This sermon emphasizes the importance of living a life of righteousness, sincerity, and gratitude in the fear of God. It highlights the need to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in reverence for God, to dwell with the consuming fire of God. The message stresses the continuous burning of purification in our lives, rejecting unrighteous gain, stopping ears from hearing evil, and shutting eyes from looking upon evil, to walk in the light and live with sincerity and honesty.

Hebrews 13, I'm sorry, Hebrews 12, it's the last few verses of Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 25. One of the first marks of backsliding is a loss of reverence for God. And one way we can see the world having drifted away from God is that it has lost reverence, respect, the fear of God. When we lose the fear of God we lose wisdom because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom then we become foolish. So here is a passage that speaks a lot about about this. See to it that you don't refuse him who is speaking for those did not escape and they refused him who warned them on earth much less shall we escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven and his voice shook the earth then but now he has promised saying yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven and this expression yet once more denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken as of created things in order that those which cannot be shaken may remain therefore since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire I want to tell you one reason why we decided not like in some churches we do not put the verses on the screen because it makes people lazy and all some of you are already lazy you know didn't even bring your bibles with you which child goes to school without school books all of you who have not brought your bibles with you you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself I want to say that again you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself you would never go to school without your school book but you dare to come into God's presence without a bible when we're having studying the word of God I hope that will never happen again you know there are I used to belong to a church where they used to ask everybody to raise their bible up and say and sing a song the best book to read is the bible and the leader of that church would say all those who haven't brought their bibles you should be ashamed of yourself I agree with that so that's the reason why we don't put the verses on the screen because we want people to become familiar with the word of God and not to despise it and say who cares for that I think it's a great testimony when people see someone carrying a bible on Sunday morning and going to a meeting we must never be ashamed of it to walk with the bible in our hand on Sunday morning people know there's a man who's going to respecting God and going to church okay here it speaks about our God in the last verse being a consuming fire now very often people think that's only an old testament thing fear of God is something in the old testament and we don't think of it in the old new testament but here it says in the old testament God spoke to people through earthly messengers on earth verse 25 but now God is speaking from heaven and it says in verse 25 if those when they refused those who warned them on earth and they didn't escape how much less will we escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven and as we approach the end of time the coming of the Lord is near and everything around us indicates the coming of the Lord is near especially the things that are happening in the middle east it's always in the middle east that the problems have been and because that's where Jesus was crucified and that's why it's a very important part of the world that's where Jesus rose from the dead that's where Jesus ascended up to heaven and that's where the bible says when he descends he will plant his feet on the mount of olives exactly the same place where he went up to heaven from and God has placed that mount of olives in the center of the whole earth and so there's always conflict around that area which is one indication of the fact that the christian faith is the true faith and that Jesus Christ is coming back so as we approach the end of time a lot of things going to be shaken it says in verse 27 things that can be easily removed will be shaken created things so that the things which cannot be shaken may remain so we have to make sure that nothing in our life is shakable and one reason why God allows us sometimes to face some little problem a little trial a little difficulty is to show us areas in our life that can be shaken so we get rid of them say all right lord that that particular time i shook in that area i don't want it to happen next time next time when i face a situation like that i'm not going to shake that is God's purpose shaking indicates you know like Jesus said about the man who built on sand his house began to shake and if he had been careful when a little wind came and the house began to shave he could have done something about the foundation so that when the big storm came his house wouldn't collapse so if you find in a little trial you get upset or you get terribly anxious and fearful about what's going to happen that's like a little shaking God is doing in your life in order to help you to overcome that so that little by little by little every area of our life becomes unshakeable there are many trials on earth which shake us a little bit but if you listen to God's word we won't be shaken i mean there are certain things that can bring fear into our life because we are experiencing it for the first time sometimes