This sermon focuses on three key aspects: hearing God, trusting God, and worshiping God. Jesus' response to the devil's temptations highlights the importance of these principles in our Christian walk. The sermon emphasizes the need to prioritize hearing God's voice through the Holy Spirit, trusting in His promises without falling into presumption, and worshiping God wholeheartedly above all else.

I want to turn to a very familiar passage in Matthew chapter 4. It's the account of the temptations of Jesus. And here we read of how Jesus went into the wilderness, verse 1, to be tempted by the devil. And what I want to speak about is not the temptation itself, but the words that Jesus spoke to the devil, the three verses that Jesus quoted. And when we realize that these are the first words recorded in Scripture of Jesus beginning his ministry after he was anointed with the Holy Spirit, we realize they are very significant. The first words of Jesus after his anointing with the Holy Spirit that are recorded in Scripture and with which he began his ministry, quoting Scripture to Satan. The first word is in verse 4. Jesus answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In the three verses that we're looking at, I'm going to look at, Jesus was teaching us three important things that we need to have in our Christian life. And number one among them is hearing God or listening to God, hearing God's voice. Now, that was not possible in the Old Testament the way it is possible today. In the Old Testament, they could only read the Scriptures. That's pretty huge. Three quarters of the Bible is the Old Testament. They could read it. They could use their mind and understand it. And you don't need the Holy Spirit to be able to understand a lot of the Old Testament. But you don't necessarily hear God by understanding it. Hearing God is something that requires the Holy Spirit to speak to us through the Word. It's more important to hear God than to read the Bible. It's more important to listen to God than to read the Bible. Because Bible reading will only increase your knowledge. And if our reading the Bible stops with having read it, got information in our mind, and eased our conscience, okay, I read the Bible today. It's not going to get us anywhere. There was a great man of God in the last century, in the 19th century called Charles Finney, who said, Bible reading without applying it to your life, without practical application, is worse than no Bible reading at all. Which is better? No Bible reading or Bible reading without practical application? No Bible reading, he said, is better. How many of us agree with that? I agree, 100%. It's better not to read the Bible than to read it without applying it to your life. It's better not to come to this church and hear God's Word than to come here, listen to God's Word, not apply it. God speaks to us as we read the Scriptures. God speaks to us when we come to a meeting, if it is a meeting where the Holy Spirit is present and anointing. But the important thing is to hear God. Man shall not live on bread alone, but man shall live by every word that proceeds. The word proceeds is continuous present tense. Very often you read the Bible and say, well, that's what proceeded, proceeded, past tense from God's mouth 2000 years ago, and that's the way you read it. And very often it's just black print on white paper. That's all people get out of it. That's not listening to God. When Jesus went to the house of Mary and Martha, we read that Mary sat at Jesus' feet. She wasn't reading the Bible, by the way. You know what she was doing? It says in Luke 10 in verse 39, Luke 10, 39, that Mary sat at Jesus' feet, listening to His Word. And there's a lot of difference between sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to His Word and reading the Bible. The devil reads the Bible. He doesn't need to read it now because he knows it all. He wouldn't have known it if he hadn't read it. As the prophets wrote the Old Testament, the devil read it, but he wasn't sitting at Jesus' feet listening to His Word. You think the devil was sitting at Jesus' feet listening to His Word when he read Jeremiah, what Jeremiah wrote? No. And you can read what Jeremiah wrote and not be sitting at Jesus' feet any more than the devil himself. There's a world of difference between reading the Bible and sitting at Jesus' feet and listening. You've heard me say this before, sometimes I read and I get, I read one verse and I'm stuck in that for my whole Bible reading for that day and sometimes for the next day and the next day because I'm more interested in sitting at Jesus' feet listening to His Word than reading the Bible. We have had so much of emphasis in evangelical Christianity, read the Bible, read the Bible, read the Bible. Good. But unfortunately, it stopped with that. And if you listen to Jesus' Word, if you listen to, you sit at Jesus' feet, listen to His Word, if you allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us, something will happen. He will show you the glory of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, and that changes our life. I've seen through the years many people who read the Bible who, listen to me, behave worse than the unbelievers. How is that? How can people read the Bible and behave worse than unbelievers? It's because they read the Bible and they know the Bible like the devil knows the Bible. The devil behaves worse than unbelievers, and these Christians behave worse than unbelievers, and I don't believe such people are born again. You can't be born again and behave worse than an unbeliever. You may be born again and lose your salvation and then behave worse than an unbeliever. May have been born again once upon a time, but you can't be born again