Before It's Too Late

This world laughs in your face at the beginning but then makes fun of you at the end. At the beginning it welcomes you and says, come my friend, you need to enjoy life, you deserve it, you're so good, you're so beautiful, you're so handsome, don't ever listen to no one else but yourself. And this is the 21st century that we live in.

The 21st century world says to you, all you need to care of and think of is you, no one else. Think about yourself, live for yourself. And this is where psychology fails.

Yes, psychology is good to somewhat degree, but then if you don't use the Christian basis and incorporate it with psychology, you'll end up teaching the person to be selfish. Because how will you come out of this depressing moment? Think of yourself only. Looks like you've been thinking of others, you have deprived yourself from so many good things, you spend all your time for others and you gave yourself nothing.

From now on think of no one but you. It's dangerous if we focus on it always, that is against the Lord. So now what do we need to do? I need to come and think for a moment.

Okay, I'm going to go and have fun, I'm going to dress the way I want, I'm going to dance the way I want, I'm going to talk the way I want, I'm going to choose people the way I want, I'm going to live the way I want, I'm going to go and come the way I want. But at the end where are you going to end up? The world at the beginning makes it honey, at the end nothing but poison. I went and I had fun and then I ended up being enslaved to the very things that I chased initially.

I went as an innocent young man or woman out of the house into the club. The first time was a shock, a culture shock, the language different, the environment different, everything different. But after going you know the hundredth time there I became part of it, I mastered it.

And before I realized I became a drug addict, alcoholic with a lot of men, with a lot of women, destroyed my life. And the end of this journey when we chase the world, the end of the road is the grave. The world laughs into your face and makes it beautiful in order to lie to you and laugh at you at the end and bury you.

I beg you my son, don't go to the club, don't go to have fun in a worldly ideology. Don't because you are destroying your life 100 percent, 100 percent you're destroying your life. The world is nothing but a deception, the end is death.

So what was all this about since the world gave me death? All one big lie. I became a king and then I died, big deal. I became the president of the most powerful nation in the world and then I died, big deal.

I was Caesar, Augustus Caesar. Where are you? Rotten, gone with the wind, big deal. This is the world.

I was a Hollywood celebrity, I became famous, I became so rich and then I died. Saint Simon, the patron saint of this church, he was beheaded in the fourth century, over 1600 years ago. The church is named after him.

Why? Because he never died. He who has the son Jesus Christ of Nazareth has eternal life. After 1600 odd years, we still remember Saint Simon, the patriarch of the church of the east.

Who gives one penny about Caiaphas? Who gives one penny about Pontius Pilate? Who gives one penny about Augustus Caesar? Who gives one penny about all the empires that came to this world? Gone. Christ is the living Messiah. People still coming and receiving Jesus Christ as their Lord and God in the 21st century.

Over 2000 years, he's still kicking and so powerfully, and so powerfully. From all over the world are receiving Jesus as their Lord and God. Why? Because he is the living Messiah.

He's the living Messiah. But since you're living in the world, take Christ with you. Don't leave Christ behind.

You are living in the world, not for the world. You're living in the world, not for the world. So take Christ with you.

And when you take Christ with you, Christ is not going to go to places that are wrong. Christ will not go to places that are wrong. Let Christ teach you.

Let Christ show you the way. Let Christ be the good shepherd because he is and there is no one else but him. Let him lead your steps to green pastures and still waters.

Let the Lord show you the way for he is the way, the truth and the life. Don't be deceived in chasing this vanity of all vanities. Don't chase the world.

And the entire focus of your life is just this world and what it offers to you. Because everything the world offers to you and me, at the end, it was never mine. It will never be mine because death will take everything away from me and you.

Everything. Whatever you worked for, whatever you achieved will be gone when death comes, takes the spirit out of the body. Everything will be gone.

So now how should we start thinking a fresh thing, a fresh thought? Lord, this house that I live in, even though you worked hard to build it, you worked hard to buy it, but the house is yours, Lord. It is not mine. This car, which I just got brand new from the car dealer, the car is yours, Lord.

I'm just your chauffeur. I'm the driver. I'm not the owner.

The money in the bank account, they're all yours, Lord. And since they are his, by the way, that he is free to do with his own possessions, why are you standing in his way? When the Lord comes and says, give a million dollars to the poor, you get a heart attack. Why do you get a heart attack? Because the money is still yours, not the Lord's.

If it was the Lord's truly, you would be more than happy to give it. But since it's mine, I'm not going to give a million dollars of my own money. No way in the world, all the poor people can go to hell.

I don't care. But if it's the Lord's, you'll give it. Oh, you're not going to give it, but he's using you to do his work, to finish his job.

So now the Lord comes and says, Bishop Murray, I want you to go over there. I'll say, I'm tired, Lord. I don't feel like going.

I'm too tired. Let's say, hang on. Didn't you say, Lord, you're my king.

You're my God. Yes, I did, Lord. Well, you're my property, aren't you? Yes, Lord, I am, I guess.

What do you guess? You better believe it. Yes, yes, I confess, Lord. I'm your property.

Then I'm free to do whatever I want to do with my property. So now get up and go, even if you're tired. When are we going to really wake up and think once in our life that I don't own myself, neither myself, nor anything else, or anyone else.

Everything is the Lord's. Why are you acting as if you're the owner? You're a steward. You've been given this to look after till he calls you home.

It's not yours. It's the Lord's. So to all church leaders, the church is not yours, nor anything else.

It is all the Lord's. Have you asked the Lord before you made that decision? Have you prayed, dear church leader, before you took that step forth? What if the Lord is not happy about it? Are you going to say, well, the Lord put me here and he gave me the keys so I can tie and loosen whenever I want? No. Whenever the Lord wants, not you.

Even though he put you there, even though he gave you the keys, and even he said, when you tie it, it's tied in heaven, and when you loosen it on earth, it's loosened in heaven. But my way, leader, not your way, my way. I'm not absent.

I'm the ever-present God. And I'm the only truthful owner of the church. I'm the head, remember? And there's only one head to the body.

All of you are the body. You are the church, and the church is the body. But there is one head to this body, and his name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

So the church leader is not the head. He's the body. Placed as a leader by grace, not by merits.

By grace, not by merits. The one who is the head by merits, by law, is Christ. We're all sinners.

He's the only one who is sinless. So my beloved, do not be deceived by the world.