it's like being if someone pushes a child into a swimming pool and doesn't know how to swim he gets a little disturbed but if he learns to swim if he uses that as a challenge well i don't want that to happen again i want to learn how to swim so that if somebody pushes me into the swimming pool i'm not going to be scared and so there are different situations that come into our life where we initially get a bit shaken but we want to conquer it immediately we don't want the shaking to continue i mentioned how the first time somebody took me to court i was 59 years old and i'd never been to court before i was a bit shaken because i'd never experienced it before it was exactly like being thrown into swimming pool not knowing how to swim but as soon as i entered the court i heard the lord say to me i've been to court before you religious people took me to court so why are you afraid just look for my footsteps here and you can walk in my footsteps of faith and love that brought complete peace to my heart and i was the happiest person in the court that day i'm just using that as an example to say that if you listen to god in any trial or anxiety that comes into your life as soon as it comes if you say lord speak a word to my heart now i want to hear you and the lord will give you something if you develop the habit of listening that will calm you in that situation and you as one area that you have overcome one shakable area in your life that has now become unshakable and there are many many many areas like that in our life that can we can bring shake you know it can be a financial difficulty and you shake and then god gives you a promise and he sees you through that and say well i've conquered in that area god wants us to bring these giants down one by one by one so that we are unshakeable that's god's will immovable that is god's will for every single one of us and you can't do that by human strength even the richest person in the world can be shaken by things no matter how much money he has or even influential people the only one who can really come to a place where he can be completely unshakable is the one who says lord i want your word here you see that the only thing in this world that's unshakable is the word of god the word of god can never be shaken so if you put your feet on that you cannot shake jesus said he who hears my word and does that will be unshakable so please remember that and that's the reason why we encourage you to bring your bible so that you become familiar with the scriptures and that's the reason why we encourage you to study the scriptures at home to memorize the scriptures so that we have solid ground under our feet like we sing in that song standing on the promises of god we keep our feet on that and we are completely unshakable i hope we have over a period of time a church where at least 90 percent of the brothers and sisters are unshakable it'll always be a 10 percent who are half-hearted and worldly jesus had one like that among his 12 and we cannot build a church better than jesus church but i long to see a church where at least 90 percent of those who are part of the church i don't mean the visitors those who are part of the church who are serious about their christian life will be unshakable that every as every year goes by we are more and more unshakable we're coming to the end of this year and we want to move a little more into an unshakable territory and then it goes on to say in verse 28 since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken let us have gratitude see the bible says that when we are anxious we must immediately bring our requests and make make it known to god in philippians 4 6 and not stop there but with thanksgiving thanksgiving is the proof that i believe god has heard my prayer if i pray and i don't give thanks that god's heard my prayer then i'm in doubt has he really heard me or not well the bible says be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer with thanksgiving make your request known to god is one of the great habits that we can develop that can lead us to an unshakable life just a little action of gratitude and gratitude to god and gratitude to men jesus said that he would even thank a person who gave a cup of water to one of his disciples it's a habit which i find in india very few people have of saying thank you sincerely from the heart being really grateful to human beings who've done something for us and that's because we're not grateful to god even some of the songs we sang today you know sometimes we can sing i found that very often we sing without thinking about the words can you remember some of the words we sang this morning the chances are no because you're so familiar with them that we just sing them were there some expressions of gratitude to god there it's something which we must develop you know it's good for you to learn some hymns of thanksgiving and praise that you can sing i do that very often it encouraged me encourages me in times when i'm tested or in trial to sing something which just by myself to god an expression of thanksgiving of gratitude it says if you have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken then let us have gratitude gratitude and not take what god has given us for granted gratitude is the mark of one of the marks of a humble man and the reason why we are not quick to say thank you to people who serve us or help us is because there's pride in us we've got to face it there's pride in us which prevents us from being expressing our gratitude some people feel oh we shouldn't say thank you and all it's a that's a heathen culture that you have acquired if you say if you haven't learned to say thank you don't let the heathen culture influence you jesus said even