In this sermon, the preacher focuses on Acts chapter two and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He emphasizes that this event is the fulfillment of scripture and highlights the importance of understanding the Gospel message. He emphasizes that Jesus, the Nazarene, was a man and that this is the essence of the Gospel. The preacher also emphasizes the significance of Jesus being a man even in heaven and encourages the audience to fully devote their lives to God.

So we continue our study in the missing messages in today's Christianity. And I want to mention that when I say today's Christianity, I'm speaking about the vast majority. I'm not saying that nobody is preaching these things. But in a large measure, I would say over 90% of Christendom today does not preach some of the things that we have been, I'm talking about even among born again believers. Do not speak about some of the things we have been speaking the last couple of days. And today, this session, I want to speak about the humanity of Christ. There is no book in the New Testament that makes this as clear as the book of Hebrews. And that is why Hebrews is not a very popular book with many Christians. If you ask believers to write down their favorite books, you'll hardly ever find anybody say Hebrews. It usually be Ephesians or Romans or Philippians or something like that. It'd be a rare person who says Hebrews. If you ask me, I'd say Hebrews. I don't know how many of you noticed that in that CD of mine, 70 hours through the Bible, I spent four hours on Hebrews. More than in any other of the 66 books of the Bible. And that's because I felt it's such an important book. Completely out of proportion to 70 hours to spend four hours on just 13 chapters. Because it emphasizes something which is completely missing in emphasis in today's Christendom. And, you know, there is no other doctrine for which we have been attacked and misunderstood and maligned and called false teachers and heresies except for this one thing. The humanity of Jesus Christ. When we believe in the humanity of Jesus Christ, it does not mean that we don't believe in his deity. The truth is always found in two things. It is written, it is also written. And so, when we talk about the humanity of Christ, we believe that Jesus Christ is 100% God and 100% man. But when people only talk about him being 100% God and the 100% man is not emphasized or it's devalued or not mentioned so much, then what happens is that gradually people don't begin to think about that. Now, if you were to ask people to say, do you believe that Jesus Christ was 100% man, they would say yes. But what is the practical implication? Supposing you say you believe that Jesus Christ is God, but you never worship him, never pray to him, then what are you saying he is God? Everything, there must be a practical implication from that. Because he is God, we worship him. Because he is God, we pray to him. Because he is man, what? Usually nothing. That's because people haven't understood. There's a practical implication of the fact that Jesus Christ is man, just like there is a practical implication from the fact that he is God. And if the book of Hebrews is the one that speaks about his humanity the most, let me also say, so that people don't misunderstand, the writer of the Hebrews, we don't know who it is, and we don't want to speculate, God in his great wisdom allowed us to know the authors of all the books of the New Testament except one. And that's Hebrews. Did you know that? Out of the 27 books in the New Testament, you know the authors of all of them except one. Hebrews was written by the Holy Spirit through a man, but a man whose name the Holy Spirit chose not to reveal. So that the humanity of Christ would stand out very clearly. And in this book, right at the beginning, in the first chapter, you find the deity of Christ emphasized so clearly. So that when he goes on to speak about the humanity of Christ, you don't get the wrong impression that he doesn't believe in his deity. And there is hardly a verse in the New Testament which speaks about the deity as clearly as this. Listen to this. In Hebrews chapter 1, he's speaking about what God was saying. These are some of the things that God said. Verse 5, you are my son, today I have begotten you, and I will be a father and you shall be a son. And then he says, verse 6, let all the angels of God worship him. Would God, the Father, tell the angels to worship a created being? No. And then, listen to this. It's one of the clearest verses of the deity of Christ. The Father tells the Son, in verse 8, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. How does the Father call the Son? O God. Amazing. There is no clearer verse about the deity of Christ than that. And it's in the book of Hebrews that speaks about his humanity. So, and therefore, he speaks about your God has anointed you. Okay. Now, I want to say something to you about why Jesus Christ had to be God if he had to die for our sins. Now, if somebody were to ask you that, I want to tell you some things about the cross and the punishment he took for our sins, which may not be so clear to you, but it's important for us to know. God is a very just God. The principles of justice that you and I have of being fair and just, and even the principles of justice that unconverted human beings have, in earthly courts you read of some very upright judges who will take very unpopular decisions because they feel that is right, upright. Where did they get that sense of justice, to be willing to be ridiculed and mocked for the sake of justice? We see of some government officers who are upright, where did they get that sense of justice? It's a small bit of God's infinite justice. Now, when we go to a human court, supposing a man is convicted of a crime, say a murder, and the judge says, you've got to be hanged. And supposing his brother comes along, that convicted man's brother, and says, judge, I'm willing to