Secure In Our Father's Love We Purify Ourselves — Zac Poonen

I wanna begin with a verse that we considered some weeks ago that's relating to the last days. You know, everything that's happening in the world reminds us of some of the things written in Revelation and some of the things that Jesus spoke about in relation to the last days.

Preparing for Christ's Second Coming Amid Last-Days Deception

So I believe it's very good for us to think in these days about all that the New Testament speaks about the second coming of Christ and everything that's gonna precede it. And how we should be prepared for it because the word of God is the only book in the whole world that tells us what will happen and how we can be prepared.

And I mentioned the other day that one of the things that's gonna happen in the last days is a tremendous amount of deception. And I want to warn all of you who go to YouTube and the internet to listen to various preachers who are preaching all types of things nowadays.

Some boasting that they prophesied this pandemic some years ago and all that, it's all garbage. I've heard enough in my lifetime of people who talk about something after it has happened saying, yeah, I prophesied this 10 years ago.

I'm not fooled by all that and don't be fooled by it all. The Old Testament prophets never said, hey, I prophesied this 10 years ago. No, they prophesied it 10 years in advance and spoke very clearly.

So there are a lot of things going on like this, particularly among charismatic and Pentecostal groups and such preachers who want to get some glory for themselves claiming that they predicted this or what will happen and some others predicting when it will end and all that.

We don't want to waste our time bothering about that, listening to it or certainly not being fooled by all that. So we go by God's word alone. The future is in God's hands and the Bible says, you cannot even say what will happen tomorrow.

That's how we live. It says in James, let me begin with that. James chapter two, James chapter two, sorry, James chapter four. Don't say James 4 .13, today or tomorrow, we'll go to such and such a city and spend a year there.

James 4 .13 and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you don't know what your life will be like tomorrow. Can you hear the word of the Lord through the Holy Spirit? You don't know what your life will be like tomorrow.

So don't believe all these false prophets. You are just a wafer that appears for a little while and vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, now these are believers, talking to believers. If the Lord wills, we will live tomorrow and do this or that.

That is the testimony of a humble person. He's not trying to get a reputation for the future or saying that I knew this would happen long ago or any of that rubbish. And I'm not gonna listen to such rubbish from others either.

But it says here, as it is, you boast in your arrogance. It's arrogant people who boast about the future. All such boasting is evil. So if you know the right thing to do, James 4 .17, and you don't do it, it's sin.

The right thing to do is, the previous verses, if the Lord wills, we live tomorrow. You ask me what's gonna happen next week? I don't know. You ask me when the Lord is coming? I don't know. Jesus himself said, the son of man does not know the hour of his return.

You gotta be really arrogant to think that we can predict it exactly when Jesus himself said, when he was on earth, he did not know. He knows it today. But when he was on earth and he took the limitations of man, he did not know.

And I wanna say to my brothers and sisters, if you remain in humility, you'll be protected from many, many problems and many, many wrong things that you can say or do at this particular time. Humility is the secret.

Like I often say, the three secrets of the Christian life are humility, humility, humility. Never forget that. And we will be preserved in these days because God gives us grace to the humble and we will overcome even if we don't get a reputation for predicting the future.

And we don't want that reputation in NCCF. So turning now to Luke chapter 21 and verse 26, Luke 21, 26, it says here that, men's hearts will faint from fear at the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world.

For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. We haven't come to that point yet where the powers of the heavens are shaken, that'll happen. But right now the expectation of things coming upon the world.

And in all of our lifetime, and I think I'm older than almost all of you, we have never seen anything like this in our entire lifetime. Expectation of things that are coming upon the world. Even in the world war time, it wasn't so bad because it didn't cover every country in the world.

Certain countries are affected, but not all. But at this time, every country in the world has been affected. So men's hearts all over the world are fainting from fear, fainting from fear. And that means fear builds up to such a point where they faint.

