The Local Church as a Testimony for God to Satan — Zac Poonen

US children. That's an awesome responsibility. It's easier to be a pediatric consultant who gives advice to mothers and fathers how to bring up their children and never see them take no responsibility.

The world of difference being a father, I'll tell you that. One of the reasons I'm constantly on email day and night is because there are people who write to me from 50 churches asking for some advice on this or that every day and it's a great privilege I see it to serve God who has been so good to me.

Holiness Tested in Local Church Fellowship

When we see that one of the unique things that Jesus came to do, we have spoken much about victory over sin is one of the differences between Old Covenant and New Covenant, but that is individual. I can seek for a pure inner life and say my life is better than the life of the Pharisees which is only external goodness, but my holiness is not tested until I'm willing to become a part of a local fellowship and be committed completely because then that fellowship with others who are as much rough stones as I am tests my holiness and tests your holiness too.

And that's why people shrink away from commitment to a church. They like to be individually holy people. I think they're fooling themselves. I'm not saying they won't go to heaven, but I tell you my aim in life is not to go to heaven.

I gave up that long, long ago. That is when I was a child I spoke like a child. Paul says when I grew up I gave up childish things. Some people never give up childish things. For 50 years after they're born again their only aim is to go to heaven.

I'm least interested in that. I told the Lord I'd be ready to go to hell if he is there. My interest is to be with Jesus, not to go to heaven. And that starts right now. And right now my calling is to see what Jesus came on earth to do.

The Church as a Testimony to Satan

He came to build a church that would be a testimony to Satan primarily and to the world. When the Lord said you shall be my witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth, I see that not only as being a witness to people, but also a witness to the devil.

You know the first book written in the Bible is not Genesis. It was Job. Job lived long before Moses who wrote Genesis. So when God decided to write a book for man, the Bible, the first book he started with was not Genesis, not about the creation of the world or of Adam.

It was about Job. And it's very important for me to understand that. I mean God could have revealed to Job who wrote that book all about creation and Job could have written Genesis chapter 1. Why did he do that?

Because that's not the most important thing for us to know. I mean it doesn't really bother me whether God created the earth or made the earth in 6 days or 3 days or 25 days. Job chapter 1 tells me something much more important for me to know now than whether the earth was made in 6 days and that is that in the heavenlies God and Satan are having a discussion about the condition of people who call themselves his witnesses on earth.

That's the first chapter of Job. And there are very religious people on earth. If you read the book of Job there are people like Eliphaz and Bildad. Now if you're not familiar just turn with me to Job chapter 1.

You know there were three friends of Job who came to see him in Job chapter 2 verse 11 called Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. And if you read about their lectures and there was another younger guy called Elihu.

All four of them were extremely religious people who knew so much of the truth about God. I don't know anything about how they brought up their children. I know they were great preachers who knew all and if you read all that they spoke you never find anything inaccurate theologically about what they spoke.

In fact one of their quotations is quoted in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 by Paul. He catches the wise in their own craftiness. He's one of these preachers who said that. So there's nothing wrong in what they said theologically.

But yet at the end of the book of Job the Lord tells him you have not spoken about me what is right. Take some time if you're serious about a Bible study to read through all that they spoke. Find out what is it about God which they said was wrong.

You'll find it was their spirit that God was criticizing. You know we can be theologically accurate and have the spirit of the devil in the way we speak. The Pharisees were theologically accurate. So but in the book of Job chapter 1 is this as it were let me expand it and Satan is telling Job I mean Satan is telling God look at these guys who know so much about you Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar.

What are they? Hypocrites don't you know that God? God says right. Have you seen Job? That meant so much to God that in the midst of all these hypocrites there was one man who could be a witness for him.

The hypocrites were numerous. The witnesses for God were limited. That is what brought delight to the heart of God. Satan challenges that. Yeah yeah he's serving you because you blessed him in so many ways.

Take away the blessing let me see if he serves you still. God says okay I take up that challenge. He's going to be true to me and though he had a few ups and downs and that's because he didn't have the Holy Spirit.

We don't have to go through the ups and downs Job went through. He finally came through and according to his Old Testament standard of life he was a pretty good witness. To whom? To the devil. At the end of it God blessed him double.