be hanged in his place. The judge says, okay, I allow you to be hanged in his place. Would you say that was justice? Is there any court in the world where any judge would permit one man to be hanged in the place of another? No. That would be totally unjust. Even his mother comes and says, let me die in his place, he says, sorry. Justice demands that the man who committed the crime be punished. If the punishment is given to another, it is 100% unjust in any human court. And if we say that God gave the punishment of our sins to somebody else, that would be the greatest injustice that God ever did. Even a human being won't do something so unjust. So what are these Christians talking about, that somebody else took the punishment of our sin? Is God so unjust as to give more unjust than man to give another person the punishment of our sin? If Jesus was a created being, like the Jehovah's Witnesses say, and like some other, I don't know, the Mormons say that too, I think, and others. Then, listen to this, the most unjust, evil, wicked thing that God ever did was to put the punishment of my sin on another created being. Even a human being would not be so wicked and unjust and evil as this particular God. Have you thought of that? That's the greatest argument against the Jehovah's Witness teaching that Jesus was a created being. But, if Jesus was God himself, the judge himself, then there's nothing wrong. If the judge says, I take it, I will not punish another person. He who made the laws, he who is the only judge in the universe, that would be righteous for him, to take the punishment of our sin upon himself. And that, to me, is one of the clearest proofs that Jesus Christ was God Almighty. The other question that people have is, how can there be, you know, some people say there's only one God. You Christians worship three gods. I say, no, we don't worship three gods. We worship one God in three persons. Now, we can't understand that because when we think of persons, we think of a face and a body and a man, one person, one person, one person. But God is not a man. He's a spirit. And in the spirit realm, there are certain laws which we can't understand in our human realm. Something like a dog cannot understand mathematics, which you can understand. You know, in mathematics, one and one and one can become one, do you know that? If you put three bones in front of a dog and say, this is one, this is one, this is one, and you somehow, with ten years of training, teach that clever dog one plus one plus one is three, and he finally understood it. Now you tell him, now, Mr. Dog, I'm going to teach you something even more interesting. One multiplied by one multiplied by one is one. And the dog's all confused. How's that? These human beings are stupid. I know it is three. How can it be one? But even a seven-year-old boy in school knows that. One, one, one, multiplied by each other is still one. And if we can understand that in the realm of mathematics, which a dog can't understand, the difference between a dog and a human being is about this much. And the difference between man and God is a million times more than that. I'm not surprised if I can't understand that clearly. But I believe it. And there's another reason for it. The Bible says God is love. Do you know that it is impossible to love if there is no person to be loved? How can you say you love when there's nobody to be loved? And if God existed from all eternity, and there was only one person in God, how could he be loved? There's nobody to love. There had to be more than one person. If God is love. Because love always has an object. So, even our limited minds can understand when we think about that God had to be more than one person, but there has to be only one God. Now having said that, let me come down to this matter of the cross, which also I want to explain before I move into the humanity of Christ. Many of us perhaps don't understand what exactly took place on the cross. Every movie that we have seen about Jesus shows us the physical sufferings of Christ as being beaten, whipped, nailed, hammered, and we weep. I know I have wept many times when I see how much he suffered for me. Particularly films like The Passion of Christ, you see how much he suffered. But that part was all physical suffering. And then finally he died. Now, you know, when I've tried to understand the scriptures, I've tried to look at it like this. Supposing a very educated, intelligent, non-Christian, who knew the Bible thoroughly, asked me some questions, would I be able to answer them? And this is the way I picture it. Here is a very intelligent, non-Christian, arguing against the death of Christ being sufficient for man's sin. And he asks me like this, Okay, Zach, tell me, how did Jesus take the punishment for your sin? I say, He died for my sins on the cross. Oh, so Zach, you say that death, physical death, is the punishment for sin. Right? Yeah, He died for my sins. If that be the case, Zach, this man is telling me, if you have committed sins in your life and God kills you physically, you have paid the punishment for your sin. Then He should take you to heaven. Because that's what Jesus took. And I'm stuck. What answer will you give? If physical death is the punishment for sin, then when you die, you've been punished for your sin. God should raise you up and take you to heaven. But I know, and I say, hey, hang on. No, no, no, let me correct that, I tell him. Physical death is not the punishment for sin. The punishment for sin is being forsaken by God forever. And that's what we call hell. More than the physical fact of hell or worms or fire or anything, the fact is you're forsaken by God forever. Oh, he says, okay. So, then did Jesus suffer hell? If that is the punishment for sin? And then if I don't know the answer, again I'm stuck. Now there are some charismatic preachers today who stick to the King James Version of the Bible, who read in Acts chapter 2, the King James