right now and behave worse than an unbeliever. It's impossible. I don't believe that. He who is born of God does not commit sin. That's what the Bible says in 1 John chapter 3, and I feel that one of the most disastrous truths that's been proclaimed in evangelical Christianity is that once you say, Lord Jesus, come into my heart, you're saved for all eternity. That's what's made many people double the children of hell. They live as they like. They never overcome sin in their life, and they are fooled by the devil that they're on their way to heaven until they land in his lap one day in hell. But you'll never go to hell. I'll tell you this. If you listen to Jesus every day, man shall live not by saying, Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. You want to live? Then listen to Jesus. You can live if you listen every day to the word that proceeds from God's mouth. Thank God we got a printed Bible. I thank God for it. But if I don't hear God speaking to me, I will not live. And he compared it with food. We eat food every day in order to live physically, and we need God's word every day to live spiritually. You don't eat once in a while. Your body craves for food. A little baby, when it's born, craves, cries out for food. You don't have to teach that child to cry out. In fact, you know that a doctor, when he delivers a baby, and the baby doesn't cry, something is wrong. And I'm amazed at so many people who say they are born again, and they don't have a crying for the word of God. I'm surprised at it. There's something wrong with that bird. They are premature birds, or they are still birds. It means they're dead. See what it says in 1 Peter and chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2, it says, verse 2, you have been born again by the living and enduring word of God. By a living and enduring word of God. You have been born again by the living and enduring word of God, which came into your heart, and you opened up your heart to it. You were born again. This is the word we preach to you. Now, what should you do that you're born again? As newborn babies, chapter 2, verse 2, long, long means have a tremendous desire, like every newborn baby has, for the pure milk of the word, so that you can grow up to salvation. Have you ever heard of growing up to salvation? Many people have heard about being saved, once saved, always saved. What about growing up to salvation? How do I grow up to salvation? If anybody preaches that, if Peter were preaching that today, somebody would tell him, hey, Peter, that's the doctrine of works. It's not a doctrine of works. I can be saved from the wrath of God in a moment, but I have to grow up to salvation. Salvation from what? Salvation from every wretched thing in my nature, which I inherited from Adam through my parents, which the Bible describes in one word, the flesh. You and I carry around with us in our body, whether you like it or not, something called the flesh, basically, which is a strong self-will. Remember that. Let me define flesh for you. A strong self-will is not just lusting with the eyes and watching internet pornography and getting angry and stealing and all that. No, no, no. Those are all the fruits, and there are multitudes of fruits on this tree. But basically, at the root is a strong self-will which says, I want things my way. I want to please myself. You see it in a two-year-old. A two-year-old is not lusting after women. A two-year-old is not loving money. A two-year-old is not watching internet pornography, but he's got seen. What's that? It's the strong self-will which says, I want to do what I want to do, and I'm not going to listen to anybody else. I'm not even going to listen to God. Yeah, we had to be saved from that. And what I want to ask all of you sitting here who've been hearing the word of God for so many years is, are you being saved from that? Are you growing up to salvation from every wretched thing that you inherited from Adam? All I'm asking is, are you throwing out the garbage from your life little by little? Are you treasuring it, opening the lid every now and then and smelling it a little bit and putting the lid back? Are you trying to throw out the garbage as soon as you see it? You see, you can only throw out the garbage that you see. If there's some garbage in my house that I haven't seen underneath some cupboard, I can't throw it away. But as soon as I see it, I'd be crazy if I don't throw it out. You can only flush a toilet that you see. But if you see it and you still don't flush it, something's wrong with you. I tell you, everything in us in the flesh is worse than what you see in the toilet. Once you see it like that, you'll really want to flush it out as soon as possible. And one of the great works of the devil is to blind our eyes so that we don't see it like that. And that's why we don't live. That's why we don't grow up to salvation, because we don't desire to see the milk of the word of God. I would say if you had a proper, proper birth, you will automatically have a desire for milk. Every baby in the world, you go to any country in the world, educated, uneducated, whatever religion, as soon as a baby is born, if it's a proper birth, it cries out for milk. And if it doesn't cry out for milk, something is wrong. Then you've got to nurture it, put it in an incubator and shine light upon it and heat it and all types of things. And that's the trouble with a lot of Christians today. And they never seem to get out of the incubator. I want to say to you in Jesus' name, something's seriously wrong with your Christianity if you don't have a great desire to hear God. That's number one. That's the way to live. And Jesus compared it with food. I want to show you the verse in Deuteronomy from which