Well, it slowly builds up and we have to be very careful that we don't allow that fear to come into our hearts. It says in verse 28, when these things begin to take place, and I believe they've already begun to take place, straighten up.

See, people looking down are those who are discouraged or grumbling or afraid. No, lift your head up. God has called us to walk straight. That's what we read in Leviticus. We saw that once. And lift up your heads.

That means, and your redemption is drawing near. That means await the second coming of Christ. Spiritually, our heads must always be lifted up looking for the coming of Christ. Even if you're very, very old, don't look for the grave, but for the coming of the Lord.

The sky, not the grave is our goal, like we sing in that song. And I certainly say that. The sky, not the grave is my goal. I'm waiting for the coming of Christ. So lift up your heads and be ready for the coming of the Lord.

So then how shall we be ready for the coming of the Lord? You know, when John the Baptist was born, we read his father, Zachariah's mouth was open because it was dumb until that time. And Zachariah gave a prophecy about how it would be in this new covenant.

And he was filled with the Holy Spirit. We read in Luke 167, and after he named the son, and it says here in Luke 167, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. And he said these words, blessed be the Lord God.

And one of the things he said is, the Lord will help us in verse Luke 174, to serve him without fear. Luke 174. That's a prophecy of the new covenant. In the old covenant, the Israelites lived in fear.

What would some judgment come upon us? We don't live in that fear. We don't live in the fear that God would punish us. We don't fear that some evil will come to us upon the world. We don't fear that our enemies will harm us.

No, they may harm us. The early Christians were persecuted and many of them killed, but they didn't live in fear. Not even when they were thrown to the lions, God gave them grace. So it says here, we are to serve him without fear.

It's another verse that we must keep in mind. In the new covenant, my dear brothers and sisters, if you let fear come into your heart, faith will go out. I've repeated that many times. Fear and faith cannot dwell together in the same heart.

When fear comes in, faith goes out. If some of you wonder why you don't have faith, it's possibly because you're getting a little afraid of little things in the home or little things in the relation to the future or things like that.

Fear, drive it out in Jesus' name. Drive it out and say, I'm not gonna have that. I'm not gonna let the spirit of fear ever possess me. And we know if you allow that to come into your mind during the daytime, it'll give you fearful dreams at night.

And if you have fearful dreams at night, ask yourself whether you're having fearful thoughts during the day. I don't believe we should have fearful dreams at night where we get scared with something attacking us or anything.

If we have dreams, we must have dreams of our attacking others and chasing the devil out and standing against them. Those are the only type of dreams I get. But it was not like that in the early days when I was in the beginning, when I was a Christian, nobody taught me this.

But I thank God I've learned it through the years that I never need to fear, not when I'm awake and not when I'm asleep because I have a loving heavenly father. Turn with me again now to Romans and chapter eight.

See, I'm talking about in the new covenant what all we can be blessed by. It says here in Romans 8, verse 14, Romans 8, 14. We are led by the spirit of God as sons of God. Those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God.

And if we are led by the spirit, those who are born of the spirit are the children of God, babies. But those who allow the spirit to lead them, they are the mature sons of God. There's a difference between children of God who've grown up and become sons of God.

Those who are led by the spirit are sons of God. And such sons, we read a couple of things about them in the next verse, Romans 8, 15. They cry out, Abba, Father. The reason why they have no fear, it says here they have not received a spirit of slavery to fear.

God has not made them slaves that they'd be afraid whether he'll harm me. No, God's made us sons who cry out, Abba, Father. And that is why we don't have fear. We know that our heavenly father will not harm us.

It's very, very important to understand that. The basis of all our freedom from fear is that I have a loving father in heaven. Now, think of your children, those of you who are married and you've got children.

What would you think if your child is always living in fear of you? Unnecessarily. I mean, if they did something wrong and they were afraid you'd punish them, that's another thing. But if every day they live in fear of you, they're afraid to come near you, they're afraid to talk to you.