Version, that Jesus descended into hell for three days. And the word is not hell, the word is Hades, which has been wrongly translated by the King James Version as hell, but it's translated in ASP as Hades. But they take that and say after Jesus died, this is wrong teaching by the way, after he died he went for three days to hell and suffered all the agony of hell, and then he came out of the grave. There's not a verse in Scripture to prove that. It's a completely wrong teaching, but there are a lot of people who preach it and believe it. Among some of today's famous television preachers. But then we ask ourselves, if the punishment for your sin is hell, Jesus had to suffer that, otherwise he has not taken your punishment. Physical death cannot be the punishment for your sin, because that everybody gets. And those who die physically, nobody would go to hell then, because everybody dies physically, he's taken the punishment. If hell is the punishment for sin, then Jesus faced it. Where did he face it? He faced it on the cross. The first three hours, as far as we know, he was not forsaken, there were other things happening, but the last three hours, it was darkness, and that was the time when he was forsaken by his Father. And that's why he cried out. The only time in his life when he said to his Father, my God, my God, do you know that Jesus from eternity past till eternity future never called God, God, except once. He always called him Father, Father, Father, Father, Father, Father, except once, he said, my God, my God, why? Because at that moment, something was broken of his connection with his Father. And he was standing there, facing the guilt of the judge, in front of the judge of the whole universe, facing the guilt of our sin. And that is what he prayed so much for in Gethsemane, saying, oh Father, please don't let me have to drink this cup. He wasn't afraid of physical death, he wasn't afraid of the shame, he wasn't afraid of anything. But one thing he didn't want was that breaking of the connection with the Father, something like somebody wrenching off your head. If somebody caught your head and twisted it and wrenched it off, that would be a small picture of the spiritual pain that Jesus faced when the Bible says God is the head of Christ. And he said, Father, isn't there some other way? I mean, you and I have had fellowship for eternity, he was praying in Gethsemane. That's why it took one hour. Then he prayed three times, perhaps three hours. Isn't there any other way? Do I have to break? I mean, I don't mind, I'm willing to die a thousand times physically, being shamed, ridiculed, mocking, everything, ten thousand crowns of thorns, oh no problem. But this break of fellowship with the Father. Father, you and I have had that from eternity. You mean I have to break it? Now, you know, when I say that, it doesn't grip us so much. Physical pain we can understand. That's why we weep so much when we see those movies where Jesus is being hit and whipped and crucified. But we don't weep when we hear that his fellowship with the Father was broken. You know why? Because we are so used in our life to fellowship being broken with God all the time. You have a grudge against somebody, and you don't set it right, your fellowship with the Father is broken, but you live merrily for the next few days. There are husbands and wives who don't talk to each other for two, three days. They have no fellowship with the Father during those two, three days, but they live merrily, happily. There are very few Christians, I would say one in a million believers who understand what fellowship with the Father is the most precious thing of all. Most of us, you can tell a lie and not have a botheration about it. Your fellowship with the Father is broken immediately, but you continue. You lust after a woman, your fellowship with the Father is broken, you continue. You get angry, you masturbate, you do things, your fellowship with the Father is broken, you continue. It's nothing to us. We are breaking fellowship with God all the time. You got a jealousy against somebody, fellowship with the Father is broken, it doesn't bother you. Anger, bitterness, so many things we are doing all the time, fellowship with God is broken, it doesn't bother us and that's why we don't value it. But physical pain, if somebody pokes us with a pin, that bothers us so much. It was not like that for Jesus. You could nail him to a cross, it wouldn't bother him. But if fellowship with the Father was broken for one moment, it would disturb him more than 10,000 crowns of thorns, 10,000 crucifixions. And when you get closer to God in your walk with Him, it will be the same for you. That fellowship with the Father will be more important than any amount of physical pain. And no amount of torture will make you deny Jesus Christ. When you get close to God. But if you are not close to God, for the sake of a little increment in your job, you will deny Jesus Christ. You will hide the fact that you are a Christian to get some benefit somewhere. It's amazing. So, there are situations like this where we discover that fellowship with the Father doesn't mean much to us and that's why we don't understand what Jesus suffered in those three hours. I myself, I'll tell you this, for many, many years after I was born again, I never understood this. I had to get close to God to understand this. I've never read it in a book till today. You never read in a book about these type of things. I've never heard a cassette on it, a message on it anywhere. But it is the truth of God. That is what He's... And this is how I feel it happened in the Gethsemane. When He said, Father, isn't there any other way? And I can imagine if I were imagining a conversation there between the Father and the Father. And the Father says, okay, you haven't sinned. You can come straight up from Gethsemane to heaven. You can come up right now. You don't have to go through that. But, those people there, they'll all