0:00 would be very difficult to find on the earth is faith. He said that in Luke chapter 18. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? Luke 0:17 18:8. The other thing he said that would be a great shortage of was love. The love of many will wax cold. These are both important virtues that we need to have in our life. But 0:36 um just to try and understand a little bit of what faith means because it says without faith it is impossible to please God. And uh very often faith has been limited to an intellectual understanding or belief 0:56 in certain facts. And because it's been restricted to that, that's I believe that's one of the main reasons for the shallowness of the lives of many, many believers. Their faith is an intellectual thing uh which is something they just know in 1:14 their head. I mean, like they know that 2 + 2 is 4 or that this earth goes around the sun. These are facts they believe. And to believe that Jesus died for our sins. The devil believes Jesus died for the sins of the world. 1:33 And the faith of many Christians is only that intellectual type of thing. And they wonder why they don't seem to experience the type of life described in the New Testament. 1:51 Let me just show you a few verses which tell us the experience of some of the New Testament Christians. The Apostle Paul, for example, he said in 2:09 verse chapter 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 16, the last part, "We have the mind of Christ." You know, it's a very bold statement. 2:32 How many Christians today can say that? We've all been trained in a false humility not to confess anything. To tell people, "Don't look at me. Look at Jesus." Whereas the apostles said, "Follow me 2:50 as I follow Christ." I've almost never in my life heard a preacher say that today. "Follow me as I follow Christ. Look into my life. Come and live with me at home. See how I live at home. Look into my financial statements and 3:08 accounts and see every area of my life. See how I spend my money." I can open all my books to you and show you exactly how I live, how I earn, how I spend. Come and follow me. People are afraid to say it because most Christians live a double life. 3:26 They don't want people to nose around and look too carefully and find out things that are happening in their home or in their finances and things like that because that would spoil the image they have presented of the type of Christians they are. 3:44 Paul said, "Follow me." He said, "We have the mind of Christ." He says in chapter 2 and verse 12, "We have received the spirit that is from God so that we might know the things freely given to us by God. 4:03 In the earlier verse 11, he says the thoughts of God no one knows except the spirit of God. Just like he says the thoughts of a man, verse 11, no one knows except the spirit of man. The thoughts of God no one knows but the spirit of God. 4:22 And then he says, we have received that spirit. That means I can know what God is thinking. How many Christians dare to make such statements? I believe the vast majority of Christians I've met anyway know so 4:41 little of the ministry and the power of the Holy Spirit in their life. Far, far less than what these early Christians knew. We have a lot more knowledge of the Bible. We have a lot more interpretations, we 5:00 have better singing, better music, better so many things. But knowledge of God is pathetically low because we have not opened ourselves completely to the Holy Spirit. We've held back areas in our life from surrender to him. We're unwilling 5:18 to let him break us through the circumstances of life he takes us through. We seek to fellowship with a group of believers and then when things get a little hot, we pull out and go off on our own like wanderers like Cain. 5:35 Where in the world are we going to know God? Not in a thousand years will we know God. We'll increase in knowledge, but we'll never have the mind of Christ. We will never be able to know the thoughts of God. The Bible says, "My way my thoughts are 5:50 higher than your thoughts as the heaven is higher than the earth." You know that from Isaiah 55. And here it speaks about the thoughts of man, which are earthly thoughts, and the thoughts of God, verse 11, which are heavenly thoughts. 6:06 We once had the thoughts of man. Now we have the thoughts of God. We think like God thinks. We look at people the way God looks at them. We look at people from God's point of view. We look at circumstances from God's point of 6:22 view. I was just mentioning earlier this morning about the life of rest in God. We have to enter into God's mind to come to that rest. To see things as it were from God's point of view. Just like I said, the Holy Spirit brings 6:43 heaven down into our hearts. The Holy Spirit also lifts our thinking up to the heavenlies. The Bible says that God has seated us in Christ in the heavenly places. That's not just a figure of speech. It's a actual reality 7:03 that in our spirit, even though our body's on this earth, if we have really identified with Christ in his death, if we have died with him, you know, Jesus never ascended to heaven as a man until he had died first. He died and then he rose and ascended 7:22 into heaven. And if a man does not is unable to look at things and people from heaven's standpoint, that is one of the clearest proofs that he has not been crucified with Christ. Cuz if we die with him, we shall 7:40 certainly live with him, the Bible says. There's no doubt about it. Jesus did not raise himself up from the dead. Never in the Bible does it say that Jesus raised himself up from the dead. The symbolism in baptism is so exact. 