for a cup of cold water he would give thanks and there are people who have given us much more than that we need to be thankful i sometimes write a email to someone who did something for me years ago or did something for my children years ago and i say thank you because jesus doesn't forget even a cup of cold water that he gives to his disciples these are little little habits you know that can help us to come to a very godly life so if you receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken let us show gratitude by which we offer to god an acceptable service we all want to serve god but there are certain ways in which god accepts our service one is if it is an expression of gratitude the sad thing is that a lot of service for god today even giving money to god is not out of gratitude but wanting something in return look at all the churches multitudes of churches today that preach if you give money to god god will bless you it's on television all the time ninety percent of television preachers preach that you send some money here and god will bless you that's not gratitude there you're not giving money to god's work out of gratitude there you're doing business with god i give you this you give me that in any transaction where you go to god and say i'll do this for you you do this for me that's not the god of the bible that's not following jesus christ jesus christ never served his father like that and the apostles never served jesus christ like that so there must never be in our minds this business of i'm doing something for you you do something for me and i want to say all of that is a false teaching it's true under the old covenant in the old covenant god said if you obey me i will bless you i'll reward you so the moment you get into that realm you're back in the old covenant and you're back with all the curses of the law for those who don't keep it you know the problem with going under the old covenant is there's a curse i don't know whether you realize that and that's that's the reason why some people never seem to make progress in their life because they're living under the law where there's a curse the bible says cursed is everyone who does not keep everything in the law that's the old covenant so i don't want to go to the old covenant at any time jesus has abolished that and brought us into a new covenant and one mark of the new covenant is i don't do business with god if you take some time to read deuteronomy 28 which i've often quoted if you obey me it's a big chapter which says if you obey me i'll do all these blessings i'll give you all these blessings and if you disobey me all these curses will come upon you i don't want to go into that chapter at all because that's not where i live i live in the new covenant and i want every one of you to realize this don't do business with god don't listen to these preachers who encourage you to do business with god you do something and you believe god will do something for you in return it could even be in prayer lord you pray and you bless me in my exam that's not why i pray i pray because i want a fellowship with jesus christ see there can be this spirit of getting something from god by my giving it my maybe giving money i may be giving a prayer i may be giving something god has to give me something in return i don't want anything from god in return i believe the way i look at it is god gave me more than i can ever deserve when he gave his son to die for me on the cross what more do i want it's like a man who gave me millions and billions and billions and billions of rupees then again i go and ask him for something that's what the cross of christ is and when i see that cross of christ i say lord my heart responds not asking you but in gratitude and everything i do in my life should be out of gratitude perceiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken let us show gratitude let us show our thankfulness to god for what he's done for us in the old testament gratitude and thanksgiving only came when god actually did some physical thing for them he killed egyptians and then we read they sang his praise but in the new covenant we say jesus has done has taken away our sins on the cross and based on that my entire life is a way of saying thank you to god and i hope you see your entire life to be an expression of gratitude to god for what he's done and then you'll never complain that somebody else is not doing something or somebody else so what if the world is full of ungrateful people why should i be part of that crowd let me show you a verse in philippians which shows the opposite of gratitude it says in verse 14 and 15 of philippians 2 we've looked at this verse many times it's not one of the verses that most churches look at but we keep looking at it because we want to obey it completely philippians 2 14 and 15 do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of god above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom your purest likes in the world the world is a crooked and perverse generation because it is always grumbling and complaining about something something i didn't get something somebody didn't do for me husbands and complaining grumbling complaining and murmuring about something that not done up to my expectation the solution for all that is gratitude lord i'm immensely thankful for what you've done for me the only thing i deserve is hell but you've done a lot more for me than that and i'll never never cease to be grateful i'll never never cease to be grateful for my husband for my wife for my children for what you've done for me for giving me a job for saving me from being a beggar to have this spirit of gratitude all the time so that grumbling and complaining is completely eliminated from our