(Manitoba 2001) God Seeks for Faithful People — Zac Poonen

Ezekiel’s Search for a Faithful Person

There is a verse in Ezekiel, which I'm sure many of you know, but I want to take a little expression from there to begin what I want to share this morning. It's in Ezekiel, in Chapter 22. Ezekiel 22, I want you to listen to this passage that begins in verse 23 and try and see how it applies to our situation in many parts of the world actually, in Christian organizations, in Christian churches, in many groups today.

The word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, say to this church, or whatever it is, you're a land or a people that is not cleansed or rained on in the day of indignation. There is a conspiracy of her preachers in her midst, her prophets, like a roaring lion tearing the prey.

They have devoured lives. They have taken treasure and precious things. They have made many widows in the midst of her. Her preachers and priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things.

They have made no distinction between the holy and the profane. They have not taught people the difference between the unclean and the clean. They hide their eyes from my sabbaths and I'm profaned among them.

The sabbath pictures the life of rest that God brings us to, the life of assurance of salvation, the life of freedom from tension, depression, condemnation, discouragement. And the preachers today have hidden God's people from that wonderful life of rest that Jesus came to give.

Her rulers are like wolves tearing the prey by shedding blood and destroying lives in order to get this honest gain. And that gain can be money, it can be power, it can be influence, it can be a comfortable lifestyle, it can be anything at the cost of God's people.

And her preachers and prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions. This is a day when it's popular to talk about visions, about people who say they have seen angels and heard all types of things and a lot of them are false.

And divining lies for saying, thus says the Lord. That's another popular expression in certain groups today. They raise their hands, shut their eyes and in a squeaky voice say, thus says the Lord and say something.

And there are a lot of dumb believers who swallow that thinking God Almighty is speaking. When the Lord has not spoken and there's hardly anybody to challenge them. The people of the land have practiced oppression and committed robbery.

They have wronged the poor and needy and oppressed the stranger without any justice. And now listen to this. And the Lord says in the midst of all this, I searched for a man. Could be a woman. If God doesn't find a man, He will find a woman.

Deborah and the Courage to Stand in the Gap

We read in the book of Judges that when God could not find any man to judge Israel, He chose Deborah. God's not going to allow His people to suffer just because all the men are lazy, all the men are without a backbone.

He found a woman with a backbone, Deborah. And if you want to know the condition of the men in those days, when Deborah went to, when God said this, the army of the enemy has got to be defeated. You got to go and fight with them.

Deborah went to the bravest man in Israel, Barak, and said to him, go and lead God's people. And you know what he said? Sister, please come with me, then I'll go. I'm scared. That was the bravest man in Israel.

No wonder God chose Deborah. And I see so many people, Christians today, men who don't have any backbone, who don't stand up for the truth, who don't confront the false preachers and the prophets, because they are seeking their own.

May God raise up women to put these men to shame. More Deborahs. That's the way to put these men to shame, who don't have any backbone, who know the truth but won't stand up to those who are leading God's people astray.

God doesn't need many people. He needs one man, one woman. He says, I searched for a man among them who should stand in the gap for me, for the land that I shouldn't destroy it, but I found no one. Someone who will stand between God and man and say, thus says the Lord.

This is what the Lord says, not all these false prophecies, not all these preaching that exploits people, that takes advantage of people. God is always, from the beginning, look for a man. Yesterday I was saying, last night, that my own conviction is the book of Job is the very first portion of inspired scripture.

And I say that because I believe from every evidence there is that Job lived before Moses, and Moses wrote Genesis. And there's so many details in the book of Job of conversations that it is impossible that anybody could ever have written it many years after Job died.

It could not have been written centuries later. It was written in Job's lifetime or soon after he died. Because all that intimate discussion is there in so many chapters. And if that is the first book of inspired scripture, when God decided to write scripture for man, the first words he writes are, There was a man, Job 1 -1.

There was a man named Job. And so that you don't confuse him with any other Job, it says this is the one who lived in the land of Uz, blameless, upright, that means he had a backbone, fearing God and turning away from evil.

God has always, always begun his work with a man. Always. He's always looked for a man. Like we read in that verse, I searched for a man among them who would be blameless, upright, free from the love of money, free from the love of honor, free from the fear of men, free from the fear of demons and the devil, and who will stand for me, and lead my wandering people back to me.