7:59 I allow somebody to bury me, and I can't lift myself up when I'm like that. Somebody else lifts me up. The symbolism is so accurate that when people crucify me, I accept it, God raises me up. Definitely, that's what we testify to in 8:16 baptism. So, if we have died with Christ, we will live with him. And God will not only raise us up, he will make us he will make us ascend with him in our spirit, so that we begin to look at everything on earth 8:33 from heaven's standpoint. That is faith. It's one aspect of faith. To look at things from heaven's standpoint. That's why we don't have this faith in the Old Testament. Nobody could look at things from heaven's standpoint in the Old 8:49 Testament. Their Their standpoint was so earthly. Uh when you read the Psalms, can't you see that? Lord, smite those fellows who are trying to hurt me. That's the earthly standpoint. Wanting God to smite our enemies and 9:04 destroy them and even bash the their little children's heads on the rocks. That's the type of thing they prayed for, inspired by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. They were earthly. They were earthly minded, and I've 9:19 discovered the vast majority of believers are earthly minded, especially when it comes to money and earthly things. It's one of the clearest tests of whether I've become heavenly minded is in my attitude to money and material 9:33 things. I mean, I say that for myself. I evaluate myself by asking how heavenly minded I am. How am I? I can find out by my attitude to material things. When how attached I am to it. How much I 9:53 um long for it and think about it more and more and more, you know the We think about We think most about the thing that is most precious to us. Where our treasure is there our heart will be also. 10:10 And if most of our thoughts revolve around earthly things and how we can have more of it than this and that and comfort and ease and pleasure and um and a little ache here and a little pain there 10:28 and um the earthly future and all that we're certainly not seated in the heavenly places in Christ. I just want to say that frankly, brothers and sisters, so that you don't deceive yourselves reading all these wonderful verses in Ephesians chapter 2 10:44 and imagining it's all true in your life. When it's not really true. I mean, do you want to get a shock when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ and discover that you were living in a delusion? I don't want that. 10:57 It's one of the things I've kept on praying with to God many times in my life. I say, "Lord, I don't want to get a shock when I stand before you and discover that a lot of my opinion of my own spirituality was just a lot of delusion. 11:16 And that the difference between me and a lot of other Christians was just in doctrine, in words. That I was just as earthly minded as those other people. Like this French atheist who in the 18th century his name was Walter. He looked at all 11:35 the Christians of different denominations in his time. And he said, "All these Christians have got different doctrines in their different denominations, but when it comes to money, they've all got the same religion. They all love it exactly alike. 11:48 I don't see any difference within them." he said. He was a shrewd observer. But you couldn't look at Jesus or Paul and say that he had the same attitude to money as the people in the world. You couldn't say that about Peter. 12:05 You couldn't say that about many of those apostles and early Christians. What do people If people could look into every area of your private life, the way you earn your money, the way you spend your money, the way you spend your 12:20 time, would they be able to say I'm not talking about the front we present before Christians whenever we come for meetings. Forget it. But if people could look into every area of your private life, the things you think about most of the 12:38 week, and into all your financial dealings, would they able Would they be able to say, "This man doesn't live for the earth. He lives on the earth, but he doesn't live with earth's values. He seems to have a completely different 12:52 set of values. His whole attitude to material things is different." If they can't say that about you, I mean, you alone know that. Probably even your wife doesn't know whether you love money or not. We We can say that our faith is a is not 13:09 the faith of the New Testament. We're deceiving ourselves. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? Look at some of the things that Paul said. 1 Corinthians chapter 4 in verse 4, "I am conscious of nothing 13:25 against myself." See, we, many Christians, glory in always saying, "Oh, I'm such a sinner. I I always sin, you know, I what to do?" That's not the Apostle Paul's testimony. He said, "I'm conscious of nothing 13:43 against myself." But that doesn't mean I'm completely free from sin. Doesn't mean he says I'm acquitted because the Lord sees things in me which I don't see in myself. I mean, there's unconscious sin in all of us. Till the 13:57 end of our life, it'll be there. But consciously, he says, "I'm not aware of a single area where I'm consciously sinning." This was New Testament Christianity. It was a result of faith. I want to show you another verse, 2 14:13 Corinthians in chapter 2. 2 Corinthians chapter 2, we read and verse 14. Thanks be to God, 14:30 who always leads us in his triumph in Christ. This was not once a week or twice a week or occasional up-and-down type of life. No. He gives the God the glory for it. It says God who does it. But he always leads us in triumph in Christ. 14:50 This is how they lived. If God be for us, who can be against us? There was a tremendous spirit of constant triumph in the lives of those early Christians. It came by faith. A living faith. And that's the faith we need to have. 15:10 Um let me show you what the Apostle John says in 1 John in chapter 2 and verse 1. He tells us the purpose of his writing 15:26 this epistle, 1 John 2:1. My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But he acknowledges the possibility that anyone can trip up and fall. Sure. It's not that a Christian can never 15:46 fall. John is not unrealistic. He says, "If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Now, I've often thought about that. How would it have sounded if he had reversed it? 16:06 That sentence and said it like this. My little children, these things I'm writing to you that if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, but you know, try not to sin. It would be completely different message. He says, "I'm not writing to you 16:25 saying what you should do when you sin." That's, you know, not the main thing. The main thing I'm writing to you is that you don't sin. There's a There's It's possible to live such a life that you don't consciously do what you know to be wrong. 16:41 But we make allowance for that possibility that you may sin. I mean, it's like it's to be sin to sin should be like having a flat tire. Now, how many times a day do you expect to get a flat tire? Well, it happens. 