This sermon covers various topics including the importance of surrendering to God, questions related to knowledge and life, the impact of material possessions on our relationship with God, the significance of fasting with godly motives, being filled with the Holy Spirit daily, raising godly children, the essence of true worship, managing money in the church, dealing with anger, and the role of faith in a believer's life.

These questions remind me of a dining table where there's such a lot of food and we can't eat all of it. So I don't know whether we'll finish all these questions. So the only way is to be very, very brief. And if I had the time, I would have sorted out the important ones first. But, you know, there were two trees in the Garden of Eden, a tree of knowledge and a tree of life. And I find in questions that have been asked in different parts of the world, there are questions related to knowledge and there are questions related to life. And very often questions related to knowledge bring depth and questions related to life is what we want to get an answer to. So I'll try and concentrate on things related to life. I've also noticed another thing that sometimes people ask a question which is not for themselves. They want to aim it at somebody else. We don't want to hurt anybody through what we answer in these questions. The primary questions that I'd like to answer are related to life. There are things related to church doctrines and procedures which are secondary and important. They are important. If you had a lot more time, we could answer them. Okay, at what point of time do we know material things become too much and are taking us away from God? What should we ask ourselves? This is a very important question because Jesus said in Luke 16.13, there are only two masters. There's God and money. So we have to ask ourselves which of these two masters we are serving. If you feel that your conscience is calling you one way, God is telling you to go this way, and money is pulling you in another direction, you would be able to know pretty quickly who is your master, depending on which call you respond to. It's very easy for everyone to know that. And at what point do we know that material things become too much? I have used an illustration for this. The Bible says, set your mind on the things that are above, Colossians 3, I won't have time to take those verses, you'll have to write it down and look it up later. Not on the things of earth. The illustration I use is of a rubber band that's tied up here to the things above. That means your mind is set on the things above. And you stretch that rubber band to the things of earth for 8 hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day, in our work, in our home, a mother with babies and cooking and all that to do. But once all that is over, and you release the rubber band, it goes up back to heavenly things. So if you find that your mind is like that, it's okay. Even if your mind is occupied, stretched for 10 hours a day, to earthly things, a man who is in a secular job has to be occupied with those things. But once it's over, where does it go? Does it go back up to think about the things of God? Are you still stretched down here, even after your work is over? Very often, this rubber band is tied at this end, in the earthly things, and they stretch it on Sunday morning for a couple of hours to heavenly things, or maybe on a Wednesday evening for one hour. And then when it's released, it goes back to the earthly things again. So you have to ask yourself at which end your mind is set. Is it on heavenly things and stretched to earthly things? Maybe any extended end. Some people have to work 12 hours a day. That's fine. But the point is, when you're released from that, where does your mind go to? If your mind is on earthly things all the time, and you're always thinking of more and more, now there's a difference between earning money because I need it to survive, and earning money because I want to have a much more luxurious standard of living. A lot of families, men and women, both work. Not out of necessity. If it's out of necessity, God understands. He gives grace. But if it is for luxury, God understands that as well. And then I'll tell you, your children suffer. My wife is a medical doctor. And when our first son was born, we both decided that she would not work. She wanted to be a mother. And she's been a mother all these years. As a result, all our children are following the Lord. We didn't make so much. She could have made lots of money as a doctor, but that's okay. But she didn't neglect her profession because she could use it to help poor people, which is what she's done for more than 40 years, freely. But in honoring God in this financial area where we said, Lord, we need money, and we said that not because I was a rich man. We were very poor, extremely poor. So poor that in the first couple of years of marriage, we couldn't even rent a house. I had to live in one room of my parents' home. And it was at that time that we decided that money will not be important for us. Our children will be important. You know, God takes note of these little decisions. And he sees, I want to bring up my children to fear God. I'm not making a law for anybody else. But I say to me, I did not want to live in luxury and lose my children. It didn't matter. I rode a two-wheel scooter for 45 years. I couldn't afford to drive a car. That's okay, but my children are following the Lord. I'm not saying you can have two cars if you like. All I say is, don't put money above your family and above the things of God. What are the right godly motives behind fasting? And what should prompt us and how should we fast? The first and most important thing about fasting is what Jesus said. That we should not tell anyone about it. I find lots and lots of people who fast, somehow or the other, make other people know about it. They violated the one thing Jesus said about fasting. We must never tell other people how much we pray, how much we fast. People in your house will know. I sometimes read of people about whom it's written they spend two hours every day in prayer. I say, how in the world do people know that? I mean, people in the house know, I can understand. But how do they advertise such things when Jesus said we must never tell anybody? It's like advertising how much you give to the Lord's work. Nobody should know how much you give. Nobody should know how much you pray. Nobody should know how much you fast. People ask me, Brother Zach, how long do you pray? I say, do you want me to disobey the word of God? That's what I tell them. So be careful about that. Fasting is, if you do it as a law, it can be a bondage. But if you do it as a discipline, it can be a very good thing. When I was young, I did it as a discipline, just to break the power of food. We're all lovers of food. I didn't want to be a slave to food. That's one reason I fasted. Sometimes when we had a burden for something in the church, we just decided to... We couldn't explain the logic behind it. But since Jesus said it, we did it. And we found it brought some results, some clarity concerning how God wanted us to move forward. And if you have never fasted, start with one meal a week. Go to two meals a week. Go to one full day. And