በኮቪድ-19 እና በዓለም አቀፉ የመላላኪያ አገልግሎት መዛባት ምክንያት ‹ነጻ የታተመ መጽሐፍ አገልግሎታችንን› ለጊዜው አቋርጠናል፡፡
በዚህ ሁኔታ ምክንያት በዚህ ጊዜ መጽሐፎቻችንን ለእናንተ መላክ አንችልም፡፡
ይህ ወረርሽኝ በቅርቡ እንዲያበቃና የፖስታ አገልግሎት እንዲጀምር ጸልዩ፡፡
ይህ ወረርሽኝ በቅርቡ እንዲያበቃና የፖስታ አገልግሎት እንዲጀምር ጸልዩ፡፡
Subject 11 : The Tabernacle
[11-26] The Spiritual Meaning of The Silver Sockets Used for the Tabernacle (Exodus 26:15-30)
(Exodus 26:15-30)
“And for the tabernacle you shall make the boards of acacia wood, standing upright. Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the width of each board. Two tenons shall be in each board for binding one to another. Thus you shall make for all the boards of the tabernacle. And you shall make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side. You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons. And for the second side of the tabernacle, the north side, there shall be twenty boards and their forty sockets of silver: two sockets under each of the boards. For the far side of the tabernacle, westward, you shall make six boards. And you shall also make two boards for the two back corners of the tabernacle. They shall be coupled together at the bottom and they shall be coupled together at the top by one ring. Thus it shall be for both of them. They shall be for the two corners. So there shall be eight boards with their sockets of silver—sixteen sockets—two sockets under each of the boards. And you shall make bars of acacia wood: five for the boards on one side of the tabernacle, five bars for the boards on the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the side of the tabernacle, for the far side westward. The middle bar shall pass through the midst of the boards from end to end. You shall overlay the boards with gold, make their rings of gold as holders for the bars, and overlay the bars with gold. And you shall raise up the tabernacle according to its pattern which you were shown on the mountain.”
The boards of the Tabernacle where God dwelt were all overlaid with gold. For each board of the Tabernacle to stand upright, God told Moses to make two silver sockets. The spiritual meaning of placing two silver sockets under each board is as follows. In the Bible, gold refers to faith that does not change in time. That these sockets of silver were placed under the boards overlaid with this gold means that God has given us two gifts that guarantee our salvation. In other words, it means that Jesus completed our salvation from sin by being baptized and shedding His blood.
What is absolutely necessary for us to receive this faith like pure gold that enables us to become God’s people and part of His Kingdom is the faith that believes in the baptism of Jesus and His blood of the Cross. The gospel of the water and the Spirit that God has given us to blot out all our sins is the gift of faith that is absolutely necessary for us. Because we cannot help but sin everyday and be bound to hell, we cannot make our sins disappear through our own efforts, strength, or will.
For us to blot out all our sins, instead of relying on our own strength, we must believe only in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and only then can we be saved from our sins. It is right for us to believe in thankfulness that the Lord has given us the gift of salvation through the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit. When we believe in the gift of salvation made of these two components of the gospel, seeing this faith of ours, God makes us His perfect people. Therefore, if you still have any sin in your heart, you have to be wholly saved by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God has given us as His gift to save us.
Many people living in this world want to become God’s own people. To become God’s people, we must first reflect ourselves with the light of God’s Word and examine ourselves accordingly. Then, we will find that we are all sinners who have nothing to protest against even if we were to be condemned for our sins. We are the ones who sin everyday against the Law. Our true selves are such that we cannot help but lead our lives permeated in unrighteousness and sin, waiting for our judgment. Given this, how could we become God’s own people? We have thus come to realize the need to receive the two gifts of salvation that God has given us in order for us to become His own people.
To us, the Lord is the Savior who has blotted out all our sins with the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen. The baptism that Jesus Christ received from John the Baptist and the blood that He shed on the Cross have completely saved us from all our sins. These two elements are indispensible to our salvation. Therefore, no one can become God’s people without believing in this Truth.
Through these two gifts of salvation that God has given us, we can truly become His people. That we have become God’s children has absolutely nothing to do with our own good deeds. That we have been saved and delivered from all our sins and all the condemnation of sin is entirely possible through the works of Jesus’ baptism and bloodshed. In other words, it is by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we have become God’s children. Our faith that is like pure gold has been built by receiving these gifts of God.
