Life Changing Message!!@! - His and His Alone — K.P. Yohannan

I just want to take a minute for us to pray as we look at a passage of scripture and ask the Holy Spirit to teach us tonight. Shall we pray? Our Father, we are so grateful that we are your sons and daughters.

How blessed we are, O Lord, to sit in your presence, to worship you the way we did this evening, and you received it, Lord. We are so happy. And Lord, I want to thank you for sending me here, and I ask you that by the Holy Spirit, you will take the feeble words that I will share tonight, and you will touch hearts.

Following Jesus Through Sacrifice and Persecution

Jesus, reveal yourself to us in a fresh and a new way. Teach us, O Lord, your ways, and give us grace to follow you all the days of our lives. Thank you for everything. In Jesus' name, amen. After finishing my high school in the southern part of India, I left my home traveling 2 ,000 miles to north with one intention to serve Jesus and see other people that do not know the Lord come to know him.

I did not know going to north India would mean beatings and persecution and rejection. No, I didn't know that. I was born and raised in a community where in AD 52, Thomas, Christ's disciple, came and preached the gospel and planted seven churches.

And one of the churches Thomas, Christ's disciple, planted happened to be three kilometers from my village where I was born and raised. That makes me a better Christian, I think. I had this wonderful privilege to be born in a home where my parents knew the Lord.

But as I went to north India, I will discover there are multitudes, which means millions, that never had a chance to hear Jesus' name. And we would go from village to village and ask, have you heard of Jesus?

Have you heard of Jesus? The typical answer they gave, oh, I've been living here for the last 50 years. No one by that name lives in our community. But you go to the next village, you may find him there.

And I realized all of a sudden I'm among people that do not know his name. But then as we began to preach the gospel, persecution became a way of life. One of the first places I was beaten and abused, along with seven other coworkers, the name of the place called Boondi in northwest of India.

Half a dozen times, other teams went there with the gospel, and every time they were beaten, Bibles burned, kicked out of the community. And we happened to be the next team. Thank God nobody told us how bad that place is until we got there.

Two by two, we carried our book bags and went to homes and gave gospel tracts and witnessed to people. But within less than an hour's time, I found myself laying in the dirt. A tall Rajput strong man just kicking me like you kick a football.

And my coworkers beaten, some even couldn't stand on their legs. They were dragging them like you drag a dead animal. It was a mob. The leader spoke. Get out of this place. You dogs, we don't need your God.

We got plenty. We give you five minutes. If you don't, we will kill you. With great struggle, we left the place. Boondi by now became synonym for martyrdom. You want to get killed, you go there. A few years will go by.

A 19-year-old, barely 20 years, a young man having gone to the Bible school, we have 54 Bible colleges scattered throughout 10 Asian nations with some 8 ,000 young people study there, the three long years of training before they go to the mission field.

This young man, as he graduated, said to the leaders, the Lord was leading him to go to Boondi. This guy is a skinny little chap, not tall but short. So when he said that, the senior elder said, you are joking, aren't you?

He said, no. A whole year I prayed, the Lord burned my heart to go to Boondi. They said, you don't know what you're talking about. Boondi is not the place for you to go. You are young, you are skinny, you are weak, you don't know much.

They were right, but he insisted. They said, all right. They prayed for him. He went to Boondi, got a small place, about $5 a month rent with all the literature he carried. He began to witness to people here and there.

But he'd never been to Boondi before, only heard the horror stories from people like us. One night while he was sleeping, a group of men came and busted his door open. And he found himself surrounded by these men, and a tall man pulled him up by his leg like you hold up a chicken.

And this is what he said in the native Hindi language. You young fellow, we were watching you during these past days. You came here to convert us to Christianity. Who sent you here? We can tear you apart like we do with a chicken.

This is not the place for you. But tonight we will not kill you. First thing in the morning, you leave our community, never to come back. And they dropped him. He got scared. I would too. He went back to the mission station from where he was sent and reported what happened, trembling.

And they said, well, that's what we told you will happen. While this conversation was going on, the senior most pastor elder walked into the conversation and learning what was going on said, son, I just want to ask you one question.