go to hell. And there in Gethsemane, Jesus thought of me. I like to make it personal. He thought of me. My face came before Jesus in Gethsemane. I want to believe it like that. You can believe it like that too. It'll make you love the Lord more. It made me love the Lord more. My face came before Jesus and He thought of me going to hell forever. And He said, okay, Father, I'll go to the cross. That's why I'm devoted to Jesus Christ. That's why I'd do anything for Him. That's why I'll give up anything for Him. That's why I'll live my whole life only for Him. That's why I'm not bothered if the whole world turns against me. And when I preach these truths, it doesn't matter to me if six billion people in the world call around, turn around and call me a false prophet. I know what Jesus went through a little bit. And I say, Lord, forgive me that I'm so half-hearted, not dedicated. Forgive me that I don't hate sin as I should when I think of what You went through on that cross for me. I see His love for me at Gethsemane, that He didn't go straight up to heaven from there when He could have, but He got up, went to the cross. He could have pulled Himself down from the cross. He could have called 72,000 angels to come and save Him, but He didn't. Because He saw my face and He saw what would happen to me for all eternity. And He said, for Zach's sake, I'll go through. I say, Lord, how shall I return love to You for what You've done for me? Sing a few songs? Come for a few meetings? Give a little bit of money in the offering box? Shame on me if that's how I respond to such love. Lord, words will not do. Here is my life. All of it. No one on earth will be more important to me than You. Not my wife, not my children, nobody. You will be most important in my life and You can ask of me anything if I'm 90 years old and weak and tottering. You can ask me to go to the ends of the earth and I'll go because I know what You went through for me. I love Him because He first loved me. And the more you understand His love, the more you love Him. That's why the devil has blinded Christians from seeing the tremendous love of God. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. In an earthly way that's right. But the greatest love I see is that Jesus was willing to be forsaken by the Father, to be wrenched away from that which He valued more than anything else. Because He thought of me. And for three hours on the cross when He took the awesome punishment for my sin. I want to make it personal. You make it personal. I don't think of it just as the sins of the world. I say it was my sin. It was my bitterness and my lust and my anger and my jealousy and my this and my that. It's my dishonesty and my this and my that. That's why He died. That's why He had to be forsaken. And I want to always make it personal. Christ died for the sins of the world. That's history. But Christ died for my sins. That's my testimony. So, when I think of that and I say, Lord it's amazing what You went through. That there on the cross He took the punishment for my sin and of course the sins of all humanity. So, if you want to know what Jesus went through on the cross for those three hours, let me describe it. This is not like the Passion of Christ movie. That's only on the outside. This you will understand if you value an inner life. Those whose life is only external and most Christians their life is on the outside. They are worried about a good testimony before people. They are worried about living a comfortable life. Their whole life is external. Very few Christians live an inner life of inner walk with God. And when your life is external, you will only understand the external sufferings of Christ. When you come to an inner life with God, an inner walk with God, you will understand the inner sufferings of Christ. So, I can't explain it to you. I'll tell you honestly. You got to have an inner walk with God in your private life. Otherwise, it will be just theory that enters your head and it will move you temporarily and you will forget it next week. But, when I saw this, I saw that what Jesus suffered on the cross during those three hours why the earth became dark, the sun stopped shining and the earth started quaking was because if you can imagine what the punishment in hell for eternity is for one man. The worm that never dies, the fire that's never quenched for all eternity and then you multiply that by all the millions of men that lived on the earth who are going to be in hell one day. Put it all together and that concentrated punishment. You know how you can get, take something and make it concentrated. Concentrate all that punishment into three hours. Eternity for millions of people in hell put all that into three hours. Boy, to be forsaken by God. That's what Jesus endured on the cross. It was such agony that he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And there was no answer from heaven. It's written about us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. It's true. Once you become a child of God. But He who died for our sins was forsaken. And then the next question can arise from this man who's asking me, but Zach, okay, he took the punishment for, took, faced hell for three hours but he will say, hey Zach, you said the punishment for your sin is for eternity. He took it only for three hours. How can that be the punishment for sin? Ah, but I tell him, you don't understand this. Let me explain to you something mathematically. One person into eternity in hell or millions of people multiplied by eternity into hell is the same as one infinite being multiplied by three hours. Because infinity and eternity are the same. So I see it very clearly that what Jesus faced, because again, it had to be God, a finite human being, a finite created being, could not suffer the eternal punishment of hell in three hours. He'd have gone to hell himself. It had to be an infinite being who took in three hours eternal punishment of all millions of