0:00 We were studying the Sermon on the Mount seeing it as a description of partly a part description of a Christ-like life. All of Christ-likeness is not found in the Sermon on the Mount. It's a much vaster 0:19 subject than that. But, the Sermon on the Mount is a good beginning. And it is for those who have who are disciples. Let me emphasize that. Matthew 5 Jesus, when he saw the crowds, which is a big multitude, 0:37 went up to the mountain and he his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and began to teach his disciples. So, the first step is to be a disciple. And that is to fulfill the conditions in Luke 14 0:56 26 to 33 to love Jesus more than father, mother, brother, sister, and all relatives, and all brothers and sisters in the church, all ways, wife, children, everything. And secondly, to be willing to die to yourself every not 1:13 willing, but to take up the cross every day of your life. And thirdly, to give up possession. Give up the possessive attitude to material things. Then we come to the Sermon on the Mount. Because then he will teach us what this means. And we saw here 1:33 that first of all, the the Lord spoke about nine right attitudes in Matthew 5 verse 3 to 11, to be poor in spirit, to mourn for our sins, to be gentle, meek, and then to be 1:51 to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful to others, to be pure in heart, which means we love only God, and then you see God everywhere. To be peacemakers, to pursue peace with all our heart, to be willing to suffer righteousness 2:08 for righteousness' sake, and then to be willing to suffer for Jesus' sake. That makes us salt that has not lost its savor and the light that can shine without being dimmed before the world. And then he goes on to expand the meaning of the law. 2:27 He goes to the root of the 10 Commandments and the root of the other Commandments in the Old Testament. And he says, "Your righteousness, Matthew 5:20, must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees." Exceed means it must go deeper, must go 2:44 to quality, and not just just be superficial. And then he begins to speak about nine areas where our righteousness must not be superficial. The first is anger. 3:02 That is, you the equivalent of murder in the Old Covenant is in the New Covenant is anger. If it is, "Thou shalt not commit murder." Here it is, anger can finally lead you to hell, Matthew 5 3:21 22. That's the first wrong attitude that we need to get rid of by the help of the Holy Spirit, and it is possible. We've already seen that. That there's only one type of anger which is righteous, which concerns the glory of God, the house of God. Any 3:40 anger that's manifested because people hurt me or treated me badly is sin. And then the next is sinful sexual lust, which can 3:57 make a man sin in his thoughts. It's anger is something people can hear. Whereas lusting is something which only God sees in our hearts. Even the devil can't see it. The devil can suspect that you are lusting when you look in a 4:12 certain way at anyone, but he can't know for sure when you're by yourself and just thinking. But, God sees it all. So, ultimately, Christ-likeness is inward. And sexual lust in is one area where God really tests men 4:31 to see whether he has the fear of God or not. Cuz many of these other things are external. And then along with sexual lust comes the lust that makes a man divorce his wife or woman divorce her husband because they want to find another partner. 4:50 And then Jesus said that that is also adultery. And now we go on to the next area where Jesus speaks about our righteousness having to go beyond the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and that is lying, 5:08 telling lies or a lying attitude. He says, "In the Old Covenant, verse 33, the command was, 'Don't make false vows.' That means when you put your hand on some holy book and say, 'I swear to God.' Or without putting a hand also, 'I 5:22 swear to God. I swear by heaven.'" He said, "You should never do that. There's no need to do that. You don't swear by heaven or earth. But, uh you can't even make an oath by your hair saying because you can't make your hair black 5:39 or white, it says in verse 36. In the New Covenant, there's no such thing as swearing and then speaking the truth because when a man is swearing in a court of law or sometimes even in conversation, "I swear that is true." 5:52 What he's really saying is, "Mostly of the time I tell lies. I want you to guys to know that. But, now I'm speaking the truth. I swear it is true." Now, a person who has a consistent testimony of speaking the truth always doesn't 6:08 need to swear. He says, "I just speak the truth all the time. I don't tell lies." Now, that does not mean that we have to tell people everything they ask. Because there's a lot of difference between 6:26 speaking the truth and telling people everything I know. I don't have to tell people everything I know. Supposing somebody has confided something in me, and someone asked me about it. Speaking the truth does not mean telling him what 6:40 I know. No. Cuz then I'll be betraying that trust. That is another sin. I have to preserve that person's trust in me and not tell him anything. And if in such a situation I say, "I don't know." That is the truth because as far as he's 6:59 concerned, I don't know anything about it. So, lying is not in the letter. People can go according to the letter and say I did not tell a lie. It's a spirit. It's a spirit of lying and it's very closely connected with hypocrisy. 7:17 Truth is being free from hypocrisy. When it says, "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." in John chapter 1 verse 17. Does that mean that the first person who spoke the truth was Jesus? No, there are many people in the Old Testament. All 7:33 the prophets spoke the truth. But, the word that truth means reality. So, if truth is reality, lie is hypocrisy. So, in lying is involved all types of hypocrisy. And we have to be very careful that that is eliminated 7:52 from our life completely. Lying is equal to hypocrisy. And Jesus condemned the hypocrites more than he condemned anybody else. You never find him condemning murderers, adulterers, thieves, but you find Jesus condemning hypocrites, religious hypocrites 8:11 particularly, the Pharisees. So, lying is a very serious sin. In fact, right at the beginning of the Bible, you see the first sins committed in the Bible are lying. 