Personal Questions – Honest Answers (2003)

To begin with, can you tell us something about your past, where you were born, where you had your education, and when you joined the Navy?

First of all, I'm glad all these press reporters are here. I hope you'll put it in tomorrow's newspaper.

Write your Bible on this day, sir.

Okay, your question was where I was born?

Where you were born and where you had your education, and when you joined the Navy.

I was born in what is now known as Chennai, but then Madras, about two months after World War II started. On the 5th of November, 1939. And then my father was working there, we moved to Coimbatore, then to Karachi before partition, when there was no Pakistan.

And then when partition came, we moved to Delhi, and that's where I grew up as a boy from the time I was 8 years old. And then I joined the Navy when I was 15. I had finished high school, and I joined the Navy.

You did your NDA or something? Yeah, I joined the National Defence Academy as a cadet when I was 15 years old.

At what age did you come to know the Lord as your personal saviour?

Well, I really don't know when I came to know Jesus, because my father was a believer and grew up in a God-fearing home. And many times I accepted Jesus in my heart. I'm sure it was only once was the real time.

But I was never sure, so maybe from the age of 13 to the age of 19, I must have asked Jesus to come into my heart a hundred times or a thousand times, I don't know. But one of those times was the real time, and I don't know which one it was.

I'm like a man who doesn't know his birthday. But I became sure of my salvation only when I was 19 and a half. The same month I was commissioned as an officer in the Navy, in July 59, by one verse, John 6, 37.

Him that cometh to me, Jesus said, I'll never cast out. I said, Lord, I've come to you hundreds of times. He said, well, I'll never cast you out. I said, Lord, today I'm going to believe it. And I dropped an anchor that day, and my ship has never drifted.

From that day till today, I've never doubted my salvation. So that's 44 and a half years ago.

Can I interrupt you for a moment? We want to get the Tamil press sitting down there. Okay. More comfortable. Brother, you can put some chairs there and probably translate there itself. You brothers at the back also can make yourself more comfortable.

Tamil newspapers are also important.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll continue.

If you need more chairs, you can pick them up from upstairs or somewhere.

Brother Zak, I understand that you had a good upbringing in your family. I understand that your parents were godly. And I understand that perhaps you did not go out in the world and live a wicked life.

But how did you know that you were really saved? How did you know that your sins were forgiven? Was it anything because of your upbringing or because you did a number of good things and you felt accepted before God?

How did you really know that you were born again?

You know, I think I had the problem that a lot of children have who are brought up in good God-fearing homes. We haven't killed anybody and haven't robbed banks and things like that. And so, it's sometimes a bit difficult for people who are brought up in such families.

First of all, to realize that they are also sinners just like anybody else. I think those of you who are brought up in God-fearing homes will feel that. And I don't think I had such an awareness of sin at that time as I have today.

Because our awareness of sin increases as we walk closer with God. But I knew, I mean I knew my heart and I knew that it was bad just like anybody else's heart. Even if I didn't do things on the outside, I realized a little bit, I know much more today, that it doesn't make me better than others.

It just means that I didn't have the opportunity. I mean if you tie up a fierce lion inside a cage of a zoo and you go past it and the lion says, I didn't bite anybody today, it doesn't mean anything.

The question is if the lion was in the forest, it would have probably bitten and killed so many people. You put the same lion in a cage, it doesn't hurt anybody, it's not a proof that it's any better.

Or you put a snake under a piece of glass and it says, I didn't sting anybody. And I feel I was like that. My circumstances were such that I did not have the freedom to sin like other people. And that's the only thing that prevented me from sinning like other people.

And therefore I was not really better. I mean a cobra inside a glass case is no different from a cobra in the wild. There is equal poison in both. Even though the cobra in the wild may have killed so many, and the cobra inside the case says, I have not killed anyone.

So that's a little picture I gradually realized. I don't think I understood it all in the beginning. But I realized that God sees the heart and I am no better than anybody else even if I have not done those things.

I am a believer in the fact that God in his great sovereignty says, you did not choose me, I chose you. So that humbles me. I am not better than my brother, I am not better than anybody else. But God chose me like he chose you.