if you have a particular burden, spend that day, not always on your knees, reading a scripture. Maybe you do it on a holiday. And take a little time to listen to a message. And alternate that with times of prayer. And if you have a particular burden, that's the way to... And never tell anybody about it. And say, Lord, I'm seeking you for something. Something specific. And see God answers. How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit every day? Whenever a person is born again, really born again, that means if he's really repented and turned to the Lord, when he says, Lord Jesus, come into my heart, it is the Holy Spirit who comes in. In the old days, they used to say, in the Acts of the Apostles, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit. That's how it was in the Acts of the Apostles. Today we combine the two and say, receive the Lord Jesus Christ. It means the same thing. Because Christ himself is in heaven. He doesn't come physically down. There was a time when he was the second person in the Trinity, was on earth for 33 and a half years. Today it's the third person of the Trinity who's on earth. The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit. And when we say, Lord Jesus, come into my heart, it's the Holy Spirit who comes in. If you're really born again, it's the Spirit of God who comes in. And it says in Romans 8, 9, if you don't have the Spirit of Christ, you're not even born again. So that's one of the clearest verses that tells us the moment you give yourself to Christ, Romans 8, 9, the Spirit of God comes in. And it goes on in that verse to say, the Spirit of God cries out from us, within us, from cries out saying, Abba, Father, that which makes me call God Father is the Holy Spirit. But I may not be filled with the Holy Spirit. My heart can be compared to a house with ten rooms. And one room is the guilt room. Guilty because of years of sin. And I want Christ to come in. And the Holy Spirit comes in. And light comes into one room. But it's like a house in which one room is lit. And if you ask me, does that room, does that house have light? Yes. Is it filled with light? No, because nine rooms are dark. So I can receive the Spirit and not be filled with the Spirit. So the Spirit of God doesn't force His way in anywhere. Wherever I open to Him, He comes in. He's like sunlight. If you open the windows and pull the shades away, sunlight comes in. It doesn't take any time. But if I pull the shades and block off the light, He won't come in. There's no compulsion. Sunlight is a beautiful picture of how the Holy Spirit comes into whichever room I open up in my heart. It's like Jesus says, I stand at the door and knock. The Lord says, Can I enter into your television room and determine what all you watch and what all you don't watch? Many Christians say, No, Lord, there are certain programs I'd like to watch. Okay, the Lord says, I won't come in. Fine, do whatever you like. That room remains dark. Can I come into your library and see what all books you read? No, Lord, there are certain books you may not like. Okay, I won't come in. I'll ask before he enters. Can I come into your finances room and see how you're using your money, how you're earning your money? Yeah, Lord, I don't want you to come and check all that. I want you to see how I give and all that. Okay, I won't come there. And yet such people can say, Oh, Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit. They fast and pray. Nothing is going to happen. Because you lock every door and ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit, it'll never happen. But you yield everything, closed on the inside from you. And if you really surrender, the Lord will show you without a doubt. I mean, he's more eager to fill you with the Holy Spirit than you are to be filled. I have a definition of faith that I have worked out through the years. It's based on Scripture, though I can't quote an exact Scripture. But it's based on if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit or good gifts to those who ask him. My definition of faith is God is more eager to give me what he has promised than I am eager to receive it. If you think of the Holy Spirit, God is more eager to fill me with the Holy Spirit than I am eager to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you believe that, you have faith. If you believe you are more eager to receive the Holy Spirit than I am eager to be filled with the Holy Spirit or any other promise, God is not so eager. That is unbelief. And a lot of people come to God with unbelief. The unbelief is, God, I'm crying, I'm praying and you're not answering. You'll never get it because you believe that you are more eager to receive what God has promised. It's a very simple thing. I want a better house. God hasn't promised all that. But the things he has promised in his word, divine nature, overcoming sin, the power of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, whatever he has chosen to give you, if you believe that he is more eager, that's faith. And then you say, Lord, I believe you have answered my prayer. You've filled me. Now please give me an assurance that I'm filled. Don't believe it. Lord, I want an assurance from you. I remember I used to say, Lord, if it takes 10 years to get that assurance, I'll wait. I don't want a cheap counterfeit. I don't want to boast that I'm filled. I want to be genuinely filled. And that's made all the difference. And every day I pray now, Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit. If I keep my conscience clear all the time, confess sin as soon as it's known to yourself at every opportunity that you get throughout the day, you'll be filled with the Holy Spirit all the time, continuously. If I work in an office where people blaspheme and use Jesus' name as a swear word, I'm not able to change them even though I speak to them. What do I have to do? We cannot change the world. People will be evil around us. People will be watching pornography at the next table. I can't do anything. That's all. And my life will convict others. That's all. Some will respond. Some will not respond. Jesus could not convert everybody. He moved around, and a lot of people remained exactly as they were. But don't let the light in you get dim. How do I overcome adulterous and lustful thoughts? It says, by the renewal of our mind, Romans 12, 2. The renewing of our mind is a very important thing. And renewing of our mind means thinking the way God thinks. When I start my life, thinking the way Adam thinks and all men think. And I have to change from there to the way God thinks, which is the way Jesus demonstrates and the way he thinks. As I read God's word, this is the mind of God that God shows me how he thinks. And I say, Holy Spirit of God, renew my way of thinking to see the way God thinks. And I want to see things from God's point of view and look at people, circumstances, things, everything the way God looks at it. And in this process of renewal, I can, you know, use some questions to ask myself to help me, to challenge me. For example, I'm tempted to look at pornography on the computer or in a magazine, which is what stimulates a lot of thoughts. I could ask myself questions like this. Would I like to see my sister or my daughter taking off her clothes and showing her naked body to somebody to photograph just because she wants to get money? I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want to do it. I don't think any of you would want to see your sister or your wife or your daughter do that. But when you look at that, you say, oh, that's not my sister. That's somebody else's sister. I couldn't care less for her. I say, are you a Christian that you don't care for somebody else's daughter doing that? You would never allow your daughter to do that. Take your Christianity more seriously. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Treat other people's daughters the way we want your daughter to be treated. If you don't want your daughter to strip herself for money, you should not be looking at other people's daughters stripping themselves. And when you think lustful thoughts, if I discipline myself and you discipline me and it may not help you, I used to say to myself, sin is a filthy thing. To have a lustful thought or look at a dirty picture is like putting my mouth into a toilet bowl and licking it. I'm trying to give the word picture to detest it. Do I want to put my mouth into a toilet bowl and lick it? That's lustful thinking. That's looking at a dirty pornography picture. I want to have a revulsion to it. Lord, give me the same revulsion I have to licking a toilet bowl to dirty thoughts and lustful thinking. It's a renewal of my mind to see sin in the detestable way God sees it. And word and pictures and illustrations are a help for me. If it helps you, well, I'm good. And I used to also say, Lord Jesus, when you were in Nazareth, the Bible says you were tempted like me. You must have been tempted as a young man. When you were a 20-year-old young man, you were tempted like me. How did you resist them? I want to walk in your footsteps and resist it. And ultimately, I ask God for grace. Lord, give me grace to keep me from falling. It's only Jesus who can keep you from falling. But he doesn't do it alone. There's a cooperation in all victory over sin. He says, take my yoke upon you, a yoke upon two bullocks. He's the senior bullock and I'm the junior one. He says, Lord, it's a cooperation. If it was all of Jesus' work, we'd all be holy. If it was all my work, we'd never be holy. But it's a cooperation between Christ and us. So we have to respond to that. Do all godly parents necessarily raise godly children? I'm not here to judge why some godly parents' children did not turn out right. I don't judge anybody. Judgment is God's business. I can only judge myself. If I, my wife and I, have sought to live a godly life for many years now, and if we, if our children went astray, we would take the blame. I told my children when they left home to go to college, they were all 18 years old then, they were all baptized, born again, and I said, if you go astray, now you're going to be away from home for long periods of time, in a worldly environment, a college, if you go astray, I will not blame you. I'll blame myself. I had you for 18 years at home, and if I didn't do a good job in those 18 years, then I failed. I'm not saying you won't have a few ups and downs like that. You'll struggle in your thoughts and all that. That's okay, but ultimately you'll come through. And I said another thing. If I ever hear that you're really going out into the world, I will pray to God that he'll do something drastic, give you a road accident, break your legs, put you in a hospital with broken legs. I'll pray that, because to me, sin is more serious than a broken leg. Many parents will not pray like that. They say, oh Lord, please protect my children. I don't pray that. I say, please protect them from sin, even if you have to break their legs to protect them from sin. If you were radical and serious, if you see sin as the worst possible thing that can happen to your children, you will pray like that. I've seen sin for the horrible thing it is, and that's what I've told my children. I never had to pray for that, by the way. They haven't broken their legs yet. But what I mean is, I take it very seriously. So don't judge others, but judge yourself. How old should they be before you can be certain that you did a good job as a parent? It's very difficult to say, because teenagers in the early twenties, they go through certain ups and downs. I don't mean gross sin, but they struggle. I wouldn't take that seriously. My paraphrase is of train up a child in the way he should go when he's old, he will not depart from it. This is not scripture. This is Zak Poonen's opinion. Is Zak Poonen entitled to give his opinion? According to 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says, this is not a commandment of God, but I give my opinion. He says that a number of times here. In my opinion. You read 1 Corinthians 7. My opinion is train up a child in the way he should go when he's 30 years old, he'll follow the Lord. Don't quote me. What I mean is don't expect them to be perfect when they're 19 or 20. Give them time. When they come through, they will be, if you've done a good job, you'll see that. What's the ministry of the bishop in the church? We don't have bishops in our church. The word bishop in the King James Version just means an elder, an overseer. And he's to oversee the work of the church. He's the leader. His position is like that of a father. Bishop is the wrong word. It's elder or overseer. How do you interpret John 10, verse 34 and 35? John 10, verse 34 and 35 says, Has it not been written as the Lord said? I said, You are gods. I call them gods to whom the word of God came. And the scripture cannot be broken. You know, they were accusing him of blasphemy, saying, You being a man, make yourself out to be God. And Jesus had a way sometimes of quoting scripture to say, Hey, your scripture says this. Now, I don't know exactly what is meant in that quotation. He says, The scripture, doesn't it say in your law, I said, You are gods. Now, I don't know exactly where it comes, probably from Psalm 82, I think, where it says in verse 6, I said, You are gods and all of you are sons of the Most High. Now, I don't know what exactly he meant by the word God. Certainly not Almighty God. So, I wouldn't go too much into that and some of these things in relation to the Old Testament law, I don't know exactly what it means. But, I don't think we should worry too much if we can't explain. What is the proof that we are baptized in the Holy Spirit? Acts 1.8, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses. I think it is power, exactly like it says that, to be a witness, not to bear witness, which is with our lips, but to be a witness. I hope you know the difference between being a witness and bearing witness. Bearing witness is like in a court, you speak about what you have seen and heard. Being a witness is your whole life. You shall receive power to be a witness for Jesus Christ. That means your life and your speech will bear witness to Christ in you. And we can't do that without the power of the Holy Spirit. And that is an increasing measure. You know, it is like a light getting brighter and brighter and brighter. The path of the righteous, Proverbs 4.18, is like the sunrise when you are born again. It gets brighter and brighter and brighter until the perfect day. So there will be a