Soldiers, Athletes and Farmers — Zac Poonen

Rejecting Unreality and Spiritual Pretense

Material that we have heard and received. You know it's very, very important in the Christian life to be real. There's a lot of unreality in Christendom today. Most Christians I have met, including most people in CFC, pretend to be real and a lot of people try to act spiritual using spiritual language.

It destroys you. It's very difficult for me to fellowship with people who are not real. We must learn to be ourselves. I don't mean that we should be carnal. I'm not saying that we should speak everything that comes to our mind.

Only a foolish man speaks everything that comes to their mind. I'm not saying we should confess our sins in public, but we must not be unreal. We must hate unreality because Jesus condemned hypocrisy more than anything else.

We should not have a desire to be known as more spiritual than we really are. You must be content to be known for what you are. I don't mean confess your sin, but what I mean is if you ask a little eight-year-old boy, what class are you in?

He says, I'm in 10th standard. 10th standard? You know he's only in the third standard. That's what I mean by being unreal. Now no eight-year-old will say that. He won't even say he's in the fourth when he's in the third.

He's not ashamed to say, I'm in third standard. But I find a lot of Christians are not willing to accept and face up to what they really are. They want to be known by others as more spiritual than they really are.

And I'll tell you something that works against you. It destroys you spiritually. And that's the number one reason why many people don't grow. And it's a tendency in all of us, and then another thing I find particularly among young people is many feel when you're young, particularly when you're a student, you haven't really accomplished anything in life.

Maybe you failed a few times in school or in college and you're not so brilliant like others. You didn't top the class. You don't have any achievements to boast of. You haven't received any awards in school or college.

You are not good at games. You are not good at athletics. And then you begin to feel inferior. And then if you're surrounded in the church by other people who are clever or who pretend that they are very clever, you begin to feel inferior.

And then you sort of clam up and sit quietly because you feel that everybody else is superior to you. And again, you don't grow spiritually. You must believe that God accepts you just as you are. If you didn't come first in your class, it's because God gave you only that measure of intelligence for some wonderful reason.

I'm absolutely sure Peter and Andrew and all never came first in my class. I wonder if they even came in the first 50%. I have a strong feeling that they came in the lower 50%. If you can understand Paul's epistles, you know that Peter found it difficult to understand.

He says that in one of his letters. He says, Paul says something that is very difficult to understand. Peter couldn't write like Paul. He didn't feel inferior. So well, that's okay. Thank God he's got that gift and God can use him with that gift.

But I don't have that gift. It's very easy to feel inferior because you can't play a musical instrument. You can't speak like somebody else. And then also maybe you're from a very poor family. And that also can make you feel very inferior because other people can afford things that you can't.

They can go to restaurants that you can't afford to go. I'll tell you honestly, thank God you can't afford to go. God has chosen the poor of the world rich in faith. I have seen some brothers in Tamil Nadu who can't speak English at all.

But there's such a profound word that they share when they share, which is more than many educated people in CFC can share. I find some of the PhDs in CFC pretty boring. Some don't speak at all and some they do.

There's nothing much to it. But I hear some of those people who haven't been past ten standard in Tamil Nadu. I see something edifying. God has chosen the poor of the world. He's the God of the widows.

He's the God of the orphans. He's the God of the fatherless. He's the God of those who are on the fringes of society, not those who are in the center. And so you must never feel inferior because this is your God.

This is your father. You can feel inferior because you're dark or not good-looking or not attractive, whether a husband or a wife, all these things, you know. But if you can say, well, God made me like that.

That's fine. I accept myself and God made me. I'm pretty happy the way God made me. I have no complaints. It'll bring such a rest into your life when you realize that I've often said this, there are only two circles.

Trusting God With What We Cannot Control

One is a very small circle, the circle in which you can do something about your life or events, etc. And the other is a massive huge circle which deals with people and circumstances over which you have no control at all.

You know, when you're right down the road, there's only one little vehicle, your own, that you can control. It's a very small circle. You have absolutely no control over the way other people drive, what they're going to do.

It's like the world is like that. In your office, you have no control over your boss. You have no control over your circumstances. You know, we saw those pictures of the terror attacks in Bombay. What can you do if you happen to be in that hotel or happen to be in that railway station?

