0:00 Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] 0:14 [Music] 0:46 As you know, I2 is a program. We interviewing anointed men of God from all over the world. And today I would like to speak big about the special guest. But he's so humble in heart. A man who is being productive for the kingdom of God around the world liked by 1:02 people the messages that inspiring people. He's been planting churches across but he doesn't want a title in his name. He would be like to be called as brother. But we are so privileged to be interviewing the brother Zack Punan 1:19 today. Be blessed people. Brother to start off the first question is about you and uh tell us all about brother Zach Pune as the world knows you as Zak Punan. What led you to be brother Zak Punan that is so productive for the 1:33 kingdom of God? Well, I was born in a orthodox family and uh I joined the Indian Navy in the National Defense Academy in 1955 and I 1:50 was not really born again then. But the year I got my commission as a naval officer in that very same month, I was also converted to Christ. And that was July 59. It's 56 years ago. Mhm. 2:09 And uh I thought I would continue to be a witness for Christ in the Navy. Okay. But I was willing to leave my job if God called me. But how successful was that being uh a witness in the Navy? Well, I was a very active witness in the 2:27 Navy and I found that my initial ambition to end up as the admiral of the Navy would not be possible if I was a committed Christian because I would take a stand for Christ and that's not easily acceptable to higher authorities. Yes. 2:45 But I was willing to give up that ambition. Mhm. in order to follow Jesus Christ because my conversion was radical. Mhm. My aim at when I joined the Navy was to go to the top. But when Christ came into my life, I turned 2:57 around completely and I wanted to follow him. Okay. Absolutely. So 5 years after that, God called me to leave and I responded immediately put in my resignation. Mhm. And the Navy took about 2 years to accept it. So finally 3:12 in May 1966, nearly 50 years ago I was released and ever since then I've been serving the Lord. Amen. Wonderful. And uh you've been planting churches across uh CFC. Uh you're the founder of CFC. Can you tell a bit about CFC to the 3:29 audience there? Okay. Initially when I left my job, I spent about nine years traveling all over India preaching at different conferences and u being an evangelist in a sense and a Bible teacher and a conference speaker. But I was very disappointed 3:49 with what I saw of Christianity in India. I felt the problem was not that we were just 2 and a half% of the population but that the quality of that 2 and a half% was so pathetic that we were a very poor witness for Christ. And 4:06 then I realized as I studied the Bible that um it's because we were not emphasizing disciplehip but only evangelism that we were having all these shallow Christians who wanted to go to heaven when they die but did not want to follow Jesus here on 4:24 earth before they die. So I said Lord I don't want to spend my life gathering people who want to go to heaven. Everybody in India wants to go to heaven. I want to gather people who want to be witnesses for you and follow you 4:37 on earth before they go to heaven. So I gr I left going to all these conferences. I resigned from everything and decided initially with just one other family, two of us and we started meeting 4:55 in our home just as a prayer meeting. We had no intention to start a church. I didn't believe I was qualified to do that. And gradually two or three others came and slowly the numbers increased. This was exactly 40 years ago, 5:12 1975. And God was pleased to bless us gathered together and God open he filled us with the Holy Spirit and showed us that he was he came here to build the church and that local churches that expressed Christ as a body functioning 5:32 together as a family was what was needed and we began to do that initially in Bangalore and that was the birth of Christian Fellowship Center. subsequently in many many villages and cities in India and other countries. So 5:47 in total how many churches does CFC or the Christian Fellowship Church have? See I have deliberately refused to keep an accurate track of the number. Mhm. Because I have been very careful not to boast about numbers static anyway. Uh sorry it's not 6:06 going to be static anyway. It's constantly growing. Yes. Because new churches are being planted every year. and churches that we planted are going out and planting other churches. Okay. Wonderful. So it's between 60 and 70 6:19 churches I think approximately around the world. Yes. Okay. And most of them in India of course in the villages in the towns in five Indian languages and we have regular conferences where we encourage them to be disciples. Our 6:34 emphasis is disciplehip. Okay. And