0:00 *music playing* *music playing* *music playing* *music playing* *music playing* 0:24 *music playing* Ok, we are continuing our study 0:45 The Balance of Truth Yesterday we considered What it means to Be balanced in two areas First of all In relation to Faith and works in the Christian life There is a place for faith 1:05 There is a place for works And salvation Forgiveness of sins And the gift of the Holy Spirit We saw was entirely by faith You can't do any works To receive those gifts But after that The Bible says that God's people 1:28 Must be zealous For good works And then we also saw that We need to be You know, just to come back to that There are people who can be Imbalanced here Where Once they've accepted Christ They know they're saved They don't realize the importance 1:49 Of Allowing the life of Christ To come forth through them In a life of good works Towards other people The Bible says about Jesus That he went about doing good And delivering people Who are oppressed by the devil That was his earthly life 2:08 And if you And I Have really received that life It will make us Go around doing good And delivering people around us Who are oppressed by the devil In various ways For myself That is the test Of whether I have received 2:28 The life of Christ The life of Christ Has not changed When he was on earth He went about doing good And if you receive that life It will make you Go around doing good And the world around us Is Surrounded Surrounded 2:48 We're surrounded by people Who are Oppressed by the devil In various ways And if we have the life of Christ We will Go around Setting them free If we don't have the life of Christ We'll just sit back And say My sins are all forgiven 3:08 I'm on my way to heaven And just deceive ourselves So there is a place for faith And words We also saw that Our love for God Is tested By our love for our Fellow human beings The person says he loves God And he doesn't love his 3:27 Fellow human being He doesn't really love God at all So today we want to look at Another Area where We need to be balanced Says in John's Gospel Chapter 1 And that's the area of grace and truth We read In John chapter 1 3:47 Verse 14 The word Became flesh And dwelt among us And we saw his glory The glory as of the only begotten of the father Full of grace And truth The glory of God 4:08 Is what he wanted Adam to have And Adam missed it And nobody ever Could have it On earth Till sin was removed And so the first person that manifested the glory of God 4:29 In his life Was Jesus Christ in whom there was no sin And that glory There was a balance in that glory Of grace And truth Both were necessary For the glory of God to be seen And Jesus came and died 4:51 And has given us the Holy Spirit Remember the two-fold gift With which we are to begin our Christian life Forgiveness of sins And the gift of the Holy Spirit Every Christian Can have that the day he is converted And without these 5:09 He can't really progress So the purpose of forgiveness of sins Is to clean the vessel And the gift of the Holy Spirit Is to fill the vessel with what? With the life of Jesus Or the glory of God And if it is really there 5:25 It will be the same life that was seen in Jesus The same glory that was seen in Jesus With the balance of grace and truth We won't have it in the fullness that Jesus had But a little bit You know just like A baby Its legs are not as long 5:46 As the legs of a grown up man But his legs are equal in size And as that baby gets one year old Its legs become a little bigger But both legs grow When it becomes two years old It's a little taller And both legs are still equal 6:05 All I mean 99% of the babies you see Are not walking sideways In an imbalanced way They are walking normally And as they grow taller Both legs grow normally And that's the way From the time we are born again 6:25 Grace and truth We must grow in both these areas As we grow to the maturity there is in Christ It's not something that We finally attain to We have to grow You know Growth is something which The New Testament speaks about 6:47 I want to show you a verse In 1 Peter in chapter 2 1 Peter chapter 2 Many of us think of salvation Only in terms of Oh my sins are forgiven I'm going to heaven But have you ever seen this verse 7:08 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 1 Where it says we must grow In respect to salvation How do you grow in respect to salvation? Now many people if they heard A word like that Growing in respect to salvation They think it's a wrong teaching 7:28 You have to accuse Peter of wrong teaching The Holy Spirit of wrong teaching Here it says about Growing in respect to salvation Because salvation Is not just salvation From the judgment of God That's over We need to experience another salvation 7:46 Right now And that is salvation From this Adamic nature That we have all inherited None of us have been saved Completely from that Even after we are born again We have what the Bible calls The flesh Which is Adam's nature 8:05 And growing in salvation Means being saved more and more From that Adam's nature Is the opposite of grace and truth Or it is the counterfeit Of grace and truth We have to grow in respect of salvation Means that 8:26 We get more and more free From Adam's nature that has ruled us And just like a baby growing Both our legs must grow together So There must be graciousness in our life Kindness Towards other people 8:47 Gentleness At the same time There must be truth The Bible speaks about Speaking the truth in love If you choose only one of these It's easy If you decide I'm just going to love people I'm never going to tell them the truth 9:07 I think a lot of preachers are like that They never tell people the truth They say oh we just love them And not offend them Jesus wasn't like that And then there are some other preachers Who go to the other extreme Who say hey fellas 9:26 They don't love the truth