life and it says here in verse 15 that is how you show that you're a child of god did you see that that is how we show there that we are children of god in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and that is how you show yourself as a light in the midst of darkness please remember this dear brothers and sisters if you're if you're going to be part of this kingdom that cannot be shaken show gratitude and then that's how we offer to god an acceptable service not the acceptable service is not in the principle of business and then it says further that this acceptable service must be with reverence and all any service that i do for god if it is not with the respect and reverence and fear of god is not acceptable so the number of things that we must remember whenever we are offering anything to god whether it's prayer or praise or anything we do for the lord it must be with gratitude it must be with reverence for god and it must be with respect because our god is a consuming fire the reason i pick that verse is because we often think oh this god is a consuming fire is all old testament stuff it's not because right here in the new testament our our god our new testament god is a consuming fire but it's not a fire that we are afraid of it's a fire that helps us you know every day we use fire at home to cook our food fire is the only thing that can purify impurities so it's not a fire that destroys but a fire that purifies why do we use fire at home is to destroy germs and to purify the food we eat because if it's not cooked it's can be a lot of germs in it so that's how we look at god as a god who does not consume us but wants to consume everything that's of like germs and things that harm us something like strong antibiotics that go in and kill those germs that's what god is a consuming fire so having looked at that verse i want you to turn with me to a verse in isaiah chapter 33 and i've often thought of this as a picture of how our church should be you know we've been thinking in the conference about how we can preserve the glory of god in our church and the glory of god in the old testament was pictured always like a fire a fire that rested on the tabernacle during the conference we thought of that verse where god says let them make me a tabernacle let them make me a sanctuary a holy place where i can come and live and the way god manifested his presence there was by this fire on top of the most holy place so the fire is a picture of the presence of god and here and zion is a old testament expression for the church isaiah 33 verse 14 says the sinners in zion are terrified i've always felt that's the type of church i want to be in that a sinner who comes here if he does not repent if he wants to keep on sinning and keep on thinking that he can be a part of cfc and play the fool with god the word of god should terrify him those who are repentant are not sinners they're moving out of sin these are people who continue in sin and they sit in zion and because nobody can see what they do they try to play the fool well i hope you're terrified sinners in zion should be terrified and trembling has seized the godless or in another translation i think in english version it says the hypocrites trembling has seized the hypocrites i pray that in every meeting of our church hypocrites would tremble will tremble with fear that means those who are trying to play a double live a double life those who want to give one impression of what they are in public and are living quite another life in private i pray that every meeting they will tremble in fear that the sense of god's presence we can't do it no sermon can do it but i believe if there's a sense of god's presence in our midst and we really want the presence of jesus christ to be there that they will tremble in fear you remember when the pharisees who appeared to be so holy came to jesus with a woman caught in adultery now those guys may not have physically committed adultery but they had committed a lot of other sins in private and hypocrisy is much worse so here's a picture of a church jesus in the middle maybe some of his disciples there and this woman who's a sinner and all these hypocrites trying to accuse her and because the presence of the lord was so powerful all those hypocrites had to go away not one was left but the sinner the repentant sinner she was still there and his disciples who were not hypocrites they were there the pharisees all left to me that's a picture of how the church should be a crowd of people but gradually the hypocrites have to go away one by one by one and you're left with repentant sinners like the woman caught in adultery and the disciples who want to follow jesus that is the goal towards which we work in our church sinners must be terrified hypocrites must tremble and i pray that that will be so in our midst because see what it says who among us can live with the consuming fire that's the same verse we saw in hebrews in the new testament who can live with a consuming fire i'll tell you those who want everything in their life to be consumed which is unchristlike if i see anything unchristlike in my life i want it to be consumed there's a habit in my life that's unchristlike it may take time to burn but i want it to burn away completely if for example there are programs you watch on television that jesus christ would never be able to sit and watch with you do you want them to be consumed out of your life you want to get rid of them if there are books you read and people you are moving around with bad company that jesus would never be with jesus was a friend of sinners but he never went along with them in their sinful ways jesus is a friend of sinners to pull them out of their sinful ways now if you're pulling