Jesus quoted. In Deuteronomy in chapter 8, Moses is speaking to the Israelites about the 40 years they spent in the wilderness and in the borders of the land of Canaan. He told them, listen, fellas, verse 2, Deuteronomy 8-2, you must remember all the way in which the Lord led you these 40 years. And the whole purpose of his leading you these 40 years was to humble you. You know, that's God's great purpose in the way he leads us through different trials and testings and temptations to humble us. That's why he makes things difficult for you. That's why you lose money. That's why people irritate you. And that's why you have problems here and problems there. God is trying to humble you. He hasn't succeeded yet fully. And that's why he keeps on trying. All these 40 years, he led you so that he can humble you and test you to know what is in your heart. God already knows what's in your heart. He doesn't have to take you through 101 tests like these doctors send you for scan reports and blood tests and all to find out. God already knows what's in your heart, but he wants you to know it. He wants me to know it because I think I'm pretty pure. God says, hang on, I'll show you what's in your heart. And he brings me into some trial, some testing, and I flare up. And God says, do you see what was in your heart? Oh, Lord, but I preached victory over sin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You preached victory over sin. But look at your condition right now. And that's the time when God tests you. You know what? Not to see whether you're perfect. I'll tell you for your encouragement. God never tests a man to see if he's perfect because he already knows you're not perfect. He tests you to see whether you will be honest when you have failed and whether you'll confess your sin to him. There's a lovely verse in Jeremiah 3, verse 13, which says, only acknowledge your iniquity. That's the purpose with which God speaks to us. Only acknowledge your iniquity, your sin. Acknowledge it. And if you have hurt somebody else, go and acknowledge it to that person. I'll tell you, this is where 90% of so-called believers fail. They won't acknowledge their sin to God. And when they've sinned against man, they will not go and apologize to that person. You deserve to go to hell. Why? Because you won't be honest. You know, heaven is for honest people. You can be the worst criminal like that thief on the cross, never did one good thing in his life. But finally, he was honest and said, yes, Lord, I deserve this. I'm a criminal. I deserve to be crucified. He said, come to paradise. Paradise is made for honest people. Remember that. And if a man, if any of you go to hell, I'll tell you this, it'll be because of your pride and your dishonesty. No other reason. Because of pride and because you will not acknowledge your sin, you'll blame your wife, you'll blame your husband, then you deserve to go to hell. But if you'll be honest and say, Lord, the fault is with me. It's not with her. It's not with him. It's me. It's my fault. It's my sin. I acknowledge it. I'm willing to set it right to the best of my ability. I'm willing to confess to whomever you want to confess. You passed the test. And he had to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you'd keep his commandments or not. And now it says here in verse three, he humbled you and allowed you to be hungry in the wilderness and fed you with manna. And you know that manna dropped from heaven every day, not once in a week, every day. And on the Sabbath, before the Sabbath, they gave him two days supply, but otherwise it is every day. And the reason why, now, do you know, all of you know that God gave manna from heaven every day. Do you know the reason? The reason is so that you may understand one thing, that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Just like every morning in the wilderness, there were no shops from which you could buy food. There was no place where you could buy bread. It was absolutely barren. They were dependent on God. And every morning they'd get out of their tents and they had to get out early. If they were lazy and they went out after the sun rose, there'd be no manna left. It would all be melted and gone. They had to get up early. They couldn't say, oh, well, I went to sleep at one o'clock last night, Lord. Well, that's fine. I'll go without bread today. But if you wanted the bread, you had to get up before sunrise. The Lord was trying to teach them something. What about, Lord, I got enough yesterday, but that stinks today. You know that the manna wouldn't last more than 24 hours? They kept it. What do you say? You mean something comes from heaven and it can stink? Yes. I know a lot of people who got truth from heaven. It's stinking in their life today. It is truth from heaven, but it stinks because it's not fresh. And so they had to go out every day, get the manna to teach them what? Every day you need to hear God. Every day you need to receive the word of God. Have you learned it? That's the first word that Jesus spoke in his ministry. Hearing God. One thing is needful. Jesus said about Mary, she has chosen that good part. He told Martha, all your work for me is useless if you don't first hear me. I want to say to you, my brothers and sisters, if you're coming to the meeting, you're singing all these songs, all useless. If you don't hear God, one thing is needful. Please develop that habit from today in this new year to listen to God. Say, Lord, I want to hear you. Let's go to the second word that Jesus spoke. The second word that Jesus spoke in Matthew chapter four is when the devil took him to the top of a temple. It was all in his mind. It wasn't, you know, temptation comes in the mind. That's why I say, if you get a