Jesus Listened to the Father and Blessed Needy Individuals

One of the things that I've noticed in the life of Jesus is he not only spoke to the multitudes, he often took a special interest in speaking to individuals. Now, it's good for us to study that because we, most of us, don't speak to great crowds. Maybe very few of us ever get a chance to speak to a large congregation.

But all of us meet with individuals in our home, our place of work. So, it's good for us to look at a few instances in the Gospels where Jesus met with individuals. So, I just want to see some of them.

Turn with me, first of all, to John's Gospel, Chapter 5. If you look at this in your Bible, you will become familiar with these instances and then it will be a help for you. It says here there was a great multitude of people in verse 3, John 5, verse 3. Sick, blind, lame, withered. It's a picture of a lot of needy people in the world around us.

When we read the Gospels, see how it will apply in your situation. A lot of spiritually sick, blind, lame, and waiting for something. Some of them are waiting for help.

Not all. And it says here then there was a one man there, especially, who had been ill, verse 5, for 38 years. And Jesus saw him lying there.

And if you read through that passage, verse 3, a great multitude of sick, blind, lame. And Jesus healed one person. He had the power to heal all of them, but he didn't.

Jesus did not go around healing every sick person in the country. A multitude means, verse 3, how many people do you think that would be? Maybe a hundred. And he heals one person, even though he has power to heal all the hundred.

And he goes away. Jesus was led by the Father in everything he did. He didn't have a law which said heal everybody.

See, there are so many people who have these crazy ideas about how God's work should be done. But the way Jesus did it, he was prompted by the Father in every single thing he did. Imagine, even when he was hungry, and he would not have hurt anybody by converting those stones to bread, like the devil suggested to him.

He wasn't stealing it, and he wasn't robbing anybody of bread. If he converted one of those stones to bread, especially if you've been hungry for 40 days, he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it because he said, I know I'm hungry.

I know I have power to turn the stones into bread. It'll satisfy my hunger, and I'm desperately hungry. Forty days I haven't eaten, but one thing stops me.

My Father has not told me to do it. Where do you find Christians with such obedience, where they say, my need is not the greatest thing. Have I sensed in my spirit that God's told me to do it? If he hasn't, I set my need aside.

I need a prompting from the Lord. This was the secret of Jesus' life. How did he find himself next to this lame man? He was led by the Father.

I've longed for this type of life for many years. I said, Lord, I want to be where you're moving. I want to be where you've got something for me to do.

And he saw him lying there, and he said, do you want to get well? And that man said, I have no man to help me. Jesus always went to such people. People who were helpless, who were sort of ignored by society.

I have nobody. Okay, he says, you have me, I'll come to such people like you. And he healed him, and he went away.

All those other hundred people lying there, he had no leading from the Father to do it. He wasn't like these so-called healers who stand up in the platform and fool everybody. He was led by the Holy Spirit.

His healing ministry was so unique. And he healed him, and the man was healed and went away. If you turn to Isaiah chapter 50, a verse that I always love to quote concerning how Jesus began his day.

I mentioned it the other day, and I want to repeat it because I believe it's a very important passage. Isaiah chapter 50, it shows us how Jesus began his day every day, and it's a good way for us to begin every day of our life. The reason I say that is because that's how he landed up next to this man who was needy, who was lying there for 38 years.

How did Jesus come and land up next to him? Here's the secret. Isaiah 50 verse 4, in the middle of that verse, it says, God, my Father, awakens me morning by morning, and awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. That's how Jesus woke up in the morning.

When he woke up in the morning, he says, okay, my Father has woken me up. It's a good way to say it. When we wake up in the morning, my Father in heaven has woken me up.

It says he woke up my ear in verse. He awakens me, and he awakens my ear to hear. Now, these are two separate things.

We may wake up in the morning, and our ear may not be awake to listen to what God, ear means the inner ear of the heart, may not be awake to listen to what God wants to say to us. I mean, we're immediately busy with so many other things. But it's good for us to spend even a few moments every single day.

I want to encourage you to develop that habit. I wish somebody had told me that when I got converted at the age of 19 and a half. I wish somebody had told me, hey, Zach, develop the habit from right now.

That as soon as you wake up, you let the inner ear of your heart be woken up to hear what God has to say to you. You will live the most useful life you can ever live. I discovered that after so many years.

Nobody told me about this verse. I had to find it myself. So, I want to share it with you.

Many of you are young. You've got a life in front of you. Develop this habit when you wake up in the morning.

Say, God woke you up. Now, let my inner ear be awake right now to hear what the Father has to say. It won't be an audible voice, and I don't think Jesus heard an audible voice.

It is a, he just felt prompted, and sometimes it's almost unconsciously. If the Lord sees that you have a year of willingness to hear and an eagerness to hear, even unconsciously, he will lead you to places where there are needy people whom he wants to help. And I want to say to every single person sitting here, I don't know what your spiritual level is, even if you're a newly converted person, a young person.

