0:19 We have been trying to understand God's truth more accurately. One of the truths that God has given us responsibility to proclaim is a truth of the new covenant 0:43 which you'll hardly hear any preaching about it anywhere. except those who read our books or heard our CDs 1:00 is almost unheard of. And even in our midst, I don't know how many of us really understand it. And yet, I know this is what changed my 1:19 life and it can change your life. And I know how much the devil would like to resist our understanding this. Why do we preach so much against legalism? I'll tell you. 1:39 Because legalism is the number one hindrance to anybody entering into the new covenant. And as I have observed our churches, I have to say that many of our churches 1:58 and many of our elders are still not free from legalism. And I can say to you, you will not enter into the new covenant yourself. And you will not lead your church into the new covenant. And there are others in our churches 2:21 who have misunderstood freedom from legalism to mean ah now we can dress as we like and watch television and go to movies and everything else. They have gone even further astray. If legalism was a 100 foot pit, 2:40 worldliness is a thousand foot pit. And that's what's happened to some people in their desire to be free from legalism. Got out of that 100 foot pit. They fell into a thousand ft pit called worldliness. My advice to such people is 2:57 get back into the 100t pit called legalism. That's much better. But the best is not to be in either pit. Not to be legalistic. Not to be worldly. But that's not easy because it's a very 3:15 narrow path. And what happens with some legalistic people is they look at certain people in some churches who claim to have become free from legalism and they say look at their worldliness. 3:33 I don't want that. I agree with you. I also don't want that. But I don't want your legalism either. That's what I say. It's like people who look at the extremes that some charismatics and Pentecostals go to and say, "I don't 3:51 want that." I say, "I also don't want that. But I don't want your dead Christianity without the baptism in the Holy Spirit either." The truth is a very, very narrow path. Like I said, 4:08 2 + 2 is four. The moment you say it's 4.01, you've fallen over the cliff one side. The moment you say it's 3.99, you fall over the cliff the other side. Truth is very narrow. We know that in arithmetic 4:27 it's a very narrow path. You know how you can get an arithmetic problem wrong? Just because you made a mistake of 01, it's wrong. You can go to your teacher and say, "But it's so close to the truth." I agree. It's clo close to the 4:43 right answer, but it is wrong. It's exactly like that in the Christian life. And who are the ones whom God will protect from? You know, I can't protect myself in arithmetic. I can because we have 5:03 intelligence and we know that 2 plus 2 is four. But to walk along this narrow path, I'll tell you this. God will protect you if you love the truth about yourself. And that's not easy. 5:27 How many of you, for example, let me just test you on that. How many of you elder brothers who preach believe that your sermons are quite boring and quite long? I don't think most of you believe that. And that's why after 20 years, you're 5:45 still boring. That's one example of not loving the truth about yourself. How can you ever know the truth? Because you think you're okay. I'll tell you, you're not okay. And you ask some of the 6:03 believers in your church, they'll tell you that. I believe we need to be more open to know the truth about ourselves. It's it's part of high thoughts to think 6:22 I'm okay. Oh yeah, I'm doing everything okay. You're not. And we make a lot of people suffer because we don't judge ourselves. Why 6:41 are deodorants very widely sold? Why do people use deodorants? Or in the olden days when before we had deodorant sprays, we had powder. Why do people use it? 7:00 Because those who are honest will say, "Well, however spiritual I may be, I still persspire and bad smells can come out of my body." So, it's to prevent other people from, 7:19 you know, suffering that I use deodorants. Are you willing to let prevent other people from suffering spiritually because of the way you behave or the way you speak or that's much more important than 7:38 deodorants. I'll tell you that we really need to judge ourselves. I'm sorry to say that I have seen the reason why we don't have more anointed leadership 7:57 and ministry than we should have is because elder brothers are not judging themselves severely. It's the truth. It's my conviction. You can throw it in the garbage if you 8:15 like. But consider that it may be true about you. Legalism, as I said, is more dangerous than sin. But sin is obvious even to a worldly person. But legalism has got the appearance of 8:34 spirituality. A legalistic church appears more spiritual. A worldly church is obviously not spiritual. But I have found through 45 years of 8:53 observing churches, ours and others, there's far more pride in legalistic churches than in worldly churches. And if you believe that pride is worse than murder and adultery, those worldly churches, maybe they're watching R-rated movies and even 9:12 committing adultery, but you've got something worse than adultery. Pride, spiritual pride. Unless we see that spiritual pride is worse than adultery in God's eyes, we will not be free. We think we are better than them because we have certain 9:29 external things that look better. I don't want to get a surprise at the judgment seat of Christ either about my life or the way I brought up my family