growth if you are continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. It is like, to use an illustration of rivers, when we are born again, it is like a cup full of water. As we walk the way of the cross, the cup becomes a bucket. We need to be filled again because a cup can't fill a bucket. We need to be filled again. And as you walk the way of the cross, death to self, the bucket becomes a tub. You need to be filled again. The tub becomes a pond. You need to be filled again. It becomes a river. It needs to be filled again. It becomes many rivers. So you start as a cup and end as many rivers. But if you walk the way of the cross, death to self, your capacity increases and we keep on being more and more filled. If an unbelieving spouse rejects a believer wife, is the wife free to remarry? Are all cases of remarriage a sin? Personally, I would never encourage divorce or remarriage. I would say try and avoid it as far as possible. Definitely. We have never had one single case in our church in 40 years where we have had a person divorcing someone. But partly that's because in Indian culture it's more conservative. It's very rare even among the Hindus. It's a backslidden Christian Western culture that is you know where divorce has become so common. But because of this I don't have had I've not had experience with dealing with divorce and remarriage because you hardly ever come across a case like that. So I don't like to speak much about it. But from Scripture alone I would say I would always discourage people from divorce and remarriage. But people come if a person comes to a church who's already divorced or remarried we have to view the case with compassion. He's probably already suffered much and we don't want to torture him even more. You remember Jesus spoke to a five times divorced Samaritan woman and he never told her to go back to her first husband. He treated her with compassion and each case is different. So I tell people sometimes people write emails to me on this subject and I say I can never deal with this by email. Each case is different. It requires personal counseling and personal advice as to how to deal with it. In a work environment how do I respond to those who constantly take the name of the Lord in vain or swear words? Well as I've already answered that we've just got to be a light and let the light shine. We can't change others. You've got to ignore it. As a children you know people speak evil and I can't do anything about it. If I'm a good friend of theirs I say listen I'd like to avoid using that language but if they're not known to me I don't I'm not here to go around correcting everybody around me. As a children's church teacher how can you best explain principles such as sanctification repentance and justification? I think the best way to do it is by examples. You tell lies to your parents if you've done something wrong you need to feel sorry about it and go and ask forgiveness. By examples sanctification is a progressive growth in holiness. You find your conscience is convicting you when you do something wrong. Children's conscience are very sensitive and listen to it and ask forgiveness. If you've found that you've told a lie go to the person you did who you told a lie to and say I'm sorry. And with examples like that we can say if you do that constantly it's like getting promoted from one class to another class to another class. You study more about mathematics in second grade than you do in the first grade more in the third grade. So say if you keep on obeying God he'll show you more and more of the things that are not like Jesus Christ in you and that is sanctification. Okay, being in a church where the doctrines are all correct though sometimes incomplete but where the elders are satisfied with what they've already received from the Lord how can I change things from inside in both younger and older generations? I'm allowed to preach in my church a couple of times a week. I think you must again let the light shine. I don't believe I can change anybody the Holy Spirit alone can do that. And I believe the way to life is very narrow and very few find it. So even in my own church back home I'm not one of the elders there now. I was an elder there for more than 25 years but now with responsibility for many churches there are other brothers who are responsible. But in the years when I was an elder there I felt that I could do my best to proclaim the narrow way of obedience that leads to life but I found that very few found it. Everybody in our church back home is not walking the narrow way. I don't think there's any church like that in the world where the majority more than 50% I've never seen a church in the world where more than 50% are spiritually minded walking the way of the cross. Somehow maybe it's possible but somehow loneliness and compromise gets in and seems to be you know comes in and the other thing is it was easier in the beginning when we were few but as numbers increase somebody brings his sister along and their husband and somebody's brother and children grow up and gradually the church increases in size. The original people who came were wholehearted but the ones who come in by addition by friendship and relationships they're not necessarily so wholehearted. We can't say go away. Jesus said Him that cometh to me I'll never cast out. So we invite everybody and with the hope that they will change over a period of time. So if somebody's not wholehearted today maybe five years from now they will be. So we don't throw them out because they may go into some dead church and go to hell. So we don't expect that everybody in the church will be wholehearted. It may take time for people to change so we are willing to be patient but we keep proclaiming the narrow way knowing always what Jesus said that very few will actually find it. When someone is baptized in the Holy Spirit does it sign speaking in tongues always evident? No. Speaking in tongues I'll tell you honestly I've spoken in tongues for 40 years almost always in private almost never in public. In the early days of our church we had a little bit of speaking in it open but we followed what Paul said. I speak in tongues more than all of you 1 Corinthians 14 but in the church I would rather speak in a known language. So I speak in tongues in private. To me it's a private love language between me and Jesus Christ my bridegroom. But in public I always speak in English and I use it in private especially when I'm tempted to get discouraged or some pressure comes upon me it's like a release from my heart. It's a gift God gives it's not given to everyone I don't know why but he hasn't given it to everyone. I thank God for it like Paul said. If you go to the CFC website cfcindia.com and look for articles there's an article that I've written there called The Truth About Speaking in Tongues just four pages two A4 sheets and you can read it it will be something more complete in detail on that. Is it important to wash feet when we break bread and drink wine at the Lord's Supper? No. The literal washing of the feet is not what Jesus commanded. What he meant was I have done a dirty job for you right now. You know those days people wore sandals and their feet were dirty. They were not wearing shoes and socks like us. If they were wearing shoes