God Loves us as a Father by Zac Poonen

have you ever wondered how jesus could speak to 5000 people without any microphone or any such thing he was a very strong man we are all weaklings compared uh why is this devil called a deceiver the very first thing that he did with man as you read in the bible is he deceived him concerning the real nature of god we know the story how adam went into the garden and god had told him don't eat from that one tree now i believe it's all symbolic i don't know exactly what the tree was but the point of that story is this that the devil came to adam and essentially told him god doesn't love you because if he loved you why would he deny you to take part in this lovely fruit from this tree because it is a very attractive tree and what god was testing adam in was can you trust me that i'm a god of love and that if i tell you not to do something it is for your good and if i tell you to do something it is for your good that is faith so we think of adam's failure as a failure of obedience i mean god told him not to do something and he did it but underneath that disobedience was a lack of faith means i don't believe what the devil was trying to put thought into adam's mind one god doesn't really love you otherwise why should he withhold this lovely fruit from you and that is the same temptation with which he comes to human beings today when something we want badly we don't get or some sickness we pray for and are not healed and somebody we pray for doesn't get healed but dies always at the back the devil says see god doesn't love you have you heard that thought coming into your mind god doesn't really love you if he loved you he'd do something more for you that was the thought that came into adam's mind the second thought that god that the devil put into adam's mind was let's turn to that passage it's in genesis chapter 3 some of you may not be familiar with it so let me read it to you genesis chapter 3. god had already told adam in genesis 2 16 and 17 from any tree you can eat but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil verse 17 genesis 2 17 you shall not eat for in the day that you eat you will surely die that's all and why did god not prevent satan from entering the garden that could have been very easy and that's also important for us to understand see if man is not tested he's not proven whether he supposing god had told him go and eat whatever you like it's like if you leave your child at home say do whatever you like you never know whether he's going to be obedient or not but if you allow your child to do 101 things but one thing you tell him not to do then you can test his obedience i mean there were 1000 trees in the garden god said don't eat one it's not such a difficult command if god had told him all these 999 trees you cannot eat only this one you can eat that would have been a difficult command but god told him only one tree you cannot eat all the others you can eat thousands of them so it's not at all difficult but it was a test of obedience and the devil came and see what he told eve verse 4 god knows sorry verse 5 genesis 3 verse 5 god knows in the day you eat it your eyes will be opened you'll be like god knowing good and evil and god doesn't want you to be like him so he's withholding it from you because he doesn't love you and once that a seed of suspicion and doubt about god is sown into adam and eve's mind it begins to fertilize there and you begin to think yeah perhaps god doesn't love me because it's such a lovely tree it says here verse 6 the woman saw it the tree was good for food and it delight to the eyes and desirable in every way you see something desirable and good for the eyes and good for food and delight to the eyes he said why wouldn't god allow me to have this like many things that come in our life also we pray to god and according to our understanding we think yeah that's delightful it's good i don't see any reason why it's not good why does god not give it to me why doesn't god answer my prayer and immediately the devil puts a thought into your minds because god doesn't love you the basis for faith is to believe even when i cannot understand anything that there's some reason why god has forbidden it or there's some reason why god wants me to go through this trial and so ultimately faith is based on an absolute conviction that irrespective of what my senses tell me i know god loves me if you can have that you will have a wonderful life and god will never let you down but i'll tell you this that is the area where god will where the devil will always try to knock away your faith something or the other you want and you don't get god's god doesn't love you or something you don't want and something happens in your life which you didn't anticipate god doesn't love you what we learn from here is never believe that lie of the devil in the new testament we are told we walk by faith not by sight because a lot of things we see are not real for example we think the sun is moving from the east to the west and but it's not moving and you study geography you know it's not moving at all but a little child who has not studied geography will think the sun is moving so we can't even trust our eyes and i believe that god has allowed that every day to show us you can't trust your senses i heard a story of two boys in the same family and the six-year-old told his no the twelve-year-old told his six-year-old younger brother see the sun has moved it was in the east now it is in the west and the six-year-old he didn't know anything about geography but he told his 12-year-old older brother no you remember what daddy told us that the sun does not move it's the earth under our feet that's rotating the earth under our feet is rotating at 1 000 miles an hour so the older boy said i believe what i see i saw the sun move the younger boy said i believe daddy who was right you know we cannot believe what we see you don't feel the earth moving under your feet right now at 1 000 miles an hour you feel you're in a vehicle that's moving at 1000 miles an hour you know that's the speed of the earth's rotation on its own axis the circumference of the earth in the equator is 24 000 miles or 40 000 kilometers and in 24 hours it covers that period means it's moving at 1 600 kilometers an hour but it doesn't feel like that under our feet teaching us that not only you can't believe your eyes you can't believe your senses you think nothing is moving but the earth is moving at such a fantastic speed it's faster than any airplane an airplane you travel at 600 miles an hour or thousand kilometers maximum but this is 1600 kilometers an hour the earth is moving you don't feel it i believe god has kept these things like that to teach even the clever people you cannot trust your senses so don't think that i believe what i see you'll be thoroughly deceived or i believe what i feel i don't feel the earth is moving so it's not moving like that little boy said you can trust what you see but i believe daddy and you'll discover in the final day that those who have trusted god are the wisest people on the earth for example uh you know to believe that god is a god of love when we don't understand he was tested