And today I am a child of God because of that. I just became aware that Jesus loved me. To me at that time, to be honest, it was not so much a consciousness of sin. I think consciousness of sin has come to me more only in the last few years since we have started CFC.

How did you know that you became a child of God?

I think it was the fact that God loved me that made me say, Lord I have to give my life to you. And it was assurance of that verse, as I said, him that cometh to me I will not cast out, which gave me the assurance that I was a child of God.

I couldn't explain it as clearly as I can now then. But I knew I was alive.

What convinced you that God really accepted you and God loved you?

I think it was just God's word. I had no experience. John 6 .37. I want to tell all of you for your benefit that I have never seen any light or heard any voices or I have never seen any angels in my life.

I have not had what people call visions and I have had a few dreams when I eat too much at night, which are meaningless. I would say I have had maybe 14, 15 or 20 meaningful dreams also, which I believe the Lord gave.

But these fantastic experiences other people speak about, I have never had them. I have lived more by faith, not by sight.

Does any of your past sort of haunt you, did it ever trouble you, make you doubt that God had accepted you or loved you?

No, I don't know why it is, but somehow I have never doubted God's love for me. I must say there have been times in my life where I have doubted whether God would protect me from some harm. Particularly when I realized that so many of God's children through the ages have been persecuted and harassed and God allowed them to be eaten by lions.

I am willing for that, but sometimes such fears have come in the past. They become less as time goes on. But I can't say that I ever felt God doesn't love me. I don't remember any one day like that. I am exactly like a man who doesn't know his birthday.

Were you tempted to doubt your salvation at any time? Were you tempted to doubt whether you are really forgiven?

I have not only been tempted to doubt my salvation, I have been tempted to doubt the existence of God itself. Is there a God? There are times in my life when I look back over 45 years when I prayed for something earnestly and nothing happened.

I was tempted. Is there somebody listening to all this I am saying or am I just talking into the air? I felt it was safer to believe there is somebody there. The other was worse to think there was nobody up there in heaven.

But gradually as I have grown older, I have understood that all this was necessary for me to have what we call naked faith. With no external sign of anything, blind naked faith, God is there. You only know in your spirit that there is a real God.

That's how it's been for me. I have not had spectacular experiences like other people have.

What impact did it really make on your life? Was there a change? Did you notice a change in your attitude, a change in your life?

That's one thing that definitely happened. I had a radical change in my ambitions. Because I was doing so well in the Navy, I thought I would want to end up as the Admiral of the Navy. That was really my ambition and I worked hard at it and that changed completely.

I knew that if I was a Christian now, I had no intention of leaving my job. But I found in different situations that if I am going to stand up and not do wrong things and be a Christian, I just could not make it to the top.

I would have to compromise my convictions to make it to the top. And I was not willing to compromise my convictions. That was one change that came. The other change was, I can't explain it, but exactly like a baby cries out for milk and screams, you know, if you have heard a baby screaming, you know that as soon as it gets its mother's milk, it is just quiet.

I had a similar passion to read the Bible and study it. I didn't know the Bible, but I found a tremendous thirst for the milk of God's word.

I can't explain it. Did you ever tell about your experience to any of your friends?

I was shy. I think I am still shy. Very shy. I am basically a shy person. I have to battle it. I would always rather be at the back rather than the front. I stand in front only because God wants me to.

But I have been a shy person. I was much more shy when I was young. I am not this outgoing type of person that other people are. I used to envy people who are outgoing. You know, people who are called the life and soul of a party.

We have parties in the Navy where some people were the life and soul of the party. They would cheer everybody up and slap people on the back and I would be standing in the corner with my glass of orange juice.

But everybody knew that I was a Christian. Did anyone make fun of you? Oh yes. They would call me Holy Joe and all types of…. I mean not as bad names as Christians call me nowadays. They were a little more decent.

The heathen are usually a little more decent. But that's like, you know, the Romans never called Jesus by as bad names as the Pharisees did. Anyway, but they made fun of me and that made me strong to stand up for Christ.

And every opportunity I got, I would pass tracts out and various things like that. Everybody knew I was a Christian. I used to carry a Bible in a little cover. Once when I was going out of the ship with this little bag, one of the sailors, a junior sailor asked me, Sir, do you have a private insurance job on the side or something?