They don't love them at all They just keep on hammering away at people With some truth So when we think of imbalance My feeling is I hope I'm wrong But my feeling Is That most of our elders 9:47 Preach truth Without much love I hope I'm wrong But I fear That I'm right So if you recognize where your Imbalance is You need to work on the other side If one leg is shorter than the other 10:08 And you're walking sort of lopsided You know which side Which leg needs to get longer We shouldn't compromise on the truth But we must speak it in love At the same time There may be a few people I don't know 10:28 Who Who want popularity And so they tickle people's ears I don't think we have many like that in our midst Preachers like that But in many churches And other churches That's what happens They don't want to lose people's offerings 10:46 They don't want the rich people to go away And usually the rich people are the most troublesome people in every church I remember when we started meeting as a church 30 years ago The first people to get offended and leave were the rich people 11:01 Because we didn't hold back the truth We didn't hate them But They got offended because they were treated like everybody else And in most churches rich people are not treated like everybody else They are treated special 11:19 I never believed in teaching Treating any rich person special I couldn't care less who he is or where he is from In God's eyes a king and a beggar are the same And to a servant of God To a true servant of God A king and a beggar are the same 11:34 They need to hear the truth Very often when we preach the truth It's the rich people who get offended and leave first Well they are welcome to go We never stopped any of them We say we don't wish you any evil God bless you 11:46 Go where you are I don't know what happened to them But the point is this It's not just in our speaking But in our life There must be this balance You know like God is light and God is love There must be purity And there must be love 12:07 So it's a balance that there must be in our life all the time Like two legs growing up If we are to be balanced in the truth Jesus to use an illustration You know Jesus was so attractive to people Even to sinners 12:27 Even though he was the holiest man alive That ever walked on earth With no sin in him He never compromised on any sin There was absolutely no sin that he would tolerate Big or small And yet some of the greatest sinners in his time 12:45 Like the thief on the cross And the woman caught in adultery And demon possessed women Came to him Because he was the friend of sinners Imagine the holiest person on earth Was the friend of sinners That is the balance Whereas 13:02 It's possible for our church To be so holy that it doesn't attract sinners And I believe this is an area where we need to judge ourselves A lot of our churches Not only ours, all churches They need to judge themselves to see 13:19 Whether we are clearly reflecting Christ And you know you can compare Jesus with the Pharisees The Pharisees also had an outward emphasis on holiness And like I have said many times before Grace and truth or truth and grace 13:40 Truth and grace can be compared to the bones and flesh in our body I don't mean what the Bible calls flesh But this physical flesh that covers our bones Do we need bones in our body? Sure If we didn't have bones We'd just collapse 13:59 We wouldn't even be able to stand up Of course there's some advantage in not having bones Because you can squeeze through any opening Whether the opening is square or circular or diamond shaped or star shaped A person without bones can just squeeze through 14:20 And there are Christians like that Who can fit anywhere In any group Because they don't have any bones Among worldly people they are worldly And amongst religious people they will be religious And in any denomination they are okay 14:39 Because they don't have any convictions Some Christians like that It's not actually an advantage It's a disadvantage They have no value for truth I remember years ago I was invited I was the only speaker 14:59 To speak at a They arranged special meetings for me somewhere And just before I went there They sent a letter to me One week before the meeting Saying "Brother Zach See this is an interdenominational meeting So please don't speak on water baptism 15:21 Can you imagine telling Peter that on the day of Pentecost? The first gospel message? He preached on water baptism The very first gospel message But I'll tell you this You go to any gospel meeting in the world today You'll never hear about water baptism 15:37 Never If you hear one let me know where it is You can watch all the television programs You'll never hear about water baptism It's just silence Because it's not popular Because some people don't like to be baptized in water 15:52 After they are born again So all the preachers keep quiet about it Tell me if you ever heard a message on water baptism It's rare, maybe one in a million But Peter preached on water baptism The very first gospel message 16:04 So they told me don't preach on water baptism I said "Well, I think you got the wrong man to be the speaker I'm sorry I can't come I won't come If you tell me what to speak on Go and find somebody else So, they cancelled the meeting 16:22 And they got so angry with me They never invited me again Of course I never wanted to go there again But I've had a number of experiences like that I say, if you're telling me to speak about Not to speak about The Iraq war or something like that 16:41 Okay, that I'm willing to keep quiet on Because it's not in the Bible Anybody can have their own views on it Is it right or wrong? But if you're telling me not to speak on something written in the New Testament I say, brother, forget it 16:54 That's one of the bones in my body Are you telling me to take it out? No I don't want to lose even one bone in my body Are you So convicted about truth Now, I'll tell you something There are bones in the body you can do without 17:13 Supposing you lose a little finger That doesn't incapacitate you for life But If God's made a little finger, you might as well have it So, personally, my attitude to the truth of God's word 17:33 Has been Everything written in the New Testament Is for me I don't Okay, Old Testament There are a lot of laws Which are not for me Like don't eat pork Etc I don't love pork in any case But It's not If somebody wants to eat it, he can eat it 17:53 But anything written in the New Testament Particularly in the epistles And the teaching of Jesus These are the two areas which are very important for me The teaching of Jesus And the epistles Why are the epistles important? 