0:19 Let's bow before God in prayer. Let's ask God to steal our hearts. and to free our minds from the things 0:43 that concern us to be still and to know that he is God. Heavenly Father, thank you. You're our father. 1:03 You're our God. Thank you for everything that you allow in our lives. Thank you for bringing us here for these days to hear your word. Help us to see our need, Lord, and 1:26 see your glory and how you can meet all our need. Thank you. We pray that everyone here will receive something from you this day. We pray that your presence will be there in our midst. We shall see Jesus 1:45 risen, having all authority in heaven and earth. You commanded us to make disciples with your authority backing us. So we fear nothing. and to go and teach people to do every single 2:02 thing that you have taught us. Help us to do that to complete our earthly task. We humbly ask in Jesus name. Amen. So we've been looking 2:19 at proclaiming the full purpose of God and that full purpose is not just in our personal life. See in the Old Testament there was no concept 2:37 of fellowship. Fellowship is not found in the Old Testament. You know there are words used in the new covenant which if you make a study of words which are found only in the new testament for example worship in the 2:53 spirit it's not at all found in the old testament Jesus said to the woman of Samaria the time is now coming when people will worship in the spirit and in spite of that I would say most Christians know I don't have a clue 3:10 of what worship in the spirit is. They only know how to worship according to the psalms. The psalms are an old testament book. Worship in the spirit is a completely different thing. Uh fellowship is another word 3:27 never found in the old testament. If you make a study of these words which are only found in the New Testament, grace, fellowship, the emphasis on faith, worship, the church, the body of 3:46 Christ, if we seek to study these words, freedom from the love of money, never found in the Old Testament, if you study these words, you can become a new covenant Christian. But if we are too lazy to compare scripture with 4:04 scripture, then we remain at that low level bound by many things perhaps in sin or by legalism. So I would encourage you to really study 4:22 that there are certain things which if you take some effort to study it can change our whole life. For example, once I took, you know, when Jesus said, "Go and teach people everything that I taught." So I said, "Okay, I want to 4:37 study all that Jesus taught." So I started with the Gospel of Matthew, Mark. I went through the four gospels and I wrote down everything that Jesus taught. And if you repeated it, I put that reference. And I've got a whole list of 4:55 it. I won't give it to anybody because it'll make them lazy. Study it for yourself. Go to the scriptures yourself and find it. Because if you particularly if you are a minister of God's 5:12 word, how in the world can you teach other people everything that Jesus taught if you yourself don't know everything that he taught? Do you have a clear concept in your mind? If you're an elder brother or preacher of God's word of everything 5:30 that Jesus taught, I want to have it because if God has commissioned me to preach the word or not even if if if I ever stand in a pulpit to preach the word and I don't know all that Jesus taught, I'm not 5:48 going to be able to fulfill the ministry God wants me to fulfill and then I will not build the church. It's like a person who thinks he knows more than the architect and decides to build the building as he likes. Most Christian 6:03 workers are like that. I have found very very few preachers who really know the scriptures and that's why what they build is not according to scripture. So many things and they want to build the 6:21 church. Who is the architect of the church? Can you build according to your own ideas? What about you know when we say when people ask how how do so many religions come up? Religions come up because people try to think what God is 6:37 like. I use the example of supposing you get 50 children in a classroom in some country where they've never seen an elephant or never seen a picture of an elephant and you tell those 50 children now there's an animal called an elephant 6:52 in India I want you to draw that and they say um sir we've never seen an elephant yeah but try and think what an elephant is like and draw it do you think even one of them will draw the elephant correctly no they never seen a picture of one you 7:07 never seen one. This is how so many religions come up. People who never nobody's come from heaven except Christ and they think of what what can God be like? Let's imagine. And that's the reason for all these religions. It's 7:23 exactly like 50 children who no idea what an elephant is like trying to draw an elephant. The same principle applies to Christian workers who try to build a church. Why are there so many different ideas of how what a church should be? I said, why 7:38 don't you go to the New Testament? The church is a new testament concept. It's it's new covenant is established by the blood of Jesus Christ. Why don't you go into the New Testament and see how it should be done here? They're too lazy to do that. They 7:53 read books. They go to Bible schools. Mo almost every Bible seminary I've heard of in my life does not teach the Bible. They teach what other people have said about the Bible. It's crazy. People go there to get degrees. 8:10 How can such people build a church? Now, you may not, you may say, "We're not against we against Bible schools. We're not pastors." But have you understood what it means to build the church? The full purpose of God includes building the 8:22 church. And you say, "Well, that's the job of the apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds." Let's read scripture carefully. Let me read you a verse which you may not have seen carefully. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 8:38 11. Ephesians 4:11 says, now I want you to read, you know, I've been trying to tell people, read the Bible slowly, carefully, and see if you catch something here which you may have missed till now. I want to read it and I want to ask you 8:58 a question at the end of it. Ephesians 4:11 and 12. And he that is Christ rose up from the dead and he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the 9:17 saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. My question, who are the people whom God has given to build the body of Christ? 