Five Truths and Eight Confessions — Zac Poonen

Jesus Invites the Thirsty to Come and Drink

So this is our last session. And do any of you remember what Jesus said on the last day, the great day of the feast? All you great Bible scholars, you don't remember? It says, on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood up.

It's one of those rare times he stood up. Most of the time he sat down and cried out, what? OK, you're going to be Bible scholars today. John chapter 7 and verse 37. Look up that verse. It's a great note to conclude on in the last day.

John 7 and verse 37. On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, if any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. There are many people who say anybody can come to Jesus.

I say no. He invited only those who were thirsty. He didn't say those who are thirsty and those who are not thirsty, come. No. If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me. What about the others who are not thirsty?

Stay where you are. Go somewhere else. Go and watch the movies, or whatever was the equivalent in those days. Go and do something else. But if you're thirsty for a life that you've heard of in these days, for a type of fellowship that you've heard of in these days, Jesus says, come to me.

Not to me. Come to Jesus and drink. You know the other well-known verse in Matthew 11, 28? If come to me, those who are labor and are heavy laden. And I paraphrase that as, come to me, those who are sick and tired of your defeated life.

Is he inviting everybody there? No. He's only inviting those who are sick and tired of their defeated life. Those who are content with their defeated life, the Lord says, go where you like. I'm not inviting you.

Now I've got to speak that very plainly. There are people sitting here who are sick and tired of their defeated life. I want to tell you, Jesus is inviting you. There are people who are thirsty for a higher life than they've experienced so far, for a better quality of fellowship than they've experienced there in their local church.

The Lord says, come to me. I'm not asking you to join any church. I've been an elder for 41 years. I have never, never, never asked anybody to join my church in 41 years. That's not my business. I invite people to come to Jesus.

And I say, ask the Lord to tell you which fellowship you should join. Don't ask me. Because if I tell you it'll be a dead work, you do it probably to please me, and that's worth zero. Go to the Lord, and the Lord will lead you to the right place, but don't go to a place where you will not be challenged to become more like Christ.

Giving Money for God's Glory

Don't go to a place where they're only after your money. Please, to give money to those preachers who are covetous for your money is, I'm not exaggerating, is exactly the same as putting your money in the toilet bowl and flushing it down.

There's no difference between putting your money in an offering bag of a covetous preacher or a covetous church and putting your money into the toilet bowl and flushing it down. You might as well do the same thing.

It's the same thing. It goes to the same place, to the garbage, not to God. We ought to be very careful where we give our money, because money is a gift that God has given you. You can't spend it as you like.

You can't give it where you like. Then you are the Lord of your money. Then the Lord says, I don't tell you anything. Do what you like with it. But if you say, Lord, I belong to you, then I ask the Lord, Lord, where shall I give my money?

Give it where the Lord will approve of it. I ask the Lord to tell you where you feel it will be used the most for His glory. There are different degrees of it. I would give it to where it's used most for His glory.

You decide that. God will show you. And if you don't know, you say, Lord, please show me. He'll show you. And if there's anybody here who is a full-time Christian worker, I plead with you, don't go around asking people for money.

Jesus never asked anybody for money. Jesus never sent a report of His work to anyone. The Apostle Paul never asked anybody for money. None of the Apostles did. They never sent a report of their work to anyone.

I decided in my life that I will never give money to those who send reports asking for money, because they're not doing what the Apostles did. They're not doing what Jesus did. I just want to be careful, because when I stand before God, you remember the parable Jesus said, if you want to give 10 talents, what do you do with my 10 talents?

And those talents represent many things. It represents the time I have, 24 hours a day. What did I do with that 24 hours I had a day? It represents the years of my life that God's given me, 57 years since I was born again.

And that's a lot more than for many of you. And the Lord is going to ask me, what did you do with those 57 years? And those talents represent the gifts God has given me. God's given me gifts maybe He has not given some of you, so He'll demand more from me.

What did you do with the gift of preaching that I gave you? Did you use it to make money for yourself? Did you use it to get honor for yourself? Did you use it to lord it over other people? Oh, I'll be ashamed if I did any of those things.