18:08 Because Jesus told his disciples in John chapter 16 I've got many more things to say to you Let me show you that verse It's important to understand that Because John John And chapter 16 Verse 12 18:29 I have many more things to say to you But you cannot bear them now You cannot bear them now means you were not able to grasp them now Why are you not able to grasp them now? Because you don't have the Holy Spirit inside 18:44 Even if I explain it You won't be able to understand Jesus was the world's best preacher He says you can't understand it if you don't have the Holy Spirit I can explain it But you won't be able to grasp it Because these things are not by cleverness 18:59 These things are by the revelation of the Spirit But When he The Holy Spirit of truth has come on the day of Pentecost He will guide you into all these wonderful truths Which I want to tell you Which I can't tell you now 19:14 What are those truths? What you read in the epistles? Paul's epistles Peter's epistles James Jude Now why do I say that? Because some people say Hey I only read what Jesus said Well The epistles are also what Jesus said 19:36 Did you know that? According to this verse If the apostles had the Holy Spirit Everything that he revealed to them in the epistles He would have revealed to them then The only reason he didn't reveal it to them Was because they were not ready to receive it 19:52 For example the wonderful truths in Ephesians Your names were written in the book of life Before the foundation of the world Did Jesus ever tell his disciples that? They wouldn't have understood it But is it true or not? 20:04 Of course it's true But they understood it only after the day of Pentecost Or Every spiritual blessing is ours in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus never spoke about that But he did speak about it in Ephesians This is part of this verse 20:19 I have many more things to say to you You can partake of the divine nature 2 Peter 1:4 Jesus wanted to say it But they wouldn't have understood it You go through all the epistles And the next time you read the epistles Remember 20:32 These are the words of Jesus Unless you think These people were not inspired by the Holy Spirit Of course You got a different Bible from mine But There are Christians who say That was Paul's opinion Who said 20:54 That sisters should cover their heads when they pray and prophesy? Jesus You say where? 1 Corinthians 11 That wasn't Jesus you say That was Paul He didn't like women The guy was not married 21:15 No sir Or no madam That was Jesus That one of those things in John 16:12 Which he couldn't tell them then So I Have taken that attitude 21:35 To all the letters in the epistles To try and follow Everything that's written there That's why For example I don't wear any gold As decoration Or ornaments Because I believe that That's What It's written in 1 Peter 3 21:55 And 1 Timothy 2 And God doesn't want it Any of this gold and pearls and all that I don't judge other people who don't wear it Just like I go to churches where women don't cover their heads I don't judge them It's not my business 22:07 I am not the judge of anybody But I want every bone In my body If someone likes to live without a little finger That's up to them But I'd like to obey everything Because some people have asked me Brother Zach have you changed your view on ornaments? 22:23 Never I've had the same view on ornaments for the last 47 years And I've never changed my view Others may have changed their view That's up to them It's not my business I'm not their judge I take God's every word of God 22:40 Exactly Jesus said If you disobey the least commandment And teach other people to disobey the least commandment You will be the least in the kingdom of God So I'm never going to disobey the least commandment Or teach other people to disobey the least commandment 22:54 I'm not going to judge them if they don't keep it But I'm not going to disobey it And I'll never teach other people to disobey it I say take everything in the epistles and obey it You'll never lose out by obeying it So You can live with 23:10 Nine or ten bones missing in your body Sure There you know a lot of people who lost one hand And I don't know how many bones there are in this hand Minus so many bones they still live So if you're only interested in survival 23:23 You don't need all of God's truth You don't need all the bones But if you're interested in being manifesting the whole Entire glory of God You cannot say to Jesus Why you didn't know what you were talking about When you wrote that in scripture 23:43 If you want you can say that And I'm not going to say it And I can tell you this Everything that I have found in scripture Just like I told you yesterday There may be certain things I do Which you don't understand why I do it 23:58 But I've got a reason for it In the same way I say there are certain things that God has said in his word Which I may not understand the reason for it But he's got a very good reason So I realize that God must have had a very good reason why he wrote certain things in scripture 24:13 Because there are a lot of things