9:33 Who? Tell me. The saints, right? You're all clever people. Now practice it. Not the apostles. Not the prophets. Did you read that? The apostles and prophets and evangelists 9:51 and pastors and teachers have been given to equip the saints and the saints go and build the body of Christ. I want to ask you in your church, are the saints building the body of Christ or you're trying to build the body of Christ by yourself? The full 10:06 purpose of God is the saints build the body of Christ. And like I spoke about Protestant popes who sit like big maharajas in their church calling themselves elders. They're not elders. They're popes. They won't let the saints 10:21 build the body. They want to do everything themselves. They are a stumbling block to the work of God. It's the saints who are to build the body of Christ. I want to say to all of you, does saints include sisters? Do you think so? 10:40 Sisters, good. Then do it. Build the body. God's given you that. It's written in scripture. Building the body does not mean standing up in the pulpit and preaching. You can encourage one person. Share something of God, what God 11:00 spoken to you with one person that can build the body. A little contribution to build the body. Who is the one about whom it says in scripture that that person sat at Jesus' feet and listened to his word? Was it a man or a woman? 11:17 A woman. What was her name? Mary. Do you think she shared what she heard with others? I hope so. Do you sit at Jesus' feet like Mary and listen? And if you heard 11:34 something, do you share it with others? God doesn't give us things just for ourselves. Paul said, "God gave me something and made me a debtor to everybody in the world. If God gives me something, he expects me to distribute 11:49 it, to give it to others, not to keep it to myself." That's how we build the body. You know, a lot of people accuse us in CFC saying we don't do evangelism. I think some people in our own midst also accuse us. Leave alone outsiders. 12:07 What is evangelism? Preaching the gospel. I'll tell you two things about that. We were about 10 people, less than 10 when we started. We are about 5,000 believers today in many churches. Did we do 12:26 evangelism or did we sit as 10 people for 37 years? How is it that we have two churches today in villages where there were no churches for 2,000 years? Yes. No churches for 2,000 years. In two 12:45 villages where we have a church. Do we believe in evangelism or not? And in one of those villages, we have a conferences with 2,000 people attending. The thing is, we don't waste our time arguing with people who say we don't do 13:01 evangelism because we're not here to convince them. We're not even here to convince the elders in our church who think we don't do evangelism. It's none of our business. If they want to think that, they're welcome to think that cuz 13:12 they don't know what's happening. They sit in their little well. It's like the frog in the well thinks uh there's no water outside this well when there are oceans and seas. And a lot of believers are like that. They sit in their little 13:24 well and they don't know what's happening elsewhere. So that's the first thing. And but the thing is we don't do evangelism like these big evangelists who come for 3 days from America and stay in some five-star hotel and go out on a 13:40 helicopter to the platform and preach for three days and go back to America. That's not evangelism. In the New Testament, the only type of evangelism was where people brought people to Christ and brought them to the church. I mean, you think of some of the 13:58 great evangelists today. I don't want to mention their names. You know their names. Some of the world famous evangelists. Go and ask them personally. Uh you preach to so many people. I read that you preached to millions of people 14:10 and so many people were converted. Where are they? Where are these people whom you were converted? You said so you went to India. You went to China, you went to Korea, people were kind of where are they? You say, "I don't 14:22 know." I suppose they're in some church. But if you go to Paul and say, "Paul, I heard that you brought people to Christ in Ephesus. Where are they?" He says, "Come, I'll show you." He'll take you to the church in Ephesus and 14:37 see all these fellows are the people who are converted here. And you say, "Paul, I heard that you went to Philippi and some people were converted. Where are they? Come, I'll show you here in the church in Philippi. All these people, 14:48 the converted people are here. That's the difference between first century evangelism and today's evangelism. Today's evangelism, people just get decision cards and get photographs and videos and all that to make money and 14:59 they go away. But Paul was not interested in videos or photographs or money. He was interested in building the body, the church. So when people were converted, he gathered them together into a church. That's what we've done in 15:14 every place. If we brought people to Christ in one place, you ask me where are they? I say come, I'll show you. Exactly like Paul, I can tell you. Come, I'll show you. Every one of them. They were brought together to be 15:27 built a body to mean because just like if evangelism is bringing people to the new birth, we can take a picture from physical birth. When a baby is born, supposing your mother has two or three babies born in the last three or four years, and you ask her 15:44 where are they? I don't know. I gave birth in the hospital and I came home. I can tell you the number of babies I gave birth to, but where are they? Don't ask me all that. I'm an evangelist, you know. I just give birth and I go 16:00 off. Have you ever heard of a mother like that? Paul was not like that. Peter was not like that. But we have multitudes of so-called evangelists today like that. We need we don't need such people. We don't need ayas. I look after babies, 16:22 nurses. And you ask them where's that baby? Oh, I don't know. I don't work for them anymore. I'm here. That's not a mother. A mother knows where every one of her children are. Everyone