In this sermon, KP Johannon emphasizes the importance of stepping away from the chaos of the world and spending time with God. He expresses deep concern for the state of the nation and urges listeners to recognize their individual accountability before God. Johannon draws parallels to the people of Israel in the book of Jeremiah, highlighting the urgency of aligning with God's agenda. He emphasizes the need for fasting and prayer as a missing aspect in the church today. Overall, the sermon encourages listeners to prioritize their relationship with God and seek His wisdom in these critical times.

The Lord's invitation to you is come up higher, be with me, and get to know me. K.P. Yohannan says that's the great need in the church today. Fasting and prayer is the missing jewel in the church today. We'll do everything else in the world, but not that. And if anything we need to do today is to stand somewhere alone, be somewhere to pray and plead on behalf of the land. If you were to take inventory of your life and look at where you're spending your time, would you be ashamed? Maybe like many, you're in front of the TV four hours a day, or perhaps you're racing from sunup to sundown. At the end of the day, you realize you haven't spent even a minute alone with God. Let's take some time to evaluate how our lives are going, and where we're headed here today on the road to reality. Perhaps some adjustments need to be made. What is God looking for? Brother K.P. Yohannan answers that for us from the book of Jeremiah. You know, this is true. If I have my choice, I like to meet you in person, talk to you, talk to you over a cup of tea or coffee or something. You see, the invitation of the Lord, you read in the scripture, come, let us reason together, talk about it. And I'm convinced one of the biggest problem we deal with often, it is that we hear so much preaching and teaching just goes over our head. We can tune in and tune out. But so little do we have the understanding of actually coming to God, talking to Him, listening to Him, and then making our decisions. You read in the book of Revelation chapter four, verse one, the Lord said to John, the apostle, come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. You see, when all the kind of stuff that goes around us, the state of things, the way we see it, the way other people see it, when we encounter problems, people's voices and you know, there's a million things going on around us. But then there's a voice that comes from above saying, come up here, seeing things from God's perspective. And only when we are willing to leave the plains, the valleys and come up, wait and listen, we will be able to have the clear understanding the way God sees things. As you know, in the book of Revelation, the church at Ephesus and you know, Laodicea and Philadelphia, and of course, all these seven churches, they had their own understanding of their reality. I mean, look at the church at Ephesus. When people saw these people, I said, dear me, how they are really radical. They are committed. Look at their work, their sacrifice and their agony and being exhausted in doing things for God. They're intense. But you know what Jesus said, I'm going to put out the light. I am just walking out. The reason you're doing all these things, the whole world thinks you are the best and the most radically committed, sound evangelical. Everything is perfect. But I see something else. From my point of view, the Lord Jesus said, you have left me. You don't love me anymore. You do all these things for you, your reputation, your honor to make your life feels good and to have everything wonderful for you. It has nothing to do with me. And you don't love me anymore. Repent and then you do these things. Otherwise, I'm going to put out the light. No, I'm not a prophet of doom, but my dear brothers and sisters, and as a friend, I'll talk to you. For me, it's been a daily agony and prayer for quite a while for the people of God, especially the body of Christ and then particularly the shepherds, the pastors, the teachers of the church. You say, well, that's kind of sound quite heavy. Why? Well, the thing is this. We are living in a time when it seems plenty of preachers and plenty of teachers are telling us, don't worry, everything is going to be okay. Things are getting better. Revival is coming in and God is on your side and he's going to bless you. Hang on. And then some say, send me your offering. I know you're poor and I know you're broke, but you can even borrow some money and sow the seed and see how God will bless you. Well, do I have to explain any further than that? You know it. Why we had to play games anymore? You know what's going on. But here's a problem. The reality, what is happening with us as a nation, as a people of God, the church, the leaders, I think unless we are willing to walk away, come away from the mess and be with God and listen to him, we will not know what's going on. I am deeply concerned for our nation, for the future. And I say for you, my dear brother, my sister. You know, I keep telling young people that I often talk to, keep in mind, you came into this world alone. Even though you've got a million people around you, actually you are alone. And someday you will die alone. And you'll stand before the Lord alone. Yes, with the body of Christ, we learn and grow and become like Jesus. Yet, keep in mind, it is your personal choice. The discipline, the sacrifice, you embrace, you accept. Knowing what the Lord is calling you to do is what actually counts, nothing else. You read in the book of Jeremiah, which I've been reading during these days, it just troubles me to no end. Why? Because there is a real parallel that happened in the ancient Israel, among the people of God and what we are looking at today. In the book of Lamentations, chapter 1, verse 12, Jeremiah says this, Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? I mean, I stand here, he says, I'm weeping my eyes out. But