which are not mentioned in scripture For example scripture never tells us how many times we should have a bath Once a year Or twice a day So we never speak about that Because that's not part of God's truth 24:30 That's up to you There are a lot of things like that The New Testament never tells us how many children you should have So we never talk about that It's up to you Whether you have two or ten That's up to you So But there are certain other things which are spoken in the New Testament 24:47 And if you read carefully you will find them And you can skip over those passages Because hey that's embarrassing Let's go to the next verse Who's going to be the loser? You So think about that Whether you are missing something of the glory of God 25:06 By ignoring something in scripture And you can't tell that other person to obey in water baptism If you disobey in some other area He may not know the scriptures to point it out to you That's the thing I felt The fellow will ask me 25:27 Is it necessary to be baptized in water to go to heaven? I'll say no it's not necessary So why should I be baptized? Because it's written in God's word But then he can point out something else written in God's word Hey this is also written in God's word 25:40 Why don't you obey this? What will you say? If you hadn't seen it in scripture, okay But if you have seen it And you say hey well I want to be a little bit like the world Go ahead But I want to tell you It's my responsibility as a servant of God to tell you 26:02 There's something of the glory of God you'll miss If there's something you know to be in scripture And you disobey it If you don't know And you disobey it that's fine But if you know it to be in scripture And you disobey it 26:17 I can give it to you in writing You will miss something of the glory of God And you'll have some regret in eternity That applies to any scripture And so I want all of God's truth Jesus When he went for the baptism John the Baptist said 26:34 Lord I need to be baptized by you And he said no Did Jesus need to be baptized? No It was a baptism of repentance And Jesus stood in the queue in the line With all the people one by one Oh John is baptizing them And Jesus also comes 26:53 I see his Tremendous humility Standing there in the line with all the sinners Willing to be identified with them Even though there was not a spot of sin in him And he just comes up to John Just like all the others He doesn't say hey you know who I am 27:11 No But John recognizes Oh I can't baptize you He says do it Because to fulfill all righteousness I must do this Jesus was very exact In any little thing 27:31 That is the glory of God And I'll tell you something God is tremendously delighted With any child of his Jesus Who is very exact In obeying everything He finds in scripture So I want to say to all of you 27:51 Don't allow other people Who have started compromising on scripture To lead you astray Let the world compromise Christendom Throughout history If you read church history You see churches started with great devotion 28:12 To obey all of God's word After about 25 years They all started compromising 25 years Is about the limit That most churches keep To what they originally held And after that they start compromising And if you read church history 28:28 You will usually You will discover usually The leaders never compromised It was the second generation That started compromising And It's something like The human body Doctors say that your health Your physical ability Reaches a peak at the age of 25 28:47 And after that you are going down Less and less and less Something like that in a church too So I see signs of that In different churches of ours And I want to say to those of you Who are whole hearted And who want to please God 29:04 Your only desire in life Is to please Jesus Christ With all your heart I would say to you Don't compromise If you don't see something in God's word Then forget it But if you see something in God's word Never ask yourself 29:20 What are the others doing I couldn't care less What the others are doing What does the Holy Spirit say There's a lovely word Written about Jesus In Hebrews chapter 10 It says in Hebrews chapter 10 That 29:40 When Jesus came into the world Jesus came into the world And he said Verse 5 Sacrifice and offering you don't desire God doesn't want sacrifice and offering But you gave me a body And what am I supposed to do in this body 29:59 All of you can say that God gave you a body Through your mother's womb What are you supposed to do in that body Behold I have come Verse 7 Hebrews 10 In the scroll of the book That is the Bible It is written about me To do your will O God 30:18 So God has given me a body And I go into the book God's word And I see in this book What I am supposed to do with my body God's will Here I am O God In the scroll of the book In every verse It is written about me 30:39 I am not here to judge another soul in the world I am not bothered Whether they are obeying God's word or not It is written about me Not us No not us It is written about me Jesus couldn't care less Whether the Pharisees were obeying God's word or not 30:58 It is written about me And I my father Have come to do your will And even if everybody around me compromises and disobeys Is I am going to obey you You take that attitude You will follow Jesus The glory of God will be seen in your life 31:18 Don't follow the other brothers and sisters Follow Jesus That's why you need to study God's word And don't use your reason Just do what God's word says Grace is the other side Truth You know if we had only truth And that's the problem with some people 31:38 It's all skeleton There's a lot of churches like that Hey you got to do this You got to do that You got to do that It's like you feel exactly like a skeleton coming to you I mean you don't feel exactly excited When you see a skeleton approaching you 31:52 Even if