and socks that day I don't think Jesus would have washed their feet because they didn't need to. The reason why there was a bucket of water or a basin of water kept in every house was because everybody wore sandals. I wear sandals most of the time in India and I know how refreshing it is to have your feet washed with water particularly when you walk the village roads and if I'm wearing shoes and socks I don't need that. So what Jesus meant was I've done a needful dirty job for you. It was the job of slaves to wash people's feet. I did it for you and you must be willing to do it for one another. So I say the equivalent of that today is if you're in a church building go and clean the toilets. So I tell people everyone who joins our church must be willing to clean the toilets. If you're not willing to clean the toilets I don't think you're a disciple of Jesus. If there's a needed job if you open a toilet door and you find some child has used it and it's not clean clean it up. That's the spirit of Christ so it's willing to do a dirty job. That's the meaning of it. Should offerings in the church be collected with someone collecting money with a bag and going to each person? We've never done that. In 40 years in over 100 churches that we've planted we've never taken an offering with a bag anywhere. And God has provided all our need. We have built meeting halls no mortgage no loans from a bank no loans from anybody no advertising our need telling our heavenly father and he gives us when we need it. We've had hundreds of conferences never asked anybody for money. People give voluntarily. There's an offering box we keep at the back those who want to contribute to it. That's how we do it in every conference. Those who want to give need not give because God loves a cheerful giver. If he's not interested in looking for it he should not give. So when you stick a bag in front of somebody whether he's cheerful or not he'll have to put something in because other people are watching him. At least he'll have to put an empty hand in and pretend he's giving something. Something or the other. You're producing a hypocrite and someone who's giving reluctantly. So to avoid all that we keep an offering box. Those who want to give, give. We don't know who gives. We don't know who doesn't give. It doesn't matter. And I get some precedent for that in scripture because it says in Mark chapter 12 Jesus sat beside the offering box. Have you read that? And he saw a widow coming and putting in two cents. And I say Jesus sits beside the offering box even today. And he watches how people give. It's your choice. And the reason I don't put a bag is because Jesus when he preached he didn't pass a bag around after preaching. Even before or after preaching. When he healed the sick he didn't pass a bag around either. He didn't do that. And so we don't do it. And we have never done it. And we will never do it until Jesus comes. And we don't even send reports of our work here and there asking for money. We have never done it in 40 years. We are totally unlike 99.9 percent of Indian churches and missions. We don't do it. What are the practical advice for overcoming anger? Well, I'll tell you what it said in the Old Testament. If you are not filled with the Holy Spirit and you don't have control over your tongue, it says in the Old Testament in Psalm 4, this is the basic ABC level, kindergarten level, Psalm 4, verse 4, when you tremble with anger, in the margin it says, my NASB margin it says, when you tremble with anger, Psalm 4, verse 4, don't sin. So what should you do? When you tremble with anger, go and lie down on your bed and meditate there and be quiet for a while. Practical advice. Rush to your bedroom and lie down and meditate on God's goodness to you. That is the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit and put this flesh to death and say, Lord, give me grace to put this thing to death. And to control my tongue, that's the first step, and then eliminate the anger from within. Only Jesus can do that. A good Buddhist or somebody who practices yoga can control the tongue, but only Jesus can remove anger from the heart. That is a real victory. Controlling the tongue is good, it's a sort of second best, but Jesus delivers us from anger in the heart, and they should never be satisfied until anger is gone from the heart, and God can help you. If you are wholehearted, God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. I was a slave to anger, and I decided that I want to get rid of it completely, because Ephesians 4 says, put away all anger from your life. And I took that word seriously. If you take it seriously, and God sees you take it seriously, I guarantee it will go from your life. I don't care how big a giant of Canaan this anger is, it can be brought under our feet. The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet. Jesus sought God a lot in the mornings. When does one find the time in a busy working world? It doesn't have to be in the morning. It can be any time that you take time to spend before the Lord. I remember when we had little babies in the house, my wife never had time in the morning because she was so busy with so many things. Sometimes it was late at night that she could read the word after everyone else was in bed. So it doesn't matter whether it's in the morning, but we must be in touch with the Lord throughout the day. When it says in Isaiah 50 in verse 4, it says, the Lord God has given me the tongue of a disciple. And before giving me the tongue of a disciple, he gave me a year of a disciple. He woke me up morning by morning, Isaiah 50 verse 4, to listen. And when he woke my ear to listen, he didn't get closed after 15 minutes. Some people have what they call a quiet time for half an hour, read the Bible and then go on. I say, I want to have my ear open in the morning. It must stay open throughout the day until I go to bed. Any time, God may speak to me. I want to hear him speaking. I want to hear him speaking when I'm riding in a bus or walking or working somewhere and to respond to whatever God says. And if I do that, God will also give me words to speak to people whom I meet during the day. So it's not just listening in the morning. It's an attitude of listening to God all the time. What is your vision about worship time in a meeting? If you go to YouTube, there are at least 1,000 sermons of mine on YouTube on various subjects. It's all free. You can download it. And if you put my name and a subject, any subject, love, fellowship, sex, anything, you'll get all the messages on that theme there. And one of my messages, you can listen to it, is thanksgiving, praise and worship. And there's another message of mine on a similar theme called four steps to God. The first is prayer, which is asking God for things. The second is thanksgiving, where we thank God for what he's given us and for all the things he's done for us. The third is praise. Praise is praising God for who he is. He's our father. He's almighty. He's loving and appreciating and expressing. What a lot of people call worship is not actually worship. All the songs we sing are usually prayer, praise, thanksgiving, or praise. If you don't believe it, read the words that you sing. Read it sometimes. Take any hymn that you have. Take a hymn book and