Take The Commands Of Jesus Seriously

So dear brothers and sisters, I'm very happy to see you all. I'm glad you all turned on your videos so I can see your faces, so I know who I'm speaking to. It's very important for us to understand when we are Christians that God has called us, unlike the Jewish people in the Old Testament where God was not their father, he was their God, and they never had a bridal relationship with Jesus Christ, whereas today we can know God as our father, and Jesus once said, I do not leave you as orphans.

I don't know whether you have seen orphans. I've seen a lot of them in India, particularly those who are brought up in an orphanage from childhood, where maybe the parents forsook them, sometimes somebody leaves a baby at the gate of an orphanage, and those poor children right from babyhood, they've never known any security. They are always insecure because no mother or father ever hugged them or kissed them, and that insecurity remains in those orphans even when they are 30, 40, 50 years old.

I've seen orphans like that who have grown up and they're never secure. They're always very possessive. If you become their friend, they don't want you to be the friend of anybody else.

That is an orphan, and when I look at a lot of Christians who claim to be believers, I find that they're like orphans spiritually. There's no security in their life. Orphans are always very quick to fight.

I've noticed that's another thing about orphans. Because they are so insecure, they're quick to kick up a fight with anybody, and to tell you honestly, that's what I found many so-called believers also like. Some small little thing, they'll get upset with their husband or wife and say something rude and never even apologize.

Orphans never apologize. So if you are like that, you must recognize that spiritually you're an orphan, even though you claim to be a child of God. You don't really know God as your father.

My desire is that if you really want to be a Christian, you must know God as your own father. That brings such security into your life, delivers you from discouragement, fear, and all the other problems that come with insecurity. Most believers that I've met, their fundamental problem is insecurity.

They think their problem is sin. No, sin is not their problem. They sin because they are insecure.

So if you don't deal with that insecurity, you'll never overcome sin. You'll overcome sin in public. I mean, I think all of you you won't yell at your husbands or wives in public.

Some crazy people do that also, but I don't think any of you do that. But that doesn't mean anything, because sin is sin. Whether you do it in secret in your home or you do it publicly.

Do it publicly is worse, but if you lose your temper at your place of work or anywhere, it's a sin. And why is it that we don't take these things seriously? Let me give you an example from the Sermon on the Mount. That's my favorite passage of Scripture, Matthew 5, 6, and 7. So at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said these words, and I don't know if all Christians have taken it seriously.

The Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew chapter 5, chapter 6, and chapter 7, and that whole sermon takes only about 15 minutes. Jesus never preached long sermons. That doesn't mean we should not preach long sermons.

Many great preachers have preached for two hours and three hours. And some of these things that are written here are not that Jesus actually spoke only for that time. He may have spoken for one hour, but it's sort of compressed into 15 minutes.

But here's the Sermon on the Mount, and I want you to see at the end of that sermon what Jesus says in Matthew 7, and verse 24 to 27. Now, if you've heard me before, you've heard me say this before, and I never get tired of saying it, because it's very, very important. He speaks about those who hear these words of mine.

These words of mine means, Matthew 7, 24, means what I've just spoken, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7. Now, if you hear them, that means if you read, today we say instead of here, if you read Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and you don't obey them, then rather if you do obey them, verse 24, if you do obey what I've said, the Lord says, then you're like a man who built his house on a rock. But if you don't obey them, verse 26, you hear. You hear means you're not a non-Christian.

You're not a Muslim or a Hindu or something. You hear these words of mine. That means you read the Bible.

How many people, even among Christians, how many read the Bible? Very few. But you're one of those good Christians who read the Bible. So everyone who reads these words of mine and does not obey them, he's like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

So now every one of you can discover whether your foundation is on a rock or on sand. You know the difference. When your foundation is on sand, it shakes easily.

Any little thing will upset you. Think of a house that's built on sand. A little wind and one window falls off or one wall falls down, a crack in a wall.

Anything, a little wind. It doesn't have to be a storm. And when a Christian is like that, that some small little thing upsets him and he gets angry, his house is not on the rock.

And you must face up to that and say, Lord, my house is not on the rock. Something's wrong. So I don't want to go through all the Sermon on the Mount.

I want to show you only two verses. And why do I point those two verses out? Because I pointed it out for 50 years, because nobody else points it out like I do. And that is, I say these are the only two places in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said you can read it and go to hell.

Isn't that serious? You read it and you still go to hell. So only two places. I mean there are many verses there, but only there are many sins that he spoke about.

But when he speaks about two sins that can take you to hell, that must be pretty serious compared to the other sins. Okay, let me tell you the two sins mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount that will take you to hell. Now you've heard me before on this.

You say, yeah, yeah, I know that. Brother, sister, I will agree that you know that when you stop committing those sins. If you only know in your mind what those two sins are, you have not understood it.