they know. She knows exactly where they are. At any 16:40 time in their life, you ask them, "Where's this child of yours?" Even if they have many children, they know exactly where each child is. We need such people. That's that church is a family. And so we don't do evangelism 16:53 with this big crusades and advertisements and videos and photographs and like that. No. All of our growth, let me tell you this, in these 37 years has been mostly by p personal evangelism. Somebody brings a friend of his to 17:12 church to the meeting or somebody who works with him in the office or somebody he met in the bank or somebody who's a relative and that is how or then they have a contact somewhere else and we go there and that person gathers a few 17:28 people in his house. It's by personal evangelism. It's the most effective way of evangelism. Not these big big crusades. I have no interest in that. If we go and have public meetings in a place, it's I'll tell you, I've had many public 17:42 meetings in places, but it's always to find who are the people here who are serious. I may ultimately get two or three. That's what Paul did. He'd go and preach in a synagogue, but his goal was not to build the synagogue. His goal was 17:56 to find in this synagogue, who are the two or three? And you ask Paul, why don't you go to the temple of Diana and preach? He said, "I'm more likely to find some god-fearing people in the synagogue than in the temple of Diana. That's why I go 18:09 to the synagogue first. But I know that after 3 months, they'll throw me out when they hear what I'm preaching." But by the time I'd have found a few people, you read throughout the Acts of the Apostles, that's exactly what the apostles did. They go and 18:21 preach in a synagogue and be thrown out after three months. But by the time they found a few people who are really wholehearted and they come out and form a church and people can accuse Paul, you're the splitter of synagogues. 18:32 Not really a splitter because 95% of people are still sitting in the synagogue. Only 5% have come out. But that's the church. Every church in the acts of the apostles came like that. And where there were no synagogues, Paul would go out and preach 18:45 in the street and get people together. But it's always to build a body. It's no use bringing people to Christ if you don't add them to a local church. I've asked people, you know, who do a lot of personal evangelism. I I 19:00 mean evangelism on the streets, preaching in the open air. I've done a lot of it in my life. When I lived in Anakam, I went to every single street and I'm not exaggerating. In two years, I covered every single street preaching 19:12 the gospel in the streets, but I never saw anybody converted. That's the truth. Well, I got a lot of boldness to preach. I got benefited. Nobody else did. And I've seen a lot of people who go out to witness to people in bars and here in 19:28 the open air and this in the street and go out to the streets and evangelize. I say, "Can you show me in your church where are these people who come from these streets whom you converted?" The answer, "I've never seen even 19:40 one." They're just fooling themselves. They're satisfying their conscience by saying, "I did some evangelism. I'm a bold witness for Christ." That's not God's full purpose. God's full purpose is to build them into a body, to build a family. Every single 19:56 person that I bring to Christ, it must become part of my family. Just like every single child of yours must become part of your home. It's because this concept of the church as a family is not understood by most people. They don't 20:10 understand God's full purpose is this. And so, it's very very important for us to understand. And in order to build this type of church, I'll tell you there's one fundamental. If you were to ask me, give me one in one 20:28 sentence the qualification to build this church. Okay, I can give you in one sentence, but you have to amplify it into many more things. But here it is in one sentence. Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians 5. We read the last part of verse 25. 20:48 Ephesians 5:25. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Qualification for building the 21:05 church. You have to give yourself up completely. You have to give yourself up completely. Totally. Everything that you have and everything that you are, all that I have and all that I am, Lord, it's yours. Use me to build your church. 21:21 If you hold something back, you can't really build the church. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. That's how the church is built. Christ loved the 21:37 church and gave himself for it. So dear brothers and sisters, any of us can build it. You can't if you come to the Lord and say what is the minimum I have to do to go to heaven and that type of attitude. Yesterday I told you about two types of 21:55 Christians. Those who are merely external and those who are inward. And the external types only see the external actions of Christ. The miracles, the healings, the good on the outside. And the inward type of Christians see the inner life of Jesus 22:12 and allow the Holy Spirit to transform them into that likeness as the spirit shows them. In the same way, we could also divide Christians into these two categories. Those who say, "What is the minimum I have to do?" And those who say, "What's the 22:27 maximum I can do for God in this one earthly life." And I want to say that every single person sitting here is in one of these two categories. And you know yourself which category you're in. What is the minimum I have to do to go 22:39 to heaven? What is the minimum I have to do to be a part of this church? What's the minimum I have to do to have a good testimony before the elders? Uh what's the minimum I have to do to the have the baptism in the Holy Spirit? I believe 22:53 the main reason why many people who seek for the baptism of the Holy Spirit never get it and will never get it is because they're always asking, "What is the minimum I have to do to get the baptism of the Holy Spirit? I'm not surprised. You never get 23:10 it. Try another approach. Lord, I don't want to be a minimum Christian anymore. My whole attitude I want to I want it to be what is the maximum that I can do for the Lord in the one earthly life I have before I leave for all that 23:27 the Lord has done for me. What does it mean to follow Jesus? Jesus didn't come to earth and say, "Father, what's the minimum I have to do for you? Tell me what I have to what's the minimum I have to do and then I'll come come there. 