Or did you use it to help and bless and lead people closer to, not to you, but to Jesus? Then I'll be happy. So all those talents represent many things. And the Lord says, what did you do with the money I gave you?

Do you know that the Lord will ask you for an account for it? That's the meaning of that. Twice that parable comes, Matthew 25 and Luke 19. In one case, it's pounds. One case, it's talents. But He didn't give the same to everybody.

In one case, it was five, two, and one. In other cases, it was one each, and some person produced 10, another person produced five, another person produced one. The tragedy was some people buried it in the ground.

One man with one talent, he buried it in the ground. What's the meaning of that? That means taking the Lord's money and using it for this earth and its values, not for the kingdom of God. That's the meaning of that guy who buried it.

The Parable of the Talents and Faithful Stewardship

And you know what he said to the master, the reason why he did that? I'll show you that verse. Matthew chapter 25. It's very important to know why he buried that one talent in the ground. See, it says here in Matthew chapter five about the man who was going on a long journey, verse 14, 25, 14, Matthew 25, 14.

And he entrusted his possessions to them, and he gave to each according to his ability, one five, one two, one one. That's the difference between this parable and Luke 19. Luke 19, he gave one to everybody, but here he gave according to the ability.

And you see among us that God has given more to some, less to some, less to the others. Five, two, and one. And the man who had five talents went and gained five more. The man who had two talents went and gained two more.

But the one who had one talent, verse 18, he went and dug it in the ground. A long time later, the master came back. This is the day when Christ comes back to settle accounts. Do you know that Christ, when he comes back, he's gonna settle accounts?

And he asked the one who received the five talents, what did you do with my five talents? Lord, I got 100 profit from it. I used it completely for your glory. Great. Well done. You were faithful in a few things.

I will have put you in charge of many things. The one who got two talents, he came and said, I brought two talents more. Notice this. The question is not how much he brought. One person brought five, another person brought two.

The point is, percentage wise, they were the same. 100%, 100%. So they both got the same reward or commendation. Exactly the same. Well done, good and faithful slave. There's no difference between the guy who brought two and the guy who brought five because both brought 100%.

So in other words, when you look at someone who's got many more talents and gifts than you have in the body of Christ, don't envy him. God does not expect you to produce as much as him. He expects you to produce as much as he's given you.

I mean, if he's given me a preaching ability that he's not given you, he's not gonna ask you why you didn't preach like Brother Zach. No, he'll never ask you that. He'll ask me that. The Bible says that those who are given more, he'll expect more.

I'm absolutely convinced that God's gonna expect a lot more from me than he's gonna expect from any of you. So don't ever compare yourself and don't long for something God hasn't given you. Ask God to give you whatever gifts he feels right.

And if he decides to give you two, don't compare yourself with someone who's got five. He's got to produce more in the final day. And if you produce two more, you'll get the same reward. And so this person who had one, how much did God expect him to produce when he came back for reckoning?

Only one. He didn't have to produce two or five. He would have got the same commendation. Lord, you gave me one, I produced another one. But the tragedy is I feel that two problems, this man must have compared himself.

That guy's got two, that guy's got five. I've only one. Why did God treat me like this? Do you ever complain against God because he didn't give you what he gave somebody else? You compare yourself with somebody else and I wish I had that.

That's the way to ruin your life. Be content with what you have. And there was another reason. When the master came back, believe what he says. Master, verse 24, the man who had received one said, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow.

And so I was scared of you. And I buried it under the ground. All the lack of utilization of the gifts God has given us is because we got a wrong concept about God. He's a very strict, austere, serious master.

You have that type of idea of God, you'll never use what God has given you. You don't know him as a loving father. That was the reason. I knew you to be a hard man. You reap where you don't sow. You're so demanding.

And so I was scared. I was afraid. So I just buried it in the ground. We need to have a right concept of God. And that's very, very important. Only then can we use our talents profitably for the glory of God.

Five Foundations for Effective Christian Living

Very, very important. So I want to say a few things which, in conclusion, about the things that we need to be very strongly established in. Sometimes we are not very sure about certain fundamental truths in our life.

