0:00 Matthew 22 We know the main thing that changed the disciples from what they were on the day Jesus was crucified to what 0:22 they were on the day of Pentecost. So, when you look at the day Jesus was at the last supper, they hadn't really made much progress in their life. They were still arguing about who's the greatest. And um in the 0:42 the Garden of Gethsemane, they all ran away. So, though they had a lot of admiration for Jesus and probably some understanding of the things that he taught, if you look at their lives, it didn't 1:02 bring much of a change. They were still even after seeing the resurrected Jesus, they were scared and sitting in uh inside a road locked room. What was it that changed on the day of 1:21 Pentecost? You know, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. They didn't become perfect. We know that Peter was, for example, very reluctant to mix with the Gentiles and Paul made mistakes like circumcising Timothy and even many years 1:41 later we find Paul yelling at the high priest. So, they were not perfect. But yet, they were not the same like they were on the time at the time when Jesus died. So, I found that 2:03 this thing with Jesus said in Matthew 22, where someone asked him a question in verse 36, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" We know that 2:24 you know the verse that says what the law could not do, God did. That's Romans 8:3. So, the new covenant does in us what the law could not do. The law really hasn't changed. God's law is eternal. 2:43 The little details of the ceremonial part of it may have changed, but God's essential law is eternal. That means when he created man and woman, this is the law. There was so many things that so many things we are commanded to do 3:03 which Adam and Eve did not have to do, but this law was there right from the beginning. That is verse 37, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And Jesus said, "I can't give you one 3:21 command by itself. That is linked to the second one." And you know, the man has already asked for what is the great commandment, number one. And Jesus said, "I can't give you only one. I have to give you two because both are 3:35 linked. Like, you know, there's no cross without two arms. So, these are like the two arms of the cross, the one vertical one, which is always longer than the horizontal one. So, the vertical one is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 3:50 soul, and mind, and then your neighbor as yourself. The two are linked. There's no cross without two arms. So, it's easy for us to inwardly compare ourselves with others 4:10 who don't have certain external things that we have in our church or in our life or we understood the new covenant. And uh do not essentially be proud of it or glory in it, but to inwardly 4:30 congratulate ourselves that we're a little better than others because of maybe we don't go to the movies or we don't watch television so much or you know, all the things we don't do and we don't do, we don't do. I've often thought of the time of 4:49 Elijah. When Elijah was so discouraged and uh he was particularly when the queen wanted to kill him. If you're not familiar with that 5:08 passage, let me just show you in 1 Kings and chapter 19. It says he got so discouraged that he ran away. He had killed 450 prophets of Baal single-handedly and then one woman threatened him and he got scared and he 5:27 ran away. And then he tells the Lord in 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 10, "Lord, they Israel has forsaken you." 1 Kings 19 and verse 10. You're They've killed your prophets. Only I am 5:46 left." And then the Lord told him, uh "Okay, I'm going to anoint, verse 16, uh Elisha as a prophet in your place, 6:05 verse 16. Okay, Elijah, your time is up. You're exhausted. And I will leave 7,000 in Israel, verse 18, who have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him." So, uh many people look at that and say, 6:27 "Well, it wasn't only Elijah. There were 7,000 people there in Israel who also hadn't bowed the knee to Baal." But the interesting thing is, those 7,000 never had a testimony. Nobody knew Ahab never knew about all those 7,000 6:46 because their testimony was negative. "I have not bowed to Baal, and I have not kissed Baal, the statue." Whereas Elijah's testimony was not 7:06 negative. It was positive. In 1 Kings chapter 17, you find Elijah's testimony is this, but verse one is the first time he's introduced. It says here, "As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand." That was 7:24 his testimony. So, his testimony was positive. Those people's testimony is negative, and that's why none of those 7,000 could bring fire down from heaven. No matter how much they had prayed at the altar, nothing would have happened. 7:42 Their prayer may not have been much better than the prophets of Baal. The way that applies to us is, you know, many Christians their testimony is negative. I don't bother me to be honest. I don't go to the movies. I don't drink. I don't 7:59 smoke. I don't beat my wife. I don't get angry. I don't tell lies. It's a whole lot of negatives just like these 7,000. It's good. It's a wonderful thing in a country where everybody is bowing down to Baal. There are people who say, "I don't do 8:17 it." So, certainly Christians who in a church who have stand on all these things are definitely better than a whole lot of other Christians who compromise in many, many areas. But yet it doesn't bring fire down from heaven 8:34 in our life or in our ministry or in our home or in our church. It's a positive testimony that Elijah had, "I live before God." You know, I stand before God. He's the only one who matters to me. He is the only one whose opinion has any 8:52 that ever bothers me. What does my heavenly father think of me? What does What does Jesus think of me? I stand before him. And all the time I'm conscious of living before him. That is what made Elijah different from all the 9:10 others. And that's why, you know, the Lord uh didn't say, "Okay, go and pick one of those 7,000 to be your replacement." No, there was another man in Israel, Elisha, who God had watched him. He wasn't a prophet. He was just plowing the 9:29 field and you know, just like the disciples were before the Lord called them. They were just fishing people, but the Lord saw something in their hearts which made it There's something in the hearts of those people like Peter, James, John, 9:45 Andrew, which the Lord saw and which made him pick them out to be disciples. And something that the Lord saw in Elisha, who was also had not bowed the knee to Baal and had not kissed Baal. Yet the Lord could not pick one of those 10:01 7,000 to be the replacement for Elijah. It would had to be Elisha. So, there's a distinction even among those who don't do this and don't do this and don't do this and don't do this. There's a multitude of Christians who 10:15 avoid so many sins. I don't commit this sin. I don't commit this sin. I don't commit this sin. And you can go through the list of it. Think for example of the Sermon on the Mount alone. I don't get angry. I don't lust after women. 