uh we have certain other emphasis too. uh disciplehip is what you have emphasized couple of times. Now uh for a church that produces believers and your church that are disciples, can 6:54 you state a distinct difference between these? I would say basically we emphasize the new covenant that Jesus Christ inaugurated which is different from the old covenant. All right. And one verse that highlights the 7:10 difference is Romans 6:14 which says sin will not rule over you because you're not under law which is the old covenant but under grace. So in that one sentence anyone over whom sin rules is 7:30 under the old covenant even if he calls himself a Christian. Mhm. And the vast majority of Christians are ruled by sin. Yes. So we discovered from scripture that is because they've not fully experienced grace. Okay. They've 7:45 experienced the initial droplets of grace which is forgiveness of sins. I see. But not the outpouring of the grace of God like a waterfall on top of them which would have delivered them from to drench them sin's power. Yeah. So that 7:59 is the essential difference. Is that the only difference or is it that disciples are particularly people who are called to be witnesses for Christ? Every Christian should be a witness for Christ. Yes. But it's only if you're a 8:13 disciple is one who's a learner and a follower. Jesus said, "Learn from me." Mhm. I'm humble and gentle in heart. The primary thing we got to learn from Jesus is humility. Okay. And gentleness. Okay. and then to follow in his footsteps in 8:29 the way he lived in purity in concern for others and then he said he came to build a church but the church must consist of people who are disciples who accept the headship of Christ and are willing to work with one another. Okay. 8:44 And one big area of disciplehip is freedom from attachment to money and earthly possessions. All right. the CFC or the churches and the and the leaders and elders that you have uh are not really accepting a salary or they don't they work uh purely 9:02 voluntarily. Is there a particular reason that you have put this this way? Yeah, this has been a very important part of our testimony as churches because of one verse in Luke 16:E3 Jesus said you cannot serve God and money. You 9:22 have to choose which is going to be your master. And I feel that most Christian leaders have not made that decision to decide I'm only going to serve God. Because he further went on to say if you hold on to one you will despise the 9:36 other. That means if you hold on to God you'll despise money. Mhm. You'll use it but you'll despise it. It's got no value for you. And you will hate the one and love the other. So if you apply that verse, the meaning is if you love God, you'll hate 9:54 money. If you love money, you hate God. You read Luke 16:13, it's pretty clear. Mhm. But hate in the sense that Jesus told us to hate our father and mother also which means relatively compared to Jesus. Compared to Jesus, yes. You your 10:12 love for your father and mother's priorities priority priorities. Same way you in comparison to your love for God, you just don't care for money. Yeah. And I believe this is one of the biggest mistakes that we've done seen in 10:23 Christendom in India. So right from the beginning, starting with me, we decided that we would support ourselves. The two of us who started the work in Bangalore, we felt that we should be different from all other Christian 10:39 ministries in India in this sense that we would be very very careful in the area of money. that we would never take one cent, one pesa from the local church for our services. We would support ourselves and our families from 10:55 day one. We will not pay any preachers. At that time, we had not planted other churches. But as the Lord planted other churches, now we got over 120 or 30 elders. Okay? Every single one of them is self-supporting. Okay? the ones in 11:13 India and in other countries. We don't have anyone whom we call a pastor. Everybody's an elder. We do not take an offering in any of our churches. We never pass a bag around. We read that Jesus sat next to a treasury box where a widow put her 11:30 offering. So, we keep a box and uh we encourage people those who want to give to give. There's no mandatory comp compulsion on that. Not at all. Jesus on the tithes and offerings. No, we believe tithe is an old testament old covenant 11:46 law. The new covenant is not how much you give but how you give. Okay. Cheerfully. The cheerful giver is exactly. So and secret. Jesus said if you give you must give secretly. People must not know. And we felt the only way 12:02 you can get people to give secretly and cheerfully is keep a box somewhere on the side where people in the church building where whenever people want they could put okay and in all these 40 years I've never discovered who puts the money 