You can say, I've understood that scripture, but I've stopped committing those sins. What are those two sins? Number one, anger. Matthew 5 verse 21 and 22.

In the Old Testament, that is where God spoke to the Jews, the commandment was, you shall not commit murder. And every one of you know that murder is very, very serious. And none of you will ever go and murder anybody.

I know that. But that's not a great thing because I know hundreds of Hindus and Muslims will never murder anybody. So how does that make you better than them? There are atheists who never murder anybody, who keep that Old Testament commandment, you shall not murder.

But the Lord says, now you're in the New Testament, they followed Moses, you follow Jesus, and since Jesus is higher than Moses, much higher, the standard in the New Covenant is also higher than the standard Moses gave in the Old Testament. So the Old Testament standard was don't murder, the New Testament standard is don't get angry. That's what he said in verse 22.

I say to you, Moses said to you, you shall not murder, verse 21. But I say to you, if you're angry, you're guilty. And then if you allow that anger to come up even more, and you say something rude to another person, you're more guilty.

And then you keep on saying something more, three steps of anger, you're ready to go to hell, verse 22. I want to ask you how many preachers, I'm sure many of you have heard many priests, pastors, preachers, preach to you for many, many years. How many preachers have ever told you that anger can finally lead you to hell? If you know of somebody like that, please let me know.

I'd like to meet some preachers who preach like it's, like Jesus said, anger can lead you to hell. And because preachers have not preached it sufficiently, so many Christians just get angry, and they never set it right, they never apologize, not even to their wives or their husbands. Don't worry about whether somebody else apologizes to you.

You ask yourself whether you apologize to somebody else when you get angry. In the Old Testament, Moses would have said, if you murder somebody, you will go to hell. But even that was difficult for people in the Old Testament, because they killed people.

They didn't take it seriously. God's punishment still came on them. And I want to say to you that even though punishment is delayed, it will come.

So just because you got angry many, many times, many, many times with many, many people, you say nothing has happened to me, I'm still healthy and strong, and I've got a good job, and I'm sitting down, and I'm living in America, where I'm so rich compared to the poor people in India or Africa where my other relatives are. Don't glory in money and comfort, brother, sister. You're fooling yourself.

Some of those poor people in the villages of India are more spiritual than you. I know them because I worked 50 years among them and taught these same things there, and many of them have taken it seriously. So don't rejoice in a comfortable lifestyle or that your children can get a good education.

Praise the Lord for all that. But that's all garbage and nonsense compared to overcoming sin. When you realize that, you become a true Christian, and I'm sorry to say many Christians have not realized that.

Just because you're part of a good fellowship doesn't mean anything, because God doesn't ask you which church you went into. One day, all of us will stand at the judgment seat of Christ, and his question will not be, which church did you attend? Never. That will not even be one of the questions he asks.

What he'll ask you is, did you get angry? And you say, yes, Lord. I say, did you apologize to that person you got angry with? And you say to some of them, what about all the others? You did not set something right. Is it possible to set things right after you have died? No.

The Bible says it's appointed unto men once to die, after that the judgment. Hebrews 9 27. There is no, there's only one thing after death, and that is judgment.

Like, there is no period between death and judgment like the Roman Catholics say, where you'll be tortured and your sins will be forgiven in some type of way. Situation, no. It's death, one day resurrection, judgment.

There's no opportunity to set anything right after I leave this earth, and because we don't know when death will come, you can have an accident tomorrow. I mean, I hope it won't happen, but it can happen. A lot of people have woken up in the morning, hale and hearty, and they didn't never finish the day because they had an accident and died.

So, life is so uncertain on this earth, and one has to be always ready to meet the Lord, always ready to go and die and be prepared for that, but that's not the main reason why we avoid sin. I don't want to apologize to those whom I hurt in anger just because if I don't do it, I'll be judged by God, I'll go to hell. That's not a good reason to obey God.

I mean, if you have children who tell me, I obey daddy and mommy because otherwise they'll punish me. I don't want to obey them, I hate them, but I obey them because otherwise they'll punish me. Are you happy with such children who obey you only because you're afraid they'll punish you, you'll punish them? No.

You want children who love you and who obey you because they know it's good, because the Bible says, honor your father and mother, children obey your parents, because then it'll go well with you, and you'll live long on the earth. So, I've had children too. I've got four sons, and I taught them from childhood to obey me, and just like God punishes his children, I punish my children when they did not obey.

God loves people more than anybody else, and a loving God punishes his children when they don't obey. He disciplines them. So, I tried to follow God, my father, and I did the same with my children.

I did not want them to obey me out of fear of punishment. God doesn't want us to obey him because I'll be punished otherwise. Do you want your children to obey you because they are afraid they'll be punished? Why do you want your children to obey you? Oh, you wish that they would love you and obey you joyfully, not because they're afraid they'll get a spanking.