8:29 You turn with me to Genesis in chapter 3, where sin begins. The sin does not begin uh sin mentioned in the Bible does not begin with Eve eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It begins with the devil who's called a 8:46 liar. Jesus said, "The devil's a liar and he's a murderer from the beginning." Here we read in Genesis 3 that the devil came as a serpent and asked the woman, "Has God said you shall not eat of all the trees of the garden?" 9:06 And the woman said, "Yes, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But, from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, you shall not eat from it nor touch it." That was a lie. God never said anything about not 9:22 touching it. He only said, "Don't eat from it." When we add to the word of God, that's a lie. What? God said, "You shall not eat from it." That's God's word. But, when you try to raise God's standard higher, that's what the 9:40 Pharisees did. "You shall not only not eat from it, but also don't touch it. I'm a super holy man." There are Christians like that today who become they become legalists. They bring people into bondage. And you must not 9:57 such legalistic Christians who try to become more holy than God, super righteous. You should not allow them to bring them bring you into bondage. When the when God's word says you shall not eat from it, stop there. The last 10:13 verses of Revelation say if you add to God's word or subtract from God's word, you're sinning. And so that's a serious thing. And then the devil tells another lie there. You surely shall not die. 10:31 That's a lie. So that's why the devil's called a liar because right from the beginning his first conversation with the human race, he started with a lie. If you disobey God here, 10:48 you will definitely not die. Even though she knew that God had said you will surely die. That's what God had said in Genesis 2:17. Please compare what Eve said with what God said in Genesis 2:17. In the day that you eat from it, you 11:06 will certainly surely die. What did Eve do? She left out that surely and just said casually you will die and added you shall not touch it. See this adding and subtracting from God's word is there in the very first sentence 11:22 that Eve speaks in scripture. Adding, you shall not touch it. Subtracting, you shall die. When the word of God says you shall surely die. You see in these words the root of all that's happening in Christendom today, where people add to 11:38 God's word and subtract from God's word and it sounds very similar. Many of you who read the scripture may not even have noticed the difference between Genesis 3:3 and Genesis 2:17. You read the Bible carelessly, you don't 11:51 notice these things. And it's exactly like that. If you listen to so many preachers today, you can be deceived because what they sound what they say sounds so right. I'll give you one example. I remember getting a leaflet once from 12:08 one of the preachers in India whose habit was to collect money from people like most preachers. And in that he quoted a verse, the last verses of Matthew 10, and says he who gives to a prophet shall receive the reward of a prophet. 12:26 You can send your donations here. Now that sounds so similar. But if you read Matthew chapter 10, Jesus never said anything like that. It's a mixture of a couple of statements put together to fool people. And this man who distributed that 12:43 pamphlet in order to collect money from people knew that most people will not look up that scripture. And he also knew that 99.9% of Christians are not familiar with scripture. When I read it, I saw immediately that's not scripture. 12:57 That's a twisting of scripture. It's a deception. That is to be in fellowship with the devil, to twist the word of God. So here we see the first lie at the first sin mentioned in the Bible is a lie by Eve and by Satan. 13:16 By adding to God's word, subtracting from God's word, and then saying you surely will not die. Now when God has said something that you will die, the devil says you'll surely not die. How does this apply to us today? 13:33 We need to see how does this lying apply to us today? We don't have a tree of knowledge of good and evil in front of us, a literal tree anyway. But I want to show you another verse and see what the devil says you will not die to a verse in the 13:50 New Testament where God has said you will die and the devil says you will not die. Listen carefully because you may also be guilty of listening to the devil here. In Romans chapter 8, he's writing to born again believers. 14:06 He's taught them all about justification by faith in Romans 5, about overcoming sin in Romans 6, freedom from the law in Romans 7, and he's entering into talking about walking according to the spirit, life in the spirit, Romans 8 verse 4 and onwards. 14:23 And so on. And then he says to such brethren, verse 12. He makes it clear he's talking to born again believers. Brethren, verse 12. Let me tell you something, dear brothers, born again, justified in Christ brothers. 14:42 Verse 13. If the Holy Spirit is saying, if you live according to the flesh, you will surely die. Just like what God said to Adam in Genesis 2. And what does the devil say? No. 15:02 You will surely not die because you accepted the Lord a few years ago. And once you're saved, you're always saved. There's no question of you're losing your salvation. You know the number of people who are preaching that lie? 15:16 When the Lord says you brethren, if you live according to the flesh, you will surely die. What death is the Holy Spirit speaking about in verse 13? Is it physical death? Everybody dies physically whether they live according to the flesh or you live 15:32 according to the spirit, you will physically die. He's talking about spiritual death. What is spiritual death? It's going to an eternal hell, separated from God. I don't know of any other spiritual death that the Bible speaks about. 15:46 Eternal death. Dear brothers, born again, justified in Christ, even for a time overcoming sin, brothers, if you now live according to the flesh, not talking about if you slip up, you slip up somewhere, you repent, you come 16:03 back. If your way of life is according to the flesh, you will surely die. But the way to avoid that is Romans 8:13, putting to death the deeds of the body, 16:23 you will live. I want to encourage all of you, my dear brothers and sisters, don't listen to the lie of the devil here like Eve did. Okay, the last sin mentioned in the Bible is in Revelation 22. 