12:16 and the other God never gave you a a scenario of a lack either for land never gave you a scenario where you lack something we have never lacked we've had built a lot of buildings we have conferences every year 10 or 12 conference conferences every year. 12:32 Absolutely. Where food is offered freely, accommodation is offered freely. Wonderful. And we just have a we never take a collection. Even though we have 1,000 2,000 people at our conferences, we don't take a collection. The other 12:45 thing we never send a report of our work in 40 years to any country or even within India nobody knows what we do except our fellow elders. All right. The reason is because a lot of reporting of work in India is called prayer letters. 13:04 They are actually begging letters for money and we wanted to be a testimony for Christ. One more reason I never see Jesus sending a report of his work to anybody. I never see Jesus taking a collection after he healed the sick or 13:19 preached a sermon. I never see Paul sending a report of his work anywhere. M I see him sharing with the elders in Jerusalem what happened but no report and I never see Paul taking a collection for himself. Yeah. I see Paul urging the 13:34 Corinthians to send money to the poor saints. Yes. But not one cent for himself. But Paul was a self-sufficient apostle or was den maker himself. uh he one of the verses uh says that you know uh is it uh wrong if I if I do demand uh 13:53 for the work uh for the teaching that I've been doing thou thou I don't expect from you or something of that sort I mean no he says in one Corinthians 9 is it um something wrong if we receive material blessings from you when we have 14:09 blessed you spiritually yes that's that's the verse yeah I mean can't of someone who's looking after goats, take the milk of the goats or yes, something else. Exactly. That's the verse you're talking about. And the Jesus said, "The 14:20 laborer is worthy of his hire." All that is correct. But he goes on to say, "But I will not take advantage of that provision." Mhm. Because I want to make the gospel free. Mhm. To all of you. All right. He tells the Ephesians in Acts 14:37 20, I've been with you three years. I never took one cent from you. He tells the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 3, I even paid for the food I ate you in your midst. I never took any so that I could be an example to other people. 14:51 Mhm. That we should work and support ourselves and one who does not work should not eat. Oh, and he tells the Corinthians that I will not be a burden to you. I never took any money from you. Okay? But he didn't live that by that as 15:06 a law. The Philippians sent him money. We read in Philippians 4. Yes. And he says that in 2 Corinthians 8 also. But he says they were the only ones who supported him. And there was must have 15:24 been some reason why he felt free to receive from one church. So it was not a law that I will not receive any gifts. Okay. But one thing is clear. He never made his need known to anyone. Yes. And he never sent a report of his work. Yes. 15:40 If somebody gave a voluntary gift, he accepted it. Okay. So he was free from some law which says I will never take because Jesus received gifts. Yes. So that's perfectly okay. Okay. The tragedy in India is people have made use of that 15:54 freedom to just exploit poor people. M I personally believe that even if somebody gives me a gift and I do like if the Philippians gave to Paul I receive I say it's right to receive but I always check 16:10 up is that guy living at a lower standard than me or a higher standard than me. Oh and if I sense that he's living at a lower standard than me I will accept his gift and put it in the offering box. I will not touch it for 16:26 myself. I followed that principle all for 50 years. That's a distinct principle. It has saved me from calamity that has happened to so many others. If I sense that that man is earning much more than me and uh living at a higher 16:41 standard, I feel free to accept it. Yeah. Because God has given him other so we might I don't believe that Jesus would take money from a poor widow. Yeah. To go and live in some expensive inn those days. Why why doesn't 16:55 Christians have a good testimony or why does Christians have a bad testimony even having been there for the last 2,000 years? I think money is a very big factor. The general impression of the educated Hindu 17:14 is that these people become Christian workers only because they want money. Okay, you look at Christian TV programs in India, 90% of them are these American preachers and I watch them they will ask for money. I even saw one of them. I 17:31 will not mention the name. Who showed a picture of the private jet plane that he wants to buy for so-called gospel work. Okay. And he's asking Indians if you give $1,000 or which is today more than 