This sermon emphasizes the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit, highlighting the prevalence of confusion and counterfeit in this area. It delves into the necessity of recognizing the value of the original by understanding the existence of counterfeits, particularly in the baptism and fullness of the Holy Spirit. The speaker explores the concept of God allowing deception and temptation to test His people, leading them to spiritual maturity through overcoming trials and tests. The message stresses the significance of personal intimacy with Jesus, seeking to truly know Him rather than just serving Him, as the essence of eternal life.

I thought of the subject of being filled with the Holy Spirit and the reason is that there's so much confusion about this subject and so much of counterfeit and that's not surprising. If you look around the world people counterfeit only what is valuable. Nobody counterfeits brown paper or newspapers. People counterfeit gold and silver and so anything that's counterfeited, expensive currency notes, I don't think anyone counterfeits even a $1 note. It's only a $100 note. So anything that's counterfeited should immediately indicate to you that the original must be very valuable. So to me that is more than anything else that the devil has counterfeited. It's the baptism and fullness of the Holy Spirit and Christendom and this tremendous amount of confusion on that. It's like a maze and in that it's those who are wholehearted and really want God's best will not miss out on God's best. That I can assure you. And we wonder why God has allowed such things. Why does God allow deception to come into the midst of those who are his people? If I know that a man is a deceiver, I would not allow him to come to my house and speak to my children. But God is a more loving father than I am and yet he allows it. So there must be a very good reason where his wisdom is beyond mine. Let me show you a couple of verses in Scripture in the New Testament. In 2nd Corinthians first of all in chapter 11. 2nd Corinthians 11 and it says here in verse 3. I'm afraid just like the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness. Your minds should be led astray from simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. What we see there is that as soon as God created Adam and Eve, united them in marriage and sent them into the garden. The very first thing we read in Scripture is that the devil deceived them. Now as I said I would not allow someone who I knew to be a deceiver to come into my home and deceive my children. Why did God allow Adam and Eve to face the deceiver as soon as they almost the first day of their life? God's ways are not our ways. God is building a people for eternity and it's not by protecting them from temptation, protecting them from deception, protecting them from evil and you know keeping them protected like in a cocoon. That's not the way he wants his children to develop. They will not develop. They'll be spiritual babies all their life and so God has seen that the way his children can develop is by being exposed to temptation for example. I would not allow my children to unnecessarily face temptation if I can avoid it. But God allows his children to face temptation all the time, every day. So we see there that there is a purpose that if I learn how to overcome this temptation, if I learn how to get through this haze of deception, I will come out of it a spiritual man. If I avoid it altogether I'll be a baby all my life and God doesn't want us to be babies. We don't develop by not being tested. In all education every promotion is dependent on a test and every test is at a higher level than the previous one and that's how we become more educated in the world and the same principle in the Christian life that is through testing and that testing includes temptation, it includes deception and if I can overcome that I become a spiritual, I become a mature man. Otherwise we'll all end up in heaven as babies. God doesn't want babies and in heaven there's not going to be any testing, there's not going to be any deception. So there's no possibility of growth in heaven. There would have been no possibility of Adam and Eve growing if they were not tempted, if they were not open to deception, exposed to it. Because God cannot create a person as a mature saint. A person becomes a mature saint by choice, by a number of choices. You can have two people who are converted on the same day and ten years later one is more mature than the other. Why is that? Or someone who's converted very much after someone else goes ahead of that person. Why is that? If you look around you can see that probably in your own midst in this church. I've seen it in my church too at home that many who were in the church right from the beginning seem to be, I mean though they're willing to help in many practical ways, they don't seem to have grown to spiritual maturity where they can bless and challenge others. And many others who've come in much later have come to that maturity. Why is that? So it doesn't depend on the number of years you are in a church that determines whether you're mature or not. It's like you know as children grow up, just because somebody's 20 years old doesn't mean he's mature. A person who's 20 years old could behave like a kid and someone else who's 10 years old could be more mature. It depends on what they've been exposed to, how their parents have trained them. God seeks to train all of us but he can't do much with us if we don't respond. So those who don't respond to God's training, even though they sit many years in a church listening to the same truths, don't mature much. Whereas others who come in much later and are radical and wholehearted, in a very short