So what I see from the first book of the Bible in the first chapter is that the primary thing God's interested in me is are we as a church a testimony to Satan? Am I as a Christian a testimony to Satan?

It's not a question of what others think about me. I couldn't care less what people think about me because it's so unimportant. If I am a good testimony to Satan I will automatically be a good testimony to the rest of the world because Satan can see a whole lot of things.

Satan can't read my thoughts or my inner life but he sees a lot of things about my private life which the rest of the world never sees. Satan sees a lot of things about your private life, your home life, the way you do your financial transactions, how you behave on the road when other people are angry which the rest of the fellow believers don't see.

So what I learned from the book of Job chapter 1 is that my testimony to Satan is much more important than what you think about me. Dear brothers and sisters if each of you will take that attitude and be gripped by it what God said in the first chapter of the first book that he wrote for man your spiritual life will change radically.

I assure you that. Your family life will change radically and you'll be such a tremendous blessing in the church and that's why when we read Matthew 16 and Jesus spoke about he said I came on earth what he came on earth to do was to build a church.

It was a new word never used in the Bible before. Jesus said I will build my church Matthew 16 18 and all the powers of hell will not overpower it. You see there? Immediately he talks about Satan. He's not talking about the witness of the church to the world and the world is going to be impressed by all the work that the church does and all the leprosy hospitals and all the education institutions and all the good work we do for the homeless and all that.

He's not talking about that. That's all good. I know multitudes of Hindus and heathen who do a lot of good work in India. There are Hindus who built hospitals in India where they give free treatment to the poor.

It's not only Christians but they're not a testimony to the devil. I'm not against all that but we need to keep what is primary primary and what is secondary secondary and the sad thing is Christendom has put secondary things primary.

They put love your neighbor as yourself is more important than love God with all your heart first. In the cross the vertical bar or your vertical relationship with God is more important than the horizontal one.

We need both. We need to know which is priority and if I am to love God with all my heart soul and strength which is the first commandment then I'll be a witness to the devil. But if I only love my neighbor as myself I'll be a very good testimony on earth.

People say how kind these Christians are. How helpful they are when people are in trouble. How they care for the poor and the homeless and the sick. Boy, the devil will just laugh at us. You see these are things which are all through scripture or somehow the devil's blinded Christians to see these things and that's why I say God has hidden the greatest truths in scripture from the clever and intelligent but he's revealed them.

It's a New Testament word revelation. The Holy Spirit's showing us things which are in the Bible which we don't seem to see. So I see that our testimony to Satan as a church is very important and the Lord has established the church to establish the victory of Christ in the territory of the devil.

I've seen it like that. My calling is to be a part of a church that establishes the victory of Christ in the territory of the devil and that territory of the devil is all over the earth. He's the prince of the world and called he's a prince of darkness.

The world is covered of darkness and I have to be such a light for God in every area of my life, my thoughts, my attitudes, no darkness in my thoughts, no darkness in my attitudes to people. This is why it's so important to have a loving attitude to every human being.

I'm not to get involved in political disputes with people. I'm interested in concentrating on attacks against the devil. I'm not interested in so many other things that the worldly people are interested in because they're not fundamental to the reason why Christ has placed me on the earth.

If I give importance to it, it must be just secondary. I'm not going to get into big battles with people about all these secondary things that are not going to matter 2 ,000 years from now. If I keep first things first and say Lord my primary calling on earth is to be a witness for you in the heavenly, that you can boast about me to Satan, that you can boast about my home to Satan and Satan says look at all these other, look at all these Christian homes, Lord, God, he look at all these Christian homes, these your children, look at the way they bring up their children, look at the way they behave.

The Lord should be able to say yes but have you considered this home, that one and when devil says look at all these churches, they're huge in number 30 ,000 people but do they have an interest in each other?

Most of them don't have any power over me, Satan says. God says yes but look at this church. I remember when we started, I mean I didn't start it, God started it in Bangalore when the church CFC started 38 years ago.

