This sermon emphasizes the multifaceted nature of God's amazing grace. It highlights the power of grace to bring forgiveness of sins, deliverance from the power of sin, and the ability to face and overcome various challenges in life. The message encourages listeners to forgive others, trust in God's grace for victory over sin, and rely on His sufficiency to navigate through difficult circumstances.

I was thinking when we were singing of Amazing Grace. I wonder if we know how amazing that grace is. Because most people when they sing that song, they only think of one aspect of it. And that is, I was a wretch and he forgave me. But when we sing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. What did it save you from? What did this amazing grace save you from? Has it saved you from losing your temper? Has it saved you from the love of money? Has it saved you from lusting after women? Has it saved you from being dishonest? Has it saved you from being jealous of others? Has it saved you from anxiety? Has it saved you from bad moods? Has it saved you from discouragement? What has it saved you from? Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me. We don't think about that because our mind has been brainwashed through years and years of singing songs meaninglessly and through reading the scripture carelessly to think of salvation as only salvation from hell. But it may surprise you to know that saved from hell is never found anywhere in the New Testament. Most of us, if not all of us, would say the Bible is the Word of God. But I have found that lots of people who say the Bible is the Word of God don't read it carefully. There are many Christians who haven't even read through it once. Then I don't believe that such people believe it's the Word of God. When I was converted 54 years ago, I didn't know much of the Bible. But I believed it was the Word of God and so I decided I'm going to study this book. If there's only one book that Almighty God wrote for man, then I must know that. It's more important for me to know that than any other book in the whole world. And so I first read through it all quickly in six months and then I spent the next seven years while I was working in all my spare time, I was in a full-time job, studying it, I said, Lord, this is the only book you ever wrote for man. There is no other book in the whole world. And if my relationship with God is the most important thing in life, then definitely if He has written only one book for man, I must study it. Because otherwise, I could have all types of wrong ideas about how I can have a relationship with this God. I can't afford to be dependent on some preacher giving his opinion because he could be wrong. I mean, when I have the source itself, why do I need to go to somebody else talking about it? And that's the reason I studied the scriptures to say, Lord, this is so vital that I cannot afford to be mistaken. There are lots of things on earth that I can be mistaken about, but not about my relationship with God. I cannot afford to be mistaken. I must be absolutely right. I must be 100% right in this matter. But I don't find many Christians who study the scriptures so seriously. And I have made a statement that I repeat it often, and that is, if you don't, if you've got a Bible in your language, and you don't read it, you don't study it, you deserve to be deceived. Definitely. You can't blame anybody else if you're deceived. Now, if someone doesn't have the Bible in his language, there are lots of people like that, and you can't blame them. But I'm amazed how many people have the Bible in their own language and don't understand. A simpler word like what it means to be saved. So, one of the very helpful things we can use to study the Bible is a thing called a concordance. A concordance is a book, in case you don't know, which lists every occurrence of a word in the Bible, whether it's faith or grace or love or... right from Genesis to Revelation, every place where that word occurs. And since the Bible was, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, some concordance even help you to know exactly how it was in the original. So, if you take a concordance and look in the New Testament for the word saved, you'll discover that the very first mention of the word saved, which we just sang, amazing grace that saved a wretch like me, is in Matthew 1 verse 21. And there it's not talking about being saved from hell. Now, the whole world has been taught, it's been preached, Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from hell. And I challenge anyone to find that verse in the New Testament. It's not there. It's nowhere in the New Testament. Some preacher told you that and you blindly believed it. He never showed you a verse for it. Most preachers don't show verses for what they preach. That's one difference. I always refer to the scripture. In my sermons, I refer to scripture frequently because, like Paul said, I don't want your faith to rest on my cleverness. I want your faith to rest on God's word. My words are not eternal. God's word is eternal. Matthew 1 verse 21 says, the angel told Joseph about the baby being born to Mary, you shall call his name Jesus because Jesus means savior. And what's he going to save you from? He's going to save his people from their sins. Not from hell. Saved from hell is a byproduct or end result of being saved from sin. And I need to be saved from sin now to be saved from hell finally. So, this is a completely new message. It's the first page of the New Testament, you know. The New Testament was a new era in God's dealings with man. It's called a new covenant age. It's different from the old covenant age where God dealt with Israel under certain laws. In the entire Old Testament, which is three quarters of the Bible, there's no promise that God would save them from their sins. He saved them from Egypt. He saved them from snake bites. In the wilderness, he saved them from dying of thirst by providing them with water. He saved them from starvation by giving them manna from heaven. He saved them from enemies, the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites. He saved them from dying of famine by sending rain. But never in the Old Testament do you read that God saved them from their sins. Never, not even once. But as soon as a new covenant opens, New Testament, very first page, promises, now something new is going to happen. God is sending his son to earth. Now, he could have said to Joseph, you call his name Jesus because he's going to die for the sins of humanity. That's not what he said. The message from God was, he's come to save