or the way I built a church or the things I preached the 9:47 things I urged people to do. I don't want to get any surprise at the judgment seat of Christ. Many times with tears I have cried out to God and I said Lord please don't tell me anything at the judgment seat of Christ which you 10:01 don't tell me today I want to hear it and if I'm deaf shout at me what do I mean by shout at me discipline me put me in bed with a sickness or an accident or something so that you can tell me where I am deaf or speak to me at night in a 10:19 dream because I'm too proud and busy. to listen to you when I'm awake, speak to me at night, but I want to hear you because I don't want to get any surprises at the judgment seat of Christ. I don't want to fool myself because other people think I'm spiritual 10:35 that I'm spiritual. I really want to be. Lord, please help me. Do you pray like that or do you consider that everything's okay with you? My dear brothers and sisters, there are lots and lots of things wrong with us. We are far far more legalistic and 10:58 judgmental than we think we are. And we judge ourselves far too little. There are logs in our eyes and specs in the eyes of others. It's really true. 11:15 We judge others for small things when there are logs in our eyes. I mentioned that yesterday. I shared that with some elders recently. What I mentioned yesterday, I said, "How 11:34 can you spend so many lakhs on buying a car or you own houses that cost lacks of rupees and you judge one poor sister for wearing a 500 rupee ornament? Don't you think you're one of the biggest hypocrites in the whole world? And you 11:50 think you're an elder of a new covenant church. You're a hypocrite of the first order. You're a humbug pretending to be an elder and you don't even have light on it. Why? Because you spent so many years preaching to others and never judging 12:05 yourself. You're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. That's what the Lord said to the church elder of the church in Leodysia. I was absolutely shocked when I hear these things and there are still some elders like that who continue 12:24 to do those things and that prevents us from building new covenant churches because we are picking on little things. That's how the Pharisees were. You know, they had a rule that when you eat, you must wash up to your elbows, not just 12:41 your hands. They said, "Why don't your disciples wash properly before they eat? It's a tradition and we we may not say that but we can look at somebody and judge somebody for something which has got nothing to do 13:00 with sin. I was mentioning last Sunday that people in the villages of India even unbelievers are far more hospitable and generous 13:19 than people in the cities. The more money we earn, the more miserly we become, tightfisted. And that's why our lives are so miserable. How many of you know how to spell 13:38 miserable? M I S E R. We'll stop there. Okay. 13:55 That's what makes you miserable. But in the villages, people are so generous. I've been there. They will go out of the way to do so much because they have small thoughts about themselves. 14:13 That's the reason. Whereas the more educated we get, the more we move into the cities, we have high thoughts about ourselves. We don't respect people. You know who's the loser? Not that 14:30 person. We are ourselves. If I don't respect someone whom God respects, I'm the loser, not he. And that's what happens. And so we can live in a delusion that we are 14:49 very spiritual because we got so much activity and we're doing this and doing that and doing the other thing. We'll discover in the final day that God is looking for character. And I want to say to you, I want to stress what I said last Sunday 15:04 that the two sins that cling very closely to us, stick to us are selfishness and pride. And let me ask you to ask God to give you light on your selfishness 15:23 and your pride. It's selfishness that makes us inconsiderate of other people's feelings, other people's time. For example, when you make an appointment with somebody, that you'll meet somebody at 15:42 4:00 and you know that it'll take you 20 minutes to get to the place of your appointment. If you're a Christian, you will start 30 minutes earlier. Unless, you know, due to unforeseen circumstances, you got held up 16:00 somewhere. That's different. But I'm saying if it's due to your laziness that you didn't start out early, it's because of selfishness. Oh, I don't care if he has to wait there 15 minutes. I the Maharaja will come when I want. 16:16 Do you know how many Christians are like that? That's I mean they are late for meetings. Jesus is there but the brothers are not there. Can you imagine Jesus coming to a meeting and waiting there for others and sisters to stroll 16:29 in half an hour late? I mean, if the governor of Karnataka invited you for a meeting at 9:30, you'll be there at 9:00. I guarantee 16:46 we don't respect Jesus enough. No wonder God does not honor you. I'll tell you a little thing. Learn to respect the Lord Jesus Christ. It's he Who is the most important person in a meeting? 