A Pure Offering Rather Than Religious Performance

The word the Lord gave us was from Malachi chapter 1. In Malachi chapter 1, it's the last prophet speaking to Israel at a time when Israel had thoroughly disappointed God. It was 1 ,200 years after Moses had took them out of Egypt and God said this is the last prophet I'm going to send you, I've got finished with you fellas, I've sent you prophet after prophet after prophet, I taught you a lesson by taking you to Babylon and making you slaves there, you came back after 70 years and now a hundred years later you're still the same.

They didn't go to idolatry but they, one thing Babylon cured the Israelites of is idolatry, they never went into idolatry after that for the last 2 ,000 years. You read Kings and Chronicles, they're full of idolatry but Babylon cured them of that permanently but a lot of other things it didn't cure them of.

Selfishness and pride, these are the two most deeply rooted things in our human nature and which even Christians don't seem to get light on and if there are two things that hinder the building of the church, it's selfishness and pride.

If there's two things that destroy a home, it's selfishness and pride. If there's two things that hinder spiritual growth, it's selfishness and pride. Those are inner things. You can have a lot of it and have, you can be oozing with theological knowledge and be saturated with selfishness and pride within and nobody knows.

A lot of people have such a saintly humble appearance though, look at that way they live their life and the things they think about and the way they behave when people are not watching. It's selfishness and pride that runs their life.

So in Malachi chapter 1, the Lord says to them, a son honors his father verse 6 and a servant is master. If I'm a father, where's my honor? If I'm a master, where's my respect? Oh priests who despise my name.

You say, how have you despised my name? You see, this is the thing, these were priests who knew the scriptures well but they didn't know they were despising God's name. We can know the scripture so well and yet not realize we are dishonoring the Lord somewhere.

God has to give us revelation and he says, I'll tell you how you're dishonoring my name. You're presenting defiled food on my altar. How is it defiled? Well, you know you have to make a sacrifice for me, so you pick up that blind lamb, verse 8, and sacrifice.

You say, this blind lamb is a nuisance to me in any case, let me give it to the Lord. And then you've got a lame ox or a sick one and you present that. What was the problem with Israel? They weren't worshiping idols.

They were giving to the Lord that which cost them nothing. I have often spoken on an Old Testament verse which the Lord gave me 54 years ago, 2nd Samuel 24 24, where David said, I will never offer to God that which costs me nothing.

The Lord spoke that to my heart more than 50 years, 54 years ago and said, this is the way you must live all your life. If you give something to me, it must cost you something, otherwise it's not worth it.

I said, Lord, I'll keep that to the best of my ability. We all know that we must sacrifice something for the Lord when we think of the great sacrifice Jesus made for us. All Christians admire the sacrifice of Jesus, but to partake in it of that same spirit is another thing.

I've said in our church back in Bangalore, I say, if you only admire Jesus then when the the broken bread comes to you, just look at it and admire it and say, Lord, how wonderful and don't touch it. Pass the bread on to the next person at the Lord's table.

If you partake of it and eat that bread, then you're saying, Lord, I want to partake of the same spirit. You see how blind we are even in the breaking of bread. Most Christians, I believe 99 of Christians break bread without even understanding what it means.

I know because I was like that for many years. Everything in the Christian life is by revelation, however clever we are, if the Spirit of God does not give revelation, we can be blind as a bat on fundamental errors in our life and keep imagining we're growing spiritually, growing spiritually just because maybe we have more Bible knowledge, we can share things well and we're doing a work for God and people are being impressed.

All these things come from nothing. Revelation, revelation. So that's why the Lord was fed up with the Israelites and one mark of his being fed up with his people is that he stopped sending them prophets.

They'll only get people thereafter who explain the scriptures and feel theologians. You know there's an Old Testament verse which says, Oh God, we don't see any prophets, have you forsaken us? In the Psalms.

It's a mark of God having forsaken a people and when Malachi was the last prophet, God had finished with Israel. And what is the reason? They were not putting him first. They were sacrificing for a lot of things concerning themselves.

Look at the amount of sacrifice we make when our own interests are at stake. God is not primary, that's what it proves. And he says, when you, do you think you'll give your governor, Malachi 1 8, something second-rate or third-rate like you give me?

Will you treat your governor the same way as you treat me? Take a simple matter which I've taken seriously. Very simple thing. How would I speak to my wife at home if a believer from the church is sitting there?