16:42 First of all, verse 15. There's a list of people who are, you know, outside the kingdom of God. It's referring to the kingdom of God in verse 14. Those who enter by the gates into the city. 17:00 Outside the city are dogs. Dogs is usually an expression of people who live in sexual sin with the same sex among human beings. And sorcerers, 17:17 immoral persons, murderers, idolaters. These are all pretty serious sins. And it ends with those who love telling lies and who practice telling lies. That's the last one mentioned of those who go to hell. 17:36 Think of that, how serious that is. To love telling a lie. To practice telling a lie. And then the last sin mentioned in the Bible is in verse 19. If you take away 17:56 from the words of the book of this prophecy. That's the last sin mentioned, to take away. That is to take away the seriousness of something written in God's word. When it says you shall surely die, to say no, you won't die. Or you may, but not 18:11 necessarily. That's taking away. God will take away his part from the tree of life. So we see lying is mentioned in Genesis 3 and right at the beginning and in Revelation 22 right at the end. You can say the Bible is written between 18:27 two warnings against lying, the beginning and the end. That shows how serious a matter it is. And that is why the Bible says about deception. Deception is a form of lying. People try to deceive you by telling you something that is not 18:45 absolutely true. They twist scripture or they take one scripture and ignore another and you don't know the other one, so they like the devil told Jesus, it is written, he will give his angels charge away to protect you. 19:00 And Jesus said it is also written. And so that is another form of lying. The devil was lying to Jesus when he said, if you jump off the temple, you won't die because his angels will protect you. That's a lie. The angels will not protect Jesus there. 19:15 That promise in Psalm 91 is not for a person who tries to tempt God by jumping off the roof of the temple. No. It's written for those who are in dangerous situations without their choice. But Jesus corrected Satan by saying it is also 19:34 written. So scripture, the whole truth of scripture, is not found in it is written alone. It is written and it is also written. Truth has got two wings. And if you don't use both the wings, you'll go around in circles with one 19:48 wing. So that is another form of lying where you take one part of scripture and ignore another. Let me give you an example. Jesus is eternally God. Absolute truth. But he also became a man when he came to earth. 20:07 And as much as we accept him as God, we must accept the fact that he came to earth as a man, free from sin, but lived like us, tempted like us, and overcame. If I don't accept this part, it's a I'm believing a lie. 20:24 Because the Bible says, even in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 5, it says that there's one mediator between God and man, and that is the man, Christ Jesus. That means even after he's in heaven, in 1 Timothy 2:5, he's called the man. 20:41 Not the God-man like some people call him. The word God-man is never found in the Bible. God became man. It's not that Jesus ceases to be God, but he so identified himself with the human race that he's called, in heaven 20:54 today, 1 Timothy 2:5, the man, Christ Jesus, is the mediator between God and man. That would have been the ideal place to call him God-man. But you know, the Holy Spirit wants to emphasize how much Jesus has identified himself with us. This is a great truth. 21:10 And don't miss it because of the lie of the devil. I want to mention this one more thing about this danger of lying. You see, lying is when I don't love the truth, I get into lying, and here's the danger of not loving the truth. 21:25 In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, it says here, in verse 10 and 11, please read 2 Thessalonians 2:10 and 11 together, and says, "If you don't receive the love of the truth, 21:42 and you don't want to be saved from sin, God himself will send a deluding influence so that you believe a lie. God will allow you to believe a lie. Am I amazing? 22:01 God doesn't tell a lie. No, he's always the truth. Only the devil's a liar. But God will allow you to believe a lie spoken by preachers, a lie spoken by the devil, a lie spoken by someone who loves you, if 22:22 one of these two things are true in your life. One, you don't love the truth about yourself when God speaks to you through a message or through some portion of scripture, and you see that you're wrong, and you don't want to accept it. 22:39 Maybe it's a doctrine you have believed for all your life because your parents believed it, because your church teaches it, and you believe it. And then one day you read something in scripture, or you read some hear something in a message 22:51 pointing you to something in scripture, and you see that that is the truth of scripture, but you're not willing to accept it because it's uncomfortable. You may have to leave your church and join and they they won't accept you if you proclaim 23:03 that. And then you don't love the truth. God will allow you to be deceived. God will send not only God will allow you, but God will send. It's what it says here. I 23:20 quote scripture exactly. God will send a deluding, a deceiving influence so that you believe a lie. You believe what is is very dangerous not to accept the truth of God just because you want to please your pastor or your church or your parents or you 23:37 want to hang on to a denomination or something like that. The second way of not loving the truth is when God speaks to you in a message, and you're convicted that you're in some area you're wrong, and you don't want to face up to the 23:51 truth about yourself. You want to cover it up and make some excuse to say, "Well, it is this is this is why I did that. This is why." And cover up, and you know deep down in your heart that what the truth is, and you won't accept 24:03 the truth about yourself. Again, God will allow a deluding influence to come upon you that you believe a lie. The second reason why God will allow you to believe a lie is mentioned in verse 10. You don't want to be saved from sin. 24:21 You only want to go to heaven. You hear the word of God, and you hear the strong preaching against sin, and you have no desire to be saved from sin. Okay? God will allow you to believe a lie. He'll allow you to believe a lie that 24:36 even if you have no interest in being saved from sin, you only want to be forgiven, you'll go to heaven. That's a lie. Because Jesus did not come here only to forgive us. Forgiveness was the first step to salvation. He's not our forgiver, he's our savior. 