time they become mature. This is a fact. It's been true in Christendom all these 2,000 years. And it was true in the first century and it is true even today. So here it says about God allowing Adam and Eve to be deceived by Satan and to be tempted by him. The purpose was that they would grow one step in maturity. That wouldn't have been the only test. If they had passed that test, just like when you pass the kindergarten test, you go to the first grade and the second grade. There have been many, many tests that God took Adam and Eve through but they failed in the very first one. And you see with all the great men and women in the Old Testament that God tested them. Let me show you an example in Genesis 22 about Abraham. God called Abraham when he was 75 years old and told him it was a test. You know when a man is 75 years old he's probably earned a lot of money, built a house, retired, settled down. And that's the time God calls him to leave his country, leave his relatives, leave everybody and come where I will show you. And I'm not even going to tell you where it's going to be. But I'll make you a great nation if you can trust me. That was a test. Is Abraham willing to trust God there and leave his family members never to see them again? I've sometimes thought whether God went to some other man in Ur of the Chaldeans before he went to Abraham. And let's assume that God went to somebody else and said, hey will you, I want to make a great nation of you. Come out from Ur of the Chaldeans and come and follow me to a land which I will show you. And suppose that man said, well Lord don't trouble me now. I've retired. I've just built my house. I'm settling down. I can't leave my family and all. And God would have said, oh okay then you stay here. I won't trouble you. And he looks for somebody else and he finds Abraham. Could have been like that. Abraham may have been God's second choice. Abraham said okay. And 50 years later when he's about 125 years old, we read in Genesis 22 and verse 1, God tested Abraham again. That's way after he's walked with the Lord for so many years. So you find God's constantly testing him to lead him higher. To lead him to a greater level of knowledge of God. But he passed the test again when he was asked. That was a very tough test to offer up his son. So if you find that God is leading you to stronger tests, remember he's seeking to lead you higher. And if you fail in those tests then of course you'll remain where you are. God loves all his children equally. There's no partiality with God at all. Among men there can be partiality but with God there is zero partiality. All his children are exactly the same to him. Even men and women. There's no difference in God's eyes. They're all precious to him. And he wants all of them to advance spiritually to maturity. Which means he will allow all of them to be tested. Like all of them are in the first grade and then he tests them to see whether they move on. But some don't move on. That is the reason why you see a difference between believers. I don't mean the ability to preach or speak because that can be sometimes a natural ability. Maturity is not tested by our knowledge of the Bible or by spiritual gifts or our ability to speak. Because Jesus said that in the last day there will be people who even cast out demons and heal the sick who will go to hell even though they did it in Jesus name. Now that's amazing that a man healed the sick in Jesus name and ends up in hell. And the reason is the Lord says in all the years you were on earth you did all these ministries but I never knew you. I never got to know you. You never got to know me. We were not intimate. That's what you read in Matthew chapter 7. They say Lord we did so many miracles in your name. Yeah that's true. I don't question that. But I never knew you. And that's going to be a big surprise to a lot of people who think they're very spiritual because they have done so much. They went to so many meetings and they had so much knowledge of God but they never knew Jesus. I find lots of believers like that sitting in many of our churches. They don't know Jesus more and more. I mean just like when you get married you get to know your husband more and more with each passing year. But after 20 years if you don't know your husband any more than when you first married him that shows you probably never lived with him or you didn't love him. You never lived with him or even if you were in the same house you had nothing much knowing much interaction with each other. And so after 20 years you don't know your husband. And I find lots of believers like that. They say well I accepted Christ 20 years ago but what is their knowledge of the Lord? It's pathetic. They don't know the Lord. They're still covetous and greedy and selfish and angry and bitter and complaining and grumbling and if they didn't tell you they were Christians you'd see there's not much difference between them and any unconverted worldly man in the road except that they come to church or they come to a good church. They don't know the Lord and that's because remember there's no partiality with God that God tried to take them through some tests and they didn't want to take it seriously. They just wanted to attend meetings and sing songs and have a good reputation before people and not get to know the Lord. So I want to encourage all of you to know the Lord personally. It's the most important thing. That's what God seeks to lead you into. If you turn with me to 2nd Corinthians again that passage we saw in chapter 11 verse 3 says I'm afraid. He's telling these Corinthians who've been who claim to accept Christ many years earlier. He said that's okay you guys have accepted Christ and all that but I'm still afraid that the devil will come and lead you astray and you will end up like those people who say Lord we came to church and we did this and we did that but you don't know the Lord and here is the proof of their spiritual weakness. 