17:00 So, do you make some provision for it? But that's not our normal way, normal thing that happens to us when we drive every day. My little children, I'm writing to you that these things that you don't sin. Then how should we live? Verse six. 17:13 The one who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same manner as he walked. Now, you know, when you read that verse that we are to walk as Jesus walked, as the Living Bible says, "Anyone who says he's a Christian must live as Jesus 17:31 lived." I have never in my life heard a man preach a sermon on living as Jesus lived. That's how we're supposed to live. It's a tragedy. I've been a Christian 50 years. Almost never, I can't think of a single sermon I heard in my life 17:50 that challenged me to live as Jesus lived. I wish somebody had challenged me with that when I was first converted at the age of 19. I could have started on that road much earlier than I did. This was the challenge the apostles 18:04 proclaimed. None None of this is found in the Old Testament. No, they could not come to this life in the Old Testament. That's why faith is not even mentioned in the Old Testament. Hardly ever. And the faith of the Old Testament 18:19 people was entirely for earthly things. You go through that big list of the what's called the great men of faith in Hebrews 11. Have you noticed one thing about them? It is all earthly. It is all earthly. By faith 18:39 um Abraham's had a son when he was 100 years old. By faith Noah Moses you know, Noah built an ark and Moses split the Red Sea and Joshua pulled down the walls of Jericho and somebody shut the mouths of lions and somebody 18:53 defeated the enemies and somebody got resurrection from the dead. What's heavenly about it? And there's only a small little one little phrase which says about something heavenly where it says Abraham looked for a city whose foundation 19:09 whose main architect and builder was God. But it is all earthly. Their faith was entirely for earthly things. And when we see a gospel being proclaimed today by so many Christian preachers for earthly things, you can say that's 19:27 an Old Testament gospel. Yeah, it's faith, but it's the faith of these people in the Old Testament. That is not the faith of the New Testament. That's what we need to see. The faith of the New Testament is to believe that I 19:39 can walk as Jesus walked. That I can overcome sin in my life. That I can live in triumph. That I can have the mind of Christ. That I can listen into the thoughts of God. So, 19:58 at the end of this chapter, I believe that the verse, which is one of the most important verse in Hebrews 11, is the last verse. Where it says, "But God has provided something better than all this earthly faith for us." 20:17 Amen. By faith Abel, by faith Abraham, by faith Noah, by faith Moses, by faith all these people and all the earthly things they got the fantastic I mean, imagine being a man of God who can split Red Seas open and pull down walls of 20:31 Jericho and raise the dead like Elijah and Elisha and uh shut the mouths of lions like Samson and all those other people and defeat enemies of the thousands. And at the end of it, it says, "Do you know, brothers and sisters, 20:48 that in the New Covenant God has provided something better than all of this for us? Another type of faith." And he describes it in chapter 12. You know, it's it's actually those first four verses are the last verses of chapter 11. By faith these these these 21:04 people, and then finally, by faith Jesus. What did Jesus do by faith? He never pulled down any walls of Jericho. He never split the Red Sea. He doesn't even mention his multiplying the loaves and fishes or healing nothing. What did he do by 21:21 faith? This is what today's Christian preachers need to hear. By faith he endured the cross. He didn't enjoy the cross. And he never asks us to enjoy the cross. He endured the cross. 21:40 And don't try to be super spiritual and enjoy it. He endured it for the joy set before him. That joy was the joy of fellowship with his father. And he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He says, "Look unto Jesus 21:58 the author and finisher of our faith." Now, what I want to ask you is who is the author and finisher of your faith? Um whenever a lot of preachers today when they fall 22:17 into sin I've come across more cases more than one case of this some well-known world-famous preacher suddenly is found in adultery or homosexuality. And then of course he refers to David, 22:34 David the man after God's own heart also fell into adultery. Who is the author and finisher of his faith? David. Some I remember I've heard of I remember hearing a preacher who was so depressed and gloomy and he said, "Even the great 22:52 little prophet Elijah was depressed." Who was the author and finisher of his faith? Elijah. When was Jesus depressed? When did Jesus sit under a juniper tree and say, "Oh God, I've had enough of this. Take away my life." 23:12 When did Jesus fall into adultery after preaching to others? We've got a third-rate, good-for-nothing, useless Christianity today that the devil has fooled people is the real gospel. It is not. It's a counterfeit. It just makes preachers rich and wealthy 23:31 with the things of this earth. They proclaim psychology from the pulpit, make people feel nice, never expose their sin to them, leave people defeated in their sin, defeated in their family life, divorce one another, and all this rubbish that goes under the 23:47 name of Christianity. Yep. We need to come back to this faith. The faith the au- the where the faith where Jesus is the author and finisher. What is the meaning of an author? If I took up a 24:04 book here and said, "I'm the author of this book." It would mean that from the first word to the last word, I wrote it. That's the meaning of I am the author of this book. And if I say Jesus is the author of my 24:23 faith, that means the faith I have in my heart from the first to the last is what Jesus wrote in my heart. That's the meaning, simple meaning of author of my faith. It's not a faith that I got from listening to some Pentecostal preacher. 24:39 It's not the faith that I got by watching somebody getting healed on television. But this is where a lot of people are getting their faith from. Or some guy says, "I gave my tithe to this ministry and I got a promotion in my job or a better 24:51 car." This is all rubbish. Who wrote that faith in your heart? Some preacher? Some television program? Some book? There are multitudes of books on faith nowadays in Christian bookshops. They're all about this Old Testament faith, some earthly 25:08 thing. And God has allowed, listen to this, God has allowed such books to multiply in Christian bookshops to test what do these Christians really want? And he sees God sees so many of his 25:26 children going and buying these books because deep down in their heart they want material things. And God sees that. And God says, "That's what you want? That's what you'll get." And you'll never get 25:45 what Jesus came to earth and died and rose again for. I tell you, it'll be a terrible tragedy for many, many Christians when they stand before Christ and discover in the final day what the devil cheated them out of their 26:00 inheritance. How they played around with worthless toys when they could have had eternal riches. They'll discover their currency was like the Monopoly currency that children play with, worthless. 