0:15 I'd like to begin in 1 Peter chapter 1 this evening. We were looking at yesterday from Hebrews 2 verse 3 so 0:34 great salvation. And how it is possible for us to neglect that salvation even if we don't reject it. And I certainly believe that the vast majority of born-again believers 0:52 who received forgiveness of sins have neglected the greatness of this salvation. They're satisfied with a very limited portion of it. Like I said yesterday a father who's left billions to his son 1:10 and the father the son lives on 1% of that. It's something like that. And doesn't seem to bother about the remaining 99%. And I said yesterday that we would never do that if it came to money. We'd be very careful to get all the 1:28 money that we have inherited. Salvation is even more important. And the question is has the devil cheated us? And you know a clever lawyer if he cheats a person of his inheritance he will leave that person without a he's been cheated. 1:48 He can live all his life imagining that he got his full inheritance. And I believe that's how the devil has cheated many believers and many believers have lived and died without inheriting all that Jesus purchased on the cross. 2:05 Here it says in 1 Peter 1:10, "As to this salvation, the prophets of old prophesied about the grace that would come to you. There was a grace 2:22 that was going to come through Christ. The prophets predicted it, prophesied it. And they made a careful search and inquiry seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them 2:41 and that was the Holy Spirit was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ on the cross and the glories that would follow for his people thereafter. So, there are lots of glories that are to come to us because of Christ's 3:01 sufferings. But it was revealed to those prophets in verse 12 that they were not serving themselves. In other words, they would never experience that grace. But you in the things that have been announced to you to those who preach the gospel to you 3:20 by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. There is a difference between the gospel preached through by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven and a gospel preached 3:38 by human intelligence and cleverness. A lot of preaching today in Christian churches is mere good psychology. The pastors get a degree in psychology and they know how to manipulate people. They know how to make people feel good 3:56 and nice. And they keep their congregations and people never come into the possession of this wonderful salvation that Christ purchased. But the gospel, this is a lovely expression. The gospel preached by the Holy Spirit 4:13 sent from heaven. There's very little of that. The gospel preached through the power of the Holy Spirit. And these are things it says into which even the angels long to look. I'm sure you read those words, but they mean so much when we read through these 4:32 words slowly. The gospel preached by the Holy Spirit. The prophets prophesying about a grace that is going to come to us which the Lord told them, "This is not for you, folks. This is going to come only after Christ has suffered." And 4:48 there are tremendous glories to follow. But it's for them who are in the new covenant. And this has been preached the gospel preached by the Holy Spirit. And angels long to look into it. 5:06 You see in the Old Testament there were people who longed for something which they could never have. For example they could never have it. Let me show you something else that David longed for when he wrote Psalm 51 5:25 after he had fallen into sin with Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet came and told him about his sin. There's something which David says 51:6 Lord, you desire truth 5:43 in the innermost being. Yesterday I mentioned how Jesus said that the Holy Spirit in the new covenant would flow from the innermost being and flow like rivers of living water in many directions. Here's another thing that has to come 6:01 into our innermost being, truth. What does it mean when he says, "Lord, you desire truth in the innermost being?" And he's as it were saying, "I don't have it." Truth, the opposite is a lie. So, here he is speaking about living a 6:21 lie. How does a person live a lie? When he pretends on the outside to be more than what he is really inside. That is a lie. 6:37 Or what Jesus called And David was saying, "Lord, I know that you Truth in the innermost being means that he's exactly the same inside as the impression he gives outside. He's exactly the same. He behaves in exactly the same gracious 6:57 way at home as he does in church when we meet one another. Is that really true? David realized it was not true in his case. He didn't have it. comes. 7:17 But when he was alone in a moment of temptation, he fell. And nobody falls all of a sudden into adultery like David. Every teacher or Christian who has fallen into adultery is never sudden. Never, never, never. 7:36 It's a process that starts with a bit of lust in the thoughts which is not repent. And because nobody's able to see that 7:54 a person feels content that his outward testimony is unaffected. And so he indulge in it indulges in it a little more. And his outward testimony is still not affected. And gradually he slips down and finally 8:12 it's adultery. So David knew that. It was And so he realizes there's something I just don't have. And the thing is in the old covenant they could not have it. Nobody in the Old Testament 8:31 could live the same life inside as they were outside. It was not possible for one single reason simple reason that they did not have the Holy Spirit within. Man is incapable of overcoming sin on the inside. 