You go around with this bag. I said, yeah, I do. I am insuring people for eternity and these opportunities like that I got to share God's word.

Were you ever discouraged? Did you lose faith? Did you lose courage at any time? What was it that really gave you a good foundation in your Christian life?

I think after I was born again, for 16 years, I was frequently discouraged. Not all the time. If I had some success in my ministry or something exciting happened or I got a promotion in my job, then I wouldn't be discouraged.

I would be excited. But it didn't seem to last long. It was all up and down for 16 years. Sometimes up and sometimes down. If we did something exciting, I would be up. If nothing was happening, it was all just daily routine, monotonous routine, then I would be discouraged.

But then the thing that changed it was when I got filled with the Holy Spirit and began to understand the way of the cross, then things really changed. You were going to Brethren Church, isn't it? In the beginning, I was baptized to the Brethren Assembly and that's where I really developed a love for the word of God.

Yeah, that's where I was going first. By the way, when did you get baptized? Your time?

I got baptized…. Immediately after you were born again or you took some time? I took some time. I was christened as a child by my parents but I was baptized as a believer one and a half years after I was saved.

Because I heard different people saying, you know, it doesn't matter. These things are not important. If you don't get baptized, you can stay in the Jacobite Church and be a witness there. That's where people need you.

So I decided to study the Bible and I studied the New Testament and I discovered that there is no child baptism. There is only believer's baptism. And then I didn't obey it because I was still thinking, what will I lose the opportunity to witness in my own other denomination.

And then every time I knelt down, God would say, you are not listening to me, why should I listen to you? And for one and a half years, though I was saved, I made no progress in my life till I got baptized.

Did the word of baptism make any difference in your life?

Yeah, I think that was the time when I really began to take my Christian life seriously. I mean, I was born again. I had no doubt about it. I went to meetings regularly. But my Christian life became really serious after I was baptized.

Coming back to this up and down experience you said, you said 16 years, is it? Now, you tell us that after you were baptized in the Holy Spirit, that means to say you had no up and down experience?

Well, I don't think it was only baptism in the Holy Spirit. I think if I was baptized in the Holy Spirit when I was…. See, my baptism in the Holy Spirit, by the way, I can't find foundation for it in scripture.

But I seem to get it in two stages. Now, don't ask me for a scripture because everybody got it in one stage in the New Testament. But some unbelieving creatures like me get it in two stages. One was, I was really seeking God for power and way back in 63, I really believed God met with me because I saw some results in my ministry and things like that.

While you were in Navy, you were already in the ministry, is it?

Yeah, when I was in the Navy, I started preaching and I was glad that I was already a little bald then. Was it a gift you had or…. No, the baldness was also a gift. Because, I'll tell you why, because I used to get up in these conventions to speak and I was only 23 years old and because I was bald, people would think I was 35 and they would listen to me.

So, otherwise they wouldn't care, what is this young 22-year-old fellow going to say? So, I could see God had a purpose in everything and I was serving the Lord even then. I really studied the word.

I would come back home, study the word, study the word, study the word, pray. God gave me a gift to speak. I can't say that. That's how I began to minister the word when I was in the Navy. Yeah, so after my baptism, I began to grow spiritually.

Were you prejudiced against the baptism of the Holy Spirit since you come from a brethren background?

Yeah, but in the brethren assembly, they don't preach about baptism of the Holy Spirit. So, I never thought about baptism of the Holy Spirit. So, how did you get interested in it? Yeah, because brethren assembly taught me to study the word, which is a good thing.

When I studied the word, I found there was such a thing called baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I used to read a little paper in those days called Herald of His Coming, which read of the experiences of people like Moody and Finney.

And these people were baptized in the Holy Spirit and their whole life was changed. And so I began to seek God for it. I knew the brethren couldn't help me, so I didn't go to them. I went to some Pentecostal churches and that was so noisy and so...

And one pastor told me to keep on saying, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. I said, no, I'm not going to say that. I want what the... I came back home discouraged and I said, Lord, I don't want what the brethren have.