can you believe god is a god of love the devil says when such a lovely fruit he doesn't allow you to have it so in the new testament you read about a man called paul the greatest apostle i want you to read something to you in ii corinthians in chapter 12. in second corinthians chapter 12 we read that he had a sickness in his body he calls it a thorn in the flesh we don't know what that sickness was i personally think it was some problem with his eyes maybe some type of pus that was always coming out of his eyes which god could have healed in a moment but he it says here verse seven second corinthians 12 7 the middle of that verse there was given me a thorn in the flesh and he even calls it a messenger of satan to torment me so here is a problem he's having with his eyes dripping with some type of pus person it's such a nuisance and he says in verse 8 i implored implored means i pleaded with god but three times i said lord take this away from me god said no sometimes you may think god says no to your prayer because you're such a sinner or because you're so weak or you're so immature you're just a kid if you're a mature person god will always answer your prayer here is one of the most mature or probably the most mature person who was living on earth that day was the apostle paul and he had a serious problem with his eyes and god says no i won't heal you a lot of people think if god can do something why can't you do you think god is difficult for god to heal that person one word and he'll be healed jesus did it all the time jesus healed blind people leave alone someone who has a little problem with his eyes and god says no why did he say no and he gives us the answer in verse 7 to keep me from exalting myself why is it a danger to exalt yourself you know paul had such a tremendous it says in that he had an experience once of being taken up to heaven he says in 14 years ago in verse 2 i don't know how it happened whether i was in the body or out of the body but i was verse 4 was caught up into paradise he had an experience of going right up into heaven while he was on this earth and he didn't know how it was was his spirit taken out of his body and he went there or his whole body was taken there he said i can't explain it but i went into heaven and i heard words in heaven can you imagine the experience of going having going up to heaven and seeing things there and hearing things and listen to this he said a man verse 4 is not permitted to speak those things at all that means what i saw in heaven god says you must not tell anybody now if you go to a google search of visits to heaven i tried it on at once google search i think there are 400 000 people who say they went to heaven all lies and they all tell you there are books written what i saw in heaven first when i god took me there one fellow was written i spent 23 minutes in hell and all these stories long ago there was a book a very famous book written by the title of it is the boy who went to heaven and came back and it was published by one of the top publishers in america christian publishers called tyndale house tyndale house is the one that published the living bible very well known publisher and they sold millions of copies because everybody wants to know this is a little boy he can't be telling a lie and his father and he helped him to write because he had an accident somewhere and he was in a coma for some days and he said i went up to heaven and he wrote all that he experienced in heaven and so many people wanted to read i think it's about five or six years later that boy said he told a news agency the whole thing was a lie my father told me to just write so that you can make some money from this experience of the whole thing was a lie and he invented a story about what he saw and so many people bought the book and they really believed this is what heaven is like and that christian publisher was so embarrassed that they had published this book that they would withdrew it from the market immediately and all these 400 000 people who say they've gone to heaven and hell on the internet it's a deception because paul i believe it and the proof that he went to heaven was he says i'm not permitted to say anything of what i heard there he could have become very famous to say what all i heard in heaven but the lord told him you are not to speak one word of what you heard so i believe god can take somebody to heaven even today but the proof of it will be he'll never he'll never speak about what he saw there or heard there so anybody who speaks about what he saw heard there immediately i know it's a fake because it says a man is not permitted verse 4 to speak about what he saw there this is just by the way but he had such tremendous experiences to be taken up to heaven he planted churches he even raised the person from the dead you read in acts chapter 20 and he healed the sick people and he wrote scripture and why wouldn't he was a most outstanding servant of god on earth and when he asked god for a simple little thing god said no so that should comfort us when some prayer of ours is not answered which you think is very good for you and the reason is paul says here the reason why god did not heal him was so that he doesn't get puffed up you know when god uses somebody mightily it's very easy for him to become very proud and he doesn't remain an ordinary human being i've seen so many big preachers like that you can't go near them they've got bodyguards around them who don't allow anybody to go and meet them paul and jesus never had any bodyguards around them those are real genuine people who knew god so don't be fooled by all these things that we see today in so-called preachers paul was in danger of becoming proud and he knew it and he says here in the verse 7 last part to keep me from exalting myself god said there's only one way i can humble you paul i have to give you a little sickness so that you don't get puffed up because then people will say ah this fellow can heal others but look at him his eyes are always dripping he's not healed why is this important first of all let me tell you why i believe it is his eyes you know in acts of the apostles is very interesting when you compare scripture with scripture you discover some amazing things in acts of the apostles chapter 16 we read that paul was traveling to preach the gospel and we read that paul acts chapter 16 verse 6 paul and timothy he got timothy in verse 1 who joined him and in verse acts 16 verse 6 they passed through phrygia this is all in the area what we today is known as turkey that area it was called asia minor in those days they passed through phrygia and through galatia and when they came to galatia they wanted to go on to speak in asia minor but the holy spirit stopped them now when we read in verse 7 the holy spirit stopped them we wonder how did the holy spirit stop him is it by some vision or some voice from heaven that said paul don't go from here stay in galatia no it's not written here how he stayed in galatia he just written the holy spirit's doctrine but if you go to the letter to the galatians in after corinthians you come to galatians there he tells them in galatians 4 this is what we learn when