How do you think God wants you to obey him? Not because you're afraid God will punish you in some way, you lose your job, or you'll get a sickness, or some problem will come in your life. Therefore, I obey God. That's not even the second best way of obeying God.

That's not at all the way to obey God because God doesn't want it. You as a father don't want it, and God, who's a million times better than you and me, does not want it that way. So, Jesus said that very clearly.

He said, if you love me, keep my commandments, not if you are afraid of me. That is Old Testament. In the Old Testament, it said that you shall fear the Lord your God and obey him.

Now, I want to ask you, are you following Moses or are you following Jesus? We all say we are following Jesus, but if you obey God because you're afraid of punishment, you're actually following Moses. Your leader is not Jesus. Your leader is Moses.

You're really an Old Testament person. You're really like an Old Testament Jew, but even they had such fear that they didn't obey. But the New Testament, Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, not if you're afraid of punishment, keep my commandments.

Only one foundation for keeping God's commandments, if you love me. And I remember when I read this, I also grew up just like you, going to a church where all the preachers told me, God will punish you and therefore you must avoid it. And so, I avoided sin out of fear of punishment for 20 years of my life, nearly 19 and a half years of my life.

I was not a Christian. I had to go to church regularly. I didn't kill anybody or commit adultery or anything like that, but I was not a Christian.

I didn't steal anybody's money, but I wasn't a Christian. My Christianity was going to church, living a decent life, and I thought that was it. But the time came in my life when I was born again, and the best way I can compare that is an animal becoming a human being.

Can you imagine that? Supposing you have a dog in your house, or a cat, and one day suddenly it becomes a human being and becomes your child. So, what a miracle that is. That is impossible, humanly speaking, but that is what it means to be born again.

Animals belong to a certain level of creation. Human beings belong to another level of creation. They were both created on the sixth day.

The first part of the sixth day, God created animals. The second part of the sixth day, He created Adam and Eve from the same dust. You know that animals are also made from the dust, just like Adam and Eve, and they were made on the same day.

Why did God make animals and man on the same day? He made the fish on the fifth day, and He could have made the lions and the cats and the dogs also on the fifth day, but He did not do that. He made the fish and the birds on the fifth day, you read that in Genesis 1, but He made the animals on the sixth day, and He made man on the sixth day, to teach man a lesson. What is that lesson? What is the difference between the dust that makes a man and the dust that makes a dog? No difference.

You go a few years after a dog has died and a man has died, and you see both are dust. Both of them are dust, including the bones and everything. So, what is the difference between that dog and that man? Really nothing.

They're just the same dust they're made from. But one thing happened. When God made Adam, it says He breathed into him, and Adam became a living soul.

Animals have got mind, they've got feelings, and they've got a willpower. Don't you know that dogs can obey you or not obey you? That is will. They've got their will.

Dogs have got emotions. They can be happy, they can be angry. And dogs have got a mind.

They can think. They can understand what you're saying. So, mind and emotions and will animals also have.

But what the animals don't have is what the Bible calls a spirit. That when God breathed into man, he got a spirit, and that spirit told him, even though you're made of dust, you don't belong to the dust. The spirit is always pulling man upwards, and man's body will pull him downwards.

So, there's a tussle in a man between the spirit pulling him towards God and the body pulling him down. That's why if a dog disobeys you, it doesn't feel any conviction about it. You can train a dog to obey, but it doesn't have any conviction that I disobeyed my master.

You got to whip and train a dog to obedience. And when a child is like that, you can, it's really like a dog. But a child has something more than a dog has.

A child has got a conscience. That's why when a child tells you a lie, and your little five-year-old is telling you a lie, you can see on his face that he's telling a lie, because his conscience is troubling him. Even though he's five years old, I'm telling a lie to mommy, and you can see it on that face.

But you wait till that child is 20 years old, can tell you a lie with a straight face, and even fool you that he's telling the truth. Why is that? Because he's trained and trained and killed and killed, killed and killed his conscience so much that now he can tell you a lie with a straight face, and even you believe that it is the truth. That is how man drifts away from God, by killing his conscience, killing his conscience.

But we are born with a sensitive conscience. It is impossible for a three or four-year-old child to tell a lie without it being manifest in his face, I'm telling a lie, because that conscience is bothering him. That's the thing we lose, first of all.

All of us have lost it, and the moment you stop living by the witness of that spirit, whether you know it or not, you're descended to the level of an animal, and more than 95 percent of human beings are living at that level. That's why most human beings behave like animals, and I mean, there's a little bit of culture and education which sort of keeps the animal attitude in control, but deep down they're really like that. If you don't live by that God having breathed his spirit into man, we become animals.