8:49 If we overcome it on the outside very often it is because we want to have a good testimony. We restrain our tongue. We don't do things which are unrighteous because it may not be to glorify God. It may not be because we fear God. 9:06 It may be because we want a good testimony. That's why you may find in your life that you're careful with your tongue when you're with people with whom you want to maintain a good testimony. And we become careless with our tongue 9:21 when we are at home uh when we are not much bothered about our testimony among those who live in our home. That's why I always say that our children know us best of all. They know us much better than all the 9:40 church. Because the people in our church see us for 10%. They know about 10% of our life. Our children watch us day, morning, noon, and night throughout the week. And they know whether we are genuine whether we are real. 9:58 And if they see we are real, they will follow the Lord we follow. A lot of children have turned away from the Lord because of the unreality they have seen in their parents. They don't have truth in the inward parts. They see their parents singing wonderful 10:15 songs and uh appearing to be very spiritual on Sunday mornings. And then they see their parents living in another way, backbiting, gossiping, criticizing, and with a different set of values at home. And they grow up seeing that and they 10:33 see Christianity is this. You got to present a good front before others. That's all that matters. And so long as your doctrine is right, of course we are very scared of wrong doctrine. You know, wrong doctrine like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. 10:47 They're all cults. They've got wrong doctrine. But we've got the right doctrine. And we've got a good impression before others. That is not the Christianity that Jesus came to give. And if that is your Christianity, I don't want you to feel condemned. 11:06 I want you to say I want you to know that I'm to lift you higher. I always say the purpose of our preaching is to let people saying, "My son, my daughter, come up higher. Don't live at that low level." He's not angry with you, 11:25 but he's sad. In the Old Testament, we read God was angry with his people. But in the new covenant, we are not under wrath. The wrath of God has been taken completely by Christ on the cross. But our father is often sad and 11:43 with the way his children live. And if you really love and want him to be sad, you wouldn't want him to be disappointed with you. We must love the truth in the inward parts. Let me show you something that Jesus said about the Pharisees in Matthew 23. 12:00 You know, for many years I saw Matthew 23 the first 36 verses as a condemnation of the Pharisees. You're like this and you're like this. That is wrong with you and it's a it's a whole chapter full of denouncing woe to you Pharisees because you're like 12:14 this and woe unto you Pharisees because you're like this. It was everything negative except if you have been if you read it carefully for two things. noticed it. There were two things that Jesus commended and appreciated 12:30 in the Pharisees. Isn't it wonderful to recognize that Jesus commended two things in the Pharisees? Number one, verse two and three. The scribes and Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses. Therefore, everything they tell you to 12:47 do and observe, do. But don't do according to their works because they say but don't do. So, imagine this statement that Jesus said to his disciples. He was speaking to the multitude and to his disciples. The Pharisees are 13:03 sitting in a place of religious authority and they teach so many things. Every single thing they teach is right. Isn't that the meaning of saying do everything that they say? If one of those things was wrong, which the Pharisees taught, 13:23 then Jesus would have said, "Well, most of the things they say are right, but some things they teach are wrong. But Jesus is very exact in what he said. All, notice that word verse three, all. Everything they tell you to do, 13:40 do. Would Jesus tell you to do everything that the Jehovah's Witnesses teach or everything that the Roman Catholics teach, do everything they teach, do? You would never say that. Because there are a lot of things we we love these friends, but there are a lot 14:00 of things which they teach scripture. So, when Jesus takes a particular group and says, "As far as they are concerned, everything they teach is do." For example, called the Sadducees, who didn't believe in miracles and didn't believe in angels and the 14:14 resurrection, he would never say to the disciples, "Everything the Sadducees teach, do." No, because there are a lot of errors in them. They were the liberal theologians of that time. So, what was the one good quality in the 14:26 Pharisees? Their doctrine was 100% right. Is your doctrine 100% right? You could still be a Pharisee. The that Jesus said about the Pharisees is found in verse 25. In the middle 14:46 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You clean outside of the cup, but inside is full self-indulgence. See, he was talking about their external life, which was clean. Their inner life 15:03 was impure. What did he say? Your external life is clean. Isn't it good for our external There are millions of people external life is filthy. They do so many wrong things the 15:22 outside. Their testimony is bad on the outside. Pharisees had a good testimony on the outside. Doctrines are right. Two good qualities of Pharisees. Around the world I have found evangelical Christians 15:41 who glory in two things. Our My external life is good. My testimony before men is good. My doctrines are 100% right. They don't realize the qualities the Pharisees had. 15:59 But they don't see that. When you read scripture carefully, the Holy Spirit shows that does not deliver you from being a Pharisee. So, if these are the two good things you have, you could still be a Pharisee sitting in this church year 16:13 after year after year. Required is truth in the inward parts. The first that God judged in Israel when they were 16:30 entering Canaan, what it was, hypocrisy. When they They'd already conquered Jericho. You read in Joshua chapter 6. And in chapter 7, they went to fight 16:45 against a small town of Ai, A I. And Joshua said, "We can easily thrash them." And they were defeated. And Joshua fell on his face and said, "Lord, what's wrong with us?" And the Lord said, "There's sin in the camp. There's a hypocrite right in the 17:02 middle of your camp. I had told all of you not to touch any of the uh wealth in Jericho when you go in. That must all be conse- But there's a man in your midst who has stolen some of it, secretly hidden it in his tent. Khan. 17:21 And they stoned him to death, and then they proceeded. Now, so the first sin in Canaan, as soon as they entered in, was hypocrisy. In the old covenant. The first sin in the new covenant, after the day of Pentecost, was hypocrisy. 