Freedom From Denominationalism — Zac Poonen

Freedom From Sin and Religious Bondage

God and open our hearts that he can reveal his truth to us from his word. You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. We want total freedom from everything that binds us. Our Father, we seek you.

We pray that the mighty power of the Holy Spirit will again be in our midst. Give us clarity, thinking, understanding. Stir our minds, stir our emotions. Bring us to an obedience to your word that we will come to the point of surrender and give up our will to do your will.

Give up our ways to do things your way. Heavenly Father, hear us. We seek you with all of our hearts. Thank you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Now we want to come to our concluding study on what we have been thinking of as sixfold freedom that Jesus gives us.

And we saw the first of those freedoms is the freedom from sin. Second, a freedom from a legalistic attitude. And a freedom from the world. Freedom from fear. And then finally we saw freedom from soulishness.

The New Covenant and the One Body of Christ

And now we want to, so far we have been thinking of our personal life. All these five freedoms are related to our personal life. But in the new covenant, God deals with us as a church. Ultimately, Jesus is going to present to the Father, not a bunch of individuals, but one new man, of which he is the head.

So he is going to present to the Father a bride. One bride, not multitudes of people who have overcome sin and overcome legalistic attitudes and overcome the world. No, ultimately all these people have to become one body.

And that is what many, many Christians don't have any light on. Many people will, in fact most people don't even have any light on soulishness. A lot of people don't even have an understanding of what world is, or legalism is.

A lot of people don't even know what sin is. So, we want to think today about freedom from denominationalism. The Christian world is divided into denominations. I read somewhere there were 30 ,000 denominations in the world, about 2 ,000 in India alone.

Not 2 ,000 churches, 2 ,000 denominations. A denomination is a group of churches that go by one name. They have a central headquarters. They'll have local pastors. Over the local pastors will be area superintendents.

And over the area superintendents, a number of areas will be under a district superintendent. And over the district superintendents will be state superintendents, and a country superintendent, and a continent superintendent, and a world superintendent.

It's a pyramid, very similar to the Roman Catholic Church, where you have a pope on top, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, parish priests. It's not only in the Roman Catholic Church. There are some Protestant churches like that also.

Assemblies of God, for example. They've got a general superintendent in the United States, and they've got districts, superintendents, pastors, and it goes all the way down. Now, the question is, does the Bible teach this?

Or is it unimportant? Do we say, it doesn't matter? You know, some people, when they hear about soulishness, yeah, yeah, they say, it's all splitting hairs, it doesn't matter. Okay? It's obvious that such a person thinks multiplication is a waste of time, because they're in kindergarten.

So we don't argue with a kindergarten student that multiplication is important. Okay. In the same way, some people say, oh, this is all not important. Fine. I'm not speaking to such people. But those of us who believe that all Scripture is inspired by God, that the Lord gave the apostles wisdom through the Holy Spirit to make a new wine skin, into which this new wine is to be poured.

New Wineskins and the New Testament Church

What we have been so far speaking in the last five sessions was the new wine. And now we want to talk about the new wine skin into which this wine is poured, so that there is no waste. If you pour the new wine into the old wine skin, Jesus said, the wine skin will burst.

The old wine skin was a denomination. It had a headquarters in Jerusalem, the Old Covenant. It had a high priest who was the top man. Under him there were priests. They were all supported by the tithes.

Every priest was supported by the tithes of the people, because they didn't do any other work. They were not supposed to do any other work. They had to get... And tithes, by the way, in the entire Old Testament, tithe was not money.

Remember this, when people try to tell you about tithe, tithe was never money. It was grain or whatever they produced, and they'd come and give it to the Levites. Just like in some of our village conferences, when they bring offerings to God, they bring potatoes and rice and things like that.

So they gave their produce from their crops, one-tenth of their crops, they gave to the Levites. And that's how the Levites were supported. And that was Old Covenant. And the Levites were paid like that, and they were the ones who were not supposed to do any other earthly work, and they were supposed to do what like pastors do today.

Now when you come to the New Testament, you don't find that sort of thing at all. You don't find a central headquarters anywhere. And the clearest example of that is Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3, where you read of the seven churches.

And the Lord told John to write a separate letter to each of the churches. Now if it was like the Methodist Church, or the Agee Church, or the Salvation Army, or the CSI Church, then the Lord would have so told John, just send a letter to the bishop, and he'll distribute it to all the churches.

