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Rev. Paul Jeyachandran leads the Intentional Disciple Making Church (IDMC) Movement, which is all about calling churches back to its disciplemaking roots. Visit us at idmcmovement.com
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0:00 Well, well. Good morning from Sydney IDMC Conference 20 22. Now would you begin this time with me in a word of prayer as we ask the Lord's blessing.0:12 Blessed be the Lord God, King of the universe. Come into our lives this day, open Your Word, open our eyes to behold wonderful0:24 truth out of Your Word and help us not just to be hearers of Your Word but doers also that we might grow thereby. We thank You in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen.0:37 Now in life, orientation is incredibly important. 1 of my favourite stories is the story of Tom and Agner. Old Tom and Agner, married for many many years, quarrel and0:49 argue all the time. And whenever Old Tom lose the argument, he will go like, Even if I'm dead and unburied, I will rise up, I will dig my way out of the1:01 grave and I come and haunt you for life. He says that all the time. He says that when the neighbors are around, he says that when he loses his argument. And 1 day Tom passed away and the neighbor asked Agner,1:13 Agner, aren't you afraid? And Tom asked, Afraid of what? Afraid about You know what old Tom said? He said that you know, even if he's dead and buried, he will crawl out of the1:25 grave and he will haunt you for life. And Agnes spoke and said, Why should I afraid? I buried him upside down and he never asked for direction. You see,1:37 in life, our orientation is incredibly important. And that is why we must re orientate to the things that are eternal. And in order for our minds to be engaged in1:49 eternal things, it must come back to the sacred scriptures. And we must ask, as it were in life, the right questions. I say in leadership development that there are 3 critical things: learn to ask the
2:00 right questions, stick to the fundamentals and reclaim lost grounds. But it starts with questions the inquiring mind observing, asking, learning, developing.
2:13 I believe questions are incredibly important. In 1 of the Singapore prayer summit long time ago, we used to host it in Malaysia. 1 of the pastors in a megachurch came up
2:25 to me and said, Can I meet you 1 year from now in next year's prayer summit? And I said, Sure. So 1 year passed, we met together and he said,
2:37 1 year has passed. I come to you with only 1 question. Now that piqued my curiosity. Here's a guy who waited 1 whole year, we met and he said, I have 1 question. So I asked, What's your
2:49 question? I said, My question is, he said and then he paused for dramatic effect. My question is, what questions should I ask you today? Questions are
3:00 incredibly important. And I teach that there are 5 defining questions that we should ask. Each year I have the privilege to teach a D Min class in New York and I tell my doctoral
3:12 students, You got to master these 5 defining questions. Why is it so important? If it's so important, why is it so neglected? Third question, What is it all
3:24 about? What makes it so difficult? How can it best be accomplished? 5 defining questions. I say to these doctoral students, listen, when you graduate and
3:36 you are known as Doctor So and So, as a doctor in the church, people expect you to know things because you have your doctorate. And so they will come to you with all kinds of inquiries or
3:47 questions. What do you think about a particular subject? And if your mind frees, it goes blank, don't panic. Look your scholarly best and say, that's an important question. You know,
3:59 there are 5 defining questions to consider. Let me give you an example. Somebody comes to ask you, What do you think about spiritual warfare? You say, Spiritual warfare? That's a very important issue. There
4:11 are 5 defining questions. Why is spiritual warfare so important? If it's so important, why is spiritual warfare so neglected? Third question: What is spiritual warfare all about?