Did Jesus ask you to go to Boondi? Did he really tell you to do that? He said, I know he did because my heart was burning for a whole year. And that's the place he told me to go. But I don't know how I can face it.

I'm scared. The leader said, son, go back to Boondi. Silence. They couldn't believe he would do that to this young fellow. They will come back. They will harass you. They will beat you. It happened before.

Then he said, there's a slight possibility they will kill you also. But son, remember this. If that is the place, you must lay down your life for his sake who gave himself for you. Son, remember, heaven is a much better place than Boondi.

And you wait in heaven for us. And we will come and see you later. He knelt down. They laid hand on him, prayed for him. He got on the bus, actually believing that he will never see them again face to face.

As it was the case of Paul when he went to Jerusalem from Ephesus. They wept. He wept, saying goodbye on the way to Boondi. Within a few days, the same group of men, now more angry and upset, came back to him and said, Now, you have come back to make us murderers.

Why did you do it? Who told you to come here? Who is behind you? This young man listened to their threats. Their sharp, murderous words. Their anger. With soberness and calmness and a gentle spirit. Finally, he looked straight into the eyes of the leader and said, Paisaab, sir, the sooner you do your job, it is better for me.

Heaven is a much better place than Boondi anyway. Go ahead. These men's eyes popped out. What do you do with someone who actually want to die? They were totally confused. A few years would go by. I get a telephone call in the United States.

Hello? I said, yes, this is me speaking. This is Brother KP. Brother, I am calling you, asking you, would you come to Boondi? I said, what? I wanted to put the phone down. The name Boondi is a nightmare.

Flashback. He said, no, no, no. I know. So, we want you to come and inaugurate the church that we just finished constructing in Boondi. Now, the story changes. I flew to Delhi. Took a train to Kota, Rajasthan.

Then went on to Boondi. Tonight, worship was great. But do you really want to see people's face glow with the love and the grace lost in the wonder of the grace of Jesus? Come to Boondi. Some 150 adults and children, their wives, just worshiping the Lord.

The first generation Christians. I taught God's word. Cried through the whole worship service. Dedicated to the church. When it was all over, this young brother said, this is the fellow who said he'll tear me like a chicken.

And his wife, his friends, what made the difference? The whole world is talking about Canada. It is becoming more difficult to preach and read the Bible in your country. Things you do here, the most heathen nations will not practice.

This is a nation that sent missionaries all over the world. That died on the mission field and you still can read the names on the tombs. You are the sons and daughters and grandchildren of those people.

Jeremiah's Lament Over a Lost Generation

There is a verse in the book of Lamentations, chapter 1, verse 12. This man is weeping. He is nicknamed the weeping prophet. Named Jeremiah. He is asking a question. Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?

He continues. Can't you see the calamity, the pain, the burden I've been inflicted with? Don't you care? Well, if you are a Bible student, you know Jeremiah cannot describe of the pain, the agony. Emotionally or physically about himself.

The description cannot be about him. But it is very subjective the way he says it. You see what has happened to me. You know what happened. As he looked around and saw the darkness, the sin, the idolatry.

And the lostness of his generation. Rejecting God. And the judgment hanging over them. He was broken and wounded within himself with the burden for others. And then he takes the pain of the lost world upon himself and says, I am hurting so deep.

You who profess to know God, don't you care? Can't you see what is happening? Nehemiah was quite comfortable in the palace. Most trusted individual by the king. But then one day as he was having a good time and enjoying his life.

A couple of fellows came and said, oh, we just want to tell you what is happening back in Jerusalem. They are told of the broken down walls. The hopelessness and the lostness of the people. And all of a sudden he began to weep.

He lost his appetite. He couldn't find any rest. He knew to walk into the king's presence with such a dongy long face, that means death. Yet he could not conceal it. When the king saw it, he said, Nehemiah, what on earth is going on with you?

Then he tells, oh king, how can I laugh? How can I be happy when this is happening to my people? The church today seems to be laughing their way to heaven. They imagine while multitudes and millions are dying and perishing without knowing the fear of the living God.

I confess to you, my brothers and sisters. I am not talking about this whole crowd. I am not talking about your husband and your wife. I am not talking about your congregation or your pastor. I am not talking about your son and daughter.