But there was no bishop. There was no archbishop. Every church had its own elders. And so you had to send a separate letter to each church, because each church was independent church, even though some of them, most of them, were only 30 -40 kilometers from each other.

Not far. It's not even as far as Mysore from here. If there was a church between here and Mysore, there'd be two or three churches. But they were not one denomination. They were independent churches. They were planted by the apostles.

And the apostles initially would ask somebody to leave the meeting, and come back after one or two years, and appoint elders over those churches. That was the way every single church in the New Testament was planted.

And that is the type of leadership that is found in the New Testament churches. Paul told Titus, I left you in Crete so that you can appoint elders there. And we read in Acts 14 .23, the apostles appointed elders in every place, because each church was an independent church directly under the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the head of that church.

They may have had fellowship with each other, but there was no central coordination or somebody controlling the finances. You see, in this type of pyramid structure, you find it in some charismatic groups also.

The person at the top, I mean, you may call him a pope, or in some cases, they call him an apostle. And below him are all these different layers of, it's just like a company, you know, CEO on top and managers and deputy managers and assistant managers and all that.

Money, Power, and Corruption in Church Structures

But what happens in this type of structure is, right from the lower churches, they have to give their tithes. And the tithes come up to this level and this level and this level and this level. And by the time you're an apostle, you're a millionaire because you're getting tithes from so many churches.

It's coming up all the way up to the top. And that's how a lot of people get corrupted. Now, Paul wasn't getting anything like that. He was the greatest apostle on earth. And he said there were some times when he was just struggling to get money to buy food.

And once, when he was in the jail, he wrote a letter to Timothy. Hey, he says, Timothy, I forgot to bring my woolen shawl with me, my blanket. I don't have the money to buy another one. Can you please make sure when that brother comes, please send that blanket with him.

This is the greatest apostle of the first century. What a difference from the type of people today. He never took any money from people. He, I mean, from most churches, he didn't. He did take from the church in Philippi.

But from most of the other churches, he never received any gifts. He worked with his hands. Boy, these were men who knew God. And they planted New Testament churches. Now, how do we say that denominationalism is a cage?

It is a cage. And if you've seen it, and you understand all the trappings of it, it's a system which binds people. It can't be independent. You have to do, for example, if you're a parish priest here, you just got to do what your bishop tells you.

You don't have an option. If you don't do what the bishop tells you, you get kicked out. And you got to send your report regularly to the bishop, what's happening. And the bishop has to send the report, I suppose, to the archbishop and to the cardinal and go all the way to the Pope.

And one day the Pope says, okay, now this is a new doctrine. We're going to believe that from today onwards, Mary was born without sin. So all the way down to the bottom, everybody's got to believe Mary was born without sin.

Just because 150 years ago, some Pope got a bright idea that Mary was born without sin. It's a very binding system. It's the same with any other denomination that's got a pyramid, where you have a central control.

Another thing which you see in this type of pyramid structure, you can find it in a Baptist denomination or Pentecostal denomination or Indian Pentecostal church or Catholic. You see, the man at the top appoints pastors or parish priests, call them what you like.

So one fellow will be transferred from there to here. And then this guy will be transferred there. And a lot of these people are itching for a transfer to the Gulf, where they can get more money, or to America, IPC church in America, they get more money there.

So they'll butter the president. And I don't know what else they do, what bribes or what, I don't know what they do. But they get a posting there and they're lucky. It's like these people who want to post things as traffic police or something, because they can make a lot of money there.

Or some other court registrar or something. It's the same type of stuff that goes on today in Christendom. It's corrupt. It's Babylon to the core. It's money, money, money, and Christianity all mixed.

It's the money changers back in the temple. Now many of you young people have never been in these systems. So I tell you, you really don't appreciate what you have in your churches. I sometimes wish some of you would go and spend one year in one of these churches.

You'd come running back, say, boy, Lord, take me home. I've been in that for 16 years. And I've seen what happens there. I wasn't a part of it. But I moved around and I saw what was going on. And I got a thorough guided tour of Babylon.

I know every street and every nook and corner, everything I know there now. So I appreciate the value of Jerusalem, the true church, much more than I think any of you here. But it is a cage. It's a prison.

You can't be free. If you're a leader, you've got somebody else telling you what to do. You can't make your own decisions. And you can't have an independent connection with Christ. It's a limiting system.