you people are walking by and can't you see the pain, the anguish, the judgment, the crisis? Don't you see what is going on? And you just walk by us though, it's nothing. And he says, is there any crisis and pain and anguish like this? But you don't care. What is happening is the people of Israel, they came to the place of no return. What do you mean by that? You see, God gave plenty and plenty of opportunity for the people to repent and turn away and forsake idols and give up sin, the sin of greed and convenience, self-centeredness and idolatry. They just won't listen. Instead, they said, Jeremiah, you are a real nutcase. You just, I mean, what is wrong with you? Don't you see that my millions are listening to that prophet and this prophet and you don't have anybody listening to you. You just stand there on the street corner and talking to nobody. Nobody cares, but they're spitting at you. I mean, if God is with you, you should have a very large following. Where is the God? You're talking nonsense. But Jeremiah says, you don't understand. I've been with him. I saw him and I heard him and he told me to tell you this is the word of the Lord. And today, people are desperate. I mean, we may not talk about it, but we know things are not that well. And we go to church and we should to hear a word from the Lord. But often, instead of hearing this is what the Lord is saying, we hear a plain nice Bible study. No, no, no. I'm not saying we should have Bible studies. We should. And I do, you know, study the Bible and teach. But the problem is the pastor who's supposed to be, the teacher who's supposed to be a prophet speaking on the behalf of the Lord for the time we are living in to the people that he's ministering to. Unfortunately, he's not coming up higher. He's not waiting to hear from God. He's often more worried about the illustrations, the stories and fitting his sermon so that it will sound nice. It will be uplifting, encouraging and strengthening. I mean, all those things are needed. We must. I wrote books about it. But here's the thing. This is exactly what happened to the people of Israel. And if you look at the book of Jeremiah, this is a very, very serious verse. In chapter 8, verse 20, the harvest is past. The summer has ended and we are not saved. And my precious brother, my sister, it is critically important that you and I bear this burden of responsibility also for the body of Christ and for the church and for our nation, for our time, for this our generation. This is a critical time in history, and God is wanting us to be in line with his agenda to see things as he does and to spend time with him. K.P. Yohannan, we'll be right back. This is The Road to Reality. It's a ministry of gospel for Asia. As K.P. has challenged us to live for what really matters, we'd like to suggest his latest book that reinforces that. It's called No Longer a Slumdog. You know, there are children in crisis right now in Asia, and what they need is hope. Be among the first to read this gripping narrative that tells of God's redemptive power. It's our free gift to you. No strings attached. Stop by winasia.org today to order your free book, again called No Longer a Slumdog. That's winasia.org. Or in Canada, go online to gospelforasia.ca. Your eyes will be opened to an amazing move of God. Let's get back to K.P. now, shall we? I don't know if this is accurate or not, but at least I read about this survey that was done that shows that average Christian believers spend less than 8 minutes a day in prayer, and pastors spend less than 12 minutes a day in prayer. No, I think one should spend enough time studying and researching and analyzing. Yeah, you're Greek and Hebrew and whatever else you want to do is fine, and to be very warm and positive and uplifting and use illustration stories, and Jesus did that. But what I'm telling you, please listen to me. When you are thinking about the people and what they want to hear, instead of saying something that cut across like a sharp blade, just dividing and giving them a different perspective of, you know, from God's perspective. I tell you, we miss it and people suffer for it. And Jeremiah, of all the prophets, only one remained, telling people what God is saying. Did you know that when we fail as people of God, speak a word on the behalf of the Lord, because we don't know what God is saying. He often pick up unconverted people of the world to speak on his behalf. Strange, isn't it? What is happening in the media and some of the stuff we hear about our economy and the crisis of faith, these kind of things should alarm us, not frighten us, but help us to understand that this is not peacetime. And the scripture says, when they say peace, peace, then comes destruction. And we have so much talk going on about our life and our future and how to make things better. And the honest truth is, the answer is not politics. The answer is not some new person running the country or this system, that system. No, the answer is, God said, Abraham, if I can't find 10 people in Sodom and Gomorrah, I will not destroy the land. Well, you know, Abraham bargained with God for more than that, but in the end, you know, he said, okay, if 10 would you destroy? He said, no, no, I will not. But God could not find even 10 people in Sodom. And you know what happened? Read the book of Genesis. What does that mean? God is looking for a mighty minority, people who take God serious. People who read the four gospels and read the statements of Christ about discipleship. Unless you love me more than father, mother, son, daughter, even your own life, you cannot be my disciple. Forsake all and follow me. Don't worry about tomorrow. Seek his kingdom first. Love one another. Denying self and dying to self and saying no to sin, forsaking wickedness and walking in holiness and disassociating with anything and all things that hurt, cause pain for our Lord. And unless we take these things seriously, I'm afraid we are going to miss it. And