17:04 Little little things. It's because of selfishness that we are inconsiderate for other people's time. It's because of pride which makes us feel ah that fellow is inferior to me. So I can go 15 minutes late. The governor of Karnataka is not inferior to 17:21 me. So I better not be 15 minutes late for him. But this brother, who is he? He can afford to wait. You treat a brother of Jesus Christ like that, God will treat you like that. I have learned to respect young 17:40 brothers. There are times when I made an appointment with somebody and I get up early. I may even miss a meal because I don't want to be late to meet with that young brother. I've done it 30 years ago. I do it today because 17:57 that is a brother of Jesus Christ. I respect him. I It doesn't matter to me. He's only 20 years old. So what? He's a brother of Jesus Christ and I'm not a Maharaja. I'm a servant. My dear brothers and sisters, let me 18:13 humbly ask you to really ask God to give you light on your selfishness and your pride in these little actions. Why do I speak so much about not wasting time when we speak in the meeting? Because that is also lack of consideration. 18:33 I mean people don't have endless amount of time. We must concentrate whatever we say in a very short time so that people can get it and not wander from Genesis to Revelation and speak whatever comes to our mind because we want to fill up the 18:49 time. This is exactly how a lot of our elder brothers are preaching nowadays. They don't prepare. They rely on their memory which is very poor and they're not humble enough to write down something when they get up to speak. They wander from Genesis to 19:06 Revelation because they got to fill up the time. Can you imagine cooking a meal like that? You invited a guest for a meal and you haven't prepared anything. The guest has come. You suddenly go to the kitchen and put it all around and say, "Okay, 19:20 here's your food. Eat it." some sloppy stuff. That must be a beggar you invited. Don't treat God's people like beggars. Dear brothers, there's so much of this. I I'm sick and tired of saying it for so many years, but it still goes on. It 19:40 happens in conferences. It happens in meetings. People don't respect God's people. That's why we give them sloppy food. We don't take pains to study the word to give them something attractive. No, 19:58 because we are such kings. I want to encourage you to ask God to give you light on yourself because you could be going astray. A lot of our works could be dead works in the we need to understand a little 20:17 bit about dead works because dead works will prevent us from entering into the new covenant and building a new covenant church. In the old testament there was a tree of good and evil. And the bible speaks about in the old 20:35 testament good works and evil works. That's all there was. Now in the New Testament there are good works, evil works and dead works. There's a third category that has suddenly come up in the new covenant which is absolutely unheard of 20:52 in the old covenant. What are dead works? Dead works are in fact let me show you this verse first. Two verses. Hebrews chapter 6. We need to understand the truth very 21:11 accurately about dead works because it's got to do with legalism. It's got to do with freedom from the old covenant and coming into the new covenant. Hebrews 6 uh verse one it says we have to repent from dead works as a foundation. 21:30 He he in the Hebrews is the one episode in the new covenant that's talking that the New Testament which talking about the new covenant more than any other episode. Romans speaks about salvation. But if you want an episode that talks 21:42 about the new covenant, it is Hebrews. And that's why most believers, the devil succeeded in not letting many believers study Hebrews. It's a very important book. If you got a copy of my 70 hour CD on the Bible, you'll notice that I spent 22:01 four hours on Hebrews more than on any other book in the whole Bible because I've seen that is the book that explains the new covenant. And that is the book that speaks about dead works. You don't find about dead works in the 22:18 other episodes, but here you read about dead works. And it says the first level of the foundation is repentance from dead works. It's foundation. Your whole building will be shaky if you have not repented from dead works. 22:34 And if you make people do dead works, that is even worse. Imagine people making other people commit sin. You know, there are some cult groups where they encourage unmarried men and women to have sex with each other. Oh, 22:49 you shrink back and say horrible. But do you know that many of you are encouraging others in your church to do dead works, which is just as bad. I shrink back and say that's horrible to me. Those fellows who have un unmarried sex with each other, at least 23:07 that is obvious sin. But when you make other people do dead works, that's worse because it doesn't look like sin. They'll keep on doing it. Here somebody will get light and say this is sin. They'll get out of that church but they 23:20 won't get out of your church because they think the dead works are good works. They're not. I want to ask you my dear elder brothers, how many of you have taught on dead works in your church? Well, you can't teach on it if you don't 23:34 understand it yourself. Dead works are works that appear good on the outside and may even be obedience to some letter of the New Testament, 23:54 but they are done with the motive to impress men, to please an elder brother, or just because you were made to feel guilty. by some powerful preaching. I'll give 24:13 you an example and it's probably better to use an example outside our church than our own. Supposing you hear a message like this. Look at all those perishing people in North India dying without a knowledge of Christ. What are you fellas sitting there just 24:30 earning money and sitting on your backsides and enjoying yourself when there are people that perishing without um hearing about Jesus. Some of them never heard about Jesus. You fellas have heard Jesus about Jesus a thousand 24:42 times. How many of you will come forward and