I'm not saying there are no godly people there. I think in many denominations, there are some very, very godly people. You can find a godly person in the Roman Catholic Church. I personally think Mother Teresa was a very godly woman.

But she was not in the new wineskin. No, it was an old wineskin, but she was a very godly woman. And you can find godly people in the Brethren and the Pentecostals. So I'm not talking about individual godliness.

Local Churches and Corporate Christian Life

But if your eyes have been opened to see that New Testament Christianity is more than individual Christianity, it's a corporate. Corporate means along with other believers, relationship. By this shall all men know you're my disciples.

By the fact that you live a holy life? No. By this shall all men know you're my disciples, that you love one another. So you've got to have one another in order to show that you're Jesus' disciples. Now, this was not true in the Old Testament.

The Old Testament, it was all just individuals. One Elijah lives a holy life, and one John the Baptist lives a holy life. But that was finished with John the Baptist. Jesus said, after John the Baptist is the kingdom of heaven that is preached.

Up till then, it was another kingdom. And in the kingdom of heaven, there is a new wineskin, where each church is a local church. The church in Corinth was a local church. It was a carnal church. Some distance away, there was another church.

It was a church of Ephesus. It was a spiritual church. Now, if they were all one denomination, then the carnality of Corinth would have infected Ephesus. Because here, Ephesus is not independent. This carnality spreads to there.

Corruption spreads more easily in a denomination. But it can't spread if each is a local church. That's why you have a church in Ephesus here, where it's backslidden. The elder has lost his first love, and the church has lost its first love.

And then you move on, and you come to another church, Smyrna. Not far away, 30 -40 kilometers. And it's not at all infected by the backsliding of Ephesus. It's wholehearted, suffering, persecution, faithful, and the Lord says, excellent.

He condemns Ephesus, but he doesn't condemn Smyrna. Now, if it were all one denomination, they'd have been just like the others. Because the bishop would have made sure that the whole thing was corrupt.

But thank God, they didn't have a bishop over all of them. They had a local elder in Smyrna, who was a wholehearted brother. And a church, the quality of a church depends on the quality of its leader.

You can't escape that. You see that in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3. If the leader is a godly man, the church generally becomes godly. If the leader is a lover of money, you have a church filled with the lovers of money.

If the leader is immoral, the church has immorality. And I mean, I can guess, the Bible doesn't tell us anything about the elders in Corinth, but when I see that they were tolerating immorality in Corinth, with one fellow living in immorality, I can guess that the elders were also a bit immoral.

Nobody knew about it. Now, in the same way, you go to Thyatira, and there was a man whose wife was running the church. She was pulling the strings from behind the scenes. He'd go to the elders meeting and discuss with the elders, and he'd come back and tell his wife, and wife said, no, no, no, don't do that.

We can't do that. This Jezebel would tell her husband to go back and tell the elders not to do it like that. He'd go back, and like a good puppet, he would do tell the elders what to do. That happens even today.

We have some brothers who are very faithful puppets of their wife. Wife comes and says, puss, puss, puss, puss, puss. They go and they puss, puss, puss, puss, puss to the other brothers. Yeah, the church is destroyed like this, because they listen to their wives instead of listening to God.

It's happening. What to do? There are Jezebels all around. And then you have the other church next to it, Philadelphia. He didn't let his wife tell him what to do. He just listened to God. What a wonderful church he had.

So, one church could not infect the other church, because they were all independent. Even though they are 30 kilometers away, sorry, your infection doesn't come here, because there's a gulf between you and me.

We're not one denomination. And that's why the Lord established local churches. That's the way he prevents corruption. And so you can't guarantee. You see, for example, when you look around today, you take a Methodist church.

There may be a Methodist church where you have a very God-fearing pastor. And you go to the next Methodist church, that guy is not even born again. The same thing can happen. You go to a Baptist church where one fellow is not even born again.

And then another Baptist church, the man's a man who's filled with the Spirit and he's on fire for God. But what happens in the denomination is after four years there, or four or five years, he's finished all his sermons there, so he can't preach anymore.

His book of sermons is over. So he's got to go to another church after four or five years to preach those same sermons somewhere else. So he's transferred. Another fellow comes in and that guy is not born again, and the whole church is destroyed.

Because the central office transfers people. Now in the New Testament, there was no question of transfer. I mean, an elder in Corinth was not transferred from Philippi. He just grew up in Corinth and became an elder.

