Being Ready for Christ's Return - Part 2 — Zac Poonen

Gathering in Jesus’ Name by Faith

I'd like to turn you, first of all, to a very familiar verse, and that is in Matthew's gospel and chapter 18. Please turn there, Matthew 18. It's a verse that you all know. Matthew 18 and verse 20. Where two or three have gathered together in my name, I'm there in their midst.

And I want to say to you that it doesn't matter if it's in the same room or whether we are separated by 10 ,000 miles or 10 ,000 kilometers. If we are gathered in the name of Jesus, and that means for this period of time, when we have this meeting, we want to ask the Holy Spirit to make us conscious of the presence of Jesus.

And that is not going to be by feelings or excitement or some electric shock down our body like some people say. It's going to be by faith. There were times when I used to say, Lord, I wish I could see your face just once.

Seeing Christ Through Faith Rather Than Sight

Like Paul saw on the Damascus road. But the Lord gave me a verse, and that is in, I'd like to show that to you in John chapter 20, and it'll help you too. I'm sure many of you would have also desired, I wish I could see the face of Jesus just once in a vision or somewhere.

All the paintings that you see, that's not Jesus. All the movies that you've seen of Jesus, they're all American faces, and Jesus did not have an American face. He did not have blue eyes. His skin was more brown, and his eyes were probably brown too.

Because he was, he grew up in Israel, and his mother was Mary, who was a Jew. So, nobody has seen Jesus. A few people like Paul and Sadhu Sundar Singh have seen him. Most of the others who say they've seen him, I don't believe them.

There are very, very few people who have actually seen him. For some reason, God reveals himself to them, but this verse helped me. John chapter 20, when Thomas was not there the first time Jesus appeared, the first day of the week.

It says in verse 24, but Thomas, one of the 12, was not with them when Jesus came. John 20, verse 24. So, the other disciples said, we've seen the Lord, John 20, 25, but he said, no, unless I see his hands, the imprint of his nails, and put my finger into the place of the nail, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.

After eight days, all the others saw Jesus on the first day of his resurrection, but Thomas did not see him for eight days. Because he said, I've got to be sure this is Jesus, not some fake person pretending to be Jesus, and I'll know it is him by the nail prints in his hands, and by the pierced in his side.

And eight days later, see how good Jesus is. Jesus didn't say, oh, well, if you don't believe, forget it, you can go away. Like, no, he's so compassionate to those who are weak in faith. And that's a tremendous encouragement.

Thomas is called Thomas the Doubter. And Thomas came to India, remember? I don't know whether we've got any of that infection from him, especially, I mean, he's from Kerala, because he came to Kerala.

Anyway, what I say is, Jesus appeared to him. And I praise the Lord that even if there's doubt in your mind, when you think about the Lord and about the heavenly father, he will still manifest himself to you in some way through his word, because he loves even those who are weak in faith.

He's not only on the side of the strong. And he appeared, and then he said to Thomas, peace be unto you, and he said, okay, Thomas, you wanted to check my finger and my side. Okay, put your finger into my hands.

That's the only indication we have in scripture, the only indication that Jesus still has the nail prints in his hands and the wound in his side. There's no other verse that teaches us that. So I thank God for Thomas, for one thing, if he had not said that, we would not have known whether Jesus still has the nail prints in his hands.

You know, there's a song that we sing when we go to heaven, it says, I shall know him, I shall know him by the print of the nails in his hands. And I see all the people there. Even if there are many people who look like Jesus, I look for the nail prints in his hands.

I say, that's the one. Nobody else has it. All the others will be healed of all their earthly wounds, but Jesus has wounds that will last for all eternity. And I praise the Lord. It says, put your finger here and put your hands into my side.

Even the side is still cut open. Even today in his resurrected body, for all eternity, he'd be the only man up there with wounds in his body. All of us are, we're not gonna have any wounds in our body.

We're not gonna have perfect and all bald people like me will have hair on our head. And we're gonna look a bit different when we get up to heaven. More handsome and more good looking. But the one thing Jesus will stand out because he's got nail prints in his hands, reminding us for all eternity of what he did for us and how we got there to heaven.