10:29 I don't divorce my wife. I'm just going through Matthew 5. I don't tell lies. I don't hate my neighbors. I don't curse those who curse me. I don't reveal to others when I pray or fast or give. I don't do so many things. 10:46 I don't judge others. I can go through the whole Sermon on the Mount. I'm I don't get anxious. I don't love money. You can go through the whole Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and essentially it is that I've I don't bow the knee to Baal. 11:02 I don't kiss his statue. That's where we got to come back to Matthew 22 where it says the law is not a whole lot of you shall not do this, you shall not do that. It was like that. I mean, the uh 10 Commandments were like that and 11:18 all the other 613 Commandments there in the Old Testament were basically things you could not do. And there are a lot of things in the New Testament, too, which you were not supposed to do. I mean, a lot of things in the Sermon on the Mount, as I just 11:29 said. But we go back to the law of God, which is a positive thing. I must love the Lord with all my heart, and all my soul, and all my strength. It's not a question of what I don't do. And I must love my neighbor as myself. 11:49 It's not what I don't do to my neighbor, it's what I do. It's a positive thing. And that's what God wanted Adam to be. Like, he wanted him to love Eve. She was the only one human being around. But, to love the Lord first. 12:09 And uh that's where he failed in the Garden of Eden. And this is where you know, it's very easy for us as Christians, particularly when we've taken a stand against Babylonian Christianity and all the wrong things there are in 12:27 Christendom, to, as I said, inwardly congratulate ourselves that we don't we're not in that group of people who are Babylonian. But, the question is, do I love the Lord with all my heart? You know, Jesus said 12:45 that one of the main alternative masters to God was not the devil, but money. Luke chapter 16. I mean, if Jesus hadn't said that, and we were to ask anyone a question, what 13:03 are the two masters which are vying A vying means V Y I N G. That means trying to claim uh our hearts. If Jesus hadn't said that, we would have immediately thought it's God and Satan. 13:21 Because in the Garden of Eden, it was not God and money, it was God and Satan. That was I didn't didn't love money. There was no money around. The choice was in Adam in the Garden of Eden was God or Satan. But for us today, 13:40 it's God or money, which is God and money. See, it is not just money. It's when he said mammon, he's I think refers to this old material world which has so many things in it to attract us. Luke 16 and verse 13, no servant can serve 14:00 two masters. He will hate the one and love the other and devoted to one and despise the other. So, I don't think most Christians, to tell you honestly, I don't think most Christians face up to that verse uh 14:17 fair and square, looking at it and meditating on it, examining their own life in the light of it. The people are scared to look at that verse and think too much about it. Because it's very demanding. First of all, 14:38 there must be absolutely no element in me of serving material wealth. Earning material wealth, yes. Doing a business and making profit out of that business, yes. That's okay. 14:57 Jesus I'm sure Jesus didn't sell his the stools and tables he made at cost price. Cuz if he did, he he'd have no money to take care of his his four brothers and widowed mother and all that. So, I'm sure Jesus added a commission 15:15 to his material cost to cover the cost of his labor. There's nothing wrong in it. There's nothing wrong with making a profit in business. In fact, Jesus spoke about to someone who went out with one talent and earned 10. 15:29 So, there's nothing wrong in making profit, but it's a question of what one lives for. You cannot serve God and wealth. That means two masters claiming my allegiance. And it's very real in the world in which we live. 15:48 God and wealth claiming my allegiance. And the test for me is something like the test in Eden. God says one thing, the devil says another thing, who am I going to listen to? 16:07 Okay, today it is God pulls me in one direction, money pulls me another direction. Which pull am I going to yield to? Now, I'm not talking about the sort of asceticism or 16:24 being a hermit where I think that spirituality is to get the lowest salary and live in the most difficult place and it's more spiritual to go to Afghanistan than to go and live in the United States. I don't believe that. 16:43 Because I mean, I'll tell you why. Because I don't believe Jesus lived in the most difficult place on Earth. The most difficult place on Earth was certainly not Israel. So, you don't have to go and live in the most difficult place and 16:57 earn the least amount of money in order to be spiritual. That's not what I mean. It's it's a pull. God and material things. I think of that going back to Adam. That the his body was made of the same dust of the 17:17 animals were made of. And I I think there's something significant in the fact that it's not only man that was made on the sixth day. The animals were made on the sixth day, too. In fact, the all the all the others were created earlier, but the animals 17:36 the earthbound animals, the fish were created on the fifth day, but the animals were on the sixth day. First part of the sixth day, he made the animals from the dust. And these animals are in terms of their body and all are the 17:53 most similar to human beings. I mean, fish are not like human beings. But those things that God created on the sixth day, you know, dogs and monkeys and all, they've got a lot of internal organs which are just like us, made from the same dust we're made of. 18:08 And then towards the end of the sixth day, God makes man from the same dust that he made animals. And uh he breathes into man. And that breathing into man didn't just give man breath. It did give him breath, but the animals 18:28 also had breath without God breathing into them. But there was something more that Adam got, and that was a conscience, or what the Bible calls a spirit. Man is body, soul, and spirit. As his soul is our mind and our feelings. 