I am talking about you and you alone, one person. It only takes one individual, one person, I believe, to rout out the forces of darkness. And establish a testimony for the glory of Jesus. Ask this young dear brother that went to Boonti, why?

How come you can do something like this? Is it the three and a half years of theology? A bachelors degree in Bible? Experience in deep worship? The ability to preach and communicate about deeper life?

What is it that makes you do something like this? To shake the foundation of Boonti and establish a church? The answer is very simple. I am no more mine. I died that day when I knelt down and decided to go back to Boonti.

Some places they invite me to preach, they never invite me back again. Why? For your sake that you will have kindness toward me, I will tell you. For 30 years I have been speaking to God's people like this in North America and Europe.

And I am not a stranger to this country nor our church here. I am part of you. And my heart, I break, I weep, I agonize before my God for the shallowness, the carnality and the lack of authentic Christian life that now we have at large among us.

We don't lack books. Dallas, Texas where we have our headquarters in the United States, there are 14 Christian radio stations, 24 hours, blaring out every kind of teaching you want to hear on planet earth.

Some conservative, some radical, some balanced, some totally off the wall. There's one guy one time said literally, he said, send me $25 and I will send you the secret formula and the oil that will help to grow hair on your bald head.

What a racket. When in India with over a billion people, not one Christian radio station, how much more information, my brothers and sisters, do you need before you come clean and totally all his and his alone?

That's a question. In the book of Ezekiel chapter 22, God speaks with much burden. I sought for a man, may I add a woman, one person to stand in the gap to make up the hedge and stand on the behalf of the land so that the land will not be destroyed.

But I found none. We are a people that are consumed with making big shows and noise. We rather have one million people march to Washington for picketing and hold up our placards or write books about what's going wrong, but how difficult it is to find just one person who will say, I am taking 20 days to fast and wait before God to stop the flood of darkness upon this nation or from this lost world plunge further into darkness.

Again, let me say the same thing again and again. I am not talking about a crowd. I am talking about you, my dear brother, my dear sister. Why am I saying it? These last 25 years, that's my brief journey with our mission.

I have seen it again and again in some places, just one individual, one sister, one brother that makes a difference. We have a ministry among the Muslims which we don't talk about much on our websites because security reasons.

We have a school where we train only missionaries to work among the Muslims. Two young people finished their training, went to a community to preach the gospel. Thank God, their damsel came out of Muslim families.

Radically committed to Christ, these co-workers began to preach the gospel. They baptized two dozen people in a very short time, Muslims. One morning, these two brothers, Hussain and Salsal, their names, were on the way to their ministry and on the way a group of men met them.

The leader stepped forward and said, Oh, so you are Hussain and you are Salsal. Oh, you came to tell us about your Jesus. They were smiling and our brothers thought they are friends. And Hussain responded, Yes.

Would you like to hear? No more words exchanged. The leader pulled out a dragger, a long knife and stabbed in the heart of Hussain. He fell in a pool of blood. Salsal grabbing hold of him, weeping. They stabbed him six times, believing they both are dead.

These men fled. Hussain, the senior brother, died on the spot. Salsal was taken to the hospital. He recovered. But here's the problem. Hussain was married. Two tiny babies, little children. Hearing about the news, her father, who is a radical Muslim, traveled from a distant village to meet his daughter.

And this is what the father said. My daughter, thank God the devil is dead. Talking about her husband who got killed. Now you come home with me with my grandchildren. Now, sisters, wives, college girls, listen to me.

If you are in her place, a 24, 25-year-old young girl in a hostile community, no relatives, no friends, a strange land. If you are told that by your unbelieving father, what would you say? How would you respond?

See, this is where Christianity becomes intensely practical. Not shouting words, but radical commitment to something worth living for and worth dying for. This young girl, between tears and pain, said, My father, you don't understand.

Jesus, my husband loved. I love him so much. The people that he loved, I love them. Father, I cannot come home with you. I must raise my children here so they can preach the gospel to these people. This is my home.

That shocked the father. He couldn't figure this out. He stayed on with her and she led him to the Lord Jesus Christ and he was baptized. Hallelujah! Again, let me come back to this. It is about you I am talking.