23:39 It's a pretty useless place, this world. But if you have something for me to do, tell me what it is. I'll do the minimum and I'll come back. I'm sick and tired of being here." Is that how he came? Christ loved the church and gave himself 23:52 for it. I really believe this is the reason why some people never experience the type of life the New Testament speaks about a life of continuous joy where you where you're an overcomer. You know the New Testament 24:12 speaks about overcomers. The New Testament speaks about the church as the bride of Christ. What would you think? How happy do you think a marriage is going to be if the wife on the day of the wedding uh says, "Hey, listen." Tells her 24:31 husband, "Tell me what is the minimum I have to do to be a good wife." That's not going to be a very happy marriage. You know how people who love each other want to do everything for each other. Christ loved the 24:49 church, gave himself for it. And if we want to build a church, any of us can build it, man, woman, young, old, if you're going to be this maximum type of Christian, not what are false marks. See, in earthly 25:08 things, we never follow that principle. You take any area you never when you look for a job. Many of you look for jobs. Do you calculate what is the minimum amount of 25:25 money I need to survive in Bangalore or in whichever town you're in and just let me look for a job with that much salary. Do any of you do that? No. You say with my qualifications, what is the maximum salary I can get? Yeah, when it comes to money, we are 25:44 pretty sensible. When you when you look for a marriage partner, you don't say what are the minimum qualifications? Yeah, this girl or this boy has reached my minimum qualifications. Say can I get the best boy, the best girl? Don't you have that attitude when 26:01 you look for marriage? In every area of your when you have children and your children go to school, do you tell your child, listen, pass marks are 35%. I'm quite happy if you get 35%. 35% in English, 35% in science, 35% in history, 35% in everything. Total 26:19 average 35% praise the Lord, you're a good son. We never say that. We keep on pushing them to get more and more and more and more. And even if the person's got 85, you say, "Hey son, daughter, you can do more better than that." Why is it 26:35 only when we come to the church and to Christian work, we have this attitude of what is the minimum I have to do? That shows we don't love Jesus. That's the fundamental problem with Christians who don't who totally 26:51 unable to build the church. I was saying the other day about Adam and Eve. They had the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. And the devil diverted them from the tree of life to the tree of 27:09 knowledge. You know, it says there in Genesis 2 that this tree of life um it the tree of life and the tree of gu the tree of knowledge and the tree of life were there which God had put right in the center of the garden. And let's 27:27 assume that Adam and Eve were aiming for the tree of life and the devil just diverted them. Try the tree of knowledge first. How does this apply to us today? I'll tell you. 27:44 Turn to 2 Corinthians in chapter 11. That's what I was sharing yesterday. Then you'll know what the tree of life is. 2 Corinthians 11:3. I am 28:02 afraid that like the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness drew her away from the tree of life to the tree of knowledge. He with his craftiness will lead your minds 28:20 astray from the tree of life which is simple pure devotion to Jesus Christ. You got what the tree of life is? Now that is the tree of life for you 28:36 today. Simple pure devotion to Christ. I'm afraid Paul says like the serpent diverted Eve from the tree of life, he will divert you from the tree of life. Now you know what the tree of life stands 28:53 for. And you can get diverted from that to knowledge. knowledge of the new covenant. Perhaps you say, "I've understood all the truth about victory over sin. I've understood all the truths about the new covenant. I've understood even the 29:10 truths about planting churches." That's not the tree of life. That's a tree of knowledge. Simple, pure devotion to Christ. If it doesn't begin here, you'll never build a church. And I believe this is the reason I 29:33 shared with the elder brothers that if you're not building a church of people who have got a simple pure devotion to Christ, it'll never be the church. Just because you got the right pattern, sing the right songs, preach 29:47 the right doctrines. That's not the New Testament church. The new covenant church gathers around the tree of life. An old covenant church gathers around the tree of knowledge. That's one way to put it. People who gather together to accumulate 30:02 knowledge. Come, you can come for a conference to gather around the tree of knowledge. We want to know what's good, what's evil, what is all about the new covenant and teach us all this. And we fill our heads and our minds are filled 30:14 with all this knowledge. And the devil has led astray. We should be there under the tree of life. That's where the new new covenant church is gathering. Two or three are gathered. I am in the midst. Jesus is in the midst. And I 30:27 believe the mark of a new covenant church is that Christ is in the midst that you go away from a new covenant church meeting and say, "Boy, the Lord spoke to me today." Why is it so many of our meetings are so boring? Why is it so many elders just 30:45 raise their voice and make a lot of noise, but they don't bring Christ down into the midst of people? may make up for their lack of anointing with noise and shouting and yelling. And I've seen a lot of that in my lifetime. 