Timesquare Church - Zanbeni and Benny Prasad - 2017

for his gun amen praise the Lord's gonna be a good night tonight you're gonna be really blessed by our brother Benny Prasad and he did not come alone this evening Benny Prasad as you remember him the last time he was here any of you were here the last time came by himself and he was single but now he is married and and he's here with his precious wife Jean and and as we have heard she is a singer and so they're both going to bless us and I'm just really excited and we welcome you Benny I'm so good to see you and I just let me tell you about my dear brother Benny as they're setting up he has this infectious smile and a laughter and it's it's contagious but what it really is it's the joy of the Lord and and you're going to hear from a man who has experienced the joy of the Lord through all of his trials and all of his circumstances that may not have gone the way he hoped or wanted and and you're gonna be blessed so as I said earlier open up your heart and help me welcome my brother Benny Prasad [Applause] good evening everyone such a joy to be back here in Times Square and I just thank God for giving this beautiful opportunity or the gift of life and the gift of marriage this is my wife this is my wife her name is Anne Benny and she is from the northeast part of India so Indians look different to those who think and you know there are about 45 million Indians who look like her so that's a great geography lesson for you this evening but I just thank God that he gave the right time the right helpmate that we could travel together and minister together and this is her first time in New York we just landed we just arrived this evening from Pennsylvania and we got married last year and it was a challenge because you see we like to be an example to the society but many times the society will give you ideas but they'll never pay your bills so we wanted to be a different example and in India you see the weddings are so lavish and foolish because they spend so much of money they save up all their money for their life savings on that one day wedding spend so much money and they suffer for the rest of their lives so we want it to be an example to the society so we sat down we discussed how do we do that and we came back you see that if the wedding if the food at a wedding is good you'll remember for a week now if the food is not good then you'll remember for a month but if you don't serve food at all they'll remember you for a lifetime and so that's what we did we didn't serve any dinner at our wedding and we just served tea and coffee and some snacks and and nobody died it was all fine and in the end you know we were able to save up enough money that we were able to be a blessing to a family who needed money to renovate their house so it is just so wonderful that we could live up to what Jesus wants us to live the world is very selfish it's all about me I but Bible says it's a blessing to give and to receive and both of us we don't come from very educated background my wife has appeared her ninth grade and I failed my tenth grade so we are educationally very compatible you know in my case I was thrown out of my school because the Indian educational system was not up to my standard and so they throw me out of school in my wife's case her life is a complete miracle what Jesus did see at the age of 13 she was a very innocent naive girl going to school and there was a 30 year old man who started to stalk her and he started to follow her and he was also high on drugs and one day as she was walking to school with her mother he caught hold of her hand and pulled towards the mother and said I want to marry your daughter she was in such great fear that she went into a trauma and she went and locked herself in the house and she would not step out and as a result her entire future was completely destroyed because she could not go out of home she could not study she can do anything and that's in the year 2002 is when she had an encounter with Jesus one of the things that Jesus did was he broke that fear and he gave her freedom and that is that is the beauty of what Jesus could do no matter what the enemy has done in the past he has the power to redeem and restore and give us a beautiful future and today we're going to do as song together and this song is called I will run to you my darling check if Jesus could give her a voice like this with no proper education imagine the talents he has blessed in your lives and we can discover what he has blessed us with and through that we can be a blessing to others [Applause] [Music] your eyes is on the sparrow and your hand it comforts me from the ends of the earth to the death of my heart let your mercy and strength is see you call me to your purpose as angels understand for your glory may you draw man there's your love and raising man and our to your words are true not by might not by power but by [Music] yes our bail I see your face Oh blow me of your brain your eyes is on the sparrow your hand it comforts me from the ends of the earth to the death of my heart let your mercy and strength is seen you call me too purpose has angels understand for your glory may you draw as your love and grace Eman and then we're on to your words of truth not by might not by power but by the spirit yes our till I see your face and our own [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you