26:20 And they missed eternal riches in the pursuit of earthly honor and earthly riches. Anyway, for myself, like Joshua said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." I say for myself I have decided that I want to let Jesus 26:39 write his faith in my heart. I don't want anybody else to write faith in my heart. I want the faith of Jesus. I hope you want that, too. That's the only faith which is New Testament faith. Let me show you 26:57 Hebrews chapter 8. Hebrews is one of the greatest books of the New Testament. And it's been attacked a lot. It's not studied a lot. If you If some of you have 27:15 got a copy of my CD on 70 hours through the Bible, you will notice that out of those 70 hours for 66 books, I spent 4 hours on Hebrews. It's what It's a powerful book. 27:37 It shows us so many new covenant truths. It shows us that Jesus lived on earth in our flesh and overcame. It's the book that tells us how what the faith of Jesus is. Hebrews chapter 8 tells us about this new covenant that God will 27:53 write in our hearts. It begins with the faith that verse 12, Hebrews 8:12, that God will not remember a single one of my sins anymore. That's where we've got to begin. We've got to get our Old Testament record cleared. And I want to 28:08 say that for the benefit of anyone here who's still not sure about that. You know how the devil keeps reminding us of particularly of some terrible sins that we committed. You know, we've all committed small sins 28:27 and some terrible sins. Many of us, anyway. And it's those particularly bad sins that you committed maybe years ago, maybe in your unconverted days, which you keep wondering, 28:45 has God forgiven you? I know believers who have come to me and asked me, "Uh Brother Zac, I'm getting this sickness. Is it because God's punishing me for something, some sin I committed 25 years ago when I was unconverted?" 29:02 And I tell them, "Let me tell you a story. Supposing I call my 8-year-old boy all of a sudden one day and give him a real hard spanking. And he's surprised at that. What did I do? I say, "Son, you remember 3 years ago 29:21 that time when you disobeyed me?" Can you imagine a father doing that? We insult God by imagining that he's worse than earthly fathers. 25 years ago, you remember what you did? 29:40 Well, you're getting it now. Faith that when he says, "Your sins and iniquities I will remember no more." He means it. The blood of Jesus has blotted out 29:59 all our sins. Somebody asked me once, "Brother Zac, what is the sin that God will never forgive?" I said, "The sin that you don't confess. That's the one he'll never forgive." But if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us all our 30:13 sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But he'll never forgive the sin you don't confess. And if you confess it once, he's got good hearing. You don't have to say it a second time. I'm not throwing stones. I myself 30:30 have done that many times because no one drilled Hebrews 8:12 into my mind when I was first converted. I believe we need to teach people the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Many people glorify the devil so much by talking about their sin. I've heard so 30:47 many people when they give their testimony, they spend 25 minutes talking about all their terrible sins they committed in their life, and then about 5 minutes what Jesus did for them. 25 minutes glorifying the devil. I never want to spend my time glorifying 31:02 the devil. Paul says, "I am the chief of sinners." But he never tell us what he did. It's like that. Their sins and iniquities I'll remember no more. I have faith in that, and I want everyone here who's really born again, 31:21 who's really confessed your sin to the Lord, and I'm not saying you've given up your sin, but do you want to give up your sin? It may take time to give up certain habits, but do you want to give them up? 31:44 Your sins are forgiven. They are blotted out. And then, the next thing, the three things in the old new covenant here, the other is in verse 11 where it says, "You won't have to teach one another saying, 'Know the Lord,' 32:00 because all shall know me, from the least to the greatest." This is another type of deception that's going on in Christendom today. It happens a lot in India among Pentecostal circles, and I heard that it happens in some other groups among 32:14 Pentecostal circles, too. This deception called prophecy. I believe in prophecy, the New Testament type of prophecy mentioned in 1 Corinthians 14, that we must all covet, but we can all prophesy. But this counterfeit, where there are self-appointed prophets 32:33 who people seek to find out, "What What do you think, brother prophet so-and-so, what do you think God wants me to do? Should I marry this person? Should I go to this job? Should I go here? Should I do that? And like these heathen fortune tellers, 32:48 these prophets say, "I'll tell you what you should do." And do you know the number of Christians who call themselves Christians who believe all that? Here it says, "They shall not teach." In the Old Testament, it was true. 33:03 Even the king had to go to the prophet and say, "What is God saying? What does God want me to do?" But in the New Testament, everybody, every Christian can have the Holy Spirit within him. That's why you don't have to go to a prophet today to find out God's 33:17 will. Every believer can have the Holy Spirit in him, and the anointing will teach you all things. God is a jealous God. We are the bride of Christ. The Old Testament Israelites were not the bride of Christ. They did not have a married relationship 33:37 with Christ. Their relationship with God was like, you know, if you were a lowly factory worker, and God was like the CEO of the factory. You couldn't contact the CEO. You had to go through the secretary and so many things. That's how it was in 33:52 the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, it's my wife doesn't come to me through any secretary. And I don't go to Jesus Christ. I mean, we say, "You don't have to go