Do you know that God can use you to bless other people? Not great crowds perhaps, but one needy person who says like, this man, I have nobody to help me. Seek for such people. Don't seek for the big and the clever and the mighty.

I remember when I left the Navy, I said, Lord, as I look around India with its hundreds of millions of people, I see all the great evangelists go to the big cities. Every single great evangelist I heard of went to the big cities, because that's where you get the crowds, and that's where people give a lot of money. And I thought, what about the poor villages in India? What about the poor villages where nobody ever has any evangelistic campaigns over there? So I said, Lord, send me there.

And the Lord took me at his word. And for more than 40 years, I went every year down to those small village churches. And needy people and a lot of non-Christian background people, they were so hungry and needy.

And because my wife was a doctor, we could conduct clinics there every year for 25 years. And for some of those people, that was the only time in the whole year that they ever got any medical treatment. So it was a tremendous joy to be able to help these people.

And they were so grateful. They were far more grateful than the rich people in the cities. The rich people in the cities sometimes so often take things for granted.

Of course, people have to serve me. But these people are not like that. They were so grateful for any little help.

You take medicines down to help them. I want to say, I want to show you a verse in Luke chapter 4. That's the verse that spoke to me, that challenged me in that direction. We know that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit.

And he was anointed to preach the gospel. But have you read this verse? For whom was Jesus anointed? Luke chapter 4, verse 18. Read it slowly, carefully meditate on it.

The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to preach the gospel to whom? To the poor. Is God sort of a favorite of the poor? It's because they are the ones who nobody cares for. What did that man lying at the poolside say? I have 38 years, nobody cares for me.

I'm just lying here, people pass by, they don't care. The world is like that. So Jesus was anointed by God a father, who saw all these people who are needy in the world.

He said, I'm anointing you, my son, to help those poor people. Those people for 38 years lying there, nobody had to help them. There are people like that in the world today.

If you don't have great gifts, perhaps to preach to big congregations, ask God to lead you to individuals. And he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives. Captives means prisoners.

Who cares for the prisoners? Recovery of sight to the blind and to free those who are oppressed. These are the lowest levels of society. Look at the people mentioned, the lowest levels of human society.

Probably none of us here in this category. The poor, the prisoners, the blind and the oppressed. What more do you need? Do you believe that Jesus is anointed to specially minister to these people? He says, God got favorites.

All are the same to him, but he specially cares for people like this and to proclaim to them that God has a favor for you. And if somebody is sitting in the church feeling isolated and I don't have any gifts and I'm not a clever person like some of the others. I'm not gifted.

I can't stand up and play any music. I don't have any gifts at all. I'm not so clever.

I don't even have a good job. My salary is so low. I want to say that you're in this category.

The Lord is specially anointed to help you. If anyone's sitting like that over here and to proclaim to you God's favor. And Jesus specially looked for such people.

Let me show you another example. His ear was woken up every day. And before that, let me get to James and chapter two.

He specially rebukes that church. And that's a rebuke that a lot of churches today need to hear. My brethren, James two, don't hold your faith in Jesus with an attitude of personal favoritism.

The tendency to have favorites is with all of us. God has got his favorites too. It says in verse six, God has chosen the poor.

Just by the way, those are his favorites. I don't know who are your favorites. I'll tell you who God's favorites are.

We saw that in Luke four, the poor, the oppressed, the prisoners, the outcasts. And here it says, God has, verse five, specially chosen the poor who are rich in faith. And he's promised the kingdom.

And he has chosen them to be the heirs of the kingdom, which is promised to those who love him. So it seems to me that among the poor, there are more people who love him than among the rich. And I think it's true.

I certainly found it in India. And it's so wonderful. It's been a tremendous blessing for me to see how God's planted 30, 40 churches among these poor people.

It's a delight in my heart. I love to go there more than I go anywhere else. Because I saw this.

God has chosen the poor of the world, rich in faith, which is promised to those who love him. And I've heard some of those people in the meetings, we give chance to different people to speak. And as they've grown up and become elders in those church, people who can hardly speak two sentences in English straight, they only speak in their mother tongue, which I happen to slowly learn as I mingle more and more with them, I learned it.

And I've been so blessed to hear the anointing in their life when they speak. And I see that God has chosen the poor of the world. And he tells this group of people, he says, some man comes into your assembly with a gold ring, verse two, dressed in fine clothes, and another man comes in poor man in dirty clothes.

And you pay special attention, verse three, to the one who's wearing the fine clothes. And you say, you can sit here in a good place. And to the poor person, you say, go and stand over there.

And you have made distinctions among them with your evil motives. You have verse six, you have dishonored the poor man. I say, Lord, I never want to do it.

Specifically, the Holy Spirit says, so brothers, ask God to help you to have eyes to see who are the needy. Okay, let's turn to Mark's Gospel in chapter five, verse one. They came, verse one, to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes.

And immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit came. And you know that story. He was bound with shackles, verse four, and chains and torn apart.

And day and night, he was screaming in the tombs. And seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and said, what a business have we got to do with you, verse seven, Mark five, seven. Son of God, don't torment me.

And Jesus had come out of him. And he had a legion, that means numerous demons in him, verse nine. And Jesus delivered him.

And then, you know, he cast out the demons, you know, the story into the pigs, and the pigs 2000, verse 13, 2000 pigs. There were 2000 demons in this man. And one demon in each of those 2000 pigs.

And they went into the sea. And the herdsmen when they heard it, they came and they saw this man who had been like that for years, sitting clothed. I don't know where they got clothes for this man.

Somebody got it. Jesus must have told one of the disciples, go and get some clothes for this man. He was so considerate, and he was properly clothed.

Now. He didn't have any clothes when he was before that, in his right mind. And, and instead of being delighted, the people of that town, they implored him, verse 17, Lord, please get away from here.

Why? Because 2000 pigs meant more to them than one man being healed. This is the condition of humanity. This is the world we live in.

Where 2000 pigs are more important than one man. And Jesus moved in such a society just like ours. There's so many other things are more important than needy people.

I want to say to you there are needy people all around us, where we live. Don't look for the big crowds. And Jesus told this man, go home to your people and report to them.

And he went away. And Jesus then, verse 21, crossed in the boat and came back. You know, whenever I read like this, something like this in the gospels, I turn to the back of my Bible and look at a map.

Some of your Bibles have a map. Many Bibles have a map at the back. And what I look in the back and see is he crossed the sea.

I say, how wide is that Sea of Galilee? And I saw in the maps is five miles. You know how long it takes to go five miles in a boat? Jesus said, let's go. He was prompted.

Early morning, a weir was awakened and the father told him, get into that boat and go. Five miles, it takes a long time, five miles in a boat. The wind and waves and all that, you can't go very fast.

And he goes all the way back. And Jesus knew, he somehow prompted that he would be just helping one man. He healed one person.

They were told him to get out of there and he came back five miles this way for one person. That's how Jesus was. And go to chapter seven, Mark chapter seven, verse 24.

Jesus got up and went away from there to the region of Tyre. So again, I turned to the map and the map from Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee to Tyre. How long does it take? About 30 to 40 miles.

Okay. Even if you're walking and he was walking, of course, he never had a chariot or any such thing. Even if you're walking at three miles an hour, that'll take you 10 hours to get there.

Non-stop walking. And they must have paused a little. That means it took pretty much a whole day to get there.

And he was prompted, you know, early in the morning, his ear was woken up. And the father said, go over there. And he walked right across.

I don't know how long it took, but he was certainly a whole day. And there, it says he entered a certain house and he wanted no one to know about it. But a woman with a little daughter, this is the one he came for.

And he didn't want to deal with anybody else. Something like that, Pula Bethesda. He left all the others.

And this woman, who had a little daughter with an unclean spirit, came and fell at his feet. And she was a Gentile, a Seraphim, she was a Canaanite. You know, when Joshua was sent into Canaan, he was told to kill all the Canaanites.

And somehow this lady's great-grandfather or ancestor survived, was not killed. You know, some of the Canaanites were not killed by Joshua. And so she's descended, one of those Canaanites.

And she said, please deliver my daughter from the demon. And Jesus tested her first to see if she was humble. No, I'm going to give the children are the Jewish people.

You folks are not Jewish. I can't. Jesus cared for the whole world.

But he wanted to see what is, do you come expecting as if you have a right to this? Or have you come with a needy person? Lord, I don't deserve anything. Jesus looks for those who are poor and needy and say, Lord, I don't deserve anything. Those are the ones he meets first.

Those who come saying I deserve, you know, the Jews and the Pharisees were the people who felt we deserve to be treated right. You remember the synagogue once when Jesus said that God cares for the Gentiles, they caught him and wanted to kill him, throw him off the cliff. So he said to test her, let me give it to the children first.

I can't take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. She sensed that Jesus was treating her like a dog. It wasn't.

He had walked one whole day to help her. She didn't know that, but he wanted to test her humility. And she passed the test.

She said, I accept the place that I'm not one of the chosen people. Maybe I'm like a dog. But the dogs can at least get the crumbs that accidentally drop when the children are eating the bread.

And Jesus said, listen to this verse, verse 29, because you answered like this, because you answered like this, taking that low place, saying, Lord, I deserve nothing. You've got your request. There were rich Jews sitting out there back home who never got it.

Your demon has gone out of your daughter. And he went, she went back and found the child is perfectly OK. And then what does Jesus do? He left Tyre and came back to the Sea of Galilee.

That is another full day. He walked one whole day to help one needy person who's not even a part of the Jewish race and walked a whole day back. I've been challenged, you know, I would never have discovered that if I hadn't looked at the maps.