thank you pastor cata and pastor David and all the other pastors involved for giving us this beautiful opportunity if you have your Bibles please turn your Bibles to mark chapter 10 verse 46 to 52 mark chapter 10 verse 46 to 52 if you don't have a Bible sitting next to a Christian and I'll read this from the message translation for you and a very simple passage and I want to share my journey of faith and I pray that this is going to transform your journey of faith today read from was 46 onwards they spend some time in Jericho as Jesus was leaving town trailed by his disciples and a parade of people a blind beggar by the name of bottom a son of Timaeus was sitting alongside the road when he heard that Jesus the Nazarene was passing by he began to cry out son of David Jesus mercy have mercy on me many tried to hush him up but he yelled all the louder son of David mercy have mercy on me Jesus stopped in his tracks call him over they called him it's your day get up he's calling you to come throwing off his coat he was on his feet at once and came to Jesus Jesus said what can I do for you the blind man said rabbi I want to see on your way said Jesus your faith has saved and healed you in that very instant he recovered his sight and followed Jesus down the road it's an amazing passage and there's so much of similarity between this man and me Bar Tomas bar means son and Timaeus means unclean so the meaning of this man's name is son of unclean I can't think of anyone having a much more hopeless start on this planet Earth than this man just imagine he gets up in the morning it's a good morning unclean how are you unclean did you clean yourself unclean you look unclean unclean see just having a wrong name is enough to tarnish your image and here is a man who had a name that was not nice at all he was blind he has physical challenges 3 he was a beggar not a glorified occupation so he was a complete hopeless person when I look at my life when I grew up I grew up as a hopeless person I was the example of what it means to be a hopeless person my teachers would tell the students if you want to become like Benny then don't study so I was the perfect example of what it means to be hopeless it was so difficult when I grew up because I was compared I was born to an amazing family my father was an aerospace scientist and being the firstborn in the family I was expected to become like my father even though medically you can't prove that every firstborn son will not have the same brains like the father but I was expected in my society I was pushed compared everything was done and I could not it was so hard that I did not have a proper childhood and on top of that I was born with asthma and from the age of 2 till the age of 16 I was on wrong medication and as a result of that 60% of my lungs got damaged my immune system broke down and I developed from etad arthritis and it's because of somebody else's mistake sometimes we suffer because of somebody else's mistake and that's when we say God where are you if you were really there why did this happen to me my wife could have asked the same question God if you were there why did you I love this man to come and destroy my future I had that question I said God if you were there why did the doctors give me a wrong medication so I grew up with this stigma of being a sickly broken useless depressed child you see in our culture in India they humiliate in public and they appreciate in secret and here when I grew up you know the teachers who treat me so bad not because they were evil but that's what the culture taught they could treat me any way they want because anyway I'm useless anyway I'm a cursed child to the society so they can treat me anywhere they want I still remember I would never show any part of my body would always cover completely the only portion you would ever see was my face and my hands not even my arms I was so ashamed of myself there were 35 classmates that I had 35 boys and girls in my class I was 13 years old my ninth grade the biology teacher she forgot to bring the skeleton map and she needed a volunteer for her it didn't even bother Streicher mind that Benny is a human he has emotions he did bother for her so she forced me in front of the entire class how was a guy I would not even show my arm and she forced me to take off my shirt and my bare body she asked every student to come and count the number of ribs on my body and and it was so painful so humiliating I had no self-esteem nothing and that also showed and even I can't even call my parents because they would say Benny if you did well in your studies no teacher will treat you like that so it was always based on performance and always based on you know you do this then your result will be like this which was so hard growing up trying to keep up to these expectations and some of us might be still stuck in those things and at 16 I was completely shattered when the doctors gave me six months to live so I know what it means to be hopeless like this man and when they gave me six months to live I said why should I even live in this world what is there I rather die early than wait for six months because anyway I'm useless to the family useless to the school in fact the school they called my parents and said please take your son off this school because we have never ever had a single failure and your son is going to create