18:46 I think dogs have got a mind and feelings, too. But what they don't have and will God dog dogs have got a will. Sure, they can obey or disobey. But spirit, that deepest part of man, that no animal has. That is what came 19:03 with the breath of God. And so, man is constantly pulled by the spirit pulling him up and the body which is made of dust, pulling him to the things of earth. That's what happened in the Garden of Eden. That there was something in I'm sure 19:21 there was something in Adam and Eve that pulled him up towards God saying, "Hey, you shouldn't be doing this. God has told you not to eat from that tree." And there was another part of the the which it says Eve looked at the 19:34 fruit and it was really made her mouth water. There was some something of the earth part in her body pulling her towards in that case a tree, in our case it may be money, it could be something else. It's these two pulls that we find 19:52 the part that pulls us upward and the part that pulls us downward. And I I see it like that in terms of God and money. God and material wealth. But the reason I feel that many don't meditate too much on this verse is 20:08 because it's a very strong word. To hate the one and love the other. That means I've got to hate money if I want to love God. You know, we are thinking of the first verse the 20:27 commandment is you shall love your God Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. So, I got to hate money in the same way in which Jesus said if you want to be my disciple you got to hate your father and mother and you got to hate your 20:43 wife. And you got to hate your children. So, we know that it doesn't mean that I detest them. That's not the meaning. But that in the light of my love for Jesus my love even for my wife and children is 21:02 hardly anything. We the Bible commands us to love our wives. To love our children, bring them up. And we all do. But I cannot be a disciple if 21:20 not just that I love the Lord more. I thought much of that commandment, you must hate your father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters even in the church. As I go to hate my brothers in the church if I want to be a disciple. 21:39 So, I I the best illustration I've used the picture I've used I find a great help when I try to understand some difficult verses with an illustration or a picture because that's how Jesus taught. Is between the light of the sun and the 21:53 light of the stars. The stars have got light. And any night you look up they're there. My love for my father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children must all be there. It must not be non-existent. It must be there. 22:12 But when the sun comes up even though the stars are there, you can't see any of them. It's almost as though they're not there. And so that's how I see it that my love for Jesus must be like the light of the sun. 22:30 In in which light my love for my wife you know wife and children sort of fades into insignificance compared to my love for the Lord. It's a wonderful thing to love your wife and children, but it's not the greatest thing. The greatest thing is to love God 22:46 with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. So, I see that this is the way in which I got to hate money, too. It's not that I have nothing to do with money. I got to hate my I got to hate money like I hate my wife. And like I hate like I hate my children. 23:04 In other words, the light of the sun, the love for Jesus is so great that the others almost insignificant. It doesn't If the Lord pulls me in a certain direction, nothing can pull me away from another direction. Not my wife, not my 23:19 children, not money, nothing. No brother, no sister, no ministry, nothing. This is how Jesus lived. He was that perfect man who did exactly who lived exactly the way the Father wanted man to live. 23:39 And when we say we are going to walk as Jesus walked, we can look at the externals that he forgave those who killed him or he was very disciplined in the matter of prayer and resisted temptation. All that is good. But 23:59 inwardly, the thing was he loved the Father more than anything anyone else. Even his going to the cross, which we often think of as a mark of Jesus' love for man. Jesus described it in 24:18 John 14. His going to the cross was an act of obedience to his Father, and love for 24:36 his Father. Word John 14:31, that the world may know that I love the Father. I do exactly as the Father commanded me. Let's get up and go from here. Where? To the cross. So, what he was saying is 24:55 I'm going to the cross because I love my father. You know, they when Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. People looked at that and said, "Behold how he loved him." 25:14 And they saw him weep. And when I look at the cross, it's something like that. Look at Jesus hanging on the cross and say, "Behold how he loved the father." I don't think many Christians think of 25:36 that part. They think of the cross is, "Oh, behold how he loved me." It's true. But that is a small arm of the cross. The big vertical arm was, "Behold how he loved the father." That he would go to the cross. It was his love for the father. He says, 25:57 "That the world may know that I love the father." John 14:31. Let's go to the cross. Let me go to the cross. So, I will choose the cross every day in my life. I love the father. I love him more than 26:18 anything else, more than my wife, children, the pull of anything on earth. That's the reason why when Peter told Jesus in Matthew 16, when Jesus said, "You know, I've got to 26:40 go to the cross." That's the first time he explained the cross to his disciples. It says in Matthew 16:21, "From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he's got to go to the cross and be killed and be raised on the third day. 26:57 He included the resurrection. He told them it's not it's not the end of everything. After 3 days I'm going to come out of the grave. But Peter rebuked him saying, "No, Lord, never. I mean it's it's okay you're coming out of the grave 27:09 out of 3 days, but you should not suffer like this." And immediately Jesus said, "Get behind me, Satan." As I see it, there are only two times in the Bible where Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan." One is when he spoke to the 27:23 devil directly. When the devil said, "Fall down and worship me." He said, "Get away, Satan." And the second time was to Peter. "Get away, Satan." So, the voice that told him to avoid the cross, 27:41 Peter's voice, is the same as the voice that tells, "Bow down to Satan." He got to equate the two. Bowing to avoid the cross is bowing down to Satan. In both cases, 28:03 Jesus used the same expression. "Get behind me, Satan." So, I got to see it like that, you know, any voice that tells me, "Don't die to yourself here. Assert yourself." I'm really worshiping Satan. Maybe a milder form of it, but it is. 28:28 And so, I got to think of the pull of money like that in a situation where I I choose to indulge myself rather than deny myself. Paul said in 28:47 1 Corinthians in chapter 6. 