Otherwise, Tyre, and I don't know where Tyre is, where the Sea of Galilee is. But it challenged me when I looked at the map. I said, Lord, make me like that.

That I'm willing to walk any distance, go any distance, go anywhere if I can help one needy person and then come back home. I want to be your servant. I don't want to be a professional preacher just going around preaching to crowds and collecting money and getting honor.

I sincerely said that to the Lord. And that's how the Lord led me to different individuals here and there. I get so many invitations, almost every one of them turned down.

I say, Lord, I want to go where you want me to go. I don't want to go where just somebody calls me. I say that to you, brothers, because all of you are not great, well-known preachers.

And there are well-known preachers I know in this country and every country will only go to big, big congregations and famous people if the president invites them or somebody like that. Don't be like that. Be an ordinary brother and say, Lord, I'm just one of the ordinary child of yours and I believe you can make me a blessing to some needy individual.

Some fellow who for 38 years has been lying around hoping somebody will guide him, lead me to them. There are people like that in your hometown, in the area where you live, in the place where you work. You just have to be alert to your heavenly father.

And you may be ignorant of many things in the scripture, but you know more than that needy person. That's enough. It's like even a kindergarten child can teach ABC to a completely illiterate person.

Sure, a six-year-old child can sit with an illiterate man and say, I'll tell you what ABC is. So don't ever say that God can't use you. Don't ever say, oh, I don't know the Bible so much.

You don't need to. The early Christians never had a Bible and they went around speaking, they didn't carry a Bible with them. They just knew the Lord and they shared the knowledge of the Lord with people.

They couldn't say turn to this verse and turn to that verse. No, that's now we have the luxury of that, of having a Bible. And I see how Jesus, you know, to serve the Lord is inconvenient.

I'll tell you that. And he could have easily, you know, they raise money nowadays for missionaries to say a missionary needs this and needs that. And I remember one Indian missionary in India who was working among the poor people and he felt he and his wife needed, his family needed a big expensive van.

And he sent that message down to some of the other churches in the richer parts of the country and say, I need a van to go and serve whom? People who didn't even have a bicycle. I say, you think they're going to listen to you when you come there in your big vehicle? If you are riding a bicycle and go to them, the more likelihood that they would listen to you. Such people will never accomplish anything for God.

They just got to contact rich people and get something for them. This is the type of missionaries we have seen even in India, even the local ones, because they learned from the missionaries who come from abroad to raise money, to live in a certain standard. But that's not how Jesus lived.

That's not how Jesus moved around. So, I want to turn to another passage in scripture. We read of a time when Jesus was going to Jericho, that's in Luke chapter 19.

Just to show you that it is, it's not, he was primarily looking for people who were poor in spirit. He didn't say, well, all you rich people are excluded. I want to show you that.

Here he'll find him helping an extremely rich man, probably one of the richest men in town. But the guy is needy. So Jesus wouldn't exclude him.

So I'm not saying we exclude the rich people. This was Zacchaeus. He was, it's mentioned here in Luke 19 verse 2. There was a man called Zacchaeus and one simple statement, three words, he was rich.

That says a lot. It's not written about anybody else in the gospels. He was rich.

But somehow the father prompted Jesus that morning, you got to go to Jericho today. So he said, okay, I don't know who there is in Jericho. But Jesus was so sensitive to the voice of the spirit.

And he was walking along with the, there was probably a main street in Jericho and he'd go through there with the crowds following him. And Zacchaeus knew that Jesus was going to pass that way. And he was too short.

He couldn't see because the crowds were so much. So he climbed up on a tree, verse four, and sat in that tree just to have a look at Jesus. There was a hunger.

Rich people don't do such things. Where do you find rich person climbing up a tree? Laughing at him. But this guy was so hungry just to see Jesus.

That's all. And I think of, I picture myself, you know, Jesus walking down the street, sensitive to the Holy Spirit. And as he comes under the tree, the Holy Spirit says, stop, look up.

There's a guy sitting there. And by the way, his name is Zacchaeus. You got to stay in his house today.

You remember what Jesus said to Martha, who was busy in the kitchen cooking. And Mary was sitting, listening. And Jesus said, one thing is needful.

And Mary has chosen that good part to sit and listen to me. When I was a young man of 20 years of age, the Lord gave me that word. Remember, one thing is needful in your life.

It's not to go around running around serving me like Martha. Listen to me. You'll accomplish a lot more in your life if you listen to me.

Many years later, on my birthday, I think about 20, 30 years later, I asked, Lord, do you have a word for me on my birthday? He said, same thing. One thing is needful. And he's emphasized that to me so many times.

It's been my desperate longing. Lord, I want to hear you. I want to hear you want to say, because I know I'll accomplish a lot more to your life.

One of the pictures the Lord gave me was that here I am in the Lord's got a big fruit garden. And I want to help him. There are so many people working and I go into the huge many square miles.