24:52 And forgiveness is a part of salvation. And if you don't want to be saved from sin, here's a warning. God himself will allow you to believe a lie, a serious lie, that you're a wholehearted disciple when you're not, that you're saved when you're not going 25:09 to end up with him for eternity. I don't want to be deceived. I mean, the devil's always trying to deceive us. Our flesh is deceitful, it says in Ephesians 4. Our heart is deceitful, it says in Jeremiah 17. The heart is deceitful, the flesh is 25:25 deceitful, and the devil's a deceiver. And the world is full of deceivers. On top of all that, if God himself is going to send a deceiving influence, then I'm finished. There's no hope for me. My only hope of salvation is if God 25:40 is on my side. And if you want God on your side against all the lying going on in the world and in Christendom and from preachers who tell lies, love the truth. Whenever you're convicted about sin, acknowledge it, confess it, forsake it. 25:59 And acknowledge it. Lord, that's right, I'm a sinner. I sinned there. Or the truth in scripture, which is completely contrary to what you've believed all this time, accept it and say, "Lord, I'm willing to change my mind. I don't care 26:10 who stands against me, I'm going to accept your truth." You know the number of people who don't take water baptism? Because their parents or their church doesn't teach it. People who don't believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit because their 26:21 church doesn't teach it. Okay? Well, God will allow them to remain without it all their life because they believe a lie. So, it's very dangerous. Lying is a very, very serious sin. That's what I was trying to emphasize through in the way it is emphasized in 26:37 the Bible. And one more thing in connection with lying I want to mention from Matthew chapter 12 and verse 36. Matthew 12:36, it says here, "Every careless word that men shall speak, they shall give an account 26:56 in the day of judgment." Sometimes we can carelessly tell a lie. It's not the absolute truth, and we know it. It's not accidental. Carelessly tell a lie for whatever reason. Let me repeat again, 27:15 you don't have to speak the truth about everything that people ask you about. You can say, "I don't want to talk about it." Or "I refuse to answer." That's okay. But I'm not to tell lies. Jesus said, what did we read there in 27:31 Matthew 5? Let your yes be yes, and your no must be no. Dear brothers and sisters, if you're in the church, you must have a reputation that you will never, never tell a lie. You may not reveal everything. That's fine. We should not reveal everything to 27:50 others. Many things we have to keep secret. There are lots of things that I will keep secret, sure. If people confide something in me, I'll never tell that to anybody, not even to my wife. If people consult my wife about something 28:03 medically, I tell her, "Don't tell me." That's a medical confidentiality. Keep it to yourself. So, that's not what I'm talking about, but never, never am I going to tell a lie because I don't want God to deceive me. My yes must be yes, my no must be no, 28:21 and it must be like that in your life. And my dear brothers and sisters, if you have not been serious about this till now, think of this promise, Acts 17:30. The times of ignorance God overlooks. Okay, all your past life God's 28:36 overlooked, but now he's commanding everybody to repent of this lying habit. Okay. Now we go on to the next bad habit. We've seen the habit of lying. The second one, uh the fourth one, we've seen 28:55 uh sin the anger, sinful sexual lust, and lying. The fourth one is taking vengeance, or wanting to take vengeance. In Matthew 5:38 to 42, you have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." If that guy 29:12 knocked out one of your eyes, you're permitted to take out one eye. What God meant was don't take out both his eyes. You can take out one. It's not a command, it's a permission. That's why Jesus said, "You heard that it was said, 29:27 you've heard it was said, and a tooth for a tooth. If he takes out one tooth of yours, you knock out one tooth of his. Don't take out two teeth. But I say to you, don't do that. If somebody takes out your eye, forgive him. 29:43 Slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek. You need to understand the spirit of it. It's not a literally somebody slaps you here, you turn the other cheek. Jesus himself never did that when somebody slapped him when he was in the court being tried 29:58 by his accusers. He said, "If I've spoken right, why do you slap me?" So, it's the spirit of it that we need to understand here. If someone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Don't want to 30:11 somebody's wanting to hurt you in some way, be good to him. That's the meaning. Not that if somebody wants half your property, give him your full property. Don't misunderstand and misquote scripture. It's talking about people who 30:27 want to take advantage of you and harm you in some way, don't seek for vengeance, but do the opposite. Love him. He wants a little help, give him a little more help. He wants you to go with him one go go one mile, go two 30:43 miles. And here's the statement here. I want to say a little more about vengeance. There's a command in Romans chapter 12 which tells us very clearly about this matter. There's an Old Testament commandment which is quoted here in 31:01 Romans 12 and verse 19. Romans 12 and verse 19. It's a quotation from Proverbs and it says, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay." Romans 12 verse 19. 31:16 "Never take your own revenge, beloved. Let God's anger deal with that man who hurt you." Because even under the Old Covenant, they were commanded not to take vengeance. "Vengeance is mine. 31:34 I will repay," says the Lord, even in the Old Testament. And the Old Testament says uh Romans 12 verse 20, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him. And if he's thirsty, give him something to drink." That's also from Proverbs 31:52 chapter 25 verse 21. "If he's In so doing, you will heap coals of fire upon his head." Coals of fire of love. That's the meaning of there that if you do good to that man who's trying to do harm to you, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If 32:11 he's thirsty, give him a drink. You'll be flooding his head with love, your love. Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. See, the world is full of people who have the devil's philosophy that the only way to overcome evil is 32:28 with more evil. All the wars are like that. You're going to go fight with me? Okay. My army will come and fight with you. It's the philosophy of the devil which the world has accepted. Human beings have accepted it. And uh 32:44 nations have accepted it. Even Christian denominations fighting with each other over something or the other. I don't believe I should fight with people even over doctrine. I must explain doctrine clearly, try to prove it to them, but not get into an 32:59 argument and fight. Never. No. And if somebody hurts me, I must have zero desire for vengeance. You know, sometimes it is not just a question of taking vengeance, not taking revenge. If you desire it in your heart, you wish some evil for him. 33:19 That'll pollute your heart. So, what should I do? Your the one who's hurt me is in some need. Okay, let me do some good to him. In other words, let me have a good attitude towards him, even if I don't see him. He maybe he's 33:33 100 miles away, but let me have a good attitude towards him. If he's hungry, let me not hope that he will die. Let me hope that he'll get some food. If he's thirsty, let me not hope that he will die. Let me hope that he will get some water if even if I 33:46 can't give it to him myself. See this verse in Proverbs. Proverbs has some wonderful uh commandments. In fact, it's one of the closest books to the New Covenant in in the Old Testament by part of the Bible. 34:04 Proverbs chapter 24 and verse 17 says, "Don't rejoice when your enemy falls. And don't let your heart be glad when he stumbles." 34:23 That's wonderful command in the Old Testament. Don't be happy when something bad happens to your enemy or someone who's hurt you, but feel sad about it. Lord, I hope no evil will come to him. In fact, it's a very good attitude for us to have, 34:41 very good thing for us to practically say that to God. I've done that for every single person who has harmed me even the smallest little way. Whether it's an ant bite or a lion bite or whatever it is, I say, "Lord, be merciful to them. Forgive them. I have 34:56 nothing against them. I've no desire for vengeance." I say like Jesus, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." That's our great example. I'm not saying that they will all be spared. You need to understand clearly because 35:14 the people who crucified Jesus one day will have to answer to God in the final day of judgment. They're not going to escape it even though Jesus said, "Father, forgive them." He forgave the horizontal aspect of that sin. See, when somebody hurts me 35:30 or harms me, there are two sins he has committed. One, he sinned against me as a human being. And the other, he sinned against God. Whenever you hurt another human being, you have sinned against God. Now, I can only forgive that horizontal 35:42 part of it. Like Jesus, "Father, forgive them." From my my side, Jesus as a man on the cross, forgive them for they know not what they're doing. That horizontal part was forgiven. But if they don't repent, God doesn't forgive them. See, they are unbelievers. 35:58 And an unbeliever does something to me, he does not have to repent. Without his repentance, I forgive him. I must forgive every unbeliever, even if he doesn't repent. It's only when it comes to a brother, it says in Luke 17 verse 2, 3, and 4, 36:13 "If he repents, forgive him." Otherwise, all unbelievers, well, that means people are not in fellowship with us, we have to forgive even if there's no no possibility of their repentance. They don't have to repent. Automatically, in fact, my attitude has 36:28 always been if I see someone or I hear someone has done something against me, as soon as I hear it, I say, "Lord, he's forgiven." I say it immediately before I hear the details and it's happened somewhere else. I found it much safer to take that 36:41 attitude. And when I talk about a brother, I'm talking about someone who's in close fellowship with you in your church, not someone who calls himself a believer somewhere else. You got to deal with him like with an unbeliever, 36:54 forgive him. But if it's a person who's in close fellowship with you in your local church, you cannot have fellowship with him if he's got a sinful attitude towards you and you got to tell him, "Hey, listen. You got to set this 37:07 get rid of this attitude." That's what Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 18 and verse 14 onwards, "If your brother sins, go and tell him." If a unbeliever sins, you don't have to tell him anything. Just forgive him. But if your brother sins, it's very 37:20 clear what Jesus said, "Go and tell him." And if he doesn't listen to you, you want to save his soul. Take another brother with you and tell him so that he be saved. And if he still doesn't listen, then he's like an unbeliever, he'll be lost. Then once 37:32 he's an unbeliever, I just forgive him. Then once he's an unbeliever, I just forgive him. Because I'm supposed to forgive unbelievers. But I can't have fellowship with him. I tried my best to fellowship with him first by talking to him, taking two 37:45 three brothers and talking to him, and telling the church, and he still didn't bother. Then he's an unbeliever to me and I forgive him immediately because I'm supposed to forgive all unbelievers. But I can't have fellowship with them. So, 37:56 the command in Matthew 18:14 onwards and Luke 17 verse 2 onwards is for brothers with whom we want to build fellowship. You can't have fellowship if there's something which is not settled between both of you. It's very important. Most Christians 38:08 don't take this seriously. They say, "Oh, I'll just ignore it." You ignore it, but are you having good fellowship with each other? No. It's like a thorn in the foot. It'll keep on irritating you and it'll finally get filled with pus 38:21 and make you sick. But we must never desire vengeance. The Lord says, "Vengeance is mine." See, it's only if you understand what I'm saying that you will understand the Apostle Paul's words in 2 Timothy 4. How do you explain