honestly, I think we are not yet in the place where the people of Israel ended up of no return. I believe there's still hope. And I pray and plead with my brothers, especially in the ministry, stop, stop this busyness and, you know, running and doing this 24 hours pause and spend time before God and asking for understanding. Strange enough, believe it or not, one of the major move of God took place in this country when all the banks went under, when economy has completely shattered. I do not know what the future is. I don't understand money and bank and all these things to a great extent. I don't. I know very little, but I can tell you something. If those are the kind of things God must use to bring us to the place of repentance and turning to him and giving up greed and ungodliness. And, you know, one of the crisis we deal with, the sin of irreligious convenience. You say, what do you mean by that? See, we are always looking for things to make us feel better and happy and joyous. We are not looking to choose the way of the cross. What do you mean by the way of the cross? Well, let me ask you this, not to put you on a guilt trip or condemnation trip. When was the last time you heard a word from the Lord saying that, would you share my burden with me? Would you stand in the gap on the behalf of the land? For this your church, for this your community, this people group in Afghanistan or Iran or Albania or China or India or Bangladesh. When was the last time you heard a word from the Lord, a burden from him, his burden, and spend a whole day in fasting, a week fasting? When was the last time that you knelt for prayer and before you knew it, a few hours went by and you had to rush out because you had an assignment, because you found yourself being so lost in the presence of the Lord and you just wanted to be with him and he talked to you and you heard him. Your heart deep down was burning and it was there you knew his presence and when he talked to people, the words were very few but they were gripped and changed. The need of the day for our nation, it is people coming away, getting away from all the business, all the noise, all the concerts and all the group studies, that study and I'm not against any of this stuff but oh our lives are so packed, busy, seven days we have programs one after another yet so little do we have any understanding about being with God. Fasting and prayer is the missing jewel in the church today. We'll do everything else in the world but not that and if anything we need to do today is to stand somewhere alone, be somewhere alone to pray and plead on the behalf of the land. Whenever that happens, one of the first thing take place in individual life, in family, in a church, in a preacher's life, in a priest's life, anyone, it is the deep conviction of the inadequacy sin. Isaiah chapter 6, you'll find this, this man who was preaching to the whole world, finally when he sat before God, he said, oh dear me, I am the one in trouble, I am lost, I am undone, I see things about me in my heart that I never knew it was there and he wept and repented and there was cleansing. When was the last time you heard one of these popular preachers talk about sin that grieved the heart of God? I urge you, read the book of Jeremiah, book of Ezekiel, read these biblical portions because that's given to us for us today, the scripture says. You read and see how God again and again and again, His heart is breaking with one thing, my people have forsaken me, they have gone after idols, they are creating their own gods of convenience and comfort and ease, they don't care, they will not repent. My prayer and my hope is this that somehow we will stop, stop long enough for God to speak to us as individuals and about our family, about our community, about our congregation and somehow we'll be able to say this is what the Lord is saying and if you are a minister, a pastor, a shepherd, a priest, may I plead with you as a co-pilgrim in this journey, I love you and respect you more than you can imagine because I am in the same road, in the same journey with you. I plead with you to hear the words of Christ, come up here, be with me, seek my face and get to know the Lord, then stand before the people, don't worry about what they think, what they say. Jeremiah in the end said God I'm tired, I'm worn out, I don't want to say a word because any time I open my mouth it is all dark and judgment and crisis and calling for repentance, God I'm rejected, nobody likes me but then he says but I can't keep quiet, your word is like a fire in my bones and he spoke and God stood by him and may the Lord touch our hearts and may he break our hearts and may he draw us close to him and may we come to the place as people of God that we are the people, you and I that God finds and says I have my people in the land and for their sake, on their behalf I will cleanse and rescue and protect and that's the Lord is looking for. May the Lord give us wisdom, may the Lord continue to speak to us and may he draw us close to him. Thank you for listening. You're listening to a challenge from K.P. Yohannan to come up higher. This is The Road to Reality, the weekly radio ministry from Gospel for Asia. We're absolutely thrilled by what God is doing in the lives of children, their families and entire communities in Asia right now. And in K.P.'s latest book, No Longer a Slumdog, you'll get a glimpse of this exciting move of God. K.P. shares stories of transformed lives that will leave you amazed and thankful to God. Order your free copy at winasia.org. You heard it right, that's free. Just go to winasia.org and we'll drop that in the mail to you. Or call us if you would rather at 866-WIN-ASIA. Again, that's 866-WIN-ASIA. Even the call is free. If you're in Canada, simply go online to gospelforasia.ca or call 888-946-2742. Next week we'll hear another message encouraging us to come up higher. Look forward to that next time on The Road to Reality with K.P. Yohannan. you