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 12. There are a lot of things we can do with money. And material things. 29:07 And a lot of those things are lawful. All things are lawful. 1 Corinthians 6:12, but all things are not profitable. All things are lawful. 29:23 But I will not be mastered by anything. We can apply that to God and money. I must allow only God to master me. Not my bodily desires. 29:42 Not money, not not my love ones. You love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. It means with spirit, soul, and body. I do love God and a lot of things are lawful. A lot of things I can do lawfully with 30:01 my time. With my money. Lot of things. But they may not all be the best for me. They may not always be what God wants. And again, 30:20 I have to give a warning against asceticism. Where I think that if I avoid all these things and become like a monk or a hermit, that is spirituality. No. I'm always encouraged by the fact that 30:37 when Jesus got into the boat, he asked them, "Hey, have you brought a pillow? I want to lie down here." Lord, you want a pillow? Don't you want to be a bit tough and sleep on the hard wooden boards? No, I'd like a pillow. 30:50 And I love that passage where it says he he was sleeping on a pillow. To teach me that he was not an ascetic. He didn't live on wild locusts and honey like John the Baptist. He enjoyed a good meal. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that 31:09 people called him a gluttonous man. He wasn't gluttonous. Far from it, he could fast for 40 days, but the people looked at him and thought, "Why is this guy asking for a second helping?" Do Christians ask for a second helping? 31:23 I think Jesus would have if he enjoyed something and if there was enough for everybody else on the table. There's so many ideas we can have about um true spirituality which are fake. Jesus' life was a very natural life. 31:42 It says in 1 Timothy in chapter 6, There are two things it says about riches here since we're talking about 32:00 money. 1 Timothy 6:17. It's like those who are rich in the world means those who have got plenty of money. Don't be conceited. And don't fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches, 32:18 but on God. But he says, "Remember, God has richly supplied us with a lot of material things to enjoy. Are material things things meant to be just denied or enjoyed? I have no problem enjoying a lot of things. 32:36 Good food, and many other things, a comfortable house to live in, provided it it doesn't become an idol. God has provided us with things to enjoy. Now, an ascetic will never accept that. 32:55 He Everything on earth is to be denied. I'm just saying saying that as a word of caution. But, the other side of the cliff That's one side of the cliff. The other side of the cliff is where I say, you know, one side is I must not enjoy anything. 33:12 I must just Anything that's going to make me a little happier, I just deny myself. Um I mustn't take a second helping. I mustn't touch that ice cream. That's not Christianity. The other side of the cliff is it's lawful for me. 33:28 There's nothing wrong with it. That's another clip, cuz all of those Among those lawful things, there may be only 10% that's profitable. In terms of the way I use my time, or the way I use my money. So, when we come back to the original law of 33:44 God, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. That is the life of Jesus. It's not that I don't bow the knee to Baal, or I don't do this, and I don't do that, and I don't do the other thing, 33:56 and it's not asceticism, and it's not just denying certain external things. It's a positive thing that I My heart's taken up with love for for Jesus. It's 34:14 I always come back to this passage when it comes to serving the Lord. I say, "Lord, you called me to serve you full-time 52 years ago. What is the main thing you want from me? Studying the Bible? Seeking to be filled with the Holy 34:29 Spirit? In John 21, when God was Jesus was recommissioning Peter after Peter had failed miserably uh denying the Lord three times and 34:48 uh it's interesting that Peter had given up because when he says in John 21 and verse three I'm going fishing. I think what he meant was 35:05 I'm going permanently back to fishing. I know the Lord called me more than three years ago to be an apostle, but I'm a failure as an apostle. I tried it. I was sincere absolutely sincere. I really wanted never to deny the Lord and I thought I 35:23 would never let him down. But I've discovered that I would deny him even before a servant girl, not once but thrice. I'm not fit to be an apostle, but I can do fishing. And that's where the Lord allowed him to fail. 35:42 You know, when God's called you to something and you try something else, you'll find repeated failure. You'll try all night and you won't catch anything. Cuz that's not what God called you to be. Uh 36:03 when he's called you to a particular task like he called Peter if he tried anything else, he would be a failure. He goes back to fishing even a an area where once upon a time he was an expert. And God makes sure that no fish get into 36:18 his net. And when the Lord loves a person so much that he says he's jealous to make sure that we fulfill the plan he has for us and not some other plan which may be a good plan but not his plan for us which may be a lawful plan but not a 36:37 profitable one. He will make sure we fail there. See, that's why our life can be so much at rest. You know, when we try different avenues of ministry or looking for a job or something like that and something doesn't open up. 36:52 It looks as if we try, try, try and something doesn't work out or in the case of people trying for a visa or permanent residency, etc. A true Christian is at complete rest. Total rest in God because he knows that 37:11 anything outside of God's will, I'll just be a failure. I'll toil all night and catch nothing. I'll try my best to get something and I won't get it. Just like John 21. That's because God doesn't want me to go into that direction. 