you compare scripture with scripture verse 13 galatians 4 13 this is the same place where he was stopped you know that it was because of a bodily illness galatians 4 13 that i preached the gospel to you the first time so how did he get stopped not by some vision from heaven or a voice from heaven he suddenly fell sick and he couldn't go because of his sickness some terrible infection that came in his body and he couldn't move sometimes you know you you make a plan to travel somewhere and then you get some sickness that knocks you down in bed and you can't make your travel but you never think of that as the holy spirit stopping you paul did acts 16 it says the holy spirit stopped him here he says it was through a bodily illness that i got stopped it's a wonderful thing to live in the will of god where god even stops you sometimes from going somewhere by a bodily illness yeah so he says the reason i pre i had no what i'm saying is paul was telling the galatians i had no plan to stop in your place galatia was an area like a district and he said i had no plan to stay there because i was moving on from there to another place but when i came there because i got sick and i was in bed i had to stay there and therefore i preached in galatia and so a number of churches were formed in galatia that's what god that means god from heaven saw there were some needy hungry people in galatia who needed to hear the gospel and god stopped him and there are many ways god can stop us and then he tells us my bodily condition verse 4 was a trial to you and you did not despise or loathe me now do you despise a person who is bedridden with fever no do you despise the person who fell down and had an accident and broke his bone or something no when do you loathe loath is a very you know word where you feel repulsed by somebody's appearance you know you somebody's leprosy or that type of some physical appearance is loathsome that's a strong word in english you did not loathe me and the literal meaning of that word is you did not spit at me that means it was so despising that means there was something about paul's physical appearance at that time which people felt like i don't feel like looking at him and that was his eyes were you know if you see a person standing up in front his eyes are always dripping with us it's a bit of a loathsome experience and why do i say that because he says in verse 15 the middle of that verse i bear you witness that when you saw me you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me that's how we know his sickness was an eye problem so when we compare scripture with scripture what we see was that paul was going through galatia to some other place and paul stopped him with a serious eye infection that he had to be there and he he said okay let me i'm i'm here i might as well take the opportunity to preach and with all that eye infection he preached and some people were saved see how god's plan was to use this man's sickness to stop him somewhere in order to bring some people to christ and a number of churches were formed in galatia then paul realized why god stopped him and that's why he says through a bodily illness i had no plan to be there verse 13 through a bodily illness i got stuck there and i started preaching the gospel wonderful thing to learn that when god doesn't breaks up our plans by not allowing us to go somewhere or the other he has a wonder plan to do his work see ever since 1975 i had a great desire that we must plant churches which are according to god's standards we have this low level standards where you have preachers who run after money and where free don't preach holiness and where christians have such a bad testimony because you know i spent eight years traveling all over india from nineteen 1966 to 74 and i was fed up with what i saw i said lord the problem in india is not that we are only two percent christians but the two percent is such poor quality such poor quality i say thank god it's not 50 that would have been a very bad name for the lord so i realized that the need is not to increase the number what's the use of increasing the number of rotten apples what we need is some good apples some good quality even if it is point zero one percent so that is the burden i had i said lord we wanted we can't i'm not here to increase the number of christians in india quantity wise but i want to try and increase the quality of a few christians at least in bangalore that's how we started so i uh like that god opened different different doors and i would go here there and once let me tell you a story two of our brothers from kerala went for a job in bahrain so since i was going to the gulf to dubai we had a little fellowship there and also to doha where we had little fellowship so i thought i have a couple of days before that in between there bahrain and doha i can go to in between dubai and doha i can go to bahrain for two days and then go to doha so when i went to bahrain for two days i didn't know anybody there except these two brothers from my church who were there for a short time working i just want to encourage them that's all and from there i asked the brothers in doha to get me a visa and they said the next four or five days are all some hajj holidays everything is closed you can't get any visa for the next one week so i got stuck in bahrain i could not go i i planned only to be there two days and to go on to oh i don't know even one day perhaps and go on to doha and i got stuck in bahrain with no plan and here i was stuck in bahrain and i said okay i'm here now five six days i might as well have some meetings and so i said anybody who's interested please call them we'll have meetings in a brother's house and we had meetings for all those four or five days and so many people god brought so many people from different churches and they got gripped and right there in those five days a church was born a new covenant church and that is flourishing today it has grown since then in bahrain i want to tell you that's how the church was started it was almost like an accident but in god's plan there's no accidents but i was reminded of this how i wanted to go somewhere and god stopped me somewhere paul wanted to go somewhere and he would stop somewhere because god had a plan to build something so but this thing was still bothering him in his eyes and god said i'm not going to heal you because it'll you'll get puffed up you're doing so many wonderful things why does god want to protect people from pride very important question you know if you're a very clever person and you accomplish something or you've had tremendous spiritual experiences the great danger always is pride and the bible says in james in chapter four it's a very important verse for us to know james 4 verse 6. it's a law of god that we need to understand god is opposed to the proud but he gives grace to the humble now we've been thinking earlier on today how grace or yesterday we thought of that grace is the power by which we get power to overcome sin grace is not a doctrine it's a power the holy spirit is called a spirit of grace he gives us power but that power is not given by god to everybody and there's a reason why great people don't