God Spares Us For His Purposes

Well, once I come up here, you know how long I sit and speak to you for, but you have a cake coming up, so. When I look back over my life, I think of times in my life when I could have died. When I was 12 years old, I was living in Delhi with my parents, and we were sitting outside.

It was a hot climate in the late at night, and we had a lamp connected to the plug inside the house, and it went off. We didn't know why. So I wasn't very wise.

I thought there was a break in the wire somewhere, and it was all dark. So very foolishly, I began to feel my way along that wire, and at the place where it was exposed, it caught my hand and threw me to the ground, and the current was still flowing through my body. And I was screaming, lying on the ground.

I was just 12 years old. And my mom was inside the house and came rushing out and switched off the main switch, and I was delivered. And I thought of that.

I'm not sure whether I was really saved, and I don't think I was. I think of that and say, Lord, why did you spare my life? And I think of another time. I can't think of all the instances.

I was in the Navy, and we were on a ship, and I was the second in command of that ship, and we were scheduled to, you know, India was at war with Pakistan in 1975, and I was on a ship called a minesweeper. The way people blow up the enemy ships is by putting mines underwater. A mine is a bomb.

The children, if you don't know what it is, it's a huge bomb, and they anchor it down to the ground under the water, and you can't see it. And it's got little spikes sticking out, which if a ship touches it, it'll blow up the ship. Or sometimes they are magnetic mines, which are drawn by the metal in the ship, and the ship comes near it, it blows it up.

So the way we protect the ships is by having a ship called a minesweeper, a small boat made of wood, not metal, which has all the equipment to blow up these ships, no, to blow up these mines, so that when the big ships come, they will not be destroyed by the mines. So I was the second in command of a minesweeper, and we have to go in front of the ships to clear the whole sea in front of Karachi Harbor, where India was going to attack Pakistan. This is 1965.

And there's a big chance of, you know, the mines won't blow our ship up, because we know how to destroy them. But when you get near the enemy harbor, they can fire guns at you and blow up your ship in no time. So that was the danger we were facing.

So we had to be willing to, you know, when you join the military, you have to be willing to lay down your life for your country. So I know in another war with Pakistan, one whole ship, Indian naval ship was blown up, and everybody was drowned. So the day before we were supposed to go out to fight and to clear the mines, there was a ceasefire, and India and Pakistan decided we'll stop the war.

And there was a very high possibility that he could have died. And I said, well, Lord, by the time I was saved, I was already a Christian, so I knew I'd go to be with the Lord, but the Lord spared my life the time I was just 25 years old. And the next year I left the Navy, came out to serve him.

And then I have had numerous experiences in driving a scooter. I used to ride a scooter, two-wheel scooter, like a motorbike, 42 years in India. That's the only thing I could afford.

I couldn't afford gas to have a car. So I rode a scooter, and scooters are very dangerous driving in India, you know, weaving in between the cars and on the roads. You know, in India, we're not under the law.

That means we don't keep any laws on the road. That's what I mean. Everybody goes wherever they like, and you've got to be very, very careful.

So I've had many, many escapes. But I'll tell you, one of those escapes was when Sunil was, I think, in 11th standard. We call them grades here.

It's called standard in India. And he had come home for lunch, and I was taking him back to the school. The school was about a mile and a half from our house.

And I'm usually very careful, and I was on the correct side of the road. But there was a cyclist, a mailman, going around delivering mail on his cycle, and he was on the wrong side of the road. And without looking, he suddenly drove his cycle across the road, and I didn't anticipate that.

I went head on hitting him, and because we were traveling as a scooter, both Sunil and I got thrown off the scooter to the other side of the road, to the sidewalk. And we didn't have any helmets, either of us. But amazingly, two things.

One, we didn't hit our head. We just scraped our elbows, and other than that, there was no car coming from the opposite direction. So it was an amazing way God saved my life and his life, too.

So what I see from all these things is when God has a plan for your life, he watches over it. I say that for the benefit of every single person here. We all face dangers at home or on the road or anywhere.

And if God has a plan for your life, you can be absolutely sure that if you're seeking to honor him and you only want to live for him, you don't want to live for yourself, you're not living for making money, and you want to live for his glory, and that's all we were doing. Nothing can happen to you. No accident, no loss.

Nothing can happen to you that will prevent God from fulfilling his plan for your life. I never realized I'm going to live up to the age of 86, and I haven't finished. I'm trying to hit 100, if it is God's will.

Or better than that, if the Lord comes. But, I mean, it's not in my hands. God has planned my life before I was born.

It's all written down in the book, and I haven't seen that book. But I want to encourage all of you. If you want to complete your life on earth, be faithful to the Lord.

Love Jesus with all your heart and don't love anyone more than Jesus. That's my advice to every young person here and older person. Keep him first in your life and be careful that you don't eat the wrong type of food or eat too much and become fat and get sick.

So be wise. Don't tempt God by doing things which will shorten your life, because God needs every one of you to be his witnesses. And there are very few true witnesses for the Lord in the world, and you are one of them.

Please be faithful. Think of days when God saved, think of events in your own life where God saved your life. It's with a purpose.

So all these things I mentioned tell me that God has got a purpose for my life. I want to fulfill it. That's my passion.

Every day when I get up in the morning, I look up to heaven and say, Dad, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit today. I want to fulfill your plan for my life, whatever it is. And I say that, please do that for all of you.