37:27 He is uh all those hours in which they tried to catch fish and they didn't get anything was the Lord's way telling Peter, "That's not what I called you for, Peter." That's a good way of earning a living. There's nothing wrong in that. 37:41 Nothing wrong in earning your living by fishing. But that's not what I've called you for. I know you've been a failure so far as an apostle. It doesn't matter. That failure was part of your education. I don't know whether you realize that 37:57 in in God's economy and the way he deals with us, failure is part of his education. It's It doesn't apply in earthly circumstances. A a brilliant student never fails. All the way from first grade right up to PhD, he's just 38:17 success all the way. But it's not like that with God's dealings with us. In God's dealings with us. Failure is a part of our education. I found that in my life. I found in my life that God took me through uh when I started my Christian life it 38:34 was great. It was like an ascending curve. And then God allowed me to fail and fail fail as a believer. And uh as I look at my life I think that my life my graph hit rock bottom. 38:54 And when I look back now I see it was so easy for God to prevent me from that. But I was assessing my life in terms of you know, I didn't bow down and kneel to Baal. I didn't kiss Baal. I didn't do this. I didn't do that. And I didn't do 39:09 the other thing. So I was pretty good. But God wasn't happy. And I was taken up with and I was doing a lot of things positively mostly in terms of service for God. Um but the Lord wanted me to love him with 39:26 all my heart. And that's why he allowed me to fail. And it's when I hit rock bottom about 43 years ago that the Lord that that in that place of total failure that the Lord filled me with the Holy Spirit. 39:45 My life turned around. That's what happened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. It wasn't a message to challenge them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. And they had to be continuously filled 40:05 with the Holy Spirit. And what did the Spirit of God do? Many people ask what is the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit? It's unfortunate that people have got that doctrine in this from Acts of the 40:24 Apostles. Acts of the Apostles was never given to us as a book of doctrine. One of the principles I've understood in Bible study over after 58 years of studying the Bible is that you must never get a doctrine from the historical sections of 40:43 scripture. You'll get a wrong doctrine. Example, Jesus healed everybody. You try to get a doctrine out of that for today, you'll be a hypocrite deceiving others because it's It just doesn't happen. 41:03 The apostles in the first Acts of the Apostles didn't heal everybody. Paul himself was sick. Timothy was sick constantly with stomach problems. So, that's one example of Jesus healed everybody. What doctrine you get from that? Jesus 41:15 walked on the water. What doctrine you get from that? Jesus turned the water into wine. He fed the 5,000 men with five loaves. What doctrine can you get from that? Same way with the Acts of the Apostles. It's a historical book. You can't get 41:29 doctrine from history. You've got to get doctrine from the teaching sections of scripture. In In the Gospels, wherever Jesus is teaching something, that's for me. What he did, that's not necessarily for me. He walked on the water. He fed the 41:45 5,000. He healed everyone. Not one person was left out. That may not be for me, but what he taught, every single word he taught, that's for me. Think of a word like Matthew 12:37, which I 42:05 often say is one of the verses which hardly any Christian believes. Every idle word that you speak, you will give an account in the day of judgment. I really don't know how many believers 42:24 really believe that. Every single idle word that you speak, that means a word which is un-Christ-like. You'll give an account in the day of judgment, Matthew 12:37. Those things are unnecessary for me. 42:42 Jesus healed them all is I don't even I say, "Praise the Lord. He did it and I believe it." But I find, for example, in Pentecostal Christianity, particularly, I've never heard a message on Matthew 12:37. That every idle word you're to give an account in 42:58 the day of judgment. I heard lots of messages on Jesus healed everyone. Why can't you do it? You see how the devil's led people astray? By making history a doctrine, and it doesn't work. And even then people don't open their eyes and say, "It doesn't 43:13 seem to work. Something must be wrong here." And then to miss out on the main thing. So, what is the mark of uh I was talking about What is the proof of being filled with the Holy Spirit? The every Pentecostal charismatic will say Acts 2:4. They 43:30 spoke in tongues. I say, if you want to go to Acts, why do you go to Acts 2:4? Why not start with Acts 2:3, which happened before Acts 2:4? And that is there was a tongue of fire over their heads 43:50 when they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Teaching me that my tongue should be on fire in the Holy Spirit, that I don't sin with my tongue, not that I speak in tongues. That's Acts 2:4. Acts 2:3. Uh that if I'm really filled with the 44:09 Holy Spirit, my tongue will be controlled by the fire of heaven. That I will have control over my temper, and I will have control over idle words and useless speech. I've never heard a single person preach on Acts 2:3 as the sign of being filled 44:25 with the Holy Spirit. And yet, that's the first thing that happened there. But besides that, you go to the teaching sections of scripture. And then and that's in Romans chapter 5 and verse 5. I say this is the mark of being filled 44:40 with the Holy Spirit. From the teaching sections of scripture, not the historical sections in Acts of the Apostles. Romans 5:5 When the Holy Spirit fills us, the love of God is poured out within our hearts. It fills us. So, 45:00 I see Romans 5:5, I would have paraphrased it's like this. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, your heart will be filled with love for God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and filled with love for others. 