through uh we say the Roman Catholics, you don't have to go through Mary." I say, "You 34:08 don't have to go to a pro- through a prophet." I mean, if I had to go through somebody, I'd rather choose Mary rather than these modern prophets and pastors any day. Any day, cuz at least I know she was a holy woman. But these other guys who go around 34:23 speaking today, I don't know what their condition is. I wouldn't go to any of them. But the wonderful thing is you don't have to go to any of them. You can go directly. All shall know me. From the least to the greatest. Somebody 34:34 says, "Brother Zach, I was born again only yesterday." From the least to the greatest. You can know if you were born again yesterday, you can talk to your father now. And you can know him. You may not know him in the mature way that someone knows him 34:53 who's walked with him for many years, but you can know him and talk to him now. And you can hear him tell you what to do. I mean, if if you have a number of children and the oldest one is say 20 years old and the youngest one is only 35:07 three or four. And if that three or four year old child comes to you and says, "Dad, um can you tell me what I should do?" Will you say, "Well, I'll tell you through your older brother." Which dad says that? How we insult God by saying, "Oh, you 35:24 got to consult that prophet." Christians are insulting God left, right, and center all over Christendom today. And that's what grieves me. Because you're insulting my dad. Pretty badly. And that hurts me when you insult my dad 35:44 like that. He's not like that. He's a loving father. He means what he says. You, the least was born again this morning. You can know God personally. You can know the father yourself. You don't need to go to a pastor to find 36:01 God's will. You can get his advice. But don't let anybody try to tell you what you should do. You know, being a servant of the Lord for many years, you can understand so many people come to me for advice from vocally, verbally, and through email and always 36:20 and I always tell them, "This is my advice. Please go to God and ask him what you should do. You know, if there's things written in scripture, I can be straightforward and say, "The Bible says you shouldn't divorce." There's no doubt about that. 36:36 And such things I don't need to I say it's written clearly in scripture, you don't need to do anything. It's written there. God himself has written it. But I'm talking about certain other areas where some tricky situations, they 36:45 ask me, "What do you think it should do, brother Zach?" I say, "Well, I'm not God, but I can give you a little bit of advice from my experience, but take it before God and find out whether that's what God wants you to do." And I tell them I will not 36:58 be offended if you don't take my advice. Cuz I'm not your head. I want you to be connected to Christ. He's a jealous God. He jealously desires the spirit in you. It says in James 4. Do you know the meaning of that? Then James 4 there's a verse somewhere 37:18 down verse 6 or 7 which says, "God jealously desires the spirit in us." In other words, he doesn't want to contact our spirit through somebody else. It's like a husband telling his wife, "I want you to ask me, honey. Don't go and ask somebody else what I 37:37 I want you to do. Come to me directly." What would you think about wife who goes to somebody else and says, "Can you tell me what my husband wants me to do?" But do you know there are Christians who are doing that? They think they have to go to somebody 37:53 else to find out God's will for them. No. Take advice. But all shall know me. You must have faith for that. This is new covenant faith. I believe that I don't have to go to Mary, I don't have to go to a pastor, I don't have to go to a prophet. I can 38:08 go to Jesus directly. I can go to God directly through Jesus Christ. There is no secretary between me and Christ. Then why is it so many pastors and prophets, so-called self-appointed prophets, do this type of thing for money. 38:26 They've got their consulting fees, I'll tell you that, and they're pretty high. It's for money. The whole thing is a racket. The money changers are back in the temple. And there's nobody to drive them out. That's the trouble. 38:40 All shall know me. New covenant faith is that all shall know me from the least to the greatest. Don't ever come in the way of somebody else from knowing the Lord. You may be a very very mature Christian. But if you come between somebody and the 38:57 Lord, you're a thief and a robber. You know, there's one translation of that verse in John chapter 10. You know, it says like this in John chapter 10 39:15 and verse and eight. All who came before me are thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not hear them. Now, you know, before has got two meanings. 39:32 Before in terms of time and before in terms of place. All who come in front of me are thieves and robbers. Don't ever come in front of Jesus. Between somebody and Jesus, between a 39:50 sheep and Jesus. All who do that are thieves and robbers, and there are plenty of them in Christendom today. The third thing you read in Hebrews chapter 8 is this thing I told you about Jesus being the author of our faith writing something 40:10 in our hearts. He says, I will write I'll put my laws I will write them in your mind and in your heart. This is the new covenant promise. The one big difference between 40:29 the old covenant and the new covenant is this, and I never tire of saying it. You read the Old Testament law in Exodus 20, it was full of "Thou shalt thou shalt not thou shalt thou shalt not thou shalt thou shalt not thou shalt thou shalt 40:48 not." All the way down to the last. But when you come to the new covenant, that's the old covenant. When you come to the new covenant, it is "I will." God says, "I will I will I will I will." That's the big difference between the old covenant and the new 41:07 covenant. And if you're living under that old covenant spirit where you hear a word of God and say, "Oh, I've got to do this. Now I've got to do that. Now I've got to do the other thing." No wonder you're defeated. Everyone who lives under the law is 41:25 doomed to be defeated. I mean, that's already been proved for 1,500 years in the history of in the history of Israel. You don't have to prove it for another 30 years with your life. It's already been proved, brother, that you can't make it 41:40 with this thou shalt and thou shalt not. You don't have to be another living proof of that by wasting your life in