Learning From The Failures Of Others — Zac Poonen

Learning From Biblical Failures

It's good to look at the last messages that Jesus gave to his churches in Revelation, because you can see how these churches developed in the first century. They were all planted by the Apostles and the Apostles were directly commissioned by Jesus Christ.

Today there are so many people who call themselves Apostles. I don't believe in any one of them. I think there are Apostles, but they are not people who call themselves Apostles. But these Apostles were appointed by Jesus Christ and we can be sure that they were led by the Holy Spirit when they planted these churches.

But yet you find that most of these churches came into a very bad situation after a few years. And that has happened not only in the first century, it has happened in every century all these years. And we cannot say it will not happen to us.

Every group in these 2000 years have said it won't happen to us, but it happened. So we must not be foolish. A wise man learns from the mistakes of other people and an ordinary man learns from his own mistakes.

A foolish man does not even learn from his own mistakes. So we don't have to make a mistake in order to learn. If you watch other people and see the mistakes they make, you can learn so that you don't make a mistake yourself.

And that's why there are so many stories mentioned in the Bible of great men of God, the mistakes they made. You start with Adam, the Lord told Adam, your mistake was you listened to the voice of your wife.

Now there's nothing wrong in listening to the wife if she suggests something good. There are many good things also wives may say. One time God told Abraham, listen to your wife, because what his wife was saying was better than what he was thinking.

But when God has said something, then whoever says something else, we must not listen to them. Even if it's father, mother, wife, husband also. Example, if your husband tells you to worship idols, what do you do?

You don't have to submit to your husband, because above your husband is Jesus Christ. So if your husband tells you to do something Jesus has told you not to do, you listen to Jesus. So we can learn from the mistakes of Abraham.

The first mistake he made was listening to Sarah when he had a child through her servant. Jacob made a mistake by listening to his mother to go and deceive his father. You know David made a mistake when he was walking on the terrace, he saw some woman bathing, he should have turned his eyes away immediately.

If he had turned his eyes away, what a different story it would have been. One simple action, he did not turn his eyes away and for three thousand years, the shame of his sin is all over the world. Sometimes it's just a small action like that.

You don't turn your eyes away and there's confusion that ruins your life and your family life and everything. There are many stories like that, I've heard of Christian pastors also. So to all of you I would say one thing, learn from the mistakes that other people have made.

Read the Bible and see the mistakes that godly men made. See James and John were walking with Jesus, very close to him. But once when the Samaritans did not receive Jesus, they said Lord shall we call fire to come down and consume them?

And Jesus said you don't understand your spirit. Your spirit is not my spirit. I have not come here to destroy people's lives but to save them. We can learn from that mistake. When somebody does not receive us or does not receive the message but kicks us out, what do you do?

Pray God will judge them. Then Jesus will say to you, you don't know your spirit. My spirit is not in fellowship with your spirit. You want to destroy them, I want to save them. See that can be a great tendency among some of us that we want to just condemn people who don't agree with us.

When we are children we talk like that. We have all been children and we have said and done foolish things when we are children. I have done it too. All I am saying is let's grow up. Don't be a child forever.

There is nothing wrong in when we were all children we did foolish things, whether physically children or spiritually children. But now we should be growing up. We shouldn't say Lord consume them with fire.

Lord forgive them because they don't know what they are doing. You take a man like Peter, more than 10 -15 years after the day of Pentecost, he is following the caste system. I will not eat with the lower caste.

I will only eat with upper caste people. This is 15 years after he is filled with the Holy Spirit. So what shall we learn from it? Because all his life Peter had been born into this caste system where the Jews are better than the non-Jews.

So we can also be there like that. All of us have inherited certain ideas, opinions from childhood. Some can be one extreme where they are upper caste, lower caste. Some of you may be like that. Some of you may be more with the Naxalite spirit.