And I want to help. I sincerely want to help. And I go to, I say, okay, I'm going to collect some fruit from some tree and bring it to the Lord.

And I go and sit under a tree and wait and wait and wait and wait for the tree to become ripe, for the fruit to become ripe. I had to wait many weeks or months and the fruit is ripe. Little by little, I collect and bring it.

After many months, I get one basket. Instead of that, the Lord said, if you go to the master first, instead of going where you like, the master will tell you, go to that tree over there. And I go there.

I don't have to wait. The fruit is all ripe. He knows it's ripe.

That's why he sent me there. Pick it and come back and come to the master, give it. And then the Lord says, now go to that tree there.

That's the more efficient way of doing it. In a very short time, you collect a lot. So I say, Lord, I have only one life.

I don't know how long I'll live. I left my job in the Navy when I was 26. 84 now.

And I said, Lord, I only one life. And I don't know how long I'll live, but I want to make the most use of every year of that life of mine. I don't want to waste it.

I don't want to waste a day. So I want to listen to you. Tell me where to go.

Many of us say, we pray that, but we don't hear God. I once read in Revelation chapter one, that the Lord, Jesus, John heard the voice of the Lord like a trumpet, but deaf people won't even hear a trumpet. So I realized we had to be very sensitive to the voice of the Lord.

Anyway, let's come back to here, Zacchaeus. When Jesus was stopped in the Holy Spirit said, look, tell that fellow to come down and go and stay in his house. And Jesus goes to him.

And this guy is so convicted just by the fact that Jesus was willing to come to his house. And as he comes to the door, to the gate of his house, it says, have you read this verse? 19 verse 8, as they walked towards the house, it says Zacchaeus stopped. I've never seen such a statement anywhere else in the gospels that you're walking and suddenly stopped.

Why did he stop? He stopped outside the gate of his house and said, Lord, hang on. You want to stay in my house? I've got to settle some things. This house has been built with money that I've stolen from people.

I've cheated. I'm a tax collector. I've cheated, collected a lot of money, bribes and all from people.

And that's how I built this house. You can't come and stay in this corrupt house. It's a beautiful house outwardly built with stolen money.

So I want to make a promise before you come and stay in my house. Everyone whom I've cheated, I will give back to them, including interest, more than interest, I'll give back four times. And as Zacchaeus goes around, news gets around, Zacchaeus is giving back four times what he stole, people wish he had stolen from me.

People are getting back four times. And then he says, but there are so many other people's address, I don't know. So it's a convenient way of getting out of it, you know, say, Lord, I've given back whatever I've stolen, but some people's address, I don't know what to do.

I can't do anything with it. Zacchaeus, no, no, he was very upright. I don't know their address, but I can't keep that money.

I will give it in the offering box. Somebody here in America once asked me, brother, I got some unrighteous money from somewhere. But I don't know, there's no way to return it.

I don't find any way possible because I tried to contact that organization, there's this, see, there's no way to take it back. What do I do? I said, put it in the offering box. Don't keep it, it's not yours.

If you don't know where to give it, and you don't know the address of the person who took it from, put it in the offering box, because ultimately all money belongs to God. There's no doubt about it. God created all the money in the earth.

So if you don't know this owner, give it to the original owner. That's why I say put it in the offering box. That's what this guy did.

He says, half my gifts, half my money I give to the poor. Why was that? He said, I don't know where those people's address are. And Jesus made a statement to him that he never made to any other person in any of the four Gospels.

See this. Today salvation has come to this man's family because he's a son of Abraham. Why son of Abraham? You remember when Abraham delivered lot and the people of Sodom, when they were captured and the rules in those days were that if you capture a city or anything, all those goods belong to you.

And Abraham had all these goods. And God sent a prophet to him called Melchizedek. Melchizedek went up and Abraham felt, I shouldn't take all this.

And when the king of Sodom said, you've got the right to take all this money, Abraham said, I won't take a shoelace from you. Take it all back. Jesus said, here's another son of Abraham who would not even want a shoelace from somebody else.

Because I came was then, the son of man came to seek and to save those who are lost in the love of money. He has a man who was lost in the love of money and I've saved him and delivered him from it. So that he'd give back four times.

He's not shrewd calculating. I give back only 5% per month interest. No, not per year interest.

No, I'll give him them four times back. And as in uprightness, I will not keep money that I've taken from others whose address I don't know. I'll give it to the poor.

Truly, this is a son of Abraham. That's how Jesus was. I find that, and then he moved on.

He was so considerate about individual poor people. Now here, I'll tell you something even more. You know, Jesus once made a statement, which I want you to see first before we go there.

In Matthew chapter 5, he said, Matthew 5 verse 17. Don't think that I came to abolish the law. That Old Testament law, I have not come to cancel it.