sudden flash of a bad thought in your mind, that doesn't mean you have sinned. It just means you were tempted. Jesus got a thought in his mind saying from the devil, come on, go to the top of the temple and jump down from there. He wasn't physically standing on the temple. No, he was in the wilderness. At the end of the temptation, he wasn't in the temple. He was in the wilderness. And so, in his mind, a thought came. And if you reject it in your mind, you haven't sinned. No. I hope that encourages you because some people say, hey, that thought came into my mind. Did you yield to it? No. Well, then you haven't sinned. You rejected it. That's fine. So, a thought came into Jesus' mind. Go to the top of the temple. Jump down from there. And if you're the son of God, throw yourself down and claim the promise. In Psalm 91, he will command his angels concerning you on their hands. They'll bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Now, one of the things the devil is a master at is quoting parts of a verse of Scripture or quoting one verse without relating it to other portions of Scripture that enlighten it. And he leads people to what I would call presumption, not faith. Presumption is the opposite of faith. Presumption is, you know, daring to do something stupidly, saying, I trust in God. So, the second lesson, the first lesson is hearing God. The second lesson we need to learn is trusting God. And we need to learn what it means to trust God. Trusting God is not claiming a verse and saying, Lord, I'm going to claim that, even if it's in Scripture. That's exactly what the devil told him to do. Here is a verse. Psalm 91. It's in the Bible, right? It's not in some other religious books. It's in your Bible. He will command his angels concerning you on their hands. They'll bear you up so you'll not strike your foot against a stone. Oh, God, I claim that and I jump. You'll die because of your stupidity. But Jesus was not going to do that. He wasn't just going to claim a verse and jump. You know, we have so much of teaching on faith today, which is absolute garbage. It's as much garbage as Internet pornography. Throw it out. Because it will destroy you, just like Internet pornography will destroy you. It is trying to claim a promise. The contact is with something written in printer's ink in your white page. The contact is not with God. And it's based on sometimes half a verse. And you don't know the rest of Scripture to know if the Scripture says anything else about that verse. But Jesus knew the Scriptures. So when the devil quoted a verse to him and said, claim it, trust God. Jesus, as it were, replied to him saying, well, that's not trusting God. That's stupidity. That's tempting God. Do you know the difference between tempting God and trusting God? He said, there's another verse which says you shall not put the Lord your God to a test. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. Don't put the Lord your God to a test by jumping off the roof of a building saying you said your angels will protect me. Well, if God has provided stairs down from that building, you should use the stairs, right? That is common sense. If God's provided stairs and steps, climb down the stairs. I know it's more exciting to jump off and be carried down by angels, but God's not going to do it. He tells you to take the ordinary way of walking down the steps. When you are sick and God has provided medicines in the world, use those medicines, those steps to come down to the place of healing. Instead of jumping off, claiming a promise and going to the grave, right? You have your choice. It's the same thing. Tempting God, saying, here it says in your promise, by your stripes I'm healed. I'm not going to take any medicine. When God has provided medicine, why not take it? It's like saying, I won't eat food. Lord, help me to grow strong. I don't want to be fat, but I don't want to take exercise. Well, you will be fat, whether you like it or not. Because these are laws and God's not going to change the laws just because you speak in tongues or because you're a believer. Believers who speak in tongues also need to exercise to get rid of their fat. I'll tell you that. The laws don't change. If you jump off the roof, whatever believer you are, you'll fall down. The law of gravity is the same. If you don't eat food, you're not going to grow strong. And do you know, how many of you know that medicine is food? You take, you can get vitamin C out of an orange, orange juice, squeeze it, get orange, or you can, if it's where you can't get oranges, they put it down into a tablet, call it vitamin C. God made it. Only people have put it together and made it easier for you to consume. The same is true of every single antibiotic, every single medicine that any man has ever made. It's not man's invention. All of it has come from herbs and plants and minerals and other things that God has created in this earth. It's food. It's just like plucking things. You can grow it in your garden. If you want, you can start a laboratory and put all those things together and eat it like that, or just go to the pharmacy and buy a tablet. It's exactly the same. It's food. But you don't eat that food. You say, I want to be healed. You won't be healed. That's not faith. That is stupidity. That's not trusting God. That's tempting God. And many other areas like that. God has not told you to go somewhere and you go. See, that's, it's like adventure. I'm going to trust God. It's tempting God. If God hasn't told you to go somewhere, don't go. There's no great virtue in going to some dangerous place and saying, I trust God. That's stupidity. It's not only here. You see, for example, in John's gospel chapter seven, John's gospel chapter seven, we read after