It was very important to understand that, that the most important part of our personality and our being is the spirit that God has breathed into us, and that's what Jesus came to give us, that Holy Spirit to live in us, to make us alive and alert to the fact that we are spirit beings, basically, and that's why anger is a serious thing, because I want my way. You know, the fundamental problem with man is I want my way, and the other person wants his way, and so we clash parents and children. What is a clash between parents and children? That child wants his way, and the parent wants his way, and there's a clash.

It's my will versus somebody else's will. Let me show you how Jesus lived, but before I go there, I told you there are two places in the Bible, in the Sermon on the Mount, where it speaks about hell. One is anger.

It says anger can take you to hell, and the other is Matthew 5. Please turn to Matthew 5. The first verse we saw is verse 22. The second one is verse 29, talking about adultery, and it says in verse 28, if you lust after a woman, this is for men especially, with your eyes, you have already committed adultery. You don't have to touch.

You can just look at a woman, and you don't even have to see a woman. You've just got to look at a woman's picture in a magazine, and lust with your eyes, and you've committed adultery. That is a New Testament standard.

If you go to Old Testament, then it is a physical thing. In the New Testament, it's in the mind, and then He said that if you're like that, it's better to pull out your eye, verse 29, otherwise you'll go to hell. Now tell me, how many men are there in the world who would rather lose one eye than commit adultery in their mind? Very few.

Those are the people who fear God, who would say, I'd rather lose one eye than lust in my mind. That is the standard Jesus has taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Not murder, but anger.

He said that if you get angry with your husband, you're actually taking a knife and stabbing him to death. If you get angry with your wife, you're taking a knife and stabbing her to death. Jesus taught that, but most Christians are living by the standard of Moses.

We say we are following Jesus, we're actually following Moses. The same way with lusting, Moses said don't commit physical adultery, Jesus said don't even do it in your mind. Most people are following, even Christians, most people are really following Moses.

And the true Christian is one who follows Jesus, who says to himself, anger is equal to murder. If I yell at my wife in anger, I'm actually killing her, I'm taking a knife and stabbing her. I'll tell you the truth, my dear brothers, I've been around for Christianity for my childhood, but I've seen hardly any church, very, very few in the world that preaches the standards that Jesus taught.

I myself, even after I was born again, for 16 years, I never believed these standards and never preached these standards. I was just like any other Christian, even though I said I accepted Christ. And I went to a church that preached about me being born again, but didn't make much of a difference in my life.

Until one day I got so fed up, not one day, but for about six months of my life, when I was about 30, 35 years old, I got so fed up with my life, defeated, defeated, defeated. I said, Lord, I will stop preaching because I'm not able to live according to the standard I preach. Why should I be a hypocrite? I said, Lord Jesus, I love you.

You died for me. I'll give my life for you, but I will not preach. That's what I said 50 years ago.

I'm 84 years old now. I was 24 and a half, sorry, 29 and a half then, sorry, 34 and a half then, when I said, Lord, I will not preach again because I'm a hypocrite. I do not want to speak what is not true in my life.

But at the moment I am speaking what's true in my life. I said 50 years ago, unless you do something for me and change me, help me to overcome my anger, help me to overcome lusting in my mind, help me to overcome these things that Jesus said the Sermon on the Mount, I want to build on the rock. And for six months, I struggled and fasted and prayed and sought the Lord and wept and cried out to God and prayed with others.

One day, finally, God met with me and filled me with the Holy Spirit, just like those apostles on the day of Pentecost. Exactly like that. That turned my life around.

That happened 50 years ago. And six months after that, the first CFC church was born in my house. And since then, God has raised up so many churches around the world.

But that's not the thing I glory in. I don't glory in the churches that have been planted. I don't glory in any church.

I thank God that Jesus saved me from sin. I don't glory in the fact that I can preach. I'm thankful that my Savior, who gave his life for me, that I can respond to that by saying, Lord, by your power and the power of your Holy Spirit, I can seek to live by everything that you spoke in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Never get angry even once, not only with my wife but with anybody, for 365 days of the year.

Every day. Never raise my voice and get angry with anyone because of the power of the Holy Spirit. It's impossible without that.

And the same way, never to lust with my eyes even once. I mean, I've been seeking to live like that for 50 years. It's getting better and better and better and better.

That is the Christian life. You don't want your child to sit in kindergarten for 25 years. A child is supposed to sit in the kindergarten only for one year, and then it must move on to the next class.

We want that for our children. You don't want your child to sit in the first grade for more than one year. Do you know that God also does not want you to live at one level for more than one year? Next year you must be a higher level, and the next year must be a higher level.

That's exactly what you expect of your children, that in 10 years they finish 10 grades, in 12 years they finish 12 grades, and they're going to college. Isn't that what every father and mother want for their children? I tell you, God wants that for his children too. Not to remain in the same defeated level we were 20 years ago.

But for that, you know, there's a verse in the Bible, let me show you. It says in Jeremiah. I hope you read the Old Testament now and then.