this? 2 Timothy 38:37 chapter 4 and verse 14. Paul was a godly man, perhaps the godliest man of his time who understand understood the teaching of Jesus clearly. And he says in 2 Timothy 4:14, "Alexander the coppersmith 38:55 did me much harm." I'm sure Paul forgave him because it's guy is an unbeliever. Lord, forgive him. I've got nothing against him. But the Lord has said, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay." And you cannot stop God's hand and say, 39:14 "No, no, no, Lord, don't fulfill your word. If your word says you will repay, no, don't fulfill your word." God is going to re- fulfill his word whether you believe it or not. God's going to fulfill his word whether you try to stop him or not. You 39:26 can't stop him. When God says, "Vengeance is mine. I will repay," he will repay. And so he says, "The Lord will repay him according to his deeds." Does that mean that Paul had a wrong attitude towards Alexander? Not at all. 39:42 Paul would have lost his fellowship with God if he had bitterness against Alexander even if Alexander the coppersmith did any harm to him. So, we got to be careful. Don't try to be super spiritual and say, "No, no, no, God won't punish those who 39:56 sin against me." I I want to tell you the truth, God will. But, I don't wish any evil for them. Not at all. Alexander the coppersmith did harm to me, the Lord will deal with him. I will not deal with him. I will not I will wish only good for him as 40:10 long as he's here on the earth. And I'll tell you why. There's another verse which has often come to my heart in this connection in relation to vengeance. Cuz vengeance is something that many people have a struggle with. 40:24 They I see all of us I'm sure if you look back over your life, there are people who have done some evil or harm to you or to your family. Maybe to your children. Maybe years ago something that's caused you harm till today. Maybe cheated you. 40:41 Maybe robbed you in some way or made your children suffer some way. Maybe your boss or the teacher in school or so many things. Maybe some sometime children have been harmed in a way that has physically damaged their body. 40:55 What do you do with such cases? You have to forgive. Jesus taught us that. But, God is a righteous God. And I believe that if we forgive our own conscience is clear and but 41:15 God will still in the final day deal with that person. So, if you understand this matter clearly then we will be safe and we won't the scripture the it's this is written in scripture. This is also written in scripture. Putting both together, we get scripture 41:33 in balance. Want to say one more thing and that's in relation to what we read in Romans 13 in this question of punishing those who have done wrong. In Romans 13 it speaks of the authority God has given to governments all over the world 41:53 to punish wrongdoers. Because it says here in Romans 13, let me read this section. Every person must be subject to the governing authorities. And by the way, when Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Rome, do you 42:12 know who was the governing authority in Rome? To whom Paul was telling these Christians to be subject? The emperor was a Nero. One of the most wicked emperors that Rome ever saw. A man who burnt the city and blamed the Christians and persecuted 42:30 Christians under whose rule Peter and Paul were Paul was beheaded and Peter was crucified. It was all under Rome's under Nero's rulership time. And what So, it's not when we have a good person in power be subject. No. We believe 42:49 what it says here in Romans 13:1, there is no authority except from God. And he repeats it, those which exist are established by God because the Roman Christians would have read that and said, "Hey, Paul, you mean this guy 43:04 Nero is also established by God?" Paul would say, "Yes." The Holy Spirit says, "Yes." See, most of the rulers in the world, almost all of them 99% of them have no faith in Jesus Christ or not born again. Where do you find a born again Christian 43:22 ruling a country? Have you heard of any like that? There may have been one or two. But, uh most of them even if they get into that place as born again Christians, they lose their salvation pretty soon with all the lies they have to tell when 43:35 they come into power. Yeah. So, it's very rare for born again Christians to be in power anyway. So, he's talking about all the authorities in the world whether they call themselves Christian or non-Christian. They are not children of God. 43:51 They're nominal Christians or many other religions. Maybe anti-Christian. Okay? There's no authority except from God. Recognize it. And they have been appointed by God to take vengeance. It says here. Verse 4. 44:10 That person is a minister of God for good. So, if you do what is evil, be afraid. For he does not bear the sword for nothing. He's a minister of God to take revenge and bring wrath on those who practice 44:27 evil. Yeah? That's why the police are uh uh appointed in different in all the countries. So, the government has gotten authority to deal with people and we just submit to it. If somebody has committed a crime, we have to hand him over to the government. That 44:47 is the righteous thing to do. So, that is the number fourth wrong attitude, vengeance. And we must be very clear that we have zero desire for harm and evil to another person. Now, I want to say one more thing in 45:03 this connection and that is the Bible says and this is what has come to my heart strongly many times. In 2 Peter 3 This is a great word. I want you to remember this in connection with people who have done evil to you. 45:23 And where, you know, you can have stirrings in your heart that wish him evil or don't wish him any good. If you want your heart to be like the heart of God towards that person who has harmed you, read this verse. 