Abraham’s Walk of Faith

I want to say to you, my brothers and sisters, you could be that person. Why not? There is no partiality with God. When he searched for a man, he could have found anyone among them. I've often thought about the time when God went to Ur of the Chaldees, and supposing, yeah, well, this is how it was, it says they were all worshipping idols, including Abraham.

So the Bible says, and God found Abraham, he was 75 years old, he had retired and he had settled down and built his house and living comfortably there with his family. And God said to Abraham, leave this place.

And Abraham said, where am I supposed to go? I'm not going to tell you. You trust me and follow me, your walk is going to be a walk of faith. Day by day, I'll take you to another land, if you follow me, I will bless you and your descendants after you, the whole world will be blessed through you.

But you've got to trust me. I'm not going to show you where you're going to go. When the children of Israel left Egypt, God didn't give them a route map through the wilderness to the land of Canaan, they didn't know.

They had to follow the cloud day by day. That's how God always leads His people. I never knew the way God was going to lead me all these 42 years that I've been a believer. It's been day by day. I don't know where I'm going to go next week.

Well, what will happen next week? We make our plans, but God can change those plans. We can make plans a year ahead, but God can change all of them. We are to be led day by day as God leads us. If God had told Abraham that, and Abraham had thought about it, and said, Well, Lord, you know, I'm living a comfortable life here, and I don't want to rock, change my lifestyle.

It's easy here. I know there's a little bit of wrong things. I know a few things are wrong here in this system, but it's comfortable. I don't want to go into this life of uncertainty. God would have said, Okay, Abraham.

Goodbye. And he would have looked for somebody else. He's always searching for a man. And you and I would never have heard of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Somebody else would have been the father of the nation of Israel.

Not Abraham. He would have missed it. Or it could have been another scenario, where Abraham said, Well, Lord, okay, I'm willing to trust you, but let me consult my wife, and see what she thinks about it.

And if Sarah had been a strong woman and said, Abraham, you're going to do nothing of the sort. Don't get any crazy ideas. You're just getting too old and senile. That's why you think you're hearing voices and all that.

Rubbish. Just stay right here. I'm not going to change my lifestyle. And the hand-picked husband that Abraham is, says, Okay, darling, we'll stay here. And he goes back to God and says, Well, God, I think I'm going to stay here.

You'd never have heard of Abraham. Now, I believe that, thank God, Abraham made the right choice. I don't know what discussion he had with Sarah. I can imagine he's going to Sarah and says, Sarah, we're packing up, we're going.

And she asks him, Where are we going? He says, I don't know. And you know, it says, Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. It's amazing. It says, It points her out as an example to wives. When God calls, follow.

And it says that he obeyed, not knowing where he was going. Only trusting God. Hoping for something in a city that has foundations. And he never regretted it. No one who has ever followed that call of God and walked in faith, has ever regretted it.

In their whole life. Never. That's not just been true of Abraham. He's called the father of faith. And it says in Galatians 3, We are the children of Abraham. The spiritual Abraham. If we walk in the same faith that he had.

Job as a Witness of Faithfulness

And that is when God searched for a man, all across the earth. At one time he found Job. And he could pick up Job and point him out to Satan. And said, You see that man? Perfect, upright man. There was a witness for God in the world at that time.

One who was pure. One who cared for the widows and the orphans. One who cared for the strangers. One who was upright. One who made a covenant with his eyes that he would never lust with his eyes. In those days, long before Matthew chapter 5 was written.

A man who was upright and who feared God and wouldn't do what was wrong. One who says, I did not make gold, my God. Way back, before Jesus ever came to earth. Without a Bible, without tapes, without meetings.

That man knew God. And did what God told him to do. And I believe people like Job will rise up against this generation. That has got books and tapes and teachings and preachings. And still don't do one-tenth of what Job did.

One who don't have one-tenth of the fear of God that Job had. But God's always looked for a man or a woman. Who we can point out to Satan. Satan roams around the world and God says, Have you seen that man?

God looked for a man like Abraham. With Job it was just all alone. God didn't do anything more than just have one man. I don't know whether his children followed in his example. But then he found Abraham and through Abraham he produced a nation.

And now in the church age, here and there in every nation, God has wanted men like that. Even today, his eyes are searching to and fro across the earth. Looking for those whose hearts are upright and perfect and blameless.