Well, what would you think? You're a bad father. That's why they're living in fear of you. So there's something wrong there. A good father, children will not be afraid of him. Even when they've done something wrong, they'll acknowledge it and come to the father, but they will not live in fear that my father may harm us.

No, absolutely not. And if that is the case with evil fathers like us, why should any of us ever live in fear that my heavenly father may harm me someday? Just because I made a mistake or I slipped up.

No, we are his children. We were not adopted from some other family. We were born into his family. You've heard me tell the story of the adopted child who sat up at night in his bed afraid and the father went and asked him, what's wrong, son?

He said, well, I broke a plate today and I'm afraid whether you'll trash me and send me back to the orphanage from which you found me. And he said, son, I'll never do that. And his own children never sit up with fear.

They don't have that fear. This child had that fear because he knew he was not born into that family. He was adopted from an orphanage. And he was wondering, just because he brought a cup and a saucer, whether his adopted father would send him back to the orphanage.

There are lots of Christians like that who feel that God picked them up in some orphanage. They were not born into God's family and they wonder whether God will get fed up with them and check them out one day.

My dear brothers and sisters, get rid of that fear. If you have truly repented, if you have truly turned from your sin, if you truly desire to, I'm not saying whether you're perfect, I'm not asking you whether you've overcome sin, but if you really desire to give up sin, that's the new man.

The new man is the one who does not want to sin, not the one who will not sin, but the one who does not want to sin. If you're like that and you have trusted that Christ has taken the punishment for all your sins on the cross, that the wrath of God fell upon him on the cross and it cannot fall upon you, that he was forsaken, that you and I might never be forsaken.

If you're assured of that and you've turned from your sin and you trust him alone for your salvation and you've opened your heart and say, Lord, I don't want to live for myself. I want to say to you in Jesus' name, you need never live in fear for one second of your life.

No, not at all. Natural caution to be careful. That's one thing. We have to be careful. I mean, if there are dangers of a virus going around, we must be careful that we don't unnecessarily expose ourselves to that and take all the precautions like washing our hands and being careful what we touch and et cetera, et cetera.

That's precaution. I mean, it's foolish not to take such precautions, but not fear. And the other thing is, no matter how careful we are taking all these precautions, it's impossible in this world to do it perfectly.

I don't think any of us can do it perfectly. I don't think any of us wash our hands as much as we should do, et cetera, et cetera. But am I going to live in fear that I wash my hands only for five seconds today and not 20 seconds like they tell me to do?

No. I'm going to do as much, take as much precautions as I can, but I will not live in fear because I have a father, a much better father than any of you fathers are to your children, who cares for me and for you much more than any of you care for your children, who will sacrifice a million times more for us than any of you are willing to sacrifice for your children.

That is the basis. Those who are cry out above father, verse Romans 8, 15, we don't have a spirit of slavery to fear. Very, very important. That's where we begin. And I never get tired of repeating that.

Abiding in Christ and Keeping the Inner Life Full

It's very, very important for the last days. And then I want to turn now also to something else in relation to the last days in 1 John chapter two. In 1 John chapter two, we read here in verse 28 onwards.

Again, in relation to his second coming, these verses from 1 John 2, 28, all the way to chapter three, verse three, these five, just these five verses are in relation to the second coming of Christ. And it's a good time for us to study things relating to the second coming of Christ.

We have a book called The Final Triumph. Some of you may have a copy of it that I wrote some years ago on the book of Revelation. And it's also on our website. If you go to cfcindia .com, you can read it for free from there.

And in that final triumph, take time to read it. It's about the last days, about the things that we need to do to be prepared for the last days. And the important thing is not to understand the meaning of every symbol in the book of Revelation, but to be prepared through the warnings God gives us to be ready to meet the Lord when he comes.

That's the important thing. That's why the book of Revelation has been given to us, to show us something about heaven, our future home, and to show us something what's gonna happen in the world so that we don't have fear.

So 1 John chapter two, verse 28, it says, Little children, abide in Christ. That's the word for the last days. Remain there, make Christ your permanent home. And so that when he appears, here are two groups of people among believers.