We are against all this. Let me tell you Jesus was not a Naxalite so he won't have fellowship with you. Jesus was not a Naxalite so he won't have fellowship with you. That is just falling over the cliff on the other side.

Elders Shape the Character of Their Churches

We must always see Jesus. How did he do it? So when we look at these churches, we can learn something from them. The church became like the elder. And I have noticed that also in our churches. All our churches are not the same quality.

They may all say we are Christian fellowship but there is not the same degree of Christian fellowship in every church. Why is there a difference? All depends on the quality of life of the elder brother in that church.

The more the elder brother is like Christ, the church will be like that. If the elder brother is a legalist, the church will be like that. If the elder brother is a hard dictator type, the church will be just out of suppress.

It's like that with our families also. You have a good father and mother, it's a wonderful atmosphere for children to grow up. You have a very lenient type of father and mother, all the children become wayward.

And you have a very strict father and mother controlling everything, those children will never become mature. You know like Indian fathers, even when the child is forty years old, they want to control them.

They never let them grow up. That is how some elders are, they never let other people grow up. I want to say, every elder is a failure if he has not allowed others in his church to grow up. He is like King Saul sitting on the throne, he doesn't want anybody to come up and we placed him on the throne.

You want to be like Jesus? We all say we want to be like Jesus. We all say we want to be like Jesus. Let me say especially to those who are older and elder brothers, and elder sisters, learn to be like Jesus in this area.

John 14 verse 12, he looked at his disciples, that's the way we should look at people who are younger than us. And say to them, you will do, verse 12, last part, greater works than I have done. Can you look at your younger brothers and sisters and honestly say, you are going to do greater works than I have done.

That is a true elder brother. Very few like that. Most of them, their attitude is, I don't want you to ever do anything even near what I am doing. They must always think I am the great man. Nobody in my church should be able to preach better than me.

Nobody in my church should be able to preach better than me. That is the spirit of Cain, who did not want his younger brother to be better than him and killed him. That is the spirit of Cain, who did not want his younger brother to be better than him and killed him.

That is the spirit of Saul, who wanted to kill David. That is the spirit of Saul, who wanted to kill David. But Jesus looked at all those junior disciples and said you will do greater works than I have done.

I am going to prepare the way for you to do greater works. That is the spirit of God. That is why David was called a man after God's own heart, even though he made mistakes. You know that David said to God, God, I want to build your temple.

David’s Humility and God’s Plan for the Temple

But God did not permit him. But God did not permit him. I want you to see this passage I want you to see this passage in 1 Chronicles in 1 Chronicles chapter 28 chapter 28 and verse 2. Then David rose to his feet and said to others, My brothers, I had intended to build a permanent home for the Lord.

So I made all the preparations to build it. But God said to me, You shall not build a house for My name because you are a man of war. See that is the principle with God. A man of war cannot build a house.

We have to make war with the devil, that is okay. I want to say to you, whoever you are, if you are a man who fights with other people, God will say, you cannot build My church. You are a man who is always at war with somebody or the other.

Are you a brother who is always fighting with somebody? Are you an elder brother like that? God will say, it's okay, you do something else. You can distribute the song books or something, but you can't build My church.

That's what the Lord told David. But he says, okay, I can't do it, but somebody else will do it. Verse 6, My son Solomon will build the house. So what did David do? Someone younger than him is going to do something greater than him?

He could have got upset. He said, okay Solomon, you build it. Let's see whether you can do something like I did. No, he didn't do that. David, verse 11, gave Solomon all the plan of the buildings and storehouses and everything and all the plan he had in mind for the house of the Lord.

We read in 1 Chronicles 28, verse 11 David gave his son Solomon the hall, the rooms, the storehouses and everything and built the house of the Lord. There is one great lesson we can learn from there. Solomon had a very clever brain.

He was known as the wisest man in his generation. David had a good heart. He was known as a man after God's own heart. David's strong point was his heart. Solomon's strong point was his clever brain. Now you would think that if you want to build a good house for yourself to whom will you go?