history by being the first-ever failure of the school so this is who I was I had no value no identity no health no education nothing the only good thing I was good at was something that nobody should do I was very good forging signatures I was so good that nobody could catch me I forged my father's signature because he refused to sign because out of hundred I always got single digits I was very consistent in getting single-digit marks and I watched my mother signature I forged my principal signature til one day all the three met together and I got caught but this is who I was I had no talent nothing and might be there's someone sitting here and you have lost hope you have sat down you've compared yourself to others I should think that why should I even live in this world when anyway everyone thinks I'm useless I was in that shoes and bottom I was blind not a nice name he's a beggar not a glorified occupation if Jesus could command this man's faith I believe that everyone in this room has no excuse why you should not give Jesus a chance by having faith in him that he can transform you and truly make you the head and not the tail now at sixteen at the lowest point of my life is when I went to a youth camp I heard the voice of Jesus Christ he said Ben even though you are called useless I still want you I said why what would you get out of a broken life have you ever seen a company with an advertisement saying useless people wanted you will never see that know where the world is only looking for influential people useful people even friends sadly today it's all based on benefits so at sixteen I could not understand why Jesus wanted a useless broken guy who's going to die in six months he said Benny you surrender your broken life and I will transform you and make you a new person but how can I believe that how can I believe you could change that's where faith comes into the picture in simple language faith means believing without seeing whereas the rational mind says seeing is believing now here the Bible says that he had a cloak he threw off his cloak when Jesus asked him to come and he met Jesus that's all the action is there's no much information that can give us inside that why did Jesus come and his faith when all that he did was he threw off his cloak but you know when you go back to the historical situation in those days for you to become a beggar you have to go through a proper scrutiny so once they do a medical check-up and find out that you have physical challenges either you have no eyesight are there some challenge in your physical body and once they approve that then they will give you a special cloak now that cloak was exclusively designed for a beggar when a beggar wore that cloak it meant that this man was officially authorized and recognized beggar of the government of Israel she was not an ordinary beggar he was an authorized beggar and the only way you would know is through the cloak so for him this cloak was everything his income his ID his carrier his future and imagine when Jesus calls him the first thing he does he throws off his cloak in today's world we would have folded the cloak put it on her shoulder gone and met Jesus just in case if I don't receive my eyesight I can always go back to my old profession that is called Plan B and Plan C but I'll tell you faith in Christ there is no room for Plan B because the Bible says God is not a man that he lies nor a son of man who changes his mind when we have a God who does not cheat who does not lie who does not change his mind why do we doubt sometimes we don't have the patience to wait for his timing and here is a man who threw off his cloak he jumped up he met Jesus and what I've learned is that faith is needed before the miracle not after the miracle after the miracle it is a testimony it's a story to tell the world but faith is needed before and some of you are sitting and saying God if you do these things I will follow you no you follow Christ first and you see that in his time he will make all things beautiful so at 16 I gave my life to Jesus Christ I asked him to come by faith even though I have six months to live and he says I'll give you abundant life you know these verses are so nice when it is only a designer but once it comes into a practical situation of your life that's where you need faith to believe that this beautiful verse on the wall can become real to me this beautiful scripture the Bible can become very much a practical solution for my life a spiritual solution for my life and so I said okay Jesus I'll give you my life at 16 I gave my broken life into his hands and he started off a new walk first thing I learned was I was intentionally created I was not a mistake even though my academic reports say that I was mistake I was a mistake because my brother and three sisters was so good so when you have one odd person in the family naturally you become the mistake when you have a father who can speak such wonders then within two minutes I get confused what he's trying to explain no just I have to just ask him one question how does the plane fly he'll give me a two-hour lecture I cannot understand many of such a smart father and you are not able to do anything you think you're a mistake and your first thing I believe that God intentionally designed he created me in His image that was such a big revelation because that was the key for me to give God a chance