Preserving God's Standards - Part 5 — Zac Poonen

Sharing the Message of Victory and the New Covenant

How many people in India will find the way to life? Very few. So I'm not surprised it's going to be very few. That doesn't mean I don't try to preach the gospel to everybody. I know when I got gripped with these wonderful truths of victory over sin and the new covenant and building the church 30 years ago, I said, Lord, if you give me life I'm only one man, but if you give me life I will do my best, as much as one man can do to spread this message all over the world.

Refusing to Compromise Personal Convictions

If you give me ability. Give me the opportunity. I will not compromise my convictions. I will not compromise my principles. Do you have that passion? Has God led you into a life which millions of other Christians don't experience?

Sharing a Life of Joy, Victory, and Peace

A life of joy, victory, triumph? Has God led you into a family life of blessedness and peace? Are you going to keep it to yourself? Or do you have a burden to share it with others? Will you say, Lord, I'm only one man?

Being Filled With the Holy Spirit for God's Use

But fill me with the Holy Spirit. Give me strength. Give me opportunities. I will not compromise my principles. And I want you to use me to spread this word to as many people as possible. Get people to stick to the track and not deviate even 1 from the center.

Calling Young People to Lead the Next Generation

I believe God. I'm speaking to the young people here. There's an older generation here that's moving out. Don't waste your time judging them. See yourself, you young people. In your generation, can God find you to lead His people along the way He wants?

You say, well, I'm not a leader. You think all these people who are leaders today, when little Paul was born as a baby, you think his parents thought, this man is going to be the greatest apostle of all.

No, he didn't look like that. He looked like a baby who was wet and dirty most of the time. Just like all babies are. But he grew up to be the greatest apostle. Who knows? Some little boy or girl sitting here may be the one God wants to use in another generation.

It may be you. Just say, Lord, I'm available. Maybe one of you young people. But I'll tell you this. You can't play the fool and expect God to use you. You've got to say, Lord, you're first in my life.

Following Jesus Without Seeking Popularity

You're going to be everything to me. I'm not going to run on another person's track. I'll never in my life judge another person. I will only judge myself till the end of my life. And I'm not seeking popularity.

I'm not going to be partial. I'm not going to be any such thing. I'm just going to follow you steadfastly. I'm going to look at you, Jesus, and follow you. I grew up in a church when I was a young Christian where I'm not saying anything bad about them.

Respecting Authority While Seeking Godly Examples

But to tell you honestly, I could not find one example to follow whom I could say was a man of God, whom I could spontaneously respect. I submitted to the elders because they were elders. You know, it's like a wife may submit to her husband because the Bible says submit to your husband, not because she respects her husband.

You're a very fortunate wife. If you can also respect your husband as a godly man whom you joyfully submit to. But a lot of wives can't do that because husbands are not godly people. But they still, because the wives are God-fearing, they submit because the Bible says that.

So that's how I submitted to the elders in my church because the Bible said submit to the elders. But I could not spontaneously respect them as men of God. But the Lord said to me, look at me and run the race.

Looking Away From Others and Unto Jesus

Don't worry about people around you. And I'm so thankful that 45 years ago the Lord spoke that word to me. Look at me and don't look at other people. And that's helped me more than any other verse in scripture in running this race.

Let us run this race looking unto Jesus. And one translation says, looking away from everyone else unto Jesus. Looking away from everything else unto Jesus who was the starter and finisher of our faith.

Maintaining God's Standards Amid Christian Compromise

So, I believe the days are such when there's so much of compromise among good believers in Christendom, standards going down in the matters of money, matters of moral purity, all over Christendom, the standards have gone down.

If you want to be a man or a woman of God, you'll have to keep your eyes on Jesus. You may have to turn your eyes away from certain people in the church, in your church, and say, Lord, I'm going to keep my eyes on Jesus.

I'm not going to look at anyone else. I'm not here to judge them. God bless them. But I'm going to look at you. I'm going to follow you. And I can prophesy it will go exceptionally well with you. Yeah, God wants such people.

Israel's Compromise and the Golden Calf

You know, in the Old Testament you'll see how in Exodus and chapter 32, Moses had gone up to the mountain and he was there for 40 days. And God was writing down the 10 commandments you read in chapter 31.

All the previous chapters from chapter 25 to 31 or even before that, God was giving the commandments to Moses. Forty days is what? One and a half months? Less than one and a half months. He was away. And it says the people saw chapter 32 verse 1 that Moses was taking a long time to come down from the mountain.

They got fed up. They told Aaron. Aaron is the second leader. He said, come, let's make us a God who will go before us. As for this Moses, we don't know what's happened to him. And Aaron said, take your gold rings and the years of your wives and bring them here to me.

And he tore off the gold rings and Aaron took all this gold and Aaron, listen to this, verse 4, with a graving tool made it into a molten calf and said, this is your God who split the Red Sea. This is your God who destroyed the Egyptians under the Red Sea.

This is the God who sent the plagues into Egypt. This golden calf, you see. And those stupid people, 600 ,000 of them, believed it. And they worshipped it. And they said, we will call this God Jehovah.

Verse 5, tomorrow will be a feast to not to the golden calf but to Jehovah. They named the golden calf also. This is Jehovah. You know how the Bible speaks of another Jesus. The name is the same but it's not the Jesus of the Bible.

This is like that, another Jehovah. And so the next day they rose and had peace offerings and they rose up to dance and play and eat and drink. And the Lord spoke to Moses and said, go down. Your people have corrupted themselves.

One man of God was away from the camp for 40 days and the whole camp went astray. That's the message of the Bible. They've turned aside. They've compromised. The Lord said, I'm going to destroy them. Moses, verse 10, I'll make you into a great nation.

Moses Seeks God's Honor Above His Own

I finished with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's going to be Moses. What do you think Moses did? He said, yeah Lord, I think it's about time. He never said that. He said, no Lord, not me. I don't want to.

It must be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not me. It's always the mark of a man of God. He doesn't want anything for himself or his family name or any such thing. He says, Lord, if you do this, what will the Egyptians say?

What will happen to your name? People say this God of theirs brought them out to the wilderness and destroyed them. Your name will be dishonored, Lord. I'm not worried about my name, but your name. It's always the mark of a man of God.

He's more concerned about Jesus' name than his name. He's more concerned about God's family than his family. Be a man of God. God wants such people on earth. And Moses turned around and went down and he was angry.

Moses Confronts Aaron's Cowardice

He saw the people dancing and he went down and he took the calf, verse 20. This reminds me of Jesus whipping people out of the temple. Took the calf and burnt it and scattered it. And look what he did.

He said, you Israelites, drink this water now. And he made them drink it. And now listen to this. You see what a coward Aaron was. And a liar. Cowards are liars and liars are cowards. Moses said to Aaron, why did you do this?

Aaron said, please don't get angry with me. You know these people, they are the ones who had this idea. They said, make a God for us and this is the best part of it. Verse 24. They gave me the gold. I threw it into the fire and out of the fire came a calf.

What a miracle that is. I just threw all this gold into the fire and out of the fire came a calf. This guy took a graving tool and fashioned it as it says earlier in the chapter.