his people from their sins. So it's right there. So when I sing amazing grace that saved a wretch like me, I'd ask myself, has he saved me from my sins? Not how I saved myself, the church, the message in the church is not a self-improvement program where we work out on ourselves and try to make ourselves better and save ourselves from wrong attitudes and wrong habits. No, it's another person saving me from my sins. Every sinful habit I have is like a pit. And when I'm falling in a pit, there's no way Mike can come out of it. Somebody else has to take me out of it. And every sinful habit that I have is something that Jesus wants with me is to save me from. Can you imagine what a difference it will make in your home, for example, if both husband and wife are saved from sins? I mean, let's take just one sin, anger. If both husband and wife are saved from anger, your home is going to be four days to heaven. Or if Jesus succeeds in saving husband and wife from bad moods, imagine what will happen in your home. Can Jesus do it? When the children of Israel looked at the giants in Canaan, they said, no, it's too tough, we can't overcome the giants. But the two people who said, who looked at God, said it's possible, got in. So there's a law in God's dealings with man in the New Testament, which is not so much true in the Old Testament, that we get according to our faith. How much we get depends on how much faith we have. There's no partiality with God. To use an illustration, suppose there's a shortage of water, and God sends rain. How much rain I collect for my use depends on the size of the vessel I put outside. If I put a cup outside, I get a cup of water. If I put a bucket, I get a bucket of water. If I put a huge tub there, I get a tub of water. If I make a big tank, I get a rain, a whole lot of water in that tank. According to the size of your vessel will be the amount of water you get. Faith is something like that. To receive from God is going to be according to the size of my faith. If I come with a teeny-weeny cup, that's all I'll get. If I think that God can only save me from hell, that's all I'll get. But if I believe God can save me from my sins, I'll get it. But if I don't believe it, I don't get it. In Matthew chapter 9, see there are two words that are more frequently found in the New Testament and almost never found in the Old Testament. One is grace and the other is faith. By grace are you saved through faith. That's another New Testament verse. Ephesians 2, verse 8, by grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourself, it is the gift of God. So salvation is by grace and through faith. I picture it like this. Salvation is, grace is God stretching out his hand and saying, here my son, my daughter, here's a gift for you. And faith is my reaching out my hand and saying, thank you. That's as simple as that. God reaching out his hand and giving us something which I'll never get unless I reach out my hand by faith and say, thank you. So, here's a promise. Jesus can save you from your sins. And you look at your sinful habits and say, no, I can't get a victory over that. I'm not reaching out my hand to receive what God offers. I'll never get it. And the other guy, he gets it. And God offered the same thing to him, but he reached out and took it. That is the thing that makes a difference between people of different levels. You find some Christians have grown spiritually so much in one year and some others don't seem to make that progress even in 25 years. What's the reason? God's not partial. Some have gone to the promises and claimed it by faith. So, in Matthew chapter 9, there's a story of two blind men who followed Jesus in verse 27, Matthew 9, 27. And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him saying, have mercy on us, son of David. And if you look at the parallel passage in another gospel, he asked them, don't just say, have mercy on me. What do you want me to do for you? That's the first question he asks us. What do you want me to do for you? I believe it's a question the Lord asks us also. You may say, Lord, have mercy on me. What exactly do you want me to do for you? Supposing you say, Lord, I'm a slave to a lot of bad habits. I want you to save me from this particular bad habit. Name it. What is the bad habit that's sinful habit, that's polluting you most frequently, that's destroying your relationship with your family or others or destroying your relationship with God? What is, I mean, there may be many, but what's one habit that you can think of? The Goliath, the biggest one. And will you say, Lord, I want to be saved from that? Will you believe like Joshua and Caleb? That God is more powerful than that bad habit? That's the next question. First of all, what do you want me to do for you? I don't have time to show it to you, but it's in a similar passage in another gospel. That's the first question. What do you want me to do for you? The second question is mentioned here. Verse 28. When they say, Lord, open our eyes. Do you believe that I am able to do this for you? So basically, there's just two questions the Lord asks us, and he asks us even today. What do you want me to do for you? Be specific. Don't just say, bless me. Be specific. They were specific. I want my eyes opened. The second question, do you believe I'm able to do this for you? this for you? And there, it depends on how much faith you have. They said, yes Lord. You touch their eyes and be it done for you according to your faith, He said. Not according to your desire. That's the very important thing to understand. God cannot give us according to what we desire. He gives us according to our faith. A lot of us desire many things but we don't get them. Because the law is not be it done for you according to your desire, but according to your faith. Now, I don't have time to go into it, but there are many reasons why God has chosen faith to be the vehicle through which He communicates salvation to us. Because, one reason I'll mention, is because when our forefather Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, it was primarily a failure of faith. That means he didn't trust God. He didn't believe God. He believed the devil. God had told him, if you eat of that tree you'll die. The devil said, you won't die. And he didn't believe God, he believed the devil. And he discovered the devil is a liar. He didn't die. And all these 6,000 years since Adam, every man who has believed the devil has found out the devil is a liar. The devil cheats people. Look at all these young people who are going to drugs, being fooled by the devil that you'll get a kick out of