that direction. The new covenant, God says, "I will." Now, the question is, do you have faith? When the Son of Man comes, will you have 41:56 will you find faith that God has will do what he has promised? Abraham's faith is described like this. He fully believed that what God had promised he could perform. Let me show you that it's a wonderful definition of faith in 42:15 Romans chapter four. And I want to apply it to what we've just read. In Romans chapter four, it says in verse 21, concerning 20 and 21. Abraham, the father of faith, is it is talking about him. He's talking about his getting I Isaac 42:34 when he was an old man. With respect uh this is Romans 4:20. With respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief. Do you know that all shaky, wavering 42:52 Christianity is a result of unbelief? A person who's got faith does not waver. He's steady. If you are wavering, it's because of unbelief, no other reason. Don't say I'm weak. No, it's because you're unbelieving, and it's a sin to be 43:09 unbelieving. It's because you're a sinner living in the sin of unbelief that you waver. He did not waver in unbelief, but he grew strong in faith, giving glory to God. And I learned something else there. The only way I can give glory to God is 43:26 by being strong in faith in him, believing what he said. How did he give glory to God? Being fully assured that what God had promised God was able to perform. Not what God had promised Abraham was able to perform. No, no, no, no. That's not 43:44 faith. What God had promised, God would perform. That's not law. That came 500 years later after Abraham. Thou shalt thou shalt not thou shalt not you got to perform that. But when it came to the new covenant, God says, "I 44:02 will put my laws into their minds. I will write them upon their hearts. In simple terms, that means God will give me a desire to do His will. That's 44:21 uh when He puts His law into my mind, it means that He'll give me in my mind a great longing to do His will. That won't be something I produce myself. It's what God will do in my mind. And when it says He'll write it in my 44:39 heart, it means He'll give me the ability to do that will. He'll give me the desire. He'll put it in my mind. He'll give me the ability. He'll write it into my heart. Later it says later on in Hebrews 13:8, "It's good for the heart to be 44:55 strengthened by grace." That's God writing in our hearts. Now, it's exactly the same thing that we read in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 13. "God works inside us to will" That's putting it in our minds. 45:14 "and to do." That's writing it in our hearts. The New Testament is uniform in its teaching. Now, the reason I need to keep emphasizing this is because personally I find very few Christians have entered into this new covenant life. 45:34 And that's why they're not able to build a new covenant church. Most churches are old covenant congregations where you have one man like Aaron who's their leader. And very often they have some headquarters in some Jerusalem. 45:49 And um they just sit and listen to their high priest every Sunday morning. It's not a new covenant church. It's not a body. And the reason is because the individuals sitting there don't know don't have a clue about new what new 46:02 covenant life is. They don't have faith for this new covenant that God has established through Jesus Christ. That God will work in me. Here's a promise. It is God who is at work in you to will and to do his good pleasure. 46:20 Does it mean I've got to sit back and do nothing? No. It says in the previous verse, therefore, work it out. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. What God works in, you got to work it out. It's a It's a partnership. 46:33 The new covenant is a partnership with Jesus. Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." He's got one end of the yoke on his neck as the senior bullock. And we're the junior ones who don't know how to plow a straight furrow. He says, 46:48 "Put my yoke upon you and I will work in you and teach you how to live a straight life. I'll teach you how to live as I lived on this earth by the same principles." When it says, "We got to live as Jesus lived," we need to 46:59 understand what that means. It doesn't mean doing the miracles he he did. It means living by the principles by which he lived. Not that I have to be a bachelor or a carpenter or wear the type of robes he wore. No. He's talking about the 47:12 principles by which Jesus lived must be the principles by which I live by if I call myself a Christian. And if God sees that I have a longing for that, he promises that he will write it in my heart and mind. It's amazing. 47:28 Let me show you another verse in the Old Testament of prophecy concerning this New Testament life in Ezekiel 36. You know the reason why I want to show you these scriptures. Paul once said, "My preaching was not 47:47 with the enticing words of human wisdom." He says in 1 Corinthians 2, "So that your faith may not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God, which is in His word. And the reason why whenever I preach, 48:06 I quote a lot of scripture. And I expect people to look up those scriptures. So that your faith does not depend on my arguments and my logic, but on the promise of God. So that you can see for yourself in scripture what God has promised. 48:25 I find that very little of that in today's preaching. Today's preaching very often a man will take a verse to start with. That's just an excuse. And then he goes off on to his psychology. That's what he teaches. Make people feel nice. 48:43 Make sure they give a good offering, etc. This is the tragedy of today's preaching. That's why I point you towards God's word. Let me show you in Ezekiel in chapter 36. It's an Old Testament prophecy. When God puts His Holy Spirit within us, 49:01 it never happened in Old Testament times. Let me repeat, the Holy Spirit only came upon people. But here Ezekiel is prophesying that a day is coming in the future. It would come about 5 600 years later after Ezekiel prophesied it. He prophesied it in 49:19 Babylon. And it was nearly 600 years later that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost. And he was prophesying about that future day in Ezekiel 36 and verse 27. Thus said the Lord, "I will put my Spirit inside you." 49:36 That never happened till the day of Pentecost. "I will put my Spirit inside you. And when I put my Spirit inside you." Listen to these wonderful words. "I will cause you. I will make you 49:52 walk in my