And then this is the word that has blessed me. And Thomas fell at his feet and said, my Lord and my God. And then Jesus said, this is the word that helped me. I tell you, verse 20, 29, John 20, verse 29.

Because you have seen me, Thomas, and believed, you have believed. Blessed are those, you know, like this is referring to you and me. Blessed are those who did not see and yet believed. So I say, Lord, I praise the Lord.

I'm more blessed than those apostles. They saw Jesus and believed. I've never seen him. I've been a Christian for 64 years. And I'm born again when I was 19. I've never seen Jesus Christ. I've never heard him with these years.

I've never felt him in his body. A lot of people say they've heard his words. Okay, maybe they did. I don't know. Some people say they got electric shock on their spine when they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

I tell you my testimony in 64 years as a believer, I've never seen any lights. I've never heard any voices. I've never heard any, I've never felt any shaking in my body at any time. Even when God filled me with the Holy Spirit, there was nothing in my body, no, nothing in my eyes or ears.

I praise God that I'm a very, very blessed person according to John 20, verse 29. I don't envy those people who testify that they got a shaking in their body when God filled them with the Holy Spirit or they saw a light or they heard a voice.

I don't envy them. I say, brothers, praise God. I don't know whether it's true or whether it's imagination because the devil also comes as an angel of light. But I am thankful that I'm a blessed person because I've not seen, I've not heard, I've not felt.

My trust in Jesus is not 99%, but 100 by simple faith with nothing in any of my senses. I think that's the experience of most of you. And do you know that that is a more blessed way? And I don't think I understand that.

Sometimes I think that if I only see the Lord, I'll be definitely so much more challenged. No, I'm more blessed not having seen the Lord. So I don't pester God in prayer. Oh God, I'd like to see you. I have prayed like that.

I'd like to see your face once, Lord Jesus, but I come back to this verse and I say, I'm so blessed. And one day, you know, when we think of the second coming of the Lord, what a wonderful thing it would be because we will see him face-to-face and we must always live with that expectation that I'm gonna see my savior face-to-face.

The Coming of Christ and Awareness of Sin

I'm gonna see the one who came all the way down to this earth to save not sinners, but to save a sinner like me, to save a wretched sinner like me. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

And I wanna ask you, my brothers and sisters, do you feel like that about yourself? Do you feel that you're a wretched sinner who was saved by the grace of God and that God didn't save you because you did any good works or lived a very decent life?

Many times I have said to the Lord, Lord, I descended from the same flesh of Adam and Eve that the worst terrorists in the world, you know, the names of some famous terrorists who from our Middle East countries who have blown up buildings and blown up airplanes and all through the years.

Yeah, we think of them as evil, but Lord, I am no better than them. I've said that to the Lord. I don't know whether you've said it. When you come into the presence of the Lord, the more you come into the presence of the Lord, the more you become aware of small, small sins.

God is a bright, to use an illustration, God is a very bright light. And when you're far away from the light as we are when we are first converted, we see a few specks in our body and we, yes, we confess certain sins like we told lies or we cheated somebody or we hated someone and we confess those things.

But if you are walking with the Lord, and that's an important condition, if you are walking with the Lord consistently, year by year, your awareness of sin will be more. You'll become more and more sensitive and small little things will come up to you as sin.

And that's how we must live. Paul was like that. He knew he was a sinner, but let me show you how Paul progressed in his Christian life. As we approach the coming of the Lord, we are thinking of the coming of the Lord.

And as we approach the coming of the Lord, here's something that should take place in our life, that we become more and more aware of sin in our life. Is that happening? Then you are cleansing yourself in preparation for the coming of the Lord.

But if you have no more awareness of sin in your life than you had, say, five years ago, I would request you, my brother and sister, please judge yourself. Ask yourself, what have you been doing in CFC Sharjah all these years?

With all the messages you're hearing and you're not becoming aware of some new areas of sin in your life in the last five years? Let me show you the progress in the apostle Paul's life. When Paul was, soon after his coming, around 55 AD or so, he wrote the letter to the Corinthians.

And he wrote like this in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse nine. In 1 Corinthians 15 verse nine, you see Paul's opinion about himself about maybe 17, 18 years or 20 years after he was converted. He says, I am the least of the apostles.