17:40 Isn't that significant that in both these You see, the day of Pentecost was like entering into Canaan as a time of mighty power. Joshua leading the people in, and Peter leading people into this new realm of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And the 17:57 first sin that comes up is hypocrisy. In Acts chapter 5, we read about Ananias and Sapphira. You know the story. They sold a piece of property because all the people at that time were stirred on their own. Nobody told them. Peter 18:13 and all of the apostles never said, "You guys property and give it. We must have a common uh fund." No. They dearly sold their goods and their property and laid them at the apostles' feet to help the poor because there were a lot 18:30 of poor people in their midst. And that was distributed by the apostles, as we read in Acts 4 34 and 35. So, Ananias and Sapphira saw all this happening around them. All the whole-hearted radical disciples were selling all that they have, and 18:45 and that was a tremendous testimony. And Ananias and Sapphira wanted to have that same testimony that they should be considered whole-hearted when they were not whole-hearted. They sold the property, and it says in Acts 5:2, they kept back 19:03 some of the price for themselves with his wife's full knowledge. Okay. Let's assume they sold their property for a hundred thousand dollars in today's value. And they kept back 50,000 for themselves. And they came with 50,000 19:20 to lay at the apostles' feet. Now, if you met a brother today who sold his property for $100,000 and gave dollars of that to God, what would you think of such a man? You'd think he's a right Christian. How many people do you find 19:37 like that who sell their property and give 50% of that money to God? Imagine, here was a man who was doing that. Why was he killed? Why was his wife killed? He Ananias just stood in line. They were 19:56 all coming one by one. They were not saying anything. They just came and left the money there at Peter's feet and went away. Another one left the money at Peter's feet, went away. Ananias came, didn't say a word, just left the money at Peter's 20:08 away, and Peter said, "Hey, Ananias, come back." The Lord gave Peter discernment. This guy is telling a lie. That was supernatural. There was no way Peter could have known. The spirit of God told him, "Call him back and tell him Satan has filled your heart 20:27 to tell a lie to the Holy Spirit. Why did you keep back some of the money? And look what he says. Did anybody ask you to sell your land? No. When it was unsold, verse four, it was yours. Nobody asked you to sell your land. 20:47 After it was sold and you got the money for it, it was still yours. The whole thing was yours. Nobody asked you to give the money to the Lord. But why do you have to pretend at home and kept all that money? No problem. If you'd stayed at home and not sold 21:05 your property, no problem. There was no rule that you must sell all your goods. No rule that you got to give all of it to God. No. There's never been such a law in the new covenant. Why is it you have conceived this deed, 21:19 Acts 5:4, in your heart? You have not told a lie to men, but you've told a lie to God. I I mentioned at the beginning that a lie is the opposite of truth. Remember what David said, you desire truth in the innermost being. 21:35 And here was a lie. But Ananias hadn't even opened his mouth. So, the question here is, how does a man tell a lie without opening his mouth? That's what Peter told him, "You have lied to God." 21:54 And he dropped dead. Later on, after 3 hours, his wife came in and Peter asked him one asked her one question, "Did you sell the land for this much?" And she said, "Yes." And she died. She at least opened her mouth and told a lie. But Ananias didn't 22:10 open his mouth. What I'm trying to point out is you can tell a lie without opening your mouth. That is the first sin that was judged in the early church. Not adultery. I mean, we'd be horrified adultery, if somebody committed adultery 22:28 in a church, well, terrible. Or somebody stole church money, well, terrible. What if a man's living a lie and sitting in the church? The first sin that was judged in the church, would you consider that a terrible thing? 22:44 You see, here was in Jerusalem that was on fire for God. They were pursuing the path of total purity. And Ananias made the mistake of joining such a church. If Ananias had been in some church like Corinth 23:03 where they were carnal and worldly and doing so many wrong things, he might even be an elder in that church. But not in Jerusalem. So I say if a man wants to live a lie, make sure you don't church join a church that's on fire for God. 23:21 There are many other churches which are carnal, better go and sit there, you're safer. But a lot of people are safe today because there are very few churches that are on fire for God. Somebody asked me once, "Why doesn't this happen today? People 23:40 like Ananias are falling dropping dead." I said, "There'll be hardly anybody alive left in the church if this happens now." Because so many people are living But I believe as we approach the end, the Lord is still seeking to build 23:54 churches that are on fire for God, that are emphasizing total purity, where the presence of God is real, where the word of God is powerful. You remember in 1 Corinthians 14, it 24:12 says about a church where they met together and then and a man came in who was ungifted. We don't know whether he's an unbeliever. He was a man who didn't believe in the ungifted means he didn't have the gifts of the spirit. 