the hard words of Jesus. Therefore, many of his disciples, when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying. Who can understand it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples complained about this, He said to them, does this offend you? What then, if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to are Spirit and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe. Now here in John 6, 60-64, our Lord Jesus speaking to His followers. And he's saying, and the suggestion is even amongst his disciples themselves. There are some who don't believe him. Of course we know there was Judas as one, but there were others too. Many took offense at the teachings of Jesus. They refused to listen to his explanations and they were unwilling to accept his teachings. The Lord challenged them that if they were grumbling at his hard teaching, what would their response be to the scandal of the crucifixion and the offense of the ascension? Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. What is the cross for? It's an instrument of death. How can we be born again if we don't first die to the world? to the flesh, to sin and to self. Are the words of Christ too hard for you? He who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides in him. Now, sometimes people want to give a gospel presentation in the sense of, you're missing out. You're missing out on all the fun and the fulfillment, and there's a God-shaped vacuum in your heart, and you need Jesus, and He's going to fulfill you. And there's an element to that that's true. But that's not the way the Lord presented the gospel. He was calling people to repentance, and it's not that if you reject Christ, you're in danger of the wrath of God maybe coming upon you. The wrath of God abides over those who are in rebellion to God already. It's like the sword of Damocles hanging over their neck now. as was so well described in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, one of the most famous and effective sermons in history by Jonathan Edwards, as he described us as walking on an unstable floor that can break at any moment, like a spider hung over the fire, and he gave all kinds of descriptions of the instability of the sinner. In fact, his text was taken from there, foot shall slip in due time. Are you offended? Jesus said, I know your works. I know that you are neither hot nor cold. But because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Now you may say, my translation does not say vomit. It says spew. Yes, but in the Greek it is vomit, but that just seems so offensive that the Lord would say to you, I will vomit you out of my mouth, that many translations have softened it by putting in, I will spew you out of my mouth, which basically, let's face it, is about the same thing, but it's just a less offensive term. What the Lord is saying is, lukewarm Christians make them sick, Is his word too sharp for your sensibilities? And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Not he won't be a good disciple, he cannot even be my disciple. J.C. Ryle said, there is a common worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, a cheap Christianity, which offends nobody and requires no sacrifice, which costs nothing and is worth nothing. Professor Martin Luther said, a religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing. Leonard Ravenel, the great revival preacher said, if Jesus had preached the same message that ministers preach today, he'd never been crucified. God loves you in his wonderful plan for your life. Come to Jesus. He's going to solve all your problems. Just believe. Just pray this prayer. Just raise your hand. It's easy to be a Christian. Who's going to persecute you for that kind of message? I mean, a lot of the common namby-pamby, wishy-washy kind of weedy Christianity offered out there, that doesn't give persecution. That's not going to offend anyone. If Jesus had preached the same message most of the ministers today preach, they'd never have crucified him. Do you feel insulted? Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. It does not matter what you say. It does not matter what I say. It does not matter what they say. It matters what the Bible says. It is better to be divided by truth than united in sin. It is better to speak the truth that hurts than falsehoods that comfort. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than light for telling a lie. It is better to stand alone with truth than to be wrong with a multitude. Are His commandments too burdensome? He who is not with me, Jesus said, is against me. He does not gather with me, scatters abroad. Is Christ first in your life? Then Jesus said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, Let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. This is straightforward, but the implications are colossal. This is daily taking up the instrument of dying to self. Following Christ, not following a minister, not following some famous Christian, following the Lord. Saying no to ourself. That's not the same thing as, if it feels good, do it. follow your heart. I mean, it's exactly the opposite of