Will you go to a man with a good heart or a clever brain? I know, you and I will definitely go to someone with a clever brain. Only he can plan a nice house for us. For our earthly buildings good brain is more important than a good heart.

But to build God's house it's more important to have a good heart than a good brain. Imagine the man with the good heart is teaching the wisest man in the world how to build God's house. God's ways are not our ways.

The temple was to be built according to God's plan. Moses was broken by God before God could give him the plan for the tabernacle. Only a broken, humble man can get God's plan for building his church.

And if in your church there are constant conflicts don't blame the people. Don't say, what to do brother these people are like that. Why can't you build a house according to God's plan? Because you are a clever man like Solomon but not a broken man like David.

Never forget this God gave the plan of the tabernacle to Moses not when he was 40 years old a very clever man. After he broke him for 40 years then he gave him the plan. After he broke Moses for 40 years then he gave him the plan.

Then God knew he will not modify the plan. In Pharaoh's palace the best colleges and universities in Egypt they were very clever people. They made pyramids which even today's engineers are wondering how they did it.

Moses knew how to build pyramids. What is the problem for him to build a tabernacle? At the age of 40 if God had given Moses all the plan of the tabernacle to Moses he would have told God God you don't know what you are saying this is too simple.

Leave it to me I have built pyramids in Egypt I can build much better than your tabernacle. Today that is how many people are trying to build the church. Today that is how many people are trying to build the church.

We cannot follow the plan given by Jesus and the apostles. They say we can do a greater work than that. They did not know. Do you know that Jesus and the apostles never took a collection in their meetings?

Today we need so much money to do God's work. Not only we have to collect in the meetings we have to give everybody receipt books that they will go all over the town and collect money from anybody. Doesn't matter who they are Muslim, Buddhist they contribute for God's work.

Doesn't matter who they are they contribute for God's work. God will bless you if you give this money. There are Christian organizations doing this. Yes you will go to hell but please give money for God's work.

Do you know what will happen in the final day of judgment? Some of these unbelievers when God sends them to hell they will say Lord wait this preacher came with a receipt book and collected money from me for your house.

I went to his church and he put a bag in front of me and collected money from me. I went there to hear the gospel but he collected money from me. How can you send me to hell when I gave you money for building your church?

What will the Lord say? I will tell you what he will say. That fellow was not my servant. He was just a fake Christian preacher. There are so many things like that people do today. Somebody asked one of the great television preachers today why you keep on asking people for money Jesus never asked people for money.

He said because Jesus never had television program like I have. His ministry is bigger than Jesus ministry. These are the foolish people that so many Christians are following. They say no no no 20th century we have to change the pattern from the way Jesus and apostles did it.

There is not a single place in all the new testament where Jesus or the apostles ever told people please give money for my work and my ministry not even once. That is the plan God has given to build his house.

How many people are following it today? They are like Moses at 40 we don't have to follow all that we can do it better than that. I want to ask you maybe it is not in the area of money in some other area do you modify God's plan?

Do you have a humble spirit that says the way Jesus and the apostles did it, that is the right way? Don't go to the bible and say I will pick what I like and what I don't like I will change it. That is what lot of people are doing.

If you accept the bible as God's word, accept all of it. So David was the man after God's own heart and that is the person to whom God gave his plan. And the world's cleverest man Solomon has to sit at the feet of the man who has a good heart.

And we read here David gave all the plan and not only all the plan he collected gold and gave all the money he had and he says in verse 19 1 Chronicles 28 19 The Lord put his hand upon me and told me to write down every detail of this pattern and I did that.

And from his own heart he gladly gave all these things all that money and everything for building the house not only the plan but the money also. Chapter 29 verse 2. With all my ability I have provided for the house of my God the gold, the silver the bronze, the iron the wood, the stones and everything.

The gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron the wood, the stones and everything I have provided for the house of my God. In chapter 29 verse 3 I have provided for the house of my God the gold, the silver, the bronze the wood, the stones and everything.

And when they saw a leader like that all the others, verse 6 they also came and they gave the silver and gold and everything that they had also they gave. See when the leader is like that then there will be good followers.

And the people rejoiced, verse 9 because they had all offered so willingly. This is the way to build the church. What did David say? Verse chapter 28, 19 His hand was upon me. We read that the hand of God was upon David.

This is not my clever brain thinking how should I build God's house. He was a broken, humble man. Learn that that the clever Solomon did not get the pattern to build the tabernacle. He was only like the master and David was the architect.

He just built it. And look at the plan which David had given. Ok, I will put the wall here. Ok, we got to put the door here. We put the door here. The man after God's own heart got the pattern. Not the cleverest man in the world.

I saw that truth when I was a young man in my twenties. I saw, Lord my cleverness will not build your house. I want to be a man after your own heart. Then I will know how to build your house. I want to say to all of you brothers, elder brothers you may be cleverer than a lot of uneducated and illiterate people in your church.

Because you are educated you got a job but they may be more spiritual than you are because their heart is better than yours. God may be preserving your church not because of you but because of them. It's the humble people who get God's grace.

Confession, Authority, and the Example of Jesus

Some elders are not humble. One proof of the fact that some elders are not humble is that they never confess their mistakes. Have you ever heard your elder brother get up and say that was wrong I am sorry for what I did.

I feel sorry for you if you got an elder like that. A man after God's own heart. You know how David wrote Psalm 51 Oh Lord I am the one at fault. God gave that man the pattern to build his temple. I want to be like that all my life.

I don't want to imagine that I never make a mistake. The only one who never makes a mistake is Almighty God. If your elder never confesses his mistakes he must be thinking that he is God. I am sorry to say that there are elders like that.

They think they are Almighty God. They order people do this, do this. I will give you one bit of advice don't listen to them. That's not the spirit of Jesus Christ. Where do you find Jesus Christ telling people do this, do this?

He always spoke like this. If anyone wants to come, follow me. One rich young man said no, I can't give up my money. Ok, I love you but go your way. I am not going to compel you. Only the devil compels people.

God never compels anybody. I have tried to learn that from God the Father and Jesus. Have you learnt it? I will tell you who are the only ones you are permitted to compel. Your small children. There you have to compel them because it says they are full of foolishness.

If they are five years old and they say I am not coming to the church meeting today. You say you are coming you are going to listen to me. And if you don't listen to me you are going to get some punishment from me.

But I am not going to speak like that when that son becomes 25 years old. And don't treat the people in your church like little 5 year old babies. It's so easy to exercise an authority which is like the authority that earthly dictators use and not the spiritual authority of Jesus Christ.

The Responsibility of Elders in Building the Church

The church the quality of the church depends on the quality of the elders. You know the bible says how God builds a church one example in Jeremiah chapter 3 the Lord picks one from here and two from there like that he builds a church.

You know that how it is. God picked one person from a family. I have a brother and sister. God didn't choose them. He chose me. I don't know why. But you also know that some of your close family members God has not picked them.

It says in Jeremiah 3 verse 14 in the middle of that verse I will take you one from a city and two from a family and I will bring you to Zion. Zion is the true church of God. Zion is the true church of God.

How do you know whether you have come to Zion? How do you know whether your church is Zion? Here the next verse. There I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

If you have got shepherds who are after God's own heart. If you have got shepherds. Then you have really come to Zion. Who will give you the knowledge of God. What God is like. How good God is. How he is a loving father.

How he is a holy God. And he will help you to be holy. And he will feed you with understanding of God's word. Who will take trouble to study God's word and teach you. Not lazy preachers who don't study God's word and get up and wander from Genesis to Revelation for one hour saying nothing.

Not lazy preachers who don't study God's word and get up and wander from Genesis to Revelation for one hour saying nothing. They take time to study God's word and feed you with knowledge and understanding.