statutes. And you will be very careful and exact in keeping my commandments. He doesn't say you should. He says you will. He doesn't say you have to walk in my 50:12 statutes. He says, "I will cause you to walk in my statutes." It's a wonderful thing. I never knew this in my Christian life. You know that verse I struggled for so long in my Christian life seeking for victory, perpetually 50:29 defeated for 16 years after I was born again till I entered into what Hebrews 4 calls the rest of God. How do you enter into the rest of God? Hebrews 4:10 says, "The one who has entered into God's rest has 50:48 rested from his own works." He has stopped working himself with the thou shalt and thou shalt not and this struggle and that struggle and praying and fasting and this and that. He prays and fasts probably more than others, but 51:04 that's not the way he comes into this life. God causes him to keep his statutes. I remember in the early days when I was more ignorant um and I would say the Lord that I got victory over sin. 51:24 It was right. But it was a childish way of putting it. Like Paul said, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child." But when I grew up I put away childish things. And the Lord showed me instead of saying you got victory over 51:41 sin say Jesus kept me from falling. Same thing. But it's got a different ring about it. I got victory over sin. Or Jesus kept me from falling. As we get closer to God, 52:01 we become humbler. And we are very careful that we don't touch the glory of God. We don't talk as if we did something. He kept me from falling. He caused me to walk in his commandments. Cuz that's it. I'll put my spirit within 52:20 you, and I will cause you to walk in my commandments. And when we walk in his commandments, what do we say? I overcame that sin. No. He caused me to walk in his statutes. He wrote his law in my heart. 52:38 And lo and behold, I found it easy to keep it. It's just like God has written a a law into the heart. Let's take an example of a cat that's always licking itself to make itself 52:56 clean. I I sometimes see a cat licking itself, and I don't see a speck of dirt in it, but it's still licking itself. It doesn't seem to be convinced that it's completely clean. Tremendous passion to keep its skin clean. 53:11 Who put that law into that cat? That was God. The same God says he'll give me something like that to tremendous passion to be totally free from sin. To be totally without a speck, without a smell 53:30 of the flesh or the world. Imagine God giving such a desire. Who gets it? Anyone who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he will be filled. 53:49 It's not automatic. Why don't most Christians have it? I'm absolutely sure the reason is they do not hunger and thirst for righteousness. God sees when he tests them. Do you think God doesn't test you and me? I tell you in my life 54:08 he has tested me numerous times in different situations. What will I do with that? What will I do with that situation and that situation? What will I do with that extra money I got which I didn't need? What will I do with that spare time I 54:27 have now? And he he doesn't punish us with leprosy or cancer or any such thing. But there are different decisions that people do take with that extra money they get which they don't need, with the extra time they have which is they don't have anything 54:46 particular to do with. And God sees that. God sees what do they do with it? He's testing us. Jeremiah says, Lord who tests the righteous. That's what makes the difference between different believers. That's why you find some believers 55:03 perpetually up and down and up and down and up and down. You see them 20 years later they're still this up and down and up and down type of life. And there are others who are just steadily going up and up and up and up and up and up getting closer and closer 55:15 to God and living a life of rest. It's because God has seen in the different situations of life what they really hungered and thirsted for. Why is it some people I have seen myself God gives them grace to build an amazing 55:33 church which the gates of hell cannot prevail against in their locality. And then there are other people I see 25 years later they're still struggling. They can't even make two or three people one. God doesn't bear witness to their labor. 55:52 Is God partial? Not at all. Not at all. But he's seen a different attitude in these two types of Christians and that's the difference. He's seen a different attitude. He backs up some people with his authority and some others he doesn't back up at all. 56:10 There's a reason. He gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. Generally speaking, we can say that there are two types of Christians. Some whose attitude is and I'm not here to judge you. You can judge yourself as I 56:29 mentioned these which category you fall into. I don't believe even your wife will know. Or your husband will know. But you will know about yourself. One category of Christian are those who say what is the minimum I have to do 56:44 to get to heaven? Tell me, brother, what's the minimum I have to do to get into God's kingdom? Repent, believe in Jesus. What's the minimum I have to do to please God? Minimum. What's the minimum I have to give to God? 10%? Or is it 12%? Tell me, 57:03 brother. What's the minimum? What's the minimum? Their whole life is what's the minimum. And along with that on the other side is what's the maximum I can get for myself? What's the maximum I can do to enjoy myself and live a comfortable life on 57:19 earth? That's one type of Christian. And there could be a number sitting like that over here. And then there's another type of Christian who says I've got only one life. I've got only 24 hours a day and lot of that time goes with many necessity 57:35 necessary things of work, earning my living, taking care of my family, bringing up the children, going to the market. But, what is the maximum I can do for the Lord in my one life? What are the unnecessary things I can eliminate from my life so that I can do 57:53 the maximum for the Lord? What is the maximum I can give for the Lord to the Lord in this one life? And what's the minimum I need to survive on this earth? It's a completely different type of Christian. My brother, sister, 58:11 whatever image you may present to other people with all your Bible knowledge, you know which of these two categories you are in. And you will reap a harvest exactly according to what you have sown. What a man sows, 58:29 that he will reap. And if God gives an abundant harvest to another man, you can be pretty sure that he sowed something you didn't sow. God is not partial. I often say in my home church, I say, 58:48 "The reason I preach as I do, I said, is because I want you to have no regrets when you stand before God, before Jesus in the final day. I want you to have no regrets about the way you lived on earth. 