I came to fulfill every single jot and tittle in that Old Testament law. Because I tell you, till heaven and earth pass away, not one smallest, this is jot and tittle, not one smallest letter or stroke will pass from the Lord till all is accomplished. So if anyone cancels one of the least of these commandments, he will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But if you keep even the least commandment, he'll be called great in the kingdom of heaven. That's why we teach in the church, even a small commandment like sisters must wail their heads when they pray or share the word. It's a very small commandment.

It's not a big thing like don't commit murder or steal. Very, very small. But Jesus said, even heaven and earth will pass away, even the smallest commandment will not pass away.

And not many churches care about the small commandments. Yeah, well, that's a small. Jesus didn't take that attitude.

He said, I came to fulfill the smallest commandment. Because when his year was opened, the father said, keep the smallest commandment. You understood that? Okay, now let's go to John chapter eight.

The Pharisees caught a woman in adultery and brought him before Jesus and told him, verse five, in the law, because they heard Jesus say, I won't even break one bit of the law. Moses commanded that such a woman should be stoned to death. Now my question is, who gave that commandment to Jesus to Moses? Jesus from heaven.

1500 years earlier from heaven, he had told Moses, a woman who commits adultery must be stoned to death. 1500 years later, Jesus, the same Jesus comes to the earth, and is confronted with the commandment that he gave to Moses. They don't know that this is the person who gave the commandment.

They think this is some man from Nazareth. And what do you say? He says, and you know, Jesus was a human being like us in every way. He didn't have the prompt answer immediately.

He waited. We have to wait to hear God. That's why it says here, Jesus was scribbling on the ground.

It's like, you know, sometimes we are thinking and he's scribbling on a piece of paper. We all do that sometimes. We are thinking, what should I do next? Or what should I write next? Or what should I say next? That's what he was stooping on the ground and just scribbling on the ground.

What was he doing? He was hearing, Father, I don't know exactly what to say, because these people are quoting a commandment from the Bible. And I don't want to break the commandment. Then he got a word.

The one who is without sin, let him cast the first stone. And he continued scribbling on the ground. And when they heard it, verse nine, why didn't somebody come forward and say, well, I haven't sinned? You know what would have happened? Jesus would have made a list of all the sins that guy had committed in his life.

And they were scared. I better not say, because the guy will expose me. So from the oldest person, they walked out one by one till nobody was left.

But there was one person left who had not committed sin. Jesus. He was qualified to throw a stone to keep the law.

He listened to the father. The father said, let her go. Don't stone her.

A government who passes a law in Parliament has got every right to cancel it. And God who gives a law has got every right to change it. So he says, I don't condemn you.

I'm qualified to throw a stone. But I won't throw it. Why was that? You know, that's the other mistake we can make.

We can become so rigid, especially on other people. Be rigid with yourself. Sure.

But when giving a word to other people, be merciful. That's what I learned from here. There's a beautiful verse, which I never forget.

In James chapter 2. It's a little expression, just four words. Just four words. I would encourage all of you to remember it all your life.

Four words. James chapter 2, verse 13. The last four words there.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. Can you remember that? Meditate on it. It's like mercy and judgment are fighting with each other.

And mercy wins. Always, in Jesus case, you come into a situation, maybe with your children or somebody did wrong something and there's a need for judgment and this conflict goes on in my mind, what should I do? Let mercy triumph over judgment. Because I'll tell you that if you live like that all your life, one day when you stand before the Lord, the Lord will be merciful to you.

He'll treat you exactly like you have treated other people in your earthly life. You know that I preach a very strict standard. Everybody who's heard me the last 50 years knows that.

I don't lower any of the commandments. But I always seek, I mean, you'd be surprised to hear some of the situations where I've not enforced it. Where I've allowed mercy to triumph over judgment.

Number of cases, and I don't care. People say, look, see, Brother Zach's compromising here. You can say what you like.

I've hurt God. They could have told Jesus, you're compromising, man. You yourself said the person without sin should cross the person and you gave the commandment says that a woman should be stoned and you let her go.

Jesus was willing to be misunderstood. And there are situations where I have faced, I say, I don't care. This Zach who preaches such a high standard, he's letting this person go.

Yes, I did let that person go. Because I heard from the Lord, mercy triumph over judgment. So Jesus was not rigid, dotting the I and crossing the T and say it must be like this.

Yeah, he kept the law down to the last detail. But see how he broke the Sabbath. It was an understanding of these people that don't do any work on the Sabbath.

But he would heal a sick person. That is a work. And he would tell them if your donkey fell into the ditch, would you pull it out or not? You guys are so careful for your animals, but you don't care for human beings.

If you have that type of you're not a rigid legalist, like a Pharisee, according to the letter of the law. Be strict with yourself. I've never allowed mercy to triumph over judgment in my when it comes to my own life there, I'm very strict.

But in dealing with others, I've always followed this principle, mercy must triumph over judgment. And I want to tell you that as a result of that, God has been immensely merciful to me. Immensely.

And I'm deeply thankful. God is a good God. He doesn't want to he doesn't love to punish.