No apostle did more for the Lord as far as I can see than Paul. Nobody wrote more scriptures than him. But what does he think of himself after having walked with the Lord for 20 years? He says, I am the least of the apostles.

Okay, go forward another five years after 25 years of walking with the Lord. Look, now he's progressed. Now he's come closer to the Lord. At that time, he was the least of the apostles. In Ephesians chapter three, which is written around 60 AD, by the time Paul had been converted for 25 years, he says in verse eight, I think I am the last of all the saints in the world.

I am absolutely the last one of all the believers in the world. That's what I think. You know, everybody is better than me and everybody is ahead of me spiritually. I am the worst of all the believers.

So he's going backwards as it were in the eyes of men. Worst of the apostles or least of the apostles. Now it goes down a little further. Least of all the believers. You go forward another five years, 65 AD.

That's about 30 years after Paul was converted. You read in 1 Timothy and chapter one, 1 Timothy one and verse 15, in the last part, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm number one.

I'm the greatest sinner that lived. You see progress in holiness. Progress in holiness is in Paul's case, discovering more and more how small he was and what a great sinner he was. That when he compares himself with others, he feels smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

And he says, boy, I think I'm nobody. My dear brothers and sisters, we can hear these messages on the coming of the Lord and we are waiting for the coming of the Lord. Are you cleansing yourself? Are you becoming smaller in your own eyes than you are growing spiritually?

If you are not, I can say that with absolute certainty. If you are not becoming smaller and smaller in your own eyes, you are not growing spiritually. If as you compare yourself with other believers, you more and more, you think you're better than them because you know more of the Bible or you're more used than them or these mean nothing.

It's that's because God gives somebody more gifts. That doesn't mean they're more spiritual. Let me tell you someone who's got the maximum number of gifts, even more than the apostle Paul, who had more gifts, supernatural gifts than the apostle Paul, Satan.

You know the number of gifts he has? You read in the book of Job that he could bring fire down from heaven. The first person who brought fire down from heaven in the Bible is not Elijah. It was Satan in the book of Job.

You read that in Job chapter one. And what all he could do, he could stir up a whole group, armies of soldiers to come and fight against Job's servants and kill them. And he can send all kinds of calamities.

Satan’s Resistance and God’s Sovereign Purpose

And there's a passage in one, I want you to see in one Thessalonians. One Thessalonians and chapter two. It's an amazing verse, it surprises me sometimes. One Thessalonians chapter two and verse 17. We brothers, having been taken away from you Thessalonian Christians for a short while, only in person, not in spirit, we were very eager with great desire to come and see your face.

And I, Paul, more than once, verse 18, wanted to come to you, but I could not come. What? The apostle Paul could not come, what happened? Satan hindered us. Boy, Satan hindered the apostle Paul from going to Thessalonica.

You think Satan can't hinder you? God has allowed him to have power. And Satan thinks he won a victory when he prevented Paul from going to Thessalonica. But we read verse chapter three, same one Thessalonians three, verse one and two, when we could not endure any longer, okay, we thought we'd stay in Athens alone.

We sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith so that no one would be disturbed. And what happened as a result? You know what happened? Paul could not go, Satan hindered him.

For some reason, I don't know what it was, sometimes it could be a sickness. Maybe Paul got suddenly sick and he couldn't travel, but Timothy went, and the result was Timothy developed spiritually, and that was God's purpose.

God's purpose was, Paul is already a great, mighty servant of God. He had a young assistant called Timothy, and God wanted Timothy to develop spiritually to become a mighty man of God. So when Paul was planning to go somewhere, God permitted Satan to stop him, maybe with a sickness or some calamity there or something, I don't know what, but because God wanted Timothy to go, and Timothy went, and Timothy developed spiritually as a result of that.

Did Satan succeed? No, Satan can never succeed. Satan can never outwit God. God uses Satan. I remember once when one of my grandsons, he was only six or seven years old then, he was sitting next to me, and yeah, he said, grandpa, why does God allow Satan to exist?

He's causing so much problems, why doesn't God destroy him? So I gave him an illustration. I said, have you heard of people who go to the gym to do exercise? And when they want to strengthen their hand muscles, they take a spring and pull the spring.