So I want to say, first of all, think of your five fingers in your hand. The first thing we need to be absolutely sure of, number one, which is like the thumb, is what the blood of Jesus Christ can do for us.

We must be absolutely sure that the blood of Jesus has cleansed us completely from our past life. That not a single sin remains. If you confessed it, He's forgiven. You don't have to confess every sin, but you have to say, Lord, I am a sinner.

You know, when the prodigal son came back to the father, he didn't make a list of all the sins he committed. God didn't want that. He just said, Father, I've sinned. Father said, that's enough. I've seen your attitude.

But if you know of some particular sin you've committed, then the Lord says you must confess it. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us. So it's very important that we are absolutely sure that God has forgiven our past life.

And not only that, Hebrews 8, 12 says, I will not remember your sins anymore. Very important to know that God not only forgives you, but He doesn't hold your sins against you. And that's the way you must forgive others.

That when you forgive others, I'm not saying you must forget what they did. We cannot forget what other people did against us because we have no power over our memory. But we must forgive them, which is an act of the will.

It's not feelings. We may feel differently. It's unimportant. We may have memory reminding us of what that person did. That doesn't matter. But as God forgave us, we forgive others. And remember, God doesn't say, I forget about your past.

He does not forget about our past. He says, I choose not to remember, Hebrews 8, 12. Because I'll tell you where God remembers it. You know that story where a man didn't forgive his fellow slave for a small amount, and he came back to the king, and the king put all those sins back on his head.

If you don't forgive others from your heart, God won't forgive you. So God hasn't forgotten your sins, but He says He chooses not to remember. That's how we've got to forgive others. We don't have to forget.

Don't let anybody torture you saying, if you have forgiven somebody, you must forget what he did. That's impossible. I don't have a control over my memory. But I choose not to remember. When I see you, I choose not to remember all that you did against me.

Why? Because my Heavenly Father doesn't remember what I did against Him. So I'm so thankful that God gave me that promise in Hebrews 8, 12, and He clothes me with the righteousness of Christ. That means, because even though my past sin is forgiven, I've got a filthy nature called the flesh, and that's clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

I stand before God. So we have great boldness. This is called justification. Justified means just as if I've never sinned. So that's the first thing we need to know about the blood of Christ. That I look back over my past life, knowing that I've not sinned for 76 years.

Isn't that a good feeling? To know that you've never sinned in your whole life? Come before God, and that's how God looks at you. If you have really repented. If you have not repented. You know, repentance is 180 degree turn.

It's not 90 degrees with one eye on sin, one eye on God. No, it's 180 degree turn, where I've turned my back to sin in the world. I haven't overcome every sin, but I've turned from every sin. If you say that, you have repented.

You may still be defeated, but you're struggling. Nevermind. Have you turned from it? Do you hate it? Can you say to God, Lord, I never want to sin again? Not I never will sin again. Nobody can say that.

But I never want to sin again. That's the mark of being born again. Lord, I've done so many wrong things in my life, but I never want to do them again. Then you know you've really repented. And you know the blood of Jesus has taken care of your past.

This is very, very important. Don't live in condemnation over your past. If you want to be an effective member of the body of Christ, that's number one. Number two, value the word of God. This is the only book that God has written for man.

If you believed it, you'd study it more than any other book. You'd spend time every day. I spent the first seven years after I was born again studying this book, day and night. I would get up from my bed from the time I was 21 almost to 26, about five years.

First thing I did, I was working in the Navy. First thing in the morning, get up early, kneel down beside my bed and pray. Sit down on my table and study this book. Then I'd go to work. Finish the whole day's work, come back at night, study this book again, kneel down and pray and go to bed.

I'm very thankful I did that right up until the time I was 26 when I left the Navy. It protected me from all types of temptations that come to young people, a lot of young men. Think of this verse in Psalm 119.

Psalm 119, it says, Psalm 119 is a great chapter about the blessings of God's word. And one of the verses says this, verse 11. I have treasured your word in my heart, not in my mind. You can memorize something in my mind.