There'll be two groups of people when he appears, the wise virgins and the foolish virgins. Here are the wise virgins. We have confidence when he comes. Yeah, Lord, thank you. We're ready for you. Our lamps are burning.

They're not dying out. And then the foolish virgins, the last part of verse 28, 1 John 2, 28, who shrink away from him. Oh, our lamps are dying out. What shall we do? We're not ready for the bridegrooms coming.

These are both virgins. They're not five virgins and five harlots. No, this is not Babylon and Jerusalem. It doesn't say that there were five virgins and five harlots. Then we can understand. 10 virgins.

But and all 10 had their lamps burning at the beginning. Because when the bridegroom came, it says the bridegroom delayed. And we certainly see the bridegroom is delayed all these years. It says when he came, they didn't say, oh, we don't have any oil.

They said, our lamps are dying out. Read that in Matthew 25. That means it was burning up until then. But they didn't have enough to survive until the bridegroom came. They didn't have that extra flask of oil in their pockets.

That's why they were not ready. And like you've often heard me say, the outer lamp is our external testimony before men that your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

And the inner flask of oil, which is hidden inside the clothes is our inner life, which nobody can see. The Holy Spirit filling our heart, the flask full of oil, a flask full of love for Jesus and love for others.

That if that is not kept full all the time, we are not ready for the coming of Christ. That's the meaning of 1 John 2, 28. Little children abide in him. Make sure your heart is always that flask inside is filled with love for Jesus Christ.

The oil is the oil of love. Romans 5, 5 says the Holy Spirit fills our heart with the love of God. The assurance of God's love for us, our love for Christ and our love for others. And in this third point of our love for others, one of the very important things we must remember is to forgive.

Forgiveness as Preparation for Christ's Return

I'll never get tired of saying this till the day the Lord comes. If there's anybody you have not forgiven, when the Lord comes, I wanna say to you in Jesus name, you will shrink away from him in shame, like it says in 1 John 2, 28, because you will not be a forgiven person.

It's very clear in Matthew chapter six, that if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven. You read Matthew six, verse 14, 15 onwards. If you do not forgive others, your heavenly father will not forgive you.

Will not. Is there a single person you have not forgiven? Then you don't have oil in your vessel inside. Your lamp may be burning, your external testimony may be very good. People may think you're a wonderful believer.

You may be an elder in a church. It makes no difference. If there's somebody you haven't forgiven, maybe you haven't forgiven your wife for something she did, for the way she behaves, or what she did some time ago, or the way she let you down.

Or maybe you haven't forgiven for one of your grown up children who disappointed you. Or maybe you haven't forgiven somebody in the church for some grudge you have against him. Beware, beware. I can only warn you.

I cannot prepare you for the second coming of Christ, but I can tell you how you can be ready. Don't shrink away from him in shame. Make sure that the flask is full of the oil of love. And if you think like this, oh, but that fellow did such a terrible evil to me.

Think of the terrible evil you did to the Lord where he took the blame himself. We forgive, our prayer is, our father who art in heaven, forgive us our sins as we forgive others. That should be our spirit every day.

Every day, because he taught us to pray for our daily bread in that prayer. So it's a daily thing, even if we don't repeat those words, that we have to have an attitude of forgiveness towards everyone.

That's one very important thing that will help us to be ready for his coming. So in these days when we are alone at home and we have a lot of time to ourselves, examine your hearts and see if there's anybody you have not forgiven.

Just release that person. And let me clarify that again for the nth time, the umpteenth time, that don't try to get rid of it from your memory. You cannot do that. You have no control of your memory till your dying day.

You will remember every person who did evil to you and you may even remember all the details of the evil they did to you. That's okay, you can't help that. But in your will, you say to the Lord, Lord, I have forgiven that person.

I have nothing against that person. Whatever he did, I've forgiven. And I forgive him even more because you have made it work for my good. And even if I haven't seen that good yet, I believe it'll work for my good.