24:27 In 1 Corinthians 14:24, he comes in there and he's convicted. And the secrets of his heart, verse 25, was just like Ananias. Ananias had a secret in his heart and it was disclosed. And he says, "You can have a church meeting. 24:44 It may not be in such a spectacular way, in a way that people are Ananias was humiliated publicly. Do that without humiliating you publicly, where the prophetic word is speaking about the prophetic word spoken under the anointing of the Holy 25:00 Spirit in a church meeting, so powerful that a man sitting there listens and it looks as if this preacher seems to know all about my private life. How did he know that? Because he was anointed. 25:18 And he revealed, disclosed to you not in a public humiliating way but in privately, in such a way person sitting next to you doesn't know that God is revealing the secrets of your heart to you. And when he realizes that 25:36 he says, "Boy, God is here." And it says here he face. Whether he actually falls on his face or not, he worships God and says, "God is here." Through the years, I've tried to discover what is the mark of a New Testament church, of a new covenant 25:56 church. There are many groups that claim to be New Covenant churches. We follow the New Testament pattern. In my lifetime, I've been through to many, many such churches which claim to follow the New Testament pattern. But it is only the pattern. The fire was 26:14 not there. The external form was there. But the presence of Christ which makes, brings the fire was not there. I could sit in a meeting there and listen to the preaching and I never felt that the Lord spoke to me. 26:31 It was just dry academic exposition of scripture. The fire was missing. You know, in the Old Testament tabernacle, if you read the last two chapters of Exodus it says, "Moses did everything as the Lord commanded." That expression, "as 26:50 the Lord commanded Moses" appears about 18 times in Exodus 39 and 40. And from Exodus 25 onwards up to 40, most of those chapters are devoted to describing the details of the Tabernacle. We can build one exactly like that today. 27:09 Because all the dimensions, the material, the color of the curtains and the sizes of the uh pillars and everything is described there that we can make a Tabernacle today exactly the right size, exactly the same as the one 27:24 that Moses made. And if the Philistines in those days had got a copy or the Moabites or anyone had got a copy of Exodus, they could have made one exactly like the Israelites. How would you distinguish whether that Tabernacle 27:37 which the Moabites or the Ammonites made was this was the real Tabernacle or this one that Moses made? They they look exactly alike. There was one thing that distinguished the Tabernacle of Israel. And you know what that was? 27:53 The glory of God in a fire over the most holy place. That's one thing we can't reproduce. The Moabites, the Philistines, nobody could reproduce that. That was the distinguishing feature of the Tabernacle, not the pattern. 28:10 The pattern can be reproduced by anyone. A heathen can make a Tabernacle like that even in those days. But they could not reproduce the glory of God as a fire. And it's the same in the church today. We can follow the pattern, you know, 28:24 sing the right songs, evangelical doctrine, we make sure that we don't teach anything contrary to scripture and sing songs that are in line with scripture, etc. etc. etc. And the pattern is 100% right. The only thing missing is the glory of God in the 28:41 fire. So, So the years as I I know I pursued seeking them to understand the New Testament church from almost 6 years after I was converted, from 1965 onwards. I pursued and sought and studied and said, "Lord, what is the 28:59 mark of a New Testament church? I I don't want to waste my time being in all these dead denominations. If I if I ever do anything, I want to build a New Testament church. What's the use of living life on Earth and um saying I'm building the church 29:12 and building a bunch of dead churches?" And I discovered through the years, as I studied scripture, that the mark of a New Testament church is this, that people who come there recognize in their heart, "God is here." Not the pattern is right. 29:31 Jesus spoke to me. That means we go away from a church service saying, "Boy, the Lord spoke to me." And I felt it. I don't know about the others, but the Lord spoke to me. I know when I understood that, I said, "Lord, that's the way 29:48 I want every service in our church to be." Not just once in a blue moon that we have "Wow, that was a great meeting." Not no. Every single meeting of the church, there must be such a presence of the Holy Spirit who exalts Jesus Christ, 30:08 that we feel the Lord spoke to us today. And when that's not there, even if it's a good church, the meeting was dead. The only thing that makes a meeting live is the presence of Christ. And that's been my own longing when I 30:26 preach God's word. I say, "Lord, I'm willing to pay any price if you will let me preach God your word in such a way that people will go go feeling that Jesus spoke to them. Not that I'm a good preacher, that's unimportant. 30:45 Absolutely unimportant. Doesn't matter what they think of me. A lot of people think I'm a false teacher. See, they thought Jesus was a false teacher, and Paul was a false teacher, and all the great saints who started movements were all considered false 30:57 teachers, so that doesn't bother me. But they must go away feeling the Lord spoke to them. Some will get angry when the truth hits home. Some will get converted. And some will rise higher. But the Lord must speak. And to every one of you who preaches 31:15 God's word, I would urge seek for this. That the Lord speaks through you. And for that, there must be truth in the inward parts. We must have a longing that what I speak is 31:33 corresponds 100% with what is true in my private life. And I decided about 40 years ago, because it was not true before that, you know, I was living a life was not corresponding with my outer life. I got so fed up with it. 31:49 And I said, "Lord, you've got to change me." And the Lord did. And I took a decision 40 years ago that I would never in my life again preach like I had done before, preach things that were not true in my private life. That was not true in my thought life. 32:05 That was not true in my attitudes and motives. That I mean, even if um I'm not very spiritual, whatever level I am, that at least I'll be honest. You know, I saw that in uh in a beautiful picture vision. 