31:02 That's counterfeit. Counterfeit. And it's not only in Pentecostal churches. I've seen it in other churches, too, where human excitement is mistaken for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I don't believe Jesus was always excited 31:18 and shouting and waving and hands and all that when he preached. I think Jesus spoke in a very calm way. I'll tell you why I say that. The content of Jesus preaching is found all over the gospels. But if you want to know how he 31:37 preached, it says in Matthew 12 and verse 18, look carefully. I want to paraphrase these words. Matthew 12:18, look carefully at my servant, my son. Study his 31:57 life. I have chosen him. This is my beloved. and the way he lived and the way he ministered is what I'm really pleased with. I will anoint him with my Holy Spirit and he will preach to the 32:13 nations and he won't shout and cry out when he's anointed. Is this the Jesus? You know, I will anoint him with the Holy Spirit and he will not shout. Now most Pentecostals say when you are filled with the spirit you will 32:32 shout. I remember one Pentecostal man I've told you the story. He came to our church once and said after the Sunday morning service he told me you don't have the Holy Spirit here. I said how do you know that? Have you lived in my 32:43 house? Do you know how I live? Do you know how I handle my money? How can you say I don't have the Holy Spirit? He says you don't have any enough noise in this meeting. Ah I said that's the difference. Your trinity is father, son, 32:57 and noisy spirit. My trinity is father, son, and holy spirit. My the third person of my trinity makes me holy. Your trinity, the third person makes you noisy. I don't know which trinity that is. It's not in the Bible. I follow Jesus about whom it's 33:15 written that God put his spirit upon him and he didn't shout. Nothing wrong in shouting. Some once it says Jesus raised his voice and said if any man thirst come to me let him drink and I will rivers of living water will flow from him but it was 33:32 rare. It says if if he preached in a house in verse 8 and 19 you wouldn't hear his voice on the streets. Isn't that amazing? He was anointed, but he was interested in the anointing helped him to restore that battered 33:51 reed and fan to a flame, that smoldering wick. He was more interested in encouraging people who were discouraged, who were about to break and fall away. He said, "No, don't give up. Don't give up. Oh, I'm like a broken reed. No, no, 34:05 no. We'll fix that. Oh, my my fire is on gone out." Jesus says, "No, no, no. We can fan it up to a flame again." That's what the anointing of the spirit does. It's ministry of encouragement and lifting up and saying, "Don't give up. 34:17 Don't give up." He doesn't shout and yell and scream. Look carefully at my servant. I've spent years looking carefully at Jesus. I see so many young people today who try to imitate American preachers who run up and down the 34:35 platform. And I say, "Lord, I don't want to. I want to imitate Jesus. I want the real anointing of the Holy Spirit which goes like a sharp sword. And I want to urge you my brothers and sisters. And I'm again I repeat, this is 34:48 not just for people who are in the pulpit. Like I said, you can prophesy when you write an email. You can prophesy. When you speak to a person on a cell phone, you can prophesy when somebody comes to visit you in your home. You can prophesy somebody you 35:03 speak to for one minute. You can prophesy. Prophecy doesn't take long to speak to people, to encourage, build them up, challenge, comfort them. You don't need one hour. Those who are called for to prophetic teaching, prophetic teaching is different from 35:22 prophecy. Prophets can do prophetic teaching, but everybody can prophesy. That's the most important gift to build a church. But it comes as I said through personal devotion to Christ. I want to always be personally devoted to Christ. That way I know that 35:42 my candle is burning and people can come and light their candles at my candle. You should be like that where people can light their candle at your candle. You're always a light all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 36:00 I don't believe that any believer should ever find me discouraged or in a bad mood or upset. No, we can be temporarily shaken by some circumstance. It's like I say, if I walk through the road and suddenly I see a 36:17 snake, that'll be a natural reaction. That doesn't mean I'm going to live all my life here fearful of snakes everywhere. No. And sometimes some situation can crop up and we get a bit of a jolt but we calm down. That's because we are human. We are 36:35 normal. But we overcome it immediately. An overcomer is not one whose soul is never troubled. Jesus said, "My soul is troubled, but I don't sin. I fight it." When I say that I've not been discouraged for many years, it's not 36:49 that I'm not tempted to be discouraged. I'm of often am tempted, but I I fight it. I'm tempted to be angry. I'm tempted to be upset, but I fight it. And during that that period of fighting may take a little time, but I'm going to 37:01 overcome. It's not overcoming doesn't mean we just sit back and relax and like like you know lie down on a bed and no, it's a battle. It's a rest that comes through a battle. Very often you have to win a battle. I remember telling one brother 37:19 before he got married, he said, "Do you have any advice for me?" I knew he was marrying a strong wife, strong girl. I said, "Be the head of your home." That's my advice. I saw him about six years later and I knew what was going on in that 37:36 home. He said, "Do you have any advice for me?" I said, "Be the head of your home." He said, "Brother, if I try to be the head of home, there'll be a war in the house." I said fight that war and win it and establish your authority as the 37:53 head of the home but make sure you follow scriptural principles. I mean there are different ways of doing it like I heard of one man on his wedding night he asked his wife can you take those pants of mine which I hung up 38:13 there. She took it. She just wear it. So she wore. Does it fit you? No, it doesn't fit. Said please remember who wears that in this house. The man must wear the pants in the house meaning must be the head of 38:33 the house. Sometimes we have to fight a battle to establish our position. But if you give up your authority to give up a position which God wants you to have, you'll never accomplish the will of God in your home or anywhere. As an elder, for 38:51 example, there's an authority God has given us in elders. We exercise it. We have to discipline people because like a father, a father