read it. It's usually prayer, thanksgiving, or praise. So what people call praise and worship has got nothing to do with worship at all. It's a deception. It's praise and thanksgiving. You say, well, what does it matter? What terminology? I'll tell you why it matters. If somebody sells you a motorcycle and says this is a Cadillac car, because you don't know what a Cadillac car looks like, you say, I've got a Cadillac car. Well, it isn't a Cadillac car, that's a motorbike. So terminology does make a difference. And if the devil says, you're worshipped, when you haven't worshipped at all, you just praised God and gave thanks, he's fooled you, he's deprived you of something which you can have. I mean, the same thing if somebody said, I've gifted you a Cadillac car somewhere, please collect it from the store and they give you a motorbike, you're being cheated. Don't let the devil cheat you of worship by calling something worship, which is not worship at all. It's prayer, thanksgiving, praise. And worship is beyond all that, and worship is not necessarily with words. It can be with words, it can be with song, but we read in scripture how people fell down before God in worship. It's the total surrender of everything in our life, in our spirit, before God, and appreciating him and saying to Jesus, in the words of Psalm 73 verse 25, here is a true worshipper who can say to Jesus, Psalm 73 verse 25, Lord Jesus, I desire no one on earth beside you. I desire nothing on earth but you. I'm not interested in house, car, anything. If you give me these things, I'll take it, but they don't mean anything to me. You are everything to me on this earth. You can take away everything else. Job worshipped when God took away his property and his children and everything. God was everything, and if God is everything for you on the earth, then you can honestly say to him, I desire nothing but you on this earth, and when I get to heaven, this is again Psalm 73 verse 25, I'm not interested in mansions or golden streets or gates of pearl. I want you. A person who wants Jesus and Jesus only, who is madly in love with Jesus and does not want anything on earth or in heaven but him, he's a worshipper. Whether he opens his mouth, whether he sings, whether he can't sing a tune properly, doesn't make a difference. He's a far greater worshipper than all those people who sing beautiful songs. Okay, there's more on that in that message I told you. The primary Christians, the Christians were having more prayers, singing, than we have in this conference. See, a conference is not a regular church service. A conference is an intense period of, our conferences anyway, are teaching times. They are not testimony times, they are not singing times. We don't come here to practice singing, we don't come here to teach new songs. I know many conferences, they do that, but I say when we have a limited time for two days, we want to concentrate on the things which are essential. We're not having a church service here. It's not a Sunday meeting. So, therefore, we have, in a church service, you may have an extended time of prayer. You may have more time of singing. But because we feel there's a need in our conferences for teaching of things which Christians have not understood properly, so we concentrate on that in a conference. Just like there are different departments in a hospital that concentrate on certain things, and when you go, if you have a particular need, your problem may be in your kidneys, then you go to a doctor who only deals with the kidneys, but there are many other parts in your body, but right now your need is there. So that's how we concentrate our conference on one particular thing. Isn't it better not to, but is it not better to have some specific time of prayers, not just lots of prayers? How is it in your church? We have times of prayer in our church when we pray. You see, prayer has got two essential requirements, and if you don't have both of these, it's not prayer. It's a ritual. And I've been to a lot of prayer meetings, and it's boring and dead. It's a ritual. People ease their conscience. Oh, I spent an hour in the prayer meeting. It's not It didn't matter. It didn't matter if you could have gone to sleep. It doesn't matter. Prayer requires, it's like a circle. From God, the first half of the circle is God puts a burden in my heart. If you don't have a burden and you pray, it's worthless. And then that burden is expressed to God in faith. So there are two requirements for a good prayer, a burden and faith. Otherwise, I'm just repeating meaningless things. You know, people have a prayer list, and they repeat 100 names like a parrot, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so. Yeah, I pray for all of them. You're only easing your conscience. Nothing has happened. All prayer must come from a burden. Respond to God in faith. That is praying in the Holy Spirit. Praying whatever you feel like. If there's nothing wrong in it, you can pray if you like, but you're only easing your conscience. So a prayer that comes with a burden and faith accomplishes a lot more than long times of prayer, which are not from God. Pray in the Holy Spirit. What is the limit or border for a woman to speak, preach in a church? The Bible says that a woman should not teach in a church or have authority over men. 1 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 12, it says a woman should not, the two things she's not allowed to do, the Holy Spirit says, she should not have authority over men. That means she should not be an elder or a leader or a teacher or a prophet having authority over men. authority and she should not teach and she should not have authority. But the Bible also says in 1 Corinthians 11 that she can prophesy, and prophesying not according to what Pentecostals and Charismatics say, but according to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, where he says New Testament prophecy is not like Old Testament prophecy. Old Testament prophecy was predicting the future. New Testament prophecy, 1 Corinthians 14.3, is speaking to people to encouragement, challenge, building up, and you can do that in two minutes, you can do that in half an hour, you can do it in 45 minutes. It's that which is spoken, and it says both men and women can prophesy. It says there a woman can prophesy with her head veiled, and a man can also prophesy, but a woman cannot be a prophet. Okay, so how do we pray for protection, cover ourselves with the blood of Jesus? There's no such thing as covering ourselves with the blood of Jesus. That is superstition. You know, people say cover me with the blood of Jesus, put the blood of Jesus over me. That was in Egypt when they put blood outside the door. Today, you never read such expressions in the Bible. It's amazing how people pray, Lord, cover me with the blood. No, the blood cleanses me. It never covers me. The blood cleanses me. It's God who protects me, not the blood. If my heart is cleansed, if my heart is right with God, the Holy Spirit fills me, that is my protection against Satan and everything else, and my faith that Satan was defeated on the cross. In what circumstances should someone be put out of the church? Now, this is an answer only for elders to decide. You need a lot of discernment, and where a person, usually