Born Again Through Repentance and Faith — Zac Poonen

Reading Revelation in Context

I want you to turn with me first of all to Revelation chapter 3 and a verse that you are not so familiar with though you may be familiar with the verse that comes after this, the next verse. Revelation chapter 3 verse 20 is a verse most Christians know, at least many Christians know.

Where Jesus said, Remember, this is not spoken to unbelievers. Whenever you read scripture or you read Jesus speaking, find out who is he speaking to. Did he look at his disciples and say, you generation of vipers, how will you escape the damnation of hell?

Those are the words of Jesus, but they were not spoken to Peter, James and John. They were spoken to the Pharisees. So you have to see who is he speaking to, then only you will understand who the message is for.

So if you're a Pharisee, then that is for you, you generation of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of hell? So here we have to say, who is he speaking to? Verse 14, To the messenger, that is one of the elders of the church in Laodicea.

Among the elders, there are always more than one elder in every church and usually one of them would be the messenger who brings the message most Sundays. To the messenger of the church in Laodicea write, I'm standing at the door and knocking.

And it says in verse 22, if you have a year, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches. So it's a message to the elder and to the churches. It is not to unbelievers. That's what I'm trying to say.

But yet that verse is quoted most of the time to unbelievers. To unbelievers who say, you know, Jesus is standing at the door and knocking and you show the unbeliever this verse. And if he has some sense, he said, let me read whom is it written.

This is not written for unbelievers. This is written to an elder. This is written to a church. I'm not an elder. I'm not a church. How can you quote this verse to me? You see how carelessly we read the Bible because we have the habit of reading independent verses.

If you want to misunderstand the Bible, read independent verses, favorite verses. If you get a letter from your father and you read one sentence in the middle of page 3, you may get a completely wrong understanding.

Nobody reads like that. If you read a sentence in the middle of page 3, you'll read the whole letter perhaps, at least the whole of page 3 or the whole paragraph to understand. So whenever you read, many people have come to me and said, brother, what is the meaning of this?

I said, read the verses before it, read the verses after it and you'll understand the meaning. You don't even have to come to me. But you don't read the verses before, you don't read the verses after, and you try to understand one verse by itself.

You never do that with any letter you get from anyone. You never do that with a book you read. And because the books in the Bible are broken up into verses, we read verses. But do you know the original letters that Paul wrote and the original books that were written, John's Gospel and all that, it was not broken up into verses or even chapters.

Maybe it was put into paragraphs, but it was never, never broken up into verses and chapters till about maybe 300 years ago. That's how it was. So to the elder brother, oh well, and it must refer to believers also.

It could apply to all of us here. You know what Jesus is saying? I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him, will dine with him and he with me, and then you will be able to overcome.

Next verse. As I overcame, you'll sit with me on my throne. So when you read all of that together, it's leading up to being an overcomer, which is what we preach in our church. We all want to be overcomers.

Rebuke as the Lord’s Knock

But let's begin at verse 19, which tells us how we hear the knocking of the Lord. How do you know? How do you hear the Lord knocking at your door? I'll tell you. Those whom I love, I rebuke, reprove and discipline.

That's how we hear the Lord knocking. Do you hear the Lord rebuking you? Reproving you? That's his knock. Will you let me come in? You get offended with that rebuke. That rebuke may come directly from the Lord as you read the Bible.

If you have been sensitive to the Lord's voice for many years, it may come directly to you without the Bible. Or it may come to you through another servant of the Lord. In this case, it came through the Apostle John.

It was not directly. Jesus did not directly speak to any of these churches or any of these elders. He spoke to them through an apostle. And through the apostle, he rebuked them and reproved them. And that was the Lord knocking at the door of their heart saying, Will you let me come in?

Because this reproof, verse 19, is a proof of my love. That's what I wanted you to see primarily. Those who my love, I reprove and rebuke. I've often said, there's no young man I have reproved and corrected in the world more than my four sons.

Nobody in the world have I ever corrected as much as I corrected my four sons. And I don't regret it one bit. Because I didn't have authority over the others. As an elder, I have had the responsibility for having to reprove and rebuke some people.