45:12 Is the fulfillment of the law of God. Which we read in Matthew 22. And they asked him, "What is the great commandment?" Here it is. Nobody in the Old Testament could keep it. Nobody. And the Holy Spirit's come. 45:33 He fills my heart with the love of God. That means I think I I get three things from that. One, it fills my heart with the assurance of God's perfect love for me. That's number one. My whole heart is filled with the fact that 45:48 God loves me as he loved Jesus. I never want to doubt that. He the Holy Spirit makes, you know, he cries out about Father and assures me that he loves me more than any earthly father. That's very, very important. It's very important, my dear brothers, 46:05 because I find a lot of Christians are not assured in that love. A lot of the problem with a lot of Christians is their insecurity. And if you look at your own heart, you may find that. If you have problem with your wife, it's 46:21 insecurity in your own heart that causes it. It's insecurity in your heart that brings tension between you and your wife or creates unrest in a certain situation. It's an insecurity. It's the love of God is not You're not allowed the Holy 46:39 Spirit to fill your heart with the God loves you as he loved Jesus. To be filled with that, that's the first thing. And the second is that my heart is filled with love for God more than anything else. I love God more than my 46:55 wife, husband, my wife, children, brothers, sisters, money, material things, property, everything. And the third is love for everybody. And my heart is filled with love for everybody else. It's only the Holy Spirit who can do 47:08 that. I cannot produce it. I cannot. I can say like Peter, "Even if all men deny you, I will not deny you." And I may be very sincere, but in the moment of pressure, I'll deny him. And so, I need to go to God all the time and 47:27 say, "Lord, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit." And the mark of it will be I'll be perfectly assured of your love for me in any circumstance, no matter what happens around me or what doesn't happen, what God gives me or what God doesn't 47:41 give me, I'm rooted and grounded in the fact that God loves me as he loved Jesus. This is very, very important, my dear brothers. You may not be facing a circumstance right now that tests you on that, but you'll find in the long run, if you're 48:00 not rooted and grounded on this, you will have problems in your Christian life. You have to be rooted and grounded, just like building a skyscraper. Don't be in a hurry to build a skyscraper. Make sure the foundation is 48:14 deep enough to hold the skyscraper. That means be rooted and grounded in the fact that God loves you as he loved Jesus Christ. It It took me 16 years 48:31 after I was born again to come to that understanding. But that's because I Nobody ever taught it to me. Now, you don't have to take 16 years. You guys have probably heard it from day one in this church. But I never Even though it's written in 48:48 John 17:23, and I probably read it numerous times, there was a day when it hit me. And I said, "Wow. It's amazing." It removed all the insecurity from my life. I was a very insecure person. And you know, as a preacher, out of 49:10 those 16 years, um I I was a preacher out of those 16 years, 9 years I was a full-time preacher, and I was insecure. And one mark of my insecurity was that when I preached, I wanted to impress people 49:27 with what I said. I wanted them to remember, "Oh, Brother Zac said this." It was all my insecurity. But when you were secure in the love of God, 49:47 these things don't I mean, it takes time to pull out of that, but you come to the place where it doesn't bother you what whether they think about what you said or don't think about what you said or quote you or don't quote you. 50:04 Doesn't make any difference. You're secure in the love of God. Secure in the fact that even after any particular ministry that you did You say, "Lord, I love you with all my heart and with the limited ability I have, I did what I 50:21 could to serve you. That's all." I'm not competing with anybody else. I'm not here to show that what I share is more impressive than somebody else shared or rubbish. Absolutely no interest in that because I'm secure in God's love. That's what 50:38 the Holy Spirit does first of all you. "I love you as I love my son," God says. Okay. I want to be rooted. I want to dig a deep foundation because I'm building a skyscraper here. And I I wanted this to be really deep so that the building will never shake 50:55 even gets to gets to 100 stories. It won't It won't shake. So, allow the Holy Spirit to shed abroad the love of God in your heart as it says in Romans 5. This is the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit. To me it's not It's not speaking in 51:14 tongues, Acts 2:4. That's a good gift of God, but that's not the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit because I've met numerous people who speak in tongues who are not filled with the Holy Spirit. And I've met numerous people who do not 51:25 speak in tongues who are filled with the Holy Spirit. So, it is this to be rooted and grounded in the fact that God loves me as he loved Jesus and find total security in that and from that foundation this skyscraper rises of love for God 51:41 more than anything, loving God more than money, loving God more than relatives and from there also the horizontal aspect of loving others. Again, the Holy Spirit. I cannot love people without the Holy Spirit filling my heart 51:58 with love. That is the difference in the old covenant was the command was there. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself is not a new covenant commandment. It's an 52:12 old covenant commandment, but they couldn't keep it. But what the law could not do, God has done by filling us with the Holy Spirit. And the spirit of God. So, I say if Romans 5:5 is not in being increasingly true in your life, you're not really 52:30 filled with the Holy Spirit. I don't care whether you speak in tongues or whether you're a great gifted person or that one or two people got healed when you prayed. Doesn't mean a thing. Uh it's this. I want to check myself always with this. 52:48 So, this is the It's not that I hate money. But this is love Jesus. One of the best illustrations that came to my mind of how to be detached from love for material things and others is this. An illustration. 