dedicate yourself to be uh missionaries to North India? A lot of young people come forward and some of them may go also. You think they're going to accomplish 24:59 anything in North India? Such going out for missionary work is a dead work. God never called them. They were made to feel guilty by some preacher and they felt guilty because they don't 25:17 know enough of the word of God and they come forward and they go and they mess up. They get all frustrated and finally come back with the break nervous breakdown or whatever it is. Now we don't do that. You know what we do? 25:34 What are your sisters wearing ornaments for? Who are you trying to show off? And some sister feel guilty and take it off. It's equally dead works. Just like those fellows sent as missionaries to North India. Do you do that or make you know 25:46 there's a lot of preaching in our churches which is just to make people feel guilty. And I want to tell you the technique of in psychology they you can make a person feel guilty and have power over him. 26:06 I haven't studied psychology thankfully but I've seen enough of what other preachers do and compared it with Jesus Christ and I know what people do. The techniques and the tricks make a person feel guilty. You can have power over 26:21 him. You can make him do almost anything. Preach in such a way that you make him feel guilty about not going as a missionary to India or not taking off the ornaments or not coming in time for the meetings or not whatever you want 26:35 them to do. Think of something clever to make them guilty about whatever you want them to do and they'll do it and you say ah the Holy Spirit anointed me these brothers obeying rubbish. You have produced a bunch of people who 26:54 do dead works who are going to have a shaky foundation because they have not repented of dead works. And who made them do the dead works? The elder brothers. There's a lot of it going on in our churches. It's not holiness. 27:08 Holiness has got nothing to do with seeking to please a man. Holiness has got nothing to do with feeling guilty. There's a lot of difference between feeling guilty and the Holy Spirit convicting us of something because the 27:21 Holy Spirit doesn't put pressure on you to go as a missionary to North India or put pressure on you to take off your ornaments or put pressure on you even to come on time for a meeting. If you feel convicted and you do it 27:36 because you want to please the Lord, do it. I have been in full-time Christian work for 40 years. God called me. I support myself, but my job is not my profession really. I'm serving the Lord. 27:54 I don't believe that a Christian should wear ornaments at all. My wife and I don't. We don't even have a wedding ring. I don't impose that on anybody else. I didn't do it to please anybody. I did it to please God. I don't judge anyone for anything. 28:12 I don't color my hair black to look young. It doesn't bother me. I don't judge another sister who wants to color her hair so that she looks younger. Why should I judge her? You may judge her. You can go ahead and do that and destroy 28:30 yourself. But I will not. Jesus didn't come and die to deliver us from coloring our hair. I hope you know that. Jesus didn't come all the way to earth to die to just to get somebody to remove their ornaments. 28:48 What in the world are you preaching against all this type of stuff? Jesus didn't come to die to prevent people from wearing lipstick. My dear brothers and sisters, if you concentrate on these things, you'll be 29:06 the first class Pharisee yourself and you'll produce a church full of Pharisees. It will not be a new covenant church. They'll look nice. They won't wear red lipstick. They'll wear invisible lipstick. Have you heard of that? 29:20 You think they're not wearing it? They're wearing it. Don't be fooled by all this. We you can live in a village and come to Bangalore and see some of the stylish 29:38 shoes and dresses people wear and uh you say I don't judge anybody but your mind is full of judgment. I don't judge them. I don't go to the villages and judge them. If I see some villager sitting there in the meeting and digging his 29:54 nose, I don't judge him. You may judge him. I don't. That's his culture. He may belch. He may do all types of things worse than that. I don't judge him. I mean, the these are not important to me. There are a lot of people who dig their 30:13 noses in public who will go to heaven and a lot of people are very cultured will go to hell. I'm I'm interested in sin. Jesus didn't come to stop people from digging their noses in public. He came to stop people from sinning. 30:27 He didn't come here to prevent girls from wearing high heel shoes. I mean, if they want to twist their ankles like that and suffer, that's their business, not mine. I'm not bothered. They want to do that, do it. I'd find it 30:41 pretty uncomfortable. I had to walk with my toes all the time with my heels sticking up like that. But if somebody likes it, do it. I'm not here to judge them at all. I'm not here to judge the villagers. I'm not here to judge the 30:52 city people because I'm here to save people from sin. Jesus didn't even come to earth to make sisters cover their heads. I believe that, but I'm not going to force people to do that. Jesus didn't come to earth to prevent 31:11 women from cutting their hair and making it bobbed hair. They want to do that. That's fine. They may have some reasons for doing it. I don't know. It's none of my business. I'll tell you before God, I don't even judge them in my thoughts because I know 31:29 what Jesus came to earth for. You shall