The moment they leave our church, as some people have done, I immediately stop correcting them. Immediately. It's always hi, sometimes just hi and bye. Hi, I hope you're following the Lord. But go and ask all the people who have left our church.

Ask them if they ever got one email from me correcting them. Never. Ask them if they got emails from me before they left the church. Yes, plenty. After they left the church, always, hello, thank you for writing, good to hear from you.

God bless you. If he can. I hope you're following the Lord. As many as I love, Jesus says, I reprove and I rebuke. So, when I was a young Christian, I didn't know that. Nobody explained Revelation 3 .19 to me.

I should have known it from the day I was converted. If I had teachers who would teach me the Bible, I would have known it when I was 19 and a half. One proof of God's love for you is that he rebukes you.

But, you know, we live in a world where we think rebuke is somebody who hates us, only rebukes us. One who loves us will always say nice things to us. It's like thinking a good doctor will always say you're healthy, even when you're dying of cancer.

And it's only somebody who hates you who says the scan shows you've got cancer. We never think like that about a doctor. But we do think like that about brothers and the Lord's servants. That shows how the devil has blinded us.

We are more concerned about our physical health than our spiritual condition. We will go to a doctor for understanding what is the problem with us. But we'll never think that a brother could perhaps show us what's wrong with us spiritually.

Oh no, I can take care of myself. Go and see all the people who treated themselves medically without consulting a doctor and see their physical condition today. They're messed up their physical condition because they treated themselves.

They didn't go to someone who was a little wiser, a doctor, and say can you please tell me what's wrong with me. We value our physical health so much that we will not treat ourselves. We will go to a doctor.

Even for a little earache or a toothache. But much more serious spiritual conditions we say I can handle that myself. And I believe that's the reason why many of us are in a very poor spiritual condition.

Because we don't go to the Lord and say Lord please tell me what's wrong with me. As many as I love Arabic. So when I was a young Christian the only way if you had asked me how do you know Jesus loves you I would have said he died for me.

I know he loves me. Jesus loves me this I know because he died for me on the cross. Today if you ask me the same question how do you know Jesus loves you I'll say he reproves me. He disciplines me. And you say brother Zach he still disciplines you after 57 years of being a believer.

Yes he's not stopped loving me. He reproves me and disciplines me in ways that you don't know. And I need it. When will it stop brother Zach? It will stop the day I become like Jesus Christ 100%. That's the day he returns.

That is the proof of his love for me. Because he doesn't want me to go even one millimeter off the straight line. Sometimes I slip up. Not with many inches away from the straight as in the olden days.

But one millimeter off the Lord reproves and disciplines. I've been so delighted that the Lord corrects me when a slight deviation. If you can speak one rude word to anybody, unbeliever, believer, petrol station, the petrol pump attendant or shopkeeper or an auto rickshaw driver or a porter in the railway station.

If you can speak one rude word to a beggar and not be convicted about it I would say you're sick. You are sick. You've got a little bit of leprosy. You don't have sensation. You know lepers don't have sensation.

When they get leprosy here, you touch them, they don't feel it. You pin prick them, they don't feel it. And that's happening to you. You spoke a rude word to somebody and you didn't get convicted about it.

You didn't go and apologize to the Lord. You didn't go and apologize to that person. Maybe after one week you decided, okay I better write him a letter, tell him I'm sorry. One week you had no sensation?

It's leprosy brother. You better do something about it because leprosy has a habit of spreading. I never wanted to be like that. I was a leper when I came to Jesus. There are many things I had no sensation about.

But I'm being freed from it. Gradually, little by little by little by little by little. I'll be completely free when Jesus comes back. There will not even be a speck of it. But the flesh is still there.

And nothing good dwells in the flesh. But its area is becoming reduced, reduced, reduced. Isn't it good to see the leprosy reducing in your life? That you're becoming more sensitive, quicker to something wrong you said.

You're quick to go and apologize to your wife or your husband. That's an indication. Leprosy is becoming less. But I'll tell you something I've noticed. Many brothers are very quick to apologize to their wives.

Because they need food. She's the one who cooks food. And they need it on time. They need their clothes to be washed. Can't afford to have tension at home even for 24 hours. But when it is a brother in the church, why are they not so quick to go and set it right?