for me to live in this world so I started off my walk with Jesus and my dream was to go to one country that was my ultimate dream in my life is I said god I wish I can sit in an aeroplane and fly someday I was not even bothered if the plane would land I would just wanted to take off that's it you know that was my my concern I said I wish I can just take off you know and and I went to Jesus and when I started to read the Bible and he says Benny I have plans for you not to harm you but to prosper you you know nice scriptures but I wondered can these scriptures become real in my life is all the verses in the Bible relevant for me as an ordinary broken Indian the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever so I believed in him and I said okay God but what is your dream for my life this is my dream is to go to one country before I die and in 2002 I asked Jesus what is your dream he says Benny my dream for you is to travel to every country by 2010 and I paused and I said God I think you have mistaken me to somebody else because I can prove to you why this is impossible we know that God is a master of impossibility not like for example the Jericho wall you see you would expect either a bomb or something to come and bring the wall stone the last thing you would expect is sing some songs and go around and shout and what an eco-friendly way to bring the walls down but that is God he is a master of doing the impossible we know that but the question is do you know that he can do it for you and for me I said God are you sure then I sat down with four reasons why this is impossible you know as a human we rationally explained to God I said I have $25 a month being a wife a missionary so that kind of a budget is not enough to travel - I have an Indian passport and at the time I already had a rejected stamp from the US and from UK I said God you have given me the wrong passport I said you have given me the right vision but the wrong passport all you have given me the right passport and the wrong vision and thirdly my health is so weak I told him you see you have given me the wrong body I was hit by a javelin at the age of 12 so I have a problem with my spine I can't sit in a position for more than 1/2 nah I said you have given me the wrong body are you sure that things like this could work and finally I said look at history I don't even have an example to follow you know many times today we look up for role models we look up if that guy can do I can do it but I did not have a role model I did not have an example because till today in the history that has never ever been a musician who's been to every country whether it is Michael Jackson Justin Bieber our Shakira whoever it is not one single musician on this planet Earth has been to every country and I said God are you sure he says many what is impossible for man is possible for me I said God I know that but are you sure you can do that with me and maybe some of you are asking that question today can God do that with me I'll tell you just don't be good hearers of stories of faith I pray that you will have your own story of faith today and Jesus looks at you equally the same so I gave my life and my dreams into Jesus's hands and I said okay Jesus let this be your plan I will be your traveller and you be my provider so I made a commitment that I will never ask for money will never borrow money will never take a loan from the bank or trust the credit card and I started off my journey and today this is my one passport that some of you have not seen before and it's grown a bit now so even my hands I get just getting full so this is my one passport and I'll tell you that my my favorite part of carrying this passport till today and I still don't miss out this expression is when I put it in front of the immigration officer you must see when I put my passport across you know suddenly he is confused know he's he doesn't know what to do and some of the smart ones would come up by saying don't come as a family just come one person at a time and when I tell them that you know this is one person they are amazed they say how could you do it what did you do how was this possible what do you do for a living some of the officers get the access to check my bank account and they'll see when we tally your bank account and your passport it's not possible at all that's when I tell them you know what Jesus told me to do this and he provided I still remember one lady officer of the Atlanta Airport she came up to me in the end and she said I wish Jesus can provide for me like the way he provides for you you see you become an example to the society no matter how big and strong and great they are you can be a living example Jesus did this but I'll tell you what there are challenges in life too when I look at my first passport I did not have a glorious start all of us wish that we can do those three-point prayer and God will answer sometimes we even give a time limit for God by saying God you I'll give you three days and I want you to answer in three days who are we to give time limit for God he is the Potter and I'm the clay can I ever tell him no but I'll tell you he's a good father he thinks the best for us if an earthly father knows how to give good gifts for the son or a daughter how much more your heavenly father he is a good father whatever you're going through hold on hold on to Jesus and if you have never