And the elder in Philippi was not transferred from Ephesus. He just grew up in Philippi and became an elder. That is the pattern of the New Testament church. People say it's impossible. It's not impossible.

We have seen it work in our midst in the last many years, where we don't transfer an elder from here to there in order to run that church. Or like transfer of pastors, it goes on all over. Priests and pastors are transferred all over the country in every denomination.

But local churches are God's plan, where nobody's there from above to tell this person, this is the doctrine you got to believe from now on. He grows up in it, in that church. And there may be another church he's in fellowship with 30 kilometers away, and that may be carnal, and you can be spiritual.

Spiritual Leadership Determines a Church's Character

Now, we have seen that over the last 30 years, as God has raised up different churches in Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, and Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra, we've seen one thing, that every church is as spiritual as its leaders are.

Just, I mean, you've seen that. You go to travel around, you'll see it. Just because that church is spiritually linked with CFC, it doesn't mean it's spiritual. That depends on whether the local elder there is spiritual or not.

So if the local elder there is not spiritual, just because he's linked with CFC doesn't mean it's a spiritual church. I mean, Paul planted Corinth, church in Corinth, and the church in Ephesus, and the church in Thessalonica, and the churches in Galatia, and the church in Philippi, they were not all the same quality.

How is it? Churches planted by the same apostle are not the same quality, because the local leaders were not spiritual. In some places, the local leaders were spiritual. Godly people, who didn't love money, who the kingdom of God was uppermost for them, they built a spiritual church.

And some other places, you know, like the Jews, they boasted that Abraham is our father. Some other churches, they boasted, hey, we were planted by the apostle Paul. We're not just ordinary fellows like you guys.

You guys were planted by Apollos. We are planted by Paul. How does that make you spiritual? Doesn't. They gloried in such stupid things like that, but the elder was a man who was just interested in pursuing his own goals and ambitions in life and make a good living, and also have the honor of being the elder of a church associated with Paul, and the church never became spiritual.

We have churches like that in our midst. The only thing they glory in is we are linked with CFC in Bangalore spiritually, but utterly carnal. And if some brother from CFC goes to that place and finds this church that's linked with CFC spiritually is carnal, you know what my recommendation to him?

Don't go to that church. We're not a denomination. You don't have to go to that church. Go to another church there, maybe the Methodist church, if that's more spiritual, go there. Can you imagine me giving that advice?

I do, because I'm interested in that guy being spiritual, not that guy going to some church that comes here for the conferences. I couldn't care less if they come for the conferences. Is the leader a spiritual man?

Is he a godly man? Does he know God? And if the Methodist pastor there knows God more than this guy who's in some church linked with CFC, I tell him to go to the some type of denominational spirit. Not at all.

Denomination is a cage. And if you say, oh, wherever I go, I must go to a CFC church, whether it's dead or alive, you'll be in a cage. Definitely you'll be in a cage. I'm trying to liberate you from that cage.

You go to a so-called CFC linked church in one place and the leader is carnal, I'd say don't go to that church. Don't waste your time there. Go and look around for a more spiritual church and go there.

Because you've got to grow. Or you go to one CFC linked church and the guy gets up and preaches for one hour every Sunday morning from Genesis to Revelation. You don't know what he spoke and he himself doesn't know what he spoke.

And you waste your time like that Sunday after Sunday. I'd say don't waste your time there. Go to some place where you can get a solid word that helps you to grow spiritually. Where they love one another.

I don't care what denomination calls it. May be better than the so-called CFC linked church. We have come to that condition today. But this false sense of loyalty is human. It's denominationalism. And look at the condition of so many of these people who are sitting in these so-called CFC linked churches, utterly defeated by sin, lovers of money, living for themselves.

They're not disciples. They don't hate father, mother, brother, sister, wife and children. They yell at each other at home. They are angry. They lust. They live in every wretched sin. And they say we're linked to CFC.

We have Abraham for our father. And John the Baptist said, forget about Abraham being your father. God can raise up children for Abraham from the stones. And I believe we have come to that stage. Sure.

I've seen that. I've seen in some places where people in other churches have far greater zeal to spread the message we are preaching than our own churches. What does that prove? Here and there is somebody gripped by this message.

But they're not linked to CFC officially. But they have a far greater zeal to spread the word one or the other because they've been gripped by the message of victory over sin. I say God recognizes that church in that place and not this CFC linked church.