If you have an elder brother like that Oh, brother, sister, you are very, very fortunate. Who's not interested in your money or your honor. An elder brother who will treat you exactly like he treats his own children at home.

Expecting nothing but only serving you and helping you, expecting nothing in return. That's what we learn in Revelation 2 and 3. To all those churches, the Holy Spirit, the Lord says, say to the elder like this.

And then at the end he says, that's actually the message for the church also. And for all the churches, I'll give you one example. Chapter 2, verse 1, Revelation 2, 1. To the messenger of the church in Ephesus, write, the messenger is the senior elder brother in that church.

There are maybe two, three elders and one of them is the senior among them. That's the messenger of the church who mainly brings God's word. So the message is not to the church primarily, it's to the elder.

You elder, you have left your first love, verse 4. Who left the first love? Who left it? Elder. Because the message, the letter is to the elder. But then in verse 7 he says, he who has a ear to hear, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches.

That means churches like that and all the other churches need to also listen to this. So a church suffers when the elder is not a godly, humble man. So you may say, what shall I do then if my elder is not a godly, humble brother?

Yeah, there is a verse in verse 7, be an overcomer. To everyone in all the churches, every church the Lord says, those who overcome, I have a message for you. When I was a young man, I used to, when I was 23, I used to attend a church.

They believed the word of God, they preached the new birth. But they never preached anything about being filled with the Holy Spirit. They never preached anything about victory over sin. It was only study, study, study, study of the word of God.

There were good people there. Nobody who could say, follow me like I followed Jesus. Some of their elders, the children would go astray. And I could not follow them as an example. They were not humble, God-fearing brothers.

Their children were not good examples. How can I follow them? So I said, Lord, what shall I do? The Lord said, look at me. Look at me, looking unto Jesus. Those are the days I learned that when I cannot find a good human example, I've got Jesus as an example.

Sometimes the danger of a good human example is that you may only look at him and not look at Jesus at all. There is a danger of following Paul and saying, I belong to Paul. Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ.

Jesus said, follow me. But Paul never said, follow me. Nobody can say that except Jesus Christ. There is a danger of following Paul and saying, I belong to Paul. Remember that. But don't go to the other extreme and say, I'll never follow any man.

Because in your Bible, in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. And in Philippians 3 .17, he says, look at some of us who are your examples. 3 .17 So, we have to follow human examples if they help us to follow Jesus Christ.

But otherwise, we should not follow them. So, when I couldn't find such examples, I looked at Jesus. So, if you don't find such an example in your elder brother, look at Jesus. Say, Lord, I don't find a godly example in my elder brother.

But I can look at you. I don't have confidence in my elder brother. I go to the church because that is the best church in my village. But he is so authoritarian and like a dictator, not like a father.

So, okay, brother, sister, don't look at him. You can go to that church, but look at Jesus and follow him. You say, then what shall I do when I need to get some advice? Don't go to your elder brother.

Go to a person in whom you have confidence. That may be an elder brother in another town. Write a letter. There's nothing wrong in that. You know, we read in the old… in Corinth, there was a family called Chloe.

They saw so many problems in their church. And maybe they went to the elders and the elders could do nothing about it. So, we read in 1 Corinthians 1 .11, that they wrote a letter to Paul. So, Paul solved the problem.

So, God hasn't made the Christian life in such a way that I'm bound to some man, just because he's living in my town. Let me give you a verse. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, 1 Corinthians 7, verse 23, 1 Corinthians 7, 23, You were bought with a price.

Don't become the slaves of men. And especially, be careful that you don't become a slave of somebody who's trying to make you his slave. I have never had an interest in making anybody my slave. I say, follow Jesus.

Even the people who leave our church, if I see them somewhere, I say, hello, good to see you again. Are you following Jesus? I don't care which church you go to. Are you following Jesus? That's the only thing I'm interested in.