4:23 Fourth question: What makes it so difficult? And fifth question: How can spiritual warfare be best accomplished? Or another example: What do you think about Christian marriage? Oh,
4:35 that's an important issue! There are 5 defining questions: Why is Christian marriage so important? If it's so important, why is it so neglected? What is Christian marriage all about? What makes it so
4:47 difficult? And how can it best be accomplished? Let's try 1 more important issue: Listening to your wife. Get it? Number 1: Why is listening to
4:58 your wife so important? If it's so important, why is it so neglected? 3. What is listening to your wife all about? 4. What makes it so difficult? And 5. How
5:10 can it best be accomplished? I learned this lesson as a young man. I have this Christian statesman, his name is Doctor Benjamin Chew and the late Benjamin Chew was THE
5:22 Christian statesman in Singapore. He was my wife's physician and Ann and I as a young couple went to see him. I still remember the last few months before he passed
5:34 away, we were in his home. He was playing his regular piano and singing worship hymns to the Lord and we joined him in that fellowship. And then he turned to me and said,
5:46 Admon listen, I was all ears. I was a young pastoral couple with Anne and this is as it were the wise old man of the Christian
5:58 faith in Singapore. He said, listen, you have a good wife. Listen to your wife. And then he says this, he says, In my life, I have to make
6:09 different decisions and the regrets I made is I have not listened to my wife in some of these decisions. The time I failed to listen to her, I have regretted it.
6:22 Well, when we come to questions, when we come to listening, when we come to learning, it is important to ask the fundamental questions. Why
6:34 is it so important? If it's so important, why is it so neglected? What is it all about? What makes it so difficult and how can it best be accomplished? Today, want to apply these 5
6:45 defining questions into getting into your word Word Centred Discipleship. So, let's begin the first question: Why is Word Centred Discipleship so important?
6:58 Robert Coleman, Doctor Coleman, when he came to Singapore with his D Min students, we have a time where I have a chance to share with the students and then there was a question and answer time. And the students were
7:09 asking questions like, What do you mean by this? What do you mean by that? How do you do this best? What methodology do you use? Etc. And then Doctor Coleman stood up, stopped everybody and said, Gentlemen, listen,
7:20 listen, you are asking Pastor Chan the wrong questions. You are asking him the question on the what and the how, you missed the why questions. The important
7:32 question is why? So let's start with this important question. Why is Word Centred Discipleship so important?
7:44 The answer is because this is the foundation of truth. But notice this foundation of truth is so important as it's taught to us in the life and the teaching of the Lord Jesus. In his
7:56 own life in Matthew chapter 4, when he faced the temptations and the challenges in the wilderness, 3 times He said, It is written, it is written, it is
8:07 written. In other words, the Word of God has already declared it, it is settled. Now that was His answer to Satan's temptation. Not I think
8:19 or it will be good but it is written. Not because the tradition says this, no but it is written. Not because the church says this, it is
8:30 written. When we come back to the Word of God, it is foundational. It is the revelation of God. It is the truth of God. It is
8:42 written. And then when He comes to His great manifesto of discipleship, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew five-seven, He concluded His Sermon on the Mount in a very important
8:53 way. He said, It is written. In other words, there is this sense that the Word of God has already declared. It
9:05 has already been given, already been written, the revelation is there. So in Matthew 7, Jesus concluded His entire sermon with a deep sense of the foundation of
9:17 God's Word. He told a parable, there were 2 men in contrast, a wise man and a foolish man. The wise man built his house upon the rock, the foolish man built his house upon the sand,
9:29 and the house upon the rock stood firm in contrast, the house on the sand fell flat, and it was a spectacular fall. What's the difference? The
9:41 foundational difference is not that 1 heard the Word of God and the other didn't hear. Or 1 heard the Word of God from a superior preacher, the Lord Jesus Himself, the best of the best And second
9:53 heard the Word of God from a terrible incompetent preacher. That's not the contrast. The contrast is both heard the Word of God, both heard the Word of God from the Master. Jesus said, He who hears these sayings
10:05 of Mine. They heard it from the Master. But listen now, the difference is this. He says, He who hears these words of Mine and thus them, he will be likened to a man who built his house
10:16 upon the rock. If you don't do it, it's like a man who hears, but he builds his house upon the sand and if there is no sustainability, it will fall. And the Lord says
10:27 spectacular was its fall. It comes back to the importance of the Word of God and on Word centred discipleship.
10:39 That's the life of Christ. Now, look at 1 more example, Luke 24, the risen Lord coming to share with His disciples. In Luke 24, it is the story of the road
10:51 to Emmaus, a 7 mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. And there were 2 disciples, 1 was named Cleopas, the other unnamed disciple I assume is Mrs Cleopas.