Jeremiah chapter 29. It's a great verse. Jeremiah 29 and verse 13.

Please become familiar with your Bible and look at these verses. Jeremiah 29 13. Here is a promise where the Lord says, you will find me.

Isn't that good? Supposing you lost your money somewhere, you lost $100,000 somewhere, you misplaced it, and you find it. Wow. Even if you find $50, you misplace somewhere, you're excited.

Imagine God saying, you'll find me. Are you excited that you can find God? That's more than $50. But it says here, you will find me when you search for me with all your heart.

Supposing you were going out of town and you had a lot of money in your pocket and somewhere you misplaced it. Wouldn't you go back to all those places? Where did I misplace? Even if it's a phone, where did I misplace my phone? I visited this place, this place. Let me go back and find out.

Did I leave my phone there? I want to ask you, my brothers, how many of you seek for God like that when you feel you've lost touch with Him? Sometimes during the day, you're lost touch with God. Sometimes for days on end, you're not in touch with God. And you say, where did I miss Him? Let me go back and seek Him.

When you search for me with all your heart, the promise is, you will find me. Why is it so many believers don't find God? I'll tell you. They don't search for Him with all your heart.

I'm not trying to condemn you, my brothers and sisters. How would you exhort your child who is constantly failing in kindergarten? After great struggle, he's still not able to add 2 plus 3. He can add 2 plus 2 is 4. But you tell him, what is 2 plus 3? And he's struggling, struggling, struggling. Many days he can't add 2 plus 3. He still thinks 2 plus 3 is 4. How will you feel about a son or a daughter like that? And he's intelligent.

Why is he not understanding? Then you go one step more, 2 plus 4, he doesn't know. You'd be really disturbed. And even after one year, he doesn't know that BAT is bat and CAP is cat.

You'd be disturbed. God is disturbed when we are not progressing in our Christian life. The same sins that defeated us 10 years ago were defeated by today.

It should not be. There must be a progression in our life, just like in school, where we overcome, overcome, overcome. It's like climbing a mountain.

We go higher and higher and higher and higher. That is the Christian life. That is how we are to wait for the coming of Jesus Christ.

All of us say that we are expecting Christ to come back again. If you were to ask most Christians, what is your hope? So my hope is that Christ is coming back. Good.

But if you read the Bible, the Bible says that is only half the hope. What is the second half of the hope? Let me try to show you in Scripture. Please read the Bible exactly.

1 John chapter 3 and verse 2. It's there. 1 John chapter 3 verse 2. If you are familiar with your Bible and you turn to your Bible, you can see it. In the last part of it says in 1 John chapter 3 verse 2, now we are the children of God because we are born again.

Praise the Lord. But it has not yet appeared what we will become. It's like a child in kindergarten saying, I got admission into a good school.

Praise God. Your child got admission into a good school. Wonderful.

But after 10 years, all he can say is, I'm in a good school, but I'm still in the kindergarten. Something's wrong. What's the use being in a good school if you have 10 years in the kindergarten? It says here, we are children of God.

That means we have entered school. But we want to graduate from school. So it says, one day we will be like him, verse 2, when he appears.

So what shall I do between now when I'm in the kindergarten and one day I'll be like him? It says here, verse 3, everyone, listen to this. This is the that applies to you and me. Everyone who has this hope, what hope? That I will become like Jesus Christ in my character one day.

I will love people like Jesus loved people. I will love my heavenly father like Jesus loved. I'll never sin in thought, word, deed, attitude, motive, nothing.

Just like Jesus. I'll be perfect like Jesus was one day. Yes.

But if you have this hope, what will you do? Verse 3, you will purify yourself. I won't just ask God to purify me. I will purify myself.

That means in the examination, the school examination, your child can't ask your teacher to come and do the examinations and he's got to do it himself. He should progress. I'm not saying a kindergarten child can answer a fifth grade question paper.

Should be able to answer a kindergarten question paper. Next year, he should be able to answer a first grade question paper. And the next year, a second grade.

That is progression. And in our life, God wants us to progress. And it says here, he who has this hope, what is the hope? Not that Christ is coming.

Please see there in verse 2, what is the hope? Read carefully. The hope is not that he will appear. Most Christians have the hope he will appear.

But what does it say? When he appears, we will be like him. Our hope is a double hope. Christ is coming.

And when he comes, I'll be like him. Many people, it's only a single hope. He will come.

But 1 John 3 says our hope is a double hope. He will come. And when he comes, I will be like him.

And if you have this double hope, it says in verse 3, the proof is this. Not that you confess it with your mouth. Everybody will confess with their mouth.

Yeah, I'll be like Christ when he comes. No, that's not the proof. The proof is today, you're purifying yourself constantly till you reach that standard of purity.

In other words, every year, you're a promotion to a higher class, just like your child. You go to a little child in kindergarten and he says, I want to get a PhD one day. It'll take 20 years, but I'll work at it.