the gospel according to Disney and Hollywood. Are you conflicted? For whoever desires to save his own life will lose it, but whoever loses life for my sake will save it, for like eternal, Jesus said. Will you also turn away? Many of his disciples in Region John 6 turned away and would not follow him anymore. Jesus said, for what profit is it to man if he gains the whole world, but if he loses his own soul, if he himself is destroyed or lost? There is a documentary put together by Fight the Good Fight Ministries, I think it is, on the amount of people who've made it big time in Hollywood, in singing, in music, and in showbiz. who have said how they basically, they don't know where the inspiration comes from, how it's just sort of like they get possessed, something takes them over, and some of the greatest names in showbiz, and they show these people talking, talk shows and so on, about how some of them made literally a pact with Satan, if they would give their soul to Satan, he'd make them successful. successful and all world famous and all that sort of thing. Others speak about how, you know, they were just open to something and they felt like this force from the outside come and take over them. And basically they document how many of the greatest entertainers and musicians and stars in the world today are actually by their own testament demon possessed. They made a pact. And they might gain the whole world in terms of popularity, acclaim, fortune, But what's it worth if they lose their soul? How many Hollywood greats have died of suicide? It's beyond staggering. How many have died of drug overdoses? I mean, I couldn't help thinking a while ago that we're carrying on about this one super great hero of Hollywood who had died of a drug overdose while his children were playing in a park across the road. And I kept talking about how intelligent he was, and I have to write an article saying, how intelligent can you be if you die of a drug overdose and ignore your own children? It's just, no, I don't think people like that are clever at all. Not in the sense of common sense, anyway. Not in the sense of wisdom. It's the fear of the Lord that's the beginning of wisdom. Will you also fall away? Jesus said, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and in his father's and of the holy angels. Would you prefer light teachings? Do you prefer non-threatening, non-confrontational, comforting and comfortable words? Your best life now. Do you know the only way you can have your best life now is if you're unsaved? For a Christian, this is not your best life now. For a pagan, who's down to eternity in hell, this is his best life now. It's not going to get any better. So your best life now only applies if you're unsafe, unregenerate, reprobate, who's going to spend eternity in hell. This could be your best life now. But for a Christian, this could never be your best life now. so-called Christian writers, with a small c inverted commas and italics, how could so-called Christian writers speak about your best life now? Do you prefer the sinner-friendly, Willow Creek, Saddleback, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Prayer of Jabbers, Emerging Church, Compromising, Cowardly, Cheap Grace and Easy Believerism? You know, just think of the Prayer of Jabbers. Travers was a great person, but it says he was more noble than his brothers. But, you know, here they try to suggest that the prayer he prayed, the words he prayed, is the magic key. I mean, like Agricadabra. And suddenly, this obscure verse becomes part of a massive worldwide cult. And, you know, the prayer of Jabba's might have been a fair sermon, but to turn it into a cult, I walked into one American bookshop and counted 50-something different items to go with the prayer of Jabba's. Prayer of Jabba's doormats, prayer of Jabba's wall hangings, prayer of Jabba's pots, prayer of Jabba's pens, erasers. Prayer of Jabbers for teens, Prayer of Jabbers for children, Prayer of Jabbers for women, Prayer of Jabbers for men. There was just no end of trivial rubbish associated with Prayer of Jabbers. I mean, what a cult it became. And Prayer of Jabbers was actually perfect for a worldly, sensational, superficial, materialistic church. Just a self-centered, materialistic message for a shallow, superficial church. And no wonder Prayer of Jabbers was so popular with the world. I was trying to witness to somebody on an aircraft who was not interested in the Gospel. But then, later on, he pulled out his Prairie of Javits book and I started interacting with him. I mean, you could see he wasn't interested in the Gospel, but boy, was he thrilled in the Prairie of Javits. And that's not unusual. General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, said the chief danger that confronts the coming century, now he's talking about the 20th century coming, because he's writing in the 19th century, will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God in heaven, without hell. How did he see that coming over 100 years ago? Isn't that incredible? About 120 years ago. That's what you've got? We've got Christianity without Christ. You get