receive grace because here it says james 4 verse 6 god gives grace only to the humble i remember when we started our church we built our building in 1981 in bangalore we put a verse on the wall one of the verses was god gives his grace only to the humble because we were preaching about grace in the church about how grace can help you to overcome sin and people wonder why am i not getting it that verse was always there he gives it only to the humble that means god sees something in your life you are too proud about you look down pride means you look down on somebody else who doesn't have what you have maybe you're smarter than them cleverer than them more intelligent than them may your maybe your children are better than them there are 101 things that can make us proud maybe you're prettier or more handsome or something and then you don't get grace because it's a law of god that he gives grace holy to the humble and what does he do with the proud verse six he resists and opposes the proud he doesn't oppose people who are sinners we think that god opposes all the sinners and he'll give grace to the holy people no there's nobody holy everybody's a sinner but among the sinners there are some who are proud and some who are humble so the proud people god resists even more and they fall more into sin and the humble among them he gives grace and lifts them up very important to understand this and then if you turn a couple of pages you come to one peter chapter five just two three pages you go to one peter chapter five and you come to one peter five and verse five the last part of verse five the same thing word for word god is opposed to the proud but he gives grace to the humble and you wonder hey why is that written a second time in scripture four pages later can you tell me why i'll tell you my theory because he knows that many christians read the bible so carelessly they missed it the first time so i say okay i'll repeat it again for your benefit this is the for the benefit of lazy people who didn't get it the first time god gives grace to the humble he's repeated it because it's so important see now you can say why doesn't god give grace to the proud the holy spirit is pictured like a river have you ever seen a river flowing up i've never seen it have you seen a waterfall going up no a river always flows down when it rains have you seen the parts of the field or the road where rain water collects always the lowest places in the lowest places in the road the water collects the high places are all dry correct that is a parable and the holy spirit is poured out it goes to the looks for the humblest people the humblest people in a church or the homeless people and he fills them the other people who are pretty proud they keep on praying and fasting and praying and fasting you know nothing happens i think we keep on praying and fasting i remember one brother who told me brother zach i prayed for 40 years to be filled with the holy spirit nothing happened yeah god resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble the easiest way to get water to come to you is go down water will you don't have to plead with the water to come down it will automatically flow there but if you are in a high place and you ask for the water to come up there just doesn't come because water doesn't climb it flows down the holy spirit is poured upon those who are taking a low place now humility is not inferiority a humble person doesn't feel inferior to everybody else inferiority complex is something quite different do you know who was the humblest man who walked on this earth who jesus christ do you think jesus had an inferiority complex people with inferiority complex say oh i'm no good i'm useless i'm good for nothing i cannot do anything you think jesus went around saying that that's not humility that's stupidity if god has given you some gift use it there's no point saying that you can't use it humility is very different from feeling inferior jesus did not feel inferior to anybody in the world he could cast out demons heal the sick and do mighty miracles and but he never lost his humility the to humility is to recognize i can do nothing apart from my heavenly father doing it through me it's like the branch i said in the tree which says i cannot produce any fruit but i produce a lot of fruit when i'm staying in the tree and the sap flows into me and i produce all these lovely mangoes but even if a mango branch has produced mangoes for 50 years it never becomes proud it says if you go to that branch if it could speak it say next year if i remain here the branch the mangoes will come but if i think i'm i'm quite capable now and i cut myself off from the branch there will not be a single mango on that branch after that so humility is not saying i am useless i'm good for nothing that is all fake it's all false humility a lot of people speak like that oh i'm nobody and this they deep down they think they're very important you know how sometimes people pray in their prayer oh god i'm such a wretch but if you heard somebody else say about you that you're a rich you get pretty upset which shows that you're not really believe what you said to god a lot of fake things we say to god humility is not saying all these demeaning things about yourself humility is recognizing like the branch i am nothing apart from god i'm a zero apart from god but with god with jesus on my side i'm extremely valuable you put a one in front of that zero and i immediately become valuable but you remove that one i'm a zero again that is humility no matter how much i've accomplished in my life i'm a zero but i don't feel inferior because i got a one in front of me that makes me valuable and valuable to god so god wanted paul to always remain humble so that he could use him mightily but you know the tendency to become proud you know that if you accomplish something you become proud a child comes first in the class and he can be proud and we have to help our children particularly if your children are intelligent and capable you really have to help them to remain humble otherwise they lose the grace of god i remember my four boys when they were annual prize giving day in the school in bangalore they would get their prizes and come home and the first thing i would do as soon as we came back home was okay boys now let's pray to god number one let's pray and thank god for helping you all to do well in your examination and let's give god the glory for all that he did and now i said don't ever show your marks card to anybody to show how much marks you got go and hide it and all these cups and prices and all don't put it in the sitting room go and bury it somewhere else where nobody will see it we are not here to display how clever we are or how clever our children are now because i didn't want them to destroy themselves i said don't ever talk about your accomplishments give glory to god and forget it we have to protect our children because the danger to pride is so much in children particularly if they are good looking or better looking than others or they are smart or capable god did so much to protect paul from getting proud so i was just telling you that when god did not heal paul it was