human beings on the cross. It had to be God. These things are, they're not merely theory. It's deep in my love for Christ. And I say, any truth that has no practical result in my life, I'm not interested in. Every truth in scripture produces a practical result in my life. And if it produces a practical result in your life, it's become living to you. If it produces no result in your life, it's just head knowledge. These truths have made a tremendous difference in my own devotion to Christ. And I try to meditate on it frequently. Because my mind is forgetful. We live in a world where other things are drawing away our mind to other things. Why does Jesus say the love of many people will grow cold in the last days? I think one reason is they will not meditate enough on the love of Christ. They will not meditate enough on how much they have been forgiven. On what a price was paid for their sin. Why is it so many young people today are so taken up with the world? Why is it the world attracts them so much? Why is it the fashions of those models attracts them more than the example of Jesus Christ? They haven't seen the love of Christ. A young person who's gripped by the love of Christ, his hero will not be some cricketer, will not be some rock musician, will not be some TV model or some fashion model. It'll be Jesus Christ. He's my hero. I've seen young people who got huge posters of some baseball player or cricket player or musician or some fashion models and all types of things. That's fine. I don't know what some of them claim to be believers. I don't know what type of believers. We have such a shallow type of believers today, half-hearted, worldly, compromising, and they've got the right doctrines. The greatest hypocrites of all. Deception. A wholehearted disciple of Jesus Christ has no heroes other than Jesus Christ himself. And he's devoted because he's seen how much Christ is not words to him. It's life. Jesus wasn't playing games on Calvary. It was life and death. This is my savior. This is my beloved, like it says in Song of Solomon. I lean upon him and walk through life's journey. I will never forsake him. I am his and he is mine. This is how we are to live, my brothers and sisters. If you live like this, many problems in your Christian life are solved. Many of you have problems because this is not your relationship with Christ. Everything in the Christian life has to arise out of a relationship with Jesus Christ. You never hear these things in today's Christianity. No. And let me tell you one more thing. That once those three hours were over, he said, it is finished. And it was finished. That is why I say it is a heresy to say that after that he went to three days to hell again. No, he didn't. He experienced hell on the cross in three hours and it was over. And we know it was finished because after that he once again called God Father. That's how we know it's finished. Because he could say at the end, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit and went straight up to be in paradise with the thief next to him. He said, today I will be with you in paradise, not in hell. He was not with the other thief in hell for three days. He was with this man in paradise for three days. Everybody knows that. And then he came back into the body after three days in paradise which was one section of Hades. Hades is the place of departed spirits which had two sections. One was hell and the other was paradise. And that's where Jesus went. To the paradise section of Hades, the place of departed spirits. And he came back. That was in the heart of the earth those days. As Jonah was in the whale's belly for three days, so shall the son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days. And then he came back into his body and rose and then ascended to his father in heaven after forty days. This is the gospel. It's very, very clear. And when we understand it, we see that when he said it was finished, it was finished. The punishment for my sin was taken. It's gone. I need never face one day in hell anymore. My earthly life need not be a hell and my eternity is not in hell. The wonderful thing about the New Testament gospel is this, that I can have two heavens. One heaven right now and another one geographically when he comes again. I'm not in a geographical heaven right now, but I can have a spiritual heaven. To me, heaven is not golden streets, mansions. You can have the golden streets and the mansions. I want Jesus. That's my heaven. I told the Lord once, Lord, if you're in hell, I'd like to be there in eternity with you. Because that'll be heaven for me. It'll no longer be hell. It's not the golden streets. I'm not waiting for the day when Jesus will wipe away my tears. I don't have any tears even now. Except the tears because I'm not like Jesus. I don't have any sorrows. Oh Lord, somebody treated me badly. I finished with all that. I don't have to go to heaven to say that. Somebody's treating me badly. Somebody said something bad about me. Somebody criticized me. Those are all for godless people. For people who don't know Jesus. I finished with those. I don't have any tears for my own sorrows. I have no sorrows. I cast them all on the Lord. So what are the tears that Jesus is going to wipe from my eyes in heaven? The tears that I have because I have not yet become like Him in some area. For that I shed a lot of tears. Repentance. But I'm not waiting for, oh, one day all these sufferings will be over. No. I rejoice in my sufferings for Christ. That's the least I can do when I think of how much He suffered for me. I'm not trying to run away from it. Some people you know, they say, oh, when will I be finished from this rotten old earth? I'll tell you honestly, I'm not eager to leave this earth. Not because I love it. Not because I love it. I hate this rotten old earth, but I say there are millions who need to hear these truths that you have heard. And I say, Lord, if you give me life up to the age of 120, I