It didn't make a difference whether you're rich or poor. One place or the other, you're there. There are circumstances in life over which you have no control. That's a huge, massive circle. And there's another very small circle, which is the areas where you have control.

And I've learned through the years to leave all those things in that big circle to God. Say, Lord, I can't do anything about that. I can't do anything about it. If I happen to be in a railway station, where suddenly there's a terror attack, what can I do about it?

That's your circle, you take care of it. Maybe you'll make me miss the bus or taxi, I was supposed to take the railway station. So I'm not there when terror attack takes place. Or something or the other like that.

God's got so many ways of doing it. Leave that in his hands. So often, if you ask yourself what you worry about, very often you worry about all that things in that huge circle over which you have no control.

Leave it to God. Deal with that very small area over which you can do something. And even there, you may not do it perfectly. But if you have a desire to do it, and don't lose that desire by getting discouraged or condemn yourself, it'll get better and better.

And don't ever get into competition with somebody else. Never, never, never. You have a unique function in the body of Christ. And say, Lord, I'm going to fulfill that. I'm not in competition with anybody.

So it's very important for these little things to be, I've said that so many times, but I feel it's very important for us to recognize that each of us is valuable to God. You know, it's like a family, God's like a father, with many children sitting around the table.

Let's imagine that the father is here now. And all of us are his children sitting around this table. Tell me which of these children is the one he doesn't love? Maybe someone and one of the children is not doing too well at school.

The father doesn't love that one. Of course he loves that one. Another one is very smart and brilliant. I don't think the father loves him anymore. Not God. He loves us all equally. So once we find a security in that love, it makes a tremendous difference to us in our life.

And we must root ourselves in that. We must meditate frequently on it. And say, Lord, I believe this is true. This is the God of the Bible. I'll tell you something. There is no God in any religion like this.

The gods of other religions are all fearsome, wholesome beings who have no personal interest in you. So the Bible says in Daniel 11 .32, which says, those who know their God, Daniel 11 .32, those who know their God will be strong.

So you must seek to know God better. Then you'll be strong spiritually. And the response that comes from your heart, you know, you hear so many challenging things in a camp or in a meeting. Come on, you've got to do this.

You've got to do that. You've got to do the other thing. It's not only in a camp. The Bible is full of exhortations. Be diligent to do that and this and that and the other. Every episode, be diligent to present yourself as a workman approved unto God.

That's just one exhortation. There are many like this. And you know, we can Underneath it all, what makes it easy is motivation. Motivation. A mother does not feel it's a burden to look after a sick child, to go all over town to find the right injection that the doctor said is needed to save the life of your child.

Goes from one medical store to another medical store to another medical store and gone to 100 medical stores in the city still hasn't found it. And that mother or father go around still take leave. What are they doing it for?

Love as the Christian’s Greatest Motivation

Love is a tremendous motivating power, I tell you. There is no motivating power like the power of love. People will do anything for love. Look at all these stories you read about some father or mother, parents did not allow some boy to marry a girl.

So they both have a suicide pact and they both commit suicide. And you read about that all the time. The paper is a tremendous motivating power, love. And I believe it's the greatest motivating power in the universe.

Money is also a motivating power. A lot of people fight and kill for money, but I don't believe it's as strong as love. Love is the greatest force and, you know, fear. Fear can be another motivating power.

Children, they're afraid they get a spanking, so they do something hard. You're afraid you'll get caught by the police, so you do something. That's also a motivating power. But it's not as great a motivating power as love.

And most of, all, not most, all religions motivate people to obey God out of fear. God's a policeman, according to them, who's out to get you. So you better do it right. Go around the circle, don't cut corners because he's watching.

And a lot of Christian religion is also like that. The motivating force is fear. If you do this, you'll go to hell. That may be true. Jesus himself spoke about hell, so I'm not afraid to speak about it.

I'm not one of these modern type of Christians who doesn't believe in hell. I believe in hell 100%. There was a great man of God in the 19th century called William Booth. You know, you fellows should read biographies of these great saints, particularly the ones who lived in the 19th century, like Hudson Taylor and D .L. Moody and William Booth and some of this 20th century too, like Jim Elliott.

You must get into the habit of reading biographies of Christians and missionary biographies. Those are the things that challenged me in my younger days tremendously. They challenged me more than the Bible, because I saw these guys really accomplish something with their life.

And I thought, what am I doing with my life? It motivated them. And even women, there was a woman called Mary Slessor, who went out as a missionary out in the middle of Africa, all by herself. And she did a great work for God, bringing so many people to Christ.

Amy Carmichael, who went down to Tamil Nadu, lived there for 50 years, and the work that's going on even today. There were people who, you must read the biographies of these people, they're all available.

And all you need to do is miss a few trips to the restaurant, and you can buy a book. That's all that's required. It doesn't cost much now. That's all. And I tell you, your life can change if you read.

Very good habit to read. And there was this man, William Booth. He used to train people at the end of his training. He would tell them, I wish I could at the end of the last day of the course, suspend you over hell for 24 hours.

Just, you know, I wish I could take you and make you look into hell for 24 hours, and just watch what's happening, and what's happening there. All those people, their regrets, their this and that, all the people who thought they were very holy, and everybody else over there.

Then I send you out to preach the gospel. You'll never be the same. So I believe in hell. But I say, if you give your life to Jesus merely to escape hell, you're not going to go very far. It's like a battery that will die out after some time.

Love is a much more powerful force. If you try to do right things in the church, out of the fear of the elders, yeah, you'll go somewhere. But it won't go very far. That battery will die out after some time, and the engine will splutter to a stop.

But love is a force that will keep you going all your life. I'll tell you, because that's how I started my Christian life. I didn't become a Christian 50 years ago to escape hell, I'll tell you honestly.

And that's why it's made my Christian life so exciting and happy. I'll tell you honestly, it is. Because from the beginning, I decided I want to give my life to Jesus because he loved me. It's love that is a motivating power.

And love is willing to make any number of sacrifices, particularly when we see how much the Lord loved us. My favorite meditation as a young man was to meditate on how much Jesus loved me, and to think about various aspects of it, picture it in various, with the various illustrations I made up myself of how Jesus loved me.

And that was such a tremendous motivating force in me. It delivered me from fear of men and delivered me from desiring a lot of things in this world, if it displeased the one who loved me so much. And in the long run, I found that it's good for me too, as a byproduct.

But love is the motivating force. You know, another motivating force is can be this what I just said, what's good for me? Okay, let me do it. See, we're basically selfish creatures. So if I can tell you something good for you, you'll do it.

You know, if people are fat, and they want to get thin, and say this is not this type of food is not good for you, this type of food is not good for you, then stop eating it, because they want to get thin, because that's good for them.

And I can tell you in the same way, it's good for you to live like live for Jesus, because that'll do you good in the long run. You may live like that. It's a good motivating force, but it's not the best.

The best is, I love him because he loved me. And I don't care if I don't get any reward in heaven. And I don't care if I, you know, whether good for me or bad for me is not important. He loved me, and I love him in return, and he wants me to do something, I'm going to please him.

That's the thing that'll keep you going when others have given up. That's the thing that'll keep you going on and on and on and on and on all your life. That's what Paul, made Paul go right on to the end.

Paul’s Charge to Timothy: Soldier, Athlete, and Farmer

I want you to turn to 2nd Timothy, the last letter that Paul wrote. 2nd Timothy chapter 2. He says, you therefore my son, verse 1, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things that you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, and trust the faithful men who will teach others also.

Timothy was his favorite spiritual son. It's great to have a spiritual father who cares for you like Paul cared for Timothy. And he tells, he uses three examples here. He says, Timothy, I want you to remember how a soldier is.

How do soldiers fight? What do they live for? So one example is what you should be. That's in verse 3 and 4. Then he talks in verse 5 about an athlete. Think of an athlete. And then in verse 6, he talks about a farmer.

Now these are very simple illustrations, which all of us know what they involve. What does it mean to be a soldier? You know, we know, even if you've not been in the military, you know what a soldier is.

People don't join the military if they are cowards and sissies who want an easy life. No. If you're a soldier, if you join the army, you have to be willing to perhaps face an early death. Even in this latest terrorist attack, you read of some young people who died.