with a very good reason and god paul did not doubt god's love so there must be a good reason and god showed him you're in danger of becoming proud all of us are in danger of becoming proud because we have we have a tendency to compare ourselves with others and the devil i'll tell you he's very clever he'll always make you compare yourself with someone who's got more than you or who is better off so that you'll always have a complaint he'll never allow you to compare yourself with people who got less than you because then you may be happy and thank the lord and you notice in your life you find out the devil ever lets you compare yourself with a lot of poor people in india who don't even have one percent of what you have because if you had if you compare yourself with them you'll be thanking god every day and the devil doesn't want you to be thankful every day he wants you to be unhappy about something so he'll allow you to look at somebody else who's got more than you or somebody you think is not as smart as you are but he's got more than you and you'll feel jealous of him oh the devil is such a clever person always making you to compare yourself with others that's what leads to jealousy in some cases and pride in other cases both are evil you must make a decision in your life that i'll never compare myself with anybody see what it says in second corinthians there's an answer in scripture to everything and that is why i say you must learn to read the bible second corinthians chapter eight sorry second corinthians chapter ten second corinthians chapter ten here's a verse about those who compare themselves with others and believe it or not every one of us has an unconscious tendency to compare ourselves with others even children compare themselves with others in their class and here is a verse since for all such people second corinthians 10 12. in the last part of that verse it says when they measure themselves with each other and compare themselves with each other they are without understanding all right say they are spiritual idiots if you want to be a spiritual idiot compare yourself with somebody else never do it because it'll either make you jealous because that guy's got more than you or will make you proud that you're smarter than him both ways it's dangerous so those who compare themselves to others are not wise at all so that's why we have to be thankful for the way god has made us and believe that god is a god of love and whatever he allows something he doesn't give me must be some very good reason why he withholds it from me now if eve we were talking about eve in genesis 4 so the first thing that the devil wanted adam and eve to think was god doesn't love you and once he got into their head that the reason why god is not giving you this fruit is because he doesn't love you he's already occupied the house then he can destroy them and once god has put this into your head something you wanted and god didn't give you or something you asked for didn't work out the way you anticipated maybe a healing it may be a job it may be some other thing and you say god could have done it and why didn't he do it and then doubt starts to form in your mind and doubt is like a plant that grows and grows in god you've got to kill it immediately it's like a weed that will destroy your garden you got to pull it out and that's what we see here that the if the you know when the devil put into his mind why would god stop you from eating this lovely tree it makes your mouth water and make you wise what eve should have said was this well satan i don't know why god hasn't allowed me it looks like a beautiful fruit and i'm sure it looks as if it can make me wise it makes my mouth water why god told me not to eat it i just don't know but one thing i know god is a good god and he loves me that is the answer that will drive the devil away and something you can't explain in your life something happens to your children and or some healing or something that doesn't work out as you anticipate you can say well i really don't know why it's like that but one thing i know god loves me you will always overcome satan that is faith faith is to believe god loves me that's why jesus said when you pray don't start saying oh god lord i notice when i go to tamilnadu most people pray underway i say that's not the way to pray jesus said when you pray say our father old testament they said under a god devaney god but jesus said when you pray say our father who are in heaven so i mean in the beginning i also was following other people but as i started reading the scriptures now when i pray i say heavenly father why did he say when you pray begin your prayer with our father who art in heaven because you know the most important thing when you ask god for anything is faith the bible says if you don't have faith you'll get zero from god so to develop faith there are two things you need to know only two things one that god is your father that he loves you intensely that's the first thing that's why you call him father the second that he's in heaven that is almighty he can do anything there are two things you need to know about god one he loves you intensely and he can do anything that is the meaning of our father what in heaven so what the lord was trying to put into people's mind is your you've got a father in heaven now do you know that in the old testament nobody could call god father not even john the baptist not elijah nor elijah not a single person could look up to heaven and say dad no you know what a tremendous privilege it is to look up to heaven and say daddy because you know most of you have never been orphans but those who have not had an earthly father or whose father died when they were one year old or something there's a certain insecurity about them because they never had the care of a strong loving caring father and for all such people god says i'm your father it's a wonderful thing i mean i know in my life also i mean i had a father till later but somehow when i became a christian i never felt secure i was always insecure i said lord there's so many weaknesses in me i'm defeated in so many areas and i always thought that god must always be angry with me i somehow i don't know whether you have that feeling also but i always felt that if i look up to heaven i see a frowning guard looking at me in anger so i was scared to pray you know so you look down when you pray because you don't want to see this frowning god looking at you that was a lie of the devil 100 the lie of the devil i i'm not afraid to look into my heavenly father's face today not because i'm perfect i'm far from perfect but i know my father loves me he's smiling at me and at you believe it or not and you say how in the world can he smile at me when he sees so many weaknesses in me i'll tell you because the very fact please listen to me the very fact that you came to this meeting proves that you have some desire to hear something that will help you spiritually otherwise you wouldn't be here today there are a lot of other interesting things you can do on a friday afternoon in oman instead of sitting in a meeting to hear about god after you've already heard about him in the morning meeting again