call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. I've spent my life wanting to experience that salvation because there's so much sin in my life. In my flesh dwells 31:47 nothing good. That if I spend my lifetime seeking to be free from all sin in my life, I still will not be 100% free. Where do I have time to worry about the length of somebody's hair or whether somebody's wearing ornaments or 32:01 not, whether they're covering their head or not? I've got enough to worry about in my own life to be free from sin. You fellas who think you're very holy, you can do that if you want. And look at the amount of sin that'll be left in your 32:11 life when Christ comes back because you concentrated on the wrong things. I went to a church once in the United States. This is the most unusual church I'd ever been to in my whole life. I'd never met any of them before. They 32:32 had heard my messages on the internet and asked me one year whether I can go. I said no. They said they are a small church, 40, 50 people. I said size doesn't bother me but I don't have time to come. It was an difficult month. We 32:47 had a conference in in India at that time and I said I can't come again. They wrote to me saying please can you come next year. I said these fellas are so keen they haven't even met me and they know and I told them I said here you've 33:01 seen my website you know the type of things I preach. Yeah we want you to come. And when I went there, I found every single person there, as far as I know, almost everyone that I could meet, they had all been drug 33:19 addicts. The most unusual church. Many of the sisters had been prostitutes, converted. Now, I mean, in our churches, we probably don't even have one drag drug addict and one converted prostitute because we are all such legalists, such people won't 33:35 feel comfortable in our midst. But here were people who are all converted drug addicts and all converted prostitutes and what they call street walkers and people who had born into homes where the elder brother said I don't even know who 33:49 my father is till today I grew up in such a home and um they saw me you know all dressed like this and you know how they came they came with vests the hands full of tattoos 34:07 from here to here. It was great. I enjoyed myself there. I was so I said, "God looks on the outward man looks on the outward appearance. God looks at the heart." I praise God for these people who are saved from sin. I think I think if I 34:20 went into Jesus crowd of his disciples, there would have been some people like this. It was so exciting for me to be in their midst because I'd never seen a church like this in my and I was so happy that they called me and they I 34:32 wondered what they would think of me because I'm not dressed. I don't have any tattoos anywhere and I wearing I'm not wearing a vest when I go to the meeting and some of they'd come with shorts western shorts great dress for 34:44 hot climates and uh I can't imagine going to a church meeting in shorts but um it didn't bother me one bit and I never spoke there about shorts or vests or tattoos or and many of them had long hair not the women women had short hair the men 35:02 had long there and I didn't that was also not my theme for the subjects. I said Jesus didn't come to for all these things. U the chap who came to meet me at the airport he had long hair like this with a you 35:21 know ponytail with a ribbon just like you see girls here like over there. And this brother, most of them had beards and and he saw me all dressed straight and all. And first thing he asked me, "Brother Zack, he didn't know who I was. 35:37 I had never met him. He never met me. Are you offended that I've got long hair?" I said, "Not at all." I said, "One of my boys got long hair, too. It doesn't bother me." Jesus didn't come to deliver people from long hair or short hair or anything. He 35:49 came to only save people from sin, and I'll never preach anything else. All the other Pharisees can go judging people for all these things, but not me. I was a Pharisee once. I say like Paul, I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, 36:06 but Jesus delivered me. I count it all rubbish now because I have known Christ. I've known Jesus and everything else is rubbish for me. I know his name is Jesus because he came to save people from their sins. 36:24 And you know, you know what they were doing? First two messages, they were checking me out to see what is this fellow going to preach when he sees us all like this. And they saw that I preached only against sin. Not a word about dress or 36:40 hair or ornaments. Many of them had beads and ornaments. And the men had ornaments, by the way, in nose and ear. And where all, I don't know. But I never said a word about all those things. It didn't bother me. Jesus didn't come to 36:52 save us from all that. He came to save us from sin. Now if you hear all this and start wearing all it now, that'll be a dead work because and they did it naturally. That's the way they grew up. Okay. But do you know the number of people 37:11 with that type of attire? I asked them why do you dress like this? He is because people come in from the streets, prostitutes, drug addicts and they feel comfortable sitting here. They don't feel comfortable in the other churches 37:21 where everybody sort of moves away when that badly dressed person comes next and sits in the next seat. But here they don't feel like that. They feel comfortable and they get saved. I said, "Wonderful." And you know why I didn't judge them? I 37:35 asked, "How many prostitutes have I brought to Christ in my 40 years of ministry? How many have you? How