32:21 In Revelation chapter 21, Revelation 21, um about the dimensions of Jerusalem. And it says here in Revelation 21:16, "The city is laid out as a square." 32:47 I want to show you a square. I took out this piece of paper to show you a square. Think it's about a square. Okay. When you see something in the front, and if you can only see you can't see from the sides, you don't know what 33:00 depth there is to it. This is a square. But here it says it in the last part of verse 16, "Its length and width and height is sorry, its length and width and height 33:18 are all equal." Here's the length, here's the height, and here's the width. The width is the depth part of it which you can't see. So I see that Jerusalem is like a cube. Its depth is exactly the same as its length and height. And I learned something from 33:37 that for myself. When I give people that I am this size spiritually, but I don't have that much depth behind it, I'm a hypocrite. I'm Jerusalem. If this was turned around, 33:58 you say, "Hey, there's hardly any depth to it." And that's how many Christians are. And I say, "Lord, when I'm turned around, they must see exactly the same depth as they see length and height." That is Jerusalem. So in many ways the 34:14 Lord spoke to me about the importance of this. This is truth in the innermost being, where the depth inside is exactly equal to the size I'm portraying myself to be before others. See, know, of us, the way we live and the way we speak, we're 34:32 giving a certain impression to people about our spirituality. You know, and we like to give people a good impression. I hope the depth in your inner life corresponds to that. Otherwise, my dear brother, sister, you in plain words, 34:50 you're a hypocrite. Truth is not there. You're living a lie like Ananias and Sapphira. And if you didn't know it till now, it's good to know it now so that we set it right before Christ comes again. Now, I want you to turn to John's Gospel 35:07 chapter 1. John's Gospel chapter 1 and verse 17, it says, "The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." 35:25 Have you ever meditated on that? How did truth come through Jesus Christ? Wasn't there any truth before Christ? What about all that Old Testament? Wasn't there any truth there in people those days? But now that you've understood what 35:40 truth and lie mean, you see it is possible for It is not possible for anyone in Old Testament times to have this type of truth where his inner life corresponded with his outer life exact depth was exactly equal to the 35:59 height and length. That means the impression given was exactly true to his inner life. But now, it's possible through Christ. That now that thing which David longed for, "Thou desires truth in the innermost being, oh God, and I don't 36:18 have it." Now we can say, "Praise the Lord, I can have it." That is the wonderful result of the Holy Spirit coming. You know, when Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit in John's Gospel chapter See how he put it. Many of these verses come alive 36:39 when we see it in the light of what you've heard just now. John 16 and verse 12 first of all. I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Some people ask me 36:57 of the apostles written by the apostles and others have the same weight as the words of Jesus. I say yes. They are as inspired scripture as the actual spoken words of Jesus. 37:16 Even the words of Jesus are recorded by men. Matthew, John. Jesus himself never wrote anything. So, if what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote that Jesus said this is inspired scripture, what Paul, and Peter, and John wrote later on 37:33 is also inspired scripture and is based on this verse. John 16:12, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. That means you won't be able to understand it now. You don't have the spiritual maturity 37:48 to understand it. It's Your vessel is so small. You cannot It cannot contain the depth of divine revelation. I can only give you as much as your cup holds. If God you know, if you pour a lot of water into a small cup, it's just going to 38:03 overflow. You need a bigger vessel to contain divine revelation. to them, you can't bear it now. But a day will come very soon when you On the day of Pentecost, your hearts will be enlarged and the Holy Spirit will give you revelation and then 38:19 I will be able to say things to you that I cannot tell you now. For example, you know, Jesus never spoke about being crucified with Christ. If he had spoken about it, they wouldn't have understood it. Your old man is crucified with him. 38:34 Romans 6. They wouldn't have understood it. Jesus wanted to tell them, but he says you So, it had to wait till after the day of Pentecost and Paul had to reveal it. Or the church is the body of Christ and we are members thereof. He never taught 38:48 it. Jesus He wanted to, but they wouldn't understand it. It had to wait the coming of the Holy Spirit. Many things like that. All things will work together for your good and you will be conformed to the image of Christ little by little. They couldn't 39:02 understand it. And I could go through all the New Testament epistles which Paul speaks about this power of resurrection. They would know They knew what resurrection means, Christ being raised raised from the dead, but what is the power of 39:16 resurrection in our life mean? Even today many Christians don't understand it. They wouldn't understand it. So, remember this, in the epistles it is still Jesus speaking through Paul, through James, through Peter. I don't devalue those words. Some people 39:35 do and they are the losers. I give the same value