sinners out of the sinful ways by all means mingle with them but if sinners are dragging you along into them then you should get rid of them because you're not strong enough to pull them towards the lord then you must leave them immediately who can live with the consuming fire i want to and you know gradually what will happen is that the consuming fire will so purify you that your very presence will make people aware of god they'll be careful when they're around you they don't speak like they speak when they're in the midst of sinners who among us can live verse 14 with continual burning do you want to live with god then you must live with continual burning that is the true christian life when it says walk in the light today we have light that doesn't burn us bulbs but you know when the scripture was written there was only one way to get light and that was with a fire that was the way to get light to walk in the light 1 john 1 7 if we walk in the light as god is in the light that's the same as saying living with a consuming fire because the light of god is a consuming fire we need to see whenever the new testament speaks about light very often we have not thought about it as a fire but remember that is the only light there was in scriptural times and so when the bible speaks about walking in the light is the same as walking with the consuming fire with continual burning and yet we live because we wanted to burn away everything that is unchristlike you know when people have cancer they are told to take chemotherapy and the chemotherapy is meant to burn away the cancer cells and even though it's painful and it disfigures them they lose their hair and things like that they yield to it why would a person yield to something that's going to be so painful that's going to make them lose parts of their body i mean hair and things like that because they hate cancer they submit to something that is so painful because they know it will make them healthy it's something like that the day we see every unchristlike area of our life like cancer we will gladly submit to it exactly like people with cancer not only submit to chemotherapy they pay thousands of rupees in order to get that chemotherapy for the cancer to be burnt away and in some cases they have even got to cut off some of the organs of the body because that's the only way to remove the cancer this is the way we got to see it brothers and sisters if you want to walk with the lord otherwise we are playing the fool with the christian faith we have to live with continual burning and live with the consuming fire so think of your walk with god as living with the continual burning that will never burn away i mean doctors sometimes have to cut away parts of a human body when they try to heal a person of cancer but god will never never take away anything good in this burning this burning is only going to destroy the things that are destroying our life i wonder if we see that any unchristlike habit you may not see it but it's destroying your life we know that smoking hurts our lungs we know that drinking alcohol hurts our liver even though we don't see it that's why we don't smoke and we don't drink there's no external evidence that that cigarette or that alcohol is ruining me but it's ruining me all the time and it's shortening my life it's the same way with sin i often think of sin like smoking a cigarette or drinking alcohol there's no external indication that i have deteriorated but inwardly is destroying me it shortens my life and so i should be very thankful for a god who's willing to get rid of things like that in my life burn it away even if it's painful so that i can have a good life and if you young people from a very young age can be gripped by this lord i want everything in my life that's unchristlike to be burnt away make that a prayer in your life lord everything that i cannot do in fellowship with jesus christ that's the test can i do this in fellowship with jesus christ sometimes the phrase what would jesus do doesn't always give the answer because we may think well there are certain things we don't know whether jesus would do because he was not in our world would jesus drive a car or what these are the type of things we don't have an answer to but the question we need to ask ourselves is a better question is can i do this in fellowship with jesus christ that is the meaning of doing it in the name of jesus christ can i do this in fellowship with jesus christ that means is there anything i'm doing here right now which would break my fellowship with the lord when i sign a paper can i sign it and when ask jesus to be a witness to what i'm signing that means he agrees that everything you have signed for is correct there's so many lies and falsehoods that people sign nowadays usually for some little earthly gain can i do this in fellowship with jesus christ this is what it means to walk in the light this is what it means to walk with continual burning and with a consuming fire i don't mind repeating it and it explains here who can walk and dwell with the consuming fire notice a few things here one who walks righteously verse 15 one who speaks with sincerity one who rejects unjust gain so that he shakes his hand from holding any bribe and one who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed and who shuts his eyes from looking upon evil such a man will dwell on the heights he will dwell in heavenly places his refuge nobody will be able to shake him an impregnable rock he will always have spiritual food every single day god will give him spiritual food i want to live that life where every single day god gives me the bread of his word and the water of his spirit every single day and you can live this life brothers and sisters if you just