He loves to forgive. He loves mercy more than judgment. So what I'm trying to show you from all these examples is keep your ear open, listen, not only when you wake up in the morning, when it says in Isaiah 50, he awakens my ear in the morning is not just for two minutes.

It meant it was awake right through the day till he went back to sleep. He's constantly alert to hear the Lord prompting to say, do this or don't do this. Now to take time to become sensitive to that voice.

But if you don't start, you'll never be able to get it. Practice, practice, practice. You know, I've heard of people in music.

They said, somebody told me so-and-so has got a perfect pitch. I said, what does that mean? Perfect pitch. I don't, I never heard that word before.

That means that if somebody in the congregation suddenly starts a song on any particular scale, this person can immediately hit that right note on the piano straight away. Now you really got to have a year for music to hit the right note and be on the right scale to start playing straight away. Just, and that another person may start on some other scale, he hits the right note.

Those are people who have got a year, but it didn't come overnight. It came through years of practicing the piano. That he can straight away hit the right note.

That's how it was with Jesus. It takes time to hear the Lord speaking to us. But if you are lazy, the person who never practiced the piano, he says, I'd like to have perfect pitch.

Yeah, you'd like to, but you've got to pay a price for it. You'd like to hear the Lord, the Lord speaking like the Holy Spirit spoke to Jesus, look up at the tree, there's somebody there. Wow, I really like to hear the Lord speak like that.

I haven't got there yet, by the way. But I want to be more and more sensitive to the Lord's voice. And as a result, as you know, over the last 50 years, I've seen that the Lord takes me to places where, because I want to plant the church, I want to plant a New Testament church wherever I go.

I don't want to just preach and go away. I don't want the honor of having preached and certainly I don't want any money from anybody. But I said, Lord, you came to earth to build a church.

And you said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church that you build. And I believe you called me to build a church, not just preach here and preach there and get a name for preaching. I have no interest in getting a name for preaching.

And I have no interest in just blessing individuals and letting them go. I have to build them together into a family. That's what I see Paul did.

That's what you came to do. And I see very few people doing that, really seeking to build local churches and bringing them into a fellowship. I'm not qualified to do it.

I mean, today you look at me, you think I'm qualified to do it. No, I wasn't. I didn't know anything about it when I started 50 years ago.

I told the Lord openly, but I said, Lord, I'm willing to do what you tell me. I'm willing to hear. And the Lord never allowed me to accept so many invitations, big, big things.

And the Lord said, don't go, don't go. I remember once in Kerala, which is one of the states in India, I was invited by a Pentecostal church, which had a huge 10,000 member conference. And they asked me to be the main speaker.

And there was a small group of maybe 15 people who were meeting in a house who asked me to come for meetings at the same time. And the Lord said, go to that small group. Tell the other folks you can't come.

So I wrote to that big church with 10,000 member conference. I'm sorry, I can't come. They could never change.

They could not change the date. So I said, okay, fine. I've never been to that church ever since.

They never invited me thereafter. Fine. So I went to this little group and I spent a few days with them with meetings.

And that is the beginning of the work in Kerala of a church. That is a church was planted there. And from there it was planted in many, many other places today.

And that place is still the headquarters of our church in Kerala. Boy, what I would have missed if I had been attracted by the 10,000 people coming to listen to me. Very thankful.

That's just one example I'll give you. And I'm so thankful that the Lord has planted like that little churches here and there in many, many other parts of India. I'm not special.

I don't believe I am. I want to just tell you what he did for Jesus. He will do for you.

That's the basis on which I wrote that song. You just sang yesterday, what he did for Jesus. He will do for you because he loves you as he loved Jesus Christ.

That's the thing I told you that my favorite verse is not John 3 16. Now it John 17 23. As the father loved Jesus, he loves me.

And I said, Lord, I believe that. And if you can wake up Jesus and speak to him, you can speak to me also. And different things.

Don't do this and go here. I want to encourage every one of you. You may be, you may not be a preacher.

There are many people whom God has used, who all they did was give out tracts and speak to individuals like that who were not able to preach at all, who brought multitudes to Christ. Make yourself available to the Lord and say, Lord, I don't want to be a very famous person. I just want to be available to you so that at the end of my life, I would have lived a worthwhile life on earth and not just drifted, just attending meetings, going to meetings, listening to a lot of messages and being stirred and accomplishing nothing for the Lord in my life.

I don't want to end my days like that. I told you the other day when I had a scooter accident, I almost died and I didn't. And I said, Lord, I have not finished saying thank you to you.

You've got to give me a few more time to finish saying thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying for me on the cross. My whole life is basically this writing this sentence. Thank you, Lord, for dying for me on the cross.

All my ministry is that. Aren't you thankful for what the Lord has done for you? Show it by listening to him, not by running around here and doing all that, but listening. Lord, what do you want me to do? Do you know all of you sitting here, there's a tremendous lot you can do just listening.