it. You'll get a high through taking it. And it's true, temporarily they do get something, but it finally destroys their mind. They can never be the perfectly normal people they could have been if they had never touched that polluted thing. The devil is a liar. He's come to steal and kill and destroy. And that's what happened to Adam in the Garden of Eden too. It was a failure of faith. You don't believe that what God has said is true. The first lie that the devil told Eve was, it's not serious to disobey God. It's not at all serious. I know God has said don't do it, but I mean, it's not going to be so serious, don't worry. You won't die. And that's the lie he has been telling man throughout all these thousands of years. It's not serious to disobey God. I mean these small things that all God overlooks. It's not serious. And Adam and Eve discovered that it was a pretty serious thing. Because not only they got turned out of Eden, as a result of that, their first son became a murderer who killed their second son. It was pretty serious. It is a serious thing when we disobey God. And even children suffer because of the failure of their parents. See, it's a tremendous thing for children to grow up in a home where their parents are God-fearing. It's a great inheritance. I mean like the world would say children of very rich families inherited a lot of wealth. Spiritually, God-fearing parents, their children inherited tremendous spiritual wealth. And parents who treat God's word casually, their children pick up on that. And the children become wayward and all the parents begin to weep saying, my children have gone astray. Well, the children went astray, but the parents went astray. That's why. And the children of the righteous are blessed because the parents decided to fear God and obey Him. So, remember this. So, when Jesus asked them, do you believe that I can do this for you? Because they said, yes, you can do it for us. They've got it. They got it immediately. And some things God gives us immediately, some things God takes time to give us. There are reasons for that. But we'll definitely get what God has promised. That's for sure. And the great tragedy today is because, you see, another thing, the devil knows that all men love material comforts, money and health. So, he tells them, why don't you trust God for money? Why don't you trust God for health? Well, a lot of people try to do that and some, a lot of them are frustrated because it doesn't work out as they expect. Because that's not promised in scripture. In the Old Testament, it's true, God promised to save Israel from poverty, to save Israel from sickness. There are many promises like that in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 28. Deuteronomy 28 is a chapter that promises Israel that if you obey me, God says, I'll bless you and prosper you. I'll heal your sicknesses. And if you don't obey me, there are 54 verses in that book, in that chapter rather, that say if you don't obey me, you're going to get all kinds of sicknesses and you're going to suffer financially, etc. But in the New Covenant, and that's an Old Testament gospel, and unfortunately a lot of people are preaching that Old Testament gospel today. And people who don't read the Bible deserve to be deceived with that false gospel. But the New Testament gospel is, he will save us from our sins. Because sin is much more serious than sickness. It's much more serious than poverty. I don't know whether most of us believe that. It's like if I ask you, do you believe that cancer is worse than getting a cold or a cough? Do you believe that AIDS is much worse than getting a little fever? You say, oh sure. We have no doubt about that because we are educated, we know that cancer is more serious than getting a cough and AIDS is more serious than getting a fever. But I want to tell you that sin is more serious than all of it. But that's where we don't really believe that because we are spiritually illiterate. You know like if you tell an illiterate woman in some village who's never got any education that you got cancer, you're not disturbed because she thinks cancer is just like a cough or something, you'll go off tomorrow. But if you were told by a doctor that you got cancer, you're not going to take that lightly because you're educated. Education teaches you that cancer is very serious. It's not like a cough or a fever. The uneducated person doesn't think cancer is serious because they don't know what it means. Now apply that spiritually. The spiritually illiterate person thinks that sin is not serious. He takes it lightly. He can watch pornography and think it's not serious. That is a spiritually illiterate person. He doesn't know the seriousness of sin. Just like that illiterate lady doesn't know the seriousness of cancer. And I find that a lot of Christians are spiritually illiterate who are very educated when it comes to earthly things. So, when the Lord says, according to your faith, be it unto you, and I'm just going to promise, the promise is he will save you from your sins. And I come to Jesus and I say, Lord, it says in your word, it's the very first promise in the New Testament that you will save me from my sins. That's what I want. And the Lord says, do you believe I can do this for you? That's where people say, well, I'm not so sure because I've been a slave to this sin for so long. It's like saying the giants of rule came in for so long you think they'll give up their territory after having ruled there for 20 years or 30 years? Joshua and Caleb, sure, God's going to approve them. But all the other Israelites said, no, no, no, it's not possible. And if you want to know from the Old Testament how many believed and how many did not believe God's promise, here's the proportion. 