By Grace Through Faith

Superstar talk: Catch Joseph Prince's New Book. He's the real preacher, not like me, the ciplak one.

Many people struggles with the issue of faith, which is a non-issue to begin with. I blame the poor teachings throughout churches in Malaysia and the simple-minded Christians who attend them. What is a Christian if he goes to church week in and week out yet not seek His word to understand for the betterment of himself. As King Solomon put it, knowledge is good but wisdom is much better! Seek therefore wisdom and adore her for she shall give you long life and prosperity.


I want to momentarily stray from the text so that I may ask you to observe the fountainhead of our salvation, which is the grace of God. "By grace are ye saved" (Ephesians 2:8). Because God is gracious, therefore sinful men are forgiven, converted, purified and saved. It is not because of anything in them or that ever can be in them that they are saved. It is because of the boundless love, goodness, pity, compassion, mercy and grace of God. God is full of love, for "God is love" (1 John 4:8) God is full of goodness the very name "God" is short for "good".


I am very sure some of us have similar experience too. I too from day to day forgive those who sins against me for I am good. There is absolutely no other reason. Not one.


Remember this (the grace of God) that you may not fall into error by fixing your mind so much on faith which is the channel of salvation that you forget the grace which is the fountain and source of faith itself. Faith is the work of God's grace in us. We are saved through faith but salvation is by grace.


Faith must be true and sound. It must lead right up to God and come right down to ourselves so that it may become serviceable channel of mercy to our soul. Still, I remind you again that faith is only the channel or conductor, not the fountainhead. We must not look to it so much that we exalt it above the divine source of all blessing which lies in the grace of God. Never make a Christ out of your faith, nor think of it as if it were the independent source of our salvation. Our life is found in "looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2), not in looking to our own faith. By faith all things become possible to us. Yet the power is not in the faith but in the God in whom faith relies.


See then that the weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift. The Lord's salvation can come to us though we have only faith as a grain of mustard seed. Great messages can be sent along slender wires. The peace-giving witness of the Holy Spirit can reach the heart by means of threadlike faith which seems unable to sustain its own weight.


Therefore, think more of Him to whom you look than faith itself, you must look away even from your own looking and see nothing but Jesus and the grace of God revealed in Him.


Having said that, and having you understand it. I am now able to share with you regarding "what is faith", "how may faith be illustrated" and "why are we saved by faith". But that I will discuss in my next series of teachings. See you then.

Deliverance From Sinning

The heart is so hard, the will is so obstinate, the passions are so furious, the thoughts are so volatile, the imagination is so ungovernable, the desires are so wild, the google is so convenient. I would like to say a word or two to those who understand the method of justification by faith but who have a hard time refraining from sin. We can never be happy, restful or spiritually healthy until we become holy. We must get rid of sin, but how can we? Which reminds me of a quote from "Desperate Housewives", the father were saying to the mother about their son "He's 16 years old, take away his penis he'll still try to have sex".


I could believe that Jesus would forgive sin, but then my trouble is that I sin again and that I feel such awful tendencies to evil within me. As surely as a stone flung into the air soon comes down again to the ground, so do I, though I am sent up heaven by earnest preaching, return again to my insensible state. After all I am only human.


Salvation would be a sadly incomplete promise if it did not deal with this part of our ruined state. We want to be purified as well as pardoned. Justification without sanctification would not be salvation at all. It would be like calling a leper clean but leave him to die. It doesn't make sense.


Remember that the Lord Jesus came to take away sin in 3 ways. He came to remove the penalty of sin, the power of sin and last, the presence of sin. At once you may reach the second part - the power of sin may immediately be broken - and so you will be on the road to the third - the removal of the presence of sin. We "know that He was manifested to take away our sins" (1 John 3:5)


If however you are troubled about the power of sin and about the tendencies of your nature, as you well may be, here is a promise for you. Have faith in it, for it stands in that covenant of grace which is ordered and sure in all things. God, who cannot lie, has said in Ezekiel 36:26, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh."


You see, it is all "I will" and "I will." "I will give" and "I will take away". It mentions nothing about you.


The Lord knows very well that you cannot change your own heart and cannot cleanse your own nature. But, He also knows that He can do both. Hear this and be astonished, He can create you a second time, He can cause you to be born again. This is a miracle of grace but the Holy Spirit will perform it.


It would be good if I can stand under the Niagara falls and order the water to start flowing upstream. Nothing but the power of God could achieve that marvel. That would be equivalent to reversing the nature. But all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He can reverse the direction of your desires and the current of your life. Instead of going downward from God, He can make you go upward to Him.


A cat is a clean animal, it washes herself with it's tongue and paws. A pig on the other hand prefers to wallow in mud. Go teach a pig to clean itself and you'll have little success. It is a useless task. You may by force wash the swine, but it quickly runs to the mud again. The only way in which you can get a pig to clean itself is to transform it into a cat.


So it is with an ungodly man, you cannot force him to do what a renewed man does most willingly. You may teach him to set a good example, but he cannot learn the art of holiness because he does not want to. His nature leads him another way. When the Lord makes a new man of him, then all things bear a different mark.


It is not you that work but He who works in you. It is Him who gives you a new heart. If you yield yourself up to His divine working, the Lord will alter your nature. He will subdue the old nature and breathe new life into you. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will take the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.


Will you be perfectly holy? No, never will you be while on this fallen earth. But can change happen to you? Can it lead you at the right way, on the right path to a better life? Yes it can. Wherever the grace of God has appeared to a man, it has trained him to deny "ungodliness and worldly lust," and "live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2:12). It will do the same for you. What is the benefit of living a good life then? I don't know, ask those who had died of Aids through freesex. Ask them who rages war and kill, and steal and destroy humanity. I don't know, ask that son of a bitch who lied to you, who back stabbed you and made your life miserable. Ask your wife who committed adultery on you. I don't know but it seems to me that sin destroys more than it does to building lives. And it is neither my will nor God's to see your life ruined.


"I cannot make this change," say someone. Who said you could? The Scripture which we have quoted does not speak of what man will do, but of what God will do. It is God's promise, and it is for Him to fulfill His own commitments. Trust in Him to fulfill His Word to you, and it will be done.


"But how is it to be done?" What business is that of yours? Must the Lord explain His methods before you will believe in Him? The Lord's working in this matter is a great mystery. Oh, that you would believe it! Oh that you would do the gracious Lord justice to believe that he can and will do this for you, great miracle though it will be. Oh, that you will believe that God cannot lie! Oh that you would trust Him for a new heart and a right spirit, for He can give them to you! May the Lord give you faith in His promise, faith in His Son, faith in the Holy Spirit, and faith in Him. To Him be praise and honour and glory forever and ever! Amen.

The Just and The Justifier

This week will be the last of mine to talk about justification. If you are not convinced that the just shall live by faith, and only through faith can one be justified, I cannot help you. If you have followed me in my previous letters, including this one you should see a clear picture of how God has design a method to save and redeem us. This is the last piece of the puzzle of which I shall arrange in such an order that it may enlighten you in no other way than I intended to - impressively


We have seen the ungodly justified, now we come a step further to enquire, how can a just God justify guilty men? We shall find our answer in the words of Paul in Romans 3:21-25.


"But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past...."


If you had earlier lived a life without sin, and that your thoughts are as noble as that of God, you will still go to hell. I know this is a bad way to put it, for if you studied the book of Romans (Romans 5:14-17), it is plainly stated that we fell by the first Adam and this not of ourselves. It was Adam who sinned first and that we the descendants of him are all cursed as a result. For this you might think it is unfair. And the truth is really so, but only in this unfairness could I possibly explain how can a just God justify guilty men.


For it is such that we fell by the first Adam, it became possible for us to be recovered by a second representative. We are saved by Him who has undertaken to be the covenant Head of His people in order to be their second Adam. You see that before we had actually sinned, we had already fallen by our first father's sin. Therefore it became possible at the point of law for us to rise by a second Head and Representative. The fall of Adam left a loophole of escape, another Adam can undo the ruin made by the first. And that second Adam, is He who we call Christ.


It was because the Son of God, supremely glorious in His matchless person, undertook the vindication of the Law by bearing the sentence due to us. He did so that God is able to pass by our sin. The Law of God was more vindicated by the death of Christ than it would have been had all sinners been sent to hell. For the Son of God to suffer for sin was a more glorious establishment of the government of God than for the whole race to suffer.


Behold the wonder, Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf! There he hang on the cross, this is the greatest sight you'll ever see.


The more I look at the sufferings of the Son of God, the more I am sure that they must meet my case. Why did He suffer if it not take the penalty away from us? If, then, He took away by His death, it is surely taken. Those who believe in Him need not fear it. It must be that, since atonement is made, God is able to forgive without disrupting the basis of His throne. Conscience gets full answer to her tremendous question.


God will spare the sinner because He did not spare His Son. God can pass by your transgressions because He laid them upon Him. If God Himself bows before His own Law, what more can be done? There is more in the atonement by the way of merit than there is in all human sin by way of demerit.


What is it to believe in Him? It is not merely to say, "He is God and the Savior", but to trust Him wholly and entirely and take Him for all your salvation from this time forth and forever as your Lord. If you will have Jesus, He has you already. If you believe in Him, I tell you that you cannot go to hell, for then Christ's death would be in vain. A sacrifice cannot be made and then withheld from the one which it was given. If believing soul could be condemned, then why a sacrifice? If Jesus died in my stead, why should I die also?


Every believer can claim that the sacrifice was actually made for him. By faith he has laid his hands on it and made it his own, and therefore he may rest assured that he can never perish. The Lord would not receive this offering on our behalf and then condemn us to die. The Lord cannot read our pardon written in the blood of His own Son and then smite us. That would be impossible.


So now let us join hands and stand together at the foot of the cross and trust our soul once and for all to Him who shed His blood for the guilty. We will be saved by one and the same Saviour. If you perish trusting Him, I must perish too. What can I do to further prove my own confidence in the Gospel which I set before you?

It is God That Justifies!

I was 12 years old when I first came to Christ. Unlike some fortunate souls out there, no one prayed with me the sinners’ prayer. I followed my brother to church, I saw the preachers preached. Nothing really got into my mind. It wasn’t because I was too young to understand, it was because none of them were really good at what they were doing. Or at least, not to my standard. I was certain because 7 months later in the eve of a brand New Year, my brother was playing a sermon by a certain preacher. I overheard it and for the first time in my life I was actually listening to someone preaching. You’d have problem remembering what your pastor preached last week if it wasn’t good. But here I am remembering still bits of what I heard during then, that was 8 years ago.


I am not here to glorify any man but God, however in case you’re wondering who was the preacher that spoke to me. His name is on the picture above. And about my sinner’s prayer? I prayed it over on my own months later. Read the prayer from one of the sermon cassettes I was listening, they usually have it printed on the cover. Before that? Others just assumed I was Christian. I had the look. I also have the look of a rich man's son but that is irrelevant.


When I first became a Christian, I was stricken with a horrible sense of guilt which made my life miserable. No matter how hard I tried, living the so called “Christian life” was way too difficult. But I wanted to stand just in front of God. I do not want to sin like you do. I look at your life and it disgusts me sometimes I wonder why Jesus came to save you at the first place. But I have a problem, and the problem is that I am just like you. I watched the porn you watch, I spoke the language you speak, I have angered, I have lusted and I have fucked my life up just like some of you did to yours. Am I proud of it? No, not a second, I am not. But did I do it, yes, I fucked the world and in return, the world fucked me. So what happened then? Did I die and go to hell? You wished that I did at the first time I say the F word didn’t you? It is not proper for a Christian to speak foul languages, what more one that call his blog the superstarpastor. Pardon me for I had to, my humble nature had forbidden me to find other examples beside myself to demonstrate to you sin. You are too religous and I am too sinful. Which leads me to what I am going to teach today – It Is God That Justifies! It is God that make right! Not you, not your pastor, not your mother, but God.