50,000 rupees or 60,000 I will put your 17:50 name on that plane. Now I watch this and I say I imagine if I'm an educated Hindu educated Hindu who respects Jesus Christ. Yes. Watching this he'll be convinced that Christianity is a money-making racket. Right. And he'll 18:08 have no respect for Christ. And I see these people are turning people away from Christ. That's what make me as angry as Jesus was when he saw the money changers making money in the temple. Okay. So one of the main factors you 18:20 feel is the money. Yes, that is one of the main factors. And secondly, equally important is that the leaders are not teaching Christians to live an overcoming life of overcoming sin. Okay. Upright and righteous in their work. 18:37 Mhm. over with a good testimony in their family life that they are not yelling and fighting and quarreling. Mhm. And you know now it has become almost well known everywhere that Christians are divorcing in different parts of the 18:49 world and pastors are divorced and absolutely shameful. The teaching don't don't start from home. That's how you feel. That's right. The emphasis on family is not there. Improper use of money. Mhm. And um no emphasis on living a godly life. Is it 19:05 also because of an extreme teaching of grace? I think so. There is not just a misunderstanding of grace but not appropriating all that God has provided in grace. See, we read of forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his 19:21 grace. That's where it begins. But in Hebrews 4:16, it says, "Let us go to the throne of grace to receive grace to help in our time of need." And is referring to overcoming sin. M Jesus was tempted and did not sin. Let us also go to the 19:36 throne of grace. To get grace to help us in our time of need which is temptation. So there's not much teaching on overcoming sin generally in Christendom in India. And so people say well I'm forgiven Jesus if I sin Jesus forgives me. And 19:54 you keep on this endless cycle of sinning, confessing, being forgiven, repeating the same sin. 20 years later, Christians are defeated by the same sin. It's like a that they were defeated 20 years ago. It's like a child sitting in 20:08 the kindergarten studying addition and subtraction for 20 years. Mhm. That is the reason there's no people are babes. Like Paul says, the time has come when you should be teachers. Exactly. And you're babes. And that is the tragedy. 20:20 Uh that's why I want to strike this next question that many people air it across to us in RBN as well as it it may sound basic to many people but still um can a person who's been saved lose his salvation? What is your Yeah, you know 20:34 people have asked me that question and I say because this is a very controversial subject. There are the Calvinists who preach once saved always saved and the Armenian Yeah. and the Armenians who say well you can lose your salvation. So I 20:50 don't want to get into that controversy. I'd rather read scripture, okay? And see what scripture says. So here's a verse in Hebrews 3:14. [Music] We have become partakers of Christ. If 21:07 capital if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. Okay. Words could not be plainer than that. Yes. Another verse which people start misquote by reading from the beginning, 21:24 reading in the middle. John chapter 10. Everybody knows this verse. I give eternal life to them. They shall never perish. No one shall snatch them out of my hand. Okay? My father is greater than me. No one snatches them out of their 21:38 father's hand. People don't read understand that that verse begins with and. Okay? The full sentence is my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 21:54 Okay, they've left out the conditions altogether and just claim the promise. This is a classic example of the wrong teaching which says that you have to work out your salvation, right? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 22:05 Or here's another one where revelation written to a church to the church in Sardis and to the elder. He who overcomes Revelation 3:5 will be clothed in white garments and I will not erase his name from the book of life. 22:25 Was Jesus giving empty threats or did he mean it? I believe he meant it. That's all I have to say. Thank you. You have supported it well from the Bible. That says it all. Brother Sack, uh, there's this question which may sound a bit uh 22:39 complicated, but uh God loves the sinner and not saints. But at the time of judgment, God is going to send the sinner to hell, not the sins. Isn't it? What is your viewpoint? This is a common expression among evangelicals that God loves the 22:59 sinner, but he hates the sin. The Bible says God so loved the world. It's very difficult to find a verse in the Bible which says God loves sinners. Yeah. That is an evangelical use. A man who is living in sin. It's like a man who