many drug addicts have you got in your church?" I said, "Lord, I will never judge these people. These are people in God's skin." 37:49 Now listen to this. I said, "How long can I preach?" Most churches they'll tell me in America, "30 minutes, 40 minutes." They said, "We have no rules. Speak as long as you like." And you know, I spoke there longer than I have spoken even in our churches in 38:05 India. One and a half hours without translation. One and a half hours I spoke. And they listened attentively and they didn't get bored. They were not thinking of lunch. And at the end of it they said now let's 38:24 respond to what we have heard. And they prayed and they cried and they confessed their sins and they went on like that for about 15 minutes and I thought the meeting would be over. They said no now we get up and give testimony. What did 38:37 God speak to you? I have never been to a meeting like that even in India. We're in a hurry to finish the program and go for lunch or tea or something like that. Not they then they responded they got different people got up and testified how just 38:52 short testimony half a minute how God spoke to them they repented it went on for another half an hour 45 minutes they were not in a hurry to run away from God's presence I said Lord what a surprise we are all going to get when Christ comes again 39:09 the first will be last and all the legalists will be right at the end and some of these people will be in front. I'll tell you, some of us who think we are pretty holy because our hair is the right size and we don't wear ornaments 39:22 and we dress properly and all that, you're going to get a tremendous surprise when Christ comes again. These fellas, they don't own houses. Many of you have got your own houses and lands and cars and all that. They didn't 39:36 have all that. They are much poorer. Do you know what hypocrites we are compared to them? Jesus told us to forsake all. They do it. We talk about it. We get around that verse and try to do everything that will 39:56 not make us feel uncomfortable about all the things we possess, all the wealth we have. We have manipulated the verses to suit our convenience. These people, simple people, they follow the Lord. I tell you, I thank God. My heart has 40:12 always longed to be with all of God's people. I go away from the sophistication of Bangalore to the villages of Tamil Nad because that brings me down to earth. I see simple people there. But one thing I see in Bangalore and in 40:28 our village churches is all this external piety about ornaments and dress and all that. So God has to take me to one of these churches. So even that is eliminated from my thinking and I my heart gets larger. I want to I want a heart that is 40:43 enlarged to accept all of God's people. I had a wonderful time with them. We had three meetings a day. Each meeting was about 3 hours. I enjoyed it and so did they. It was great. And after two meetings, the elder brother got up and said, 41:02 "Well, now I can say this guy is genuine. Listen to him." They checked me out. I didn't know they were checking me out. Dear brothers and sisters, just like the Pharisees, we can have a wrong understanding of 41:20 what truth is. Dead works, works done to show other people, to appear nice before others, to look nice, to dress in a way that people will say, "Ah, here's a holy person." I'm not interested in all that. 41:40 Not at all. God sees the heart. Freedom from sin, freedom from everything that Adam got, particularly selfishness. Our selfishness is seen in the tight way 41:58 in which we hold on to money. We're delighted that we can be in a church that does not preach tithing because then we need to give nothing. That is our selfishness. Do you think such people will become spiritual? Jesus said, "Give and it'll 42:17 be given to you. You don't give, you will not get." It's true. I have seen that if a man says he's got the spirit of Christ and he hasn't become generous. That's not the spirit of Christ. That's 42:34 the spirit of the miser. That's one area where I really believe many of us need to know the truth accurately. Let me share something with you about what Jesus taught about giving. Not tithing. I've never believed in 42:51 tithing. never practiced it, never taught it. But I must teach you what Jesus said about giving. It's part of the new covenant because God so loved the world that he gave. What did he give? 10%. He gave everything. When he gave his 43:11 son, he gave everything. That is the spirit of the new covenant that I give everything for the sake of building the church. What does it say in Ephesians 5? Is it verse 26? Christ loved the church and he what? 43:30 Gave himself for it. Many of us say we love the church. How do you prove it? Christ loved the church and he gave himself for it. How many of you can honestly say that you love the church and you give yourself for it? You give 43:49 your time, you give your energy, you give your money, you don't you don't seek to be a burden on the church in any way. And not only you don't seek to be a burden on the church, you give yourself to it. Do you seek to receive? 44:04 Yeah, there is a blessing in receiving when you have a need for it. I remember reading a second century writing called the teaching of the apostles where one of the things they said is very good. It's only 12-page booklet. 44:19 Don't stretch out your hand to receive. Put your hand in your pocket to give. And if you receive from somebody, there's nothing wrong provided you need it. But if you don't need it and you receive, 44:39 let your hand persspire until you know whom to give it to cuz you don't need it. Are you excited when you already have plenty, you got lacks in your bank account and you still want to receive from somebody? 