will live and I will travel even if I'm weak and tottering with a cane. I'll walk and I'll travel and I'll go and I'll tell people these truths that have changed my life. I want to do something for you before I go to heaven. I don't want to just say, oh, let me go. Life is so difficult here on earth. That's a selfish, selfish, utterly selfish believer who talks like that. He has no love for Jesus Christ. He has no desire to share with others the wonderful truths that have changed his life. I'll tell you, I have such a passion to spread this wonderful gospel that you just heard. That I'd be willing to live up to the age of 120. I'd be willing to lose my teeth and look ugly and everything. I don't care for that if I can spread the gospel and do something for Jesus before I meet Him face to face. I don't know about you, but my eyes have seen the glory of the Lord. My eyes have seen what He did for me on Calvary. And money, comfort, position mean nothing to me. When I say zero, I mean zero. It means nothing to me because I want to see my Savior and I don't want to have any regrets because I know I will not be able to preach the gospel in heaven. This is the only place and I'm a debtor. I'm in debt because God has revealed things to me which hardly anybody has seen in this country particularly. And I want to spread it. I don't mean just the fact that Jesus died for my sins. More than that, I think of the pathetic state of believers in this country. Look at the dim zero water bulb that shines in believers. I want to make them like halogen lamps. It's a struggle. It's not easy. After so many years of preaching, I find so few who are gripped. I find many who like to sing. I find many who are interested in hearing these truths and come regularly for conferences. But people who are gripped and say, Lord, I give everything up for You. I want to live for You. And who have a passion to share this with others even if they're broken words. Very few. I find so many believers are so lazy. They're not radical. They're not wholehearted. Because they have not meditated on how much Jesus loved them. And they have not seen the greatness of God's love for them. So I want to say to you, my brothers and sisters, don't be in a hurry to go to heaven. We've got to suffer on this earth for a little more time. Because we have to spread the word to others. We have a debt to this land. For years and years we have prayed, Lord, let this land know that Jesus Christ is Lord. Let people know that Jesus Christ is Lord. Hallowed be Thy name in this land. Thy kingdom come in India. Thy will be done in India as it is done in heaven. He taught us to pray that. And I hope that is your prayer. When we see the love of God, that will be our prayer. So having said that about the deity of Christ and something about what the cross really means, let me now move on to tell you how much the New Testament speaks about the humanity of Christ. First of all, Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 17. It says here, Therefore, Jesus had to be made... Now listen to these expressions very carefully. He had... It's a necessity. He had to be made like his brothers in all things. Who are the brothers of Jesus? It says in the previous verse, not the angels. The angels have some abilities that I don't have. If somebody came to me and said, Brother Zach, you're like an angel, I'd say, don't insult me, please. You may feel happy that somebody says, you're like an angel. I don't want to be like an angel. I'm a son of God, man. What do you mean calling me an angel? Do you recognize that? He did not give help to the angels. The angels fell and he didn't go to help them. When man fell, he came to become a man. Jesus Christ did not become an angel. He became a man. And I'll tell you, I never want to be like an angel. Thank God I'll never be an angel. I love and respect them. God bless Michael and Gabriel and all those wonderful people, but I don't want to be like you, Michael. Thank you very much. God decided that I'm going to be like Jesus. Not like Michael. I'm not interested in flying. No. I'm interested in being like Christ. What about you? You want to fly or you want to be like Christ? So let's get rid of all these expressions in Christendom. Oh, he's like an angel. There's so many expressions in Christendom which I demolish because I say they're not in Christianity. Oh, the lily of the valley. Jesus is not the lily of the valley. He's not the rose of Sharon. It's the bride. I'm the lily of the valley. Did you know that? I'm the rose of Sharon. If you don't believe that, read in the Song of Solomon. It's the bride who's the lily of the valley and the rose of Sharon. So many wrong ideas people have and it perpetuates through, particularly through songs which nobody will ever change. Except song books that I edit. I change all those words because I don't want people to sing heresy. Okay. I would say, here it says that he had to be made like his brothers in how many things? In all things. That is why I always say, when you call me brother Zach, that's the greatest title you can give me. You're calling me a brother of Jesus Christ. And I always say, don't give me these lowdown titles like pastor and reverend and right reverend and wrong reverend and so many other titles like that. I'm not interested. Brother. Brother of Jesus Christ. Sister. Sister of Jesus Christ. Behave like one. Behave like a sister of Jesus Christ. Behave like a brother of Jesus Christ. Don't behave like a brother of the devil. Don't behave like a sister of the devil. Don't even behave like a brother of Adam or a sister of Adam. He was made like his brethren. And it says, he is not ashamed, it says in verse 11, to call me a brother. He is not ashamed to call me a brother. What a wonderful verse, verse 11. I say, Lord, please, please, help me to live according to that name by which you call me. He calls me his brother. I want to live worthy of that name. Jesus became a man. Therefore, he