determine i want to live with a continual burning so let's look at these things mentioned in verse 15 walk righteously and as we have often said in this church that is up to the level of your understanding my understanding of god's righteousness may be higher than yours then god will test me at a higher level it's like the 10th standard student is tested at a higher level than the second standard student but you don't have to worry about the subjects if you're in second standard be faithful at that level and i hope next year you'll go to the third standard in other words there's a progress this is what it means to walk in the light to walk with the continual burning so to walk righteously you know this is also described in case you don't know that verse proverbs 4 and verse 18 speaks about the pathway of the righteous proverbs 4 18 many of you know it some of you probably don't know it but you must know this lovely verse the path of the righteous that means if you walking along the path of the righteous it's like the sunrise when you're born again and that like the sun shines brighter brighter brighter the day becomes brighter and brighter if you're walking the path of the righteous your life will become brighter holier purer it's not all of a sudden the sun reaches midday it's such a slow progress that if you look at it you can't even see it you can't see the sun moving over a period of time you see it has moved so spiritual progress also is not something we can see day by day but over a period of time you'll say hey i become more sensitive to sin in that area the darkness is going away it's getting brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter that is the only path of the righteous and if that is not true in your let's not say daily but your yearly experience in other words if you are not moving to a higher level of God's life at least in a year you are not walking the path of the righteous even though you may think you're a holy man you're a righteous man maybe you come to a certain level maybe because of all that you heard here in the church through the years you not like others sitting in the kindergarten in other churches maybe you moved up to third or fourth standard but maybe you moved to fourth standard 15 years ago and you're still there then you're not walking the path of the righteous something has happened and you're in great danger of backsliding it's like an airplane in the sky either it moves forward or it's dropping if it stops it drops there's no such thing as an airplane standing still if it's moving forward it's okay the moment it stops it drops the christian life is like that there is no such thing as standing still in the light it's walking in the light so i feel that it's possible that some of us sitting here are content that our standard of life is so much better than the lives of many other christians and other churches it's true i believe we do have a standard that's higher than others in many areas the danger is that we can be content with that and not see whether we are progressing the path of the righteous is like the shining light that shines more and more and more and more and the perfect day is when christ comes again when we'll be exactly like him so it's a progress from the life of adam which we rejected when we are born again all the way to the fullness of the life of christ little by little by little by little by little something like the first chapter of the bible where every day god did something and he saw it was good next day he did something more why didn't he do it all in one second to show us this is how god works in the new covenant little by little by little with the holy spirit and the word of god so that's the way to know whether we are walking righteously who can dwell with the consuming fire that's the question in verse 14 those who walk righteously so let's ask ourselves is there anything that you're conscious that is unrighteous in your life right now are you dealing unrighteously with somebody are your financial dealings righteous with people i'm talking particularly about people individuals you cheat any human being have you returned things you've borrowed and taken from people the second thing is our speech there's a lot mentioned here about parts of our body hands eyes ears tongue notice that here it is the tongue many parts of our body because it's with our body that from from our heart sin comes through the parts of our body who speaks with sincerity that doesn't mean he's perfect but it means he's honest sincerity means there's no hypocrisy that's all it means it's not doesn't mean i'm mature not speaks with maturity but speaks with sincerity i heard a story about this word sincere i don't know whether it's true or not but from it is they say it comes from some other language where the word means without wax you see in those days when they made marble statues it's very difficult to make a marble statue of a person guy chips and chips and chips at the marble to make this perfect and supposing he makes a mistake supposing he knocks off the nose or something when he's made what can he do can he throw away the whole marble and start all over again it's expensive very difficult so what he does is he takes a little bit of wax which looks just like marble and fixes it there and a person who comes to buy the marble statue doesn't even see it so that that's what they called it they guaranteed without wax sin is serious that means sincere without wax they will put out these marble statues in the burning sun to see if any part of it melted away and that's how it is here you know to there's no there's no wax in me brothers sisters what you see in me is exactly what i am i'm not patching up something when i come on sunday to