44:58 You're not like Christ. Far from it. All that piety and holiness. I don't wear ornaments, but you love to receive. And you got lacks. You got houses and lands and you want to love to receive. And you're preaching to poor sisters 45:13 about wearing ornaments. Humbug and hypocrite. No wonder we don't have new covenant churches. Withdraw your hand. You know why I don't preach about giving money in the offering box? You never heard me in 30 years preach about that. 45:29 I'll tell you why. Because years ago, God told me, "As long as you have got one rupee in your bank account, don't ever ask anybody else to give money for God's work because God's work is your work." I said, "Yes, Lord. God's 45:45 work is my work. As long as I've got one rupee left in my bank account, I will never ask another person to give money for God's work. Why should I ask? I can take it out of my own bank account. Who are these people who are asking 46:03 people to give money for God's work? People who got loads of money themselves. Oh, brother, come on, give. We are having this. Come on, give. Come on, give. We are having a program. What are you giving? And what have you got in 46:15 your bank account? What have the houses and lands you have? What a hypocrite and a humbug you are talking about the new covenant and about Christ. Expecting, expecting, expecting. And you're stacking away everything for 46:29 yourself. Stack it away. But then don't ask anybody else to give when you got plenty yourself. I will lose the anointing of God upon my ministry if I ask other people to give and I've got money myself. I have my bank account is not zero. 46:48 That's why you never heard me tell you to give money for God's work. Other humbugs and hypocrites may ask you to do it, not me. Because they are hypocrites. They are selfish. They keep for themselves. Now listen to what Jesus 47:05 said in Luke chapter 6. He said, "Give." Luke chapter 6 and um you read in verse 30, "Give and it'll be given to you." Press down. Running over. Treat others the way the same way you 47:27 want them to treat you. Further down. Sorry. Give and it'll be given to you. Verse 38. that. Yeah, that's the verse I was looking for. Give and it'll be given to you. They will pour into your lap. A good measure, pressed down, shaken 47:43 together, running over. Now listen to this. By your standard of measure, it'll be measured to you in return. I remember hearing of a businessman who whose business prospered. This is a real story of a man who he wrote a book 48:02 called God Runs My Business. He started by giving 10% of his income to God. Then he gave 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60. So as his business prospered, 80% finally 48:19 he start he gave 90% of his income as the business prospered. I mean he had enough for himself to God's work. And he said this, he made this statement when somebody asked him about his giving. He said, "I shovel out and God 48:37 shovels in and he's got a bigger shovel than me." It's like that. Look what Paul said in 2 Corinthians in chapter 9. In 2 Corinthians chapter 9, he says in verse 6, 48:59 I want to read in the Living Bible. Remember that a stingy planter will get a stingy crop. He's talking about giving much giving to help the poor in chapter 8 and chapter 9. A stingy planter will get a stingy crop. 49:19 A lavish planter will get a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think this over and make up your mind what you're going to give. This is inspired by the Holy Spirit, by the way. And that will protect you from against all the sob 49:36 stories and arm twisting that other people do. God loves it when pe when the giver delights in giving without anybody twisting his arm. God can pour blessings in an astonishing way when you do that. So that you're ready for anything and everything more 49:54 than just ready. As one psalmist put it, he throws caution to the winds, giving to the needy in reckless abandon. What a lovely way of putting it. In reckless abandon, he gives to the needy and his right living and his right 50:12 giving ways never run out, never wear out. Right living, we want. What about right giving? The most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something so that you can 50:32 give it away which grows into full-f formed lives robust in God wealthy in every way so that you can be generous in every way producing with us great praise to God. I want to encourage some of you to consider, particularly many of you who 50:47 have suddenly started getting huge salaries. Consider whether you're going to miss out on something. Don't do dead works. Don't do anything because I say read God's word. 51:05 Stop judging other people. Judge yourself and say, "Lord, everything I do, I want to do in love for you because I love you with all my heart. I want to please you. I want to live for you. I want to please you in everything I do." 51:22 Don't ever do something because somebody twists your arm. Say, "Lord, I want to do it to please you." There are many things that have replaced the power of the Holy Spirit in the world today. We don't go into those things. 51:37 There's music and money and psychology and legalism and Bible knowledge and uh hypnotism and all types of things. Bible knowledge. No, we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, but we believe the Holy Spirit makes us like God. What does 51:55 it mean to partake of the divine nature? The you know, the whole new covenant, the goal of the new covenant is to make us like God. That's the way God wanted Adam to be to have his image and his likeness. If I were to ask you, how many 52:11 of you want to be like God? We'll all raise our hands. We all want to be like Jesus. But you know what is one of the primary uh characteristics of God? He's not selfish. God so loved that he gave everything for what? For the salvation of others. 