forgiveness without repentance. You get salvation without being born again. It's wicked. Charles Spurgeon said, it is of no use for any of you to try to be soul winners if you're not bearing fruit in your own lives. How can you serve the Lord with your lips if you don't serve him with your lives? How can you preach his gospel with your tongues when your hands, your feet, and your heart, you're preaching the devil's gospel and setting up an antichrist in your heart by impractical unholiness? Now, that's the kind of person who wouldn't be terribly popular today. Because that's not the kind of message the average person wants to hear. Most people want to hear health, wealth and prosperity. Name it and claim it. Grab it and grab it. Jesus said, It is impossible that no offences should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! It would be better for him if a millstone was hung around his neck, and he was cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourself. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. Do you prefer to be entertained rather than educated? Would you rather be comforted than confronted? Would you rather be encouraged than edified? Would you prefer to be flattered rather than rebuked by God's word? We have a choice between the easy words of the world. You're a good person. Follow your heart. It's not a nice easy word, but it feels good to do it. These are the easy words of the world, or the hard words of Christ. Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me, forsake the world. I mean, the words of Jesus are hard words. There are many offering you easy believism, but the Lord Jesus Christ demands sacrificial discipleship. Many pastors offering a cheap grace, just believe, just pray this prayer, just raise your hand, but Jesus demands full surrender to Christ. Francis Schaeffer said, Christians have largely shut up their spirituality into a small corner of life, Sunday church or the Bible studies, instead of realizing that the lordship of Christ is to permeate the whole spectrum of life. They've coasted along complacently, often serving up such doctrines as You can't mix religion with politics. You cannot legislate your morality, they say. We need to just pray and witness to people. When they really mean us, we don't want to be disturbed. We don't want anything to upset our comfort and affluence. You have to take up your cross. You have to deny yourself. You need to forsake the world and follow Christ. But would you prefer to be with a crowd, a mob, the herd? Jesus said, and I say to you, do not be afraid of those who can kill the body, and after that, there's no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear, Jesus. Fear God who can destroy both your body and your soul. That is the one we should fear. Fear God and skip the rest. The fear of God is liberating. Do you fear God? The word of God commands us, do not be afraid of any man. We are warned that the fear of man will prove to be a snare. You know what a snare is? These horrible traps, they're so bad that some animals caught in traps will bite their legs off in order to escape from the snare. Imagine how bad that must be. The fear of man is like a snare. The scriptures tell us of those who would not say anything about Jesus publicly for fear of the people. Even amongst the rulers, many believed in Jesus, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess Him, lest they be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Compromise and cowardice hurt everyone concerned. cowardice is destructive and short-sighted. In Revelation 21, cowardice is at the top of God's list of those who will be condemned by God for all eternity. When he speaks of the eight categories of people he'll throw into the lake of fire, cowards are the first, top of the list. There's a lot of cowardice in the church. Thrown into the lake of fire. Now how short-sighted? They were afraid of the hot displeasure of some people. So they fear people instead of God, but they'll be thrown to the lake of powerful alternative. How short-sighted is that cowardice? What are we afraid about? I mean, let's be honest, let's name, what are we afraid about? We're afraid of disapproval. We're afraid of being unpopular. There's fear of being misunderstood and being lied about. We're afraid of failure. We're afraid of suffering, of pain and death. We're afraid of loss and sacrifice. And all of this can all too easily lead us to stay seated when we should stand up, or to stand still when we should step out in faith, to remain silent when we should speak up, to remain passive and inactive when we should be fighting for what is right. Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Proverbs 27.5 really speaks to us today. Many times we don't want to hurt our friends, but sometimes something needs to be said. But then, good, and a real friend will tell you what's unpopular and might make you angry and might jeopardize your friendship. But a fake friend will just want to let you, you know, I don't want to offend him. And meanwhile you're heading towards disaster. It would have been better if they'd spoken up. The kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Just think of Judas. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the determination to do our duty in spite of our fear. John Wayne put it well, he said, Courage is being afraid but saddling up anyway. Some rational, God-given sense of caution can protect us and our loved ones and can prolong life. But if fear paralyzes us into inactivity and neutrality and passivity and compromise, defeat and disobedience, then it's evil. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a silent mind. Would you rather follow the herd? Would you rather go with the majority? Even a dead fish can float downstream. I've been to New York, upstate New York, and seen a steel-headed trout swimming upstream and jumping up the waterfalls, falling back multiple times. But considering they are going to have their baby fish born upstream where they were, and they swim upstream, just jump up waterfalls, going against the flow, that is seriously hard. Better to be a steel-headed trout than to be a dead fish floating downstream. Who are you seeking to please? We can be men-pleasers, we can be God-pleasers, but we cannot be both at the same time. Martin Luther said, always preach in such a way that if people listening to you do not come to hate their sin, they will come to hate you. Do you wonder why some people hate you? I hope it's because you've been faithful to the Word of God. There's no reward for being hated for self-righteousness sake, but if we hate it for being faithful to the Lord, so be it. We live in comfortable homes. We travel in comfortable cars, well, mostly. We travel to air-conditioned shopping malls and to comfortable churches to hear comfortable messages. We have a choice to be popular with the world or to be faithful to God's Word. That is a choice. You can seek the approval of men or the approval of God. Who is the best teacher? When I was first off, my mind was racing, and a person said, if you've been in the army, then you'll probably say your best teacher was your sergeant major. And immediately I recognized that's true. Yes, your best teacher is not the one who just praises you and is satisfied with your first attempt. The best teacher or the best coach is the one who pushes you and stretches you to do better, not accepting your second best. In the army, we were pushed. We were taken out of our comfort zone. We had to go further. We had to keep going longer. We had to just go way beyond what anyone thought was possible. And that's the best teacher. They taught us we could do more than we thought we could do. We could last longer than we thought we could manage. We could go out of our comfort zone. We could go higher. We could go further. We could go longer. We could work together as a team. This is part of teamwork in the old South African Army. Every morning, everything had to be super clean, organised, neat, polished. We never stepped on the floor of our bungalow after the first few days. We always used taxis, dusters. We would be shuffling up and down, repolishing. You wouldn't put your boots on the floor. In fact, I didn't sleep in my bed, but maybe Three months out of my two years in the army, I slept in a bed. Most of the time I slept inside a bed or in a bush, in a sleeping bag. But after you've made a perfect bed, why would you waste that by sleeping on it? And we were taught everything from how to iron, sew, clean, kits inspection, organized, how to fear God, always trust God, let us read and pray. how to march straight in unison to be team players, and how to just overcome your fears, which is like leaping out into the thin air, very thin air. And it's great. And it all had a purpose. Sometimes we thought it was just because Saltimage was mean, and he just liked to make their life miserable. But when we got in the field, we discovered actually it was to save our lives, and to enable us to save the lives of people next to us. The best teacher is the one who demands more, and enables you to achieve above and beyond anything you thought possible. What man is a man who does not make the world a better place? Ah, all too many people are willing to just be mouths and consumers, but they're not contributors and builders and people who are visionaries who make the world better than they found it. Our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked the religious hypocrites and he drove the corrupt Jewish moneylenders out of the temple with a whip. Where's this gentle Jesus, meek and mild, that we sing about? He wasn't gentle, he wasn't meek, and he certainly wasn't mild. The Lord Jesus was out there, making a stand, and everything he said was shocking to the people of his day. Jesus declared, I tell you no, but unless you repent, your whole life was perished. People had come to him with a natural disaster and a man-made disaster, and the Lord refers to these as Do you think they were worse sinners than you because these things fell on them? I'll tell you no, but unless you repent, your life was perished. When I've written articles on, for example, the tsunami that hit Japan and on the hurricane that hit New Orleans, and