It is about you I am talking. Watchman made this fantastic statement in his book, Character of a Christian Worker or a Believer, let me say. In the chapter, A Mind to Suffer, he describes the powers of darkness, satanic forces will manipulate, will influence, will use everything in its power and control to cause you to respond to external stimuli, the inconveniences, the rejection, the misunderstanding, the loss of money and health and reputation and all things, even the feeling that you are going to be killed.

He will use all that. But once a believer has made the decision, that is okay. I am already dead. I am not my own. Blood was the price. He paid to purchase me. And he says, no sin, no devil can hold you back.

You will become that individual that conquers the world. You know what immunization is? Immunizing? Not to get smallpox? They give you a little smallpox. Am I right? See, I am a doctor, but not this doctor.

There are people who handle cobra, king cobra, big cobra. They strike you one time, you are finished. But there are people who handle these huge, monstrous cobras on the streets of India, and they bite them, but they never die.

You wonder what happened. Well, they had little of this poison on a long period of years. No poison can affect them anymore. You understand? Let me explain. To make my point, don't take this serious now, okay?

Just this part, don't take it serious. Stop watching Christian television. Do you know some of the richest people in America and Canada in our community right now are Christian preachers? I know one who got $12 million advance to write a book for a publishing house.

Where do you read Jesus ever collecting money for preaching the gospel? Where do you find ever an apostle Paul and the followers of Christ going around making millions and buying things for themselves in the name of preaching the gospel and teaching the poor believers?

Prophetic Confrontation of Christian Materialism

If the light in you becomes darkness, how great is darkness? I am least impressed, moved by the preachers today we have. We have no prophets. This world is crying out for some prophet, some man like Jeremiah, who will weep his eyes out and call people to repentance.

I mentioned this afternoon, speaking at a large pastor's conference over a thousand people some time ago. Along with me, another man was speaking. He said, it is reported in many cities of the United States, if there's a pastor's conference in a city, that week they will have rendered maximum number of X-rated movies than any other time in the whole year.

Why I'm saying that to you, I'm a pastor also. I've been one for five years in Dallas, Texas. I'm not angry with the pastors. If that is the pulpit, if that is the shepherds, where are we going? Don't be deceived by the noise, by the shout, by the TV preachers.

Now you know why they will not invite me back in some places. Here they will invite me back. Oh, my brothers and sisters, I am not a professional preacher. You ask my colleagues. I don't sell books to make money and have secret bank accounts and none of those things.

I say this to you because too many things are going wrong in our world. I'm calling you as an individual to face the reality of the radical Jesus of the New Testament who still says, if anyone want to come after me, he or she must deny himself and pick up his cross and daily come after me.

If you love your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, your son, your daughter, I wish he stopped there. I would be happy. Too bad. He's not the Christ I can create for me. He's the Lord, not my servant.

Then he went on to say, unless you love me more than your own life, you cannot be mine. Where are the preachers that preach this saying? Do not love yourself. Don't you think this is a clear indication when we spend one cent of the dollar for two billion people that never heard the gospel and spend all the rest on ourselves, don't you think something wrong with us?

When average believer pray less than six minutes a day, don't you think something wrong with us? In one church some time ago, some 14 ,000 members I was preaching, and I told them, I challenge you to take one day of the week to fast before God, which I do myself, which is the least one can do.

Then I made a joke out of it. If you're trying to lose one more pound, add one more day. Do you know what? They almost murdered me. They drove me out of town. Legalism, bondage, putting us on a guilt trip.

Hey, listen to me. You read, you read, you read, I beg of you. Without TV, television preachers help the New Testament and the epistles and see Jesus and his followers and their lifestyle. No wonder in Acts 17 it says, these, those who turn the world upside down, they have come here also.

In Philip's translation, these world revolutionaries have come here also. What was it? Picketing? Money power? Buildings? No. It was the way of life. I want to ask you, how long it take before you break from that besetting sin that nobody knows about that you're grappling with?

Internet, porno, books, magazine, music, friendship, loving money, this, that. How long I ask you before you say no to that and break free from it? How much more information you need before you will watch the tsunami, the Bangladesh, the Eastern Europe, the Albania, and you start weeping, and your children ask, Mommy, what happened to Daddy?