to that because of this one verse. And the next verse, verse 13, but when the Spirit of truth, verse 13, John 16:13, has come, he will guide you into all the truth. You see what the Holy Spirit is called, 39:55 the Spirit of truth. And that's not just factual truth, like I'm crucified with Christ, but inner truth as well. The Spirit of truth will lead me into all the truth. That means he will show where I 40:14 lie. Thank God. I can't discover it myself. And I can tell you the Holy Spirit has shown me area after area after area in these years where my life was not what it should be 40:34 inwardly, carefully hidden from the eyes of men. The Spirit of Truth leads me into all the truth, and then it's a question of whether I agree with him or not. I can say, "Oh, well, nobody knows that. It's okay. I can cover it up." 40:49 Or I can justify it in some way and say, "Well, well, well, there's reasons why I have to do it like that, or other people won't understand." You can say what you like, but you can't fool the Holy Spirit. And it's this type of justifying of 41:03 oneself that hinders people from becoming the men and women of God that they could have been. Why their lives seem to drift instead of shooting forward like a rocket. I believe that when a man's really filled with the Spirit and really lives 41:21 in the fullness of the Spirit all the time, it's like these rockets that go up into space. You know, in the initial stages of a rocket, there's something the rocket has to overcome. It's called the law of gravity. It's pulling that rocket down for, I 41:39 don't know, so many miles, uh gravity exerts a power over that rocket and keeps pulling it down, pulling it down. But at a certain point, it breaks free. The law of gravity is losing It little by little it's losing its power, and at a certain point in 41:57 space around the earth, the pull of the earth is no longer strong. And suddenly the rock rocket takes off with a speed that it never had before, because gravity's pull is gone. Do you know, brother and sister, that that's how we are supposed to live the 42:15 Christian life? We're constantly struggling with the law of sin pulling me down, pulling me down everywhere. I'm struggling, struggling, and somehow trying to stay stay up without falling. God wants to bring us to the place 42:33 where we get past this, where the power of Jesus wasn't always struggling, struggling, struggling with sin. Oh, I'm struggling, I'm struggling trying to stay up in the air. No. There was such a power in him. It was the Holy Spirit. And I believe it all 42:47 centers around how much we are willing to acknowledge the lie that is in different parts of us. There's lying in us from the time we are born. You know, there's an Old Testament verse in the Psalms which says, "The children 43:05 of men go astray from birth." Maybe sometimes crying as though they're in terrific pain. They're not in pain. They're just bluffing. To pick them up, that's all. 43:24 You pick them up and they stop. They fooled you. There's a verse in the Bible about that, Isaiah 58 and verse 3. From birth they tell lies. How do they tell lies from birth without opening their mouth? Lying is there in a child from birth. 43:44 You never have to teach a child to tell a lie. We grow up with that. And you know, but the thing is when a when a child is 2 3 years old if he tells a lie "No, Mommy, I didn't take that cookie." You can see in his face he's telling a 44:01 lie. It's written all over his face. It's very difficult for a 3-year-old to tell a lie with a straight face. But you wait till that kid is 18 years old and he can with a such a straight face tell you something so convincingly which is an 44:15 absolute lie. Because it's developed. All of us have developed that habit of bluffing. Of giving people an impression which is not true. And when Christ comes into his life into 44:32 our life, he who said, "I am the truth. I'm the way, the truth." And the spirit of truth comes in. He's going to remove from us all that lying that we have developed through many, many years. That was not possible in the Old 44:51 Testament. Truth came through Jesus Christ. John 1:17, perhaps you've understood that verse now for the first time. Truth came through Jesus Christ. It's not factual truth. Factual truth is been around for centuries. Scientific truth. That's not what he's 45:10 speaking about. It's the It's this opposite of this living a lie. The opposite of Ananias and Sapphira. That's why the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was so great. Because he was resisting the spirit of truth within him which said, "Be 45:24 Ananias and Sapphira If Ananias had come up in that line that day and say, "Hey Peter, um I sold my land for $100,000, but I don't my wife and I felt we couldn't give all that to God. We need some for ourselves. So we're giving only 50,000." And I 45:39 Peter would have said, "God bless you, Ananias. Praise the Lord that you decided to give 50% to God. God bless you. Go your way." He would have lived. He would have lived if he had spoken the truth. God didn't punish him for giving 50%. 45:53 God doesn't even want 10%. Do you know that tithing is an Old Testament law? Never mentioned in the New Testament? Never. It was a law because Israel was like a government, a theocracy, governed by God. 46:13 You know, like you pay income tax to the government today, a certain percentage of your income goes as income tax, and that's used to pay the servants of the government. Cuz that's how they get paid. In the Old Testament also, 46:29 it was a government of God was the head. And when people Tithe was never money. It was always grain or cattle. 