I don't want what the Pentecostals have. I want what Peter, James and John got on the day of Pentecost. If it takes me 10 years to get it, I'm going to get it. And I sought God and that's, as I said, in two stages.

First, God met with me in 63 and then later on, 10 -12 years later in 75.

But how did you have the assurance that you were baptized in the Holy Spirit?

Initially by faith. I was praying with a brother here in my house, visiting brother to Bangalore and I told him, see, I never seemed to be able to believe. I had a hunger but I couldn't believe that the Lord had really baptized me in the Holy Spirit.

Did you get any feeling? I had no feeling and he told me one sentence. Sometimes you know how one sentence can liberate you. He said, Zach, it is unthinkable that God can call you to serve Him and then refuse to give you His power to serve Him.

That sounded very logical to me. I was sure God had called me and then I said, yeah, that's right. So then as I was praying, He rebuked the spirit of unbelief that was binding me and He laid hands on me and I said, Lord, thank you.

I believe I have received right now and I received by faith. And as I was praying, I spoke in tongues but the tongues came after I believed, not before. Was there any gap? I prayed only for less than five minutes and I suddenly found myself saying something I didn't want to say and then I stopped and continued in English and again said something I didn't want to say and then I asked this brother, hey, did you hear something?

He said, yes, you spoke in tongues.

Do you still exercise the gift of tongues?

Yes, I do. I wish I would do it more often but certainly, you know, more in times of pressure, almost every worship meeting I will worship the Lord in tongues. Or in a prayer meeting together or in a time of pressure or when confronted with a demon-possessed person, yeah, I do exercise it.

What was it that really brought stability in your life?

Were there times that you backslid? Yeah, in those 16 years frequently, sometimes pretty badly but always inwardly. My outward testimony was always good which made it worse because I became a hypocrite and it was in that state of hypocrisy that the Lord met me the second time in 1975.

But since then, I would say stability has come through a number of things. One, this absolute assurance that my past sins are all blotted out by the blood of Christ. Another thing that has brought stability in my life is this rock-solid promises of scripture in God's word as I have come to know God's word and quote God's word to the devil.

And the third is this baptism in the Holy Spirit. And I would say a fourth thing is that the Lord has shown me that I must die to myself every day. That's also brought stability. And the fifth is the fellowship, particularly the fellowship that I have experienced in CFC with wholehearted brothers.

But after you were baptized in the Holy Spirit, did you find the Christian life to be tough or heavy or boring?

I think more tough than before. I have had more opposition after being baptized in the Holy Spirit, more misunderstanding. Well, I will tell you this. I remember it was in January 1975 that the Lord met with me the second time.

It was like a complete experience. Till then my baptism in the Holy Spirit was something like, you know, you buy an encyclopedia set and 2 -3 volumes are missing. And then you get those 2 -3 volumes and then the whole set is complete.

My baptism in the Holy Spirit was like that. And then I said, well, if this is something really from God, because you know the next day after I spoke in tongues, I had all types of doubt. Did I make it up yesterday?

Was it really from God? Was it really from me? I said, okay, if it is really from God, I will start reading the New Testament all over again and let me see if the Holy Spirit teaches me something which I have not known for 16 years of studying the Bible.

And I tell you, I have learned a lot of things since 1975 which I never knew before. And as I started with Matthew chapter 1 and I wanted to know, I was looking for assurance of baptism in the Holy Spirit.

And I thought, boy, Matthew, this so-and-so begat so-and-so and so-and-so begat so-and-so. I was not getting any assurance from who begat who. Half the chapter was all this. And then all of a sudden, I came to the end of Matthew chapter 1 where the angel says to Joseph, this thing that has come to Mary is from the Holy Spirit.

Oh, that is exactly the word I was looking for. And then the Lord began to speak to me. This is from the Holy Spirit. But just like it was only Mary who knew it and all the others misunderstood her thinking that it is not Holy Spirit, your experience also, you know it but everybody else will misunderstand you from now on.

And like Mary had to bear a shame because the Spirit came upon her, you will have to bear shame from now on. And then the Lord said to me, just like Mary had the Spirit come upon her to produce Jesus in her, the Holy Spirit has come upon you also to produce Jesus in you.