2 Peter chapter 3 45:40 verse 9, the last part. God does not want anyone to perish. But, he wants everyone to come to repentance. Anyone? Everyone. He does not want anyone to perish 45:59 including that guy who harmed you and hurt you and did some terrible evil against you or your family or cheated you or did anything. He does not want him to perish. God wants everyone to come to repentance including that person who did so much 46:15 evil to you and to your family, who probably murdered somebody in your family. God wants him to come to repentance. Now, my question is is your heart in fellowship with the heart of God? When you think of that person the devil brings all types of thoughts 46:32 into your mind. That guy did so much evil. I hope some evil comes to him. I hope God will finally punish him. I hope he'll never get saved. I hope he goes to hell for eternity. That's not the heart of God and I want to say to you in Jesus' name, if those 46:44 are your thoughts, no matter what evil somebody did to you you are not in fellowship with the heart of God because the heart of God, it says here, does not want anyone to perish. That's an amazing verse. What about that terrorist who's done so 46:59 much evil? Yeah, I believe the word of God. God does not want him to perish. What he's doing is wrong. But, I don't know, God doesn't want him to perish. Not at all. Not at all. God does not want him to perish. And God wants him to come to repentance. 47:14 You mean that wild terrorist also should come to repentance? Yes. God wants him also to come to repentance. Amazing. So, that should be our attitude towards everyone. That's been a great help to me when I think of different people through the 47:30 years who have harmed me. I say, "Lord, I do not want him to perish. I do not want him I want him to come to repentance. I don't want him to perish. I want him to come to repentance." Can you pray that prayer honestly? Think 47:44 now, stop for a moment and think of all the people who have harmed you or your family in some way. And say this to God. And mean it from your heart. And if you don't mean it from your heart, say, "Holy Spirit of God, please help me to mean this from my 47:58 heart. I don't want to live with this wrong attitude that Jesus condemned." An attitude of vengeance. I want him to repent. I want him not never to perish even though he's done great harm to me and my family. I don't want him to perish. I want him to 48:15 repent. I want him to be in your presence for eternity. Very good prayer to pray. Then you can be sure that you've obeyed the spirit of have no desire for revenge. One more thing I want to say in this connection in Matthew 5 and verse 38 to 48:31 42 where he says you got to do good to the people who have done evil to you. In that connection, he also says give to him who asks of you. And don't turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. This is not exactly about repentance but 48:47 about doing good to people not just being exact. Uh how do you interpret this? Well, I'll give you my own testimony in this area. When I was a young Christian and I wanted to obey God's word exactly I was just a new Christian just 49:06 it was about 1 year after I was baptized. I was like 2 years old and I was serious about obeying God's word and I came across this verse. Give to him who asks of you. Don't turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. 49:18 And I was working in the Navy as a naval officer and earning a huge salary. It was way back in 19 63 uh 64 when I was just 24 years old. And there were in our church that I used to attend, there were some junior sailors 49:34 from the Navy who earned much less, married people with children. And one day one of them came to me and said "Uh brother Zac, can you please give me lend me some money? I'll return it to you next month." Oh, I thought of these 49:47 words, "Give to him that asketh of you and don't turn away from anyone who wants to borrow." I said, "How much do you want?" I gave him exactly what he asked for. So, the 1st of the month when I met him, he said, "Oh, brother 50:00 Zac, I'm sorry. I'm still a bit tight for money. Um I'll return it next month. But meanwhile, can you give me some more?" So, I went back to this verse, "Give to him who asketh of you and from him who would borrow from me, don't turn away." 50:14 I gave him. And that happened again the next month. And I don't remember exactly how many months it went like that. And then fortunately, he got transferred away to some other place. He was no longer in the same town. And then I heard that after he'd gone 50:32 away, that he had begun he had backslidden and he had started drinking alcohol and whiskey and all that. And when I heard that, I wrote a letter to him. I said, "Brother, I was happy to help you in your need. When you asked me for 50:46 money, I gave it to you according to God's word. But now, I see that you're giving all that money to the devil by buying alcohol to destroy your body. Now, if you're going to give money I gave you to the devil, you might as well 51:00 return it to me cuz then I can give it to some other poor needy person here. I'm not in need, but there are other needy people here. So, please return the money I I gave you." And he got so angry in his reply to me. He was somewhere else. He wrote a letter 51:15 to me saying, "Even the priest in the church I was in never spoke so rudely to me." Oh. I said, "Okay. I'm not going to ask for that money. I've forgot about it completely. I say, 'Okay, it's gone.'" Then I went to the Lord and I said, 51:33 "Lord, I'm a new Christian. I don't know many things, but what did I do wrong when I tried to obey that and I've lost all this money which has gone to the devil now?" And I learned a lesson that day which I've never forgotten. I want to share it 51:47 with you. The Lord said to me, "That command is right. But you can only give money which is yours. You can't take somebody else's money and give it. Supposing somebody had kept 5,000 rupees with you and somebody came to you and said, 'Hey, 52:03 Zac, I hear that you got rupees with you. Uh can you give me 2,000 rupees from that?' What will I tell him? I'll say, 'Hey, listen, that's not my money. Let me ask the person who gave it to me to keep. And if he agrees, I'll give it to you.'" 52:19 And the Lord said, "Do you know that all the money you earn is mine? You can't do with it as you like. You can obey my command, but you got to ask me first. 'Can I give it to this person?' Then give it. You can You should have a 52:34 heart that's ready to give and help those in need, but don't do it automatically. Ask God. He's the owner of every cent you earn belongs to God. The Bible says that in 1 Corinthians 10:26, 'The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.' All the money on 52:53 earth belongs to God. And so I say, 'Lord, I learned a lesson.' After that, whenever people have come to borrow from me, I go to God first. I say, 'Lord, I'm ready to give this man if you will give me peace in my heart about giving 53:09 it.' And I find some wonderful results come when I pray that. I'll give you one example. There was a man who came to my house one day and pretended to be a full-time Christian worker 53:28 who was in need and uh he said, "I need to travel to certain such a place." And there was a big story. I don't want to go into all that. But he says, "I I don't have enough the of the fare to travel by train up to my hometown. 