to come in here there must be some desire in your heart for the lord and god knows that and that's why i'm bored to say that god is not frowning at any of you he's smiling at you in spite of the weaknesses he sees in you [Music] because he can help you through overcome all of them and that was a great day in my life when i could look up to heaven and believe that my heavenly father just loved me so now i see myself like a little two-year-old child sitting on my heavenly father's lap can you picture that picture yourself like a little two-year-old sitting talking to your father who's always happy with you never smiling at you if only i can convince you about this it's difficult because the devil's done a tremendous work in convincing people god is always angry with you and he's frowning at you and he's got this thing wrong that thing wrong with you think of the stories of jesus do you know who are the people who've kept frowning at sinful people the pharisees the classic example is the pharisees on one side trying to stone that woman caught in adultery you know that story all of you yes picture is there's a a case in a court pharisee's on one side the woman on the other side they are accusing her and she deserves to be killed and according to the law it was correct there was a law in the old testament that a woman is caught committing adultery that means she's a married woman committing adultery with a man she must be stoned to death that was a law and the pharisee said it is written there moses said it but what they did not realize is that the person sitting here jesus was the one who gave that law from heaven when jesus was in heaven he is the one who gave that law to moses that people caught in adultery must be stoned to death not because god is against people who fall into adultery but because he wanted people to see how serious a sin it is if you're married to someone to go and sleep with another woman is a terrible sin and god wanted them to see the seriousness of it that's why he said they must be stoned to death so here's jesus sitting and he knows the law because he gave it to moses from heaven 1500 years earlier when he was in heaven and the pharisees said that moses said he must be stoned to death and jesus you know he was he had come to earth as a man so i it says he was scribbling on the ground and i know what was happening he was saying father give me a word to give to these people and he heard the holy spirit telling him tell them he was without sin throw the first stone so jesus looked up and said he was without sin throw the first stone then he kept scribbling to see what's going to happen one by one they went away now they knew jesus that if anybody stood there and said i have not sinned jesus would have made a big list of all their sins that would have been more shameful so they quietly went away and then there was still one man left who was without sin who would throw the stone jesus said he was without sin can stone this woman there was one man left that was jesus himself why he didn't throw the stone because god loves people who even those who have fallen into adultery he did not come to judge the world he came to save people so he comes to the woman and says nobody condemned you he said no lord and he told him two things i don't condemn you don't sin again that's the full gospel which we preach in cfc john chapter 8 verse 11 no condemnation now you can overcome sin so what i learned there is god is not here to frown even at sinful people he's here to save them and i'm almost 100 cert certain that that woman never went and committed adultery again never i'm absolutely sure do you think after zacchaeus who had cheated so many people as a tax collector one day jesus came to his house do you think that man ever cheated anybody again i don't think so i don't think he ever cheated anybody again because he saw how jesus who's against cheating came to his house and his house all the religious pharisees would not even go to their house this guy's a sinner he cheats everybody how can he go to his house and jesus said i'll go because he didn't come to condemn people he came to save people it's very important for you to see these stories how to show you that when you look up to heaven you're looking into the face of one who's smiling at you not because he approves of your sin but even because he wants to save you from it he wants to save you from adultery he wants to save you from anger he wants to save you from everything that's destroying your life i mean i look look at it like a mother who's looking at his word child who's got wheezing if you've got a child who's wheezing and wheezing and can't breathe properly how do you look at that child you don't look at that child with anger if you're a mother you look at the child with such compassion or your child has got some other sickness you look at that child with such compassion and a true mother would say i wish i could take that sickness into myself so that the child can be healthy that's exactly how god looks at you and that's why jesus came to earth and said let me take that sin upon myself if we can be convinced about this we will not make the mistake that eve made so have you understood what the temptation was that the devil made to eve god does not love you he's always looking at you with anger and jesus came to remove that wrong understanding of god he has come to save you from the sickness sin is like a sickness and god looks at you like a child that has got some sickness he loves you but he doesn't love your sickness he doesn't love your sin and he's not angry with you is the mother angry with a child who's got some sickness no mother feels so sorry he hates that mother hates that sickness but doesn't hate the child remember this god loves you even if you're a sinner but he doesn't love your sin it's your sin that he wants to separate from you just like a mother wants to separate that sickness from a child so that's the first thing now if you turn back to genesis in chapter three the other thing so one thing which the devil tried to put into eve's mind is that god doesn't love you like he tries to put into your mind in so many things the second thing that he wanted to tell them tell adam and eve was has god he told him has verse 1 as god really said you shouldn't eat from any tree the woman said yes we can't eat from this one tree because god said if you eat it you'll die and now the devil says to the woman in verse 4 you will not die that's the second thing that the devil tries to tell people what's the first one that god doesn't love you and the second one second thing that the devil tries to tell people is disobedience to god is not serious you will not be punished don't worry there is no hell there is no punishment you will not die you will not be punished by god even if you do something wrong now that's a deception which the devil tries to fool so many people in the world and that's why so many people keep on doing wrong things and thinking that oh nothing will happen nothing will happen nothing has happened so far you will not die you surely will not diverse for and the even adam believed two lies one was that god doesn't love me and second that