11:03 Both of them were walking back to Emmaus. Suddenly Jesus came alongside them and the Bible says they were stopped from recognising
11:14 Him. Then He asked, Look, what were you talking about? What were you discussing along the road? And they said, You must be a stranger here. How come you are in Jerusalem? You don't know
11:26 these things. And Jesus asked, What things? Now He already knew what things. In other words, He had the answer to the question He asked. He was interested in their answer.
11:38 And their answer was, 'There is this mighty prophet, mighty in word and deed, and they crucified Him.' And then the strangest things that the women went to His
11:50 tomb and they found it was empty and then the women came back and they reported angels appeared to them and told them, He is risen. And some of us ran to His tomb and
12:02 we found it empty and we were puzzled by these things. And Jesus went, You foolish and slow to believe!
12:14 And then in Luke 24, it says, He opened up to them the Scriptures. Notice how the emphasis was in the Word of God. Verse 27.
12:38 He interpreted for them the Torah and Nabim, the prophets. Now, in the Old Testament, the Tanakh, T
12:51 stands for the Torah, the Law of Moses, the first 5 books, the Pentateuch and K stands for the Kattubim, the wisdom writings. And then the
13:01 Kattubim, the wisdom literature. When the Bible says from
13:13 Moses to the prophets, in the Old Testament the Quran is from the Law of Moses to the prophets. In other words, the whole of the Old Testament. He took the whole of the Old Testament and showed
13:24 them the prophecies concerning Himself. It was a 7 mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus but they had this 7 mile of theological advanced education right back in the
13:36 Word of God. Think about it, if I were the Lord Jesus risen from the dead, and these 2 were talking along the road of Emmaus, I asked, What are talking about? Oh, this prophet, he was
13:48 crucified. I would go like, Tada! Behold, I am the Lord, I am risen, let's party! Jesus didn't do that. He didn't go,
13:59 Tada! I am here risen! He went from the Scriptures, from the Law of Moses, the Torah, all the way to the Kattuvim and the Nabim, the writings and the prophets,
14:11 He unveiled to them the Word of God. Why? Listen, because He wanted to ground their discipleship in the Word of God, in the revelation of
14:23 God, in the truth of God, not just tada experiences. He could have done that, he didn't. And so as they were talking about the Word of God, they were excited because this
14:35 stranger knew the Scriptures in-depth and fired in their hearts a holy inspiration in the light of the sacred Scriptures. By the time they knew it, they were arriving at the outskirts of this village,
14:47 Emmaus, and they went like, Please, please, it's already late. Join us, join us, stay for the night! Jesus smiled and nodded, if only they knew who He was!
14:58 And there at supper, He took the bread and He broke it, and He gave it to them. And when He gave it to them, something familiar about this, it clicked, it is Him, it is the Lord
15:10 Jesus, He is risen and phew! He disappeared. Now here's the strange thing, I mean, they just recognised Him, there's so much to talk about, the conversation would have been fantastic,
15:22 Lord you are risen, there's so much we want to ask of You. I would love to be a fly on the world to listen to this conversation but no, Jesus disappeared. Why? Listen, because what He wanted to
15:34 do was done. He simply wanted to ground their faith in the Scriptures and their hearts were so burning with the Word of God. It says in verse 32,
15:46 They said to each other, 'Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures? While He opened to
15:58 us the Scriptures, warned our hearts strangely warm. They were so excited it was already dark, it was already night. It is not like our city lights and
16:09 highways. No, it was a dark walk but they decided, let's go back to Jerusalem. And immediately they left for another 7 mile walk back to Jerusalem in the darkness. Now the Bible is
16:21 silent about the walk back from Emmaus. Luke 24 is on the road to Emmaus. There's no record of from the road of Emmaus back
16:33 to Jerusalem but oh I wish I could hear that conversation. It would have been animated, it would have been excited, it would be like wow The scriptures He opened to us, Old
16:45 Testament from the prophets, the Law of Moses, the writings about Him, He's alive, He's risen! They couldn't stop talking all the way back. They went back to Jerusalem, told the disciples, We saw Him, we saw
16:57 Him, He's alive! And they shared with 1 another testimony, Yeah, He appeared to Peter also, He's alive! And while they were talking, voom! Jesus appeared before them.