Well, if he's serious about it, the next year, he'll go to first grade. And the next year, he'll go to second grade. He doesn't get a PhD in one year.

It'll take 20 years. But he's going year by year by year. And if you say one day, I'm going to be like Christ.

Well, next year, you should be more like Christ than you are this year. And this year, should be more like Christ than you were last year. That is progression.

That is the Christian who is taking his life seriously. So my brothers and sisters, just because our doctrine is right, does not mean we are good Christians. A doctrine must correspond with our life.

Doctrine is like one leg and our life is like another leg. And most Christians are imbalanced. The doctrine is 39 inches leg, life is about three inches.

Can you imagine a man whose one leg is 39 inches and the other leg is three inches? How does he walk? So unstable. That's how many Christians are. They preach the highest possible truths, but their life does not correspond to it.

And what people, they don't tell us the reason, but the real reason that many people don't turn to Christ when they look at our life and the way we behave with our relatives and in our office and all that is, I don't see Christ in your life. You speak the words all right, but your life does not match up with your confession of Christ. You say you're better than the other Christians.

Well, in what way are you better? You know what we need to do? We need to do what the Bible says, repent, repent. You know what is the last message that Jesus gave to the church? You read that in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 to seven churches. To five of them, he says, repent, repent.

That's not to unbelievers. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached to the unbelievers, repent and receive Christ as your savior and be baptized. That is to the unbelievers.

But in Revelation chapter 2, the Lord is telling the believers to the church in Ephesus, Revelation chapter 2 verse 2, he says in verse 5, repent. To the next church in Pergamum, which is in verse 12, to them he says, repent, verse 16. And then to the church in Thyatira, which is in verse 18, chapter 2 verse 21, repent.

And then to the next church in Sardis, he tells them also, repent. In chapter 3 verse 1, he says to the church in Sardis, he says, you need to wake up and strengthen the things that are remain. Verse 3, repent.

And to the church in Laodicea, in verse 14, he says, repent, turn around from sin. That's what he's telling them all the time. And if you don't repent, then we cannot be overcomers.

Verse 3 verse 19. But if you do overcome, and the other thing I want you to notice in Revelation 3, 21, the Lord says, I want you to overcome as I overcame. So Jesus did not just preach to us, he gave us an example.

If you read the Gospels, how many times do you find Jesus saying, believe in me, believe in me, believe in me? Almost never, maybe one or two times. The word Jesus always said was, follow me, follow me, follow me. Take up your cross and follow me.

We tell people, believe in Jesus, believe in Jesus. But Jesus said, follow me, follow me. What we need to tell people is, follow Jesus, follow Jesus, follow Jesus.

That's what he said all the time. And he said, you've got to deny yourself and take up the cross if you want to follow me. Otherwise, you can't follow.

Right in the center of our heart, there's a throne. And from the day we were born, it is self that sits on that throne, wanting your own way, getting offended when you don't get your own way, speaking whatever comes to your mind without thinking whether it hurts another person or not. That is self sitting on the throne.

And we think Christianity is just, whenever I sin, ask the Lord to forgive me. Well, that's what we've been doing for year after year after year. You know, in these amusement parks, you sometimes see a merry-go-round, wooden horses, and the children sit on it and go round and round and round.

And after one hour, they're in the same place. After one hour of movement, they're in the same place. That is how many Christians are living.

It's a constant, not merry, but it's going round and round and round and round. I sin and I repent, and then I sin and I repent, and I sin and I repent, and I sin and I repent. I sin and sometimes not even repent.

I ask God to forgive me. I sin and I ask God to forgive me. I sin and I ask God to forgive me.

It's been round and round and round and round. After 20 years, where are you? In the same place. The child that sits 20 years on that merry-go-round is still in the same place.

That's not Christianity. There's movement. Go to church, read the Bible, sing songs, a lot of movement, but no progress.

If you want progress, you have to repent. Say, Lord, I'm really sorry for the way I lived. I want to change my way of life.

I want to take some decisions with my will. I want to ask you, brothers and sisters, a simple question. If you worked in your office in the same half-hearted way that you live the Christian life, would your boss fire you, or would you retain your job? Most Christians would not be able to retain their job if they worked in their office in the same half-hearted way they live the Christian life.

Even some of you sisters, if you're working, you would not keep your job if you did your job in the same half-hearted way you live the Christian life. If you're always doing things wrong in your office or your place where you work, how will they retain you? They would have fired you long ago. We don't take our Christian life as seriously as we take our job, and I'll tell you why.

Because in our job, we get money, and we worship money, so I don't want to lose my job. But if I sin, I don't lose money. I only lose fellowship with God, and that's not important for me, because I can say, Lord, forgive me, and I get fellowship with God again.