had to be made like me, his brother, in all things. Only thus could he become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. Because since he himself was tempted, made like me in all things, and then tempted, and in those temptations he suffered. Do you know, whenever you face a temptation, there are two, it's like a fork in the road. You come to a, you know, sometimes you come to a road and then there are two roads going. It's called a fork in the road. You can go left or you can go right. When you face temptation, you come to a fork in the road. What do you want? The way of pleasure? The opposite of pleasure is suffering. Do you want the way of pleasure or the way of suffering? Let me give you an example. When you are tempted to lust in your mind, internet pornography, or some other thing, there is a way of pleasure. And you can choose it. I get some pleasure from it. But if you deny yourself, it's a suffering. Because all the time there is a tag, come on, click on that site. You'll see something that satisfies you. And you suffer, and you suffer, and you suffer, and you suffer, and you suffer. You say, no, no, no, no, no. And you don't sin. That's why the Bible says, he who has suffered, 1 Peter 4.1, he who has suffered in the flesh has stopped sinning. Do you understand that verse now? Suffering in the flesh is not getting cancer. A lot of people who get cancer don't stop sinning. No, they sin more, when they get some sickness. But this type of suffering in the flesh, where I'm tempted and I have a choice between pleasure and suffering, and I keep saying, no, no, no, no, no, suffer, suffer, suffer. One day I finish with sinning. Or take the matter of anger. Somebody irritates you and says something rude to you and provokes you. What a pleasure it is to give him a piece of my mind. Right? Isn't there a pleasure in it? Come on, don't pretend that you're holy. There is a pleasure in sin. The Bible says so. There is a pleasure in letting that fellow have a piece of my mind. You know, you feel like, you say, I want to get it off my chest. Tell him what I think of him, and then go to God and say, Lord, please forgive me, I lost my temper. There's a pleasure I get in letting a fellow have it. But if I deny myself that pleasure, the other root is suffering. He keeps on yelling at me. I say, okay, I'll just forgive him, forgive him. There's a suffering. He who suffers in the flesh ceases from sin. Now do you know why you don't cease from sin? Now do you know why, after so many years, you don't cease from sin? Because every time the snake rises up its head, you feed him some milk instead of giving it a whack on its head. Next time, the snake of temptation rises up its head, instead of feeding it some milk, give it a whack on its head. It won't die immediately, but it'll be a little weaker when it rises its head again the second time. Give it another whack, and the third time, it'll be still weaker. And a day will come when that snake will be dead. There are still other snakes, hundreds of them, but that particular snake will be dead. You will cease from sin. It works. I tell you it works. I'm talking from experience. But if you don't suffer in the flesh, you say, just once, let me give him some milk. You're doomed. You've made it stronger. It's going to be stronger next time when it comes to tempt you. The choice is yours. Why doesn't God remove the snakes? If He removed the snakes, you'd never become strong. You have to resist sin in order to be strong. And Jesus, when He came to earth, was permitted to go through the same temptation, and in those temptations, He did not get pleasure. He suffered. And that's why it says He's able to run to help those who are tempted today. That's you and me. He runs to assist those who are tempted. Think of that. I praise God for that. When He was tempted, He was alone. The Holy Spirit helped Him. Today when I'm tempted, the Holy Spirit helps me. But Jesus also comes, it says here, He runs to help me. That's the root meaning of that word, when I'm tempted. So when I'm tempted, I sense, hey Lord, thank you for coming here right now. I'm being tempted by this. I'm at the computer now and I'm being tempted. Or this fellow's provoking me and I'm tempted. Whatever it is you're facing in your life, or some other temptation, Lord, the pressure is becoming so much. But you're here right now, right? You've come to aid me, you've come to help me through the Holy Spirit. I'm going to overcome. There's a practical result that comes from knowing that Jesus was a man just like us. Hebrews 4.15 We don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. You know what our weakness is? Let me explain to you very clearly. Your weakness is not that you get headaches, stomach aches, back aches. These are nothing. That's a drop in the bucket. Your real weakness is this, that the devil can knock you down with a feather. Have you heard that expression? You can knock him down with a feather. A feather is such a weak thing. If you tap somebody with it, it won't even make an effect on him. But when a person is so weak, one feather knocks him down. And the devil knows that. Many young men, he just makes one pretty girl go by, the fellow's gone. That's what I mean by being knocked down by a feather. We're so weak. Or a little bit of money and gone. It's different things with different people. We are weak. And we must acknowledge it. Don't pretend that you're strong. You're weak. And the devil knows it. And if you don't know it, something's wrong. Or you're pretending. But Jesus was made weak like us. But he sought for the power of the Holy Spirit. He prayed. He cried out. He got power. And he became so strong that nothing could knock him down. Now if he was not made weak like us, then it's no great wonderful thing if Jesus came here as God and told the devil, try anything on me. And the devil runs away because God is standing there. Do you think Satan could come up to Jesus if he was