on the fires and storms that hit Cape Town last year, and I've applied Deuteronomy 28, the blessings of obedience, the curse of disobedience, and Leviticus 26, and Jeremiah 18, and other key passages, 2 Chronicles 7, 14, it's content. I've had a lot of people getting angry, and I've heard ministers of the gospel saying, no, our God doesn't judge anyone. Our God doesn't judge anyone. Who's the eternal judge? The UN? I mean, really? There are Christians out there saying, our God doesn't judge anyone, or even my God judges no one. When I was writing Bible Nutshell for Christian Magazine, I had one of the sub-editors say to me, why should I ask why the verse had been taken out? I always chose a key verse to summarize each book of the Bible. And if you go back, you'll see that they left out the verse for numbers, because the key verses Be sure your sin will find you out. And she said to me, that's not the God I worship. It's the God in the Bible. She said, but God doesn't judge anyone. I said, well, the whole message of Numbers is He does. Even the sons of Aaron struck dead, incinerated, because they brought false fire, strange fire to the altar of the Lord in the tabernacle. And it didn't matter what I said. That's not the God they preach in my church, and so on and so forth. Well, maybe not, but it's the God of the Bible. There's only one God, and that's the God of the Bible, the one who's revealed himself in Christ. But we've got so many people today who are now more committed to egalitarianism and the secular humanist New World Order than are to the scriptures of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are a lot of Christians today who will fall over themselves to remake God in their own image. Jesus commanded you to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then all these things will be added unto you. Notice the emphasis. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Not, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you, which is the emphasis today. Jesus presents us with a clear choice between the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow way which leads to life. Jesus taught you either building upon the sound of humanism, human effort, or you're building upon the rock of God's Word. We're either foolish or we're wise. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Would you rather be amused than challenged to think critically? Would you rather be ears tickled with what you're itching to hear, or hear the hard and sharp words of our Lord Jesus Christ? People pleasers make traitors. You wonder why I've got this character's picture here? Well, here's the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches at one time. That just believe, just raise your hand, it's easy to be a Christian. Cheap grace and easy believism is producing shallow, superficial, self-centered, weak, wet, wimps, weeds, false converts who are easily offended at the hard words of Jesus. The church got packed with them, false brethren, false converts. Charles Burgin warned us that the time will come that instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats. And now many churches are busy trying to teach goats how to make sheep noises. We're a million, billion miles from New Testament Christianity, said Leonel Draven. conference platform with him in Netherlands last October with his son, David Ravenel. He's a missionary in Papua New Guinea. And I do believe his father's dead right. If you read the Bible and you look at contemporary Christianity, you think, what do these things have in common? I mean, this is just unbelievable. So much of what's being done in average churches today, especially the popular megachurches, is exactly what Christ condemned and warned us against. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, Jesus said, and not do the things I say? But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will have to give an account of it on the Day of Judgment." That is a terrifying I would not like to give an account for everything I've said after. I've spoken a lot of things I wish I could take back. The Lord says that we are going to have to give an account of all of it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done to the body according to what he's done, whether good or bad. The world is constantly bullying us to conform. Everybody's doing it. God's word commands us to be transformed. Don't be conformed to the world. Be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Notice, not the removal of your minds. Renewing. The world tells us to be greedy. God commands us to be grateful. The world wants us to be selfish. But we command to be generous. The world tells us take and hoard. Look after number one. The Bible tells us to give and to share. The world encourages indulgence. If it feels good, do it. God commands us to sacrifice. The world tells us to be self-centered. The new trinity is me, myself, and I. That's the new trinity. But we need to be Christ-centered, not self-centered. The spirit of this age is materialism. Give me, give me, give me. I mean, how many people around Christmas come up and say, what