[0:00] Speak to us. Thank you very much. It's my privilege to be here among you, and we were determined that we won't go back to Nepal until we come to this land.
[0:16] And it is a really wonderful island, and we are enjoying. As you said, my name is Suraj Kasula, and I'm a final year preacher student.
[0:28] I'm a final year student at the Free Church College. I was brought up in a very orthodox Hindu family.
[0:39] At the age of 16, 17, I engaged myself doing all sorts of bad works. I was an alcoholic as well as a drug addict.
[0:53] We formed a gang, and I was a leader of that gang. And we often had deadly gang fights where many would get seriously injured.
[1:07] We were always ready for bloodshed. We relied on protection money for survival. You know, protection money, we were like mafia.
[1:21] We used if someone wants to run organization or company, they have to give us money. No one dared to speak against us, nor could anybody report to the police, because we had threatened them.
[1:37] For this reason, I felt I was a disgrace to my gods as well as to my people.
[1:53] I knew no mercy would be shown to me. For this reason, I pushed myself into darkness day after day. I was dying in my sins.
[2:05] I was making my way to hell. Since crime had become my satisfaction, I could not leave without committing them.
[2:16] Eventually, I was seized, red-handed by police, followed by imprisonment. In prison, I was brutally tortured by some policemen.
[2:31] As a result, my heart was absolutely filled with revenge. I wanted to kill those policemen who tortured me.
[2:41] As soon as I came out from the jail, I started to seek the best time to take my revenge. At the annual festival in Nepal, a riot was likely to break out.
[2:57] And during the riot, I searched those policemen who tortured me in the cell. I did not find them, but I randomly flung stones and bricks towards the police force, whole police force, almost all night.
[3:15] I was furious because they nearly killed me in the cell, because in Nepal, there is no human rights for criminals. Many policemen were injured, and they were bleeding by my attack.
[3:33] But they especially entrapped me. And around 50 policemen poured their fury on me.
[3:52] I nearly bled. I bled to die. I bled to death. Some kind policemen realized that I was dying, so they had to push back those who were killing me.
[4:07] Eventually, I was dragged to hospital. After some days, again, I was locked behind the bar. Even after all this disaster, there was no single change in my life.
[4:23] In school, I had many gang fights again. One of my friends was an evangelist. He dared to share the gospel with me.
[4:35] He told me that he told many things, and especially, I remember, he told me that Jesus can forgive all your sins. As a Hindu, cow is sacred for me, because in Nepal, cow is sacred, and they worship cow as goddess Lakshmi.
[4:56] For me, Christianity is a cow-eating religion, and this aroused my fury. I was very angry with him.
[5:07] I nearly knocked him down when he said, Jesus can forgive your sins. I tried to mess up with him. However, the phrase, Jesus can forgive your sins, stuck somewhere in my heart.
[5:25] I didn't know how. I was fond of music and musical instrument, and I knew in churches in Nepal, they have decent musical instrument, and my friend invited me, the same friend invited me to the church for the first time in Christmas.
[5:45] And I went to church because of decent music. This friend, and I absolutely enjoyed the music.
[5:56] I started going to church every Saturday. We have Saturday service in Nepal, not on Sunday, because on Sunday we don't have holiday. Every Sunday, every Saturday, I started going to church.
[6:11] Not because I was led by the Lord. Well, it was God's plan, but humanly speaking, I went just to see musical instrument and listen to music.
[6:23] And the minister told me more about Christ and his atoning sacrifice for sin. He gave me the Bible. After some months, I could hear a voice.
[6:36] I could feel a voice, someone speaking in my heart. Can I come in? However, I suppressed that voice, and I always took the sight of devil and resisted Christ.
[6:54] My mom, who is devout Hindu, she had already warned me beforehand not to embrace this cow-eating religion.
[7:05] I was so thankful to the Lord that he did not give me up, despite I resisted him and despised him.
[7:19] I didn't like Jesus, and I didn't like Christians. But God, who had known me before I was born, God, who had created me in my mother's womb, revealed and intervened in my hellish life.
[7:40] That was the time when I was, one night I was reading the Bible, again, not because I was humanly speaking, not because I was inspired, just I read as an ordinary book, as a simple literature.
[7:58] As I was reading from the Gospel of Matthew, suddenly something struck me that was unusual. Something unusual struck me.
