0:18 Well, following up on what we just saw in that slide show on Pilgrim's Progress, I thought we could have a brief time thinking about how we can hold fast 0:38 until the end. It's very very important. One of the main messages in Pilgrim's Progress is holding fast until the end. Not allowing Satan to deceive us or frighten us. 0:57 Not allowing friends to lead us astray. Not allowing deceiving preachers to lead us astray. not allowing discouraged believers who are backsliden to lead us astray. How can we hold fast 1:16 till the end? If there is anything in our conscience that we have not settled, that's one thing that will always be a drag on our life. When Jesus 1:39 met Zakius and told him to come down from the tree and he went to his house, you read in Luke chapter 19, Jesus is walking down and Zakius was a 1:57 short man. He climbed a tree to see him. Zakius was a crooked, cheating tax collector. He made a lot of money cheating people. But yet the fact that he wanted to see 2:14 Jesus showed that in his heart he had a longing for God. But he had gone astray into a wrong path. You know sometimes we look at a person who's crooked, cheating, and you think there's no hope for him. And all the people in Israel felt there's no 2:31 hope for this guy. It's like that. You know Jesus sometimes used to go to people for whom others would have no hope. Like this woman caught in adultery. You remember in John chapter 8 the Pharisees said there's no hope for 2:45 her. She'll go to hell. She deserves to go to hell. We have to stone her and send her to hell. Jesus said no. I didn't come to the world to stone people and send them to hell. I came to save people. Even Christians sometimes, you 2:57 know, they can look at somebody and say, "Oh, she's a prostitute. He's a evil person. There's no hope for her." But Jesus came for such people. Or sometimes we look at someone who's divorced. Oh, what a evil person that is. What 3:12 about if someone has divorced five times? There was a woman like that in Samaria. You read in John chapter 4, divorced five times. And on top of that, now she was living with a sixth man, not even married to him. 3:32 And supposing some woman like that came and sat in this church and you knew that this is a woman who was divorced five times and now sleeping with somebody who's not even her husband. You would definitely say there's no hope 3:47 for her. She's a dead loss. Jesus had hope for her. That's the message of the gospel. The worst of sinners. But think of another person who spent all his life cheating, killing people, murdering, making so many widows and orphans by killing the fathers 4:06 and finally the law catches up with him and he's going to be hanged in those days crucified. That's a thief on the cross. And at that last minute, he says, "Lord, please remember me. I'm guilty. I don't blame anybody else. 4:24 I don't blame my parents. I don't blame my friends for the life I lived. I blame myself. You know, the Lord is always merciful to someone who will take the blame himself. Cuz that's what the opposite of Adam in Eden. The problem with Adam was he 4:44 would not take the blame himself. Even when God came to him and said, "Did you eat from that tree?" Adam should have said, "I'm sorry, Lord. I did that." No, he has to find somebody to blame. He points his finger at his 4:55 wife. I like if somebody could paint a picture of Adam pointing his finger at his wife. She is to blame. Why do I say that? That's a picture of many, many homes. Sometimes it's the wife pointing the finger at the husband, husband pointing 5:14 finger at the wife. The world is full of homes like that. You are to blame. It's your fault. And then here was a man on the cross who said, "Nobody's fault. My fault." That's the only thing he said. He said, "Lord, please remember me. 5:32 I'm guilty. I deserve to go to hell. I deserve to be crucified. I don't deserve a few years in jail like some other murderers. I'm so bad that a few years in prison is not good enough for me. I need to be hanged or crucified." 5:48 And it's as if Jesus said to him, "Really? You feel you're so guilty and you are willing to acknowledge the blame completely unlike Adam? You don't blame anybody else but yourself. And you trust in me?" Well, 6:06 my dear brother, come to paradise today. You and I can walk in paradise together. Would you say that to somebody who's lived such a bad life at the last minute? You'd go to him say, "Ah, last minute you're trying to get converted." 