I've treasured your word in my heart and the result is I don't sin against you. Isn't that great? Because I treasure God's word in my heart that keeps me from sin. How would you guard a treasure? If you treat God's word like a treasure, say, Lord, I want to value it.

I want to take your word and keep it in my heart and then get another word, another word, another word. I want to know every part of scripture because it's the only book, this almighty God creator of this universe has written for us.

I believe it and I can tell you after 57 years of studying this book, I'm still discovering things in it. It's like a well that never ends, like a spring of water that keeps springing up and giving me exactly according to my personal need and when my need increased of having to minister to people, God gives me what to minister to people as well.

It's amazing. I've never found a problem in my life in 57 years of being a believer for which the answer is not here. Every problem, there's an answer here somewhere or the other. I remember when the Lord called me to leave my job in the Navy as a naval officer and resign.

I put in my resignation and I sent it to naval headquarters in India saying, Jesus Christ has called me to serve him, I've got to quit. The naval headquarters laughed at that and said, I've got to quit, I've got to quit, I've got to quit.

And I sat there and I looked back saying, rejected. And my fellow believers in the brethren assembly I was in said, see, Zach, you're just crazy. You thought God called you, God didn't call you. You're just imagining.

And I was confused because every single person in that assembly told me not to leave my job. I said, Lord, was I confused and was I wrong? I'm not quitting my job to make money. I'm earning a lot right now.

I'm going to, my income dropped actually 85 when I quit my job. I said, Lord, I want to serve you. There was only one man of God who encouraged me. So I went back to the Lord and said, Lord, all these other believers say I made a mistake.

Is there an answer? There was an answer in scripture. The Lord said to me, what did Moses do when Pharaoh said, I will not let you go to serve the Lord. He didn't get discouraged and say, oh, well, maybe the Lord didn't call me.

He went back to Pharaoh again. Pharaoh said, I still won't let you go. He went back again. I got my answer. Not from people, but from scripture. And I went back again with the same request and the naval headquarters said, no, reject it.

But I did what Moses did, went back again with the same thing. And after two years, the top man in the Navy, somebody else came in charge there and he let me go immediately. I don't know. I believe it was God.

In the history of the Indian Navy, in all these years, they've never let anybody go except me on these grounds to serve Jesus Christ. To me, it was a proof to me that God had called me. Think if I had just listened to men at that time.

I wouldn't be here today. I'd be wasting my life as an admiral in the Navy or something and making a lot of money traveling the world and wasting my life instead of leading people to godliness. I would have regretted it for all eternity.

Treasure God's word in your heart. There's an answer in the Bible for every problem you can ever face in your life. When you want to get married, when you're looking for a job, God will guide you. So that's the second thing.

Meditate on it, memorize it, keep it in your mind. Even Jesus, when he was tempted, it was the word of God he used. Number three, seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Baptism means immersion. That's all it means.

Being Filled with the Holy Spirit

Baptism in water, being immersed in water. Baptism in the Spirit means being immersed in the Spirit. The Spirit is like a waterfall coming from heaven. The river of God flowing from heaven. It's the mightiest waterfall on earth.

Stand under it. Humble yourself, that's the meaning of stand under it. Stand under it, the Spirit of God will fill you all the time, all the time. It's not just a once for all experience. This is where I disagree with the Pentecostal, my dear Pentecostal friends.

It's not a once for all experience. It's something continuous. You need to fill the gas tank in your car, not just once, continuously. I want to be always full. We read in the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostle Peter was at least filled three or four times with the Holy Spirit, not just once.

In the Acts of the Apostles, and I'm sure many more times subsequently, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit every single day. I pray for that. Lord, I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day.

I cannot serve you. I cannot live the Christian life. To me, the Holy Spirit's power is like electricity. You remove electricity, everything packs up here, the fans, the lights, the mic, and everything.

But everything comes back in when electricity flows. And we want all that power of electricity, and the Holy Spirit's power is like that. It's a person, not just a power. A person who gives me power, first of all, to overcome sin, to become a little more like Christ, to give me light on areas of my life where I'm unchrist-like, where I can judge myself, and in the quarry, the quarry is in my private life, shaped and cut so that I can fit into my place in the body of Christ, not to be a bigger stone than God has wanted me to be, not to be smaller than I'm supposed to be.