You see how casually we take the Christian life, and then God sees that we take our Christian life less seriously than we take our job. I'll tell you this right now. You won't make progress in your Christian life for the next 25 years.

No. But you start taking your Christian life as seriously as you take your job today, you will make progress in one day. I'll tell you that.

Believe me, in one day, there'll be a change in your life. You say, Lord, I'm going to take my Christian life as seriously as I take my job. I'm not going to take sin lightly.

Any sin, thought, word, there are five areas where we commit sin. Listen carefully. In our thoughts, number one, be careful with your thoughts.

Don't take that lightly. Words, that's the second area where we sin. The words we speak to one another, especially at home.

When we come to a church meeting, we are very careful. We don't get angry in the church. It's at home that we sin with words or in the office.

Thirdly, in our actions, thoughts, words, actions. Actions mean you can physically do something to sin, some physical action. You can hit somebody or commit adultery or, yeah, thought, word, deed.

The fourth area is attitude. Attitude is an inward thing. It's not a thought, it's not a word, it's not an action, but it's a certain attitude you have towards somebody.

It's an attitude a wife can have towards her husband. It's invisible, it's inside. It's an attitude where you don't respect your husband, you don't respect your wife.

You know you're supposed to respect each other as husband and wife? If you don't respect your marriage partner, it's a wrong attitude. You're sinning all the time, perpetually. And many husbands and wives are sinning all the time, 24 hours.

They're not saying anything, they're not doing anything, but their attitude, many children, in their attitude to their parents are sinning 24 hours a day. And then fifth is in the motive with which we do something. You can do something very good and your motive, for example, I can preach a sermon, which is a very good thing, but if my motive is I want some honor from people, or what is worse, I want some money from people, like some preachers, that's sin.

The sermon may be a good sermon, but it's a sinful sermon because the attitude, the motive behind it was wrong. The motive was to gain something for myself, not for the glory of God. Have you read this verse in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 31? It's a great verse.

It's a very difficult verse to obey, but that is God's standard and we must aim for it. 1 Corinthians 10 31, it says, even if you eat or drink, which is the most normal thing we do, 1 Corinthians 10 31, whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. So even my eating and drinking, I discipline myself in my eating and drinking.

You know the reason why many people are sick? Many people are sick is because they eat too much. They eat far more than they should eat. They just become fat and sick.

They eat the wrong type of food. They get sick. It says you must eat for the glory of God.

That means eat to keep alive and healthy. Eat wisely. Don't just gobble up anything that you get because there's a lust in us to eat.

Just as there's a lust for sex, there's a lust for eating. So eating and drinking, I must do everything for the glory of God. That's not going to limit you in any way.

If you deny yourself, you'll become a healthier person. Deny yourself, you'll become a more spiritual person. It's for our good that the Lord says to deny ourselves.

Do everything for the glory of God. Yeah, you say the Lord is expecting a very high standard. Let me ask you, my dear parents, all of you parents, you know in India, pass marks in school are 40%.

You get 40%, you get promoted to the next class in India. So what do I tell my children when they go to school? Please try and get 40%. No.

I tell them aim for 100%. Why should you get just 40%? What do you teach your children? You teach your children somehow get 40% and get to the next class and like that they'll get all the way to 12th grade. They'll never get a job in their life because you taught them always to do the minimum, minimum, minimum necessary.

You get a job and you go to work and you do the minimum necessary, you'll be fired from that job in no time at all. We must teach our children to work hard. I used to tell my children, I don't care.

I'm not asking you to come first in the class. I never told my any of my children to come first in the class because there may be somebody more intelligent than you. How can I blame you for that? You got your intelligence from me.

So how can I blame you if you're not intelligent? It's because I'm not intelligent. But so I'm not asking you to be the most intelligent person in your class, but I'm asking you to work hard. If you work hard and you get 45%, I'm happy.

But if you don't work hard, I don't care what marks you get, I don't care what rank you came, you're lazy. And I don't want my children to come first in the class, but I want them to work hard because I know in the long run, it's hard work that helps them to do well in life. It's the same way in Christian life.

The same thing that you tell your children, work hard, study your subjects properly. God is telling us the same thing. Take your Christian life seriously.

Take your marriage relationship seriously. Take your attitude towards other human beings seriously. God has created this world in a way that love is the air that we should be breathing and speaking in.

Love is the atmosphere in which we should be living all the time. And if that's not there, if you have love in your atmosphere in your home, your home is already like heaven. You can make your home like heaven if you decide that the love of Christ is going to, I'm going to live in an atmosphere of the love of Christ.

Otherwise you'll die. You know these people who go to the moon? There are men who walk on the moon, but you can't walk on the moon without a equipment that covers your whole body. And you've got to breathe some, the atmosphere of earth in heaven.

That's why they wear all these space suits that cover everything. Because there's no, there's no oxygen on the moon. You try to walk on the moon like you walk on the earth, you'll die in a moment.