has chosen it of his 23:16 own free will. It's like a person who loves a disease and does not want to be healed from it. There's something seriously wrong with a person who loves his disease. I've never found a human being like that. So it's quite it's one thing to fall 23:33 into sin. And it's one another thing to choose sin. And the only people who finally go to hell are the people who have chosen sin over God. Yeah. How could God love such a person? So it's a wrong to say God loves a sinner but he 23:47 hates the sin. The sinner has chosen the sin. Yeah. And that's he's rejected God. So in a sense it's not God sending him to hell. He sent himself to hell. He chose to go to hell. Yeah. And so but the God loves the sinner. He loves the 24:04 whole world. He loves the whole world. And he proved that by sending Christ to die for the whole world. That I agree. Yeah. He loves the sinner because he wants the sinner to be sinless. That's to be saved. Yes. For example, the list 24:17 is the words of Jesus. I did not come to call the righteous, but I came to call sinners to repentance. Not just I came to call sinners. He came to call sinners to repentance. Okay. So if you tell people that Jesus came to call sinners, 24:33 that's not the truth. He came to call sinners to turn from their sin. All right? So if a person doesn't turn from the sin, he's headed for hell. He's going there himself. You see, it's like a car being warned. There's a ditch 24:46 ahead. And you ignore the warning and rush ahead. You can't say the police sent him into the ditch. Yes. He went into the ditch himself. Yeah. He chooses despite all the warnings. Despite all the warnings. Yes. Absolutely. Now uh 24:58 the uh in this this times you know what uh for a believer when most of them have this question that's coming up what is the role of the holy spirit in the life of a believer okay in a very simple to start elementary I say when an evil spirit 25:16 possesses a person he makes him evil when an unclean spirit another expression used in scripture possess a person he makes him unclean logically if the holy spirit possesses a fills a person. What should he be? Holy. Yes. 25:32 But it's not emphasized like that. The evil spirit makes a person evil. The Holy Spirit fill a person. Some people will say he makes him speak in tongues. What about holiness? That's primary. Yes. So I say the primary purpose of the 25:48 Holy Spirit is to make us holy. To make us like Christ, to wear the personality of Christ. That's right. To change us slowly. to show us that God is our father first of all and to increasingly make us like Christ by giving us he's called the spirit of 26:06 grace giving us grace to help us overcome temptation okay and to help us face trials in life to stand true to Christ okay Jesus said the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you'll be my witnesses which is different from 26:24 bearing witness bearing witness is with your lips. Okay. Words. Being a witness is with my whole life. And that is another thing which is misunderstood by Christians. Mhm. If the Holy Spirit fills me, I will be not just bear a 26:41 witness, okay, by my life. And that is the primary purpose of the Holy Spirit. Gifts are meant to equip me to give this message to other people. Yes, I couldn't possibly communicate this message if the Holy Spirit had not gifted me to plant 26:59 churches or gifted me to teach the Bible, gifted me to explain the meaning of scripture. And also he's given me personally the gift of speaking in tongues to communicate with God. But that's not the primary thing. Yes, those 27:14 are gifts that God gives us for fulfilling a function. Yes. But underneath it all is the character, the fruit of the spirit that God performs into his likeness. That's right. Amen. I could use an example. A gift is like a spoon in which I'm 27:33 giving a medicine to a patient. Okay. The medicine is the life. Yes. But I need a spoon. Yes. I need the gift. You need an equipment. I need the gift of the spirit. Yes. But if I give an empty spoon, guy is not going to be healed. 27:48 Yes. Because the medicine is all about it. That's right. So this the life communicated through the gift of the spirit. Amen. Amen. Wonderful. So that's the balance that we seek to emphasize. Okay, brother Zach, without uh having to get this more 28:05 controversial, you know, in India, it's a fact that today we have a Hindu government, a strong Hindu government and even the curriculum is being changed. As we know there are few mediums which we introduced like media yoga and things like 11th and 12th I 28:18 understand and the curriculum could still further change. What do you see as a viewpoint? How could the scenario change for a Christian? Do they can we expect more persecution to come through or how is the Christian scenario going 28:32 to be in India? Well Jesus said