We are all stones in the temple. Don't try to be bigger than God what God wants you to be, and at the same time, don't be smaller. If you become smaller than what God wants you to be because of your inferiority complex and your laziness, there'll be a gap in the wall.

If you try to be bigger than what God wants, cuts you out to be, you'll be crowding out other people and crushing them. Both these sins are there, those with a superiority complex and those with an inferiority complex.

The Holy Spirit will cut you to the right size if you judge yourself, and you'll be a perfect fit in whichever local church you're in. Seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit every day. When you seek to serve God anywhere, when you're even speaking to somebody in counseling or advising somebody, ask God to give you words.

The Holy Spirit speaks, and you'll hear a word saying, this is the way, walk in it. The Holy Spirit will warn you about dangers. Don't go there. He'll warn you in advance, protect you, preserve you. You cannot live the Christian life without being filled with the Holy Spirit every day, and don't wait for physical experiences.

I've never had physical experiences. I'm not interested in that. I want a spiritual experience. That's what I seek for all the time. I've never seen angels or any such thing. I'm not interested. I want to see Jesus in my heart.

That's far more important than anything else, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He'll show you Jesus, and then four, you must take up the cross every day. There's no way to live the Christian life without denying yourself, taking up the cross every day.

Luke 9, 23, every day, say, Lord, I want to die to myself. I say that, not just every day. Second Corinthians four, verse 10 says, bearing the dying of Jesus always, always means 24 seven. Second Corinthians four, verse 10, always, and I want to always bear in my body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus will come forth.

Wherever there's a death, there's a resurrection. When Jesus was dipped into the water, he was raised up by John the Baptist. When people put Jesus to death, God raised him up, and I want to tell you this.

If you submit to dying with Jesus, the Father will raise you up. There'll always be a resurrection if you take up the cross. Many of you don't experience the resurrection power of God in your life because you don't take the cross.

So please remember this. Number four, always, every day, Lord, in this provocative situation, I'm gonna die. In a home situation that's provocative, one of the two of you must die. Why is there a clash in a home?

Because both, why is there a noise? Because both hands are wanting to, if one hand refuses to cooperate, there's not gonna be noise, you know? So whenever there's a difference of opinion between husband and wife, one person must die.

And if one person dies, there'll be peace. See, there's no sound. If both refuse to die, clash. If one person dies, peace. And if both die, wow. Then it's heaven, it's fellowship. That's a wonderful home where both are willing to die.

But if both are not willing to die, at least let there be peace, either one. The way of the cross is the way of life. It's the message which is almost not preached in 90 of churches today, the way of the cross.

If you don't believe me, go to YouTube, go to the internet, find out how many messages there are on dying to self. Pretty close to zero. I'm trying to raise the average. You be one of those as well. Raising the average in Christendom, or preaching the message of the cross.

And practice it in your life. It's a glorious way. The Lord opened my eyes to that when I was seeking for the fullness of the Holy Spirit when I was 23 years old. And the Lord showed me, Jesus went into the waters of baptism, accepting death to self.

Came out of it, and the Spirit of God came upon him. And the Lord spoke to me and said, as long as you choose the way of the cross in your life, I will give you my power and I'll support you. But the day you move away from the way of the cross, you'll lose my power.

Fellowship in the Local Body of Christ

And I said, Lord, I never want to move away from that way. Number five, seek active fellowship with your local body of Christ. So the first is the blood, the word, the Holy Spirit, the cross, and the body.

That's number five, the body of Jesus Christ. That's not an optional extra. It's essential. You know, I can hold something with two fingers. The blood and the word, enough. I'm born again. But people can pull it out of my hand easily.

The more fingers I have gripping this, the more difficult it is for someone, for the devil to take something out of my hand. Have all five fingers to grip the Christian life, the blood, the word, the Holy Spirit, the cross, the way of the cross, and the body.