it's got all the bones And that's how the Pharisees were And sometimes we can preach truth like that In such a way where we scare people Hey why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? Sometimes we've had foolish sisters 32:07 Who when some newcomer comes to the church They say hey why are you wearing ornaments Or why are you wearing a puttu Yeah they just come for the first time Don't drive them away They haven't heard everything yet You see that skeleton approach 32:25 That's wrong Jesus never did that No On top of this Truth we must have grace Grace is the flesh And you know how beautiful we become When Flesh is over our bones And 32:46 How good looking some of you are Because there's flesh on all your bones And just Just think of one day when That flesh goes away from you How ugly you will look The skeleton That's truth without grace So we must have truth with grace 33:04 We must speak the truth in love Grace must cover the truth That's why Jesus was attractive When the woman of Samaria came As soon as Jesus saw her He knew This woman had five husbands The one he's living with now Is not her husband 33:25 Did he start with that? Did he say hey you're the woman with five husbands right? No He said give me some water And like that he started And he wanted her to confess her sin And said Go and call your husband He said I have no husband 33:46 She said that's right You've had five husbands The one who speaks The one who you have lived with is not your husband Oh She got embarrassed So you know what people do when they're embarrassed? They change the subject Lord this business about worship you know 34:03 I had a question about worship Can you please tell me about worship? Some people say we got to go to Jerusalem Some people say we can worship here And Jesus didn't say hey hey hey Don't change the subject I was talking about your husband 34:17 That's how some of our believers today would have done But not Jesus He was a woman who was divorced five times Oh the way a lot of Christians treat divorced people Holy Christians The way they treat divorced people is absolutely shameful 34:38 It's truth they stand for But there's no grace in them But Jesus when he saw that she was embarrassed He continued on the subject of worship I see something beautiful there He won her And after winning her He used that five times divorced woman 34:56 To win the whole city of Samaria That's God's way It's grace covered with truth And I tell you If we had more grace covering our truth We would win a lot more people To our churches If our elder brothers who get up and preach 35:17 Had grace over their truth Instead of hammering away taking a hammer And hitting this fellow and that fellow on the head We'd have had a lot more sinners converted We need grace with truth In our life And in our personal conversation also 35:33 When you go into a home You're not there to set everything right in their home You're not even there to set everything right in anybody's life Jesus will set it right Many, many times This has been my experience for 30 years 35:48 I see brothers I see even elder brothers I see many brothers and sisters In their life I just don't agree with But I don't tell them that It's not my business I see something good That I can appreciate Like Jesus I may ask for a cup of water 36:08 And fellowship as much as possible Lead them Little by little To a godly light And let them get light themselves Maybe two years later I'm willing to wait two years God's willing to wait two years I don't even push a person to salvation 36:28 I mean if a man says Well, I'm not ready to give up my sin I say Oh, you got to kneel down right now and accept Christ No, I never say that God doesn't do it Think of that rich young ruler who came to Jesus And Jesus said, you know, you're a wonderful man 36:42 But there's one thing lacking in your life Jesus You know what it says in that verse? Jesus looked at him and loved him He said, boy What potential for God's kingdom But one thing missing You'll love money too much Go, my dear young man 37:02 Go and sell all that you have Give it to the poor You got a terrible cancer Get rid of it He turned and went away Jesus knew that that man was walking on the way to hell He never stopped him Okay He could have been an apostle 37:22 He could have been one of the twelve for all you know But he walked away from that I don't know where he is today But if he finally did go to hell Go to him in hell today and ask him Was it worth it? Rejecting that loving call of Jesus that day? 37:41 And even if he was a compromiser who went to heaven There are some compromisers who reach heaven You ask him in heaven Okay, you finally got to heaven What do you think? Was it worth it? Oh, he said Don't make the mistake I made 37:58 I got here alright But I got such regret That my life could have been so powerful and useful for God on earth I wasted it Because I did not do one thing The Lord told me Jesus was gracious That's how we must be Grace with truth 38:17 Let's pursue that All our life And In order to protect us While we are growing God gives us other brothers and sisters in the church Who balance us out You know, one maybe That's why The Bible says 38:37 Churches must always have at least two elders Not one One man show destroys everything But two means one will balance the other If If Big capital I F If One strong elder brother Is willing to accept That weaker elder brother 38:59 As Absolutely Necessary for him That is very difficult I have seen churches Even in our midst Where there are two elder brothers According to the letter of the law They've got two elders But it's only for namesake One of the elders is very strong 39:19 And there's nothing wrong in that Provided He's willing to accept That he's imbalanced That he needs the balance That comes from the other brother Until He himself grows up in that area There are very few elder brothers