do you have for me? Where's my Christmas? What do you mean, where's your Christmas? Do you have any idea what Christmas is about? Give me my Christmas. Christmas is time to give, not to take and demand and be greedy. Yuck! We are to be spiritually minded, living in the light of eternity. The world tells us to love things and use people. The Lord commands us to love God's creatures and to use things. This is a man who risked his life to rescue a drowning bear. Now how cool is that? No, here's a veterinary surgeon who had tranquilized the bear, and the bear, tranquilized, wandered into the water before he, and so he had to get in there and rescue the bear before the bear drowned. To rescue a bear, that's, and he succeeded. We can bow before the idols of fame and fortune, or we can refuse to bow to any idols. We can revere political sports idols, or we can fear God alone. We can choose to justify ourselves. I'm a good person. It's not my fault. How many times have you heard that? Or we can confess our sins and forsake our sins. The world tells us take revenge. God commands us to make restitution. The world, and by the way restitution is not what politicians talk about. Restitution in the Bible is done by the criminal directly to the victim. It's not some scam for some politicians to get super rich, where people who didn't do the crime do restitution to people who weren't the victims. That's just a scam. Restitution. Biblical restitution. The world encourages boasting. I mean, how many American movies have you heard there? You're the best. The very best. They're not just good. They're the best, you know. You're thinking, huh? And all the best just happen to be American? There's no best of anything anywhere else in the world? But I mean, how many times a year, it's a sports email. You're the best. The very best. I mean, you know. excuse us while we vomit. It's just sickening, this kind of self-centered attitude of we're the best, the very best. Yuck! The Bible teaches us to humble ourselves before Almighty God. God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. You can seek approval from the world or approval from God alone. You can do what is popular or you can do what is right, but the two are seldom the same. You can accept majority opinion, or you can agree with God's word. The crowd's normally wrong. Remember, democracy in action is the crowd saying, release Barabbas, crucify Christ. I mean, that's democracy. But the mob chose Barabbas and crucified Christ. That's majority rule. That's public opinion. That's 50% plus one. It's Rezaan. Democracy is an idol. We should have the rule of law, not the rule of what the majority of sinners think. You can take the easy way or you can take the right way. Every decision you make makes you more preach of heaven or hell, says CS Lewis. Every decision you make puts you more on the broad road to destruction or to the narrow road to life. Every temptation you resist makes the next temptation easier to resist. Every temptation you give in to makes the next temptation harder to resist and easier to give in to. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served that are on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. In the world, Jesus said, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through whom he loved us. The safest place in the world is in the center of God's world. You are safer in the middle of a battle in God's world than you are in bed outside of God's world. A Swiss reformer all extremely declared, they can kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul. No one to whom is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. So, any questions, any comments on the hard words of Jesus? You know, it's hard to believe that a person can be a Christian who doesn't have a burden for missions, for evangelism, for reaching out to the neighbor, loving others, challenging people to be with the Lord. Now there have been rich people who've been faithful to God. Job, Abraham, King David. You can think in history, but then there's also a case like C.T. Studd. C.T. Studd came from a fabulously wealthy family. and he gave it all up. I mean, he was the superstar of the number one sport of the greatest empire in the world at that time. He was the cricketer, the top cricketer in the world, and he gave it up. Now, today, a cricketer or rugby player or football player who prays at the pitch is considered a powerful, dynamic Christian witness. But back in C.T. Stud's day, for someone who gave up his entire cricketing career to go as a missionary to China, and later to Congo, Now, I mean, there's some things changed in our standards, but you can see the CT Stud way of doing it, or you can take the chariots of fire, Eric Liddell, who jeopardized his chance at Olympic gold because he didn't want to run on a Sunday. I mean, boy, that sacrifice, that's not something that our people are used to today. And yet, although he was training for the 100 meter, he took the 400 meter, which was not what he had specifically trained for, because that race was not on a Sunday, and he won. Gold. And then he threw it all up. He is now