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 4. Some other preacher comes along and preaches another Jesus. Not the Jesus we preached and you accept it beautifully and he preaches about another spirit. I told you about the counterfeit Holy Spirit counterfeits and he urges you to receive another spirit and you receive it and he proclaims a different gospel. It's all in verse 4. Another Jesus, a different spirit, a different gospel and you accept it. You don't have the discernment to know what is the true gospel and what is not true. It's like your sense of taste is gone. You don't know the difference between tasty food and garbage. I'll be terrible if your tongue is not able to distinguish between food that is good and food that is utterly spoiled, garbage. If you can't distinguish between that what will happen is you'll eat something which is thoroughly spoiled full of bacteria and whatnot and it'll kill you finally if you keep eating like that and that's exactly what's happened to a lot of Christians. Their sense of discernment has not developed even after many years. They're not able to discern what is the real gospel and what is another gospel and we find multitudes of people today in the world who take the matter of what speaks here of a different gospel. The most popular gospel being preached in evangelical and charismatic circles in the world today is a gospel which proclaims that Jesus will make you wealthy and healthy. So it's very easy to find out if that is the true gospel or not. Very, very easy if you just use a little common sense. You don't even need to know the Bible. Just a little common sense will help you to know is that the true gospel or not. So ask yourself this question. Is there any human being in the world who does not want wealth and health? Anybody? Have you ever come across anybody like that? Every beggar and homeless person wants wealth. Every sick person in the world wants health. Every rich person in the world also wants more wealth and every healthy person wants more health. So you go the whole range from the poorest to the richest they all want more money and you go the other range from the sickest to the healthiest they all want healthy health. So there's not a single human being in the world who does not want health and wealth. And if that is true and it is true, why does it say that Jesus came into the world and the world rejected him and crucified him? Why would the world reject Jesus if he came offering health and wealth? The very fact that they killed him proved that he was not offering what the whole world wanted. And that's just common sense. You don't even need to know the Bible to detect that false gospel. But yet it's amazing how many millions of Christians in the world today are deceived by that. And even many who think they are not deceived and secretly they may be hoping that Jesus would give them more health and wealth. They get disturbed if they are sick and they get disturbed if God doesn't give them some material thing that they long for or some job they desperately wanted and they didn't get it. They say, why didn't Jesus give it to me? They think Jesus came here to earth to give us good jobs, nice house, a nice car and wealth and health. Even people who say they don't believe that gospel. What is it that man does not want? We read in Romans in chapter 3 about a description of the human race. It says here in Romans 3 10 onwards. A description of man around the world, all human beings. There is none righteous. No, not one. In the whole world. A lot of people think they're righteous but the Bible says nobody's righteous. Not even one. There's no one who understands God. And here's the amazing thing. There is no one who seeks for God. Is that true? Look at all the religions where people go on pilgrimages and spend millions of dollars giving offerings in their temples and mosques and churches and travel here and there and many people who become priests and give up their professions to serve God and it says here there's no one who seeks for God. I believe the Bible. I believe there's no one who seeks for God. Everybody is turned aside from God. They have all become useless. Now this is a description of the human race. If you begin here you can find salvation. If you think you are a sort of a good person that's why God found you and that's why you don't find the fullness of salvation. If I can face up to this and say Lord in my unconverted state I'm not a righteous person. I don't understand God. I don't seek after God. Verse 11. I have turned aside. I am useless. I'm just reading out what's written here. Verse 12. I don't do any good. Not even one person who does good and Lord my tongue is so evil. There's poison in it and my mouth is full of cursing and bitterness and even if I don't literally shed blood by stabbing them I stab them with my tongue and shed blood. Destruction and misery are in our paths and the path of living in peace I don't know and I don't have any fear of God. This is a description of the human race by God and if you are proud you will not accept it and that's the reason why your experience of Christ is very shallow and will remain shallow forever. I want you to be honest. Take time sometimes to go home and read Romans 3 verse 10 to 18 and face up to it and ask yourself whether that is an honest description of your unconverted condition and I have a feeling that a number of you will say no I'm not that bad. No wonder your experience of Christ is shallow and you don't seem to grow much spiritually. If you accept the