a person persists in sin. In Matthew 18, Jesus said, if a person sins, go and speak to him alone. And if he doesn't listen to you, take two or three others, maybe the elders of the church, speak to him. He doesn't even listen to them. Then, tell it to the church and put him out. So, it's not just straight away. God will give wisdom to the elders. It's usually a type of sin which is dishonoring the Lord, and the person persists in it. If you come out of the old covenant, doesn't it mean you remove the Ten Commandments as well? People haven't understood. If I've removed lusting after women from my heart, I don't need a commandment which says don't commit adultery. I'll never commit adultery. If it's removed inside, the outside goes. If I've removed hatred from my heart, I don't need a commandment which says don't murder. Jesus said, if you don't commit adultery, Jesus raised the standard in the Sermon on the Mount and said that which is outward in the Ten Commandments now must become inward. So, it's something like this. The law was like a tube of ointment. You got a sore here, this tube of ointment called the law. It would protect you from this and protect you from that. But then the sore would come somewhere else. You always had to have this tube of ointment because that's the only way to prevent these sores from coming up. You have a society where there's no mercy. There's no murder, no adultery. Nothing comes up because you have this law that immediately cuts off somebody who commits murder or adultery. That was the second best method. But then somebody discovers an antibiotic and the doctor says, you don't need this tube of ointment anymore. You take the antibiotic and the root of the problem is hit inside. Then these sores don't come up. So, that's what happened in the Sermon on the Mount when God gives us the Holy Spirit inside. The Ten Commandments are obeyed from within and then they will automatically be obeyed outside. Jesus said, make the inside clean, the outside will automatically be clean. Can you give us a verse which says the Old Covenant was completely replaced? Yes, Hebrews Chapter 8. It says, the first seven, the first commandment had been faultless. There had been no occasion for the second. You read Hebrews 8 in verse 7 to 13. It says, when he said a new covenant the first has been made obsolete. Do you know the meaning of obsolete? Hebrews 8.13 it's finished. Hebrews 8 is the great passage that shows the Old Covenant is abolished and explains what the new covenant is. In Hebrews 8 verse 7 to 13. That were never, should be, if you say, I know a Bible scholar who says that there are things in the Old Covenant that were never replaced and should continue today as well. The Old Covenant, there was a moral law, which is ten commandments, and a ceremonial law. There were 613 commandments in the Old Testament. The ten that you know is just the moral law. There were many other commandments which are ceremonial law. So I don't know what he's talking about. It doesn't mean we have abolished the Old Testament. The Old Testament is 39 books of the Bible. I don't even call them Old Testament. I mean, for namesake we use that, but there's no place in the Bible which says this is the beginning of the Old Testament. Man has put that title Old Testament. There's a difference between 39 books of the Bible and Old Covenant. We are talking about the agreement that God made with Israel on Sinai. That is the thing that's been abolished. The 39 books of the Old Testament are not abolished. I read them all the time. The whole Bible is 66 books. I read all of it. I learn a lot from the mistakes of Israel. But the agreement that God made with Moses through Israel, I'm not an Israelite. It's not for me. The Sabbath is not for me. The Ten Commandments are not for me. I have the Sermon on the Mount which is a much deeper level. I've got the antibiotic. I don't need the ointment. It's at a deeper level. What happened to the people that died before Jesus came, who hadn't heard? God judges them righteously. What happened to the 185,000? The angel killed. Where did they go? It's appointed unto men once to die. After this, the judgment. God takes care of that. Whether they died before Jesus or after Jesus. The only difference is none of us saw Jesus dying. Through the sacrifices they look forward to the day when Christ would die. We look backward to the day when Christ died. But God is the one who judges. For those who did not know anything about the law or about the whole lot of people like that in the world, you take your time to read Romans chapter 2 and verse 14 to 16. It says there how God will judge people who have never heard the gospel. Why does it say take heed to cover the head because of the angels? What difference does it make in the spiritual world? That's a verse in 1 Corinthians 11 about wailing the head. It's a difficult verse to interpret and I don't want to be dogmatic on it. But you know a woman wailing her head is a sign of submission to an authority, to an elder in a church or to a husband at home. And probably it's saying remember how the angels fell. The angels fell by lack of submission to authority. Lucifer became the devil because he didn't submit to authority. So submission to authority is an important thing. It could mean that. Is faith a law left by God on earth? Or is there like a gravitational law? Is it only applying in the Christian context? I've heard a certain pastor saying it's a law that people haven't discovered yet. Faith is not a law or anything like that. I mean it speaks about the law of faith but the principle is faith is very simple. I told you the other day grace is God offering me something from God offering me something from God offering me something from God something from God offering me something from God offering me from God offering something from God offering something from God offering me something God offering me something from offering God offering me something something from offering from God offering me something from God offering me me something from God offering me something from God offering me something offering me something from God God offering me something from something from God God me something from God offering me from God offering me something offering me from God offering me something from God offering me something from from God offering from God offering something from God offering me something from God offering me from something from God something from offering something from God offering something from offering me something from God offering me something from offering from from God offering something all all need this from cash from cash from from home from I know charismatics use the word strongholds and things like that. Don't get deceived by all that. You know sometimes we put the blame on the devil when the problem is your own flesh. You need to crucify the flesh but cast out the demon. A truly born again believer can never have a demon. You don't need to cast out anything. But if they're not really born again, and unfortunately a lot of people who think they're born again were not, they could have demons, sure. But it's very easy to discern it. You ask a person to confess from their spirit that Jesus Christ is Lord, that Jesus Christ is, came in the