17:09 And then as He settled them down, He did the same thing. What did He do? Listen to the sacred record. Luke 2four 44 He said to
17:21 them, These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the
17:33 Psalms' again, the categories, the Torah, the Nabiyim, the Kaptuvim must be fulfilled. Verse 45: Then He opened their minds to
17:45 understand the Scriptures. Mean, that's the second time Luke 24, He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. Word
17:56 centered discipleship, the foundation of truth, the revelation of God, it is back to the Word. That's the key reason why the Word of
18:08 God is so important because Jesus grounded His disciples back to the sacred Scriptures, the whole of the Scriptures. Here's the
18:20 second question. If the Word of God is so important, why is it so neglected? Now, there are 3 ways we can neglect something. Number 1, we don't do it and therefore it's neglected. Number 2, we
18:32 do it but we stop doing it therefore it's neglected. But the third reason, we think we are doing it therefore it's neglected. We think by and large we are doing a good job in teaching
18:44 the Word, in getting people grounded in the Word. But when you look at the global church as a whole, we are weak in the sacred Scriptures. There is not only a biblical illiteracy, there is a
18:55 biblical superstition because we are not grounded in the Word of God in Word centered discipleship. Superstitions! You go to the YouTube and you just
19:07 do a search, Christians eating grass. There's a preacher who told his congregation, grass is the spiritual food God has offered. And therefore, you want to grow in spirituality, go out
19:19 of the church by the lawn and pick up the grass to eat. And you see these believers go to the grass and they eat grass believing the preacher's word that is spiritual food. Superstitious!
19:33 And it was reported that some of these believers who are eating grass, they to hospitalized because of that. Superstitions! Now we would think, Oh, these superstitions only happen
19:45 in Africa. It doesn't happen here and now in our urban cities. Really? In 1 of the Asian cities, I was
19:57 told that there was this person who said, There is a key to victory in praying for the sick. And this is the key. When you go to the hospital to pray for the sick, you stop and then you laugh.
20:09 Because now by faith, you are laughing a laugh of faith. And in that laugh of faith, you are laughing against sicknesses etc. And when you exercise that faith by laughing, you pray for the sick, God will heal.
20:21 What's that? The Scriptures? No. Superstition. Now please understand this alright. It may be that a person
20:33 is asking, Lord, how do I go and heal the sick? And the Lord says, Don't worry, laugh, relax. And there is this faith that comes up and, God help me. Listen carefully, I say this
20:45 lovingly. It's a baby step. It is God condescending to take an individual through baby steps. But what we have done is to make this imperative for everyone else.
20:57 What is a personal growth journey becomes, if everybody do alike this way, God will bless you. And when we imperatise something that God does not intend in His Scriptures,
21:09 what do we call that? Superstition. In another mega city in Asia, there is this thinking because in that city, going to a university and university
21:21 exams are incredibly hard, the entrance exam or the final exams. The Christian students pass on to each other this thinking: If you were to recite the
21:32 Lord's Prayer 1000 times, you would do well in your exam. So, they even come up with counters by which they can count how many times they recite the Lord's Prayer.
21:44 Because if you recite it 1000 times, you will do well in the exam. What do you call that? Superstition. The time you take to recite the Lord's Prayer, the I believe in prayer but listen to me, time you take to recite the
21:56 Lord's Prayer might also spend the time studying. You cannot make up in prayer what you lose out by diligence and work. Faith and work must go together. That's what the Scriptures say.
22:10 Otherwise, it's merely superstition. There was a Christian clinic in another city and the missionary doctor told the
22:22 elders of the church, You know, last night the clinic was broken into and the thief came and stole some of the medical supplies, stole some of the drugs, stole some of the cash in the clinic.
22:34 Don't worry about it. We'll take care of it, they told the pastor. The pastor said, Okay, the church elders will take care of this Christian clinic, belong to the church. Fine. The next morning he went to the clinic, he
22:44 was surprised by the corner of the entrance of the clinic, there were some kind of charms and voodoo doll kinds of things. And so the missionary went to the elders and said, You know, I found this at the
22:56 entrance door by the clinic. And the elders said, Don't worry, it's alright. We have prayed and put these charms there so that we have put a curse upon the thief so that the thief will
23:08 return what he has stolen. You know what's that called? Superstition. There is not only a gross biblical illiteracy in the global
23:19 church, there's superstitions every, superstition everywhere. Why? Because we don't have a solidly grounded Word centred discipleship.
23:33 The result is it becomes neglected. Let me give you now 3 reasons. There are many reasons but 3 fundamental reasons why Word Centred Discipleship is neglected. The
23:45 first, we pursue instant growth. But Word Centred Discipleship is a day by day journey, it's not an instant growth. How we wish we have kind of Spider
23:56 Man's spiritual spider. You know the story of Spider Man? Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider. He became Spider Man with superpowers. If only we have a
24:08 spiritual spider that can bite us and boom overnight we have spiritual powers, boom overnight we have knowledge of the Word of God, oh we are able to be strong in the Word. We missed
24:19 it. There is no spiritual spider. There is no instant growth. And because there is no instant growth, after time, we tend to neglect the
24:31 sacred Scriptures. The second reason is because of this anti intellectualism. We go like, Oh, the Bible, yeah, this is too
24:43 the words of the Chinese Singaporean, too thin, too deep. We don't understand it. This is only for the scholars, the theologians. After all, just love God, that's sufficient.
24:56 But the Bible tells us to love God with our minds as we love Him with our hearts and our soul and our mind. To love God with our mind means He gives us a faculty to think
25:07 and we are to contemplate, we are to meditate, we are to think in-depth in the Word of God. Here's the common problem I find in modern church Bible
25:19 study. It is what I call shared ignorance. What do I mean? The best kind of Bible study is when we study the Scriptures ourselves, then we come to say
25:31 I've studied the Scriptures and share with 1 another what we have gleaned from the Scriptures. But that's not a common Bible study. This is what the common
25:43 Bible study looks like. We don't prepare, we don't study the Word, we come and the cell group leader or the Bible study leader leads us in a passage, we go to the passage and What do you think? What do you think? What do
25:55 you think? We chin whack and Oh, I think this is my opinion. This is your opinion. This is another opinion, this is what we all think. And there's no summary, no conclusion, nothing. It's like, Oh okay, so we think
26:06 different things, okay, wonderful, good night, our time is up, wonderful bible study. Was that a study of the Scriptures? No, it's shared
26:18 ignorance. It is merely an articulation of our opinions rather than the diligent search and the study of the sacred
26:29 scriptures and the sharing of the fruit of our study. You see, my dear friends, when we have this sense of shallowness and is masqueraded and covered
26:41 by our own intellect or opinions, we are missing the foundation of a Word centered discipleship. The third reason why it's neglected is
26:53 because we assume knowledge transfer is enough. Well, if it's not shared ignorance, then somebody must be the expert, somebody must have done the study and you just download for us, you just share with us the study. If
27:05 possible, give us that kind of handout so that we can file it together. We have studied the Scriptures. Have we? Turn with me in the Bible to 1 man who really
27:17 studied the Scriptures. It's a man called Ezra. And in Ezra 7 10, he made a diligent commitment. And Ezra purposed in his
27:29 heart to study the law of the law, to do it and then to teach it unto Israel. 3 things to study and then to do and then to teach.
27:41 Now please understand, Ezra was a priest, he was an expert in the law. And here's a story of 1 who is a guy who really knows his stuff in the law of Moses,
27:53 expert in the Law of God. And yet this distinguished teacher made himself a diligent student. Let me repeat that. This distinguished teacher of the Word made himself a
28:04 diligent student of the Word. He purposed in his heart to study the law of God and that's not sufficient that knowledge input but also to do it.