verdict of the Bible it's like you know if a doctor diagnoses you and gives you a statement about your physical health and your sickness you would accept it but I find that a lot of Christians don't accept what the Bible says about their spiritual condition and if you don't accept what the doctor says about your physical condition he can't help you because he says I'm going to give you a medicine it's probably going to be painful you need to do some surgery you say no no I'm not that bad then you die of that sickness and that's exactly the reason why so many believers never seem to progress spiritually they remain babes they don't grow because they don't first of all accept their fundamentally sinful condition that there's nothing good in our flesh. Paul recognized that Paul was a one of the greatest saints that lived on earth but he says in Romans 7 and verse 18 I know that nothing good dwells in me in my unconverted state have you recognized that I'm trying to tell you how to be filled with the Holy Spirit because I see so many believers that biggest need is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and they're not filled with the Holy Spirit and they remain powerless shallow empty Christians and that's not the way God intends them to be and so they go somewhere and get some emotional experience and say yeah I got it I'm baptized in the Holy Spirit. Contrafit. So in order to help you understand how to be filled with the Holy Spirit we got to get a proper diagnosis of our spiritual state in me dwells nothing good this is the Apostle Paul in me that is in my flesh dwells nothing good in God's eyes in the eyes of people I may be a good person better than some others but if I don't start at this point and say Lord there's nothing good in me and that's why I come to you so that you can do something good in me there's great hope Jesus was always trying to emphasize this point and this is the starting point to be filled with the Holy Spirit Luke chapter 18 he spoke specifically to this point in Luke chapter 18 verse 9 Jesus told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were good they were righteous they were not like others they were not as bad as others and they look down at others and say well I'm not as bad as them and he speaks about you know the story of the Pharisee who prays he wasn't praying to God and you notice that read the scripture carefully you'll find that verse 11 he was praying to himself you probably didn't notice that the Pharisee wasn't praying to God he was praying to himself and you know what he called himself see what he called himself God at least he was honest there he was his own God he prayed to himself and said God I thank you that I'm not like other people Jesus was so exact in what he spoke a lot of people who pray a lot of Christians who pray they don't pray to God they're praying to themselves they go through words sounds like they're praying to God but they're not praying to God that's why they don't get any answers if they made contact with God there would be answers but they don't make contact with God because they don't start where we should start Lord there's nothing good that dwells in me that's why I need you so desperately I'm I thank you I'm not like you know he compares himself with the worst people in society the swindlers the unjust the adulterers and if not even like this cheating tax collector over there and then he describes not what he is but he describes all the religious things he does and very often even though we may not say that we secretly delight that we're not like other people who don't go to church on Sundays we are active in our church and we don't go to work on Sunday we go to church and we do so many things and maybe we put a little money in the offering box as well there are a lot of things we congratulate ourselves for in contrast there was this cheating tax collector standing far away who wouldn't even lift up his eyes to heaven and he said God all I can say is I'm a sinner please be merciful to me and Jesus said that man went to his house justified and obviously from that point onwards he grew spiritually whereas this other man who exalted himself lived in that state forever and I've seen people like that and I believe that's the reason why some people who come to church regularly never grow much never grow much because they have not seen what they are basically in me that was nothing good that's why they don't come desperately to God I mean think of to use an analogy a human illustration supposing you had the worst type of cancer that anybody could have and here's some doctor who's got a tremendous reputation for curing surgically the worst type of cancers wouldn't you go to him whatever the cost may be even if your insurance didn't cover it you'd want to live you'd go to him and he'd accept his diagnosis that you got the worst possible cancer but I can cure you but you've got to acknowledge it and come and say I need help so that's what this tax collector did he said Lord I'm just a hopeless case I want you to save me and make me godly I know I was created to be a reflection of the image of God but that's not what I am I'm filthy I'm just outwardly a Christian going to church and but I don't know you my life doesn't seem to grow spiritually I seem to be in the same state that I've been in for many many years there's no greater joy and victory in my life means there's something fundamentally wrong with my Christianity so Lord I want to accept my condition I want you to help me Jesus once sarcastically told the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 9 when the Pharisees saw it says in Matthew 9 and verse 10 Jesus had a table with some of the worst sinners in town that's not something holy people do holy