Who fear God and turn away from evil. It doesn't matter if you don't have abilities. God can give them to you. The question is not whether you are able, but whether you are available. Are you available to God?

Are you willing to forsake all your preconceived ideas? Willing to pay the price? There is a price of following Jesus. Every man whom God has picked up has had to suffer. And certainly in the history of the church, those who have stood up for the Lord have had to suffer.

But in the midst of their suffering, they have had God with them. When you turn towards the end of Genesis, you read of another young man. I believe God usually picks up people when they are young. Seventeen, eighteen, twenty.

That's usually I have found through the years. There are the occasional people today, nowadays, also whom God picks up at much later age. But it seems to me, as I have read church history and I have read different biographies of godly men and missionaries, it seems as if God has spoken to them in their teenage years, when they are twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.

The Devil’s Tactics Against Young Believers

And God has spoken to them and said like He said to Abraham, Will you forsake all and follow Me? And you say, Where Lord? I am not going to tell you. You have got to trust Me and walk day by day. You have got to give up your ambitions.

And it looks as if you are going to get nothing in return for all that you forsake. But years later, that's how God called me. I was nineteen and God told me to give up everything. I had tremendous ambitions in the world.

And God spoke to me and I didn't know where I was going. Now when I look back, oh, what I would have missed if I had not responded. I think of many of you young people, I have seen so many young people in India.

I remember once I asked the Lord this question. I said, Lord, there are one thousand million people in India. Why are there hardly any profits for one thousand million people? Have you forgotten about this land?

We are almost the most populous nation in the world. And this is what the Lord spoke to my heart, that He had raised up many, many young people to be prophets. But most of them fell by the wayside, trapped by the devil, into a wrong marriage, into unfaithfulness with money, into the pursuit of some honor on this earth, some wealth, some gain for themselves.

They joined up with some Christian organization so that they could have a comfortable lifestyle. And they missed it. It's very easy. Whenever the devil sees some wholehearted, zealous young brother or sister who is going to be a threat to his kingdom, he's got his eyes on that person.

And he says, now how can I lead that person astray? How can I make him cool off? How can I destroy his effectiveness for God? And he's got six thousand years of experience. He's got all types of tactics up his sleeve to trap people.

And he succeeds very often. Fear. Fear is one of the greatest weapons of the devil. Oh, what will happen? What will happen? I'm sure he told Abraham that. No, don't do that. What will happen? Think of the consequences.

What are the consequences of obeying God? Tell me. What are the consequences of obeying God? You'll be blessed. Those are the consequences. Of course, you'll suffer a little from human beings. So what?

If God's on your side, what does it matter? Through the years, I've discovered in various situations, the opposition has got thicker and thicker and thicker as I've gone on with the Lord. It hasn't got easier, I'll tell you.

And God has encouraged me so much in the different situations that I feel I've come to the place where I can say, God, if you're on my side, I can tackle all six billion people in the world turning against me.

All six billion. And coupled with all the demons of hell also. I just want God with me. If God be for me, who can be against me? God wants young people who will say that. If God is with me, who in the world can stand against me?

What are these few people in my little group or organization? Let all six billion turn against me and all the millions of demons stand against me. I only want God on my side. I want Jesus with me. I can conquer all of that.

My enemies will not triumph over me. You know that song, that Psalm of David which we sing in the chorus, in Psalm 25 it says, Let me not be ashamed. Do not let my enemies triumph over me. We sing it a little differently in India.

We sing it, I will not be ashamed. And my enemies will not triumph over me. We don't say, Oh God, don't let me be ashamed. Don't let my enemies triumph over me. We say, I will not be ashamed. My enemies will not triumph over me.

How can they ever triumph over me if God is on my side? And all that I have to do to have God on my side is have a clear conscience and humble myself. Shall I make it extremely simple? Keep your conscience clear and humble yourself.

Go down. Don't ever seek the high places. Those are the people who get shot down by the devil. Go down. Take the low place. Be a servant. Don't seek honor. Don't seek position. Don't seek to have money in your hands.

Those are the Judas's who get destroyed. I have seen it. I have seen people destroyed by money because they got so much in their hands like Judas Iscariot. God's money. And I have seen the way they waste it.

And I have seen them destroyed. That's one of the tactics of the devil. And it's pretty high up on his list. It's tactic number one or two. Women. Money. Pride. Honor. And he destroys them so that they can't be useful to God.