given your life to Jesus I would highly recommend you because this Jesus is the one who transformed my life at 16 when I had no hope no future no friends he caught off me and he gave me this future so I said okay Jesus but I'll tell you when I look at my first passport 19th of February 2002 is when I took my first flight as a concept artist and I went from Delhi to Moscow for all my Russian friends I still love you but this is my story and when I arrived when I arrived in Moscow a fresh new passport tiny Indian guy did this plan God saying I'm going to take you to every country in the world they asked me for a bribe of fifty dollars but I'm a Christian and I'm an Indian I don't give a bribe you know you don't even have to pray about it the answer is no right so I refused to pay a bribe I was waiting for God to move nothing happened instead they detained me in the airport for 30 hours for 30 hours I was treated like a criminal humiliated and here God has a plan know to travel to every country in the world and I'm stuck in my first journey after 30 hours they came up to me and they said we have decided to deport you back to India what a glorious opening ceremony I had but you see some of us we are at the verge of quitting because we have become impatient or we are at the verge of quitting because we think that a disappointment or a defeated situation is the answer that God is not on my side no today when I look at this passport I have learnt that don't I love you're starting to shape the way you finish don't I love you're beginning to shape the way you end but the Bible says he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it can you put your faith in Christ today regardless of what you're going through faith is not based on your circumstances it is based on the character of God he's a loving father hold on surrender your life I believe that in time in his time as you hold on to him he will do that miracle that the world will be amazed located on on 22nd of November 2010 I arrived in my last country Pakistan and I broke six world records and one of them is I became the fastest man in the world to travel to every country in the shortest time 245 nations at the time including Antarctica in six years six months and 22 days see Jesus provided he gave me the strength he gave me the wisdom he gave me everything that was needed you know at one point I was ashamed to my family I was ashamed to my school but I remember when when God gave this he wrote history out of a broken life see some people read history some people write history but I believe that God calls us to be history makers to make history I remember when I went to Pitcairn Island it is the most remote country it's a dependency of UK when I checked you know from the nearest airport it takes two days by boat but the boat is available only once in three months and when I was getting ready to go there and they informed me and they said sir the concept that you're going to perform is going to be the first concert in two hundred years I said wow that is very historical when I arrived there at the concert venue they said this is the largest gathering they've ever had now I come from a country with 1.3 billion people and if you say largest gathering that's a bit disturbing how can so many people gather when I ask them what do you mean they said the entire population of the country 66 people right and and 52 people have come for the concert which means 80 percent of the country that has come for the concert but you see from a broken written off life where people thought I was worthless where at 16 I even contemplated to commit suicide I surrendered my broken life into the hands of Jesus I threw off that cloak of unbelief of fear of failure and I surrendered my broken life into his hands and Jesus transformed my life and he gave me this new star he gave me this journey to travel to every country 257 countries I've been to there's no more countries left for me to travel and today as I play the song on the pan-flute this song is my tribute by Andre Crouch I just want to challenge you challenge your thinking you see I I was invited to play at the Paralympic Games in London in 2012 so I asked Jesus how are you going to use me at the Paralympic Games that's when he said Benny I want you to go and pick up a brand new instrument the pan-flute and I said God you know I only have 40% lungs and wind instrument is not the right instrument you see sometimes we feel like updating God with the latest problems as though he doesn't know about it and he says I know that Benny but I then he said if I could use five loaves of bread and two fish to feed 5,000 don't you think I can also use 40% lungs to play the pan-flute ever since then I stopped giving ideas to God how to do a miracle I'll tell you I prayed by faith I bought this instrument and in six days I was able to learn to play this instrument and within a month's time ended up playing at the Paralympic Games with 40% lungs and two years ago I went for a complete medical checkup and the doctor said you asked my still very severe but the amazing part is that your lungs have regrown from 40% to 95% [Applause] beside challenge you faith is needed before the miracle not after the miracle some of you are struggling in that my prayer as I play the song to God be the glory and I pray and I challenge you and I urge you that you would put your faith in