people don't sit with the worst sinners in town holy people sit with holy people but Jesus sat with the worst sinners and these so-called holy people wondered how could this man be the Son of God if he is sitting with all these sinners and then Jesus sarcastically told them I've not come for healthy people like you I've come for the sick people because it's the sick people who need a doctor see there was sarcasm you Pharisees you think you're healthy so you don't need me right you're okay you go to church regularly and you're pretty good you got a good reputation and religious people fine I didn't come for you I came for these wretched sinners who know they're pretty hopeless and that's why they killed him the people who thought they were righteous were the ones who killed Jesus Christ and he says I did not come to call the righteous but sinners it's a very important statement of Jesus the last part of verse 13 I did not come to call people who think they're okay I did not come to call people who think they're holy I came to people who acknowledge that they are sinners and I'll tell you something that I've discovered in my life the closer we come to God the more we see our own impurity the further we are away from God the less we see our own impurity and we can think we're pretty holy but that's why the Apostle Paul the closer he came to God the more he realized what a sinner he was his progression in holiness was not I'm becoming holier and holier like a lot of Christians think they are his progression and holiness was very different as I've often said Paul wrote 1 Corinthians when he was 55 years old and this is what he said at the age of 55 by that time he had already been a Christian for 25 years and he traveled for 15 years to different places planted churches healed the sick but what does he think of himself in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 9 he says I am the least of the Apostles and I'm not fit to be called an Apostle he was probably the mightiest of the Apostles but what was his opinion of himself I'm the least of the Apostles that's how he felt when he was 55 years old five years later he writes Ephesians he's progressed in holiness now and now he writes in Ephesians in chapter 3 and verse 8 now I'm not only the least of all the Apostles I'm the least of all the believers in the world you take all the believers in the world I'm the least of them that was his opinion I'm the least spiritual of all the opinion of all the Saints in the world because I see so much sin in me you go another five years when he's 65 he writes in 1 Timothy in chapter 1 and verse 15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm number one I'm the chief of all the sinners in the world so Paul's progression in holiness was I'm the least of all the Apostles at age 55 at age 60 he was the least of all the believers in the world and at age 65 he was the chief of sinners in the whole world what does that indicate I mean he wasn't living in sin he was probably the holiest man on earth this by human standards but he had come so close to God in those by that time that he saw things in his life as sin which 99% of other believers don't even consider as sin it's like you know you can look at your hands and think they're very clean but you look at it under a microscope and you see a whole lot of germs there which you can't even see with the naked eye and you magnify that microscope and you see it even more so it's something like that you know when we come into God's presence it's we look at sin through a microscope and think we think our heart is clean and it's not clean hey I thought it was clean so there's a sense of an awareness of sin in our life which keeps us very humble and low before God it's impossible for a man coming closer to God to become proud it is impossible I want to say to you my dear brothers and sisters truthfully and lovingly if there is pride in you of any sort pride of some ability you have some knowledge you have some spirituality you have I want to tell you the truth you're pretty far away from God you might as well face up to it maybe you think you're very smart and very clever and not like some of the other dumb people around you I don't feel sorry for those dumb people I feel sorry for you because you're so far away from God no man can come close to God and lift up his head every person I see in the Bible when he encountered God he fell on his face whether it was Abraham or Isaac or even the Apostle John at the end of his life God is so holy and it's an awesome thing to come into his presence I find so many Christians come so glibly and lightly to a Sunday morning service they sing without even thinking who they are singing to just nice tune nice words they're more taken up with the words in the tune more than the person to whom they are singing it's because they're not near God it's a nice thing to come along with other people who are Sunday morning singing and we're missing out on something brothers sisters and if you are aware of that need you will thirst Lord I want this life that some people have got which I don't seem to have even though I've come to this church for so many years some of the others who come after me seem to have gone ahead of me I've come to know you better what's the reason and when you thirst like that you can hear the word of Jesus in John 7 37 if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink and from his innermost being rivers of living water will flow and this he spoke verse 39 of those would be filled with the Holy Spirit so what I'm trying to create in all of you is a thirst for God not for knowledge not for creating a good impression on others in this church consider that as garbage think of the opinion that all the people in this