What is that doing? It's putting tension on the hand muscles and the muscles become strong. Or when they want to strengthen their leg muscles, they go to a gym and they have an instrument like a bicycle and they keep on cycling there and the leg muscles become strong.

And there are different equipments in the gym to build different parts of our muscles and different parts of our body. But the principle everywhere is that muscle must be subjected to resistance. And people who do not allow, even walking, is subjecting some muscles in our body to resistance.

That's how those muscles become strong, you know, leg muscles, et cetera. So if a leg muscle is not, if any muscle in the body is not subjected to resistance, you just lie down in bed the whole day, you become fat.

Or that's a bad word in many places, obese. It means the same thing. And you're not healthy then. God wants our muscles to be strong. So I told him, now who's gonna resist you? Who's gonna fight against you?

God won't fight against you. God is here to support you. Your fellow believers will not fight against you. So God allows Satan to exist to trouble you, to resist you, maybe to resist you through your enemies or through somebody in school who comes and troubles you in some way.

Satan troubles you and what is the result? Don't give up. When you love the person who hates you, listen to this, when you love the person who hates you, you're resisting and you become strong. Or some calamity comes, some problem arises and you resisted by saying, I trust my heavenly father to take care of me in this.

You're resisting it, you overcome. Who brought that calamity? Satan, as you read in the book of Job chapter one. So I said, that's why you need to resist Satan. And he told me then, he said, grandpa, I'm gonna resist Satan.

Thank you for teaching me that. I see him today, 10 years later, 17 years old, really following the Lord. So I pray he'll remember that all his life what I told him 10 years ago. And I wanna say that to all of you, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials, when it says, when you have to say about some situation in your life, Satan hindered me.

Remember 1 Thessalonians 2, 18. Satan hindered Paul, but it only fulfilled God's purpose. Everything fulfills God's purpose. And what is that purpose? It says here in the next turn over the page, 1 Thessalonians 4.

It says here that when Christ comes, the shout of an archangel will be caught up to be with him, together with him in the Lord. And what will happen then? What will happen when Christ comes again? And here it only tells us the physical part that we'll be, 1 Thessalonians 4, 17, we'd be caught up and we are excited about that.

Resurrection Bodies and Becoming Like Christ

But much more important than the physical part of Christ coming is, first of all, what will happen to our body? Many of us have got aches and sicknesses and we had to wear glasses because we can't see properly.

All that is gonna change. You know, nobody's gonna wear glasses in heaven. I hope you know that. Philippians, see what Philippians chapter three says, that when we were, Philippians 3, 20 and 21. Remember this, Philippians chapter three, verse 20 and 21.

What is gonna happen when Christ comes again? It says here, for our citizenship is in heaven, Philippians 3, 20, from which we eagerly wait for the savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. What will you do? He will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory.

By the exercise of the power he has to subject everything to himself. Nobody will have diabetes or blood pressure or cholesterol problems when we get up there. Nobody will wear glasses, nobody will be bald and nobody will be sick.

Nobody will have any aches or pains or anything, all wounds and injuries in your body will all be fixed. And our body is gonna be perfectly healthy when we get up there. But that's not all, I want you to see another verse in 1 John, which is even better.

You say, what is better than my body becoming perfectly healthy? I'll tell you, something far better, something a million times better than getting a healthy body. Today on earth, we think, boy, if I could have a healthy body all my life without any sickness, that'd be the greatest thing I ask for, then you're not a Christian.

If the main thing in your life you're expecting is a health, you're not a Christian. I'll say that straight. God's gonna give us a perfectly healthy body, but something even better than that, and 1 John chapter three.

Turn with me to 1 John chapter three. Here we read in verse two, the last part. 1 John chapter three, verse two. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like him, not in physical appearance. No, we will all have different appearances in our faces, but we will see him just as he is, and our character, our character will become like his.

Are you excited about that? That I will be perfected in love, that when I get to heaven, the greatest longing of my life, you know what it is? To love God with all my heart. I tell you before the Lord, that is the greatest longing in my heart.

To love God with all my heart, and to love every human being just like I love myself, or like Christ loved me. To love God with all my heart, and to love everyone like Christ loved me. Lord, make me like that.