You're watching television. He just start crying. You go and ask Daddy. The following week, the kid come to the Mommy and say, Mommy, is Daddy angry with us? Why you say that? Mommy, he has not been eating with us for last four or five days.

He used to be with us for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but he's not. What happened to him? You really want to know? Yes, Mommy. You remember we talked about in our family prayer time about what happened in China, what happened in Bangladesh, 100 ,000 people died overnight, and millions displaced and lost.

Yes, Mommy, but what? You see, Daddy decided to fast, and you know my child, many hours of the night, he's not sleeping with Mommy in the bed. He's in the other room praying, and sometime Mommy joined him, and the child says nothing, not a word, but 15 years later, that young man testifies, I remember my father.

I remember my mother. If you think you're superficial preachers and your books, your novels, and your cheap worship, and the noise is going to make you to have your children grow up, to change Canada, and this generation, you're fooling yourself.

It is going to be life, begetting life. Psalm 42, verse 7, the deep calls unto deep. I knew this watch is against me. Let me conclude. The ministry I'm part of right now is recognized as possibly the largest church planting ministry in the 1040 window, and the things that God is doing is unbelievable.

92 languages daily in 11 nations. Millions hear the gospel, and on and on. I can go on and tell you all night long stuff going on. Say, wow, Brother Kippy, oh, Dr. Kippy, you are such a fantastic Christian leader.

Nonsense. I'm a poor, struggling missionary repenting a million times a day just like anybody else, but I tell you what. Somebody is responsible for all this. It's not me. Hardly five feet tall, a skinny, fragile little woman that never left her village, but she loved Jesus so much.

She would wake up no later than four in the morning and spend two, three hours on her knees in prayer. She never read any book except her Bible. That's all she had. She would tell her sons or the six boys about Jesus and lead them to the Master.

She prayed, oh, Lord, out of six boys, at least one call to be a missionary. One by one, her older sons went to business and farming and all these different things, and she began to lose hope. And then her youngest son was born.

That is me. As I was growing up, she later said, you were so shy and timid and withdrawn and skinny also. You don't believe it, but it's true. I ate too many hamburgers. She kind of lost her hope completely.

This last one, he will not do one thing for God. There's nothing in him make him do anything. That is when she decided to fast every Friday, special day of fasting, and three and a half years she fasted without telling one human being the same thing, Lord, before I die, please call one of my sons.

She was not even thinking about me. When I finished my high school, I remember as of today, I came home one day and said to my parents, father and mother, if you allow me, I'd like to go and serve Jesus in North India.

Before I could finish my statement, my mother jumped up and said, please go. I thought she hated me. I was unwanted. You must know, I did not know her prayer. She never told me. I went off to North India.

After two years, I will come back. That is when she will tell the story. I was stunned. I recognized it was her prayer and commitment. In 1990, I was on the way to Seoul, Korea to speak at a conference.

When I got to Bombay, I heard my mother at the age of 84 was taken to the hospital with a heart problem. She had hardly ever been sick in her life. I cannot think of one time she was sick. The best memory of my mother is the Bible verse she quoted a million times, almost literally.

From the childhood, I was growing up as a toddler. I would hear her say this verse all the time like a mad person. Whom have I in heaven but you? And on earth, I desire no one beside you. And she would keep saying that.

Psalm 73 verse 25. There is no one, nothing I want beside you. I didn't understand what all that meant when I was growing up. I went to the hospital that weekend. My best friend on earth and my prayer partner 6 .15 in the morning or so, she died.

The saddest day of my life. Her funeral took place. I must go back to America. Had a final meeting with my brothers. We sat around in the room talking about our mother. One of my brother who is a businessman who makes a lot of money asked a question.

How much money did our mother leave in the bank? See, our father passed away earlier. He was a believer. But according to our culture and customs, her sons would give her money every month whatever she asked.

But we never saw her spending any money. So if you don't spend money, what do you do? You put in the bank. Wow, that's a good idea. Answering the question. My other brother got an old worn out notebook and he started turning pages.

He said, I found this under the pillow of our mother's bed. We were curious. Record of all the money. He said, as far as I know, there is nothing in the bank. And somebody said, what happened to everybody?