show you this something different from what i am the rest of the week that's the meaning of sincere it does not mean perfect it means sincere maybe the marble statue is not yet complete maybe only the legs have been done but so far as it's been done it's perfect there's no wax there and a program little by little the whole statue will be complete but there's no wax at any point we don't use wax we are without hypocrisy we are what we are sincere see to be holy is difficult but to be without hypocrisy do you know that a prostitute who's still a prostitute can be without hypocrisy she says i'm a prostitute so it's very easy to be without hypocrisy because it just means being honest about what you are not claiming to be something we are not always remember that the first sin god judged in the early church was not murder or adultery but hypocrisy the sin that jesus condemned the most was hypocrisy do you find him condemning the murderer on the cross no not even the one who didn't repent do you find him condemning the adulterous woman no but he condemned the bible reading weekly synagogue going praising thanking pharisees for hypocrisy again and again and again there's a whole chapter he condemns the hypocrites in matthew 23 now if we see this we see that this is what jesus hated in the old testament there's a lot of condemnation of idolatry and adultery and all that but in the new testament jesus comes and condemns hypocrisy you got to see that many sins we may take time to overcome but from day one we should be free from hypocrisy that means never never at any stage if you're in standard one don't say you're in standard five or even in standard two children are i've never seen a child who's a hypocrite in that area i've never seen a child tell me i'm in standard four when he's in standard two have you ever come across one like that they are so honest i'm i'm in standard two that is being without hypocrisy it doesn't mean perfection this is where i am not pretending the first sin that god judged was ananias and sapphira pretending to give everything when they didn't give everything and peter said you didn't have to give one cent before you sold your property it was yours after you sold your property ninety percent was yours no all of it was yours that shows us there's no tithing peter didn't say if you sell your property give a tithe to god no you see that passage in acts 5 before you sold it it was yours god doesn't want your money after you sold it it was still yours but why do you pretend why do you want to pretend that you're giving all when you're giving only 50 do you know that ananias and sapphira were judged for giving perhaps 50 percent of the sale property of their house can you imagine a christian being punished for giving 50 percent of the sale property of sale value of his house that's what happened because of hypocrisy this is the first sin that god judged okay let's move on sincerity and rejects unjust gain shakes his hand so that they hold no bribe that means he does not want to make money in unrighteous ways he doesn't want to do something wrong to make money we're living with the continuous burning remember that means he's not such a lover of money that he wants to get it by hook or by crook if he can't get it honestly he says well that's fine i'll be satisfied with what i have this is the person whom god purifies the one who says lord i don't want one paisa in my bank account that was not earned righteously that's an area where we need to examine ourselves and i tell you it's the rich people who are more in danger than the poor ones the i find as people tend to become richer there's a gradual tendency to be more and more unrighteous you got to watch out on that be very very careful i don't want to have any unrighteous profit or gain in my life and sometimes we can pray some radical prayers and i i prayed that i remember once i said lord i don't know if i have got any money which is unrighteously mine in my bank account if i'm unaware of it please show it to me if i've cheated the government of some tax which i should have paid please show it to me that or let me lose it in some way and i remember in the old days i was it was many many years ago i was making a phone call to somebody in a foreign country and i those are before cell phones and all that and after i finished the call the phone would not disconnect for some reason because the system in the telephone exchange was primitive in those days and i would try and not disconnect it remember every every second is money and i said what to do then after quite some time i had to go somewhere else and go call up the exchange and get them to disconnect it by the time i lost a lot of money i said okay lord thank you that may have been the amount that i owed the government somewhere for something thank you i have no complaint that's the way i looked at it i said lord i don't want a cent in my account not one that belongs to somebody else that is unrighteous i want to be absolutely righteous i'd rather live with little and not buy some things i can't afford then have this thing on my conscience and one day when the lord comes as somebody has to complain lord you can't take him because he owes me money i don't want anybody to say that be very very clear in this my brothers it's not worth it be honest who shakes his hands from all unrighteous gain and then it says in verse 15 further who stops his ears from listening to bloodshed in practical terms that means i stop listening to gossiping somebody comes and wants to gossip about somebody and i say listen can we talk about something else or an even better way say something good about that person about whom he's saying something evil that'll stop it immediately or another way when