And the Lord said, this gift of tongues is so abused and misunderstood in the world. Now I want you to take that gift and adorn it with a Christ-like life so that people will once again have faith in this gift.

Coming back to this subject of backsliding, I think you would agree that many young people face this constantly. What is the cause of backsliding in your life? How long did you remain in a backslidden condition?

And how did you come out of backsliding? Do you think it is normal for a Christian to backslide?

Is it normal? Well, it is the experience of many Christians but I don't believe it is God's will. It is not what God has planned as normal but it is normal in the lives of many Christians. I picture it as the five fingers of the Christian life.

Absolute assurance, number one, that the blood of Christ has cleansed me. Tremendous hunger for God's word, number two, to study it, to know it well. Third, power of the Holy Spirit, to be filled with the Holy Spirit continuously, not just one experience.

Fourth, taking up the cross every day, dying to yourself. And fifth, seeking fellowship with other God-fearing people. With five fingers you can hold something very tight. You can hold it with two fingers also but it is not so tight.

Somebody can pull it out of your hand. So, you can be born again, you have accepted Christ, you love the word, you can balance it with one thumb also but it is a bit tough. But if you have five fingers, you have a solid grip on the Christian life.

And people backslide when they gradually begin to lose. Maybe they don't value fellowship, number one finger goes. Or they don't take up the cross every day, another finger goes. They don't seek to be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit, another finger goes.

Or they don't read God's word, meditate, not read, meditate on God's word whether they read it or not.

Many people tell me that they don't find the Bible interesting. Many people tell me that they don't find the Bible interesting. How do you find the Bible interesting?

Well, I also find the Bible quite boring sometimes. To tell you honestly, I don't feel like reading the Bible many days. But it's like, I say even if I don't feel like, I mean it's like there were days in the Navy when I didn't feel like going to work.

But I still went to work whether it was raining or not. There were days I suppose when I was a child when I didn't feel like going to school. I suppose my parents forced me to go to school. Yeah, there were many things in life which we don't feel like doing but we still do.

But you know, you go to, those of you who work, you go to work whether you feel like it or not. You don't feel like going to school or college some days, you still go. But when it comes to the Bible, people say, oh when I feel like, I'll read it.

That's not correct. Whether you feel like it or don't feel like it, you read it. Whether it's interesting or not. Because it does something for you. And that's what I found. The discipline of reading the scripture, whether you find it boring.

There are days when I read something, I got nothing from it. To tell you honestly, I got nothing. I just read through it, I got some information. No, okay. But sometime during the day, God may speak to me, not from that verse.

But it's that discipline of just reading. You know, I remember hearing a story, I'll never forget. You know what a sieve is? A sieve is something where you strain tea leaves or So, one person was telling another brother, my mind is like a sieve.

You know, however much I put God's word into it, it all goes out. Like water. But that man was a godly man. He said, you know, you put sieve under a tap. It doesn't hold a bit of water. But have you seen how clean the sieve becomes?

After all the water flows through it. So, never mind if your mind is like a sieve, it becomes clean. That was good for me.

Did you have some good young people as friends during your youth?

I can't say that in the days where I was, very few who were wholehearted. Were you lonely then? I was very lonely spiritually. For example, when I used to go and preach in the streets of Cochin, Nobody came with me.

Not one person from the assembly. I would go there and get some other brother from some other full time worker to come and translate for me and I would stand in every street in Cochin and preach. But I had a passion for Christ.

What the Lord told me when I was 20, 21, 23 years old was, Don't look at other people. You'll be disappointed. How did you get that passion from the Lord? I don't know. I think it came by meditating on two things.

How much Jesus loved me and how much I had been forgiven. Two things. Just two things. Jesus said, those who are forgiven much, love much. And the Bible says we love him because he first loved us. So, those are the two things that make us love the Lord more.

I can say I meditated much on the Lord. I didn't understand all the deeper meaning of the cross that I know today. But I knew this that Jesus loved me and I just meditated on that. That's about the only thing I knew those days.

Did you have any interest in sports or music or you were reading the Bible all the time?