these things, John seven, verse one, Jesus was walking in Galilee. Why? He was unwilling to walk in Judea. Judea is the southern part. Galilee was North Israel. Judea was Southern Israel. He did not go to Southern Israel. Why? Because they were trying to kill him. Now, couldn't he have claimed a promise like Isaiah 54, 17, no weapon that is formed against you will prosper. No weapon formed against me will prosper. I'm going to go to Judea. Jesus was not stupid. Like today's so-called faith people. We need to learn. If you want to live in these days, I want to tell you, learn the difference between tempting God and trusting God. Trust is always based on God's promise, and it is not trusting in a promise as much as it is in God. Abraham had a contact with God and trusted what he said. It wasn't just a written scripture. I'm going to claim this. There's so much of teaching today. Claim this and claim that and claim the other thing. It's leading people to deception. We need to have a living contact with Jesus. There are promises in scripture, but you cannot take those promises in scripture in isolation from the person. It's related to the person who gave that promise. The Holy Spirit says, sin shall not have dominion over you, and you don't seek a contact with the spirit and with Jesus, and you just try to claim that promise. It won't work. The promise comes from the mouth of a person, and I have to know the scriptures if I want to claim the promise. And that's why I'm not easily fooled by all these things that people say. As soon as I hear a person, I can make out that that's not in scripture. Be careful, my brothers and sisters. All this is a racket by preachers to make money. There's a fairly well-known preacher in South India who distributed a leaflet asking for money. I got a copy of it, and in it, he quoted a verse which said, and he gave the reference, he who gives to a prophet will get a prophet's reward. Matthew chapter 10 and verse 41. The only thing is, it's not in scripture. I knew it as soon as I read it. You've got to turn to that verse to see that it's not in scripture. You know what the scripture says? He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. And he who gives a small child, verse 42, a cup of cold water to drink, he will get a reward. Now you combine the two, and you say, he who gives to a prophet will get a prophet's reward. And then instead of calling yourself brother so-and-so, you call yourself prophet so-and-so. That's it. The way to make money. Who does he fool? Multitudes of believers who will never turn to the Bible to check up that scripture. You know why we don't have, we once considered having the verses up on the screen here whenever a verse is quoted. You know why we decided not to have it? Because we produce a bunch of lazy Christians who come to the meetings without a Bible, like it is in most churches in the United States now. They have the verses on the screen for a bunch of lazy people who don't bring their Bibles, and they don't know their Bibles. We want you to know the Bible. We want you to know where that verse is found so that you can go home and claim it because the screen is not there at home. And whatever we see, we forget very easily. But if it's there and you marked it, I remember my first Bible, which I got 50 years ago nearly. It was full of marks and red pencils and notes and everything, because when a verse spoke to me, I'd mark it. Because in this big book of 1500 pages, how in the world could I find it unless I mark it? Yeah, because I was interested in claiming the promises of God for my life. So you must know the scripture. So when the devil quoted a scripture saying, it is written, verse six, whenever you hear it is written, you think that's the Holy Spirit? No. The first person in the New Testament who said it is written was who? Who? Jesus. Who's the second person in the New Testament who said it is written? Satan. That's right. Remember that. The first person in Matthew chapter four who said it's written was Jesus. The second person who said it is written was Satan. So every time you hear a word of scripture come into your mind, don't think that's Jesus. It could be the devil. You see, the devil quotes scripture. He quoted scripture to Jesus Christ. Why won't he quote it to you? Are you superior to Christ? There are plenty of verses the devil has quoted to me through the years. He could fool me in the days when I didn't know the Bible. He can't fool me now. That's why I say your salvation is to know the scriptures. You know what Jesus replied to the devil? It is also written. It is written. It is also written. Yeah, that is God's word, but you won't understand that properly unless you balance it with this other word. That's why God gave birds how many wings? Two. Have you ever thought of what would happen to a bird had only one wing? It would fly and keep on flying, keep on flying, and come back here. Is there movement? Yes. Is there progress? No. That's the trouble with a lot of Christians. They're going round and round and round and round and round. Ten years later, they're in the same spot spiritually, defeated by the same old sins with no more knowledge of God than they had ten years ago. They're moving all right, but they're moving round and round. It is written. It is also written. That's how we move forward. You never see an airplane with one wing. You'll never see a bird with one wing. It won't be able to fly. It is written, Jesus said. It is also written, Satan. You can't fool me. Don't tempt the Lord your God. We need to understand the difference between trusting God and tempting him. Trust is always based on a word that God has spoken. Let me show you Romans 10 verse 17. These are simple principles. If you bear