disciplines. Children must know the father is the head of the house who says to his children as long as I'm here as the 39:08 head. I'm not going to allow that type of music in this house. I'm not going to allow you to bring all those videos and magazines into this house. I'm the head of this house. When you set up your own house, do what you like. But in this 39:20 house, I'm not going to permit it. We need fathers like that. We need elders like that in churches. loving fathers who exercise authority. That's how church is built. Be but it comes out of a fervent devotion to Christ. They're seeking that 39:36 all the purpose of that discipline is to lead them to a fervent devotion to Christ. Children don't know what's good for them. In Revelation, we read about overcomers towards the it's a one book which keeps on speaking about overcomers, 39:51 overcomers, overcome, overcome, overcome right from chapter 2 and it ends in chapter 21. In chapter 21 and verse 7, this is after the new heavens and the 40:11 new earth are created. In verse one, and in this new heavens and the new earth, the first verse one, the first heaven and earth, first earth had passed away. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, the bride of 40:28 Christ. And then the Lord tells says this in verse 7, you know who's going to get all these things? He who overcomes will inherit all these things. I will be his God. He will be my son. 40:47 And that applies to sisters too, sons and daughters. You will be God's own daughter, son. If you're an overcomer, you say, "What if I don't overcome?" You know the answer to that? 41:06 I can answer in three words. I don't know. And I'm not interested in finding out. Why do you want to find out what happens to those who are not overcomers? Unless you're planning not to be an overcomer. It's like the child who goes 41:23 to school and ask the teacher, teacher, what is pass marks to go to the next standard. I don't want a son or daughter like that. What is the minimum I have to do? I don't want to be an overcomer. You get 80% 90% first class and all. I'm not 41:39 interested in first class. What's pass marks? I don't know. There may be pass marks in school that you know, but in God's kingdom, what is pass marks? I don't know. And I'm not interested in finding out cuz I'm planning to get 41:53 first class. Are you interested in that? If you want to be an overcomer, I'll tell you what the promises are. He who overcomes shall inherit all these things. You'll God will be your God and you'll be his son. What about those who 42:07 don't overcome? I don't know. The only other thing it says in the next verse is but the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, and moral persons, sorcerers, idters, and all types of liars will be in the lake that 42:21 burns with fire. There just seems to be two categories. If you think there's a third category, you better find out which it is. I don't find it. Revelation, we read about overcomers again in chapter 2 and chapter 3. Overcomers, overcomers, overcomers, 42:40 overcomers. There are certainly going, there's certainly going to be a great multitude in heaven from every tribe, tongue, nation. Let me show you that in Revelation chapter 7 and verse 9. After these things, I 42:59 looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, tongue, standing before the throne, before the Lamb. And what they say is, "Our salvation is due to our God." That's 43:17 their testimony. My salvation is due to my God who sits on the throne. These are people in the last part of verse 14 who came out of the great tribulation. But the main thing is they washed their robes and made them white 43:33 in the blood of the lamb and therefore they stand before God. Their only testimony is my sins are forgiven and cleansed in the blood of Christ. This is a great multitude. I've often wondered how can there be people from 43:50 every single tribe and people and tongue because in 2,000 years the gospel has not gone to every tribe and tongue in the world. Not even to every tribe and tongue in India. So how can there be people from 44:06 every tribe and people and tongue? Well, I discovered because in every tribe and people and tongue in the history of the world, there are babies who have died. And they've all gone to heaven. Every baby that dies before it comes to 44:26 an age of understanding goes to heaven justified by the blood of Jesus Christ. And there's not a single tribe or tongue or nation on the face of the earth which has had no babies died. Think of all the abortions being 44:45 committed. They're all thousands of them in heaven from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. It's a it's a huge number. It's such a huge number you can't even count it. millions and millions and millions of people. But in Revelation 45:05 14, you read of a number that can be counted. This is the contrast. Revelation is 7 is what is the minimum I have to do to get to heaven. Revelation 14 is 14 is those whose attitude is what is the maximum I can do on this earth for the 45:21 Lord. Revelation 14. I looked and behold the lamb was standing on Mount Zion. And I want to tell you that Mount Zion is a picture of the church, the bride of Jesus Christ, and with him 144,000. The number is not important. The point is it's a 45:39 number that can be counted. A number that can be counted. And they have the Lord's name on their forehead. They are unashamed witnesses for Christ. This is in 45:58 contrast to the followers of the antichrist who in just two verses earlier in chapter 13:E1 16 they are given the option of having it on your forehead or in the palm of your hand. The antichrist or the devil says 46:16 you can have my mark on your forehead or you can have it in the palm of your hand. But Jesus says you can't have it in the palm of your hand. You've got to have it on the forehead. You need to understand that contrast. And the 46:28 meaning of that is the devil says you can be an open follower of mine. Openly say I am a worshipper of the devil. You know there are people who put marks on their forehead and all to show which god they're worshiping. They could be worshiping 46:44 demons. And there are people who openly worship Satan in satanic churches. But Satan says, "I'll give you another option." If you're a member in good standing in your local