28:16 Why? Because it's not just about knowledge acquisition, it's about knowledge application. He studied the law of the Lord, he purposed in his heart to do
28:28 it, committed himself to do it and when he reaped the benefits of what he has learned, then he passed it on to teach Israel as well. This idea of his
28:40 commitment is something we need in order to get back to Word centered discipleship. 3 simple steps: Purpose in your heart to study the Word of God.
28:52 Regularly, I take a new Bible and mark it up, study it, I put it as it were into my learnings, my growth. Why? Because I want to learn the sacred scriptures. I want to learn
29:04 its truth and then by God's grace, I ask Him to help me apply it so that I can reap the benefits and pass it on. Here's the third question. What
29:16 is Word Centred Discipleship all about? It's about having a light and a compass. Turn with me to Psalm 119.
29:28 I want to look at Psalm 119, a familiar verse, 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path. Now there are 2 pictures here. It is a
29:40 lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path. The lamp unto my feet is able to show me just what is around me, like maybe 2 or 3 steps
29:52 ahead. The light unto my path is what I could see as a big picture as it were to connect the dots. And that's exactly what we need. We need both the Word to
30:03 be our light as well as our compass our direction, our light unto the path. We find in Proverbs three:five-six
30:16 a very important statement. It's a familiar verse: Trust in LORD with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.
30:28 The word ways is DEREK and the word path is ORAH. Derek has the idea of your ways as highways,
30:40 the well worn path, the highways that are roads that are evident. So it says here, In the highways of your life,
30:52 acknowledge Him. In all the paths of your life, in other words, the major decisions, the big things, acknowledge Him. He shall direct your aura. What is that? The uncharted paths.
31:04 The unpaid footprints. He will guide you. Now here's the principle. The principle is this: In all your big decisions in life, in all the major highways of your
31:16 life, in all your major decisions in life, you must make a first decision. I say yes to God's will. I say yes to God's leading. I say yes to God's Word and align to Him. When I say
31:28 yes to the highways of my life, to the big pictures of my life, then when I come to uncharted territories, when I come to the paths that are unwarped and they are new,
31:39 the Bible says, When I have committed all my ways, all my direct to the LORD, the highways of my life, He will direct my path. He will show me how to walk in the twists and turns of life when the paths are
31:51 uncharted and unpaved. This is the principle of a Word centered discipleship. When we do what we know in the revelation of God, the general revelation of
32:03 Him and His will, when it comes to the uncharted waters, the uncharted path, the promise of God is, I will guide you, I will direct you, I will show you the way to walk in these twists
32:15 and turns and the conundrums of life in its ups and downs. That's the Word of God, a life in Word centered discipleship. Today you have to say a
32:27 big yes to God, so that in all the big pictures of your life, the major decisions, in all the big things, so that in the small things that are uncharted, uncertain, He will
32:39 guide you. That's the Word of God. Live out. Taking it in and living it out. Here's the fourth question: What makes Word Centred
32:50 Discipleship so difficult? Again, are many reasons. Let me give you 3. Number 1: A lack of time. What makes it so difficult? I don't have time. Hey, all have
33:02 168 hours per week. If you give 10 percent tithing of your time to the Lord, that's 16.8 hours every week. You know how much you can do with
33:12 16.8 hours every week? It's not a question of whether we have time. Everyone has 24 hours a day. It's a matter of what we do with our time
33:24 in the light of our priorities. Make the Word of God your priority. Make time for it. Take time to get into the Word. But you realise it's not a time issue, it's
33:36 a heart issue. The second reason what makes it so difficult is because of the lack of surrender. When the heart is surrendered to the Lord, when the heart is strangely warmed by the deep
33:48 things of God, there is a delight in the Word of God. It's no longer a drudgery. It's not just a discipline. It's an absolute magnificent delight. That's why the psalmist
34:00 say, The law of the Lord is my delight. We learn that through surrender. Why is it so hard to surrender? Because we are
34:12 holding on to an illusion. It's the illusion of control. I want to be in control. I want to be in charge of my life. I don't want to walk in surrender and lose that sense of control. But that control I have