So Paul is telling Timothy, remember, following Jesus on this earth, which is an enemy territory, means you got to be like a soldier. You got to be tough. You got to not think of, oh, is that easy for me?

Am I going to have a good food? Am I going to have a nice bed to sleep on out in the battlefield? Am I going to have this? Am I going to have that? I mean, if you're interested in all that, Paul tells Timothy, forget it.

If you're serious about being a Christian, and I'm talking about people who really want to be serious Christians, I don't want to talk to the backsliders here. I see the backsliders can, as far as I'm concerned, they can go to hell, to tell you honestly.

Because you say, what a terrible thing to say, brother Zach, go to hell. I'll tell you why I say that. If after all that they have heard in CFC for so many years, I'm not talking about newcomers, people have been here even two or three years.

If after all that they've heard in CFC for two, three years, they're still playing the fool in Christianity, as far as I'm concerned, they can go to hell. They're not serious. They can sit, they can sit in the church and occupy a chair, but I'm not interested in them at all.

I'm interested in seeing people who are wholehearted. You say, can you give me a scripture for that? Yes, I can. Revelation 22, verse 11. Revelation 22, verse 11. Do you believe there's a verse in the Bible which says do wrong?

Here's a verse in the Bible that says keep on being filthy. Amazing verse. And the Lord's not being sarcastic. He can be sarcastic and tell somebody be filthy, but he's serious. He said, you should keep on being filthy.

You should keep on doing wrong. The Holy Spirit says, let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong. Is that the Bible? I thought the Bible says, let the one who does wrong repent and turn around. No, the Bible says, let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong.

And let the one who's filthy continue to be filthy. You know that verse, I never understood it for many years, but you heard me quote it and you know the answer. The answer is this. If you have read the 1000 pages of this book called the Bible, telling you to be holy, telling you to give up sin and you're still no interest in giving up sin, then there's only one exhortation for you.

Be filthy. Do wrong and go to hell. That's why I said what I said at the beginning. If you're not serious about the Christian life, after all that you've heard in CFC, I have one exhortation for you. Be filthy, do wrong, watch those filthy movies, go to internet pornography and go to hell.

I'm serious. And you probably will go there. If you don't take your Christian life seriously, Revelation 22 11 will be fulfilled in your life. It's the last page of the Bible. God's saying, if you're not serious, after all that you read in this book up to this page, there's no hope for you.

You better give up. It's serious, brothers and sisters. Holiness is not something we play around with. Sin is not something we fool around with. It's the most serious thing in the universe. It's the thing which God sent his son to hang on a cross to save us from.

It's not something we got to play around with. We got to take it seriously. But on the other hand, here are people who come to the end of this book. And they say, God, I want to be righteous. I want to be holy.

Go ahead. The Bible says, be holy. And don't look at all these other people who continue to be filthy. Ignore them. I am coming quickly, Revelation 22 12. And I will give to every man according as his work shall be.

Those who wash their robes, they may have the right to the tree of life will enter the gates of the city. And those who are immoral, they will those who tell lies, verse 15 will all be outside the city, and they'll go to hell.

That's it. So that's how scripture ends, by the way. So what does it mean to be a soldier? Soldier is one who's recognized the Christian life is not a picnic. We got to take life seriously. We got to deny ourselves a lot of things.

Fighting Spiritual Battles Without Fighting People

It says in Second Timothy, chapter two, got to suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. A soldier is not one who's living a comfortable life. A soldier is out there fighting for his country very often maybe his love of country love of money.

In our case, it says a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It's not money. It's not country. It's because Jesus loved me. I give myself to him. I want to count for him in this one life I have. And I don't want if others want to be filthy, they're wealthy and filthy, but I'm a good soldier.

I'm going to fight. I'm going to fight against my lust. I'm going to fight against the devil. I'm going to fight against everything that hinders me from possessing all of God's kingdom. There's a soldier is one who fights.

He fights, but he doesn't fight human beings. Ephesians 6 and verse 12. It says our fight is not against human beings, not against flesh and blood. Dear my dear young brothers and sisters, stop fighting with human beings.

Stop fighting with others in your college. Stop fighting with others in your place of work. Stop fighting with your boss. Stop fighting with your parents. Just stop fighting with human beings and concentrate on fighting your lusts and fighting the devil.

We do not fight against flesh and blood. Make that resolution in your life. My life has changed. The day I made that resolution that I will never fight with a human being. Never. They may come to fight with me, but I'm not going to respond.

People who want to come and have an argument with me will find that I'm not going to argue. That's the end of the argument. They say, ah, you don't know the answer. So I say, okay, please consider that you won the argument.

Fine. Have the satisfaction that you won the argument and you defeated brother Zach in the argument. Go ahead. I'm not here to win any argument. I'm here to manifest Jesus. And I'm not going to fight with flesh and blood.

It's completely out of the question. Make that decision. Be a soldier who fights against your lusts and fights against the devil. That's all. This is a new covenant. In the old covenant, they fought human beings.

They fought Philistines and Amorites and Canaanites. Don't be an old covenant person. If you fight human beings one day in a year, you are an old covenant person. And if you're married, don't ever fight with your wife or husband.

No, if they want to fight, they can fight. But you say I'm not going to fight. Sorry. I finished. I'm new covenant. I finished with the old covenant long ago. I'm not in the old covenant. I'm not going to fight with human beings.

They can come and fight with me if they want. They can insult me. Imagine, has anybody insulted you more than they insulted Jesus? They call him the prince of devils. Who's called you a prince of devils?

You know what Jesus said to them? You called me a prince of devils. I'm just an ordinary man. You're forgiven. What a way to live. Refuse to feel offended if people insulted you, spat on you. They spat on him.

He said, it's okay, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. That's what it is to be a soldier, fighting against one's lusts. And you know, you have only a limited amount of energy. And don't fight.

Don't use that energy to fight the wrong things. Use it all against the lusts of the devil. So a soldier is like that one who's decided that he's not going to seek comfort and ease on this earth. Rest is in heaven.

He's inwardly at rest in Christ, but he knows his life is a battle. And I'll tell you something, having been a Christian for 50 years now, it's a battle still, but it gets easier. It gets much easier.

So don't think that that battle you're fighting now will always be like this. It'll get easier if you're faithful. But if you're not faithful, then of course, it remains difficult even after 50 years.

But if you're faithful, it'll get easier and easier and easier. And it'll be more and more exciting in this battle. So many things that and so when you find yourself in a difficult situation in your office, for example, where your colleagues are cracking dirty jokes, or I'm not trying asking you to stand up there and give a lecture to all those fellows.

No, just quietly go away from there. So they realize that you're not interested in that type of conversation. And let them see that you're different. And let your bosses see that you're upright and you will not compromise and you will go by your conscience.

And you're ready to lose your job if necessary, because you're a soldier for Christ. I'll tell you something. If you lose your job because you stood up for Christ, you can be sure of one thing that God will honor you because you honor him.

That's for sure. God will never let you down if you honor him. Be a soldier for Christ. God needs a lot of soldiers on this earth. You know, soldiers are people who implicitly obey. One of the things that they taught us in the military was, you know, I used to think, why do they make us parade so much?

Military is full of parades every day, right turn, left turn, about turn, quick march, stop, mark time and keep on doing that day after day. Haven't we had enough of this? No, we haven't. Next day, it's the same thing.

And I learned, the reason is this. It is to drill, it is to change people who live by their own opinions, to just implicitly do what you're told. You know, the sergeant major says, how about our major says right turn.

And you say, well, why? You will learn such a lesson that day, that for the next 50 years, you will do a right turn immediately. Now I won't tell you how they teach that lesson. But it'll be a such a severe lesson.

You'll never forget it all your life. You'll dream about it at night, the lesson they teach you. You know, little things like stand upright, if you don't put out your chest and stoop like this and stand over there, you're finished.

You'll never stoop like this for the rest of your life. No. So it's to teach implicit obedience. And from these soldiers, they select another special group called commandos. Have you heard of them? The elite commandos.

And I remember how they used to one of the things they tested soldiers in Britain during the Second World War was to select these are all soldiers who'd already turned left turn right turn about and they knew all that.

But to teach them, don't use your common sense, just do what you're told. You know, they were asked to march on a jetty. You know what a jetty is something that sticks out into the sea, where the ships come and tie up.

Quick march. They march, march, march, march. And when they come to the end of the jetty, there's no command to halt. So all sensible people, what do they do? They halt. About five or 10 of them, non sensible people marched right into the sea.

They were the ones who were selected to be commandos. People who don't question. They didn't get a command to halt, they marched right into the sea. You 10 qualify, the rest can go home, the ordinary soldiers.

That is the type of training they and they said they tested them in certain other things, which I will not tell you, which is pretty horrible. What they tested them in courage and things like that. But implicit obedience.

Be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. If God has said something, I have learned not to question it. Either you say, I don't believe this is God's Word. Or I think we should modify it for the 20th century.

It's not exactly that is not important. This is not important. The main thing brother is to fight the enemy, not whether we march into the sea or not. Well, okay, those people will be soldiers, they were not sad, they remain soldiers, but they're not commandos.

So God has certain people on earth, who will do exactly as he says, and won't question. Those are the real top soldiers in God's army. But you won't know what he says unless you read the scriptures. You need to know the orders.

The other thing we were taught in the military was ignorance of orders is no excuse. You know, the orders would be posted on the notice board. And if you don't go to the notice board and read it, you can't get up the next morning and say, sir, I was ignorant of that order.

Well, we'll send you into jail for a few days, and you'll never again be ignorant of any order for the rest of your life. Be without food for a few days and go on a route march for 20 miles or something, come back and you'll never again miss reading the notice board.

That's it. It was really tough. I tell you, being a soldier is not like going and working in some office. It says be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. You must know your orders. You must know what the commander, Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation has ordered.

And there's no use saying I didn't know. That is not an excuse. I remember once in the military. I think I said, somebody asked me, senior officer asked me a question. And I said, I don't know, sir. He said, Don't ever say you don't know.

Say I'll find out, sir. You know, the difference between I don't know, sir, and I'll find out, sir. What's the difference? I don't know, sir, means I don't know. And I'm not bothered. I don't know whether I'm going to know it or not.

I'll find out, sir. If you've asked me that question, it must be important. And I don't know it right now. But I'm going to go and find out. Has anybody asked you a question from the Bible? Which your answer is, I don't know.

Or will your answer from today onwards be, I'll find out. That's how I started studying the scriptures. When I used to witness to people, they'd asked me things from the Bible, which I didn't know the answer.

And I went to some of the elders in our church, they didn't know the answer either. The answer was always, I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? If the answer is in the Bible, you should know it.

Your answer should be, I'll find out. And that made me want to dig into God's word to find out whatever there is where God has spoken something. I want to know the orders. So it says here, suffer hardship is a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

And the person who is decided to be a soldier does not entangle himself in the affairs of everyday life. He's always available. If the army calls up, I don't know whether you know this, that if a war suddenly comes up, and a soldier is on vacation, he's called up, he has to drop everything and go the same day.

Whether he gets a reservation in the train or not, get into an unreserved compartment, he's got to report the next day to the office. There's no such thing as I didn't get a reservation and all these silly excuses.

You got to just turn up. You got to be always available. It's not easy to be a soldier, but to be a soldier of Jesus Christ is a wonderful thing. And when you're in the battlefield, you've always got to be alert.

The world is like a battlefield for a soldier. You see, you can't be a sleepy type of soldier in the battlefield, you'll be the first one to be shot. And I find a lot of Christians are very sleepy spiritually.

They don't know something today and one year later, they still don't know. I find that they don't have any discernment about the various types of things going on in Christendom. They accept a lot of things as if that's all scriptural.

There's no discernment. They're sleepy Christians. You shouldn't be a Christian. You must be alert. You're a soldier, you're alert, you're always available. You may not have much ability. That's okay.

If you're available, that's fine. There may be soldiers who are technical and soldiers who just carry equipment, whatever it is, but you don't have to have ability as much as availability. That's all that God requires.

Are you available for me, the Lord says. Ability, I'll give you. But are you available? When I started serving the Lord, I certainly didn't have the ability I have right now. God gave that to me, but I said I'm available.