in John 16:33 in the world you will have tribulation. So in one way or the other Christians will face some type of difficulty in America. It may be with um 28:50 a government official having to sign for a same-sex marriage. But is he going to what is he going to do as a Christian? That's his problem there. Yeah. It'll be in every country. In our country it may be to chant some Hindu mantras mantras 29:07 when you do yoga or in some way even the early Christians all they had to do was to say Caesar is Lord but they wouldn't say that they say Jesus Christ is Lord they'd be thrown to the lions so the persecution takes different forms but ultimately the 29:23 question is will you stand up for Christ and say Jesus Christ is my Lord amen and if I have to die for it, I'll die for it. And but we don't want to be uh you know extreme in the sense that you know I don't there's nothing wrong in being 29:41 an Indian. I'm an Indian and I can be a Christian. So even when it comes to things like yoga I'm not bothered by the physical exercise part of it. It's when you come into repeating mantras or facing the sun and bowing down and those 29:55 are the things where we have symbolic of worshiping a different god. That is the place where we have to warn our children. Okay. Sorry, we are not going to uh participate in that. Right. Understood. Brother Sak, uh during these 30:10 end times, what according to you is uh how can a Christian be productive for the Lord or what is what is God expecting from a Christian? See there everything that goes on is happening in the world today indicates that Christ's coming is pretty 30:27 close. And Jesus said in these days make sure your lamps are burning. In the parable he said that means have plenty of oil in stock which means in practical terms be filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen. All the time. Don't depend 30:46 on a onceforall experience in the past. People say once saved always saved. I disagree with it. I also degree with disagree with once filled always filled. You must be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. That is the meaning of your 31:00 lamps must always be burning. And when the bridegroom comes, you must have an extra vessel of oil filled with the Holy Spirit so it's your burning. Be faithful. Uh and uh Jesus said, "Lift up your heads for your redemption draw it nigh." So 31:16 there was another place where he said when the call comes, you should not to go down to your house. If you're in the field, you should not go back to your house. meaning that there's nothing unsettled today is not the feeling you you went to 31:30 office Christ has come you should not have say hey hang on I got to apologize to my wife for yelling at her this morning no everything must be settled when you go to work and you must keep a clear conscience 24 hours a day keep a 31:47 clear conscience as soon as you've done something wrong apologize set it right I don't have to even go down to the house to take something that means I don't have any attachment to things down and down and if I'm at work I don't have to 31:59 settle anything I'm ready to go from where I am okay that's the way it is because the counter stops there and from there it goes on to the next stage that God wants it to be right wonderful and thank you very much there's particular 32:13 reason that you are a distinct Bible teacher because you have a way of explaining things your way of explaining things with the fact from the Bible and that explains it all it was a great pleasure having you here with us on the 32:24 I2I at the rapture broadcasting network. We are I'm sure all of you have been blessed by um a man of God uh brother Zack Punan with us here all this time. We thank you very much. We are honored to have you here. Thank you Santos. It's 32:36 been a pleasure to share with you. Thank you very much and with all of you. Yeah. And we don't close our session any time without the man of God praying for us. So we would now request brother Zack Punan to pray for the audience of I2Y at 32:50 the rapture broadcasting network. Okay. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love and care for every single person who's listening to this program. Irrespective of their religious convictions or what 33:05 we know that Christ died for the sins of the whole world and rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and he's coming back in glory. We want to be ready for that. We pray that these words that everyone has heard today will be received with an 33:19 open mind. Amen. and an open heart. Yes. That'll break down prejudices and preconceived ideas and notions. And pray that there will be people who have ears to hear so that their lives can be changed, that can come to a higher level 33:36 of life than they ever experienced so far. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