So these are some things you have to be very careful about in relation to the Lord's coming that we don't shrink away from him in shame. 1 John 2, verse 29. And if you know that Jesus is righteous, God is righteous, then everyone who practices righteousness is born of him.

That's the mark, you know, like they say children look like their father. And if he is righteous, all those are born of him are righteous. That means they do what is right according to their understanding.

I'm not talking about perfection. According to the size of our understanding, which is different, you mature it, your knowledge of yourself becomes more and more and more. But in the area where we have light on ourselves, we are righteous to the best of our knowledge.

Resting in the Father's Love

And so come chapter three, we come to chapter three in verse one. See what a great love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God and such we are. This is why the world does not know us because it did not know him.

So in relation to, again, as we're talking about the second coming of Christ now, and he says, we must meditate on the great love the father has bestowed upon us, 1 John 3, 1. And that's why it's very important in these days to remember the Lord's prayer.

I don't mean repeat it, but to remember how the Lord taught us to pray. Our father who art in heaven, the basis of all prayer, even if you don't repeat those words, our father means one who loves me intensely more than anyone in the universe, whose love is like when you sing that wide, wide as the ocean, deep as the deepest sea, high as the heaven above, so great is my father's love.

One who loves me, that's why we call him our father, one who will never let me down. If I ask him for bread, he will never give me a stone. If I ask him for fish, he will not give me a snake. If I ask him for an egg, he won't give me a scorpion.

If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him, give good things to those who ask him. If you're sure of that, then you know that you're resting in your father's love, resting in the love of God for you, very, very important.

Behold, what a great love the father has bestowed upon us, our father. That's not enough. Our father who art in heaven, whatever may be happening and whatever prediction there is about when this coronavirus will end or when it will not end, when this lockdown will be over, one thing is clear.

Our father runs the universe. He runs the affairs of this world. And I wanna show you a great verse, which to me, as I've studied the Bible, to the best of my knowledge, as I've studied through the 66 books of the Bible, I find this is the most profound statement of the power and authority of God that is found in the whole Bible.

And it was spoken by a heathen king, amazingly. And this is in Daniel and chapter four. There was a king there called Nebuchadnezzar. And I'm sure you've heard of him as you read that book, Daniel four and 35.

It says here that he was a very proud man, proud of the fact that Daniel four verse 30, that he built such a huge city called Babylon and a great residence by his power and for his glory. This is the principle of Babylon.

It originates in my mind. It's done by my power and for my glory, by man, through man, for man's glory. In Jerusalem, the true church is built by God, through God's power, for God's glory. Like we read in the last verse of Romans 11.

But here's the opposite of that Babylon, by my own bright ideas, by my power and for my glory. A lot of Christian work today is done in that spirit, human ideas, by human abilities and power and money and for man's glory, for some preachers or pastors glory.

So that's Babylon anyway, say that in passing. But when God saw this pride in this man, God humbled him and he was driven away from mankind and he began to eat grass. We read in verse 33, imagine this big king becoming like an animal.

And it says in Daniel four 33, because of this pride, God humbled him and he began to eat grass like the cattle until seven periods of time. I don't know how long that is. And his body was drenched with the dew of heaven because he was living outside in the fields and his hair grew like eagle's feathers and his nails like bird's claws, verse 33.

But then he finally realized God came to his senses finally in verse 34 and he realized God had humbled him. That's wonderful. And because of that, it's quite likely that the book of Genesis is in heaven, I'm gonna meet him there.

But he had to go through such a humbling process to get there, but see what he says. He says about the Lord, his dominion is an everlasting dominion. And Daniel four 35 is the verse I'm thinking of, the most profound statement of the sovereignty and the power of God that I've seen in the entire scriptures.

And if you can say that, then you know your father in heaven runs the universe. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as zero. It doesn't matter who they are, presidents, kings, generals, rulers, whoever they are, whichever country, all, A-L-L, all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as zero before God, as nothing, not even an ant, not even a crawling worm or snail, nothing.