Everybody is listening. He said, well, pages after pages her trembling hand scribbled the names of young people studying in Bible schools, missionaries all over India, and the money she was sending them against their name mentioned.

And I broke down and started to weep. Oh, not because there was no money in the bank. You see, what happened, all of a sudden I remembered a few years prior to that when I came to visit my mother she was wearing a blouse torn from here to here, stitched a terrible job.

I was angry to the core. I said, Mother, what madness got into your head? Don't you have any feelings for your sons? What will other people say about us that we don't take care of you? Mother, we give enough money to buy a new dress every week if you want.

How come you do this to us? You put cow dung on our head and shame on our face. And you know, preachers can really be preaching. And this, my mother, I mean, you cannot help. Once you look into your eyes you cannot take your eyes off.

It just glows. And ever, never fading, perpetual smile. I never forgot. She said, you little fellow, you don't understand nothing. Someday you will understand. And it made me more angry. As I sat in the room, it was as though my mother walked back, put her arms around me saying, my little son, now you understand what mother lived for.

Her last request she left with us, her sons, went like this. When I am dead and gone, the only thing I will leave behind it is my earrings, my wedding ring, and the gold chain my husband gave me at the age of 19 when he married me.

I want you to sell these items and give away to preach the gospel among people that never heard my Jesus name. I want to meet them also in heaven. And sometime, once in a while, I have a dream of her.

I'm happy and I'm very sad because I miss her. But I still can hear as Paul told to Timothy in chapter 2, verse 1, but for you my son, sude, a monosyllabus in Greek, but for you, let all the world and Christianity and whatever they do, let them do it, but for you my son, make those difficult choices.

And I can hear sometime my mother saying, my dear son, it's worth staying on the narrow road. Don't deviate. Let them be, but for you, keep walking. Do you think my mother has great regret about not buying brand new dress every week?

Do you think my mother has regrets about not getting a brand new car? Or being talked about as a most beautiful looking rich woman? Who cares stupidity? She must be dancing in heaven, looking down on earth, saying, there will be hundreds of millions of people in heaven because I cried to my Lord and fast and paid the price.

I died to myself. I cared for nothing except Him and for Him. That's all. I don't know about you. When I was coming from the airport my colleague, my Canadian director was telling me, KP, something quite interesting, when you were asked to come and speak here, somebody called, what is the honorarium that we expect?

I said, what did you say? I was hoping he will say 10 million dollars. He's my follower also so he said, I just told them the same thing. Wherever the Lord leads me, I go and speak. If they give me one penny or one dollar or nothing, no problem.

I don't take nothing out of it myself anyway. And I have no dreams or ambitions. I'm now 54. When I reach 50, I decide to take a day off just to be alone, to pray and talk to the Lord. I know Him. I hear Him.

He's close to me. I love Him so much. And I said, Lord, I'm 50 years now. I wanted to talk to me today. Would you please? I waited and waited and waited. Late in the afternoon, maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I was spaced out.

No, I didn't take any drugs. Maybe it was a vision. I did not know. All I know, He asked me to walk with Him. And I began to walk with Him. The long white robes, I couldn't see His face. And once in a while, if I'm lagging behind, He will reach out and take my hand.

And we walked and we came to kind of a slope, a slight hilly area, all grass, beautiful grassy area. And we walked up to the top of that. Then He said, Look. And I looked. It was sunset, horizon. And then He said, Son, a few more years, a few more years left.

Get to know me. Get to know me better. And He left me. My brothers and sisters, your greatest need is not what you're looking for. It is knowing Him that will propel you to die if that's what it takes to be answer to our generation, to our world.

Knowing Jesus Above Every Other Ambition

I want to pray with you. Would you stand with me just for a minute? All I know is this. The Lord whom I love, whose I am, asked me to come here. And I know you are here because my Lord brought you here.

He knows you so well. Every hair on your head is numbered. He knows your name, your address, your past, your present, your failings, the stupid things you did and everything imaginable that you know about yourself, He knows.

And He loves you just the way you are. And He won't embrace you like the father did with the prodigal son. He's not looking for perfect specimens. He's looking for broken hearts.