They know something, tension has come there. Why don't they set it right? Because he doesn't cook my food. He doesn't wash my clothes. He doesn't do anything for me. Why should I be bothered? You are a leper.

Let me tell you straight, you're a leper. You're a self-centered leper. You're careful when it concerns your own wife. Because you're concerned about yourself. You love yourself, I need my food, I need my clothes washed.

I must keep a good relationship with my wife. But this brother, I can afford, I can think about it. Let me pray about it for one or two months and then we'll see. My brothers and sisters, I want to tell you the truth.

You come here, you'll hear the truth. You'll get a scan as to why you are not growing spiritually much faster than you could have. Now I'm not saying you all haven't grown spiritually. Many of you have grown spiritually tremendously from the time I first knew you, without a doubt.

But let me also say that a number of you could have been miles further ahead than you are today. Your growth could have been much more if you had been a little more sensitive to sin and allowed the Lord to rebuke you, reprove you, discipline you.

You know that Old Testament psalm that says, Let the righteous smite me. It's like oil on my head. It's like, I think it's Psalm 141. You let the righteous smite me. It's like anointing me with oil. Anointing with oil is the way people were blessed and anointed for service.

So that's a great verse. In case you don't know it, I think you should know it. Turn with me to the Psalms. Psalm 141 and verse 5. If you don't know this verse, you must remember it all your life. Let the righteous slap me on my face in kindness and let him reprove me.

It's like he's anointing me with oil. Don't let my head refuse it. I mean, if we said, Brother, we want to appoint you as an elder now and we want to lay our hands on you and come here. We want to anoint you.

How many of us would rush forward for that? But this is the same thing. The same thing. Let the righteous smite me. Let not my head refuse it. Don't let me pull back. Let me submit to that and say, Do it, brother.

I want to be an anointed person. I have tried to follow that all my life. I remember when I was a young man and I was misunderstood in a church I used to attend. And some people falsely accused me to the older brothers.

And the result was I was not allowed to speak in that church. Not for one or two Sundays. I used to speak every Sunday in that church. It was when I was about 30 years old. And because of that misunderstanding and the elders never sought to clarify it, for the next three years, or two and a half years at least, I was not allowed to preach in that church.

Not a single Sunday. And the Lord said to me, Keep quiet. Accept it. Don't question it. Submit to the elders. Nobody taught me about submission in all those days, but the Lord spoke directly to me. And I kept quiet.

My wife and I would sit at the back of the hall and people would come up to me and say, Oh, Brother Zak, what happened? I wouldn't say anything. I would not open my mouth in one word of self-defense.

I would not say they misunderstood me. I can speak about it today, because you don't even know who they are. But if I had spoken about it then, people would have known who I was referring to. They're dead and gone now.

But I knew much later. And after those three years, I left that place and I moved to Bangalore. I wasn't here. Otherwise I would have still been sitting there. And after we came here, and two and a half years or three years after we came here, the Lord established CFC.

Then I knew why God had taken me through those three years of reproof and rebuke and misunderstanding. He was testing me to see whether I would obey him and keep my mouth shut. And I believe that if I had, listen to me, in those years, if I had not kept my mouth shut, and I had risen up in defiance against those elders, and said these guys have misunderstood me, and tried to speak against them to all the others, I tell you, I would not be sitting here today.

I would not be involved in raising CFC. CFC would have been built by somebody else, not me. God's work is not going to depend on one man. If one man fails, another man takes over. My belief is that Judas Iscariot was supposed to write the epistles because he was the cleverest of the apostles.

He missed out on it, so what? God found Paul. If I had failed, God would have found somebody else, definitely. That I don't have any doubt. But I wouldn't be here. And it's possible that God has a plan for you, and he's taking you through a period of discipline, and reproof.

I'm talking to young people here. You don't accept it. You're disturbed that somebody smote you. Not physically, but in words that humiliated you. And you don't accept it. You're missing out on a ministry God has for you in the future.

Now I'm not saying that you should accept it for the sake of a ministry. That's pretty selfish. But because God is knocking at the door of your heart. As many as I love, I rebuke, I discipline. That is the way I'm knocking at the door of your heart.

Did you ever connect those two verses together? Revelation 3, 19 and 20. That is the meaning. How do you know that Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart? Read the previous verse. Don't read a verse by itself.