an Olympic gold medal athlete. He goes as a missionary to China. And he dies in China in a concentration camp there. Extraordinary. So there are people who've had all of the world's fame and fortune who've thrown up for God's kingdom. But there's others who've used their fame and fortune for the advancement of the kingdom. There's different paths that God may give to the ones of us. But a person who's just selfish and comfortable and materialistic is not evidence and fruit of spiritual life. Other questions? What's the prayer that you call it? The prayer of Jabez? Okay, it's not a bad prayer, I mean, it's in the scriptures. But I mean, from my memory, it's a Lord in a large territory, and it's basically about me, me and me, and bless me, basically. Yeah, look, it's part of the scriptures, and in balance it's fine, but the way the book and the movement took it, it was like all about saying these words, and you've got to pray this prayer for 40 days straight. And, well, this sounds a bit like some magic formula after a while. And, yes, can you just read that? And Jabez called on the Lord, on the God of Israel, saying, I have to read this in two lines. Do you know how to read two lines? Go ahead. O that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thou hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me, and God grant to him that which he requested. Yeah. One cross, four words, ten. It's an obscure verse in an obscure passage. But, you know, what I like is somebody else brought out the prayer of Jesus and expounded on the Lord's prayer. Because why choose this obscurity? Because it's materialistic and shallow and superficial and self-centered. So that suited that kind of agent. No wonder this guy sold tens of millions of copies. But obviously it was also taken out of context, because Jarvis prayed that prayer because of his name. His mother named him something that caused him to... It was almost like a curse, because when she was born I think it was hard labour, and she called him a name that wasn't... And it would have been maybe like a hanging curse over his head, and he probably just asked God to lift that from him. God never meant to break out of the diamond's mould. And the broken contracts were like, it's God's own to get what he wished for. There's, you know, like Mary Slessor, her father was an abusive drunk, but she... didn't let that break her into a cycle. She broke the curse and took things upwards. Henry Morton Stanley, both his father and mother both abandoned him. And he was abused horribly in the workhouse for the poor. But he broke out of it. He achieved phenomenal things and became one of the greatest explorers in history and so on. So we don't have to let the curse of what we were born with Stay with us. By God's grace we can break it up. And I mean that's the real message in the prayer of Jairus, but the shallow, superficial, materialistic interpretation of Hanuman, a bit of a cough. The thing that bothers me is when people get more excited about some new little theological fad that's popping through the church, instead of the words of Christ. Religion is not our aim. Our aim is a relationship with Christ. And therefore, when we find anything else, if it's a distraction, we find it to take me away from Christ, to take me further away from the second Christ, the King, the God of the full and great commission. Recognize it for an evil and a distraction. Repent of it, rebuke it. Fight against it, resist. You know, for example, this world tells you to be greedy. What's the best way to fight against the greed in man's heart? Be jealous. I mean, how can you be making idol of your world if you're giving it away? It's that sort of thing. As a Christian, we counter-cultural. We've got to go the other direction. I love the story of Arthur Turner. I don't know if you've heard of him. He was a... He invented a lot of our... Influenced a lot of our modern-day machinery, like earth-building equipment. And he was a very godly man, to the point where, later on in his life, he was giving 90% of his income to God, keeping 10% for himself, and being phenomenally wealthy, even at that. And he said his famous line is, even though he helped build some of the largest steam shovels of the time, he says God's always got a bigger shovel. That's true. Moving Men and Mountains, I think is the name of his book. Very powerful. His testimony influenced James Kennedy. Now, James Kennedy, Evangelism Explosion, Parish, Presbyterian Church, Truths that Transform. James Kennedy, when he started publishing books, he decided to stop accepting any salary from the church and ministries he was involved in, because the books was giving him everything he needed. So then he started paying back the church for all the salaries he'd been getting in the years before, and then he gave away 10, 20, 40, went up to 90%. Let's see what happens if I give away 100%. So everything he's getting from his books and everything, he was plying it straight back in the kingdom. And he said, you can't out-give God. He said, economics says that you're just going to go bankrupt and end up on the street. But in fact, he