53:08 Here is a father who's very concerned that his daughter is in love with some guy who is useless. And he doesn't know how to pull her away from loving this man who he knows will mess up my daughter's life. 53:28 And no matter what he says, she's just madly in love with him. He warns her against him and says he's like this, he's dangerous, this, that, and the other. But it doesn't seem to make any difference. She still loves him and secretly texts him, 53:43 and meets with him, and all that, and the father doesn't know what to do. He just keeps seems to give is a picture of my love for the world, or love for money, or love for something like that. And then one day he his daughter comes up and says, 53:58 "Dad, I've given him up. I've given up on him. We broken up." And what happened? "I found somebody else. Far better." That is it's by the love for Jesus that I break away from love for the 54:17 world, or love for money. That's the illustration. It's not by my battling. I'm going to stop loving money. I'm going to stop. It doesn't work. Uh it's the expelling power 54:35 of a new affection. A new love has driven out the other one who I loved fervently once upon a time. That is what the Holy Spirit does. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, 54:54 which means first of all, God's love for me, and secondly, my love for God drives out from my heart all that love for material things. It's not by battling. I want to hate that. I want to hate that. It's like that girl saying, "I want to 55:08 have My dad says I'm going to hate this man. I'm going to hate this man." And yet despite of that, she goes out with him. Sleeps with him. But it's the expulsive power of a new affection. It takes the the new affection expels from her 55:25 heart the other love. So, and from there, I will learn to love my fellow believers and others. 55:44 And you know how John gives us this horizontal love as a test of our love for God in 1 John. I'm sure you're familiar with this verse. 1 John chapter 3, sorry, chapter 4. And verse 20. 56:05 If someone says, 1 John 4:20, "If I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. Because the one who does not love his brother, whom he can see, how can he love a God whom he has not seen?" That's his logic. The logic is if you can't love a brother 56:22 whom you can see, you cannot love a God whom you cannot see. It's a deception. You're fooling yourself. So, God, you know, is like what they call in chemistry, a litmus test. Is it acid or alkali? 56:40 And the litmus test is the way to love for God is can I love my brother? Can my this horizontal love is the litmus test for my vertical love, otherwise I'm just deceiving myself. So, coming back to what I 56:58 said in Luke 16, you know, it's quite a strong word that Jesus said that one who loves God will hate money. Yeah, like I said, hate money just like he hates his mother, I mean, father, mother, 57:15 wife, children, and all. So, if I keep this always before me, I found it very helpful in some of those questions that people ask. What shall I do here? Sometimes there 57:35 are certain areas in life which are not clear black or white. Particularly in the world in which we live in in a secular world, there are certain things which are what we call gray areas. Which at least in maybe we haven't come 57:54 to the level of maturity where it becomes crystal clear black or white. And there'll always be certain areas uh which are a little gray in our thinking. Should I do it or not? Am I permitted to do this or not? 58:10 Which maybe other Christians feel quite free to do it and I say I'm not so sure. So, what is the test of it? Love for God, love for one's neighbor. 58:32 To me, that's the test. If I do this, is it going to hinder my love, my fervent love for God? Is it violating my love to somebody else on the earth? If not, as I'm concerned, it's okay. That is how I have I found this verse 58:52 very helpful when I've come to these gray areas where you don't know exactly what what is absolutely right. I ask myself, "Does it violate what the law of love for God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind? Does it love 59:06 the violate the law of love for my neighbor as myself? If not, it's clear. I may not do it. That's another thing because I may say it's permitted, but it's not profitable, so I don't do it. That's another another step altogether. 59:20 But if I were to ask that if I were asked that question, I'd say, "Well, that's quite lawful. Whether you choose to do it or not is up to you. But if it does not violate my law love for God and love for one another, it's lawful. 59:37 But as I said, the Christian chooses to live by a higher standard saying among the lawful things I pick out only the ones that are profitable. See, Jesus could never have said in John 17 and verse 4, John 17 verse 4, Jesus said, 59:58 "Father, I have glorified you on Earth." Uh-huh, when the Bible says do all for the glory of God, how do I ensure that I can come to the end of my life and say I've glorified God on Earth? According to John 17:4, 1:00:17 I finished the work that you gave me to do. You know, initially when we hear Jesus crying out it is finished on the cross, we think only of our sins. Praise God he said it's finished. It's true. 1:00:36 But I think there's a world of meaning in it is finished on the cross when he said that in John 19:30. Of course, all my sins were finished there, too. But he had finally finished everything that the Father told him to do from the 1:00:54 time he was born. He died on the cross. It is finished. He had finished also being tempted in every point as men human beings are. He had to be tempted there also when you're crucified to forgive those who crucified him. That 1:01:12 also was a temptation. So, when all that was accomplished, he could say it's finished. The entire range of temptation that is possible for man. I've colored the whole circle. There's not even one segment left out. If you think of temptation as different 1:01:30 little segments of the circle, and Jesus is overcoming, overcoming, overcoming, coloring the whole circle, and finally there's a wee bit left out, and on the cross finished. Every temptation that man can any human being can ever encounter, you or me or 1:01:46 anybody, he had overcome. It's finished. So, there's a lot of meaning in that statement, "It is finished on the cross." But, he says, "I've potentially He said it here ahead of time. I've finished the work you gave me to do." 1:02:01 So, how do I glorify God on Earth? I'm sure all of us want to glorify God on Earth. Well, here's the way. When you were born, God had a particular plan for your life. Like the Lord told tells Jeremiah, "Before you were formed in your mother's 1:02:17 womb, I chose you and Paul says that God who chose me from my mother's womb." See that expression of Paul's in Galatians in chapter 1. Galatians 1:15. 1:02:40 See, when you meditate on these verses, quite a depth of meaning in it. God who set me apart even from my mother's womb. Galatians 1:15. Called me through his grace and was pleased to reveal his son in me. 1:02:58 When did God set him apart? Before he was born. From my mother's womb. That means when Paul was conceived in his mother's womb, 9 months before he was born, God had his is on him. Make sure he's not aborted. 