600,000 did not believe. Two believed. And if you were to ask me, among born-again believers, how many people do you think believe that Jesus can save them from all these sins I listed earlier? Two. Out of 600,000. You get a group of 600,000 believers, you find two people who believe that Jesus can save them from all their sins. That's the reason they never overcome. They don't believe it's possible. Exactly like it says in the Old Testament. So I don't want to mean that small number. I want to mean those like Joshua and Caleb. These things are written to challenge us. And because it's going to change my life. It's going to change my home life. It's going to make my home a little bit like heaven. It's going to make my children grow up in a God-fearing way. So I thought of these two eyes, you know, the man, they were blind in both eyes. And I thought if one of them said to Jesus, Lord, I'm not too sure whether you can open both eyes, but I've got faith you can open one eye. Jesus would have said, well, according to your faith, be it unto you. He would have gone out of the room with one eye open. And the other guy said, I trust you for both eyes. He would have come with both eyes open. And when both these people compare notes, this guy with one eye open says, how in the world did you get both eyes open? I got one eye open. He says, is the Lord partial towards you? He said, no. He just asked me the same question he asked you. And you said you could trust him for one eye. I trusted him for both eyes. I want to think of these two eyes as forgiveness of sins and being saved from sin. Okay? One person says, I trust the Lord. He can forgive my sin. According to your faith, be it unto you. Your sins are forgiven. Another person says, he not only forgave my sin, he saved me from my sin. According to your faith, be it unto you. Now when these two people compare notes, the one who's only got forgiveness says, how in the world did you get saved from your sins? I just trusted him. Both promises were there. I believed both. You believed only one. You got only one. It's not because God is partial. It's not because one is more wholehearted. It's because one believed that God would do what he said. So I want to encourage you to see this, my brothers and sisters, that if you've missed out on something, it's because you didn't believe what God promised he'd do for you. And I've come to see that when we don't believe God, it's an insult to God. God says, I'll do this for you, and you say, I don't believe it. Can you imagine how God feels about that? Supposing your dad, supposing you're in college, and dad says, I'll pay your fees. It's expensive, I know what I'll pay. He says, no, dad, I don't believe it. It's like saying you're a liar. It's almost like slapping him in the face. Your dad says, I'll pay your fees, you say, no, I don't believe it. God says, I'll save you from your sins, and you say, no, I don't believe it. I don't believe you can do it. And many Christians don't realize how they're insulting God every single day. It was true in my life for many years, and I'm so ashamed of it now. But I'll tell you why, because in all the years, in all those years when I was a believer, nobody ever preached to me what I'm preaching to you right now. And there's hardly anybody preaching it even today. I was thoroughly defeated, probably more defeated than anybody sitting here, and I was born again. My sins were forgiven. My one eye was open. I believed with all my heart that my sins were forgiven. And if you were to ask me, are your sins forgiven? I'd say, I'm absolutely sure my sins are forgiven. And every time I sinned, I would confess my sins, and He would forgive me. I would sin, He'd forgive me. I'd sin, He'd forgive me. And now I realize that it was wrong for me to call Jesus Savior. I should have called Him Jesus, my forgiver. Because He hadn't saved me. He forgave me. After He forgave me, I would fall into the same sin again, as a born-again believer. And I would ask Him to forgive me again. And He would forgive me. He never stopped forgiving me. Never. The next day I'd do the same thing again. I'd ask Him to forgive me. He never saved me. No. I was just defeated, defeated, defeated. And I'd be forgiven, forgiven, forgiven. So how could I call Him Savior? So many Christians who are calling Jesus Savior, He's not really their Savior. They must be honest. And say, Lord, You're not my Savior. You've saved me from nothing. You've forgiven me. But I thank God that the day came in my life when I discovered that He was a Savior too. It was written on the first page of my New Testament. I just didn't read it. And when I don't read the New Testament, like I said, I deserve to be deceived. So, as I battled through seeking God and studying the scriptures, I discovered these wonderful promises. That God could save me from my sins. God could give me a foretaste of heaven in this life. Let me show you a passage in Hebrews 6, which describes what a heavenly person, what a born-again person can experience. It's referring to how a person can lose his salvation. But before that, it describes a born-again person in Hebrews 6 like this. I want you to look at verse 4 and 5. Just 4 and 5. That's all I'm looking at. Hebrews 6, verse 4 and 5. There are a number of things mentioned there that describe a truly born-again person. Number one, he has been enlightened. Enlightened means light has come into the darkness in his life. The sun has risen. The darkness is gone. He's come into the light of God. When he reads the scriptures, he gets light. You know, it's like if you're in the pitch dark and you're trying to read the Bible, you can't understand anything. But when you shine the light on that book, hey, you read it. It's something like that. When the Holy Spirit comes and brings light, you read the Bible. The difference between reading the Bible with the Holy Spirit enlightening you and reading without the Holy Spirit's instruction is like the difference between trying to read the Bible in pitch darkness and trying to read the Bible in light. Enlightened. Wonderful word. And tasted of the heavenly gift. The gift of God is forgiveness and eternal life. And I taste of it. Taste something of a heavenly life, which is very different from the earthly life. It says that I can taste something of heaven. Isn't that amazing? While on earth, I can taste a truly born again person. He can't have the full blessing of heaven. That'll take when Christ comes again. But I can taste a little bit of it. And that makes me long for more. Have you tasted something of the peace and the joy of heaven? I have. And have been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit. Means Almighty God himself, the third person of the Trinity, has come to live with me. I've been a partaker of the Holy Spirit. A truly born again person who's got light. He's tasted a little bit of heaven. Of heaven's peace and joy. And he's got the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. He's a partaker of the Holy Spirit. And number four, he's tasted the good word of God. That means he's able to hear God speaking to him. God speaks to him through his word. And he's tasted that. It's like the Israelites tasting the manna which came from heaven every day. He's tasted the word of God. And number five, he's tasted a little bit of the powers of the age to come. You know, in that future age, when Christ comes back, one of the things that's going to happen to us is it's going to