How would I speak to my wife at home when the believer is gone and only Jesus is there? You can know whether you're God or pure man by that simple test. I'm telling you what I've applied to myself. I didn't start my married life victorious.

I started my married life thoroughly defeated as a Christian. I didn't know about victory. I never had a spiritual father to guide me. It's one of the things I lacked. When he started a church, I never had a spiritual father to whom I could relate every day and say, hey brother, what shall I do here?

And so I struggled through years to come to a life of victory personally or in my family life. But one of the things the Lord showed me was you must be more conscious of my presence than the presence of man.

And I discovered so many things in myself like that. For example, even as a young Christian, if I prayed in public, I would pray to impress man, not the Lord. If I kept quiet during the time of prayer, that's also the...

I'm afraid what people will think of me if I open my mouth. They may suddenly discover I'm not so spiritual. That's why I keep quiet in the time of prayer also. If I keep quiet, or I speak, it's because I'm seeking honor.

And I got light on that. I said, Lord, I'm willing to make a fool of myself. I'm gonna open my mouth and pray, even if it's one minute. I'd encourage all of you to pray publicly. You'll discover a lot about yourself that you don't discover when you keep quiet.

It's true. You'll never learn to ride a bicycle or a car by studying it on the blackboard. You got to get into it, make a few mistakes, maybe fall off or have a couple of accidents. You learn. So it's the same way.

I found this seeking of honor so much there. I said, Lord, give me light on it. And, you know, you wouldn't do that. You would honor your governor more than me, the Lord says. And then the Lord says, oh, verse 10, Malachi 110, I wish there'd be some priest who would have the courage to shut the gates of the temple and say, no more of these sacrifices.

We don't want any of this. We'd rather have no sacrifices here than all these useless sacrifices you've had us bring. That would have to be a prophet who shuts the gates, you know, because people think, oh, these guys are too radical.

Well, every prophet was radical. That's why most of them got killed. And that's why most people don't want to be prophets today. They'd rather be a nice teacher of the word, a nice expositor of Ephesians or Galatians or something like that.

Who is there who will shut the gates to this type of thing and don't uselessly kindle fire on my altar? And now this is the verse the Lord gave us when we started our church. From the rising of the sun, verse 11, that's from the east to the west, my name will be great among the nations and not only among you, Israel.

You guys think you're the only ones on earth that I'm interested in. God says no. From the east to the west in every nation, whether it's the United States or India or Congo or Cambodia or Russia or Laos or Australia or Kenya or South Africa or Egypt or any country, my name will be great among all the nations.

A new age is coming. This is predicting the new covenant age. And in every place throughout the earth is going to be incense offered to me. This is spiritual language. An offering that's going to be offered to me, to my name, an offering that is pure.

That's the point. That it is pure, not large, but pure. That's the word that came home to us. God is looking in every nation now for a offering that is pure. Why was it impure? Because there was no sacrifice.

I give that lame sheep, which is a bit of a nuisance to me in any case. I get rid of that sick bullet, which is going to die in a couple of weeks in any case. Might as well give it to the Lord. This is the difference between religious people and spiritual people.

Cain and Abel: Minimum and Maximum Devotion

From the beginning of time, there's been these two streams. The religious, symbolized by Cain, and the spiritual, symbolized by Abel. You all know that God accepted Abel's offering, did not accept Cain's.

And let me show you in Genesis chapter 4 how these two streams started. Genesis 4, we read, this is the first incident mentioned after the man came out of Eden and was put out. The first incident mentioned in... okay.

Genesis chapter 4, we read that they came and brought an offering to the Lord. Now some people think that this is a sin offering. It's not a sin offering. It was a Thanksgiving offering. There are many types of offerings in the book of Leviticus.

Some were sin offerings, which always had to have blood. But there were other offerings called Thanksgiving offerings. You didn't have to have blood in it at all. It was an expression of gratitude for the tithe, for example.

It was a Thanksgiving offering where people brought their grain or their pluck. You know, gratitude, expressing thanks for God's blessing on their labor. So here Cain and Abel were expressing their gratitude to God for his goodness to them in their labor.