like that 39:36 Thank God there are some But the very few Most of them feel Hey, I'm alright I'm balanced I'm okay And this fellow Well, because Brother Zack says We got to have two elders Okay, I keep two elders But he's just there to put his 39:49 Rubber stamp And I take all the decisions But that's why your church Is in such a pathetic state That's why your church Is in such a pathetic state And that's why you have So many problems in your church Because you're not willing to recognize 40:04 That you are imbalanced You may be full of grace And that brother is the one God sent to you To bring a little more truth into your church Or you may be the one with all the bones But not much flesh And God brings him along to balance you up 40:20 But you won't accept him Because you're the senior one That's the tragedy in so many of our churches You know God brings two people together I've seen it happen again and again God brings two people together They are so opposite 40:37 Perfectly matched To build a church And one man dominates the other And destroys the church It can happen in a marriage God, why do we need a husband and wife in a marriage? Why do we need a father and mother? Because children must see grace and truth 40:53 It'd be terrible if parents Both parents are strict Or both parents are kind It's good that one is strict And one is grace and one is truth That's how it should be Romans 11:22 says Look at the kindness and the severity of God 41:11 God is so kind and he's so strict And he's a father A good father A good father Will be kind and he'll be strict He will rebuke And he will encourage So That is the balance we need in a church And that's the balance we need in our life 41:32 And that's the balance we need in our home But when we start out We're not like that When we start out When we are young We're full of zeal And we are all imbalanced And so we are given You know, most of us get married By the time we're around 30 or so 41:49 We're thoroughly imbalanced So God gives us a partner To balance us And if you're not a foolish husband Just forcing your wife to be like yourself There will be a balance in your home But if you are a foolish husband Just forcing your wife saying 42:03 Your opinion is not worth anything You'll destroy your home and your children But if you'll value your wife And say well God's given her to me To balance this imbalanced wretch God has given her to me To balance me out Your children will be blessed 42:18 Yeah, so I want you to recognize that The glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ He was the only perfectly balanced man That walked on the earth I'm sorry to say my dear brother You're not perfectly balanced You better recognize that 42:32 Neither am I We become more balanced as we grow up But none of us are perfect yet in that area Okay, now we want to go to a fourth area And that is the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit Here again, there's a lot of imbalance 42:48 In Christendom There are some people who say The main thing is character If I speak in tongues and I don't have love I'm zero If I prophesy and I don't have love I'm zero, correct That is 1 Corinthians 13 But if you read 1 Corinthians 13 43:10 Shall I show you a great mystery? It is between chapter 12 and chapter 14 Got it? The number 13 comes between 12 and 14 That's the mystery And chapter 12 is about the gifts of the Holy Spirit And chapter 14 is about the gifts of the Holy Spirit 43:30 And in between comes chapter 13 And he says in the end of chapter 12 Actually, I am telling you I'll show you a more excellent way To exercise these gifts And then he says chapter 13 So you can't take chapter 13 all by itself 43:50 Ah, love is the greatest No It is a more excellent way To exercise the gifts mentioned in chapter 12 and chapter 14 So, we can look at it like this Love is the life of the body And the gifts are the different functions in the body 44:13 1 Corinthians 12 It says the foot cannot say to the hand The head cannot say to the foot I don't need you The eye cannot say to the ear I don't need you, etc. We all need one another So, he talks about gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 44:29 And he says, it's like the functions in your body Vision, hearing, speech, touch, taste, smell, walking, handling So many things we have in our body And then what is love? 44:50 Love is the breath and life It's no use having eyes, ears, hands and no light So, which is more important? Now you tell me, which would you rather have? Life or hands and feet and legs and eyes and all that You don't need to think much about that 45:11 We, I want both Right? What's the use of life without Hands, legs, what's the use for example You can be that, you know I've seen these unfortunate people who had some head injury or something They are like a vegetable Lying in the bed, in a coma 45:31 You count his fingers, he's got 10 You count his toes, he's got 10 No life And then, we meet certain other people Whose hands are chopped off, or legs are chopped off, or become blind But they've got life But no vision Or they are deaf 45:52 Do you want to be in either state? No We want all the parts of functions of our body And we want life Exactly We want love, which is the life And we want the gifts of the Holy Spirit But if you despise the gifts of the Holy Spirit 46:11 You won't get them It's true Because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 14 Here's the Bible has got such a beautiful balance Pursue after love Which is the greatest But Yet Desire earnestly Spiritual gifts 46:31 Especially That you may prophesy So It's like saying You need life, brother But you need all the things God has put in the body Is it enough if you just have vision And no hearing? Why did God give hearing? God has put many things in the body 46:53 Eyes, ears, tongue, taste, smell Hands, legs, so many things Liver, kidney, heart All have got to function And we can say God has given many gifts of the Holy Spirit to the church And we have two groups in Christendom Those who say well character is the main thing 47:12 And then they have got other people who say Brother what's the use of all this? You don't have any gifts And the answer of course is Jesus, the perfect spirit filled man What did he have? Did he have fruit or did he have gifts? 