6:20 Eh, after living all your life, such a wicked life. Jesus never said that. He never had the opportunity to turn. He probably never knew that Jesus loved sinners, but he realized it at that last moment. There's a mercy with God which I find 6:40 even many believers don't have. Many believers who have a high standard of holiness are not merciful to others. And you may find that in your heart too. I've often said this that when we began to preach holiness in our church, when 6:59 we started meeting in our home for six years, we met in our home in Bangalore and then the Lord gave us a plot of land where we could put a building to attract other people to come and hear the gospel. And so when we put the building 7:12 up, they asked me, "What verse shall we put behind the pullpit?" And I said, "The biggest need of Christians who preach righteousness is mercy." So I said, "Put this verse behind the pulpit so that everyone who comes to 7:29 this pulpit to preach holiness will remember it." And be merciful to others just as God has been merciful to you. And if you ever uh watch the CFC live stream, you'll see behind the pulpit, that's the verse there. And I saw this the other day in 7:49 Matthew chapter 5. Have you noticed it in Matthew chapter 5? Matthew chapter 5 verse 6. 8:06 I hope this is where many of us are hungering and thirsting for a holy life. Matthew 5:6, those who hunger and thirst for a holy life will be satisfied. That means they will get it. And I want to say to you, 8:25 my brothers and sisters, if you haven't got it, the reason is you're not hungering and thirsting for it. You're just asking for it. If I get it, well, I'm good. I don't get it. It's not the most important thing in life. I got 8:37 other things to do. But the person who says, "I don't have other things to do. This is the most important thing for me. I want to live a holy life." They will always get it. So if there's any area in your life where you're not righteous and not holy, 8:53 you can be pretty sure it's because you're not really passionately hungering and thirsting for it. That's the only reason you're defeated. And you'll continue to be defeated with any sin, anger, sexual lust, bitterness, 9:07 murmuring. You will keep on being defeated till you say, "Lord, this is the most important thing for me in my life. I hunger and thirst for it." Then you'll get it. It says here they'll be satisfied. So once you come to that holy 9:19 life, what is the next thing you need to learn? Go to the next verse. Be merciful. That's the very next verse. Because once you get this righteous life, you can become proud. I got it because I hungered and thirsted. Look at 9:35 these other people defeated by sin. And you can be unmerciful to people. That's not going to help them. The holiest man who walked on earth was Jesus Christ. And do you know he was the most merciful person. I just gave you a 9:50 few examples of merciful to that woman caught in adultery. merciful to the thief on the cross. He was always like that. The outcasts of society, the lepers, the lepers were the most outcast. They were not even allowed 10:10 to live in the city cuz there was no cure for leprosy. Go outside the city and live there. We don't care where you get your food. Nobody would go there. Jesus went to them and encouraged them. I believe that many many people who pursue holiness 10:28 don't have compassion. They're so hard on others who who don't pursue holiness or lived a wicked life. I'm not saying we can save all of them. But even if I'm not able to be an evangelist to them, at least in my 10:45 heart, there must be compassion towards those who are lost, those who are blind spiritually, those who resist what we teach, holiness. Next verse is mercy. Turn with 11:03 me to second Timothy in chapter 2. Paul is writing to Timothy and telling him second Timothy and chapter 2, if you want to be a servant of the Lord, and I believe that God wants everyone sitting here to be his servant. 11:22 If you're a son of God, a daughter of God, you have to be a servant of God. God calls you to be his servant. It's not just full-time workers. Every Christian is a full-time worker. Every Christian is to be a full-time witness 11:37 for Christ. Whether you have a secular job or don't have a secular job, you have to be a full-time witness for Christ. And so it says you're such servants. Second Timothy 2:4, some very good lessons for all of us. The Lord's bond 11:53 servant, that's you. Young or old, man or woman, that's you. The Lord's bondervant must never be quarrelome. You must decide in your life one thing. I am a servant of the Lord. I'm a child of God. I will never quarrel with 12:10 anybody. I decided that long ago. He I I say nobody can quarrel with me. I refuse to fight. I refuse to answer back. Sometimes people come to quarrel with me about a doctrine that we preach. Oh, brother 12:30 Zach, you preach holiness. There's no such thing in scripture. And I said, "Brother, let's let's not argue. Let's change the subject because I know he's not interested in listening to the truth. And I don't want to argue with 12:41 him. I will not win a person by argument. I can win him by love." So I say, "I'm not going to argue with because if I argue with you, I know the scripture better than you. All I will prove to you is that I know the Bible better than 12:55 you." And that's not what I want to prove to you. I don't want to prove to you that I know the Bible better than you. I don't want to prove to you that I know the Lord better than you. I don't want to prove to you that I am holier 13:05 than you. I'm not interested in any of these things. I'm interested in getting you connected with Jesus. That's all. And argument will not help. You have to come to a place of need in your life. Then only you'll find. So we must never 13:19 be quarrelome. And we must be kind to how many people? All. Which person in the world is the one you're not to be kind to? And especially to those who are unkind to you, you have to be kind to them. Says be kind to all and able to teach. 