59:07 I don't want you to scrape into heaven. What do you want to hear Jesus say to you when you stand before him? "Well done, good and faithful servant." Or do you want him to say, "So, you made it, did you? I never thought you would." 59:29 What do you want him to What do you want him to say? You know, that may apply to you. Take it seriously. Like I said yesterday, may this weekend be a weekend that changes the direction of your life. For the rest of your days before Christ 59:50 comes again. Say, "Lord, I want to have that faith which you had. That faith which show which you which convinced you that the only thing worth doing on Earth was the will of your father. The passion that drove you 1:00:09 at any cost to do the will of your father. Whatever people thought of you, whatever it inconvenience it caused you. You know, when I read when I was a young man this verse that said in Mark chapter 3 about Jesus 1:00:31 that once when he came to his own home, he lived in Capernaum after he came into after his baptism. He shifted his residence from Nazareth to Capernaum. That was very considerate of him because he didn't want his home with Mary and the other 1:00:46 brothers and sisters to be disturbed by all the people who would come to see him. So, he shifted and took rented a house in Capernaum. We read that in Matthew 4 and he lived there. Um and he came home, it says in Mark 3 1:01:00 and verse 20. He came to his own home. The great multitude gathered again to such an extent that he didn't even have time to eat a meal. He didn't have time to eat a meal. When was the last time you served the 1:01:23 Lord Ever in your life? And when his own relatives heard this, what did they hear? This guy is not eating. 1:01:42 I mean, they wouldn't have done this if he had just missed one meal. They went out and took custody of him. They are saying he has lost his senses. I mean, how many people would say you've lost your senses if you have missed one 1:01:52 meal? They think you're probably reducing weight or something. But he I believe he missed a number of meals because he was really so passionate to serve these people. His whole way of life was, "Father, you 1:02:11 sent me on Earth to do something. I want to finish that. I want to do your will on Earth before I leave this Earth." One passion he had in life. That's the faith of Jesus, and that's the faith he writes in our heart. I tell you, I can't take any credit for 1:02:31 it. But God wrote it in my heart. And I remember when I read that, and I was working in the Navy those days. You know, rich, comfortable life. There's a naval officer, good food, and everything else. And I felt that the Lord may call me for 1:02:46 his service. So I said, "Lord, I got to overcome the love of food, otherwise I'll never be able to serve you. I've got to overcome the love of comfortable beds, otherwise I'll never be able to serve you in India." And so what I do, 1:03:07 I'd skip meals for a couple of days, just drink some liquids while working on the ship. And um I said, "Lord, I have to overcome. I love food. I'm just like all the all other human beings, I love food. And I want to overcome it, otherwise 1:03:25 I'll never be able to serve you." I love comfort. I love a nice mattress. So, even though I had a mattress, I would sleep on the hard floor just to be tough. So that like Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, "I discipline my body 1:03:44 lest after having preached to others I be disqualified myself." That's the faith of Jesus. It's the I mean, it's not the faith of the ascetic who's trying to do these things to show he's a very disciplined person, or it's 1:03:59 not some type of yoga. People who practice yoga also do these things, but Jesus' motive was completely different. It's the motive that makes the difference. He wanted to please his father. And he never sought for comfort. And he 1:04:10 realized that if he looked for comfort, he'd miss out something in his father's will. Dear brothers and sisters, I believe that God is looking everywhere and even here for young men and women. People who are passionate to do his will 1:04:28 at any cost. Who will say, "Lord, what's the maximum I can give?" Do you know there are two levels of blessing? There is a blessing in receiving. But Jesus said, "It is more blessed 1:04:47 to give than to receive." Of course, we get a blessing by receiving. But you may have missed the higher blessing which comes only to those who have learned to give of themselves 1:05:06 and their time and their everything to God. You want to live at that lower level of blessing all your life? And just keep increasing your knowledge? Or you want to come to that higher level of blessing that Jesus spoke about? 1:05:19 Let's pray. Will you pray that God will write these things deeply in your heart? Not my words, but whatever you got from scripture. 1:05:39 Whatever you saw of God's promises in scripture. Those are the words that need to be written deeply in your heart. And I want to say one other thing, dear brothers and sisters. Seek fellowship in a church that challenges you with these truths every 1:05:57 week. Don't go and sit in some dead church where you'll forget all about that you all you heard here this weekend. And if you can't find a church like that in your locality, pray that God will build one. Maybe through you. 1:06:14 I'd rather sit at home and listen to a CD or watch a DVD that challenges me to live this type of life than go and sit in some dead church that takes away whatever little fire God puts in my heart. I decided that long ago. 1:06:28 And I really believe I need to recommend that to a number of you. You can hear something God can put a fire in your heart. And 3 months later it's all gone. Because some church poured cold water on it. Now, the choice is yours. 1:06:44 Heavenly Father, help us to honor you. We humble ourselves. We believe you have great plans for every single person sitting here, every single family. I pray they may not miss out on what you are seeking to do in reaching out to them, in inviting them 1:07:01 saying, "Come up higher." Help them to respond to your call. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