I'm pressing on to that goal, but I see I've got a long way to go, but I'm excited that one day it'll be fulfilled. And I don't care if I have a paralyzed body for all eternity, if I can love God with all my heart, and love everybody like Jesus loved me, then I will not be interested in my body at all.

But my body will be perfectly healthy, because when love fills my heart, health comes out automatically. Because the first law is love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And the second, in the old covenant, it was love your neighbor as yourself.

But in the new covenant, it is love others as Christ loved you. It's a much higher standard. The new commandment I give unto you, Jesus said, love one another as I have loved you. And where none of us can say we have reached that.

Abiding in Christ and Preparing for His Appearing

But my point is, my dear brothers, are you cleansing yourself, purifying yourself as he is pure? It says here in 1 John, verse chapter two, and verse 28, little children, 1 John 2, 28. Abide in him, so that when he appears, see, you know what's gonna happen when Christ appears, there's gonna be two groups of believers.

This is not talking to unbelievers. Many times in this, let's see, who is he speaking to? 1 John 2, verse 28. Is he speaking to unbelievers? Read carefully. Little children. Is that, is any unbeliever included in that?

No, he's not talking to the world. He's talking to the children of God whom he's writing to. Children, let me tell you, abide in him. This is how we get ready for his coming, that when he appears, there are gonna be two groups of people, among whom?

Among these little children. Among believers, there'll be two groups of people. Among all of you and me, there'll be two groups of people. CFC Sharda will have two groups of people when Christ comes again.

Which group are you gonna be? One, those who have confidence. Praise God. Thank you, Lord, I'm waiting for this day. And another group who will shrink away when he comes in shame. Oh, the Lord has come.

I'm not ready. Why you're not ready? You yelled at your wife in the morning and you never apologized. And before you had a chance to apologize, Christ came. Or you yelled at your husband, got upset with him and said some strong words and you didn't apologize.

And before you could apologize, Christ came. You're gonna be in that category, shrinking from him in shame. Or you cheated somewhere in the office or signed a false statement to make some money and you didn't return it.

Or you borrowed some money and you made no effort to return it. And Christ has come. How are you gonna return that money now? And you're shrinking from shame. I'm not saying you have to clear all your debts, but if you're not even making an effort to clear your debt, something is seriously wrong.

Some people may have house mortgages, taking loan from banks for their houses, which are not cleared before Christ comes. But if you're not even making an effort, God doesn't see the balance sheet. He sees, are you making an effort?

To clear your debts and then he'll come, it has cleared. I remember a poor, poor farm worker in Kerala once wrote to me many years ago. He said, brother Zach, I'm a very, very poor man. I earn very little, but sometime in the past in my unconverted days, I got into a huge amount of debt.

I don't remember the figure now. It was such a huge amount of debt that he says, I don't think I'll ever be able to clear it in my life, some lakhs of rupees. I said, okay, can you pay back 10 rupees a month?

Oh yeah, he said, sure, I can pay back 10 rupees a month. Okay, I said, do that. In one year, you would have cleared 120 rupees of your debt. In 10 years, you would have cleared 1 ,200. In 20 years, if you live that long, you'd have cleared 2 ,400.

That's nowhere near your two lakhs debt. You cleared only 2 ,000 and you died. Let me tell you the good news. God will reckon it as if you cleared your whole debt. I'm saying that to you as a servant of the Lord.

You know why? Because God doesn't see the action. He sees the intention of the heart behind the action. Just like even when you do a good thing, God doesn't look at that good thing. He sees the intention of the heart.

If the intention is bad, that's a bad action. For example, people can preach. Preaching is a very good thing, wonderful sermon. But if the intention behind that action, that man is preaching to make money from people, or that man is preaching to get some honor from people as a great preacher, or he's trying to show that he's a better preacher than the other person, that can happen even in a church.

Where different brothers share the word, and one brother is trying to show, I'm better than that elder, listen to me. That can happen among some of you elders. When you say something clever to show that, ah, you hear what I said?

That's cleverer than what that guy preached last week. You're an evil person. I'll say to you in Jesus' name, repent. We need to get light on ourselves. That is how we progress constantly. The only way you can be ready for Christ's coming is like I said yesterday, keep on judging yourself.