flesh, and Jesus Christ overcame sin and defeated Satan on the cross, and if he can say from his heart, Satan, I don't belong to you, you're defeated on the cross and Jesus Christ is my Lord, a person who can confess that from the heart is not possessed of a demon. No, a demon possessed person cannot say that. I remember once I told a lady who was brought to me for prayer, say to the devil, you were defeated on the cross, and she changed her face and said, I was not defeated on the cross. That was a demon inside of her. I told the demon, you're a liar, you were defeated on the cross, get out of her right now in Jesus' name. The demon left. No demon can stay. If your conscience is clear, you're walking in the light, you tell a demon to get out in Jesus' name, it cannot stay there for one second. Then I told her, tell the devil now, Jesus Christ is my Lord, you were defeated on the cross, and she said it immediately. So demons can need to be cast out, but the flesh needs to be crucified, and don't blame the devil for things which you have indulged in for years. Ask God to deliver you in the power of the Holy Spirit. It will take time to be delivered, but it can be. How do we manage money in the church? It needs faithful people who are very wise in using it for the glory of God, and need to be free from any selfishness there. That's a very big question, how do you manage in the church? Everything must be done for the glory of God. I see I'm not as diligent as others. How can I change to start with? Well, I would say begin by reading the scriptures. Discipline yourself to read the scriptures, and look at the life of Jesus, how hard he worked in his life, sometimes without sleep, etc. To look at Jesus is the greatest challenge, to be a wholehearted disciple. If a good job or money cannot be called the blessings of God, how should we call them? We can call them the bonus that God threw in, because I sought God's kingdom first. That's what he said. Seek God's kingdom first, and these other things are thrown in as a blessing. They're not the main things, I'm not saying they're not good, but I'm saying the primary blessing of God is not a good job or money. The primary blessing of God is that he makes you a little more like Jesus Christ, year by year. If you ever change that focus into job and money, I can tell you, you'll go astray. When someone is born again, can this person go back and turn away from God and go back to old habits? Definitely. I think Judas Iscariot was a person who sincerely turned to the Lord and turned away from it, and I also met many people who turned to God. I'll tell you why. Because God doesn't force anyone. If God says, once you're converted, sorry, you've become a robot now, you cannot change for the rest of your life, you have to follow me, then it's not cheerful giving. God loves a cheerful giver. Yesterday you said the need is not the call, it's better to ask God where to go from. Do I know what God wants me to do or where he wants me to go? Yes. As you walk with the Lord, you can become more and more sensitive to God's voice and he will show you. Because if the need is the call, then none of us should be sitting here. We should all be in Africa or one of the jungles of Africa, or you're wasting your time in England if the need is the call. None of us should be here. The need is not the call. I've seen numerous missionaries, I'm from India, numerous missionaries who have come to India who never were called by God, defeated by sin and not leading people to godliness. I sometimes look at them and say, why in the world did you cross an ocean and come here to spoil people here? You should have stayed back in your own home country. And so, it's because God never called them, they just had a sort of earthly type of human challenge. Is it okay to fast for earthly causes? There's a difference in the Old Covenant fasting. See, there's nothing wrong in praying for earthly things. Give us this day our daily food. It's for an earthly thing, and that includes food, clothing, shelter, Lord, help me to get my children educated so that they get their daily food one day, so that they don't become beggars. It's perfectly alright to fast for, for example, if your children are sick, there's nothing wrong in spending a little time fasting and praying and asking God. God is interested in our earthly things, don't think it's only spiritual things. Man is spirit, soul, and body, God's interested in all of them. Is it up to God or up to us how many children we have? Well, I think God has given us a mind, wisdom, and we need to ask ourselves, how many can I afford? It's like renting a house. You don't say, Lord, you decide how much money you can spend in renting a house or building a house. Lord, I can only afford so much, then I'll rent a house of this size. Lord, I can only afford so much, so I can only take care of so many children. And in India, you've got to pay for the education of children, you've got to pay for hospitalization, and money is such an important factor. It's not all free medical treatment like here. So I say, you've got to see how much you can take care of. I've seen a lot of people in the slums in India, where they have so many children and they don't care for them, they don't educate them, the children wander on the streets and get run over by trucks and they go and eat from the garbage bins. I say, I don't want children brought up like that. Then take care of, use your common sense and see how much you can handle. Okay, last question. What advice can you give in regards to local churches you recommend? Our family have been attending a CFC-related church for three years, yet we find a difference in the life of the church in contrast to your messages and your conviction in certain things, which we agree, we have a concern that local churches are trying to imitate and lack the life. See, any new church is struggling, and you can look at a little child crawling up and not even expressing English words properly or writing the alphabet properly and you can criticize it. I say, you can't write the alphabet, you can't even speak words properly, and the poor child is only two years old, and you criticize it, you're the fool, not that child. There's a growth, and just like in Christians there's a growth, in churches also there's a growth, and you cannot compare one church with a mature church, just like you can't compare a two-year-old with a forty-year-old. So you must go to the church which you feel most happy with and which you feel is closest to the word of God, but I would also say, if you go to a church to criticize what you find there, you will never be happy in any church, that I can guarantee. You'll be a miserable old person when you die. So the best is, you say, Lord, I'm an imperfect person, help me to find a place where I can grow. Have you heard of the man who asked a man of God, have you found a perfect church, can you tell me where I can join? He said, well, I've been a believer for fifty years, I've never seen a perfect church, but if you find one, don't join it, because the moment you join it, it will become imperfect. Okay, we'll pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this time. Please help us to understand your way and to walk in that way. We humbly ask in Jesus' name, Amen.