church have about you take it all and throw it in the trash can they think you're a wonderful brother wonderful sister throw it in the trash can you'll never progress spiritually if you treasure those statements that other people made about you you value them I'd advise you to throw it in the trash can with all the rubbish that's there and say Lord what do they know about me you tell me my brother sister how much do people in this church know about your private life how much do they know about how you handle money how much do they know whether you love money or not how much do they know about your thought life the thoughts you think pretty close to zero what do they know they know that you come regularly to the meetings they know that you sing well perhaps and they know that you help in many ways in the church good man looks on the outward appearance but God only looks at the heart he takes all that outward opinion of man and says useless let me see what's in your heart that's the part nobody here knows that's why I say get alone before God and say Lord I'm not thirsty because I'm satisfied with the opinion people have about me I've got a good reputation in this church and that's why I'm not growing spiritually I want to die to the opinions of man I want to be dead to the world and its opinions so that I can live before you and really make progress I thirst Lord for the life you came to give if I missed out on it please give me don't let me live my life years on earth and miss out on the most important thing so as I was saying God allows deception and temptation to see what we really want am I happy with these different things in the world that I have or I say Lord the things that are really valuable I have almost nothing off and things that are not going to last for eternity I've got plenty of that but the things that are really valuable I have so little I want that Lord I want you I want to know you better I want to I don't want you to turn to me in the last day and say yeah you did a lot of things for me and you went to a lot of meetings and you gave a lot of money but you never got to know me I never knew you we were not intimate on earth you didn't have time to walk with me and talk with me on earth you were just busy doing things it's like a wife who does so many things in the house but has no time to sit and talk to her husband or no time to go for a walk with him and because she's busy doing so many things in the house a lot of Christians are like that and they find their satisfaction I'm doing this for God I'm doing that for God and the Lord says I don't want all that I want you to walk with me and talk with me I want to know you eternal life John 17 three is to know Jesus Christ it's not to serve him no it is to know him remember this all your life if you don't know Jesus Christ you don't have eternal life John 17 verse 3 Jesus definition of eternal life eternal life is not living forever no because people who go to hell also live forever but that's not eternal life Jesus said eternal life is to know God and to know Jesus Christ personally you know just like you know your husband you know your wife and the more you love one another the more you live together you get to know one another not by living in the same house but by talking to each other if you never talk to your husband you'll never know him even if you live in the same house for 20 years but if you talk to him and you listen to him talk to him and listen to him talk to him listen to him every day in one year you get to know him that's how we know Jesus Christ it's not by working for him you can slog in your house for your husband and do so many things for him and yet not know him there are many marriages like that where they do a lot of work for each other the husband works hard and he earns the money and the wife works hard at home and does a lot of things but they never spend time together they don't really know each other well they are bored talking to each other they're all busy serving that's not Christianity that's religion and a lot of reference between religion and true Christianity Jesus defined Christianity as knowing him personally that's why when God created man on the sixth day he didn't send him to work in the garden he said Adam the work in the garden can wait your first day is going to be a day of rest with me and the seventh day God told Adam no work that was Adam's first day his very first day God said no work work and wait I want you to know me Adam I want you to spend the whole day with me just talk to me and listen to me and Adam and Eve spent that day with God and that's what God says to us the most important thing in life is to sit to get to know him you know you know the story of Mary and Martha Martha was busy doing so many things Mary was just sitting in getting to know Jesus talking to him and listening to him and Jesus told Martha you're worried about so many things but I'm not interested in all that I didn't come here to eat food I came here to talk to you and you had no time to talk to me you're busy serving me I believe that Lord will say that to many many Christians you have no time to talk to me you have no time to listen to me you're busy with listening to Christian music and listening to other things and doing certain a lot of things for me but you have no time to walk with me and talk with me I pray that will change and when we thirst for that type of life Jesus has come to me I'll fill you with the Holy Spirit let's pray Heavenly Father we pray that you will apply these truths to our lives and help us to be gripped by them not temporarily but permanently that this will be our way of life longing after you and knowing you thirsting for you all the time more and more we pray in Jesus name Amen