Self-Judgment and Spiritual Growth

If we judge ourselves, we will not be judged. And I've discovered, for example, in my life today, I've been born again 64 years ago, and I can't say that from day one I started judging myself. It was quite some time after that that I realized I have to judge myself every day.

It was really only after I was filled with the Holy Spirit in about 48 years ago that I began to seriously take judging myself, judging myself, judging myself. And you say, well, keep on judging yourself.

Don't you get depressed and discouraged? Exactly the opposite. The first 16 years of my born-again life, I was frequently discouraged and condemning myself. I'll tell you honestly before God, the last 48 years, it's gone.

Discouragement, self-condemnation has gone from my life. Why? Because I judge myself. The devil fools you if you keep judging yourself. I don't look inside to judge myself. No, I feel depressed. You know how I judge myself?

How did Isaiah in chapter six of his chapter get light on himself? Oh, I'm a sinful man. Let me show you that passage. It's a very good example. Turn to Isaiah chapter five. Isaiah was a great prophet.

Isaiah chapter five, as a true prophet, he was preaching to all the people who were committing various sins. Isaiah chapter five and verse eight. Woe unto those who keep on adding, buying property, property, property, property so that nobody else can buy property.

Woe unto those, verse 11, Isaiah 5, 11, who keep on drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking and are inflamed with wine. Woe, woe, woe. And then he said in verse 18, woe unto those who drag iniquity with God, who tell lies and keep on sinning and pull sin with cart roads.

And verse 20, woe unto those who call evil good and good evil, who turn the real sense of values. Verse 21, woe unto those who are wise and clever in their own eyes. Woe, verse 22, woe unto those who not only drink but make strong drink for others.

What is he preaching? As a true prophet, woe to this group, woe to that group. He's condemning every single group of various types of sins and there may have been many more. Woe, woe, woe to this group, woe to that group.

That means, let there be a punishment upon you, let there be a punishment upon you, let God judge you, let God judge you, that's the meaning of woe unto you. And then what happened? Chapter six, in the year that Kumbh Mazar died, I saw the Lord.

Till now he was looking at people. Now he saw the Lord sitting on the throne and the angels going around him. And the angels were covering their faces and they're covering their feet and flying. And they were saying, holy, holy.

They cannot even look at the face of God covering themselves completely. Angels covering them who have never sinned, covering themselves when they see God and he realized how holy he is. Now what does he say, woe unto whom?

Verse five, woe unto me. You see the change from chapter five to chapter six? That is what happens when a man sees God. When a man comes face to face with the Lord, he begins to think, wow. Oh Lord, like Paul said, I'm the greatest sinner in the world.

Nobody's as bad as me. Are you getting there? Are you getting light on yourself? That is the proof that you're judging yourself. I'll give you one example of how sometimes something that looks so innocent can be sinful.

I've used this example many times and many of you may have heard me saying it before. There was a young brother in the early days of CFC Bangalore. We used to meet in our house and he used to come. He was the only one converted in his family.

I think his family was Roman Catholic. And he was a student. He would come to the evening meetings and he would stay in our house because he had to go to college next morning. So he would sleep there and he was so free in our house.

He himself would go to the kitchen and make a cup of coffee for himself and bang the door and go away early morning to college. We were very close and he grew a lot in faith. And he was with us for quite some time and he grew and was a wonderful young brother in our midst.

And then he got a very good job and we moved up to some Northern part of India. And then we never heard from him. I mean, I would hear from others how he's getting on and I was happy, he had a good job, but he never wrote one letter to us thanking us for all that he did for him for so many years.

And I began to think, what an ungrateful young man this is. He doesn't even drop a note to thank us. That's the time the Lord spoke to me. He said, he told me I was sinning. I said, Lord, I'm sinning, what did I do?

We just helped this young chap so much. And the Lord said, you're sinning because you're expecting him to thank you. I never knew till that day that expecting somebody to thank me for what I did was a sin.

Serving Others as Unto the Lord

And this is how the Lord explained it. You know what it says in Matthew 25 when the Lord says, yeah, you have done this and that for me. When I was a prisoner, you visited me. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink.