Love Revived | Pr Daniel Kong

You're listening to a message to go from acts church.

We hope this message will light up your day.

Let's read.

Okay, Jesus before the san Hedrin Okay, sand Hadrian, Sorry,

so those who has been arrested. Jesus took him to

Caiaphirst Okay. This is the high priest where the teachers

of the law and the eldest has had assembled. But

Peter followed him at a distance. So Peter was a

little bit further away, right up to the courtyard of

the priests, and he entered and sat down with the

guards to see the outcome. So he's curious, falling along

and then the chief priests and the whole san Hedrin. Okay,

so this is about sixty pecks. It's quite a big

group there. We're looking for false evidences, okay. So it

was like a court setting, a court scene that they're

trying to find fault with Jesus. And then of course

we know that they are trying to put him to death. Okay,

but they did not find any those many false witnesses,

sorry though many also wheninesss came forward, finally two came

forward verse sixty one and declared this fellow, wow, no

respect this fellow. I'm able to destroy sid sorry, I'm

able to destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it

in three days. So talking about how Jesus was arrogant

and bless famous. Okay, So then High Prist stood up

and said to Jesus, are you not going to answer?

Asking Jesus, what is the testimony that these men are

bringing against you? And then verse sixty three, if you

look very carefully, it says here, Jesus remain silent, So

repeat after me, Jesus remain silent.

Nothing.

And it's pretty interesting because usually when you're accused of something,

what's the first reaction you will say something?

Right, We've got kids, right, Elvin.

First thing you say, you bring up something is like, sure,

go one hundred and one things to say. My two

sons are lawyers, so they've got a lot to say. Anyway,

The High Priest then said to him, I charge you

under the under oath by the living God. Tell us

if you are the Messiah, the Son of God. Then

Jesus finally says something you have said so wow, amazing? Right,

or in other words, paraphrasing here, yeah, you're right. And

that's all he said. Amazing stuff. But I say to

all of you, all of you, for now on you

will see the Son of Man sitting at the right

hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds

of heaven.

Then the high priests wore his clothes.

Now, just to give you some context as well, they

when during this era, right, when they tear clothes, it

is a sign of, you know, a grief. In the culture,

they're like ahngs sometimes you know, during the time I'm

doing you turn right. There some passages that tells us

that do not just do the display. Do not just

rip off your clothes to show that you're in angst.

This is the I guess, a good sign of it.

They are really really showing signs. They tore their clothes

to show that it's deep grief.

Okay.

And then he said he has spoken blasphemy. Why do

we need any more witnesses. Let me say, case close done,

guilty as charged. Look now you have heard the bless me.

What do you think? And then all of that unswered unanimously,

he is worthy of death.

Okay.

Then they spit in his face, struck him with their fists.

I just slapped him around and said prophesie to us Messiah,

who hit you? So very heavy moment, very painful moment

as well, and also a very big moment there, literally

painful moment. Okay, now I'm going to skip a hit

a little bit.

Of course.

Later on in verse twenty seven, h sorry, chapter twenty seven,

he talked about Peter's betrayal as well, and then we

come to this other character.

Sorry.

In chapter twenty seven, we come to this other character

called Judas. Okay, we know Judas, right, So I'm going

to skip a hit if we can turn to twenty seven.

It's up on the screen as well. And it starts

off with Judas hanging himself.

Okay.

Early in the morning, all the chief praise and the

elders of the people made their plans to have how

to have Jesus executed.

So they bound him, led.

Him away and handed him over to Pilot the governor.

When Judas sorry.

When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned,

he was seized with remorse, returned the three pieces thirty

pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders and

said this I have sinned, for I have betrayed innocent blood.

And then what did they respond? What is that to us?

They replied, that is your responsibility, okay, Or in other words,

they're saying, hey, the kill is on you, man, I

don't want to be involved in this, that's all you.

So then what did Judas do?

He threw the money into the temple and then he left,

and of course we know after that he hung himself. Okay,

I'm going to skip ahead to verse eleven. This is

Jesus standing before the before pilot. Meanwhile, Jesus stood before

the governor, and the governor asked him, are you the

king of Jews? So one way to look at it

as well is that pilots startayly looking at this is

that you don't look like a normal king, la because

maybe perhaps he's not dressed like a king, right, I

know what kings look like, and you definitely do not

look like one, okay.

And then what did Jesus do?

He said, you have said so, and again that's all

he said, you have said so. When he was accused

by the priests and the eldest, he gave no answer

before then Pilot asked him again, do you hear the

testimony they are bringing against you? But Jesus made no

reply again okay, he remains silent, not even a single

charge to the great amazement of the governor.

Okay.

Thus ends the reading of the scriptures today, so that

the like I said, the heavy lifting of reading. But

what I want to draw our attention to is, uh,

you know, all of us here as a church, we

are looking at revival, you know, in our time, not

just this year, but in our lives right. And one

thing that we ought to be responsible for or recognize

is that in the topic of revival, it's always talking

about derival or love, and when you do not have

love in your heart and then that's where things will

start to fall apart. So when in some sense, I'm

going to start off by just giving you the short

answer to the whole message that I'm going to be

preaching today. But revival will fail when a few things happen, Okay,

when religion fails people, okay, or very strong words or

what my religion feel people.

And I'm going to say.

Another thing, okay, when disciples fail is the two added

together is when love fails.

And when love fails, revival will fail. Okay.

This is going to be a very like rehavy today.

Past the dy Hey, they'll call me past the DA

one thirty because there's another past the Daniel somewhere else.

So I coin nepacity term. Okay anyway, yeah, So but

more importantly we understand this. It is if you understand

the truth of this today, you would definitely set you

free a little bit. It will give you some liberty

because the truth will set you free. Right, So let's

look into this, and I'm just gonna put up some

stats up on screen.

Now.

In twenty seventeen, there was a global market research company

that has sort of put some stats together. Okay, why

twenty seventeen, because that's when they've done it. Okay, there

is no other new information since then. So what they

did was they did a polled across twenty four countries

and all they did was asking them on again, it's

not Christian or religious kind of thing, but it's just

a general question about views on religion, okay.

And they established an article.

This is the article itself, okay, And one question out

of the many questions that were asked.

Their next slide is they asked.

Them this question, Okay, does religion do more harm in

the world than good? Very simple question, okay, not very complex.

Even a small teenage boy can understand that. Essentially, we're

saying that it's a good or bad luck religion.

Okay.

Of course, when they did this, they're not targeting any

specific religion. It's just a very general, sweeping statement of religion.

And we'll talk about that. So twenty four countries participated.

About seventeen thousand over adults participate, and we say adults,

they also count I think the range of age troup,

but sixteen all the way to about sixty five for

something in that So a good spread, okay, And twenty

four countries and participated, and this is the results of it.

Okay.

So the total up there is forty nine percent agreed,

so but close to fifty percent agreed that religion as

a whole does more harm than good.

Interesting, right, the stats.

And more interestingly, if you look at that Japan, it's

one of the lowest in terms of agreement, and we

all know Japan sometimes in general they probably religion is

not very big up there, but somehow they feel that.

Religion is doing good than bad. Interesting stats.

And if you look at some of the I don't

name everything, but some of the Christian nations up there

the Christian Greats Career USA, thirty nine percent agreed, okay,

that this is the fact. Higher up the Germany, Spain, Australia,

Belgium or sixty oh percent themes in the people who

did the survey on they all believe majority of them

believe this is the case. And again, as I mentioned earlier,

this is not specific to Christians, but a lot of

the Christian nations there they consider a Christian nations. So

we also think that this may perhaps be, you know,

a generalization that Christianity is also not so do more harm.

Than good in general.

Okay, and this is where I'm going to begin the

message to Okay, York so far, Okay, I'm a status guy,

I'm a numbers guy. I'm anyway, this is this is

the latest that we have and I don't think it's

changed very much in the last nine years or so. Okay,

if you find some more new information, talk to me.

I would love to have new stats, but that's all

we have. But yeah, back to this whole thing, religion

is doing more harm at least that's what they perceive.

So essentially, another way to paraphrase that is that perhaps

if religion isn't there, the world will be a better place.

That's another way to look at it.

Okay, have we got that the world will be a

better place if religion wasn't there all to get all, Christianity.

Wasn't there all together? Okay. Now, of course some of

you may be sitting there and thinking, yeah, I agree.

You know, there's a lot of hurts in doing doing

this as well, And I even once upon a time

probably think like that as well. I grew up a

Christian family, by the way, but I also went way

with for a while, quite a long time, and I

came back, you know, revival happened and I came back.

But you know, it's something that can, you know, impact

the way you perceive how important this whole thing is.

And I just wanted to share with you this because

it's important to understand the contexts, because this is what

the people you're witnessing to beliefs. And if you do

not talk their language, you don't understand where they're coming from.

How we're going to reach them. Okay, Eric, go so far. Okay,

I'm going to bring I'm going to introduce you to

a friend.

Okay.

His name is Tom Holland. Not Spider Man, Okay, not

Spider Man. Okay, first thing I know, Spider Man. Okay,

sorry to disappoint you. Not Spider Man. This is Tom Holland. Okay,

this is Tom Holland everybody. And he's a British historian,

an author, okay. And he grew up in a family

where there is an atheist father and a Christian mother okay,

devout Christian mother.

Okay. So you can see that he grewing up.

There's a bit of tension anybody in that scenario where

one is a believer and one is not, some similar

kind of scenario. So he he himself is uh, he's

an atheists. He at least he say he's a atheists,

but during his time he does not believe in God.

But he went on this whole journey about this trying

to discover how Christianity as a whole impacted uh, you.

Know, in the history books. Okay.

So he did a study, not so much on a

Christianity study, but just in general, how does world history

seize religion and its impact?

Okay?

And what he found and discovered through his research is

that every time the world wanted to expand, Okay, let's

just Romans and all that. Okay, how did the Romans

expand the empire? They they kill, they destroyed, there's resistance,

they wipe it out, and then they move on they

take more lens.

Okay.

And then if you think that that's very far removed,

the Spartans did that as well. Uh, and not too

long ago in World War Two, there's an interesting character

called Hitler did the same thing as well.

Right.

Basically, they took land, or they conquered with force, okay, uh,

and they take anybody resisted. That's how they would then

eliminate the problem, and then they would expand.

Okay.

But the interesting thing that he cannot deny is the

Christian faith didn't need all that when it comes to expansion.

Okay.

So the faith or the Christian Empire even call it

that expanded without even lifting the sword, not once. And

it's gone beyond all these you know, historical ways of

taking more lends, okay, And it's total opposite. In fact,

he discovered that, you know, Christians were taught to take

more by living more, by serving more, by giving more,

and they have successfully expanded them by far beyond everything

else has read. He wrote this book called dominion. And

if you look at the sub h you know the

sub the little text at the bottom that it says

how the Christian Revolution remade the world again atheists, you know,

a guy who doesn't believe in God. And this is

some of the statements that he mentioned. The longer I

spent immersed in the study of classical antiguity, the more

alien and un settling I found its values. Things that

we are taken for granted in our society, means, the

norms of society. All these things about compassion for the weak,

care for the poor, you know, even human equality are

not natural. And we talked about this right many times.

These are not natural human behaviors. But he found out, oh,

at least he concluded that these were all fruits of

the Christian Revolution.

Amazing stuff.

If you didn't catch all that right again, non Christian, no.

Non Christian.

He's saying that the more I look at it, the

more I see darkness, the more I see chaos and

death and all that kind of thing, the more I

actually see the fruits of Christianity coming up. So, in

other words, Christianity or religion loosely using the word religion

or the church has actually changed history. Okay, So when

you are sitting here, sitting there rather, you cannot deny

that you are part of this rich history of world changes.

All right, be proud of that. And we are still

doing this. And because it's a very big statement from

a non believer, very big statement. So coming back to

where I've started, do you still agree that religion has

done more bad?

Maybe not? I don't know. Maybe there's more to discover. Okay,

Now let's.

Look at uh, let's geg out a little bit. Okay,

I did some I did some stats. Isn't it out

a little bit this morning?

Okay? Now? Will the world be better off without it?

So if you think about it that we right, Let's say,

if you go back in history and you wipe up

Christianity or wipe up religion altogether, will this will be

a better place today?

Okay?

If you did all that, we must see where has

the influence been all those years?

Okay?

And I did a bit of Nowadays I can do

research using notebook LM. It's a it's an AI tool

that you can put information and then they can curate

it to very nice infographics like that. So I thank

you AI for helping me do this. Okay, you can

take a picture of that and and look at it closely,

but I want to draw some some some things there.

I know it's a little too small for today on

on my computer it looks okay, but yeah, first to

fourth century, okay, religion or church, the church rather was

looking into a lot of social care, a lot of

charity work. In fact, in the sense of the equality.

You know, women in the olden days, they were not

really given the position that they are given like today. Right,

They were treated like possessions, they were like property.

Okay.

So in the first and fourth century, so women all rejoice, right,

they actually had more status after Christianity stepped in, Okay,

so be thankful for that.

Fourth to tenth century. You know, all.

These monasteries were there. They gave out free education, free

health care.

Okay.

The first hospitals were you know, we were brought in

or introduced by the church. And then in the eleven

and fifteenthenturies, just highlighting some of the things up there, okay,

universities also started by the church. Okay, higher education of course, hospitals,

care for leopards and all that. Again, the influences there,

the siecientific thinkers of the world, Galileo, you know all

those names, right, Newton, They're all Christians, do you know

that amazing stuff?

Right?

Mission expansion has moved towards closer to the century healthcare.

You know, anybody came from missionary school. I came from

missionary school. Right. They were all started by the church.

If they didn't do that, I think some of us,

even Malaysia as a whoe, may may be less.

Educated these days. Okay.

And of course in the twentieth century, you know civil rights,

you know Martin Luther King, you've heard of those names before,

Salvation Army, Will Vision, those organizations. All these are driven

by the Church at large, and of course many many

more examples like that.

So if you look back again, I.

Think the church or religion as a whole probably did

some good, not as how people perceive it, but perhaps

people have forgotten what the church have done, and then

also forget what the church rule is to be in

the years ahead of us. The plot essentially okay, now,

behavy a bit heavy, right, right, But I hope you

understand you're part of something big and proud of that,

because what we're doing really is we're bringing the nature

of God's kingdom to earth. Isn't that what It's what

we're called to do, right, And when you do that,

of course these are the products of it. When we

do that, we're bringing light. But more important, we're bringing

love to a community that may not have it before.

But why do people still believe that, you know, we're

doing more bad than good?

Then that's the question I mean to address.

So what has happened? What have how have we messed up?

How have the stats skwed to so extreme that most

people believe that it's actually do more bad than good?

What has happened?

So if you like to read, I read, but I

read more nonfiction stuff, sorry, nonfiction stuff. My wife and

all that they devolve fiction fiction books, and my kids

as well. But this guy by the name of John Dixon,

he wrote a book called Bullies and Saints. Okay, and

then this whole book right centers around looking at history

of Christianity, and then they looked at the good and

the bad of the Christian movement of Christians in whole,

so saints who are the good things? And then bullies

as a best So it's a very balanced and honest

way of very structure.

We were looking at things.

So the book argues that yes, Christianity did some bad,

We did some harm. There was some violence, there was

abuse even church. So these days we'll probably have some

of these things as well. There were corruption, et cetera.

But in the major in the overall, they also did

a lot of good law, charity work, hospitals and things

that we just we just covered education, human rights, et cetera.

So there's the good and the badler But the more

important thing is that one thing he readized that people

are stuffed up or other messed up is that they

have deviated away from the original design.

That means to say they've moved away from look at

Jesus himself.

Okay, now what I mean by that that means the

closer you look at it, people are doing what they

do because it's hand hand handed down uh, and and

they forget the core of it or the drive, the

main care of it, which is love. Now, one way

to put put put uh or illustrate this is you

you all know very famous classical composers, right. Those compositions

were designed in such a way that when it's played

to perfection, it will be embracing the original composers. Uh,

you know music, right, But let's say if we are

torne deaf. I'm not saying that. I mean we've very

seen some even bands sometimes tone deaf.

Right. Now, if you're tone.

Deaf, you will try your best, and you will probably

think that you're doing the right thing as the composer intended,

but you're playing something totally different.

Okay, And this tone deafness, right, can actually screep in.

I mean to say, if we are tone deaf followers

of Christ, even though we think we are doing exactly

the same as the original composer intended, things like you

know I mentioned earlier, corruption, racism, even power abuse and

all that can creep in because why we forget what's

the core thing that we're supposed to be focusing on,

the core thing of all these products that we just

mentioned is actually God's love. And the question is are

we applying God's love in the midst of doing all

this even when you're serving, are you applying God's love?

And this is the warning here?

Okay, so.

Back to this question. Religion fails why probably because of lovelessness. Okay, Now,

before you think that are we less? Does it apply

to me, I think I got lovels, I got love

to give. The second thing I mentioned just now was

that when we are distanced as disciples. What I mean

by that, you know, you ever seeing people hurt? Right,

why do they distance itself? Because the church can sometimes

be a little bit hurt is when loveless happens, that

means there's no love at all. And then the second

thing is that the disciples themselves has distance or being disconnected,

being torn deaf, like I mentioned earlier, to the origin design.

And then this is where Matt Tew twenty six reminds

us of the importance of the love. And I'll explain,

but I'm just laying out the groundwork to understand that

if you're not careful, we can be even doing church

without realizing that we're doing it in.

A loveless manner.

Every so far, I know it's a very heavy introduction,

and this is where I'm going to then jump in

to just three points and I'll let you go. Okay,

so far, Okay, Now let's look through this. Okay, Now,

what is the tragedy. The tragedy, of course I mentioned

is the tragedy of lithless religion or loalthless Christianity. So

I got a little exerpt at the bottom there. When

love disappears, faith becomes hollow. And we all know what

this is, all right, And of course I'm going to

circle back to matt Matthew uh or but before that,

have you heard of Gandhi before this?

This person Gandhi? Did you know that Gandhi?

He was aside from the things that he does his

his he's a lawyer.

He's educated in Britain. In his early days. Uh.

And of course he became a political activist, a peaceful kind.

Now some of you may know this.

When he was growing up, he also studied the Gospels,

all right, Uh, Matthew, Mark Luke and and all that.

And there's also documented a story about him also attending

the church. Okay, now just to give you a be

a background he was in this when he read the Gospels.

He was very fascinated about how the Gospel actually gave

a different perspective of the cast system in India. Heybe

I know what the cart system is in India. If not,

I'll just briefly talk about it. So the cart system

is this hierarchy social hierarchy system whereby based on how

you were born into you have a name, and then

that name determines where you stand in the social hierarchy.

And even in Sri Lanka did have the same as well.

Okay.

But he was so excited and so fascinated that when

he thought he found a cure to this just by

reading the gospels. Okay, but if you do not know

the cart system, I'm just gonna put up something on

the screen.

Oh you already have it there, thank you. Okay.

So there's this few carts brahmins. I'm not going to

mention the names because I'm gonna butcher it. But you know,

I've got a friend whose name is Nair okay, and

you probably see a lot of our Indians into this

generation also have some of these names there because they

historically is all there. Right, So those are the warriors

and rulers. We've got the viisias, I think that's how

you pronounced it, skilled workers. You have the sudra, who

is the unskilled, and they will be doing a lot

more simple, simple things, you know. And then there's the

no class, the outclass. You know the expression paria that

we call paria the pariahs. That is the the last

one that no class, not even any class at all,

and they will be uh, you know, destined to to

to to you know, pick up rubbish and those kind

of things. So we've got the scholars, priests, rulers, kings

and all that. Uh.

Skilled workers would be uh, I guess people who do.

Uh you know, things that matters more, traders, merchants, et cetera.

And then you've got unskilled okay, uh and then the

lower no class. And so you can understand why he's

trying to get out of the system, because once you're

born in it, it doesn't it doesn't mean that if

you have any value or there's any merit in your life,

you can't do anything because you're already predestined to what

you become. And this is still a problem that happens

till today. Right, although that's why their names are very long, right.

And so you're born into it and you remain in it.

So again back to Gandhi story, he was very excited

because this is a new way of looking at it.

He thought that, oh, maybe Christianity's answers to this.

So he, after reading the Gospels, he walked into a

church and that's what happened. He was actually turned away

by one of the hospitality teams that Ashura. He says that,

oh sorry, I think you need to go back to

worship with your people. Okay, so it's akin to somebody

walking in looking for but turned away because he was

trying to find out from the pastor oh wow, how

does this work? It's such a unique thing to me.

So then of course the story goes. Because of that incident,

he has never stepped into church again. In fact, he

remained a Hindu till his death. Okay, raise sad story,

raise sad story.

But you know he.

Said, he said that if Christianity or Christians have a

cast system on their own, I might as well just

remain a Hindu for life.

No different, no different.

And again before we start judging and say that, hey,

we're not like that, right, but you know it can

creep in. And what has crept in loveless lovelessness because

we do not understand what we are called to do.

We're called to love people regardless of background. So they

missed the plot. Luk, they lost the plot rather and

because of the religious things that they're focused on, they

miss love. And again, before we say that we start

to judge and say this will not happen here. Let's

just use the rest. We're looking at it now. We

all do Sundays. We're very familiar with Sundays. How Sunday

runs totos or you're regulars here. You come in, you know,

you mingle, you have your coffee, you have some songs

that you enjoy singing, you praise the Lord and all that,

and then I don't know, you say hello to a

few people and then we receive a word and then

we yeah, let's go home.

We're done now.

The question is there a danger that you could have

done all that without any love involved at all?

Could happen? You know why?

Because it becomes routine, It become so familiar that it

becomes emotion.

And that's the danger here.

When somebody walks in, a newcomer walks in, and we

have newcomers right from time to time. There are two

responses to a newcomer. Right, you can like, hey, poster

with a new guy, law yeah, or it could be hey,

can I go and I rush out a new guy

and with a rush out shake his hand, welcome him

because he's the person that we're waiting for. He's our

v v I P as we always say, right, but

what came are we on? Because the second scenario is

one that's driven out love, and that's what you just

would do. He would just go out for the for

the ones that's seeking. But sometimes we are like, oh,

you know, it's just my coffee is reading for my coffee.

You know I was saying that. But what compels us

do all that really is love? But we can sometimes

forget all that even as we are serving, even as

we're doing things. And let me encourage you, you know,

every one of you. I want to commission you to

be ex hosts every single week, right, the host, the

host leader will be like, hey, yeah, but this this

is our role. We should be excited, we should be Okay,

let's new this. This guy's knew, this lady's knew. And

you sit next to the person right we said this

visitor guide thing?

Right? Uh heay? Have we forgotten what is? Why? Why

what are we doing? Church? It's not just a few

good kinds of things? Right?

Everybody is involved, right, because why that's how we demonstrate

love of Christ.

Right.

So yeah, let's come back to the scriptures. Now, this

coming back to magic trans sixt So Now the corrupt

religiously just don't like Jesus. Right, Why did you think

that they shun him? The verse came put the worst

back up?

Uh?

Why do you think they didn't like him? Because they

feel threatened when Jesus came. Jesus was there and they

want him to put We want to put him to

death because they fear that Jesus is taking away their power.

Let me explain why why? Uh, you know this perception happens.

You see in that time where he was brought to uh,

you know Caiaphas before even then you know Caiaphas and

the other guy before that. In another verse, there's this

guy called an Okay who's also another high priest. Now,

during that time high priests, Uh, how they were put

in position also taken down from positions is determined by

the Roman government because they were the I think the

government of that time.

Right.

So uh Anes was the high priest that was taken

down and then replaced by Caiaphas. But Andes was still

doing his high priest thing. I mean, even though it's

removed from position, he was still playing high priests. And

that's why if you look through the scriptures and John eighteen,

he actually went to before going to Caiaphus, he actually

went to a first Okay, and uh, now, what the

thing about I want you to understand is what do

these high priests do. They mainly handled affairs of temple sacrifice. Okay,

that's what they do. So why do I say they're

corrupt is because one was not empowered but still remain

in power. Right, and then just to give you extreme

temple sacrifice during those days, right, when you bring a

sacrifice to the temple, it has to be unblemish, right.

You know what these guys would do.

They will look at an unblemish thing and say, oh,

I think I see a mark at the side, the

one dot at the side of the sacrifice. And then

what do they do? They will say, actually have a

better calf, I have a better sacrifice. Of course they

will mark up the price and sell it to you.

And that's what they did, and that's why you can

see they are side gig right, their side hustle is

actually affected. When Jesus came in and didn't like what

he sees and then screams a corruptionary way, and then

of course you know what happens that he got very

angry because of that they are abusing their power. So

essentially the high prices of all Dodgila. You know, they

were doing the site gig thing. And then of course

you know these are the guys who so leading in

charge because why they are fit they lose the power.

They if they lose the power, then they will they

will lose their sight income and then you know the

rest is you understand life.

So that's the thing.

Jesus didn't like corruption in the House of God and

he wanted to clear it up. But more important than

corruption in the church, there was corruption in the hearts

as well. Right, And what I mean corruption Before you

say this won't happen, you know when we talked about

it at homes, right, corruption I mean when when when

something else takes the place of where God is supposed

to be, then what happens naturally you will step in

and become you take go that role.

And that's what we mean by corruption of the heart.

Okay, it can happen to anybody, anybody, So don't be

so quick to say that, oh you know, I'm on

this high horse.

It won't happen to me. It can happen to them.

It can happen to us as well, right, because corruption

can creep in and when it gains control is then

when Christ will lose control. Okay, And and that's why

the religious leaders didn't like Jesus, because one he called

them out for the corruption in the church itself, he

also called them out for the corruption their hearts. And

that's the problem there. So again let's be very careful this.

The second thing that they didn't like him, or why

they put him to death, is because Jesus claimed to

be God. We know that, right, And of course they

quote scriptures and say, hey, you know, how can he

say is God? In deuter our men they only say

there's only one God, right, There's only one God. And

of course we know that when Jesus claimed that he's God,

he's saying there's one of the trinity, right, not the

one and true God. So it's almost catching him on

a technicality to say.

That, oh, because of death. Then they put him to death.

And we again can falld to death trap as well,

because sometimes we act that this whole monotis is what

they call it, that means the only one true God.

We can't also ford the trip because some we can

be putting ourselves in that position, because as I mentioned earlier,

as we learn your homes, the one true person that's

supposed to be, you know, having our hearts is actually God.

But sometimes we can take that place. And therefore, who

needs God? If it's not you always say this, if

it's not, If it's not a lot of all, he's

a lot of none. So we have to be very

careful with this. So again what has happened here We

have lent religion or even practices become loveless, and this

is where all these things come in. And then you

push God out of the church, out of our hearts,

and in that process as well, you also push peopouts.

People are usually hurt, right is when there's no love there,

and that's why they get push our church. So a

loveless religion or a loveless church not only pushes people away,

it pushes God our church. So sometimes godways like you

do you, I give up worady on you. And that's

a scary thing. And you know, religion actually doesn't harm people,

that is what I'm trying to say here. But sometimes

it's the people who bring in or lose loveless, lose

love and This is where the danger becomes in and

then then it starts to do a bit more harm. No,

no matter how well or how right your doctrine is right,

without love right, you would actually start you will not

focus on building. But sometimes you won't risk destroying in

the process, even when you're doing the right things. And

this is why even Paul, when he says this in

Firse Corinthians, I'm going to paraphrase a little bit.

You know.

He says that if I speak in tongues of men

of angels, you can do amazing things. And what do

you say after that? But without love you are just

a resounding gong and a clan symbol. Every I read

this verse, right, I always think of the monkey, who

is this clanging and banging? Yeah, God, even you're doing

the things that you worship, leading or whatever, you're doing this,

you know, if you're not coming in from perpective love,

And that's a scary thing. So I say, it's a

very subtle thing. Some this we think that only the

drama are very obvious cases.

You see, No, it can creep in.

So question is are we coming to taking this whole

religion thing with lovelessness and if if you recognize this problem,

then I think we ought to do something about it.

Okay, every thinking so far, all right, I.

Know it's a little bit different than what you're used to,

but I'm like this, I'm a I'm a fat guy,

so I look through facts. But yeah, this is the

tragedy of the first thing. Okay, Now, second second point

I wanted to bring out, and I'm going to end

very sooner.

Reokay.

We always talk about the failure of the disciples here,

and we always focus on the failure of judas.

Why does Judus.

Always get the who is the bad guy the main

the guy always gonna everything, like essentially always get the

bad rep you know, But if you look at it

very carefully, right, Peter also deserves a little bit of reprimanding, essentially,

And we know that.

Now.

Anybody heard of Dante's Inferno. When I shad this in

one thirty, They're like, oh, it's a game, Yes, it

is a game, but it's based The twenty ten action

game was actually based off of literature, a poetry actually

that is uh talking about you know, the the divide,

the journey between heaven all the way down till hell.

Okay, and I've got a little picture. Okay. By the way,

all these.

Are not not something I endorsed. It's not biblical, it's

not scriptural, but it's just something interesting of what literature portraits.

And this is allegedly dunting self holding the poetry. Okay,

and up there is heaven, and then in the inverse

that means below earth can we go to? The next

light shows the extra nine circles that comes down to

the very bottom. That means it's like levels, and depending

on how bad you messed up in life, you have

different levels that you are sent to.

Okay, so I.

There are these very graphics, so I put a QUTC

one there. Okay, you know, things like last Gluttony and

all that. Your level two, level three, if you involving fraud,

your level eight, and all the way down there is

level nine. Okay, and guess what Judas was mentioned in

the poetry that he's actually in level nine. Now that

down here is actually this is what they call a

frozen or what he portrays as a frozen lake. So

you play the game or so you know, Okay, the

frozen lake right is where Judas is.

Actually hanging out with Satan and it.

Guess what's happening that he's tormented day and night tormented

and there's two other people there, uh, Brutus and Cassius.

This are the killers of Judas Caesar. So it's interesting

that they put the three amy goes down there with

Satan and Peter is not there. I mean, I mean, yeah,

so so interesting something outside the biblical references and all

that Juda's name is still appear in literature.

Okay, so again, why is this crazy?

And I'm not endorsing all this, but it is just

so so for fun, but even the non religious people

think that Judas is.

Meant to be there.

It's interesting, right, but do you realize that that both

Peter and Judas, right, they pretty much did the same thing.

Let me explain why. Okay, next light, Oh thank you.

So these are some similarities between the two. They both

betray Jesus, right, Peter denied Jesus three times? Right, you

read about it in John nineteen. And then of course

you know Judas betrayed Jesus with the Kisler Okay, kiss

of death.

Both gave into human weakness as well. Now what do

you mean by that?

You know, Peter, I remember remember when Jesus said, get

behind me, Satan. Sorry that there's the next part, Get

behind me Satan. Right, he calls Peter Satan. If you

ever have a nickname, right, I hope you know, get

called Satan, you know, instead.

Of like get behind me, o it, you know, get

behind me. The s name is very scary.

So the third one that says that both of them

have been used by Satan.

Right.

And of course Peter, sorry, Judas, you know, Satan was

you know, within him when he betrayed Jesus. Both then

gave to human weakness. I skip that just now. One

was giving out of fear men. He denied Jesus because

he was fearing to be identified. I mean, before you

think that that's what happened to me. But sometimes we

are like that. You're shy to say we are who

we are. Right, and Peter did that. Judas of course

gave into money, regretted it at the end, but too late.

Right now.

Both of them felt deeply remorse and shamed. But one

led to repentance and subsequently will have led to redemption.

But Judas despair led him to suicide. Yep.

And then the other commonality is that Jesus predicted the

failure over them. Remember he predicted Jesus sorry, Peter did

nine just three times and likewise Judas also sorry. Jesus

also predicted Judas this betrayal. Right, so a lot of

the same, same but different same same as in what

they did, but different outcomes at the end. See one

was put into level nine. Put thing, you know, very

poor thing. But why do we do that? So if

you didn't catch any of that, right, the key take

home message from this is that we will definitely fail

and we're humans, right, But it's not whether or if

you fail or when you fail, but what do you

do that changes the outcome? You see the two of

them right next line. Peter had failure, he repented and

Jesus was ready to restore. Judas had failure, he feild

in despair and then of course it led to destruction.

So similar starting point, but different outcomes at the end.

And this is the thing. Repentance is actually a gift.

It's not meant to be a burden, but sometimes we

see it as a burden. Right again, we learned that

at home. It's not too long ago as well, is

to understand recognize sin and then you repent from it,

and she's meant to be a gift, not to condemned.

But sometimes you look at it. Oh you know, I cannot.

So if you ever feel that you feel Jesus this week,

welcome to the party. I feel Jesus every day. I

feel Jesus yesterday as well. But you know, I know

that Jesus is there with open arms. His mercies is

new every morning. And that's why I can carry on

another day. Why because I recognize his love. And then

I have to share that love as well to others

because you to remind them, Hey, it's not too late.

There's still hope. You know.

Matthew five reminds us that blessed are the poor in spirit, right,

so recognize his mercies on you every morning. He's always

made a way to come back to restoration. And I

hope that we understand this. And I'm going to rush

because I'm running out of time ready. The last one

I wanted to focus on is the living, willingness of

a silent savior. Remember I started off by reading and saying, hey,

how come this Jesus business?

He just kept silent.

Like I said earlier, it's very natural for us to defend,

but silence is not a sign of bigness. It's actually

a sign of love, and explained to you in a

bit the scriptures again, next line and I'm gonna land ready.

Can you notice here you have said so? He gave

no answer. Jesus made no reply.

You know, Pilot at that moment, right, I can sort

of imagine his face is probably very like Bamboozo. It's like,

what's happening here? Throw off his off his God? Why

is he not saying anything? If he's innocent, the most

natural thing, you know, you'll definitely say something right, And

Pilot probably also thought, you know this guy's all I

know they're framing you. I know these are all made

up lies. Why don't you say something? I know you're

no harm to the empire. Why if you said nothing?

So it's actually constantly prodding Jesus right to try to

also help Jesus in the same some sense. But Jesus

remain predominantly silent. All he said was yes, I'm king,

that's it. The rest as you say so, or he

kept quiet. I shown a bit of running recently. I've

been running for about fifty kilometers a week. And when

you do running right, you have nothing to do but

just to reflect and think. And this whole thing about

him remaining silent got me thinking. Right, it's a very

strange response, but it also reminded me. You know, the

story of C. S. Lewis, and where as serious Lewis,

the book is a children's book. By the way, I

admit I didn't read the book. I watched the Thisney

movie easier that way. So that's the children's original book

and then the the Hollywood Fight version of it. But

it is the story of the gospel, and he made

it very accessible to the children, right, So of course

you know the story here, uh, it talks about portrays,

just crucifiici crucifixion, It talks about the white witch was

supposed to represent the Satan uh. And then of course

there's Aslan as Aslan, Aslan the lion, right lion Judah

to repenty Jesus. And in that story there are four kids.

One of the kids had mind messed up, right, and

then the queen wanted to then take his life because

that's the law of the time, all right, And then

what did then what did the lion do? If you

read very carefully or already you watched the movie very carefully.

He actually just remained silent, just like in the story,

just like in the verses that we read. Even when

his mane was cut off before he was executed, he

still remained silent.

He just walked up.

And the queen at the end said this, you're giving

up life and saving none so much for love. You see,

love is the thing, the component, the gift of Christ

that sometimes we forget Aslan remains silent, or even in

our story, Jesus remains silent, not because it's weak, but

he recognizes that he is meant to fulfill a prophecy.

Was his prophecy, a zire for the tree. If you

read that, he was oppressed and afflicted. Yet he did

not open his mouth. So if he actually opened his mouth,

prophecy will not be fulfilled. So he knew he had

to just remain silent. And what does silence actually mean.

I'm taking the place I know because I know right

if Jesus atually open his mouth where he can see

all use sickness, I can see right through all your sins.

But I chose not to. He chose not to, and

all he did was just remain side because he knew

I'm going to be taking your place. Why?

Driven by love, guys, Love, and that's all that matters. Lastly,

two theologians said this, okay, Carson said this, jesus silence

is a demonstration that his kingdom does not need nor

does it rely in human advocacy.

It means you don't have to defend yourself. The truth

will prevail.

Right, He did not need to defend himself because the

truth did not need defending the judgment of men is temporary.

So last night, why did Jesus remain silent? One is

to fulfill the prophecy, the truth that's not need defending.

And lastly, Jesus recognizes that his role is to come

and save, and that's what he did, not to condemn,

but to save, how to love. So the silence, really, guys,

is love in action. So let me just close today

with just some questions that you may want to reflect.

If you look up on the screen there, have you

ever allowed religion to become loveless? Have you been doing

church by just doing the motion without meaning or it's

love compelling you to do it differently? And again, not

just Sunday church, but church is your people, your community.

How are you doing your Monday's, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursday, Fridays,

at workplace, at schools, et cetera. Has it become loveless

if you do not recognize it, obviously we will not

do anything about it. And lastly, even if we second

question is that even if we do see failures, hey,

remember God is there with open hearts and open minds.

He's not looking for Hey, a, I caught you you failed. No,

he is always opening his In fact, even in Judas

and also Peter, he's always there to write, I'm here

to redeem, I'm here to give you a second chance.

But maybe perhaps one of them did not choose the

right choice and that's why it led to that outcome.

So as I close, can I just invite you to

stand on your feet. I'm gonna finish off by praying

for you. So let me just remind you again that

Jesus love never fails, never ever ever fails us, despite

how often we mess upspite how people feel about Christianity,

that it's all not truth.

Right.

But one thing that we need to do, we need

to take ownership of, is really restoring or reviving or

putting back love where it belongs or where it should be,

and then I really believe the church at large, US, XPG,

X Church and beyond would be taken to another level.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

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that this week is going to be a good week.

I hit you God, bless