proved that you could tie the 100% and still stay in business. It's just extraordinary. I mean, he's an exceptional person. and he was a best-selling author, but still. The principle of just giving it all away again, C.T. Studd did it. When C.T. Studd inherited a fortune, he put it all into the king. He didn't keep back anything. Now, he was going as a faith missionary to China under Hudson Taylor's China Inland Mission, but it was a faith mission. He had to live by faith. Now, he could have discipled God's provided through this inheritance. That could have been like natural for most of us. And he decided to give everything away. And his wife matched him. He urged her not to. And she said, no, I'm not going to have you out giving God. So they both gave away everything they had. And so they went to the field totally trusting faith. Now that sort of example is almost unheard of today. But God was faithful to them. And the fact that we live in an age today which is so money mad, makes it harder, but I still like the model of faith mission. So in the 35 years of my mission, we've never taken up an offering. a rare model in missions today. And I'm not that I think it's wrong to take up money. I think it's perfectly acceptable. Churches, they've got expenses, things like that. However, with so many ministries making such a big thing about money, I'd rather go the other way. It's like, when people see a frontline fellowship missionary, let them think ministry, and the word, and the kingdom. Let them not think money. And I've had many people say to me, at different overseas speaking churches in particular, you're the first missionary I've heard that never mentioned money once. Keep focused on God's battles. I remember my first pastor, Doc Watson, said to me, you fight God's battles. Let him fight yours. It's not worth fighting for your own battles. And again, keep concerned about God's kingdom. It will all take care of you. You just need to deny yourself, take up the cross, follow Christ. That's the vision. So, any other comments, questions? I think it is perfectly normal and acceptable for us to go to the doctor to do what we've got to do physically, health, medical-wise, and pray. When the Lord sent out His disciples, He told them to preach the gospel to heal the sick. And many people have taken that command to open up hospitals, go to nursing, medical work. Medical ministry is all about healing bodies. We don't have to be expecting it always to be by miracle. I mean, it's how the Lord's made our bodies is a miracle, how He's made our DNA is a miracle. saying, well, God can only heal me through a miraculous means. We should take every means possible, do everything we can, trust God to do what we can't. So, yes, I think they've put a real burden on us when it's the whole idea that you living in sin, if you go to the doctor, if you get the dentist to deal with this, If the medication works, I mean, that really is a blessing of God and a provision. So, to ignore the means that God's provided. I seem to remember an example of somebody speaking about how he'd been praying for God to provide things and during the day a whole lot of people came offering different things that meant that, now I'm waiting for God to provide. Then later on, he's asking the Lord why he didn't provide and the Lord says, well, I sent three people to God's provisions can come in many disguises. I dealt with this in a teaching on, is it always God's will to heal us? And in my life, I had two very hardened parents. Both my parents went through a Second World War. They were a very resistant God. They found it hard to believe in God because of all the horrors they'd seen in the Second World War and the bombings and so on. And both of them came to the Lord through sickness. It was through my father's strokes, heart attacks, that he finally thanked the Lord. He was crippled in a wheelchair before he gave his life to the Lord. My mum also, which was when she lost her leg. So I've seen how the Lord's used sickness to bring people who are not just lost, but stubbornly resistant to the gospel, to bring them to himself. Therefore, for somebody to say that all sickness is always of the devil, it's never God's will for you to be healed, always God's will for you to be healed. I've seen too many times in my life that God has used sickness to either bring people to conversion or to disciple them and purify. We can't limit God and say, no, God can never use illness. Well, he's used it in my life. My first motorbike accident, I knew what God was saying to me before the bike had come stationary and I was still rolling and tumbling in the road. And I was making full repentance before it even come to a standstill I knew exactly what God was thinking. In my life, I've known that even when I got arrested and imprisoned in Mozambique, I saw this God speaking to me and rebuking me for somehow I need treatment. So I've got no doubt in my life, God uses illness in my life to speak to me, in my family. So why would I assume that God, sickness is always a difference, never a problem. And that's a nice little doctrine, but it's not biblical.