You'll misunderstand it. The previous verse explains it. I rebuke and I discipline. That's the knock. I'm knocking loud and clear. Will you open it? Will you submit to it? Will you accept it? Or will you reject it?

Then you wonder, why is the Lord not near to me? Why doesn't he come and sup with me? Because you don't accept his correction. And those of you who have come here regularly through the years, I'm sure many a time, you have heard the Lord knocking at the door of your heart on a Sunday morning.

Somebody wrote an email to me last week, saying to CFC, why doesn't Brother Zach give us more milk? It's always meat, meat, meat, meat. We need some milk. So, some other brother was replying. I told him, please reply to him saying, there are hundreds of thousands of milkmen distributing milk all over.

You don't have to go to Brother Zach for that. But if you want to go, please read Good Foundation and Purpose of Failure. There's some milk also in our literature. But the great need is what Paul said to Timothy.

The time will come, 2 Timothy 4, when they will not want to hear hygienic words that leads to godliness. They will heap to themselves these hundreds of thousands of milkmen, teachers who will just tickle their ears.

Paul told Timothy, reprove, rebuke. When you feel like it, don't feel like it. You read it for yourself in 2 Timothy 4. Because the time will come when people will not want to listen to it. We are living in those times.

Repentance as the Foundation of New Birth

That's what I said. Some days, some weeks ago, I said this. If you remember, that if Jesus were to come today, some of you sitting here would go to hell. Because I don't believe you are really born again.

That's the truth. I feel that way. I want to say a few words to such people. Because I don't want anybody sitting here this morning, or anybody hearing this message later on, not to know how you can be really born again and be sure of it.

So I just want to take a little time and explain that. The first thing, if you want to understand the way for Jesus to come into your life, is to listen to the message of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was sent, in Matthew chapter 3, he was sent by God to Israel, to prepare the way.

He is called the one who came to prepare the way for Jesus to come to Israel. And spiritually, his message is what prepares the way for Jesus to come into our heart. Because they rejected the message of John the Baptist, they rejected Jesus.

That's why Israel rejected Jesus. Before Jesus came, God sent a prophet to prepare the way for Jesus to be accepted. They rejected him, and they rejected Jesus. So, what is this message? Let's turn to Matthew chapter 3, verse 2.

John the Baptist, verse 1, came preaching, saying, repent. Now, repent is a word which we don't really understand. The best translation I've heard of repent is in Tamil. Tamil has got some wonderful translations, I've discovered.

In Tamil, it is Mananthirambal, which means turn your mind. A very beautiful translation. Change your opinion. Turn your mind around from the way it is thinking, the way it is facing. Turn it around. Turn it around.

Turn your mind around. That's what John is saying. Because the kingdom of heaven is near. The kingdom of heaven was what Christ came to bring into our hearts. This is the one about whom Isaiah the prophet said, the one who is crying out in the wilderness to make ready the way of the Lord.

This is how you make ready the way for Christ to come into your life. Repent. Turn. And how will you know that your mind has turned? You know, there were some Pharisees, in verse 7, who came and wanted to be baptized.

See, baptism was offered by John the Baptist only to those who really accepted his message. It wasn't a ritual. It wasn't, say, I want to join this church so I get baptized. John wasn't building any church.

So there was no question of joining anything. He wanted to, if they accepted his message, he could be baptized. Baptism followed repentance. But some people came, like some people come today also, who want to be baptized.

And John the Baptist has such discernment. It's an amazing thing how God gives discernment to his servants. It's the greatest need in any elder brother or any true servant of God. Discernment. That people who speak the right words, you can turn around to them and say, you haven't repented.

You're speaking the right words. But you haven't repented. I can see that you have not repented. Even though you're saying the right words, yeah, I believe, I have done this, I have given it up, and you can see through the whole thing.

John the Baptist could be like that. The tragedy is Christian churches do not have many people like that. And that's why we have a whole bunch of people nowadays who get baptized who never repented. John the Baptist would never allow them to be baptized.

He turned around to them and said, you brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? I don't see any fruit in your life in keeping with repentance. Verse 8, I don't see your mind having really been turned around.