Oh everything you’ve read until now was just the introduction. So get your cup of coffee. I could have taught this straight forward from the beginning but you will not have the revelation unless you can identify with it. Not everybody has a strong foundation to understand what I have to say. Thus it is important I give examples and share my experiences with you before I dive right into the Word of God.


If a person has greatly injured you. You can forgive him and I hope you will, but no third person can forgive him apart from you. If the wrong has done to you, the pardon must come from you. If we have sinned against God, it is in God's power to forgive, and He did just that.


Only God can justify the ungodly, and only He can do it to perfection. He casts our sins behind His back, He blots them out. He says that though they are sought after, they will not be found. With no other reason for it but His own infinite goodness, He has prepared a glorious way by which He can make scarlet sins as white as snow. Scarlet, is red. And then He says "Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more" (Hebrews 10:17)


You must understand that in the New Covenant, justice is not served to men but through Christ. In the old covenant under the law, Jesus had not come and acted as a mediator and a sacrifice for them. So when you read the bible and you see the sufferings of Job and you see God raining down fire from heaven to destroy men who had broken the law, you have to understand that during that time, during that dispensation, Jesus had not come to save. They were in the old covenant. When Moses brought the 10 commandments down from the mountain, the children of Israel made a golden calf of which they could worship. Immediately at the very first second they demanded for the law, they had broken the first one "thou shall hath no other gods beside Me", and 3000 people were strike to death on the spot. That was the old covenant. But do you also remember the day when Jesus ascended to heaven, and the Holy Spirit came to Peter and the disciples. Peter stood up and preached to crowd and at that moment, how many got saved? 3000 people. That number told us that a new dispensation has begun, we are the new covenant generation.


We are not now speaking of justice, nor of God's dealing with men according to what they deserve. If you profess to deal with God on Law terms, everlasting wrath threatens you, for that is what you deserve. Blessed be His name, He has not dealt with us according to our sins. But now He deals with us in terms of free grace and infinite compassion.


Perhaps you may not be able to forgive your fellow-man had he offended you as you have offended God. But you must not measure God's corn with your bushel. His thoughts and ways are much high above yours as I'll put it, it's impossible to teach a dog advance mathematics. We being the dog. God being the teacher. Never limit God with your little wisdom.


Isn't this a splendid thing - that none but God would think of justifying the ungodly, and none but God could do it. You self-righteous idiots might not be happy for a fact that salvation comes by so easily and forgiveness so freely. Let me asked you something, did the prodigals son, whom the father freely forgives all his iniquities had carnal intercourse with prostitutes? Towards the end of the parable in Luke, you would have your answer, the key word is "harlots".


"Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth" (Romans 8.33). If God has justified a man, it is well done, it is rightly done, it is justly done, it is everlastingly done.





Special Note: No, I have never used a curse word.......... in church.

God Justifies The Ungodly

If you are a Christian, and you have always believed that your good works are all that matter and it is your key to enter heaven. You have wasted your entire Christian life believing in a myth. And obviously you have not studied the bible well. You are probably a half past six Christian who goes to church and listen to whatever your pastor say. You never check the bible for yourself, your foundation in the Word is shaky. To you my dear, a 15 minute conversation is all I need to collapse your entire Christian faith. But I have not come here to destroy, I've come here to teach, to preach and to ensure that your feet are grounded on solid rock and not sinking sand. So follow with me as I show you from the Word of God. Judge my word, check it with your bible and bring it to the test for I have come to reveal to you, nothing short of the truth and may the truth sets you free.


"To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Romans 4:5)


Are you surprised that there is such an expression in the Bible? I have heard men who hate the doctrines of the cross bring charge against God, that He saves wicked men and receives to Himself the sinners of sinners. The scriptures plainly states it "it is Him who justifieth the ungodly". He makes those who are unjust just. He forgives those who deserve no favor. Did you think that salvation was for the good and God's grace was for the pure and holy who are free from sin?


Perhaps you think that if you were excellent then God would reward you. Maybe you have thought that because you are not worthy, there could be no way for you to enjoy His favor. You must be somewhat surprise to read a text like this: "Him that justifieth the ungodly." I do not wonder at your surprise. For with all my familiarity with the great grace of God, I never ceased to wonder at it either.


We according to our natural reliance on good works for our salvation, are always talking about our own goodness and our own worthiness. We stubbornly believe that there must be something in us in order to win the notice of God. Now God who sees through all deceptions, knows that there is no goodness whatsoever in us. He says that "there is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). He knows that "all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). Therefore the Lord Jesus did not come into the world to look after goodness and righteousness with Him, but to bestow them upon persons who have none of them. He came, not because we are just, but to make us so; HE JUSTIFIES THE UNGODLY.


Now, observe further that it must be so. The salvation of God is for those who do not deserve it and have no preparation for it. If any of you are perfectly righteous, you desire no justifying. In any case, I have no gospel to preach to the self-righteous, no, not a word. Jesus Christ Himself did not come to call the righteous, and I am not going to do what He did not do. Infinite wisdom never attempts that which is unnecessary.


To make him just who is just is no work for God. That is labor for a fool. But to make him who is unjust just, that is work for infinite love and mercy. To justify the ungodly is a miracle worthy of God, and it is.


"They who are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick" (Mark 2:17) In other words, only the sick needs a doctor. If you feel you are spiritually sick, the Physician has come into the world for you.


Pardon must be for the guilty just as forgiveness must be for the sinful. This is the reason you can be saved. Because you realize that you are a sinner. I would encourage you to believe that grace is ordained for such as you. It is true that Jesus seeks and saves that which is lost. He died and made a real atonement for real sinners. If you are undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving, you are the sort of man for whom the Gospel is ordained and arranged and proclaimed. God justifies the ungodly.


The inn of mercy never closes its door on such, neither on weekdays nor on Sunday. Our Lord Jesus did not die for imaginary sins. His blood was spilled to wash out deep crimson stains which nothing else can remove. May I, therefore urge any who have no good thing about them - who feels there is nothing good in them, to firmly believe that our gracious God is able and willing to take them without any condition. He is willing to forgive them spontaneously, not because they are good but because He is good.


Come in your disorder. I mean, come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you are, leprous, filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come, though you hardly dare to hope for anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over you. Come and ask the Lord to justify another ungodly one. Why should He not? Come, for this great mercy of God is meant for such as you.


Special Note: Now if anyone of you would like to receive all that Jesus has done for you and make Him your Lord and Saviour, please say this prayer. Yes, you do not have to run into a church altar and knee before men to receive salvation. Right in this blog, this is valid. God hears you right now. If you are willing, pray this in your heart and you shall be saved.

Lord Jesus, thank you for loving me and dying for me on the cross. Your precious blood washes me clean of every sin. You are my Lord, my Saviour and my God, now and forever. I believe that You have rose from the dead and that You are alive today. God, You are my Father and I am Your child because of Jesus Christ. Thank you for filling my heart with your peace and joy in Jesus' name. Amen.

I welcome you to our family. And if I have a church I would invite you to my service. But I am in KL now and I do not have a permanent platform. If you are in Kuching, I am a member of SIB GRACE. But due to my unorthodox, unconventional and groundbreaking preaching style. Everything I say here does not represent SIB Grace. You have a problem, you come to me face to face. Few people had done so and those who did are still in therapy. God bless you richly! Enjoy your salvation and this is not it! There are more to come and I can only give praise to God. Get ready to count your blessings! All glory be to God!