Some of you are neglecting the body. You think you can live the Christian life on your own. That's why the devil takes things away from you. It's so important. I tell you, in my life, the body of Christ made a tremendous difference to even coming into a life of victory.

I had all these, but I needed that body as well. The fellowship of other believers of like mind. And that's not just attending a church and listening to a message. Let me tell you this. If you're only interested in listening to a message, you don't have to go to church on a Sunday.

You can go to the internet and listen to messages that are 10 times better than anything you'll hear in your church on a Sunday. And you can have a choice. And the one big advantage of the internet is that if you get bored with the preacher, you can switch it off, which you can't do in a church.

You'll insult him if you walk out. I tell people this. Listen, I've got 1 ,000 messages on YouTube. Tune into all of them, they are free. And if you, after five minutes, you're bored with it, walk out.

Choose another message. And the advantage of YouTube is you can put a subject. You can't go to a church and decide which subject the preacher should be preaching on. That may be your need today. So if it is only to listen to a message, you don't have to go to church.

Believe me. If you want to listen to good singing, there's excellent singing on the internet. Much better than the singing you have in your church and the songs you want. You can praise the Lord. You can sing at home.

You can listen to message. But what is it you can never get through the internet? Fellowship. That's impossible. For that, you have to go to a local fellowship. And you go and sit in a church of 30 ,000 people, you're not gonna have fellowship.

You're just gonna listen to a sermon and go home. Fellowship can only be with a small group of people who really love Jesus and who are treating to be one body. You've been a Christian many years and you've not even sought that.

Maybe you've known the blood and the word and the Holy Spirit. You need to know the cross. And don't neglect the body of Christ, the local fellowship. Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together.

It says in Hebrews 10 .25, but so much the more. Hebrews 10 .25 says, so much the more you should do it as you see the coming of the Lord is near. You see all the things happening around us today, the coming of the Lord is near.

Let's pursue this more. Now I want to share with you, very quickly, eight points based on Romans 10, where it says, what we believe in our heart, we must confess with our mouth. Faith and confession is very important.

Confessing God's Love and Rejoicing

So here are these eight points. Okay, first four there. This is what you must believe and this is what you must confess. And you got the reference there as well. God the Father loves me as He loved Jesus.

So I will always rejoice. I'm not rejoicing in how much money I earn. I'm not rejoicing how healthy I am. I'm rejoicing in the fact that my Heavenly Father loves me as He loved Jesus, John 17 .23. To me, that is the biggest truth in the whole Bible.

There are more than 31 ,000 verses in the Bible, but John 17 .23 is number one at the top of the list for me. God loves me as He loved Jesus. What He did for Jesus, He'll do for me. As He cared for Jesus, He'll care for me.

And I've experienced that many, many times. But you must believe it. According to your faith, be it unto you. If your father has put a million dollars into your bank account, you'll get only as much as you draw out from it.

Otherwise it's there. There are many promises in scripture, but you'll get only what you claim. But you must confess. Romans 10 says, we believe in our heart and we confess with our mouth. Romans chapter 10, verse nine.

If you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart, Romans 10, 10, with the heart man believes and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. Salvation from that particular problem.

So you believe in your heart, Romans 10, 10, and then you confess with your mouth. To whom do you confess it? To the devil. That's the number one person I confess it to. Revelation chapter 12, verse 11 says, they overcame Satan by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.

To whom? To the devil. You read Romans 12, sorry, Revelation 12, verse 10 and 11. Have you ever given testimony to the devil? You've given your testimony in the church. Good. Start giving your testimony to the devil.

Talk back to the devil and tell him what Jesus done for you. Tell him he was defeated on the cross. He doesn't like to hear it. I remember once a lady was brought to our house for prayer. I always tell people who accept Christ to tell the devil he was defeated.

So I said, now tell the devil he was defeated. And she looked at me and said, I was not defeated on the cross. Oh, I thought it was a demon inside her. Well, if a demon speaks to me, I speak back to the demon.

So I told the demon who was inside her, I said, you're a liar. Get out of her right now in Jesus name. Five seconds, he left. I said, sister, now tell the devil he was defeated on the cross. And she said it immediately.