52:30 You want to be like him? How many of you really want to be like God in this area that you love people so much that you want to give everything money and everything so that people can be saved? See how a simple I tell you money is the 52:47 area where we are tested and I believe I'm just trying to point out that some of us will never be spiritual because we love money too much. One of the things I've discovered is that many many people whom I have heard 53:05 of godly men and I've sometimes probed into their lives sometimes read their biographies at some time in their life they made a break with money and said from now on I'm going to serve God and one way they made now God doesn't 53:23 ask everybody to do it and I'm not asking anybody here to do it if you do it it'll be a dead But sometime in their life, they emptied their bank account and gave it all to God. It's what Hudson Taylor did. It's what CD Stud did. It's what George Müller 53:42 did. And I know some living people who did it, too. Not all the time. They did it once in their life to break their connection with money. Usually when they were very young. I did it when I was 26. All that I earned in 8 years gave it 54:01 away. I said money is not going to be my god. Never. Jesus Christ is going to be my god. I'm not asking you to do it. I'm just asking you whether money has power over you. You are so particular that you should 54:20 not wear ornaments that your hair must be the right length and you are look so holy. Do you know holiness has got to do with your money how much you love to get that is mark of your holiness otherwise it's all religiosity 54:37 when Zakius said to Jesus half of my goods I give to the poor Jesus said at last salvation has come to this house can you imagine a miser who's cheating other people suddenly 54:56 starting to give half his money to the poor. And why did he keep the other half? Because he had to pay back four times to all the other people whom he owed money to. I don't know how much he had left. This wealthy man suddenly, he didn't 55:11 have to give half his money to the poor. The Lord didn't tell him that. If he gave back what he took, that itself would have been enough. But he suddenly became so large-hearted. I've cheated these people. I can't just give them 55:22 back a little bit. I must give them back more. four times and Jesus said this is unbelievable. This man was always grabbing, grabbing, grabbing. He's like this now salvation has come here. I want to ask you when 55:40 Jesus looks at your finances, will he say salvation has come to this brother? Salvation has come to this sister. I want him to say that about me. I want Jesus to look into my finances and say salvation has come to him. Jesus came to save me not from wearing 55:58 ornaments, not from the length of my hair. He came to save me from the love of money. Don't just satisfy yourself with all these externals and look you think you look very holy with all that and you're not saved from the 56:14 love of money. You're not saved from pride. You're not saved from selfishness. You're not saved from the most important things. The foundation is weak. The whole house is shaky. We're not saved from the most important things. And we're trying to save 56:31 ourselves from the little little trivial unimportant things and say, "Yeah, there is a verse here which says that. Doesn't it say in 1 Peter 3, you should not wear gold?" But doesn't it say in Matthew Luke 16:13 that you cannot love money? 56:44 What about that verse? Oh, the hypocrisy and the humbug that I have found in our churches. Absolutely amazing. among elder brothers who never seem to get light on these things judging others. My dear brothers and sisters, let's get the log out of our 57:02 many sisters too. Many sisters who remove their ornaments are now disturbed that other people are wearing ornaments. You know what I say to you? If you're disturbed, please go and put on some ornaments. Be at rest in your heart. 57:14 That's more important. I'm not disturbed when I see people decked with gold. That doesn't tempt me to deck myself with gold. My wife is not tempted to deck herself with gold when she sees other people wearing gold because we did it out of conviction. 57:29 We didn't do it as a dead work. And if it disturbs you when you see other people wearing gold, I would say to you, go and wear some yourself so that you stop getting disturbed by it. If you're disturbed by these externals 57:46 and you're not disturbed by the fantastic love of money in your heart and your selfishness where you think of you and your family and you and your family and you and your children, what's good for me and what's good for my 57:57 children and you don't think of other people, please deal with that selfishness first. God so loved the world that he gave. That's what we need to learn. That's the truth. Let's understand it accurately. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, 58:15 apply these truths to our lives. Lord, oh God, save us from deceiving ourselves. Save us from Phariseism, legalism, and every way of counterfeit holiness which the devil has put upon Christendom and a 58:34 lot of it that's still floating around in our midst. Please deliver us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