Judas Iscariot and the Danger of Unfaithfulness

Judas Iscariot was not a traitor when the Lord called him. Jesus went around, like it says in Ezekiel 22, 30, I searched for a man. He went around looking, looking, looking. He gathered people. Many people came to hear him.

And then there were a number of disciples. Number who appeared to be interested. And he preached to them and he preached to them and he preached to them. And then one night Jesus went along to a mountain.

You read about it in Luke 6, 12. And he prayed. It's the only place in the Gospels where it says he prayed the whole night. He didn't even pray the whole night in Gethsemane. But this is the one place in the Bible where it says Jesus prayed the whole night.

He never slept that night. And he wasn't going through an endurance test. Or he wasn't just praying all night to be able to testify later in a meeting that I prayed all night. No. He was praying all night because it was serious business with God he was doing that night.

What was he doing? And whenever you want to know what Jesus was doing in prayer, you just read the next verse and you understand what he was praying about. Because Jesus always got his answers immediately.

It says when he was baptized, he was praying and the next verse says, Heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit came upon him. What was Jesus praying about? He was praying that the Holy Spirit would come upon him.

Even Jesus needed to pray to receive the Holy Spirit upon him. Who are we to think that we'll get it without prayer? And here we read Jesus prayed all night and what's the next verse say? And then he called his disciples in the morning and he picked out twelve.

He got those names from God. That night he'd been praying, Father, I've got these 60, 70 people who seem to be all very interested. Now don't let me make a mistake here. Remember, he lived as a man. I mean, if he lived here with the powers of God, then of course there was no need for him to pray at all.

He could have just slept. God doesn't need to pray. But he was God, but he kept aside those powers in order to be an example for us. He was like a multi-millionaire who would not use his credit card in Heaven because he wanted to live at our level at $20 a month like many people in India live to teach us how to live.

Oh yeah, he was a millionaire. He was God. He had a credit card, but he never used it because he couldn't be an example for this poor man who doesn't have a credit card. And he prayed and prayed because we got to pray.

And he limited himself. He prayed and he prayed. He said, I want to be sure. And God put in his mind those 12 names. And in the morning, there were so many of these disciples. Can you imagine these 60, 70 sitting around and Jesus calling them and saying, Okay, Simon, you, Andrew, James, your brother John, Philip, and everybody's hoping they're going to be called.

They don't even know how many he's calling, whether it's 30 or 40. And finally, he's picked the last one. And you also, Judas Iscariot. Do you think Jesus was playing games? Do you think he called a man who was a crook just to fulfill scripture?

You don't understand Jesus. He wasn't acting. It says very clearly here that Judas Iscariot became Luke 6 .16, a traitor. That was later. He wasn't a traitor when he was born. When you see a baby became a man.

He wasn't a man when he was born. What does it mean when it says a baby became a man? He was a baby and he became a man. What does it mean when it says Judas Iscariot became a traitor? He wasn't a traitor before.

He was as wholehearted and zealous as all the other eleven. Jesus had prayed all night. And God didn't make a mistake. Jesus didn't make a mistake. God does not deal with us as we are going to be in the future.

He deals with us as we are today. Because his name is not I will be or I was. His name is I am. He lives in the present. God lives in that eternal present tense. There is no I will be or I was with God.

I am that I am. He deals with us, he deals with you as you are right now. And if you are a wholehearted, zealous brother or sister, God will mightily bless you even if he knows that five years from now, you are going to be a first-rate backslider.

He won't deal with you even though he knows you are going to be a backslider. Even though he knows you are going to betray him, he will not deal with you as a backslider. He will deal with you as a wholehearted believer because that's what you are today.

And if you are a backslider today, even though God knows that two years from now, you are going to be a zealous man on fire for God, He is not going to treat you like a zealous man on fire for God. He is going to treat you like a backslider because that's what you are today.

God deals with us as we are today. And Judas Iscariot was a wholehearted, zealous young man and God dealt with him as he was right then. And said, come, Jesus, come be my disciple. And I believe that Judas Iscariot was the most intelligent and the sharpest and the cleverest and the shrewdest among all twelve.

Jesus didn't send these twelve to a Bible seminary, but if he had, I think most of them would have failed. Perhaps Judas would have got a degree. The others would have dropped out. They were sincere, but they were not sharp and shrewd and clever and smart like Judas.