47:25 He had both For a church to be without the gifts of the Holy Spirit Is like a church Like a human body that's got life But is blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed But he's got life Plenty of life 47:45 Breathing properly, no sickness, nothing Do you want to be like that? I don't want to be like that Remember this 1 Corinthians 12 says very clearly The gifts are like the parts of the body What could Jesus have done on earth? 47:59 If he was blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, lying in Nazareth Living a holy life in his thought life and everything Is that enough? Thank God he was not blind Thank God he was not deaf Thank God he could move, he could walk, he could touch 48:19 What about the body of Christ today? The body of Christ the church Very often in many places many gifts are lacking Why are they lacking? Because they have not earnestly desired these spiritual gifts There are small gifts in the body 48:41 I often compare the gift of tongues Which is always mentioned last in every list To the little finger You know the mistake that a lot of people have made With the gift of tongues like the little finger Some people have made this 49:00 Little finger about 20 feet long Now just imagine if I had a little finger Just picture that in your mind if you can Long 20 feet stretching up to over there And I walk around with this little finger I'm just going to knock everybody wherever I go 49:15 I'll be a perpetual nuisance If I get into a bus Everybody will get fed up with me Because I'm hitting everybody with my little finger And wherever I go it's the little finger that's prominent I'm only 5 foot 8 but my little finger is 20 feet 49:28 And I'm a nuisance wherever I go And that is how some people are Brother have you spoken in tongues? They meet somebody, have you spoken in tongues? This long 20 foot little finger with which they are a nuisance everywhere they go 49:42 And some people get fed up with this The brethren of people especially They say cut it off! We don't want any of this little finger And so they go around with 4 fingers Can you live with 4 fingers? Oh sure! You don't go to hell 49:57 But I'd like to have a finger if God says I needed it And so I don't make it 20 feet long I keep it the 2 inches that God made it It's not the most important part of my body But don't devalue or disregard the smaller gifts 50:18 Ah, that's not important Cut it off I don't want anything cut off In the church, not everybody has all the gifts Because we are not the body of Christ Jesus had all the gifts Because he was the body of Christ But today the body of Christ is all of us 50:34 I'm very happy to have somebody else have a gift which I don't have I think there are a lot of brothers in CFC who have gifts I don't have And I have some gifts which they don't have But that's great That's why we function together as a body 50:49 And some gifts may be more prominent Some gifts are not so prominent You know, we always speak with our tongue We don't speak with our hands or ears I mean the hands and ears are useful But when it comes to speaking There's only one organ that you all use 51:08 That's the tongue So, God may give only very few people the gift of public speaking Like the tongue But that doesn't mean that's the only important part of the body What about the heart? Do you know what will happen if my heart stops pumping right now? 51:25 I'll stop speaking And you won't have to wonder why I got a heart attack And I have seen that when people don't pray for me It's difficult to speak It is I've been in places like that Where I sense 51:46 Hey, the heart's not pumping too well now And it's a struggle And then other places I find it so easy Because the heart's doing a great job So, do you think the heart is important or not? Very important It keeps the tongue speaking 52:03 And these are the people who pray You never see them Will they get a reward? Of course they'll get it I believe with all my heart That in the day when I stand before Jesus Christ To receive a reward for what I've done There will be a whole lot of people with me 52:17 And I won't be surprised When the Lord says You share the reward You know, it's like winning a lottery With one million rupees And you get about two rupees out of that Because there are so many people who won the lottery 52:33 Yeah, I won the lottery One million But there were about 500,000 people who won with me If I get my two rupees and say thank you very much It's going to be something like that If you don't believe it Wait until Jesus comes 52:43 And you'll see that All the people who prayed for me Supported me in various ways In prayer especially They're going to be there with me And I'll get my little share It's divided among all of us I believe that That's what keeps me humble 52:55 To realize that It's the heart that keeps the tongue speaking So, I'm just using an example We must earnestly seek for the gifts of the Holy Spirit And don't seek for that which will give you the maximum prominence Do you know that there's a gift in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 called 53:17 The gift of helps It's mentioned here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 In verse 28 God has appointed in the church First apostles Prophets Third teachers These are the most important gifts Then miracle workers Then gifts of healings 53:37 And then helps Helps is one of the gifts Like apostles and prophets How many people seek for it? Oh God Make me one