somebody comes and tells me something about someone i say really are you sure it's true i'd like to call up that person right now and find out uh if what you say is right just hang on let me go to call him so no no no brother this is only for prayer or something no no i said i believe in checking up everything with the source you told me something about that brother i'll call him up right now and find out if it's true people don't come and gossip in my house now do you want to keep your house free from gossiping from people coming and dumping their garbage in your front room and they come and dump it once and next time he comes again with some more garbage and you welcome him in to dump some more garbage in your front room do you want to dwell with the everlasting burnings do you really want the fire of purity in your home now i'm not referring to situations where we need to speak about a brother to an elder i mean if you find something wrong with a brother in this church it's perfectly right for you to go and speak to an elder that's not gossiping that's like going to the doctor and explaining somebody is sick in your family so that the person can be cured but if you go around talking about it to people who can do nothing for that person that is gossip but if you talk to an elder brother who will i know what i do if somebody comes and tells me about someone as i said i go and find that out is it really true so that i can help that person so be careful we got to stop our ears there's a sense here i want to dwell with the everlasting burning i want to stop my ear from hearing bloodshed and then the last one there is shutting my eyes from looking upon evil and that means that's one reason god has given us eyelids i hope you know that think if you didn't have eyelids and the lord said don't lust with your eyes it'll be quite a problem isn't it good that god's given us eyelids so that we can serious areas you know where i can be tempted he's given us a mouth that can shut you know god could have given us a mouth that's always open like ears are always open the lord i can't stop talking i gotta you know you can stop talking if you want to you can stop looking you can close your eyes who shuts his eyes from looking upon evil anything with i cannot look i cannot look at that with jesus lord i'm looking at that and are you looking with me if you can't say that you should turn your eyes away from it from anything that's on a computer screen anything in the newspaper anything in a book or anything on the roads or a or in a billboard on the road side who shuts his eyes from evil why is a person so serious about his eyes and his ears and his tongue and everything because he has a great passion to dwell with continuous burning to walk in the light the reason i say this my brothers and sisters is because i believe that many of us should have made a lot more progress in our spiritual lives by now and another year is coming to an end we want people to take their life seriously to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit turn with me to second corinthians in chapter seven second corinthians chapter seven it says along the same line it's talking about dwelling with the continuous burning okay that's the subject second corinthians 6 verse 16 we are the temple of the living god in the middle of that verse is god says i will dwell in them and walk among them this is dwelling with the continuous burning with the consuming fire how shall we do it god dwelling with us chapter seven verse one having such a promise beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in reverence for god back again to the same thing that we saw at the beginning perfecting holiness impossible under the old covenant in the old covenant they were always at one level kindergarten kindergarten kindergarten 50 years kindergarten but now we perfect holiness in the fear of god we press on to perfection this is our calling as new covenant christians cleansing ourselves with the external sins and the internal sins filthiness of the flesh which is visible and filthiness of the spirit which is invisible when you think of the 10 virgins you know that all of them had lamps burning their external life was good they had cleansed themselves from filthiness of the flesh but only five had cleansed themselves from filthiness of the spirit so that that oil in their vessel the others didn't have it and they were not ready for the coming of the lord and the bridegroom came and they'd only cleanse themselves externally let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit external and internal that's the only way to dwell with the consuming fire and perfect holiness in the fear of god this is what we have taught in the church for 40 years in a sense is just a repetition of what we have proclaimed every year almost everything i said today but for the benefit of those who have come newly and have grown up in our midst there's a need to hear once again this is what cfc stands for we want to dwell with god as a consuming fire in our midst all the time let us pray i want you to think about any particular area that god spoke to you today don't let him don't let the devil take it away from your mind until you've done it until you've settled that matter that apology that you have to make to somebody do it today that person you have to forgive do it today that financial matter that you just said right do it at the earliest opportunity that may take a little time but do it start on it and say lord i want to be right before you i don't want anyone to point a finger at me accusing me of something heavenly father please give us grace to honor you in everything we do and give us light we want to dwell with you lord every single day of our life