[8:10] As I said, since my mind was occupied by Hindu theology, I knew Hindu God Krishna said like this. Let me quote from the Hindu scripture, Vedas chapter 4, verse 7.
[8:22] It says like this, Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, this is Krishna speaking. Krishna is a God of love, and he is believed as the incarnation of Vishnu.
[8:37] Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, that is India, and there is a predominant rise of irreligion, irreligion, at that time, I manifest and descend myself in order to deliver and rescue the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principle of religion, I reincarnate.
[9:04] And that's the word we have is avatar. In our language, avatar means reincarnation. Myself, I reincarnate myself million after million.
[9:16] So incarnation is well known to us. I heard many gods who love good people, but never heard a god who loves sinners and say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
[9:35] And again, if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them other cheek also. above all, I would never expect a god who would die for sinners.
[9:49] Having read the love of Christ towards sinners, I could make sharp distinction between Krishna and Christ. Krishna came into the world to destroy sinners, but Christ came into the world to save sinners.
[10:06] Krishna hates sinners, but Christ loves sinners and died for them. Christ said like this, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
[10:21] I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Once I came to know this, I felt that Jesus was ready to embrace me.
[10:37] Even I was a great sinner, he was ready to accept me. And after I came to this, I felt I was overwhelmed by the Lord.
[10:53] I experienced as if I was in the presence of a supernatural being. That night, I felt I was flying in the sky, you know, something I could not express in words, but only can feel.
[11:13] I felt my sins vanish in the exposure of Jesus' righteousness as if darkness vanishes and the exposure of light. I sensed peace from heaven being poured out into my heart and my darkened heart was enlightened by the light of the gospel.
[11:36] My heart was burdened by sin and darkness, but that night, I felt all wealth, all sins and burden were taken away immediately.
[11:53] A sinner like me who was firmly walking in the darkness has seen a great light. On him living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned.
[12:06] The light was not merely a rational or philosophical light. You know about Buddha, Buddha is a philosopher, he is a great philosopher, but he is not God.
[12:20] Buddha was born in our country and I knew the theology of Buddha, but he never claimed himself to be God. He was deified later on.
[12:31] He taught the great philosophy, but he is not God. And this light, I felt, was not a mere this rational or philosophical, great philosophical light, but this is the light of life.
[12:48] This is the light of life which Jesus freely gives to sinners. This time, I tried to resist because I hated Christianity, I hated Christians and I tried to resist, but God had overwhelmed me that I could not resist.
[13:09] I could not resist, he apprehended me. Instead, I burst into tears remembering his amazing love, amazing grace to a worse sinner like me.
[13:22] I was awakened, I was resurrected from the death of sin. Eventually, God changed my life and I gave up everything.
[13:34] I gave up fighting, I gave up smoking, drinking, and doing drugs and my gang was broken. and my villagers, my family, they all, they were very happy to see change in my life and I took baptism and I prayed to the Lord, Lord, you have given me a new life, that's why I am going to live my life forever to you.
[14:04] And after some years, I felt, I sensed the call from the, for the ministry and I wanted to study theology in USA but I was refused and I came to UK and I was, I studied travel and tourism in Ayrshire before and then I came to know Free Church College from Ayr Free Church, I went to Ayr Free Church and I went to Free Church College.
[14:29] and today I am in my final year at the college and I am hoping to do further study. Today I can say this, if God had not chosen me out of this sinful world, I would have been either killed or sentenced for life imprisonment.
[14:51] What I am today is what God has done yesterday. Tonight, you might be a person resisting the gospel like me.
[15:03] Please accept the gospel and be saved. You might be thinking that you are not very good to be a Christian. No, no.
[15:14] God came to save sinners like me. God is ready to embrace whoever you are. No matter how good you are or no matter how bad you are, I have made a good choice in accepting Christ as my Lord and my Savior and I have received life and I am not going to die in my sins.
[15:40] What about you? Have you made a right decision in your life? Let me read one Bible one verse from the Bible before I finish.
[15:52] Jesus said, I told you that you would die in your sins. If you do not believe that I am, you will indeed die in your sins.
[16:07] I am happy and I believe if I die I am going to heaven because I have received a new life in Jesus and in him I am made righteous, I am made holy and he has earned righteousness for me and he has given me freely and I am very happy that I have become a child of God.
[16:32] I was once in the darkness and brought into the light and I am going to spend my whole life to God. Thank you very much. Thank you to thank you for good