And that's why when elder brothers, you know, a lot of people come here and they say, oh, Brother Zach, we'd like to start a church in our hometown. I say, go right ahead. But I'm not going to support you till I see God supporting you.

When God supports you, I'll support you. Because I'll always go behind God. I won't go ahead of God. If I see God support you, I'll definitely come behind God and support you. But you got to get God to support you.

You're not going to get Brother Zach to support you. Sorry. You see, any elder brother who's retaining his throne by buttering me and trying to get me to support him, he's crazy. He's really crazy. He's got to screw loose here because I'm not going to support him.

I'm sorry, I'm not going to support him. If God doesn't support him, I'm not going to support him. If he doesn't live a holy life, I wash my hands and I say I have nothing more to do with it. You better run your church as you like.

Because I want to see you are living in the fear of God and God is bearing witness to your life. And there's an anointing upon your life and an anointing upon your word. And you brought up your family right.

And these things are not there. What are you saying? I'm linked with CFC and Brother Zach. It's fit for the garbage bin. Throw it in the garbage bin. Worth nothing. Almighty God must bear witness to you.

The Bible says that God bore witness to Jesus. Even Jesus, when he was on earth, the Father had to bear witness to him. Where are you and I? Definitely we must have God bearing witness to us. And so it's very important to recognize the local nature of each church.

Otherwise we'll be in a trap. When you consider marriage, you'll say, oh, is that person a part of a CFC linked church? Well, that guy who sits in a CFC linked church may be a carnal man and may not be a good husband for you.

And that other person who is from some other church may be more spiritual. But we have some crazy elders in our churches who, not all of them, a few of them, very few of them who say you must marry from within the church.

Who said that? Which verse is that? The Bible only says you must marry a believer. I heard one elder told somebody, I won't come to your wedding if you don't marry from somebody from the church. What's that?

I wonder if such a person is even fit to be an elder. What sort of carnality is that? I won't come to your wedding if you don't listen to me. Are you God? It's crazy. And I'm 100 against it. I'm 100 against all this carnality, wherever it is found.

Godliness, Calling, and the Shepherd's Heart

Brothers and sisters, you know the great need in our midst for genuine godliness. For humble, godly brothers whose one passion in life is not their profession, but Christ. There are many elder brothers, they take care of a church and then they realize, oh, I will get a better opportunity for advancement in my profession if I go there.

All of a sudden they lose their burden for this church and go there. You think such people are fit to be elders? Not at all. Not in a hundred years. They are seeking their own advancement, that's all.

I'm not talking about people who are transferred without, you know, you're working in a government office and you can't help it. You're transferred and you try your best to stay where you are and you don't get it.

This transfer is not stopped and it's so difficult to get a job these days. You have to go on a transfer. Then you can believe in the sovereignty of God, that God allowed you to move from one place to another.

But what about a person who's seeking his own advancement and say, I think if I go there I can make a little more money. What about this church you were supposed to be a shepherd about? Oh, just leave it and go.

Do you do that as a father? I mean a father who's got a number of children and he says, yeah, I'm, you know, I found another place. You guys better look for another father. I'm going over there. I'm going to pick up some more adopted children there.

What type of father is that? That's not New Testament Christianity. But I've seen that happen, not in the Salvation Army, in our churches. People seeking their own and it's not new. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 2, 19 to 21, every one of my co-workers is seeking their own except Timothy.

Can you imagine the sorrow in Paul's heart as he wrote that to the Philippians? I said, boy, the Apostle Paul, his co-workers were seeking their own. And he found only one man who had the same spirit as him and that was Timothy.

So then it's not a new thing. If we find today elders who are seeking their own and they go where it is convenient for them and their program is according to their convenience and church is secondary and my job and my profession and my convenience are primary.

How in the world can you build a church like that? God will never bear witness to that type of thing. Yeah, you can have your Sunday meeting and continue and go through the ritual of a Sunday meeting and occasionally a few more people will come there.

But it won't be a powerful witness for Christ in your locality because you're in a prison, the prison of denominationalism. You find your satisfaction by saying, I'm linked to CFC. I'm one of those invited for the conferences, you know.

You look at the other people in the city and say, you're not invited to the conference, I'm invited for the conference. What does it mean? You think that makes you spiritual? Not at all. It's a trap. It's a denominational trap, which I believe a lot of people in our churches are in.