them in mind, your life, your Christian life, and your life this year can be enriched and powerful and useful to God and to others. Romans 10 verse 17. Faith comes from hearing. What did I say the first step was? Hearing God. You've got to hear first. Then we come to the second step, trusting God. Faith comes from hearing. If you don't hear, you can't have faith. And hearing comes from the word of Christ. NASB is very clear on that. The word of Christ, which is particularly referring to the New Testament. The word of Christ. If you want faith, you must hear. And if you want to hear, go to the New Testament especially, and you hear. And you'll get faith. Now, if there's something not written in the New Testament, the word of Christ, the word of the Messiah. There was no Messiah in the Old Testament. There are many promises in the Old Testament. A lot of them are for Israel. And you find all these prosperity preachers who preach health and wealth. Do you know what they get their promises from? Old Testament completely. There were promises of health and wealth in the Old Testament. The difference is in the New Testament, it is spiritual health and spiritual wealth. That's why whenever Jesus healed sick people, he said, don't tell anybody that. Because I didn't come here primarily to heal people. I came here to save souls. So healing is not that. It's true that Jesus heals. But that is on the basis of if you ask anything in my name, I'll give it to you. If you ask anything according to God's will, he hears it. It's based on that, not some claiming some promise saying, by his stripes, I'm healed. Don't be fooled by all these verses, my brothers and sisters, because a lot of these people who claim these, who teach people to claim these verses are in unreality themselves. Yep. And it's so obvious and people are so blind. I remember seeing on television somewhere one of these great so-called revival meetings that was supposed to take place last year, one of the so-called greatest revivals in all, which ultimately turned out to be a hoax with the preacher himself living in sin. But there, there was this meeting where the so-called greatest self-appointed apostles in America and the charismatic movement came and dedicated this man before he was exposed as a hoax. And this is a healing meeting. And the greatest apostle's wife was being going around in a wheelchair. It was quite a contradiction. I'm sure they claimed, by his stripes, I'm healed a thousand times. It's spiritual wealth and spiritual health. Don't live in a world of unreality. I believe in healing. I've experienced it numerous times in my life. I've seen people healed in answer to prayer, but I also believe it's in the sovereign will of God. If we ask anything according to his will, 1 John 3, he hears us. So we can ask, but don't tempt the Lord your God by trying to, or when people say that God can make you wealthy, if you trust God, you'll be wealthy. Well, then Jesus didn't trust God then. Peter didn't trust God. He says, silver and gold, I have none. Paul didn't trust God. He didn't have much. He didn't even have money to buy a blanket when he was in the prison in Rome. He writes to Timothy saying, please send my blanket to me. These are the greatest men of God. Now, God who made Abraham rich and Job rich and David rich could have made these people rich too. Why didn't he do that? Because the New Testament gospel is not the Old Testament gospel of material wealth and physical health. It was a gospel of spiritual well-being where I overcome sin and a gospel of spiritual prosperity where I can be a blessing to thousands of people. That's spiritual prosperity. So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Learn this year to trust God in those difficult situations. For example, I was thinking this morning, supposing somebody does some harm to you. You know, the Bible says don't have a grudge or a complaint against anyone, even small things. Sometimes we have a complaint against somebody for some small thing they did, which inconvenienced us or some big thing they did, which harmed us greatly. Do you know that whenever you complain against anyone, whether unbeliever, believer X, Y, Z, even the devil himself, you are at that moment saying in this particular situation, God could not do anything. The devil took over and made a mess of my life. I don't say that. It's a small thing somebody inconvenienced me or a big thing somebody harmed me. I say that's fine. My God is more powerful than the devil and he will make everything small and big work for my good because I have a contact with God. I'm not claiming Romans 8 28. I trust God that he will make everything work for my good because I love him. I'm called according to his promise and his will. My passion is to be like Jesus. Everything will work for my good. Work for my good doesn't mean I'll get a better job or make more money. No, I'll be more like Jesus. Tell me if there's a greater good than that you can have in this universe. Is there a greater good than that that you want? I don't want any greater good than becoming more like Jesus. And if somebody troubles me and as a result of that I become more like Jesus, I say, Lord, let more people trouble me. Sure, that is, you know, the thing is today's preaching has produced a bunch of worldly Christians whose only interest is something on this earth. And we are determined in this church to preach against that deception going on in Christendom. Okay, trust God based on his promise. Number three, third promise, Jesus, third word that Jesus spoke was in verse 10. And the devil said, fall down and worship me. Verse 9, Matthew 4 9. And Jesus said, No, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only. From the beginning of