Why do I say Judas Iscariot was sharp and shrewd and clever and smart? Because he lived three and a half years with these twelve people, day and night, and they still didn't discover he was a crook. Don't you have to be smart to be that?

To move around with somebody for three and a half years, to talk the right language and say the right thing and cheat on the funds and all that, nobody ever discovers you're a crook. To such an extent that even when Jesus dipped, even when Jesus sat around the table and said, one of you is going to betray me, they didn't all look at Judas Iscariot.

They had a lot of weaknesses, those disciples, but I'll tell you one good thing they had. That when God said, when Jesus said, one of you is all going to betray me, they each said, Lord, is it going to be me?

We don't say that. We think, yeah, I know who that's going to be. It's that one. I've had an eye on him for quite a while. Those disciples were better than us. They judged themselves. They said, Lord, I feel weak, it may be me who's going to betray you.

And they never looked at Judas Iscariot. He was so sharp. And it says, even though Jesus dipped the bread and gave it to Judas and said, this is the one who's going to betray me, they still didn't believe that when Jesus said, that which thou doest, go and do quickly, they thought he was going to give some money to the poor.

Can you imagine that they couldn't believe even after Jesus pointed it out, he was so sharp. They said, it cannot be him. It cannot be him. He had covered his tracks so beautifully. He was clever. But the Bible says, God catches the clever in their own craftiness.

He catches the wise in their own craftiness. What was it that destroyed Judas Iscariot? It wasn't women. He wasn't fooling around with women. It wasn't pride and honor. It was unfaithfulness with money.

Faithfulness With Money and the True Riches

He had access to all the funds of the organization. And he could spend it as he liked. Nobody would question him. There are Christian organizations like that today, where people have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and nobody is to question how they spend it.

They say, we're not cheating. It's being entrusted to us. We do it as we like, and they spend it on themselves. They spend it on their families. And the poor in those organizations suffer. They don't have a heart for them.

They are lovers of themselves. Judas Iscariot has got many followers today, in many, many organizations. They don't always get exposed in three and a half years. Some of them are exposed after 35 years.

But they'll never escape. That's for sure. They'll destroy themselves, and their faith will be that of Judas Iscariot. But think that God had picked Judas Iscariot to be one of His servants. He searched for a man, and He found him.

But he went astray. The devil had said, this fellow I'm going to destroy. You know, I've often thought that if Judas had been faithful, with all that money at his disposal, if he'd been so faithful, the story might have been entirely different.

He may have written the Epistles of Paul in the Scripture. But because he missed that opportunity, God picked up another clever man called Paul, who humbled himself, and was so faithful with money, he wouldn't touch money that other people had given.

He worked himself, and earned his own money, and served the Lord. And that's the man God picked up to say, you write my Epistles. Yeah, if you want to be faithful to God, if you want God to use you, one of the first things you've got to do is to be faithful with money.

A man who's not faithful with money can never, never receive divine riches. Luke chapter 16. It says here, Luke chapter 16 and verse 11, If you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, listen to this.

These are the words of Jesus. Unrighteous mammon refers to money and material things. If you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true riches to you? You know what the true riches are?

The word Jesus uses, true riches. What does that mean? How many of you know that dollars are false riches? I wish we would see that. If only we would see it, it would be our salvation. Yeah, they are riches, but they are false riches.

There's a pleasure in sin. The Bible says, Moses gave up the pleasures of sin, so it says there is pleasure in sin, but it's a false pleasure. There is another pleasure, Psalm 16 speaks about. In thy presence there is fullness of joy, and at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

That's another type of pleasure. Those are the true pleasures. And one day when we get up to glory, I believe this with all my heart, that the sense of God's presence and fellowship with Him is going to exceed any type of sexual pleasure you ever had in the world.

Any type of pleasure you get out of fishing or yachting or having a good house or having a good car or you name it, whatever your pleasure is, this will be a million times greater fellowship with God.

And God gives us a foretaste of that on earth. And when we get a foretaste of that pleasure, these other pleasures, we see them as false. They disappear. Yeah? False riches and true riches. When you see true riches, the false riches may be there, but they don't have any value anymore.