It didn't have to be blood. So I find that so many folks don't see this. And if you read carefully, you'll see that most of evangelical Christendom says Abel's offering was accepted because he brought blood.

Cain's offering was not accepted because he didn't bring blood. Let's read scripture carefully. Genesis chapter 4, verse 3. Cain brought an offering to the Lord. Verse 4, Abel brought the firstlings of his flock.

And the way evangelical Christians read the latter part of verse 4 would be like this. The Lord had regard for Abel's offering and therefore for Abel. But that's not what it says. And for Cain's offering he did not have regard, therefore he did not have regard for Cain.

Is that what your Bible says? No. You just got to read the Bible slowly. It's all there. The Lord had regard for Abel and therefore for his offering. The Lord had no regard for Cain and therefore for his offering.

It's something like Jesus said in Matthew 5, when you bring your offering to the Lord and you hurt somebody with your anger, he will not accept you, therefore he won't accept your offer. You go and settle that matter with that person, ask forgiveness, then come back.

Do you know that the person means a lot more to God than the offering? Do you know that in, this is the same thing in the first chapter of the Old Testament and the last chapter of the Old Testament. When a person brought the sick and the weak, it was an indication of their own spiritual condition.

Their attitude to God was revealed. The problem was not with their offering, the problem was with them. And when you give to God that which costs you nothing, it's not what you give. God doesn't care for that, it shows your inner condition.

And then you see why did God accept Abel and Cain? This is so important because here's not a question of salvation, I mean my blood sins are cleansed by the blood of Christ. But after that, among believers, why is it God accepts and bears witness to some and does not bear witness to others?

He's not partial. There must be something that he sees in some believers which he does not see in others. Both of them are sins are cleansed. Maybe they're both got the Holy Spirit, but still he sees something in some which he does not see in the others and that's what we need to see here.

Let's read carefully. Cable brought an offering, A .M. Abel brought the best of his flock. You see the difference? We can divide Christians into these two categories. What is the minimum I have to give to God and what is the maximum I can possibly give to God?

I call the minimum Christians and maximum Christians. And the Lord who draws that line and I believe he draws that line even in our midst, maybe few in number, but there is a line being drawn in our midst today or it's there all the time.

What is the minimum I need to do to go to heaven? What's the minimum I have to give to God? What is the minimum number of meetings I should attend to be considered a good member of a local church? It's always this minimum, minimum.

What's the minimum I have to do to keep my marriage happy, to keep my wife happy? You think that's going to be a good marriage? What's the minimum I have to do to keep my husband happy? That's prescription for destruction in the marriage.

What's the maximum I can do for God in the one life he's given me? What's the maximum I can do to show my gratitude to the Lord for all that he's done for me? That's the way every Christian should start their Christian life, where all other things fade into insignificance compared to Jesus Christ and his sacrifice looms large.

You know whenever, if ever, if ever you think that you have made some sacrifice for the Lord, I believe you haven't seen Calvary correctly. I'm sure all of us Christians have made some type of sacrifice for the Lord, which we remember.

I have disciplined myself to see that in my entire life I have made no sacrifice for the Lord. I'm not trying to be humble, it's a fact, and I'll tell you why. In the light of the sun, stars disappear.

Why do you see the stars? It's only in the darkness that you can see the stars. It's only when you're in darkness that you can see the little sacrifices you've made. The little star here, another one a little brighter than that, and you're conscious of that.

Do you remember how in the last day people stand before the Lord and said, Lord you know what all we did for you? We preached for you, we did miracles for you, we passed out demons for you, and the Lord says, get away.

And there's another group who stands before the Lord in the final day, and they say, Lord, when did we do that? I don't even remember giving you a drink or, you know, you need to see these two groups as, one is very conscious of the little little things they did for the Lord, and the other is don't even remember.

Which group are you in? You see the stars, and you're in the darkness. In bright daylight you won't see a single star. And when the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary looms like the light of the Sun, I assure you, you will not think anything you did in your life was even a sacrifice at all.

They'll disappear. Maybe at dusk you'll still see one or two stars come into the bright daylight. They'll all disappear. Cain brought an offering. Abel brought the best. That's the difference between a religious Christian and a spiritual Christian.