That's number one. And secondly, he, for him it was God, for us it is our father in heaven, does according to his will. Everything he does is according to his will. He does exactly what he wants to do.

Where does he do it? In heaven and on earth. All in the heavens, first heaven, second heaven, third heaven, the second heaven is where the devil and his demons are. God does his will everywhere. There's no part of the universe or the heavens where God cannot do his will.

He does according to his will in the heavens. And then also he does according to his will among in the earth and among all the inhabitants of the earth, verse 35. Not only in the heavens, but in this teeny weeny grain of sand, which is called planet earth.

When you see compared to this size of the universe, he does according to his will here among all the inhabitants of the earth. And he's doing it all with one goal that he may fulfill his purpose and make everything work for the good of his children, which is a small percentage of people on this earth.

Can you believe that? I believe it with all my heart. I belong to a small percentage of people on this earth who are the genuine children of God, which is the same with you. I don't know whether you believe it, I believe it.

And I believe also that everything that God works is for this small group of people called his children. I don't have the slightest doubt about it. And it's all working for my good. Every single thing, every single thing, big and small.

And he does according to his will. And listen to this. Nobody, no one, no one, no creature, no animal, no virus, no human being, no demon can stop his hand. You know, push his hand away, impossible. Or question him saying, what are you doing?

I like that. See if you can find a better verse in the sovereignty of God in the entire Bible. I haven't found it yet. Amazing statement by a man who was humbled by God. Believe it, believe it. I thank God that Nebuchadnezzar could make such a statement which I can make today and confess.

No one can stop God's hand. He rules in heaven and on the earth. And this is the God we worship. This is our father. So we say our father who art in heaven. That's how we pray. Every single prayer of us must begin with that faith, even if we don't express it.

When I say our father, I must almost also remember he's in heaven. He runs the universe. That's how we must pray. So it says here in 1 John chapter three and verse two, beloved, now are we the children of God?

But it has not yet appeared what we will be. What are we going to be? That has not yet happened. I'm not yet become, what am I going to be? I'm going to be like Jesus Christ in my character. And God does not make me a robot that will automatically do his will.

Never, not now, not in eternity. I have a free will now and I'll have a free will for all eternity. Yes. And so it says here, it does not yet appear what we will be, but we know one thing. We are sure that when Jesus comes, when he appears, again talking about the second coming, the subject that began in chapter two, verse 28, how we must have boldness when he comes.

He's telling us how we can have that boldness. When he appears, we will be like him. It hasn't yet happened, but we're going to be like him. You know, people ask this question. You mean in eternity also I'll have a free will?

Absolutely. Then they say, why is it possible for me to do my own will and sin when I go to heaven? Impossible. Why? Because I'd be like Jesus. That's why. Not because I'm a robot. And Jesus was not a robot on earth, yet he never did his own will, not even for a fraction of a second.

And when I'm like him, I will have a free will. I will not be a robot in eternity in heaven, but I'll never do my own will. I will only do the will of the father because I will be 100 like Christ. We will be like him because we will see him as he is.

We will see him and we will be like him in a fraction of a second. So what should I do? To sit back and say, oh, well, praise the Lord. It's wonderful. And I can live as I like. And I'm gonna be like Christ when he comes back.

No, you can't. You can't have live as you like because then you don't have this hope for you. It's only for those who have this hope. And you say, yes, I do have this hope that Christ will come and I'll be like him.

Purifying Ourselves Through Self-Examination

Hang on. Let me give you a checkup. It's good to have a spiritual checkup every now and then. I believe God gives us his word to give us a spiritual checkup. I get a spiritual checkup when I read the scriptures.

Every day I get it. Even this morning, as I read the scriptures, I got a spiritual checkup. Read the scriptures to get a spiritual checkup. It's a free scan of your heart that God's offering you every day.