And don't say, Abraham is our father. Don't say, I listen to Brother Zach's messages. So what? God can pick up stones and make his children from there. There are different things people say to find acceptance.

No. The axe is laid. Here's what repentance means. The axe is laid to the root of the tree. In the Old Testament it was only the fruit. Where the fruit came out, they'd be punished. The root was never touched.

In other words, you know the Ten Commandments. Don't murder. If you murdered, you'd be punished. But the root was hatred. People murder somebody because they hate them. So the root was not touched. You could have hatred to a person.

Intense hatred. Go around speaking evil about him all over the country. But so long as you didn't kill him, you were a good Jew. You could take part in the Passover and the feast and be considered a good person.

You could even be a priest. Because the fruit never came out. But now John the Baptist says things are changing. We're coming into the Kingdom of Heaven where fruit is not the main thing. Root. The axe is laid to the root.

We can say in the Old Testament scissors was put to the fruit. The bad murder, cut off. Adultery, cut off. Stealing, cut off. But what about the root? Lusting after a woman in the heart. That's the root.

John the Baptist says now the axe is being laid to the root. And if a tree does not bring forth good fruit, it's going to be cut down and thrown into the fire. So repentance is an axe being laid to the root.

It is not an external, okay. I've decided to stop killing people. I've decided to stop picking pockets and I've decided to stop stealing. I've decided to stop committing adultery. That's all old covenant.

You can be a good Jew, not a Christian. For a Christian, repentance must go to the root. Lord, I have lived a self-centered life. I have lived for myself. I want to turn from that. You say, Brother Zach, that type of repentance is not preached.

I know. Paul said that in 2 Timothy 4. People will not want to hear it. They want preachers who will tickle their ears and say, have you given up your drinking and gambling and smoking? Okay, come. So, why did Jesus say the gate and the way to life is very narrow?

If the gate was only don't murder, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't gamble, don't smoke, that's a very wide gate. There are millions of non-Christians who can come in. But the gate is very narrow which says you shouldn't get angry.

You shouldn't lust after women in your heart. You must speak the truth. You must love your enemies. You must not live a self-centered life. I am not saying you must be perfect. You must be willing to go this way.

A willingness. The question is not whether you have given up all anger. No. Do you want to give it up? The want to. That is the mark of repentance. If you don't want to, I would say you have not repented.

I have often said this to people. Supposing you are a person who really wanted to give up your anger and all your life you battled it. Every time you fell, you would apologize and ask forgiveness. But you were still falling.

Even after 20 years of wanting to give up anger, you were still falling. But you were fighting, repenting, apologizing and you die and go to heaven. God will credit you with you got victory over anger.

I promise you it will be like that. Because where there is an intention, God sees the intention of the heart. I will show you a verse which proves that. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians. It is a very liberating verse.

It has helped me tremendously many times. A lot of people say that we are preaching salvation only for those whose lives are perfect. That's garbage. We are preaching salvation for those who have a want to live this life.

Sincerely want to, not play the fool. 2 Corinthians 8 12 says, if the willingness is present, the willingness, the readiness, it is accepted according to what a man has, not what he does not have. He did not have that victory.

No, it's okay. But was there a willingness? Let me paraphrase that in relation to anger or lusting after women or anything. Was there a willingness, an eager desire to be completely free from anger, to completely free from lusting after women?

But you didn't have it yet. You will not be judged according to what you don't have. But that readiness, see here it's applying to money and saying, if you read the context, he's telling people to give some money for the poor believers in Paul never asked money for himself, but he said, please give some money to the poor believers in Jerusalem.

And here's a man who really wants to give, but he's so poor that he can just about, his earnings are just enough to keep his family together, pay the rent and look after the food, the meat, the children's food and all that, that he wants so desperately to give to the Lord, but he has hardly anything.

And he feels so bad because some rich people can give so much. I wish I could give like that. The Lord says, don't worry. I see your heart's desire. I see that you don't have much to give. Doesn't matter.

Your heart's desire that you want to give and if you had, you would give so much. I accept it. As if you have given so much. More than that person. You remember the story of the widow who put in something like two paisas or some small amount.

Two coins into the box. And Jesus was watching it. It says Jesus was sitting beside the offering box, watching it. He's sitting beside the offering box today also. You don't see him, but he's there. And he's not watching how much you put in.