of the helps In the church I don't think There are a lot of people Fasting and praying for that There may be a lot of people 53:54 Fasting and praying To give the miracle Oh miracles God Give that to me But that can be for honor If God wants to give it to you He'll give it to you What I'm saying is There are gifts like Administrations People who can organize things 54:08 For example in a conference I tell you You cannot run a conference Without the gift of administration It's one of the gifts Or Speaking in tongues Interpretation In Romans chapter 12 I'll show you another gift Which a lot of people don't seek 54:25 Romans chapter 12 It says We have got gifts like Prophecy Verse 6 Service Teaching is another gift Yeah we like that Exhorting That's another gift Another gift Is the gift of giving money For God's work 54:45 For God's work You don't find many people Fasting and praying God give me the gift of giving money Plenty of money for your work I don't think people are seeking for that Yet it's one of the gifts of the spirit mentioned here 54:58 And I tell you I have seen certain people like that in my life Who have got an unusual gift To give For God's work The abundance they have And God blesses them Rewards them So There are many gifts 55:19 And you have to leave it to God To decide which one he wants to give you I don't know which one he wants to give you I didn't know in the beginning which one he was going to give me But I said Lord I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit 55:32 I can't serve you I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit I want to seek you I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit I want to be filled with love But I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit I want to encourage you to do that My brother sister 55:46 Ask God Not for any particular gift I mean prophecy He says all of you can seek Definitely I have sought for that Because the Bible encourages us to seek for it But all of you should seek for the gift of prophecy And I don't mean standing in the pulpit as a prophet 56:02 But to prophesy That means you bless people who come to meet you And whom you talk to with two minutes of God's word Instead of gossip and Storytelling Prophecy Seek for that In addition to that Ask God to give you some supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit 56:24 Because you love the church See we are imbalanced here We can speak so much about holiness and holiness and holiness and holiness And I agree we need to speak that till Jesus comes But That's not the only thing that's needed 56:40 We need the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit Otherwise we will be like a holy person Who is deaf and dumb And blind and paralyzed Holy And I fear that some of us are like that Because We are not earnestly seeking 57:00 God gives his gifts to those who value them Why does it say earnestly desire? Because God will not give something to someone who doesn't value them Will you give a 500 rupee note to a one year old child? You tell me Why won't you give a 500 rupee note to a one year old child? 57:19 Even if it's your own child One reason He does not know the value of it That same child when he's 20 years old You'll give it to him Because then he's realized the value of it Why doesn't God give his gifts to many people? 57:34 I'll tell you why Because they don't value it They don't earnestly seek for it They say oh I can get along without it And the Lord says you can get along without it? Okay then go ahead Even Jesus It says when he was baptized 57:49 He prayed As he was going into the water Father Give me the anointing of the Holy Spirit He had the Holy Spirit from birth That's how he lived a holy life But he prayed And he was anointed And from that day Something happened in his ministry 58:05 He began to preach He began to cast out demons He began to heal the sick He began to do all types of things Which he never did for 30 years It came through prayer If you being evil Know how to give How good gifts to your children 58:20 How much more shall your heavenly Father Give the Holy Spirit Not to every Tom, Dick and Harry But to those who ask him And you read that parable in Luke chapter 11 It's asking, knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking You know God I want it 58:33 I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it And from inside that neighbor said I'm asleep, I can't give it to you No, I want it, I want it, I want it And it says there The neighbor will get up and give him as much as he wants 58:44 Then Jesus said How much more your heavenly Father Will give you the Holy Spirit If you ask like this If you knock like this I want to encourage all of you My brothers and sisters Just like in other areas I say Don't follow the compromisers 59:03 And also Don't follow the example of the half-hearted Who are satisfied with nothing You say God I was in a Brethren assembly Where they never taught anything about the gifts of the Holy Spirit They didn't believe in it 59:17 I read the word And I used to sit in my room and see God I went to a Pentecostal assembly I was so disappointed with all the noise I saw there And I said I don't want that Lord I want what the apostles got on the day of Pentecost 59:28 And I got in my room and I knelt down I said God I want the gifts of the Holy Spirit And I pray that even today I'm not satisfied with what I got I'll tell you honestly After 45 years of experiencing something of the anointing of the Holy Spirit 59:42 I'm not satisfied with what I've got I want more I always want more I hope you want it too Let's be balanced Let's pray Let's bow our heads before God Heavenly Father Heavenly Father we pray for that which is lacking in our life 1:00:04 That you will Help us to have What we need so much But which we lack Give us What we do not have so that we can serve you better We pray in Jesus name Amen