church and you don't want to lose that membership, but 47:01 you want to get secretly some of the benefits I can give you in this world, I'll put your mark, my mark on your right hand, which nobody will see. When you do wrong things with your hand, when you take a bribe to give somebody a 47:21 favor, when you do wrong things, when you sign false statements to make a little money, it's a mark of the devil's on your hand. But don't worry, the devil says, "Nobody in the church knows it. You don't have to put it on your 47:36 forehead. You're secretly doing things uh in fellowship with me." The devil says, "That's okay. Nobody in the church knows it. You can still be an elder brother, song leader, everything else in the church. There are lots of people like 47:49 that. John says in 1 John 2, you heard that the big antichrist is coming, but there are already many antichrist and they're sitting in our midst. But the apostle John's Paul preaching was so fiery that those antichrists were driven out of the 48:03 church. And it should be like that. The fire in our churches must be so hot that people feel uncomfortable. Either they repent or they get offended and leave. Only two options. We keep the fire so hot. You either get repent and turn. That'll be 48:23 the best way. Let the fire burn out all the draws of sin in your life. Or find some excuse to leave. Find some other cooler place where there is no fire. So the Lord says I want people who are openly my disciples. There are people who in 48:43 offices in India who don't want to be openly known as disciples of Jesus Christ because it may hinder their promotion prospects because their bosses may be people of another religion. You know, I've been to uh offices in India, banks and all that 48:59 where uh Hindus will put up a calendar near their table with the picture of one of their idols. They're not ashamed of it. They have the mark of the idol on their forehead. They're not ashamed of it. They go everywhere with it. It's 49:16 Christians who are ashamed. I've almost never seen a Christian who'll have a Bible on his table or a calendar with a verse by his table. No, no, no. Because if people know that, my promotion prospects will be affected. It's better that they don't 49:32 know. You're a secret follower of the devil. You can't be a secret follower of Jesus. Sorry. You can't have his name in your palm of your hand and hide it. It's got to be up there in on your forehead. That's the characteristics of an 49:48 overcomer. He's not ashamed to be known as a disciple of Jesus Christ. And if you don't promote me, sir, that's fine. I I face numerous situations like that. In the Navy, there's a thing called the ACR in the Navy, annual confidential report. 50:05 It's written at the end of the year by the commanding officer. And I remember once my command officer called me up on the ship and he said, "Lieutenant Punin, I can find nothing wrong with your work. It's all excellent, but 50:20 you're very unsocial. You don't come for playing cards and dancing and uh when people are having drinking in the officer's mess, you don't come." I said, "Sir, I'm a Christian. I do my work in this 50:38 ship not to please you, sir. I do it to please God. Whether you're looking or not, I'll do my work faithfully. I don't know what he wrote. I couldn't care less what he wrote. I didn't live for that. God placed me on that ship to be a 50:55 witness for Christ, not to get promotions. I wanted the mark on my forehead. I want everybody to know as soon as I went and joined a new ship. Within one week, everybody must know I'm a Christian. There are many ways to do it. I'd have a 51:10 Bible on my table. I'd have some tracks on the table. I can't witness to people because I'm a naval officer, but nobody can stop me from having a Bible on my table. I'd carry a Bible in a bag with me when I went out of the ship. One of 51:21 the sailors would ask me, "Sir, are you an insurance agent? You're always going out with this little bag." I said, "Yes, I am an insurance agent. I'm insuring people for eternity." I said, "Take every opportunity to give 51:35 the gospel." I gave the gospel. Don't be ashamed to be a witness for Christ in your school, in your college. Be an overcomer. Don't seek after these earthly things. God gave me something much better than any promotion in the Navy. He'll give you the best if 51:53 you honor him. And it says about these people that they sang a new song, a song that they could others could not learn. It's a song that you learn on the earth that the it's a song of the land. And how did they learn it? These 52:10 are the people who had been purchased from the earth. The only people who could learn this song, it says in verse three, were these 144,000. And I want to read it like this. Who had been freed from the earth, 52:30 freed from having their minds set on earthly things. There is a song which only those people can learn whose mind has been freed from dwelling on earthly things. And the only place you can learn it is here. 52:49 You live on this earth and your mind is set on the things above, you will learn that song. It's a very small number of people who learn that song. The songs that we sing here, anybody can learn. You just got to have a good musical 53:00 ability. But this song is a song that is learned by those who have been freed from the earth. Redeemed from the earth means freed from the earth. And these are the ones who have not been defiled with women. And the women in the book of revelation are 53:16 described in chapter 17. Babylon and its daughters. Babylon the harlot and its daughters. Those are the women that the wholehearted overcomers are not defiled with. That means they see Babylonian Christianity. And I want to tell you two 53:32 marks of Babylonian Christianity. It's mentioned in chapter 17. I I don't have time to go into the details. It's the woman is Babylon and she rides on a beast and the beast is the political power. where people mix Christianity with 53:51 politics and the political people want to get advantage of Christianity and the Christians want to get their benefits from political leaders. Haven't you seen Christian preachers even in India get some political leader unconverted godless 54:07 political leader of some other religion sit on the platform and honor him? Can you imagine Jesus inviting