Lord, is there somebody you want me to speak to today? Please bring me in touch with him and give me the words to speak. I'm not a great preacher, but I can tell him that Jesus loves you. That's all.

So I see that that's how Jesus moved around. He was happy. For example, you know, the other place, I don't have time to show you all those verses.

There was this blind man called Bartimaeus. He was sitting in one corner. Somehow Jesus was prompted by the father to walk through that street.

And Bartimaeus is saying, David, please help me. And all the fellows say, shut up, man. He has no time for you.

So you blind fellow, you think he has time? He's a great man of God going through here. And Jesus heard it and said, come here. He healed him and he went his way rejoicing.

We don't have the power to open blind eyes. But we certainly have the power to open spiritually blind eyes. If your eyes in your inner eyes have been open to see the truth, there are many people around you who have not seen that truth.

And you don't have to be a great preacher. I'll tell you a story of a little girl in our church in Bangalore. She, maybe second grade or so, I don't remember what.

She used to go to a particular school and she had a friend, same age, who was a Roman Catholic girl. And you know, the parents of both these girls would come at the end of the school time to pick them up, take them home. So they got to know each other, waiting there outside the school gate, waiting for their children to come.

And this girl became very close friends with this. So these two parents would meet out there. And one of those parents was from our church, of course, said to the other one, Hey, would you like to come over to our church one day? I mean, they got friendly just waiting out there.

They never knew each other before. But it is through the contact of these little girls who were friendly with each other that that person decided to come to church and got converted. It's part of our church today.

And he invited his brother to come. He got converted. But it all started with the little girl being friendly with that other little girl.

Who is the one whom God cannot use? I'll never forget that, you know. There's nobody whom God cannot use. If you say, Lord, I love you.

I'm not very qualified. I'm not gifted like other preachers. I want to say I'm available.

Jesus cares for such people. You know, I think one of the greatest privileges in the Gospels was to see the to be the first person to see Jesus after he rose from the dead. Because that was the beginning of the new creation.

Supposing I were to ask you, would you have liked to have been there in Genesis chapter two, where God was making man out of clay and breathing into it? Would you like to have seen it? I said, Wow, I would have liked to have seen a video of it if possible. Instead of video, if I was actually there some way, of course it can't be. But if I could see that, or even a video of Jesus, God taking the mud and breathing into him.

Wow, that would be tremendous. That was the beginning of the first creation. Okay, we missed that.

The beginning of the new creation. That at least we can see. Jesus coming out of the grave and being the beginning of the new creation.

And God is going to select one person from the world to see him, to be the first person to see him, beginning of the new creation. Oh, we would have loved to be that first person. You know who we chose? Who would you have chosen? I thought of that.

If God had asked me, whom do you think should be the first person to see my son risen from the dead? I would have said Mary, his mother, of course. She's the one who suffered so much shame and ridicule, being called an adulterous woman, having Jesus, what all she suffered, bringing up Jesus for 30 years. She must be the one.

And God the Father, with all his wisdom, says no. Maybe Peter, he's the leader of the apostles. No.

And he selects the most unlikely person whom I wouldn't even think of. Mary Magdalene, demons, seven demons inside her, probably an immoral woman whom Jesus saved. She's the one.

I really say, Lord, your ways are certainly not my ways. I have a lot to learn. About God's ways.

It humbles me. But if I read those instances, I can, my mind can think a little more like God's. If I read the Gospels and read, as I say, between the lines, why did God do it like that? That's why I say, when you read the scripture, meditate on it.

Meditate on, don't miss out what's written between the lines, if you know what I mean by that statement. What is hidden there? You won't get it if you just read. Blessed is the man who meditates on the law of the Lord.

That's what it says in Psalm 1. He will prosper in all that he does. I want to prosper spiritually. And as I meditate on these scriptures that I showed to you, you can also find amazing things there in scripture.

Why God allows certain things to happen in a certain way, at a certain time. And how the Lord went exactly at the right time to certain places when people are ready. I found that remarkably in many places.

I go to a certain place and it's just as if the fruit was ready to fall. And there's a church planted. And then you go to another place and the fruit is ready to fall.

And so many other places I get an invitation, the Lord says don't accept it. So I say to you what Jesus said to Martha, one thing is needful. Mary has chosen that good part to listen and listen and obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

So in a nutshell, what am I saying to you? You have asked the Holy Spirit to come into your heart. Develop the habit. It'll take time of listening.

I told you about this perfect pitch. Person played the piano for years and years and years and years and years and somebody just starts singing and hit the right note straight away. It takes time.

But develop the habit of listening to what God is saying. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, there's not a single person here whom you cannot use mightily to fulfill your purpose.

However weak they may be, ignorant, foolish, doesn't matter. I pray you'll teach us everyone Lord to hear you more clearly. Men, women also, children.

There's nobody whom you cannot use. Help everyone here to have that faith that you can use even them. Thank you in Jesus name.

Amen.