In three minutes you'll be dead. Nobody can walk on the moon. So they wear this space suit where they are breathing oxygen, the oxygen of the earth they are breathing, and they're walking on the moon.

That is a picture of the Christian life, where I'm walking on the earth, but I'm not breathing the atmosphere of this earth, I'm breathing the atmosphere of heaven. In my inwardly I've got a space suit, the spirit of heaven that rules me, controls me. And if you don't have that, you die spiritually.

And that's why a lot of so-called Christians are dead spiritually, because you can't live on the moon without that space suit, and you can't live on this earth without having the atmosphere of heaven in your heart. That is why God tells us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The most important thing that all Christians need is to be filled with God's Holy Spirit.

I'm not a Pentecostal, and I'm not teaching the Pentecostal teaching that you must speak in tongues and all that, no. I'm saying you must be filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ that changes your character into a Christ-like character. That's what I sought.

I sought for the fullness of the Holy Spirit because I was defeated by sin. I said, Lord, I don't want to get angry. I don't want to be in bad moods.

I never want to be in a bad mood even a single moment of my life. I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit because of that. I want to encourage your brothers and sisters.

Seek with all your heart to be filled with the Holy Spirit and say, Lord, please help me. Strengthen me. You know, just like during this message how the connection went like that, that's how our connection with God can go.

That's a parable. What happened? All of a sudden, we are talking to each other, seeing each other, and it's gone. What happened? Some connection is broken somewhere.

That's exactly what happens when sin comes. It doesn't take long. It was not a gradual break of that connection in our internet connection today.

It was just like that. And then you had to work on it and restore it. That's exactly what it means to repent and come back to the Lord and then make sure that the connection doesn't get broken again.

Yeah. Why do I preach such a strong, hard message? Do you want to send your children to a school where the teacher does not preach a high standard, where the teacher teaches a very low level of standard? All parents want their children to go to a good school where they have a high standard. You must go to a good church which has a high standard.

You must listen to good preachers who preach a high standard, just like you want your children to have a good teacher in school who teaches at a high standard. Why aren't we as eager to listen to preachers who have a high standard? I remember as a young Christian, most of the churches I went to were absolutely dead. They had nothing to say, all those preachers.

So I would listen to those days. There was no video, but I would listen to tapes. The tapes were available those days, cassette tapes of different preachers, and I would listen to that at home because I wanted to listen to preachers who had a high standard of the Christian life as much as possible.

Now today it is so easy. You just go to the computer or your phone and click on YouTube and you can listen to so many good messages. It was not possible for me 60 years ago.

I had to search, find out, is there some cassette I can get, and it was expensive to buy these cassettes. Today it's free. But I was eager to listen to preachers who had a high standard, and that's what helped me.

I read books. Most of the books were just trash, Christian books, worthless. Now and then I find a book that really led me to a high standard, and I would read it, read it.

We have a lot of books on the CFC website. Have you read them? Those books are available in America. Have you bought them and read them? And if you can't afford to buy them, you can go to the CFC website and read them free.

We offer everything free. How serious are you about progressing in the Christian life? When I think of, I had to search so much when I was 60 years ago trying to find good preachers who would lead me to a godly life. It is so easy, but we are so casual.

I'm not blaming you, my brothers. I'm challenging you. I hope you can draw the difference between criticism and challenge.

I'm not criticizing anybody, but I long that every one of you who listen to me will come to a glorious, wonderful, overcoming Christian life. Okay, I'll conclude with one verse. Revelation 3 21.

It's a beautiful verse. Revelation chapter 3 verse 21 that says, Jesus says, if you overcome, that means if you overcome sin in your life, bad thoughts, bad words, bad deeds, bad attitudes, bad motives, five sins, if you overcome all of them, you will sit with me on my throne. Do you know that every Christian is not going to sit with Jesus on the throne? Do you want to sit with Jesus on the throne? I want to.

Not because it's a great honor, but because I want to be near Jesus. And he says, I also overcame. That's why I'm sitting with my father on my throne.

See, why is Jesus sitting on the father on the throne? He says he is because I also overcame. He came to earth as a man, was tempted like us and overcame. He had to overcome anger.

He had overcome lust. He had to overcome wrong attitudes. He had to overcome wrong motives.

And he overcame, overcame, overcame for 33 and a half years. Then he died on the cross. And he tells us, follow me.

The same Holy Spirit that Jesus had, he offers us. And I believe we can walk as Jesus walked. Dear brothers and sisters, my challenge to you is be an overcoming church.

Be a church full of overcomers who are determined to overcome sin in your private life, in your office life, and your children grow up to be true disciples of Jesus from a very young age. Thank you for listening patiently to me. It's not easy to listen to a preacher like me.

I know that. Thank you for listening patiently. God bless you all.