That's the point of that story. But how you put in. The Pharisees may have put in that tithe. But tithe from such a huge millionaire is nothing. He's got 90 many more millions to live on. It's not a great offering.

But when a person gives with sacrifice who wants to give more but has so little, that is what Jesus values. So what I learned from that even in relation to sin and everything is God sees the desire of the heart more than the action.

And that has a reverse consequence also. You can do a very good action and your motive may be bad. For example, preaching is a very good thing. Preaching the word of God. But most people, most preachers today in the world preach to get money or honor, fame, position in their church or something like that.

All are evil in God's eyes. But you listen to the message. Oh, what a wonderful message. I know a lot of CFC people who listen to these, some of these television preachers, men and women. They say, wow, Brother Zak, what a message.

Yeah, yeah. Go to the internet and see how that preacher makes money. You'll never want to listen to that person again. I know people who have traveled long distance to listen to some of these preachers in India because they are such fantastic preachers.

Have you ever found out how these people make money? You're not bothered by that? I'm not fooled by all this. When I listen to that, I don't need to check the internet. When I listen to a person now, I can make out from his or her mannerism and the way they speak, I can make out, is this a woman of God or a man of God?

Is this a humble person or not? I tell you, 99 of them are not. God looks at the heart. You must never forget that. Repentance is from the heart. The axe is laid to the root of the tree. We are not living in the days of the scissors.

But many Christians are. Oh, this sounds so nice. It's so correct doctrine and they are encouraging so many people and so many people I see, 10 ,000 people listening to this lady or this man. Yeah, yeah, but can't you discern the spirit there?

That person will never lead you to godliness. That I'll tell you. That person will lead you to a nice, psychologically good, reformed life on the outside where you'll get some honor for your Christianity.

I don't want that. I want an axe to be laid to the root. I'll tell you what the root is. Somebody once asked Jesus in Matthew 22. So we need to get repentance from here. Matthew 22. Somebody asked him in verse 36.

Teacher, Matthew 22 36. What is the great or the greatest commandment in the law? Now, if you had gone to a Jewish person and asked that question. See, the Jews don't go around committing the God-fearing people, didn't commit murder, adultery and all that.

No use mentioning those things. You must keep the Sabbath day holy. You go and ask some of our seven-day Adventist friends today. What is the greatest commandment in the law? You must keep the Sabbath day.

They're living in the old covenant. One of them, one of their leaders supposedly had a vision of the tablet, ten commandments, tablets and a light shining on the fourth commandment. Keep the Sabbath. Deception.

I don't believe in all these visions. But when they asked Jesus, they expected him to say Sabbath. He said no. He didn't even mention Sabbath. He said here is the great commandment in the law, the great and number one commandment.

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, that is your mind, emotion and your mind. All your emotion, all your mind, all your will and all your heart must be to love God. This is the first and foremost and he says I cannot stop there.

You asked me only for one but when I show you a coin I must show you the other side of the coin also. There's something written on the other side of this coin and I cannot just show you one side. The other side is you must love your neighbor as you love yourself.

The entire law and the entire law in the prophets is in verse 40 is an expression for the Old Testament. The entire Old Testament hangs or depends on these two commandments. The entire Old Testament can be summed up in two commandments, Jesus said.

That is the law. You don't need ten commandments. Just these two. So when the axe is laid to the root, you know it is disobedience to these two commandments that is the root of sin. You must always see it.

You see, if you get your repentance right you'll get your salvation right. Repentance means a 180 degree turn around but I need to know what I'm turning around from. If some preacher tells me I've got to turn around from drinking, getting drunk, I don't need to turn around.

I've never got drunk in my life. I must give up smoking. I never smoked in my life. So what does 180 degree turn mean? Stealing. I've never stolen in my life. What does 180 degree turn mean? Gamble. I've never gambled in my life.

So what I mean there are a lot of non-Christians who say what is your repentance? What are you telling me to give up? All these external things. Turn around. Turn around from the fact that you don't love God with all your heart and your mind and your emotions.

There are other things you love more than God. Primarily your own self. Your money. Your job. Your house. Your family. Your father. Your mother. Some other things you love. Maybe your children. But you don't love God.