even if i disobey god i will not be punished i want to say to you my dear brothers and sisters don't believe these two lies of the devil one that god doesn't love you that's a lie he does love you and secondly that if you sin sin is not serious he will not be punished you will be may not be immediately but one day it will come you know in the old testament in the new testament there's a law saying whatever you sow you will reap i have met believers who got aids they got aids before they became believers they lived in sin and then they got converted they received jesus and they were born again but they did not get healed of their aids and they died of aids but they were forgiven and they went to heaven but they reaped what they sowed what is that they died of aids they were not supposed to die like that but they died so god forgave them but they reaped what they sold so it's a double thing one god forgives us but if there are certain things we have to reap what we have sown for example the bible says train up a child in the way it should go proverbs 22 6 when he's old he will not depart from it now if you're very careless with your children when they are small you allow them to do what they like you allow them to be rude to you as parents and disobedient and careless in the way you discipline your child what will happen is that child will grow up disrespectful not only to you but it's respectful to older people in society and that child will go astray and when he's a teenager he'll become rebellious or she will become rebellious and then you will lose that child to the devil it will go into life of sin and so many things i've seen this happen with believers children and then when the child is 18 or 20 years old you can go before god and weep oh god what to do and the reason is that you were careless when the child was small you are reaping what you sowed when the child was one year old people have asked me at what age should we begin to teach our children obedience i said when they are one year old because even at that age they can understand they may not know the language but they understand one word no and i'll tell you how i learned it we were visiting our children and one of our grandchildren is just about a year old and just crawling up and was going to climb up the staircase and her dad said no one year old it understood that i'm cannot okay the next day i saw the child going near the staircase and looking back to see if anybody is watching that's how i knew that they can understand even at the age of one all children i'm sure my children are like that and your children are like that they understand so you got to teach them obedience from the age of one but if you ignore it ignore it and say oh you're a loving child it doesn't matter like that you will reap when they are 18 19 years old and it will be you know you sow one seed you reap hundred times what you reap will be much worse than what you've sown so we got to be very careful the bible says train up a child in the way should go when he's old he will not depart from it that means the wrong way it'll go the wrong way right way to go the right way one of the great examples in the old testament is moses you know that moses his mother had to they the law in mosul time was all male bird babies must be killed because pharaoh was afraid these men will grow up and rebel against egypt so but she looked at this child and said i can't kill this boy so after some time they couldn't hide it anymore they put it in i don't know six months or something put it in a basket and prayed put it in the river and god sent pharaoh's daughter there to pick up that basket and miriam moses older sister was standing around and mother had kept her there and she came up to pero's daughter and said can i get you a hebrew nurse to look after this child pharisees are sure and so moses mother came he didn't know it as a mother and pharaoh's daughter said please look after this child for some years till it's grown up and can understand maybe i don't know eight nine years or something and then bring him to the palace so she had that child at home for eight or nine years and she knew after that i'll never see this child again and i don't want this child to be lost i want this child to grow up as a god-fearing person and i can and the father was not there all the time the father went to work as a slave at six o'clock in the morning it came at nine o'clock at night at no time but the mother put so much into the head of this eight in eight nine years into the head of moses and by the time moses was 40 years old he remembered all that i am not an egyptian i am an israeli we belong to the god of heaven you are the descendants of abraham isaac and jacob god's got a plan for us and these slaves are my people that's how he became their deliverer but i've often thought about that that when moses is 40 years old i want you to see this verse hebrews chapter 11. in hebrews 11 we read when moses was 40 years old in verse 23 verse 24 when he grew up there were three things he refused i want you to see this verse 24 25 26 there were three things that moses refused when he became 40 years old one he refused the honor of the world i don't want to be known as the son of pharaoh's daughter that is the greatest honor you could have grandson of pharaoh he said no i belong to that despised group of slaves called israelis second he rejected the pleasures of sin verse 25. you know when you were in pharaoh's palace you could enjoy in every type of evil sinful habit there and you know the palaces of the world rich people's children are all spoiled he rejected it he kept himself pure in that wicked palace he rejected the pleasures of sin how does a young man reject the pleasures of sin right up to the age of 40 particularly when you're surrounded by other people who are sinning it's amazing i mean think of your own life did you reject the pleasures of sin when you were 20 years old 25 years old he rejected it right up to the age of 40. he rejected the honor he rejected the pleasure and the third thing he rejected verse 26 were the riches of egypt he was the wealthiest person and he said i don't want this money so there were three things that moses rejected the honor of the world the pleasure of sin and money the wealth the honor of the riches of this world those are the three things with which everybody is tempted all of you and all of us honor pleasure of sin and money and how did moses reject it though he didn't hear anything about these things in the palace it is what was drilled into his head in the first nine years it was like a brain is like a computer and the mother had put so much data into this computer reject the pleasure of sin don't seek the honor of this world don't think money is everything drill drill drill drill drill drilled into his head for nine years and when he's 40 years old he doesn't forget it train up a child in the way he should go when he's old even if he's growing up in the worst palace in the world he will not reject it what an example moses mother is what an example for all mothers and that's how moses grew up so we have to help our children to see these things when they are young and you know i i