing him. And there's Jesus immediately praying for him because the 36:11 guy's honest and admits his fault, forgiving him, cleansing him. And then here is a believer, another believer who observes this. That's you. You observe this going on. And you're making a choice. Now listen carefully. You're 36:26 making a choice either to join up with the accuser of the devil and say, "Yeah, I saw it. He did that. He did that." And keep on accusing him. You're on the side of the devil. Or you can take sides with Jesus and say, "Lord, forgive him." Oh 36:41 yeah, he slipped up, but he seems to be repentant. Please forgive him. Brothers and sisters, how has it been with you in the past when you've seen a brother slip up? When you've seen anyone fail, when you've seen your husband fail or your 36:54 wife fail or when you see someone in your home bungle up and do something wrong, which side have you taken? The side of the accuser or the side of the mediator? the intercessor. We are taking one of two sides. And you 37:14 can't be indifferent and say, "I don't take any side." You have to be on Jesus side. Jesus said, "If you're he who's not with me is against me. If you're not standing with him in this ministry, you're on the other side." 37:26 There's no there's no neutral position here. You can't say, "Well, I take a neutral position. I'm not going to say this or that." Well, if you if you don't take Christ side, Jesus said, "You're against me." If you don't take my side 37:37 in pleading for forgiveness and forgiving that person and standing on my side and making him glorious like Zachariah said, put a turban also on his head. You're on the other side. So remember this. This is a ministry that's going on 24 hours 37:53 in the presence of God all the time. It's going on right now. And when you go away from here, please remember you're going into a world where this ministry is going on throughout the world. It's the ministry of accusation and the 38:06 ministry of intercession. And here we are in between deciding which to choose. And you cannot be neutral. You cannot be neutral. If you're neutral, you're on the wrong side. If you keep quiet, you're on the devil's side. The only way to be on 38:24 Jesus side is to positively say, "Lord, I want to pray for him. He slipped up. I want to pray for him." And it's very easy for us to be merciful to others because we ourselves have slipped up numerous times. You've slipped up a 38:37 million times and so have I. So why can't we be merciful to when we see this guy slip up in some area? Think what a what a difference this will bring in your home, to the atmosphere of a home. Think what a difference it'll 38:51 bring to the atmosphere in your church if all those in the church decide that from now on I'm going to take Jesus side. Think if you have a partner, a husband or a wife who's unconverted. Even you have to be even more merciful 39:08 to him because he's like a person who's got no light. A believer doing it is serious. But an unbeliever committing that crime is he he doesn't have any light. He's like a blind man stumbling and doing something stupid. Think of a 39:22 when you when an unbeliever does something foolish and stupid, he's like a blind man going into the gutter. He can't see. Now, a person who's a believer sees it and he sees walks into the gutter, he he's it's more serious. 39:36 If a blind man walks into a gutter and falls into it or a pit, you can't blame him. But if a person with eyesight does it, it's foolish. So when you say you're a believer and you do something wrong, that's not as bad. That is that is worse 39:51 than an unbeliever doing the same thing. So the world is full of people who are usually on the side of the devil finding fault. Yeah, I saw him do it to find fault. I hope what we heard today will 40:08 change the way we approach believers who fail or whenever we see something wrong especially in our home. And if this can change your family relationship permanently from now on, it would have be worth it that you came 40:25 to this conference. Let's pray. While our heads are bowed, I want to encourage you to say, "Lord, please remind me of what I heard today. Every day of my life, I want to be on the right side. I want to be on the side 40:44 of of you're you're the mediator, the intercessor. I always want to be on your side. And I don't want to be neutral because I realize there is no neutral position in this battle. If I keep quiet, I'm on the devil's side. I don't want to keep quiet. I want 41:01 to pray. I want to pray for my partner. I want to pray for my fellow believers. I want to pray. Join you in this ministry of intercession and asking for forgiveness for people. Thank you, Father. Please help us we pray to walk 41:20 in the light of the of the word you have given us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. [Music]