10% of whatever you're working with. If you're If you took care of cattle, you brought 10% of your cattle. If you were a 46:44 farmer, you brought 10% of your grain and gave it to the servants of the government. That was the Levites, who were not allowed to uh farm, who were not allowed to raise cattle, but they were doing the service of the government, and that is of God, in 46:58 the temple. And God said, "You You got to make sure that they survive." So, that was the tithe. But in the new covenant, it's different. The Lord says in 2 Corinthians 9 and verse 7, 47:16 God does not want you to give grudgingly, verse 7, 2 Corinthians 9 verse 7, or under compulsion. But God loves a cheerful giver. The Old Testament, the question was how much you give, 10%. And if you add all the other other 47:36 offerings they had, it came actually more than 10%, sometimes 15 to 20%. But in the new covenant, it's not how much you give, it's how you give. Is it cheerful or is it grudgingly? You see, for example, in the Old Covenant, if a if an Israeli man came 47:53 with his grain and before the Levites and said, "Okay, here's a 10%. I don't feel like giving it, but anyway, here it is. law There was no law in the Old Testament that when you come here with your tithe, you must come cheerfully with a smiling 48:06 face. No, you could come with a long face and give your tithe, you keep the law. But in the new covenant, the Lord says if you ever feel compelled to give even 1%, I don't want it. Keep it. Cuz God doesn't want anything out of 48:23 compulsion because today those days, their relationship with God was like a master to a servant. They paid income tax. What call a tithe. Today our relationship with Jesus Christ is like a wife. A wife doesn't pay income tax to her 48:40 husband. A husband doesn't demand, "Give me so much money." No. She gives cheerfully. Darling, you can have everything I have. I'm your wife. That's a bridal relationship. And those are the happiest Christians. Not those 48:58 who are calculating, calculating. But say, "Lord, all that I have is yours." So, that's how Jesus lived. That's why his life is so sweet. He said that in the in John 17 and verse 10 when in the closing prayer 49:16 he said, "Father, everything of mine is yours. And everything of yours is mine." That is the new covenant bridal relationship. A man who doesn't withhold anything from his divine husband. I mean, isn't that the type of 49:36 relationship you want your wife to have with you? Where you say where she says, "Everything I have is yours." And the husband says, "Fine, everything I have is yours, too." That's a really happy marriage. It's not 50/50, it's a 100/100. 49:51 And that's how it is with Jesus. So, if a man comes to the Lord and says 10% of what I have is yours, the Lord says 10% of what I have is yours. Do you want to have that type of relationship with God? I don't. I want to say, "Lord, all that I have is 50:04 yours." That doesn't mean I have to put all my money in the offering bag. No, it means that Lord, I don't think of what I have as my own. It's yours. Tell me how I can use it. God wants you to use it perhaps to build a house to 50:17 um provide for your family and many things. He may even want you to spend some of it on a vacation. But but it's it's his. You recognize it as his. You pray about your expenditure. You say, "Lord, it's yours." And you'll 50:31 you have an amazing relationship with Christ where he says all that is his is mine. Truth in the inward parts. There's nothing hidden. There's nothing I have to hide. That is how we are to live before God. And when we come into this type of 50:46 relationship and truth, the Holy Spirit can have free sway in our hearts. And remember what Jesus said, "The spirit of truth will lead you into all truth." So, it's like a dark heart and mind full of lying which I've developed through many years. And the 51:05 Holy Spirit little by little by He doesn't do it all of a sudden. Little by little by little he exposes the darkness. And if I acknowledge it and I I'm willing to be free from it, truth will enter there. I often think of what the Bible calls 51:19 the flesh. You remember Jesus Paul said in Romans 7:18, "In my flesh there dwells nothing good." Romans 7:18. All of us have the flesh. It's a It's our self-will. And I I think of flesh like a black circle. The flesh is different from the heart. 51:37 My heart can be pure, but my flesh is dirty. And my heart my flesh is like a dark black circle. That's the best way to describe the flesh. In my flesh there dwells nothing good. Romans 7 18. So, that's perfectly described in a 51:55 black circle. Completely black. And into the middle of that black circle, one day I received Christ as my savior and Lord. It's like a little white circle comes into the middle of this black circle. This is salvation. 52:14 I haven't completely become like Christ. No, I'm a long way from it. But God me to remain all my life with that white circle just the same size. He wants it to grow in size till it begins to occupy more and more of this 52:31 black circle. More and more and more and more. This is the meaning of the Holy Spirit will lead you into all the truth. That black circle is our lying nature. The lie that we live in different areas, and the Holy Spirit will show you more 52:47 and more and more and more. And as I acknowledge it and submit and confess and ask the Lord to deliver me from the lie in that area and that area. You know what happens? This little white circle becomes more and more and more. This is 53:01 what sanctification. Progressive sanctification. This is what it says in Hebrews 6 verse 1, "Let us press on to perfection." This is what Paul meant when he said, 53:20 "One thing I do. I'm not yet perfect." Philippians 3 verse 9 to 12, "But I press on for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, which is that my entire black circle should I press on. I haven't attained it yet." 53:36 He says that at the age of 60. I haven't attained it yet. My black circle there's still areas of black, but boy, it's not as My white circle is not as small as it was when I began. And that's why it's very important if you really want to follow the Lord, 53:52 since truth is now possible for us. It was not possible in Old Testament times. That we pursue this path of listening to the Holy Spirit every day. When Jesus said, "Man shall not live capital L I V E by bread alone, 54:12 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of And that word comes through the Holy Spirit. That's not just