remember my children all left home when they were 18 years old to go to college and i was frequently traveling preaching in the ministry so it was my wife who really brought up my children and she gave up her profession as a doctor just to be with the children because she felt that that was more important than making money as a doctor and i don't i agree with it 100 and you will realize the value of it only much later when i see today that she could have either made a few million rupees as a doctor or have four children following the lord i know which is heavier he put it in a balance millions of rupees this side and four children following the lord i know which is heavier so if you don't do these things when they are young you can lose them very very important because particularly in our day and age they are being influenced by so many other people around you have to protect them protect them you have to teach them god's ways teach them these stories don't think you can escape by committing sin let me show you a verse in ecclesiastes ecclesiastes chapter 8 ecclesiastes chapter 8 i hope you all know where it is psalms proverbs ecclesiastes ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 11 because punishment against sin is not executed immediately therefore the children therefore men and women are given fully to do evil but i know even if a sinner does evil 100 times and lengthens his life verse 12 finally it will go well only with those who fear god and it will not go well for an evil man even if he lives a long life so because punishment doesn't come immediately that's why people live in sin see for example if every time i tell a lie my tongue gets a little paralyzed don't you think everybody will stop telling lies very quickly or if every time i get angry my tongue gets a little paralyzed people who say brother i can't get a victory over anger they'll get victory over anger in no time but the punishment doesn't come immediately so they keep on saying make silly excuse no brother it's very difficult to get victory you'll get victory pretty quickly if your tongue gets paralyzed every time you commit a sin it's a very important verse because the punishment doesn't come immediately for example every time you lust after a woman or you look at some pornographic picture your eye becomes a little blind and next time it becomes a little more blind i tell you you will get victory over your pornography within one week you'll never have a problem with it but because it doesn't happen immediately so true because the punishment is going to come only 50 or 100 years later i can escape you cannot escape anything because the punishment doesn't come immediately there's a record of every single sin i've ever committed in my life there's a record of it and it's in our memory it's not in heaven that god keeps all the record there are no record books in heaven without everybody since it's all in our memory do you know that every single thing that you ever did in your life good or bad is stored in your memory you can't remember it all because we can't recover all that data our recovery method is not so efficient because the recording head is a bit weak after some time in our mind but everything is there it's like a videotape that's from the day you were born it's been running your memory recording your thoughts your words your actions even your motives and one day you know the bible says when you die it all becomes dust but our bodies will be raised up and one day when we stand before the lord each person is going to be judged for his own life i'll tell you this is how it's going to happen you read about it in revelation chapter 20. god is just going to press the rewind button he presses the rewind button your tape goes back to zero and then from the day of your birth it will be projected on a screen for the whole world to see every single thing that you did spoke thought the motive with which you did everything will be there on the screen for the whole world to see and nobody will be able to say i never did that like in a court of law they can say no i never did that it's all going to be there and for a christian the only thing that you can erase from there you know what it is 1 john 1 9 if we confess our sins it's a great verse 1 john 1 9. if we confess our sins god is faithful to cleanse us from all sin you know the word cleansing from sin is not in the old testament the old testament told he said your sin is covered it's like you put a sheet over it's covered but when jesus died cleansed so whatever you confess to god lord i'm sorry i did that it's cleansed and it doesn't take long the thief on the cross in one moment he confessed everything his whole life was cleansed in a moment he could go to paradise so cleansing doesn't take long but it'll never be cleansed if you don't confess it if you blame somebody else you know adam blamed somebody else god asked him a simple question did you eat of that tree there are only two answers possible yes or no you know these multiple choice questions that you get in uh question papers tick yes or no did you eat of that tree tick yes or no he doesn't take either of them underneath he writes third point my wife gave this to me [Music] go out of the garden don't justify yourself be like the thief on the cross and said i'm guilty my fault lord i don't blame my mother for the way he brought me up i don't bring my friends or anybody me me i'm the one who's guilty jesus said really come with me to paradise paradise is made for people who will take the blame who won't blame others adam was kicked out of paradise because he blamed somebody else don't ever blame somebody else for your sin take the blame that will be erased from that videotape whatever you confess lord i am to blame it will be wiped out so that only the good things will remain on the videotape and whatever you but whatever you don't confess it remain there that's why it's very important to confess our sin whatever you remember so then people can take advantage of that and say oh then it doesn't matter i just sin and confess it it gets wiped out then again i sin and get i confess it it gets wiped out and then in the final day when my video tape is played nothing is there but there'll be so many blank spots in that day people wonder what were you doing in all those blank spots in the videotape so it would be pretty embarrassing if there are huge blank spaces in that videotape of your life so don't be satisfied in the fact that your sin can be forgiven your life can be wasted even if your sin is forgiven remember that it's not enough just to have our sin forgiven we have to live a useful life so remember the two things one don't believe that god doesn't love you and second don't believe the lie of the devil that sin is not serious okay let's pray heavenly father please help us to be gripped by the truth of your word so that we can live and walk in the light jesus name amen

Channel: SermonIndex.net

Views: 3,669

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Keywords: Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth, Zac Poonen

Id: tOPUJSMUTac

Length: 73min 43sec (4423 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 05 2021