Herod or Pilate or Caiaphas, the right Reverend Caiaphas, and maybe sit on the platform and honor him in a meeting before he 54:23 preaches? Is this the real Christ? And yet there are Christians who sit with their mouth open watching all this nonsense that goes on in the name of Christ. That's Babylon. the mixture of Christian and Christian using political 54:37 leaders for their own ends and the political leaders using popular Christian movements to get votes. This is Babylon. You read it in chapter 17, the woman riding the beast. And secondly, Babylon is a commercial merchandise type of 54:53 Christianity that you read in chapter 18 where Jesus is used for profit. You go to Commercial Street here in Christmas time and you'll see Merry Christmas down the streets. Who are the people celebrating Christmas? They're not 55:12 Christians. They want to make use of this religious festival to make profit for themselves. It's like that story. I heard of a teacher who in January time the school children came back from their holidays and said, "How 55:28 did you spend Christmas?" And one Roman Catholic said, "We went for the midnight mass." Another Protestant said, "We went to church service." And a Jewish child said, "My father owns a store." And after Christmas day, all the 55:43 stores were all the shelves were empty, sold. And we stood there and said, "What a friend we have in Jesus who can help us to sell all these things." That is Babylonian Christianity. Using, you know, Jesus 56:02 t-shirts and Jesus ballpoint pens and all types of things with Jesus has become a commercial proposition. and preachers who charge money for preaching, who are interested in money, freed. They have not defiled with women. They've kept themselves pure from 56:22 all that type of corruption. I tell you, money is the big snare. And don't think you're free from it. If you're not free from the love of money, not only love of money, the Jesus said, "If you're not faithful with unrighteous mammon, who will give you 56:37 the true riches?" There's a difference between being righteous with money and being faithful with money. There are many of you who are righteous with money. Righteous means you don't cheat anybody. You repay all your loans. 56:49 You're not in debt to any. That's righteous. Some people are satisfied with that. Do you know what it means to be faithful with money, which is one step higher than righteous with money? That in righteous with money means I 57:01 don't have anybody else's money with me. I've only got my own which I've honestly earned. Faithful with money means even what I have earned as my own by my salary I do not consider as my own. I don't waste it. I find lot of Christians 57:17 waste their money unnecessarily. They spend money on a whole lot of things because they got plenty. They're righteous. They're not stealing anybody else's money. but they waste it. I'm not here to tell you how you should be faithful with 57:34 money. I'm not saying you should never buy an ice cream. That that's a waste of uh money. I'm not saying that. I'm not a fanatic. I'd buy ice cream and I eat it and I'll eat it, enjoy it. But uh I got to do a little less of 57:47 it now as I get older. That's another thing. But I'm not I'm not saying that we can't have a few luxuries in our home that you should only have a scooter and not have a car. I'm not saying that type of thing, but you know, brethren, 58:01 whether you're wasting your money. I'm not here to judge you. And you know where you're careless with your money, where you could have saved something instead of wasting it, and where you could avoided some expenditure which is unnecessary. My wife and I have 58:18 lived like that for 44 years. And that's why I have the boldness to speak about it. We've never been in debt and we have tried our best to spend the minimum on ourselves because we want to be faithful. We want to be that overcoming 58:37 crowd freed from the earth. And they these are the ones who follow the lamb. It says in Revelation 14, wherever he goes, they only want to follow the lamb. the way he went, the way of the cross, the way of death to self, the way of 58:50 giving himself completely for the sake of the church. And one last thing it says there in verse 5, all lying and hypocrisy was gone from their life. There was no guile in them. They were themselves. They were not pretending to 59:07 be more spiritual than they are. And there was no lie in their mouth. These are the overcomers. These are the ones who are going to inherit all things. I want to be in that crowd. Revelation 3 and verse 59:24 21. Jesus said, listen to this word. And this is very interesting. He who overcomes, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne. Do you think everybody's going to sit with Jesus on his throne? No. He who 59:41 overcomes, and you have to overcome. He says, "Just as I also overcame." What did Jesus overcome? John 16:33, he said, "Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. The world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the 1:00:01 pride of life. Jesus overcame. I want to be an overcomer, and I want to build a church of overcomers who follow the lamb wherever he goes, who recognize Babylon, who avoid Babylon. who have learning this new song, being 1:00:17 freed from the things of the earth, who have a fervent devotion to Jesus Christ that helps them to be freed from the things of the earth. That's the only type of church I want to build. And if there are only 11 people in it, praise 1:00:29 the Lord. I once said to the Lord, Lord, in my entire lifetime, if I can produce 11 disciples like you did, I'll be happy. I don't want to build a huge mega church of a whole lot of compromisers and half-hearted people who are always 1:00:42 saying what is the minimum I have to do when I go to heaven. I say go and join some other church. We want to make disciples who obey every single thing that Jesus taught. Let's build such churches in India. There's a great need for them. 1:00:56 Churches that are on fire for God, not flickering flames. May God help you to build that church wherever you live. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please help us to apply what we hear in our daily 1:01:15 lives in every situation we face. We commit ourselves to you now for the rest of the day in Jesus name. Amen.