reading the Bible. God can speak to me when I'm walking on the road, sitting in an office, sitting at home, or 54:29 scriptures. He can speak to me. And what is he going to do through the Holy Spirit? He leads me into all the truth. That's how I live. Man shall live by every word of God. And every word of God is truth that shows me areas in my life that are contrary to 54:45 his nature. And if I acknowledge it and don't justify myself, you remember what the Jesus told the Pharisees in Luke 16:15, "You are those who justify yourselves." There's a little booklet I wrote called 50 Marks of Pharisees. It's probably 55:03 there on the table. But it's uh it's one of those things I discovered. It was one of the marks of a Pharisee is he justifies himself. When When the Lord shows him something, he says, "No, no, no, but there's a reason for that. It's 55:15 not like that. I'm not so bad. Or it's his fault." Always this tendency to justify ourselves is there from even from children. So, if we stop justifying ourselves, "Oh, Lord, you're right." Like David said, "Lord, you are right when you judge." 55:30 Psalm 51, "You are right. I'm wrong." Then he can lead me into all the truth. This is described in another way in 1 Peter in chapter 4. Please turn with me and I'll close here. 1 Peter chapter 4 55:48 It says in verse 17, "It is time for judgment to begin in the household of God." In the family of God. In the church. It must begin with 56:06 first. So, the household of God, the true family of God, is a group of people who have learned to judge themselves first. This is complete opposite of the people in the world. 56:26 The average person in the world puts himself first in every area. It's me first and everybody else second. You know, in the Old Testament you read about mothers who even ate their children when they were hungry in a time of famine. Can you imagine? 56:45 This desire to put self first is there. Me first. My first. You see that so much in marriage. Most single people who think they're very spiritual, all they got to do is get married to 57:02 discover how selfish they are. I discovered it. I thought I was pretty spiritual till I got married. I discovered what a selfish person I was. Because, you know, when you're single and you have a problem with people, you can retreat into your room and be by 57:17 yourself. But, when you get married and you retreat into your room, there's somebody else there. And you got And you discover selfishness, self-centeredness, how we think of ourselves and we don't think so much of the other. 57:30 A lot of the problems in married life is just because of the selfishness. Two selfish people are now trying to live together. How can they live in happiness? I'll tell you how. If each person judges himself or herself first. 57:44 Now, I said in the world they put themselves first in everything. First me, first in that, me first in that, me first in every area I think of myself. Right from childhood, they'll grab the biggest piece of cake or the largest apple from 57:56 the plate. I mean, when you're grown up, we like to do that, but we lose our testimony, so we pretend to unselfish, but inwardly we're just the same. But there's one area where everybody in the world puts other people first. 58:16 That's judgment. In judgment, they are ready to put everybody else first. This is wrong with so-and-so, and this is wrong with so-and-so, and this is wrong with so-and-so, and this is wrong with that person. What about you? Well, 58:29 maybe there's something wrong with me, but I know everything's wrong with others. Now, when Christ comes into our life, this gets reversed. If you're really repented, repentance means 180° turn. Here I am living the way the world people in the world live. 58:44 Me first, me first in every area except judgment. Judgment, others first. And the Lord turns me around from that. And now others first in everything. us. Like we sing in that song, 59:01 "Lord, help me live from day to day in such a self-forgetful way that even when I my prayer shall be for others. Others, Lord, yes, others, let this my motto be. Help me to live for others that I might 59:19 live like thee." But one area I don't put others first, judgment. That's been reversed. Now, put myself first. This is true repentance. So it says here in the family of God we judge ourselves first. And how do we judge ourselves? Because the Holy Spirit 59:36 showing us areas in our life which are not absolutely true. And I acknowledge it. Lord, I'm wrong. Forgive me. And I acknowledge it. Help me. The Spirit of God comes in in the area where I've opened up to him in honesty and the 59:53 white circle becomes a little bigger and a little bigger and a little bigger and a little bigger and This is the path, my brothers and sisters, that we are supposed to tread. This is what it means to walk the narrow way. It 1:00:06 is a narrow way. It's a narrow way where I put everybody else first in everything except in judgement where I judge myself first and the church is supposed to be, according to 1 Peter 4:17, a group of people who have learned to judge themselves 1:00:20 first. That is the ideal church. That is there each person is following the leading of the Spirit and the Spirit of Truth. Think of a home where a husband and wife are seeking to life live like this. It'll be heaven on earth. 1:00:33 Those children in that home will grow up in an in the atmosphere of heaven. Where each person's judging himself or herself. And as the white circle increases, it's like the anointing of the Spirit is greater upon us. The presence of Christ 1:00:50 is more in such a person. The aroma of Christ manifests itself more in such a person like I said yesterday. The fragrance of Christ you see in such a person. Wouldn't that be wonderful if all of us pursued it? Let's do that. 1:01:06 Let's bow our heads before God. Our heavenly Father, help us that the truth we have understood in our minds and grip us 1:01:29 so that we will never lose it. That it'll work in our lives until it produces the fruit you desire in our lives. We humbly ask in Jesus name. Amen.