34:23 is illusionary. It's an illusion of control because in reality, we don't have control. Only God has control. And that is why the wisest
34:35 thing is to allow God to be in control because He is already in control. I don't have a control, that's an illusion. He has the perfect control, that's a reality. And the smartest thing for me
34:47 to do is to take my illusion of control and surrender to God who has the reality of control. And God intends everything good for us. Now here's the third
34:59 reason why it's so difficult. Not just a lack of time or a lack of surrender, but a lack of awareness of spiritual warfare. Spiritual
35:11 warfare! We don't realise that the only thing that can anchor us in the midst of warfare is the truth of God's Word. The Word is truth and the truth shall set
35:23 us free. The key to warfare is in the sacred scriptures. November last year, the Lord woke me up to pray. It wasn't that I woke up in the morning and
35:34 decided it's a good thing to pray at 4 am in the morning. That wasn't it. I woke up, the whole room was filled in the presence of God and God spoke to my heart, Son, pray. So I slipped
35:46 to my side of the bed, I knelt down and I prayed, Speak Lord, for Your servant hears. And the Lord spoke to me through the sacred scripture. Do not love the world nor the things of the world. If
35:58 anyone love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world and the world is passing
36:09 away. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. I prayed for myself, I prayed in repentance, I prayed in identification of repentance, I prayed for the church, I prayed against money,
36:21 sex and power. By the time I finished, I looked at the time, it was 5 15. So I got on to bed and I was about to sleep. For the second time, I heard the Lord say, Son,
36:33 pray. I just told the Lord, Lord, whatever you tell me, I will do. And so when I heard that from the Lord, I got out of bed, knelt down again and said, Speak Lord, for your servant hears. And then the Lord spoke to
36:45 me, Son, it's not about money, sex and power. I went like, What? I thought the greatest temptation is money, sex and power. It's a no trophy victory. No trophy victory means you cannot erect a trophy
36:57 and say, I won this battle against money or against power. It's a lifelong battle. What? Not money, sex and power? Then the Lord
37:09 enlightened my mind to a truth that is fundamental, I should know. Money is a medium of exchange. It can be used as a stewardship for good. Sex is God's idea and God's gift in
37:21 the context of marriage. And power is an influence for good, at least it could be used as an influence for good. So money, sex and power is not the issue. Then what is? It is the human
37:32 heart. It is covetousness and greed in relation to money. It's lust in relation to sex and it's pride in relation to pride of life.
37:45 Power. And so I prayed in these 3 things. Again, in repentance of myself, in identification repentance, in praying for the church. And then I asked the Lord for the antidote
37:57 against the poison of lust and greed, covetousness and pride. The antidote is simple: it is purity in relation to lust, it
38:09 is simplicity in relation to greed, and it is humility in relation to pride. Purity, simplicity, humility. I prayed for these 3 things. Lord, please give it to
38:21 me, my life and the life of the disciples of the Lord Jesus and upon the church. When I finished praying, looked at the time, it was 6 o'clock. I got back to bed and I thought to myself, I'm going to sleep in. I have 2
38:33 hours of sleep, I can wake up 8 o'clock and then get my work done. And then for the third time, I heard the Lord say, Son, pray. This time I said to myself, I wonder whether I can just lie in
38:45 bed and pray until I fall asleep. And then within my own heart, my spirit said to myself, In the presence of God, kneel.
38:57 In the presence of God. Kneel. I knew the presence of God was there. I got out of bed and I knelt. And the moment my knees hit the floor,
39:09 the Spirit of the Lord came upon me and I heard the Lord say, Son, I want to give you the key to spiritual warfare. I was all ears. And the Lord opened my
39:21 eyes to the vision of revival in Ezekiel 37. I couldn't sleep anymore. I prayed through it and I switched on the light in the living room, took up my Bible, went to Paul through the Scriptures and I
39:33 read the Scriptures and prayed and prayed and read the Scriptures and then I realized, that's it. It is fundamental, it's simple, it's not some rocket science. We are in the midst of spiritual warfare. It'sShow more
Paul Jeyachandran
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