It's something like when the sun rises. Let's say the stars are a picture of false riches. And let's say the sun is a picture of true riches. What happens when the sun rises? Do the stars get extinct?

Are there stars in the sky right now? Sure. You can't see them. That's all. They're there. Every star that ever existed is there right now. Why is it you can't see them? Because the sun has risen in all its glory.

And we're all born into the night. We're all born into the night in this world. And in the night we see these false pleasures of sex, money, food, comfort, grand house, grand car. So many comforts and pleasures and gluttony and immorality all come out of being taken up with these false pleasures.

And then when the sun rises, the sun of righteousness rises, if it's really risen, you find it all disappears. It's there. It's there, but I can't see them. It's there, money is there, but it doesn't take up my heart anymore.

If you are faithful with unrighteous men, you will get the true riches. You know what the true riches are? The anointing of the Holy Spirit. Not just once in a date in the past. I don't care for dates in the past.

But right now, a continuous anointing of the Holy Spirit. Those are the true riches. The divine nature, God's own nature that makes me hate sin and love righteousness. You know it's easy to do righteousness when you love it?

It's difficult to do righteousness when you don't love it. That's why a lot of Christians have a great struggle doing righteousness. Because they don't love it. It's like being asked to marry a girl whom you don't love.

And your father holds a shotgun to your head and says, marry her. And that's how a lot of people are doing righteousness. They want to do it, because there's a shotgun to their head. They'll get punished if they don't do it.

But does anybody have to do that when you're asked to marry a girl whom you love with all your heart? No. When you love righteousness. You'll even go sneakily and go and marry her. You'll go sneakily and do righteousness.

Because you love righteousness. You'll do it in the dark. Righteousness. And you will hate iniquity. Then it's easy to avoid it. It's very difficult to avoid iniquity if you don't hate it. Try telling a pig not to eat garbage.

Very difficult. It loves it. This is the problem with a lot of people. They get preachers telling them, give up righteousness. Give up sin. And they can't give up sin. Give up the love of money. You can't give it up.

Do righteousness. They can't do it. Because they have never been brought to the place where they love righteousness. And they hate iniquity. And you know what happened to Jesus when He loved righteousness and hated iniquity?

Loving Righteousness and Receiving the Anointing

Have you read that wonderful verse in Hebrews 1 .9? Years ago, when I was seeking God, saying, Lord, what is the secret of rejoicing always? That was my great pursuit years ago. I said, I read in the Word of God that I must rejoice in the Lord always.

And I was not rejoicing in the Lord always. I was not rejoicing... Well, in the beginning it was sometimes. It went on to many times. But it was never always. And yet I had read in the Word of God, rejoice in the Lord always.

Now, whenever you see the Word of God preach a standard like that, in that area or any other area, and you find your level is down here, you'll find a tremendous temptation in your heart, brought by the devil, to twist that scripture and bring it down to your level and say, I'm alright.

What that verse means is what I'm doing. And if you do that, and that type of manipulation and dishonesty with scripture, I'll tell you what will happen. You're doomed. You are doomed to live at that level forever.

But if you leave scripture there and you're honest and say, well, Lord, that's where I should be, because this is where I am. And you get a little better and you say, Lord, it's still higher than where I am.

You know what will happen? One day you'll reach there. Because God sees you're honest. He'll take you up there. But if He doesn't see you're honest, you're a manipulator and you're a twister of scripture, and you bring it down to your level, you're doomed to live there forever.

Through riches, divine nature. When I was seeking God, what is the secret, Lord, of rejoicing in the Lord always? The Lord pointed me to Hebrews 1 .9. He loved, Jesus loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

Therefore, therefore, He was anointed with the oil of gladness above all His companions. I'm one of His companions. You're one of His companions. How did Jesus get the oil of gladness? More than all of us?

Because He loved righteousness more than all of us? Not because He did it, but He loved it. And of course, naturally He did it. And He hated iniquity more than all of us? That is the secret. And then I began to pray.

I said, Lord, I don't want to just do righteousness. They did that in the Old Testament. I just don't want to avoid evil. Job did that. He avoided evil. What's the advantage I have over Job if I received the Holy Spirit?

No, if I have not received the Holy Spirit, OK, then being as good as Job is good enough. Being as good as Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist is good enough. But even that many Christians don't reach. But now that I've received the Holy Spirit, if I've really received the Holy Spirit, what should it produce in me?