13:38 You may not be a teacher, gifted teacher, you may not have the gift of teaching like me, but you can teach a little bit. I tell people in India, even if you're in the kindergarten and that's all you studied, you can teach somebody. You know who? Those poor 13:55 little children in the slums in India who have never gone to school. They don't even know ABC. But the kindergarten kid knows that CAT is cat and BAT is bat. You can teach that to those children. You can teach the alphabet A to Z. So everybody can teach 14:12 others something which because there are always people in the world who know less of the Bible and less of Jesus Christ than you. So don't say, "Well, I'm not a teacher." said, "Well, I'm sure you know something." And there are people in the world around 14:27 you, your friends. I remember I got converted really when I was 19 and a half immediately. I said, "Well, I can't teach the Bible. I I haven't read the Bible fully yet." But I can tell people that Jesus loved me and forgive my sin 14:41 and Jesus loves you and he can forgive your sins. So, I started witnessing whenever I got a chance. I didn't go and thrust myself on people but if I got an opportunity I tell people that what Jesus did for me. So we must be able to 14:54 teach and we must be patient when we are wronged. Very important. Patient when we are wronged. When somebody does wrong to you don't get impatient. Say Lord you are going to make this work for my good. You're going to make me a little more 15:13 like Jesus Christ. I want to become more like Jesus. That's the victory. So, gently correct those who are in opposition, patient when you're wronged, gently correcting those who oppose you, not correcting them in anger, not 15:29 telling them, "Hey, you don't know the truth." gently. Very very important because it says if perhaps verse 25, God may grant them repentance that they come to the knowledge of the truth and thus they can escape from the 15:47 snare of the devil who's held them captive by him making them do the devil's will every day. You're meeting people who are doing the devil's will because the devil caught them captive and you're not going to save them by 16:01 getting angry with them and being harsh on them. It says here, if you want to really want to save them, be gentle. When they oppose you, they oppose you because they're in the hand of the devil. He's gripped them and they're 16:15 held captive by him. Verse 26, to do his will. And here God has allowed that person to come across me so that I can show him suddenly. Read that passage again. Verse 24. The Lord's bondervant must not be quarrelome. Must be kind to everybody. 16:34 Able to teach whatever little you know of Jesus. Patient when they are wronged by people with gentleness. Correcting those who are opposed you. Not just correcting but with gentleness. If perhaps when you do that, God may allow 16:52 them to repent and they get saved and they'll know the truth and thus they will escape. Verse 26, from the trap of the devil who has held them. It's an amazing picture. The devil's held people in that in traps all around us. And you 17:08 meet some of them. What are you going to do? Yell at them? Poor people are caught in a trap. That's why they're living in sin. That's why they believe all those false teachings and God's allowed you eyes to be opened. Supposing you see a lot of blind people 17:27 around you and your eyes are open and you tell them, "Hey, can't you see that? Can't you see that wall is white?" No, they say the wall is black. What's he yelling at them? Their eyes need to be opened. Be thankful that your eyes are opened. 17:44 Don't be proud of it because you were blind like them one day and God in his mercy opened your eyes. So be merciful to them. It's a very important characteristic of a true Christian. After holiness, mercy 18:02 bless blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. They will be filled. Matthew 5:6. What is the next verse? Blessed are those who are merciful to others because they will get more mercy from God. I want mercy from God till the 18:22 last day of my life on earth. And husbands be merciful to your wives even if they keep on making the same mistake day after day. Don't say how many times have I told you. Don't ever use that expression. 18:42 Be merciful to your children. They are ignorant. They're small. They don't know. They don't know the consequences of some of their actions. They are ignorant. God has put them into your hands as parents to teach them the 18:57 right way. If you get impatient with them, you'll never teach them. God gives us children to teach us patience. I used to call my four boys professors. who taught me patience 19:14 which nobody else could teach me. God's given you also some professors in your house. Appreciate them. Respect them as professors who have come to teach you patience sent by God. I believe that. I remember once when I had a very severe 19:34 headache. My children were all small. I said, "Lord, why this headache? I believe everything there's a reason. No, God makes everything work for good. And the Lord said to me, you're you're you're pursuing this life of victory. 19:52 You have already learned how to overcome the irritation of your children when you don't have a headache. Now I'm taking you to the higher class where you have a headache and you overcome being irritated by your children. I said, 20:03 "Wow." So this is a promotion because it is more difficult to overcome irritation when you have a headache than when you don't have a headache. So I said that's great Lord you're so wonderful. I I thought it was a demotion. Actually it 20:18 was a promotion to a higher class. Many things that we think are going down are actually going up. Yeah. God's ways are the opposite of the world. So to hold on to the end, remember one thing 20:38 that when the Lord forgives your sin, we all know cleansed by the blood of Christ. That is in 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 20:56 Now the great problem some of us have. I had it also in my younger days that we don't confess our small sins more than once that's done that's gone. But if you have con committed some major 21:13 sins in your life, some really some sins that are really bad even in the eyes of people, those sins sometimes we confess again and again and again because we think the more we confess it, the more God will forgive us. It's not like that. 21:30 You don't if you really turn from your sin, you have to confess it only once. You can feel sorry for it for the rest of your life, but you have to confess it to God only once. Because the Bible says if we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive us and 21:47 to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And you know when we confess, you know what we are doing? We are bringing something into the light. Something we had hidden in the darkness. Confession is bringing it into the light. Lord, I'm not going 22:02 to hide it anymore. And he says in verse 7, if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with God. And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, every sin that you bring into the light will be cleansed immediately. It's only the 22:17 sin that you hide, that you don't confess to God. That will never be forgiven. But it'll come up at the judgment seat and then it'll be too late. It'll be too late if we wait till the judgment seat for 22:34 our sin to be exposed. We must confess it now. Lord, I'm sorry I did that. I don't I kept blaming somebody else, but Lord, I blame myself. Like the thief on the cross, I'm guilty. You'll be forgiven immediately. Bring it into the light. 22:54 Don't blame your wife like Adam blamed. Don't blame your husband. Don't blame your neighbor. Don't blame somebody else in the church. Don't say this happened because he did like this. The moment you say that, I did this because he did like 23:07 this. It's like little children. He hit me first, so I hit him back. As long as you continue like that, I'll tell you, you'll have to face a lot of sins at the judgment seat of God. It's better to get rid of it now and say, "Lord, I don't want to hide 23:26 anything. I want to bring everything into the light and I'm sorry sometimes we are reminded terribly of the evil things we did. Thank you Lord that you've forgiven me. Not only forgiven I'm talking about how to endure till the 23:41 end. You must believe that you're forgiven. And also Hebrews 8 verse 12 the Lord says I will remember their sins no more. Very important. I will not remember that sin anymore. God says that thing you did, it may come to your memory. We can't help it. Our 23:59 memory is not cleansed. You know that it's our heart that is cleansed. Some people don't understand the difference between memory and heart because you're reminded of a past sin. You say, "Oh, I still remember that." Of course, you'll 24:11 remember it that till the end of your life because your memory is not cleansed yet. It'll be cleansed one day when Jesus comes back. But your heart is cleansed right now. God says, "I don't remember it and I believe in my heart that God doesn't 24:27 hold it against me." For example, the thief who died on the cross, if you meet him in heaven, you ask him, "Hey, did you murder a few people on earth?" He say, "Oh, yeah. I feel sad that I murdered so many 24:47 people." He remembers it, but he has no guilt about it. But he say thank God the blood of Jesus cleansed me even from that. So memory is not something that we have to feel guilty about. If we have really honestly turned from 25:05 our sin and confessed it it's gone. God says I will not remember it. The other thing we must remember first we are cleansed in the blood of Christ. Second, God says, "I will not remember it." One more thing, 25:24 Romans chapter 5. I'm telling you how to hold on till the end like the pilgrim to reach heaven's gates without falling away. Romans 5 and verse 9, we are justified by the blood of Jesus 25:44 Christ. Justified is a great word. It means two things. Uh where have we come so far? My sins are all forgiven. Number one, God does not remember my past. Number 26:02 two, that itself is great. Now we go to step three. And justified means just as if I had never sinned. Isn't that great? just as if I'd never sinned in my life. 26:21 I'm 79 and a half. I've never sinned in 79 and a half years. Do you feel like that about your life that you've never sinned in your whole life? You say, "Well, not so sure." That means you don't believe that the blood of 26:39 Christ has justified you. You believe it has cleansed you, but it's not just as if you had never sinned. Oh yeah, I did. Amazing. The power of the blood of Christ. And the next level is justified means more than that. It means not only 26:53 I've never sinned, which is a negative thing, but a positive thing. The word just is from righteous. Just means righteous. Justified means righteous. So I've been righteous all my life. Not just that I've not sinned for 27:07 79 and 12 years. I've been righteous 79 and a2 years. That's what the blood of Christ does for me. And I want to say I believe the word of God. That doesn't make me take sin lightly. No, not at all. It makes me take sin 27:22 more seriously because I say, "Lord, I think of what you suffered on the cross. Every drop of blood from your body flowed out when you were pierced and the sword pierced your side. The blood flowed out. There was not a single drop 27:36 of blood left in the body of Jesus when they took him down from the cross. Do you know that there was not a single drop of blood, all that blood, there's a verse in Leviticus 17, I think it's verse 11, which says the life of the flesh is in 27:56 the blood. The life of a man is in the blood. You can cut off a man's hand, he can still live. You can blow uh poke his eyes and blind them, he'll still live. You can cut off his legs, he can live. You cut off his shoulders, he can live. 28:10 You can pull out many parts of the body from inside. Anyway, some parts of the body from inside, they can still live. But if you drain out the blood from his body, don't cut any part of his body. Just drain out all the blood from his 28:22 body, he cannot live. Even though he's got all his hands and legs and eyes and everything, when the blood goes, his life goes. The life of the flesh is in the blood. And when Jesus shed his blood completely on the cross, he was pouring out his 28:41 life completely for us. That's why we got to take sin seriously. I often meditate on the cross. I'll tell you that honestly. That's what makes me take every little sin seriously. That's what make made me take anger at 28:59 home seriously or discouragement and murmuring complaining seriously Lord you had to die and shed your blood pour out your life for this I want to hate it I want to hate it I want to hate it so we are thankful for the blood of 29:13 Jesus cleansing us the Lord does not remember our sin anymore and the blood of Jesus justifies us declares us righteous this man is righteous has been righteous just as if I had been righteous all my life. And when we have 29:28 that type of confidence, we endure till the end. The devil cannot condemn us and we are merciful to, you know, we see like we saw in Pilgrim's Progress, people running back all the time trying to stop us. We don't judge 29:42 them. Say, poor man, he hasn't understood what the blood of Christ could do. He he doesn't understand what it means to humble yourself and get grace from God. I am not better than him. I meet a lot of believers, unbelievers, 29:56 and I keep saying, "I'm not better than them." I meet a lot of backsliden Christians. I see I will not despise them. I could have been worse than all of them. One of the greatest saints that lived in the Christian history was a man called 30:09 John Wesley who preached holiness, lived holiness. He died at the age of 88 or something, having preached the gospel for more than 50 years. faithfully god-fearing man and preached holiness, lived holiness. When he was dying, 30:24 you know what was one of the almost the last words from his lips on his deathbed? He told the friends around him, "I am the chief of sinners, but Jesus died for me and therefore I'm entering his presence." This man who lived such a holy life for 30:43 so many years when he came into finally as he was approaching heaven he said there's only one thing that can take me into God's kingdom Jesus died for me that's why he could he would never despised others he never despised people who were sinful he 31:00 kept his standards he didn't join up with other churches or other people who didn't preach those high standards but he never despised them he didn't join joined them and he did not despise them. Some people when they hear we don't despise them, they go 31:14 and join them and then they become compromises of themselves. No, we have to stand true to the things we have heard. We must fellowship with those who preach godliness. But we must not despise people in any other group. 