These are two streams that started out in Genesis, flowed throughout history. In Jesus' time, there's the Pharisees and Jesus. Pharisees brought an offering. Jesus brought the best. And he called disciples who wanted to bring the best.

And then finally, in the last book of the Bible, you read that it ends up in Babylon and Jerusalem. That's where it ends up. That's why we've got to be careful whose direction we're going. In Malachi, it ended up with this people who offered the lame and the sick, who were all the religious group.

There were a few in the other group, like Malachi, for example. He was not in that crowd. He was a prophet. So the Lord said, in every place, Malachi 111, let's get back there, I'm going to get an offering that's pure.

Pure means like Abel's, like Jesus. That's going to be not size, but purity. You read in Revelation, I told you it ends in Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon is called the great, the great mega church, Babylon.

Eleven times. Jerusalem, the true church, is called the holy city. The world of difference between greatness and holiness. I don't know whether you noticed it in Revelation. That's the main difference between Babylon and Jerusalem.

That's why one's called a harlot, the other's called a bride. The harlot seeks for greatness, the bride seeks for holiness. And if ever we have any desire in our heart for greatness in the world, I mean, greatness may be a thrust on us.

That's another thing. But if you desire it, there's some serious problem. The church desires to be great. They're doomed. They're headed for disaster. Church should desire to be holy. Jerusalem, the holy city.

You see that sometimes. That is a pure offering. And then it says in Malachi 111, my name will be great among the nations. In the Old Testament, the testimony of the people to Satan is almost never mentioned.

Spiritual Warfare and Peace with All People

Only in the book of Job. The Lord never tells Israel, hey, Satan's accusing you, that light was not there. But in the New Testament, it's everything. You know, as soon as Jesus begins his ministries in conflict with Satan.

When Israel began their ministry, it was in conflict with the Philistines or the Moabites or the Ammonites. And that's the difference between Old Testament and New Testament. The Old Testament conflict is with people.

Paul says in Ephesians 6 .12, we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with these evil principalities and powers. And I remember years ago, God said to me in my heart that if you want to fight against the devil, stop fighting with human beings.

And I vowed before God that day that I would never fight again with human beings about anything. Do you want to really overcome the devil in your life, in every area? Not only that he leaves you alone, but he's scared of you.

What does it mean when it says, where is the devil and he will flee from you? Why do you flee from a lion? Because you're scared of a lion. Fleeing is different from walking away. I can have an argument with a person and walk away.

I don't flee. You flee from someone who's really, you're really scared of. And when it says the devil will flee from you, I get it that he's going to be scared of me. There's no other meaning to that.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you. If you want that life, I will give you one bit of advice. Don't wrestle with flesh and blood. Don't get into arguments and fights and quarrels and disputes verbally or by email.

Just leave them alone. Let them accuse you of anything. Let them do that. People have through the years accused me of anything. That's my lot as a servant of God. I just accept it. Sometimes I felt in my heart the Lord saying to me, do you want me to deal with them or will you handle them yourself?

I said, Lord, I need you. You can handle them better than I can. Because if I handle them, I may not do it in love. The Lord does it. I know he does everything in love. He may be firm, but he's okay in love.

I don't know exactly how to be firm always in love. Sometimes I do. So it's better to leave it for the Lord. Do not wrestle with flesh and blood. Don't get into arguments. Discuss things. Husband and wife need to discuss many things.

You may disagree. Don't get into a fight. Don't get into conflict. Don't let the sun set on your anger. With anyone in the world, pursue peace with all men as much as it lies in you. The other person doesn't want it or they can't do anything about it, but I want to pursue peace with all men.

Hebrews 12 says, pursue peace with all men, otherwise you won't see the Lord. Remember that verse? Pursue peace with all men, without which no man will see the Lord. Holiness and peace with all men, otherwise you will not see the Lord.

Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 14. Very important. And it's also important to overcome sin. Pursue peace with all men. I don't want to fight them, say what they like about me, but I'm not going to say anything in return to them.

The Holy Spirit and the Church as Christ's Body

So, this pure offering Jesus spoke in Matthew 16, that's the church. If it was holy individuals, I don't know how many holy individuals the last 20 centuries have produced that can beat John the Baptist.