Jesus Christ and I believe that in his time he will do that amazing miracle that breakthrough that you are praying for let's play the track my tribute please [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] thank you thank you praise God as we go before the Lord I'm reminded in his time that God qualifies the unqualified when he gave us his son Jesus Christ he gave us new life through him and in him because of what he did on the cross and maybe someone here you're on the verge of just completely giving up you just want to quit you've come in tonight searching looking for some type of an answer or a solution the answer is Jesus Christ and you've heard it through Benny's testimony thank you Jesus your heart is safe in the hands of God father I just thank you for your presence I thank you lord even as we listen to our brother Benny as he shared as we smiled back at him laughed Lord it truly is a testimony of joy that only you can give in Lord I pray right now for those that don't know the joy that you have to offer I pray for those right now Lord God maybe you're angry bitter lonely afraid jealous God all of those things are not too big for you you have the power and the authority to change our hearts to draw us unto you I so god I just asked that she would do a miracle just as you've done in binney's life do a miracle in the hearts of your people tonight those that are watching online those that are sitting in the balcony those here on the main floor do a miracle in their hearts reveal the truth of your love in the victory that you offer us in your name I pray amen would you stand up with me in just a minute Benny's gonna pray for you we're gonna sing but I want to invite I want to invite you to come forward listen I'm oftentimes we think no I'm not going forward people might stare at me people might start thinking about what's going on in my life and I'm a private person well let me tell you about the one who died on a cross be publicly as you've heard tonight his name is Jesus and he is not ashamed of you he loves you more than you know his love was expressed on an old piece of wood 2,000 years ago he went to that place called Calvary he died on the cross they drove nails to his hands and feet they put a crown of thorns on his head and every bit of the blood that was poured out of his body was for you and I and they all stared at him and he publicly died took our place we deserve to die we're the ones that are not qualified but God made a way out so tonight you don't have to give up and myself and Benny we want to pray for you right now so I'm gonna invite you those of you and you know you've been blessed by his testimony you know this incredible truth is for you and you know that tonight you don't have to give up I'm gonna invite you to come down to come forward and you don't have to hang your head low in shame no tonight you're gonna be a new person and you're gonna walk out of here a changed person and my fellow brothers and sisters who know Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior if you've invited someone tonight to come and hear this good news of Jesus take their hand and bring them down here so we're gonna worship the Lord and we're gonna wait for you we're gonna step aside here we're gonna worship God for just a few minutes but if this message in this testimony is tugging at your heart right now you need to act upon it you need to be bold right now and you need to come forward and we're gonna pray and you need to give your life completely to Jesus Christ you can come right now even as I'm talking that's okay you can make your way down and come with your husband come with your wife but it's time for a change you [Music] know we sang something earlier today we talked about how Jesus is a chain breaker and some of you have been chained to certain things in your life that have gripped you and held you back from experiencing the freedom of new life that is offered to you in Christ Jesus why don't you come forward and watch God break the chains of whatever is holding you back he's a chain breaker he offers a new life so we're gonna worship the Lord and if you've been thinking about giving up I want you from the balcony to the main floor to come forward right now and give Jesus your life completely hallelujah my brother Vinny's gonna lead us in a prayer of salvation I want you if you believe in faith because it took faith to come forward for every person that's here I want you to pray this prayer let's close our eyes please I just give 30 seconds if there's anyone else out there you want to come forward thank you Jesus thank you Jesus thank you heaven is rejoicing Bible says when one sinner turns from darkness to light there is rejoicing in heaven and God is rejoicing over your decision let's pray this simple prayer after me please Lord Jesus thank you for dying for me on the cross Lord I'm a sinner and I need your forgiveness come into my heart Lord cleanse me Lord and make me a new creation bless me Lord yes so that I can be a blessing to others in Jesus name I pray she's a [Music]

Channel: Benny Prasad

Views: 863,636

Rating: 4.8575463 out of 5

Keywords: Benny Prasad, Zanbeni, Timesquare, Church, Faith, Christian, Worship, Manhattan, Indian, YWAM, New York City, Bartimeaus, Bible, Preaching, Testimony

Id: JgPQUP3MKpM

Length: 47min 17sec (2837 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2017