living on earth as God? No. He was God. But he never used his resources as God. And the devil knew that. Many Christians don't know it, but the devil knew that. That Jesus has now come and has refused to use the resources of God. He saw that in the 30 years when he was in the carpenter shop. That he never used the resources of God. He perspired like other people. He was tired. He slept. He was weak like other people. He had to struggle to earn his living. And Jesus, Satan knew, I can tempt this man. He was tempted like us in all things. Exactly like us. And he did not sin. Now if Jesus was not like us, he cannot say to us, follow me. An angel cannot come with his wings and take you to a swimming pool and say, follow me. As I go across the other side. I'll say, sorry, I can't follow you. You take a body like mine and then teach me how to swim. You know, for all the time, thousands of years from the time of Adam, the devil told people, God's commands, you cannot obey them. It is impossible. Till Jesus came and demonstrated, you can't keep all of God's commandments, even inside. Since the time of Christ for 2000 years, the devil's gone around with the same message. It is impossible to keep God's commands. It is impossible to keep the Sermon on the Mount. These commands of Jesus are impossible and do you know that millions of believers believe that? That's why they never even try to live up to the standards in the Sermon on the Mount. But there are a few here and there like Joshua and Caleb who say, yes, with God's help I can overcome these giants. I can keep the commandments by God's help. I can keep all of them that God has told me and His commandments are not a burden. John the Apostle said that after 65 years of walking with God, His commandments are not a burden. And God wants testimonies like that in the 21st century. You, who have heard the truth, you must be one of them who demonstrates like Jesus Christ that God's commands are not a burden. To love my enemies is not a burden. To forgive everybody who harms me is not a burden. God gives me help to overcome every giant. Jesus demonstrated it in His life. Okay. I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 4. I want you to ask you a question. Have you noticed something in the first temptation that came to Jesus? Sometimes we read the Bible so quickly we don't notice this. The devil came to Jesus and said in Matthew 4 and verse 3, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. And I want to paraphrase Jesus' words. Jesus says, But I am here as a man. And a man has to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Did you see the contrast there? You, the Son of God. Jesus said, No. Man. Son of God. No. Man. Man. Man. He took the position of a man in the very first temptation. You need to see that. I am here as a man now. I have to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He was making it so clear when the apostle Peter Peter understood it very clearly on the day of Pentecost in the first gospel sermon. See what he preaches. In Acts chapter 2. What is the gospel sermon? Acts chapter 2. First he explains the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In verse 17 onwards. This is the fulfillment of Scripture. The Spirit will be poured out. And then he says, Here is the gospel. Verse 32. Here is the verse 22. Here is the gospel message preached for the first time. Listen carefully. Men of Israel, listen to these words. How does the gospel begin? Jesus the Nazarene a man. That is the gospel. That's how Peter began. Not the God man and things like that. He was, of course, he was God. But on earth he was a man. Jesus the Nazarene a man. When the devil said, If you are the son of God, what did Jesus say? A man. When Peter preached the gospel, what did he say? A man. Okay. 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 5. There is one God. One mediator between God and men. The man, Christ Jesus. This is 30 years after Pentecost. In heaven, he is a man. Let me put it in a nutshell. Listen to this carefully. When Jesus came to earth, he did not cease being God. When he went to heaven, he did not cease being a man. When he came to earth, he continued to be God. When he went to heaven, he continued to be a man. What is the practical result of this? The practical result of this, I'll tell you what happened to me. When I first saw this truth, more than 30 years ago, I said, Lord, I have no more excuse for my sin. I can't say I've got a sinful nature. I've got a flesh. No. He had a flesh. He was tempted, like me, in everything. He didn't have a sinful nature, but he was tempted, like me, in everything. You don't have to have a sinful nature to be tempted. Adam didn't have a sinful nature. He was tempted. You don't need a sinful nature to be tempted. But he was tempted, like me. Exactly. And, he did not sin. So, I have no more excuse for sinning. The second thing is, a man who was tempted, like me, overcame all sin. Then, it must be possible for me to also overcome all sin. These were the two things that happened to me that changed my life. One, when I saw that Jesus was tempted, like me, I had no more excuse for my sin. And second, I had faith that I could overcome sin too. Let me conclude with these words. 1 Timothy 3 16 Great is the secret of godliness, or as the Living Bible says, it's true that the way to a godly life is not an easy matter. The way to live a godly life is a secret. But the answer lies, Living Bible, the answer lies in Christ, who came to earth as a man. That's where the answer lies. And was kept His spirit pure. Ask God to show that to you. When you see it, you understood it in your head now, but when you see it in your heart, it will change your life like it changed mine. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us to apply these truths to our daily lives, to be gripped by them, to understand Your love for us, and to be devoted to You. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.