creation, from the beginning of creation, when Lucifer, that's not his real name, we know him. He's called Lucifer. It's just a Latin word. We don't know the devil's original name, just by the way. It only says someone who was a light bringer, and which is in the Latin called Lucifer, and people have got given that name to him, but we don't know his name. But okay, let's call him Lucifer. Way back when he was the head of the angels, head over Michael, the archangel, head over Gabriel, the archangel, on top of Michael and Gabriel was Lucifer. God put him there. The most powerful, the most gifted, the most good looking, the wisest, and the leader of the archangels and all the angels. And he was to lead the angels in the worship of Almighty God, millions of people. And he wanted that worship for himself. That is how sin originated. When a created being, instead of leading people to worship God, got people to worship him. That's the sin of many preachers today. Many, many preachers who were sent by God when they were in their younger days to lead people to Christ. They have led people to themselves. They led people to be attached to themselves, instead of being attached to Christ. This is the sin of Lucifer. And he's trying it again after thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps he's trying it again with the same Jesus who created him. Now he's come in a human form. He says, fall down and worship me. I'll give you anything. Worship me. This is what I've been longing for for thousands of years, that you'll worship me. You shall worship only the Lord your God. So that's the third thing we need to learn. First, hearing God. Second, trusting God. And third, worshipping God. We need to learn what it is to worship. Jesus said, I will not worship you, Satan. I want to say to you, do you know that when you worship money, you're indirectly worshipping the devil? Just by the way. That's why Jesus spoke about mammon as the mammon of unrighteousness. Please look up your concordances and see if you find a phrase called the mammon of righteousness anywhere in the Bible. You won't find it. It's called the mammon of unrighteousness. It says you can't serve God and money. Mammon was a name used for material wealth, and Jesus put it as an alternate thing that you can worship instead of God. When you worship money, or you worship God, you can't worship both because the devil is the one who controls all the money in the world. Do you know that? God gives us enough. Jesus said, if you seek the kingdom of God first, His righteousness, you will have all that's supplied for your need. But he never promised us we'd be millionaires. Who are all the greatest, richest people in the world? The crooked businessmen, the crooked politicians. You see how much money the devil gives them? What a foolish thing to think that it's God who gives people wealth. God gives us enough for our needs. He said, give us this day our daily bread. He didn't even ask us to pray for our daily ice cream. Think of that. Why not? I mean, He gives us ice cream. He gives us a lot of good things, but we don't ask for those things. We ask for bread. He provides us enough for our needs, not for our luxuries. He gives us many luxuries. Oh, yes. All of us have many more luxuries. Anybody in the slums in Bangalore will tell you that everyone sitting here has got far more luxuries than we need, you and me. That's God's gift, but I don't seek for it. I seek for food and clothing and a shelter to survive, whatever it is. In the parallel passage, the devil says to Jesus, all these things, the glory of this world has been given to me. Let's look at that. Luke chapter 4, that doesn't come out in Matthew, but it comes out in Luke 4, verse 6, verse 5. The devil let Jesus show him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And it says in Matthew, the glory of them, the part of the glory of the world is money, honor, position, power. These are all what's called the glory of the world. And I will give you all this and its glory. I'll give you money. I'll give you power. I'll give you a position. I'll give you honor. Because it has been handed over to me and I give it to whomever I wish. You hear that? The devil says, and Jesus didn't say you're a liar. It's not yours. He said, I know that. I know that, you know, Jesus was there in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, when they handed over the earth to Adam. Adam, here is the whole earth, subdue it, rule it. Adam took it and gave it to the devil. And it's been the devil's ever since. Because what God gave to man, he gave to the devil. Don't blame Adam. A lot of things God gave you and me, which we also gave to the devil, which should have been given to God. Eyes that are meant to be pure, a tongue that was meant to be loving. Haven't you given it to the devil sometimes? Don't blame Adam. So he said, yeah, it's been given to me. And I now, since it's mine, I give this to whomever I wish. Worldly wealth, worldly honor, worldly position. I give it to whomever I wish. And I'll give it to the guy who bows down and worships me. Come and worship me. And verse 7, all shall be yours. So who is the one offering wealth and honor and everything else? Don't be deceived. Get what God gives you. Be a worshiper of God. Jesus said, no, I don't care if I have nothing, but I'll be a worshiper of God. What does it mean to worship God? I believe it's one of the most misunderstood words in Christian today. In the olden days, the Anglican church used to have outside their church buildings, worship service at 10 o'clock. There was no worship there. Today, charismatic meetings have praise and worship. There's no worship there either. Both are wrong. In the Anglican church services, there was a monotonous