transform our body into the likeness of his body. There'll be no sickness there. There'll be no death. There'll be a body of perfection. That's in the future age. I can't have that now. But it says here, I can taste a little bit of it. And I'll tell you honestly what I have done many times. I say, Lord, I'm a child of God. I'm born again. One day you're going to give me a body that's absolutely perfect. I can't have it now. I know that. But I want a taste of that now. I'm a bit sick. And I want you to give me. Giving is a little taste of that future age when I shall never be sick and I shall never die. I can't have it fully, but I can get a taste of it. Now the mistake that a lot of Christians make is to go to extremes. One, that I can have it all fully now. The other is that I can't taste anything at all. Both are wrong. And many a time I have come to God like that. And the Lord has said to me, according to your faith, be it unto you. We all die because we can't have the fullness of the power of the age to come. But if you don't believe me, ask the Lord the next time. And say, Lord, and I'll tell you why I've asked for help. I'm traveling almost constantly preaching the Word of God here and there in the villages of India and many countries. And I find it's useful to have help when you travel so much. It's useful that you don't lose your voice. You have to speak so much. Almost every day of the year I'm speaking somewhere together. And I say, Lord, I'm not asking you to give me help to make more money. I'm just asking you to give me help so that I can serve you. So salvation is from sin. But one of the by-products is that we get certain other earthly blessings according to our needs. You know Jesus said, if you seek the kingdom of God first, these other earthly needs will be added to you. You don't have to go running after them. He won't make us millionaires, but he'll give us enough for our needs. We may not have perfect health. I don't have perfect health. I don't have much hair on top. I still wear glasses. I have a little backache. So I don't have perfect health, but enough to serve Him. That's all I'm looking for. So I'm not saying that we have it in fullness, but a taste of it. Sometimes I say, Lord, just give me one teaspoon of that powers of the age to come. And boy, does it do something. Can you imagine giving me a teaspoon of the powers of the age to come? It's one of the blessings of being born again. So everything is according to your faith, be it unto you. Do you believe God can do this for you? But start with being free from sin. Because the primary purpose of salvation is not healing. And the primary purpose is being free from sin. Jesus didn't come primarily to heal our bodies. He came to save us from our sin. But he does do things for our bodies. I mention that because sometimes we do suffer in our bodies and God does care for it. I'll tell you a passage in 1 Corinthians 6 that's helped me a lot in relation to my physical body. 1 Corinthians 6, there are three verses here I want to show you of the promise that a wholehearted disciple can claim for his physical body. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 13, the last part. The body is not for immorality. God didn't give you eyes for the purposes of immorality. And you know how you can use your eyes for immoral purposes. You can use other parts of your body for immoral purposes, but usually it begins with the eyes. God didn't give us our eyes or our hands for immoral purposes. The body is not for immorality, but it is for the Lord. So, if you say, Lord, my eyes and my hands, etc., are not for immorality, maybe I've used it in the past for that, but no more. It is for you. Then the promise is, the Lord will be for your body. How do you like that? It's a fantastic promise. If you give your body to the Lord, the Lord says, I'll be there for your body. I've claimed it many times. I said, Lord, my body is for you. I believe you'll be for my body. And anything I do with my body, I go to work and earn my living. It's for the glory of God. Everything I do is for the glory of God with my body. I don't want to use my tongue to sin. I want to use it for the glory of God. God says, I'll be for your body. I want to encourage all of you here. Let the Lord have your body. A lot of people say, give your heart to Jesus. That's easy. I want to take you one step further and say, give your body to Jesus. Give your eyes to the Lord. Give your tongue to the Lord. You've used it for many sinful purposes like I have. A day came in my life and I said, Lord, I have given this body to the devil for so many things. My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my legs. My thoughts, my mind. It's not going to be like that anymore. It's going to be for you. You purchased my body on the cross. You bought my body. It says in verse 20, the same verse, chapter. You're being bought with a price of glorifying God in your body. You know your body was bought with a cross? Supposing somebody paid the price for putting your living in a house and you sold it. And the person paid you the full price and not only the full price, as a generous man, he paid you more than the full price for the house you sold. What type of person would you be if you refused to vacate the house? He bought it. He paid more than the price for it. You say, no, I'm staying here. You wouldn't consider that person a Christian. But that's exactly what many Christians have done with their bodies. It was purchased on the cross to be completely the Lord's, but we won't vacate. We sit there and say, I'm going to do what I like with this body. I'm going to go where I like. I'm going to speak what I like. I'm going to look at what I like. Hey, then you're acting as though the Lord never purchased it. I want to invite you to give your body to the Lord. And I want to tell you, you're not doing God a favor when you give your body. After that guy has bought your house, if you vacate your house, you're not doing him a favor. You're doing what you should have done long, long ago. And if that very kind person who purchased your house allowed you to live in that house for 30 years without paying rent, because you refused to vacate, one day when you do vacate because you realize you're crying and say, hey, I'm sorry that I lived in this house which didn't really belong to me. Don't expect him to thank you. You should thank him that he doesn't put you in jail, in a prison. You know, a lot of people preach the gospel like this. Oh, come to Jesus. And they try to move you saying, would you let Jesus stand in the rain while he's knocking on the door? He's