31:27 So if we have this attitude because I believe that many people fall away because they despise others or they think they are better than others and things like that. So, you know, we become strong because we're reading God's word. You remember how Christians 31:41 use the sword to fight the devil. We need to have it all the time to resist the devil and stop listening to those demons who are always whispering things into our ears, accusing somebody to us and see that person is like this and 31:55 that person like this. Next time you hear all those accusations in your mind, remember that picture of those two demons whispering things. Don't listen to them. Say, "I'm not going to listen." Listen to you. The devil is called the 32:07 accuser of believers. The accuser of believers. There's only one accuser of believers. He's got many agents, but there's only one chief accuser of believers. And when you hear accusation, remember that picture of the demons. I 32:21 keep it in mind whenever I also hear accusation. But I say those are the demons. I'm not going to listen to them. No. When I am an elder of a church, I have responsibility. It says, "Even if you hear an accusation against an elder, wait, confirm it with 32:40 at least two witnesses before you take action. Confirm it." That's what I seek to do. I want to find out is that true. Somebody says, "Oh, this is true. Okay, let me find out from another person. Is it true?" Then I take action. Not just 32:53 straight away believe it and say, "Yeah, it's all rubbish. This person is like that." Don't get into these opinions because the one who's forming those opinions is these demons whispering things into your ears and you'll be 33:03 defiled by them. Once the demons get a foothold into your mind with those accusations, they will destroy you and you won't be able to endure till the end. Resist the devil with the sword of the spirit, the word of God, and by 33:17 prayer. And I believe every one of us can endure until the end and have a glorious entry. We don't have to wait till death. Maybe the Lord will come before we die. Let's remain and be faithful and God will help us. One more thing, 33:36 we must seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's something we need all the time, strengthened by the Holy Spirit. He doesn't come out so clearly in pilgrims progress, but you know different people encouraging him. The 33:54 house of the interpreter was the Holy Spirit teaching. So indirectly it's there. the Holy Spirit encouraging, guiding, teaching, sending different people across our path to encourage us. Another brother coming along and 34:04 encouraging us. This is all the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And we must seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day of our life. And the way to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day of our life is simple. Always keep a good 34:17 conscience. Think of a vessel full of oil. Like the five wise virgins said, full of oil. They had a flask full of oil. But if there was a hole in that flask, by the time the bridegroom came, there would be the flask of oil would be 34:34 empty. They would think, "Oh, I have a flask of oil in my pocket." No, it became empty because you allowed a whole a little hole is a unconfessed sin. So that's the way we ensure that we are filled with the Holy Spirit all the 34:48 time. Keep your conscience clear. Number one, only two things. And the second is whenever you get a opportunity to humble yourself, humble yourself. Don't take a position above others, take the low position below them. Esteem 35:05 others, Philippians 2:4, as more important than yourself. Not more spiritual than yourself. That's impossible. But esteem others as more important than yourself. Then you will always be filled with the Holy Spirit. Take the low place. sit at the feet of 35:22 the disciples and wash their dirty feet. That's our job. Like Jesus on the last day of his life, he was washing the dirty feet of his disciples. Humility and keeping a good conscience. That's all you need to do. Keep a good 35:35 conscience and always humble yourself and take the low place and you'll be filled with the Holy Spirit every day of your life till Jesus comes. And if you have the assurance that you're cleansed from all sin and you're filled with the 35:48 Holy Spirit, I tell you, we will all endure until the end. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please make these truths real to us that we can live in the light of it all our days. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