And I want to open the doors and set you free. The New Wineskin is a local church. And I praise God that we now have coming for our conferences, some of you sitting here, who are not part of our so-called our churches, but who have a hunger for God.

You know, I remember the days when we used to publish our monthly paper called Words of Life. And I would ask some people in CFC, have you read this month's Words of Life? One month after it was issued?

No. And there were other people who in other churches read it three, four times. This 70-hour CD, which covers the whole Bible. I've asked a lot of people who have mp3 players, who listen to a lot of Christian music regularly on mp3 players, who have computers, have you listened to this?

Are you interested in Bible study? Yeah. One or two things they have heard. And I've met other people in other churches who have listened to it two or three times. Thank God, we're not in a denomination.

God is no respecter of persons. And I tell you, my brothers and sisters, please listen to me. You're going to get a big surprise when Christ comes again, that He doesn't give you any marks for being linked to CFC.

He doesn't give you any marks for coming to a conference linked with CFC. He'll give you a mark for godliness. And if you're an elder brother, whether you built a godly church in your own locality, irrespective of whether you were linked to this group or that group or this brother or that brother or this apostle or that apostle.

But that you, as a godly, humble person, built a church because you recognize the Holy Spirit appointed you as an overseer there. That is freedom. So I say this because a lot of people are patting themselves on the back that if they get invited to the conference, they are in the good books.

Good books of whom? Not of God. To be in God's good books, you've got to be a humble person. You've got to be a servant. You've got to be a father. You're going to have a heart of a father to all the people in your church.

You've got to have the heart of a servant to serve them and wash their feet and change their diapers and wipe their bottoms because some of them are babies. You've got to do that. If you're not willing to do all those things, and spiritually speaking I mean, then just saying that we're linked with CFC or something and we have our regular conferences in our locality every year.

We come, we have Brother Zach coming for our conference. So what? It doesn't mean a thing to God. It doesn't mean a single thing to God. My brothers and sisters, get out of this cage of denominationalism, of glorying in being linked to a spiritual church or a spiritual man.

It has zero value before God. If you can understand this, you'll be released from a prison today and you will realize that being linked to Abraham as your father or Paul as an apostle means zero to God.

Are you, elder brother in Thyatira, are you listening to your wife? You, elder brother in Ephesus, have you lost your first love? What's the use of your meetings if you have lost your first love? You, elder brother in Pergamos, are you allowing the teachings of Balaam to come into your church?

Look at the other elder brother in Philadelphia. What a wonderful church he's building there because he's a godly, humble brother for whom his profession and his earthly job is not primary. That's only a means of earning a living.

If you went to the apostle Paul and you asked him, what's your job? He said, I'm an apostle. Are you an apostle or a tent maker? Oh, tent maker, that's only to earn my living. I am an apostle. How many of you elder brothers would say, I'm primarily an elder brother of my local church.

Oh, but aren't you a teacher or doing some business? Yeah, yeah, that's only to earn my living. I'm an elder of a local church of which the Holy Spirit has appointed me as an overseer. I think there are very, very few people who have that sense of calling and that's why we are in a cage.

Now, I believe God's called me to serve him, but I've supported myself all these 25 -30 years. But I don't say that's my job. That's how I support myself. That's only a means of earning my living and taking care of my family.

That's not my calling in life. My calling in life is to serve the Lord. And my mind is always like that. And many times, I'll tell you this, perhaps you don't know it. There are times when I have gone out to serve the Lord, it has resulted in loss in my earthly business, sometimes to 60 -70 ,000 rupees.

And the Lord asked me once, will you do it again? I said, Lord, I'll do it again. I remember that happened once when I went to some place. And as a result of that, my being away at a critical time in my business, I do.

I lost over 60 ,000 rupees. And some of you are afraid of taking one day's leave without pay. Do you think you'll ever in your life serve God? And when I came back, I realized I had made this loss. But I'd gone under the leading of God.

And for one and a half years, I never knew anything. I said, I'll do it again, Lord. I'll do it a hundred times because I'm your servant. I'm not a businessman. That's only a means of earning a living.

One and a half years later, see how good God is. He first tested me for one and a half years. One and a half years later, I was in a meeting where two brothers came up to me and said, Brother Zach, do you remember that particular conference you came to at such and such a month in such and such a year in such a place?