getting wet. Why don't you open the door and let him come in? He loves you so much. And he's knocking and knocking. How long are you going to keep him knocking? He's getting wet in the rain, the dew is falling on his head and all that rubbish. I don't preach like that. I say, you're a thief. You're living in a house that doesn't belong to you. You better get out of it and ask God to forgive you for living there for so long occupying something that didn't belong to you at all. It was purchased on the cross long ago. You're a thief and a criminal. Turn around and ask God to be merciful to you for all the years you stole what belonged to him from him and return it to him. And don't expect him to thank you. You should thank him that he doesn't put you in a prison. That's how I preach the gospel. You were bought with a price. You're not doing God a favor when you give your heart to him. He's doing you a favor by not punishing you for stealing what was his for so long. I want to say to you brothers, just because God is merciful and kind, don't take advantage of his kindness. Give your body to him. And when you give your body to him, the promise is the Lord is for your body. I thank God for this. I live in this verse. I say, Lord, my body is for you. You are for my body. I have paid for that. According to your pay, it will be done to you. The second verse is in the same chapter, verse 15. Don't you know that your body, again talking about my body, not my heart or my soul, is a member of Jesus Christ. Now I know that my spirit is one with Christ. It says earlier on, he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. That's also true that Christ comes and lives in my spirit and I'm one spirit with him. That's understood. But it says my body, my spirit being a member of Christ, I can understand. I've always understood it. But I never knew for a long time that my body was a member of Christ too. Lord, is it true? My body is a member of Jesus Christ? Well, then I should keep it pure. And I expect that he will give me enough health in this body to serve him. Enough strength to do his will and to complete his will before I leave this earth. That's why I don't live in fear of death. Because my body is a member of Christ. I'm not saying I'll never die. I'm just saying until I finish my work, I'm immortal. I really believe that. I am immortal until I finish my earthly work. Because I give my body to the Lord. You can do that too. Say, Lord, I don't want to use what you purchased for myself. But my body is completely yours. You will be immortal until your life's work is done. It's the best way to live on this earth. Sickness or human beings, nobody will be able to touch you until your life's work is done. In the midst of all the insecurity and everything else on this earth, it is the best way to live. And the third promise, the third statement rather in verse 19, is your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. That means God's house is this body. I ask sometimes people, I say, why is it a Christian shouldn't smoke cigarettes? I say, would you smoke cigarettes inside a church building? Oh, that's God's house. I say, that's not God's house. This is God's house. You shouldn't be smoking cigarettes inside God's house. This is God's house. Would you get drunk inside a church building? No, no, no. But this is God's house. Don't get drunk in it. Would you commit adultery inside a church building? Oh, no. But this is God's house. What are the things that you would not do inside a church building? You can't do that in your body, because that's God's house. You know, when you recognize this, this body is the house of God. I'm carrying around the temple of God wherever I go. Almighty God lives in here. It's a wonderful life when you give your body completely to Christ. So, let me say a word about these two words. I'm speaking about grace and faith. Amazing grace. That's what we were thinking of right at the beginning. Let me just mention briefly three things that we can get through grace. The first is Ephesians chapter 1 verse 7. The first thing that we get through grace is amazing grace. It's the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches of His grace. A total forgiveness of all of our sins. It has to be in there. In other words, it deals with my past completely. My sins are forgiven by God. We need to be sure of that. I don't want to assume that all of you are sure of it. I don't know if anybody here is unsure about it. If you really turn to the Lord, your sins are forgiven. Christ died for all of it. The thing is, a lot of people today have not turned. The word repent means a turning of the mind in our Indian language. One of the Indian languages is called Tamil. I have never come across a language where repentance is described more exactly than in the Tamil language. In the Tamil language, repentance is translated as the turning of the mind. That's what repentance means. My whole mind which is occupied with myself and the world and God behind my back, it's turned around now. It's facing God. It's turned around. My back is turned to sin and the world and the old attitudes. It's because a lot of people haven't turned around like that, that their experience of forgiveness is very shallow. They are always unsure. Is God really forgiving me? What about that terrible sin I did two years ago? Is God forgiving that also? I'm not so sure. Forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace is the first thing that God offers us through grace. A complete blotting out of the past so that I don't have to live in condemnation of anything in the past. Like the thief on the cross. What a criminal he was. In a moment he was forgiven. And he could walk that very same day in heaven, in paradise with Jesus. Completely forgiven. It's a wonderful thing, forgiveness. But there is a condition and that's what many people don't remember. It's a condition mentioned in the Lord's prayer. Our father who art in heaven, forgive us our sins as we have forgiven others. That's the condition. You know the Lord's prayer. Forgive us our sins, our debts, our trespasses as we have forgiven those who trespass against us. So, what I'm saying to the Lord is, Lord, in exactly the same way as I have forgiven that guy who hurt me, I want you to forgive me. Do you really want God to forgive you in exactly the same way you have forgiven somebody else? Do you mean that? How have you forgiven that person? Is it totally, freely? Well, you are asking God to forgive you in the same way. And Jesus said in Matthew 6.14, if you forgive men their transgressions, then your heavenly father will