repetition of something, and they call that worship. In the charismatic meetings, a little more jumpy and good beat and drums and all that. And it sounds more exciting than an Anglican church service. And people who don't have any discernment think, ah, this is it. This is not it. And then you look at the words they sing, it's praise and thanksgiving at the best. Of all these modern hymns and choruses, to tell you honestly, I can sing only about 10% of them meaningfully. The rest is all what Jesus called meaningless repetition. If you don't believe me, the next time we sing some of these songs, just ask yourself whether you're really meaning that when you sing it for the first time, whether it's a meaningless repetition. Jesus said, beware of meaningless repetition. Do you know that every chorus we sing is a prayer to God? It must be meaningful. Some of those rare ones, like one we sang today, the reason I live is to worship you. Did you mean it? Did you mean it? The reason I live is to worship you. I don't live to fight with my husband or to fight with my wife. I don't live to make money. I don't even live to bring up my children. I do all those things. I mean, not the fighting part, the bringing up children part. But the reason I live is to worship you. And that man got the understanding of worship with one sentence there, when everything around me becomes a shadow compared to you. That's the worship. That man had light. But that's one song in a hundred you may find like that. Do you grasp after shadows? You find a shadow of something and grasp it. Supposing you like some building there and you grasp the shadow of it, what have you got? Or some girl you like, grasp the shadow. And so many mad people who do that. I want to ask you, are you grasping after shadows? Have you recognized that everything on this earth is a shadow compared to Jesus himself? When all things that surround me have become shadows compared to you. I'm just telling you how, leave alone meaningless repetition, it can be meaningless even when we sing it once. Worship, to me, the clearest definition of worship is the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 73 verse 25. I wish I could go around the world in Christendom and teach people to worship God like this. To say to Jesus personally, whom have I in heaven but you Lord Jesus. When I get to heaven, I'm not interested in the crown or the mansions or the golden streets or even the fact that all my sorrows and trials are finally over. No, I'll have you. And that's my heaven. And besides you on this earth until I get to heaven, I desire nothing. I desire nobody. I'm not running after some boy or some girl who might want to marry. Can you say that? I'm not running after this or that or the other. I want you Lord if I have you, I know I'll have everything. All the rest will fall into place. Everything will fall into place. This is worship. If you can say that every day of your life, Lord Jesus, I desire nothing on earth but you. I desire nobody on earth but you. I desire nothing in heaven but you. If you can say that every day, you're a worshiper. Yeah. Let me show you another verse in 1 Corinthians 14. The church is meant to be a place of worship. In the Old Testament, Jesus said the house is my house shall be called a house of prayer. And part of prayer is worship. God's house must be a place of worship. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 14 where a New Testament meeting is being described. How is it brethren when you come together? You know there's people different one and so many people have got so taken up with two three prophets must speak first verse 29 then all the others must prophesy verse 31. Great. But what's the most important part? They must prophesy Why? Not just the two three people who get up and speak and then all the people get a chance to speak. There are so many churches I've seen in my life. So many groups who try to follow the pattern and there's nothing as dead as a pattern. Two three brothers with God's word will speak then everybody will testify. That's a New Testament meeting. Garbage. I'll tell you when it's a New Testament meeting when people prophesy whether it's one person or 20 people but at the end of the meeting it says here verse 24 if all prophesy and an unbeliever enters in he's convicted by all he's called to account by all the secrets of his heart are disclosed and he falls on his face and what does he do? Worships God. That's the result of a New Testament meeting. It's not a question of whether one people or 20 people speak. No. It's at the end of the meeting you say boy God spoke to my heart I fall down and say God is here. I've been in thousands of meetings where 25 people speak and I've been bored to death. They call it a New Testament pattern meeting and I've been in some rare meetings in my life where one man spoke and I fell on my face and say God you're here. See how the devil has turned away man's attention to the pattern the pattern the pattern of the tabernacle the pattern of the tabernacle the fire brother the fire. That's the most important thing where there's a fire there'll be worship. The secrets of people's hearts will be made manifest. Our hearts will burn like those disciples who walk to Emmaus. So let's not be fooled by a pattern. The New Testament pattern is where God is present in a meeting and people fall down and worship. Everything else is secondary. So let's learn to hear God. Let's learn to trust him and let's learn to worship him. Let's bow our heads in prayer. It's very simple to remember these three things throughout this year. Ask God to help you. Not just throughout this year but throughout your life. He'll change your life. Heavenly Father help us all in Jesus name. Amen.