Well, when I was a young boy, I used to play cricket. I wasn't very good at other games. I was more the studious type. But I did have interest in playing cricket and I would go out to play regularly. Then, when I was in the Navy, I played some squash.

So, I did play games and I had some interest in it. I was never very great at it. And I was very interested as a young boy to watch. I would go sit and see India versus West Indies, five days, sitting in the stadium.

I was very interested in those things.

Now, does it mean that after you became a Christian, you kept away from other friends or did you still have friends? Who were in the Navy, who were not Christians?

Yeah, I had some very good friends who were not Christians in the Navy. But they would know that I was a Christian. Who were your best friends? Well, I had good friends in the Navy. But whenever I went to shore, I would always find fellowship with some local church.

My best friends were always in a local church. But I kept a very good relationship with my secular colleagues. I wasn't sort of obnoxious by always trying to preach to them. I was very normal and friendly with them.

And I never tried to thrust religion down people's throats. I wanted to be a witness. I didn't have much wisdom. But the only person I was very unwise in preaching to was my own brother. Every letter was a long sermon.

And when he got married, he told his wife, because of religion I lost a brother. I heard that. I felt so bad. I went and apologized to him. I said, I am really sorry that I didn't mean to be a preacher to you.

I just want to be a friend to you. And we are very good friends today. Did you think you were fanatical? I think a lot of people thought I was fanatical. But I probably was also. But I gradually sobered up.

I think one of the lacks I had was I didn't have a good mentor. A mentor means someone to whom I could go as a father. Like a Timothy to a Paul. I always wanted somebody like that. I think the closest I ever came to that was somebody like Brother Buxing.

But he didn't have much time. I didn't have much time with him. So there was nobody locally where I was living who I really respected as a godly man who knew God. So I was pretty much on my own. So I had to sort of seek God on my own.

And I probably did a lot of foolish things because of that. If there was some older brother around, he would have probably given me a little advice which I didn't have.

So many young people are having so much problems in their thought life. Did you have any problem in your youth?

No, sure. I was 100 normal.

Because you were always reading the Bible and you were preaching.

Despite all that, all the reading of the Bible and all the preaching, you still have tremendous problems with your thought life. And also tremendous wandering thoughts when you pray. Even now, when I pray, my thoughts begin to wander.

It's not easy to concentrate. I have a flesh which I am constantly reminded of and I keep battling it.

So, it's like that. What about all these temptations that young people face, you would have faced in your youth? Sure. Temptation to pornographic literature and jokes and filthy jokes.

Was that difficult for you? I was tempted with all of those things. But because I was converted when I was 19, I think I was protected. For example, I used to go to the movies. I used to take other people to the movies.

And then I got converted. And I remember I said, now I can't go to the movies anymore. And I remember that first day in 1959 when two of my friends asked me to come with them to a cinema. We had a cinema inside the naval base.

And I just did not have the courage to say to them, no, I am a Christian now. I don't go to these things. And so we walked towards the cinema theater and I was crying out to God, Oh God, please save me from this situation somehow or the other.

And we walked all the way up to the cinema theater. And there was a big notice there saying, the reel did not arrive, so today's cinema is cancelled. I was so happy. But when I came home, the Lord said to me, I am not going to do that for you next time.

You got to tell them yourself that you are not going. But that was such an encouragement to me that even after 44 years I haven't forgotten it. That time when I really didn't want to and I didn't have the courage to say no, God help me.

So, I was tempted in so many ways but it was a battle, it was a battle, it was a battle. And what I want to say to all of you people is, if you fight the battle, if you fight the battle, you will find one day you will overcome.

The fact that you are tempted doesn't mean anything serious. And even the fact that you fall, if you hate it and you fight it, that's what really helped me and it doesn't interest me. The time comes when you, it may take longer with some people and less time with some people, but I want to encourage you to keep fighting that battle.

That's the main thing.

When you were in Navy, were you thinking of remaining single or were you any time interested in any girls?

Well, you know, when I was about 23 years old, I mean I was a normal human being, attracted to girls probably from the time I was 13 or 12, I don't know, just like anybody else. But I didn't have the boldness to approach any girl, you know, so that's what I think protected me.