forgive you. But if you don't forgive men, Matthew 6.15, your heavenly father will not forgive your transgressions. Now, do you know the difference between saying God will not forgive you and your heavenly father will not forgive you? There's a lot of difference. When you say God, he's talking about all human beings. When he says your heavenly father, he's talking about his children. That's a very small number of people in the world who can call God their heavenly father. And Matthew 6.15 does not say God will not forgive you. He says your heavenly father will not forgive you. He's become your father. But there's somebody now you don't forgive. After you became a child of God, God is your heavenly father. There's somebody who did something wrong to you or to your family. Cheated you, hurt you, and you will not forgive that person. Maybe there's somebody sitting here like that. God is speaking to you. You say, but it's a terrible thing that person did to me. Maybe it was. You know how terrible it was, what you did against the Lord? We haven't seen how much we have sinned against God. We've committed a million sins against God and we have been forgiven. And we hold this one little thing against somebody else. It's a story Jesus once said in Luke 18 of a man who was forgiven a billion dollars. A king freely forgiven. You don't have to pay the billion dollars, you're free. And he goes and catches somebody by the throat and owes him ten dollars and takes him to jail. And the king calls the man back. The story is in Matthew 18. And he says, I forgive you a billion dollars and you can't forgive somebody ten dollars? You know what the king told him? You go to jail. I'm putting that debt back on your head. A billion dollars back on your head. Because you wouldn't forgive that guy ten dollars. It's an amazing, terrible warning. And Jesus said, so shall my Heavenly Father, Matthew 18.35, do to all of you, each of you, if you don't forgive somebody from your heart. Grace that God chose us to forgive our sins, that grace God expects that we forgive others in the same way God has forgiven us. And I want to tell you the truth. Because a lot of other preachers may not tell you this. I can tell you with absolute certainty, in Jesus name, that any child of God who has not forgiven another person and dies like that will go to hell. I don't care what doctrine you believe. I believe Jesus. If you do not forgive others, your Heavenly Father will not forgive your transgressions. I know a preacher who was in India for 20 years. He had come from another country. He came at the age of 30. And when he was about 50 years old, he came to our church because he was interested in our message. And he heard this truth which I preached. I preached that if you don't forgive others, God will not forgive you. It doesn't matter how wonderful a child of God you think you are, God will not forgive you. And I showed him these verses, Matthew 6, Matthew 18. And I said, you will not be forgiven if you don't forgive others. No matter what you say, you are filled with the Spirit or speak in tongues or whatever it is. And he took it seriously. And two years later, he was just 52, he was dying in the hospital. He sent for me. He said, Brother Jack, I want to tell you something. When I first came to hear you two years ago, my heart was full of bitterness against so many preachers and pastors and other Christians who had cheated me, who had told false stories about me. And I was so full of bitterness. And not a single person among all the preachers I met in 20 years told me that if I died like that, I'd go to hell until I heard you. And you showed me the verses. I want to tell you, I took it seriously. I've forgiven every single one of them, completely. And now, I'm seriously sick. The doctors say I'll die in a few moments or a few days. I want you to know that I'm ready to meet my Savior. I'm so happy. And a couple of days later, he died. He was quite a famous preacher. And he told his wife, you must not let anybody conduct my funeral except Jack Boone. He's the only one who told me the truth. He must conduct my funeral. I had with joy for me to conduct the funeral of a person whom I knew, had forgiven everybody, and was in God's presence while I was conducting his funeral. It's a serious thing. And I hope you will take it seriously. It's so easy to forgive others if you meditate on how much God's forgiven you. I hope, if there's any outstanding debt like that, that you owe somebody and you're not forgiven, I hope before you leave this room, you'll settle it. Because it's just an act. Lord, I forgive that person. I release that person. It's just that word of God and that's it. I'm not saying you've got to go and have fellowship with them. When Jesus forgave the Pharisees on the cross, he didn't fellowship with them. You don't even have to go and visit them, but forgive them. I remember once I was preaching this in a church somewhere, and a woman came to me after the service and said, Brother Zach, there was a man who molested me. I have forgiven him. Do I have to go and meet him? I said, no, definitely don't go and meet him. I don't know what he'll do to you again. Don't go anywhere near him. But forgive him. Release him. She said, I'm so relieved to know that I don't have to see him again. So, forgiveness does not mean that you go and meet that person. Because I said, take the example of Jesus. He forgave everybody on the cross, but he didn't have fellowship with them. So, forgiveness and fellowship are two different things. The second thing that grace does for us, first is forgiveness. The second is, delivers us from sin's power. Romans 6.14. Sin shall not rule over you because you're under grace now. Grace is a power that delivers us from the power of sin. Without it, I can't be delivered. You know, sin is like, the law of sin is like the law of gravity. But you see these rockets that go into space, how there's a power inside the fuel in that rocket that pulls it against the pull of gravity till it goes beyond the pull of gravity and then gravity can't pull it down anymore. It's amazing. That's a little picture of how the Lord delivers us from sin. See, in the beginning, the rocket is struggling. It's quite a struggle. Because gravity is pulling it down and its speed is not all that it should be. But it's still pretty fast. But it shoots up and once it's gone beyond gravity, what, 40,000 miles an hour or something, it's on a huge speed because gravity's pull is gone. I find that victory over sin is something like that. In the beginning, it's a struggle. Particularly habits that have pulled you