53:44 Can you give me at least half of it? Then I can get the another half from somewhere else." And uh so I said, "Just wait." I went into another room and I prayed. And I said, "Lord, what should I do? It's your money." And I felt the Lord telling me, 54:03 "Give him the whole amount. Give him the full fare." So, I went to him and I said, "You wanted only half the fare. I'll give you the full fare for your train fare. Please go peacefully to your home." So, he took it gladly and went away. 54:17 A little later, I found out from some other people that that man was a professional crook claiming to be a Christian worker like many other Christian workers, professional crooks. And uh I discovered that he was going around doing this in other places. So, I 54:32 prayed another prayer. I said, "Lord, uh I was initially a bit disturbed disturbed because this guy cheated me again. I mean, I got cheated again. Uh And the Lord said to me, 'Forgive him. You've lost some money. 54:52 He's lost his soul. Pray for him. What have you lost? What you You lost is nothing compared just a train fare. But he's lost his soul. You should be more disturbed about that.' So, I prayed for his soul. And I said, 'Lord, please bring him back 55:07 to my house so that I can talk to him.'" And believe it or not, a few months later, I saw him in the street. I said, "Hey, hello. How are you?" And he came along to my house hoping to tell me one more story. And he came and told me another long 55:25 tale which was all fake. And I listened to him for about 4 5 minutes. And he thought he was fooling me. And at the end of it, I said, "Hey, listen. I found out all about you. I discovered you're a crook. You're fake. And I can easily report you to the 55:43 police. But I won't do it. I want you to do one thing. I want you, as an act of repentance, like Zacchaeus did, give back to me the money you took from me. I don't need it, but for your sake, I want you to give it 56:03 back to me. And you probably cheated other people. I want you to go back and uh give back whatever you have cheated from others. Otherwise, I said, "I have some evidence here and I'll have to report you to the 56:20 police if I hear that you're going to do this again anywhere. This time I'll let you go." And he came the next day and returned the money to me. And I told him, "Please don't do this again." 56:38 And I hope he found salvation. So, that's one example where I discovered that when somebody asks you to some to borrow or something like that, you go to God and seek his will. Say, "Lord, this money is yours. I can't do what I feel 56:53 like here." And you'll find that God leads you into something wonderful. I I sincerely hope that person got saved. I hope he'll find his place in heaven one day. Because he cheated me and because I prayed for him. So, it's a wonderful thing when you 57:10 listen to God in all situations. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Every day, in every situation, we must hear, "What is God trying to say to me through this? I got cheated here. 57:26 What is God trying to say to me?" For example, if you spent money somewhere and you got cheated, say, "Lord, what are you trying to teach me?" It's always good to learn something from our failures and never to wish evil for anyone, never 57:40 to desire vengeance to take vengeance on anybody. We must be completely free from that. Our heart must be filled with good. You remember earlier on, we looked at that verse which said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." If my 57:54 heart is pure, I will see God there. I will see God in Alexander the coppersmith doing me harm. Okay? I will not take revenge. Let God deal with him. I will see God in all the things that happen. 58:12 Jesus saw God everywhere. You remember when uh the soldiers came to capture him and Judas Iscariot came along, and Peter did not see God there. He saw Judas and took out his sword. And I think Peter was aiming for Judas Iscariot's head. 58:30 But because he was a fisherman, he didn't know how to fight with a sword and he chopped off some other poor fellow's ear. And of course, Jesus healed that Malchus' ear immediately ear immediately. But look what Jesus said, "Put that 58:44 sword back. I'm not here to take revenge. This cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it?" So, when people have done harm to you, don't say an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But follow Jesus' footsteps 59:00 and say, "This cup which my father has given me, I will drink it. And I will stop those who want to defend me from trying to defend me. Keep quiet. Put your sword back. And help that person whose ear has been chopped off." 59:13 That's the spirit of Christ. This is a cup which my father has given me. Shall I not drink it? Peter saw Judas Iscariot. Jesus saw his heavenly father. And it was a love letter from his heavenly father. He was being taken 59:28 to die for the sins of the world. And that was the greatest thing that going to happen, but the postman, the mailman who brought that letter from his heavenly father was a wicked criminal, Judas Iscariot. So what if the wicked criminal brought 59:42 the letter? The letter came from my heavenly father. That's what Jesus said, I will receive it. The cup came from my heavenly father. I will drink it. And if you can have that attitude in the different situations you face where you lost an 59:56 eye or a tooth or money or something else where somebody cheated you or fooled you, you will find spiritual growth in your own life and you will find progression and growth in likeness to Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we bow before you, 1:00:19 we pray that you will make these words sink deep in our hearts so that later on one day in our time of need, we can remember these things and seek the power of your Holy Spirit to live according to the teaching of your word. 1:00:33 We humbly ask, Lord, we really want to be more like Jesus in every area of our life. Help us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.