So, I remember one brother told me in one place, Brother Jack, I want to tell you honestly. If you were living in my town, I would have come to the CFC church. But the CFC church in our town, I have no confidence in that elder brother.

No, I don't go there. I go to another church which I think is better than this CFC church. I say, good, go there. You must go where you can be the best disciple of Jesus. You know, if people are transferred from Bangalore to another place, I never tell them, ah, there's a CFC church there, you must go there.

I say, I'll inform you there is a church like that. Go and test it out. If you find you're happy there and you can follow the Lord there, join it. But if you find another church in that town where you can be a better disciple of Jesus, don't go to the CFC church, go to the other one.

We're not building a club where you say you got to be loyal to us. Go where you can be the best disciple of Jesus Christ. Where do I learn that from? Revelation chapter 2 and 3. The church which Paul built in Ephesus was so bad that Jesus is saying, I'm going to leave this church.

He says in Revelation 2 .5, I'm going to, if you don't listen to me, repent, I'm going to de-recognize you as a church. I will remove the lampstand. That means you will not be my church anymore. That means the church is going on but Jesus is not there.

And who planted that church? The apostle Paul. And you know all the people in Ephesus would have said, you know who planted this church? Paul. Don't leave this church. But Jesus has left. What do you do then?

In a wedding after the bridegroom leaves the hall, what does the bride do? After the bridegroom has left. She also says, oh bridegroom has gone, I better go. See, that's what happened in a church planted by the apostle Paul.

Leadership Warnings in Revelation

Here's another church planted by another apostle in Laodicea. To the elder of the church in Laodicea, chapter 3 verse 14. Always the Lord is speaking to the elders. In the old testament prophets, you read Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel.

See there, read those three books. Big, big prophecies. And see who the Lord is speaking to. Always the prophet is saying, you leaders, you kings, you priests, you leaders, that's why the people have gone astray.

It's a very big responsibility to be a leader. And so in Revelation also, the Lord speaks to the leaders. The Lord told the apostle John, write to the leaders. Throughout the Bible, he tells fathers, if the children go astray, you are responsible fathers.

If the church is going astray, don't blame the church, you elders are responsible. So to the elder in the church in Laodicea, you don't know, verse 17, that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.

Can you picture this in your mind? There is a church in Laodicea meeting here. One brother comes from the apostle John. And he tells the elder, brother, John has given me a letter. And he has asked me to read it out in the church.

So the elder brother doesn't know what it is. He says, okay, sure, read it out. The elder brother is sitting there. The man says, see, don't get angry with me. This is not my word. This is what the Lord told John.

Tell the elder sitting in Laodicea, you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked. How do you think that elder felt? You know, once when Samuel wanted to tell Saul something, you read that in 1 Samuel 15.

You can read that in 1 Samuel 15. He called Samuel and said, just tell me privately, don't tell it all publicly. Just come along with me to the offering and let's act as if nothing is wrong. And he pulled and Samuel's robe was torn.

And he said, the Lord has torn the kingdom away from you, just like you tore my robe. See, we like to cover up our sin and don't let anybody else know about it, because I am an elder brother. That is the spirit of King Saul.

Whereas David, he just published it and wrote a psalm saying, yeah, I am a sinner. So, the Lord tells the church in Laodicea and the elder, verse 20, I am standing at the door and knocking. So, where is Jesus?

He is outside. Outside a church. My dear brothers, why am I saying all this? We are in danger. We are in danger. He who has a ear to hear, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches. Don't say we are connected to CFC, it means no value.

Pharisees said, we are connected to Abraham. John the Baptist said, God can raise up children from these stones forever. The moment we are proud about something, God will withdraw his grace the moment we become proud.

I want to urge you, my brothers and sisters, learn from Revelation 2 and 3. Let us humble ourselves and say, Lord, deliver me from a clever brain like Solomon. Make me a broken, humble man like David, so that I can understand your plan.