down for so long and you're battling and battling and battling and don't give up, brother. You will come to a place where, like that rocket, you've gone out of the pull of gravity and He has no more power over you. That's the wonderful thing. Each sin that enslaved you will no longer pull you down. It doesn't all happen in a moment. But one by one, the Lord delivers us out of this pull of the law of sin. It's a wonderful thing. You can come to a life where, for example, you never get offended. No matter what somebody does to you or does not do, what they say about you, what they don't say about you. It's like water off a duck's back. It just doesn't offend you. Isn't that a good life to come to? Paul said, don't be anxious for anything. That doesn't happen overnight. It's like this rocket going up, up, up, up, up, up and then it shoots out of that atmosphere of the earth. Then you're anxious for nothing. But if you're faithful in that early, it may take a few years, but you can get to that place. So, don't get discouraged if it doesn't happen overnight. But battle. Don't just go up a little bit and say, oh, this won't happen and come back down to earth again. Like, you know, sometimes you hear of a rocket that took off and landed in some ocean. A lot of Christians are like that. They hear a message on Big Tree Over Sand and say, I'm going up. A few days later, they have fallen in some sea somewhere. That's not the way it should be. We should keep at it till we get out of the pool of gravity. I tell you, it's possible. In area by area by area. I don't care what you've been enslaved by. What a joy it is when I hear people who have heard this message and say, Brother Zach, I've been delivered from pornography. Oh, it excites me when I hear that. Some young man telling me that. In a world where even Christians are enslaved by it. Or other sins like that. Sin shall not rule over you because you're under grace. The third thing that grace does. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12. You know, Paul had a thorn in the flesh and he doesn't tell us what it is. It could be a sickness. It could be a troublesome person. Apply it to whatever problem is bothering you. Good that Paul didn't tell us what it is so he can cover everything that's bothering you. A thorn in the flesh and God did not remove it. It could be a sickness that God never healed. You know, there are sicknesses God never heals. I don't know all the reasons, but one reason Paul's case was to keep him humble. It could be a person who keeps on bothering you and he never goes away. It could be in your office. It could be in your neighborhood. Who's irritant all the time and you pray and say, Lord, get him out of my way and he never gets out of the way and he's there all the time. The Lord says, My grace is sufficient for you. If you get my grace, you can handle that problem. Without my removing that person or that sickness or that difficulty, I'll give you grace to be an overcomer. That's the third thing that grace does. First, forgiveness of sins. Third, power to overcome sin. And the third, to face any problem that I can face in my life. Grace is enough to help me to overcome it. I remember a servant of the Lord, when he was seeking the Lord about this, he got a beautiful illustration, a beautiful picture of how grace helps us. He saw himself struggling against a certain problem and he dreamt of himself in a boat trying to cross a river and underneath the level of the water there was a huge rock and his boat was hitting against that rock. It was a long rock and the boat wouldn't go across. That was the obstacle he was facing in his life. And he was praying, Lord, remove this rock, remove this rock. And the Lord said, I won't remove the rock. I'll raise the level of the water. Isn't that enough? So you go across. Isn't that what you want to do? And that's greater, isn't it? Without the problem being removed, God makes us overcome it. That's what grace does. You set a table before me in the presence of my enemies. He doesn't remove the enemies. They're there. But the Lord says, I'll make you an overcomer. The enemy's still there. That's greater, actually, than if God destroyed the enemies. He doesn't remove Satan, for example. He doesn't remove those troublesome people. But he makes us overcomers. That's grace. When we sing about amazing grace, there's a lot more than just forgiveness of sins. It saves me. It saves a wretch like me from the guilt of sin. It saves me from the power of sin day by day. And it saves me from problems that would make me sink by making me an overcomer. Lord bless you. According to your faith, as you hear God's Word, if you can believe, I want to tell you in Jesus' name. I'm telling you from my own experience. This can be your experience. If you determine, Lord, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Grace to help me to experience this in all these areas that I've heard today. There's no partiality with God. What he's done for others, he can do for you. Let's pray. Let's bow our heads before God. Heavenly Father, I pray for every single person here. Lord, we want to start with that which is elementary. I pray you help everyone here, first of all, to forgive right now by a simple act of the will and a word they say to you in their heart to forgive every single individual who has harmed them or hurt them in any way. Help them to go out of this hall as those who have released others and who have therefore released themselves from the guilt of the past. It's gone. You may never see those people again, but I pray they'll have forgiven. And I pray that you also give them an assurance that you've forgiven them and that you will lead them to the next step of overcoming the sins that have enslaved them for so many years. If the devils kept on telling them, you'll never overcome it. Help them to have the faith today to say to the devil, you're a liar. I'm going to overcome by the grace of God. And Lord, also, for those who are facing other problems which seem to be insurmountable which seem to be so big that they don't know how they'll ever overcome it. Earthly problems, we live in a world which is evil. Problems with relatives, problems with neighbors, problems in the office, problems of health or whatever it is. I pray that you will give them faith to believe that by God's grace, my grace is sufficient for you, it's sufficient for whatever they're facing. Help them to have that faith, Lord, they're experiencing in daily life. We know that your grace is amazing. It can save us from all these situations. Thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.