1:03:23 Make sure his mother didn't have a miscarriage. God had his eye on him. I hope you can believe that about yourself, too. I believe that about myself. It brings great security into my life to know that when I was conceived 1:03:38 in my mother's womb, God had his eye on me from there. And uh And uh and it says here, "Set me apart." That means in my mother's womb, Paul had 1:03:56 God had set Paul apart in his mother's womb. And how in the world did this guy go killing Christians for 30 years? If God had set him apart in the mother's womb. He was persecuting Christians and harassing them and he was he would 1:04:13 travel all the way from Jerusalem to Damascus. You know what a long journey that is? Just to persecute the Christians. I mean, people travel that distance to make money. But he was trying to persecute Christians. He was all zealous. 1:04:26 And this guy was set apart from his mother's womb to do God's will. See, that's where I learned that failure is part of God's education for us. I've discovered that in my life and it's been a great comfort. When I once said, "Lord, why did you 1:04:48 allow me to wander 16 years in Babylon before showing me how to build the church?" And the Lord said, "You needed that education. That guided tour through all the streets of Babylon was necessary for the ministry I had planned for you." 1:05:07 So, even that was not a waste. So, God allowed Peter to fail. He allowed Paul to fail. Fail miserably. So miserably that till the end of his life he felt he's the chief of sinners in the whole world. Why? Cuz I persecuted Christians, man. 1:05:25 Is there a greater sin than that? I did that. That I'll never get over the fact that I'm the chief of sinners whom God called to serve him. That was necessary. And we can't bear that revelation all the time that we are the chief of sinners. 1:05:44 We'll get so discouraged we'll never do anything for the Lord. But once in a while if it doesn't hit you that you're the chief of sinners I think we need to have it. Now, I get it once in a while. I'm not all the time. It would discourage me. 1:06:00 But once in a while in the presence of God you suddenly get hit when you're least expecting it. Boy, there can't be a greater sinner than me in the whole world. And yet, who's saying that? The man Paul who said in another context in Acts 23, 1:06:16 "I have lived with a good conscience all my life." He says that in Acts 23:1, "I have lived with a good conscience all my life." This is the man who says I'm the chief of sinners. That is the true paradox of the true Christian life. 1:06:34 I've lived with a good conscience but I'm the chief of sinners. We can't say we've lived with a good conscience all our life, at least we can say I'm living with a good conscience today. But I feel I'm the chief of sinners 1:06:46 because that failure is part of God's education. So, what I'm trying to say is Jesus never failed. And so he could say I finished my I finished all that you wanted me to do. What I want to say for our encouragement is that this guy Paul who failed for 30 1:07:04 years could would say at the end of his life, I finished all that God wanted me to do. That's the wonderful thing for us. Uh when you look at Jesus, you say, well, he lived a perfect life from day one, so I can't really say that, but when Paul 1:07:18 says in one second Timothy 4 and verse seven, I fought a good fight, I finished the course. A man who for 30 years was outside the will of God could say at the end of his life, I finished. Just like Jesus, I finished my 1:07:37 course. I have glorified God. I have many things to learn that and say, Lord, because you know, my life was like that. I wasn't I didn't live with a good conscience from day one of my life. I wondered away even after I became a 1:07:50 believer. I failed in so many ways. And I see that that was all part of God's plan. He who had chosen me from my mother's womb, Paul says that. And I can imagine God watching Paul's life. I've chosen this guy from the time he 1:08:09 was conceived to be my servant, and I see him going around persecuting my children and you know, like he spoke to him from heaven. Why are you persecuting me? Because Jesus' body was on the earth, and Paul was attacking his body. 1:08:28 That man could say at the end of his life, I finished my course. I say that for your encouragement, and you look back over your life. You know, maybe many, many years in your life where you missed the will of God, and you did did it wrong 1:08:43 even after you were converted. A whole section of your life. And yet I hope a time came in your life where you said, God, I'm going to take you seriously from now on. I want my whole life to love God with all my heart. You were not perfect. Paul was not 1:09:02 perfect because uh 25 years after he was filled with the Holy Spirit, he still shouts at the high priest once God has smitten you, you whitewashed wall. That was certainly an idle word. But he repented immediately as soon as 1:09:14 he aware of it. So, I'm not talking about a perfection which even Paul didn't have. But he when he discovered it, he repented, apologized, and moved on. He didn't sit condemning himself. Forgetting the things that are behind, he pressed on. 1:09:28 He could say he finished his course. Then I want to say that to all of you. I believe that all of us can finish our course. No matter what our past failures. I mean, that's what encourages me. But make loving God with all your heart 1:09:46 and loving others as the central law by which you live and never congratulating yourself and either the things you don't do. I don't kiss Baal. I don't bow the knee to Baal. I don't do this. I don't go to the movies. I don't 1:10:01 do this. I don't do that. No, no, no. And not even the external rituals that, you know, the Pharisee who prayed, "Lord, I pray three times a day and I fast twice a week and I pay my tithes." No, those are not the positive things 1:10:18 that we are to glory in. Those are the things the Pharisees gloried in in his prayer. "Lord, I thank you I'm not like other men." If he had said I'm not like other men because I love God with all my heart, that's one thing. But that's not what he 1:10:30 said. He said, "I fast and I pray and I tithe and external things." So, this disconnected message was to enable you to have correct view of what is most important 1:10:48 in the Christian life. It's not as disconnected as you think it is. It all centers around one thing. God wants us to love him with all our heart. And love one another. Thank you.