In making the Tabernacle, God placed two silver sockets under its every board. This truth tells us that Jesus Christ came to this earth, took upon all the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist at the Jordan River, and bore the condemnation of sin by carrying these sins to the Cross and dying on it. The baptism that Jesus received and the blood that He shed on the Cross are the gifts of the definite remission of sins.
You and I who are living in this age must know our own sinful selves. And those who know themselves before God must realize that because the Lord really came to this earth, took upon their sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, and died on the Cross, He has saved them from all their sins and condemnation. When we believe in the gift of salvation and receive our remission of sins like this, then we become God’s own children before Him. It is because the Lord has saved us with His baptism and the blood of the Cross that we have been delivered from sin; if He had not done so, we could then never completely free ourselves from sin on our own. Therefore, we cannot but believe and confess that it is 100 percent by the grace of God that you and I have become God’s people and the righteous.
The silver sockets for the boards of the Tabernacle show us that our remission of sins is entirely a gift of God fulfilled through the blue, purple and scarlet thread. It is because God has bestowed on us the grace of salvation with the blue, purple, and scarlet thread that we can be wholly saved by faith. Only those who are poor in spirit, who admit that they cannot avoid but be bound to hell for their sins, are qualified to receive the salvation of God given through the blue, purple and scarlet thread. Only those who grieve and mourn over themselves, that they are destined to hell, are qualified to receive the gift of salvation given by God. Those who believe in the truth manifested in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen, the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God the Father has given through Jesus Christ, can be saved from all their sins to become the children of God. Only those who receive the gift of salvation given by the Lord are able to enjoy all the blessings of God. This is a qualification that can be attained only by those who know that they are bound to hell for their sins and ask God for His mercy. This is indeed the case.
That we have been saved from all our sins is because of the gift of salvation that God gave to us. This is why Ephesians 2:8 says, “By grace you have been saved.” That we have become God’s children is also because we have believed in this gift of salvation. Given this, what is there for us to boast of? Far from boasting, we cannot but only praise God, confessing that it is not we but God who has saved us.
Frankly speaking, we could never have been saved from all our sins, had God not saved us with the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen. The truth contained in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen is made of the power of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It reveals the Truth of salvation that Jesus Christ was born unto this earth, took upon all the sins of mankind once for all by being baptized by John at the Jordan River (Matthew 3:13-17), died on the Cross, and rose from the dead again. Because the grace with which God has saved us is so perfect, it is more than enough to make us, who are insufficient in the flesh and filled with sin, perfect by faith, to raise us up as the pillars of the Kingdom of God, and to turn us into the people of His Kingdom.
Do You Still Not Know Who You Really Are Even As You Believe in Jesus?
Nowadays hundreds of TV channels are available for viewing from cable or satellite TV. Running for 24 hours a day, these channels carry their own specialty-programs and fascinate the viewers continuously. Among these channels, the most commercially successful specialty-channels are, above all, adult channels. There are many such adult channels where all kinds of pornographic materials are available for viewing by simply flipping through channels. As a result, so many people of this age are indulging themselves into such pornographic films. What is worse is that such people do not regard their lewd behaviors as sins anymore.
However, the Bible points out that fornications, adulteries, and lewdness, which come out of every human being, are clearly sins (Mark 7:21-23). Are we not then all filled with sin? God repeatedly said that the properties intrinsic to us are sinful, that the wages of sin is death, and that sin brings forth death when it is fully grown. But do we really admit this? How is it? Can we escape from the properties of sin that are intrinsic to us by closing our eyes and covering our ears? We cannot help but commit all kinds of sin with the imaginations of our minds and thoughts. No matter how much we tell ourselves that we have to move away from such sins, and no matter how hard we try to do so, they are all in vain. In fact, our flesh is such that not only can we never become perfect saints who commit no carnal sin, but we actually have affinity to sin with no desire to be distanced from it. The flesh and hearts of mankind are always far removed from the things that are holy, and it is true that they not only want to be closer to sin, but they want to commit even greater sins.
Each one of us is a lump of sin and iniquities. We are therefore decadent in our fundamental essence. The obscenities that we might have glimpsed are burnt into our memories for a long time, and the lingering remnants disturb our minds. This is because the heart of every human being is nothing more than a lump of sin in its fundamental essence. Therefore, we must honestly admit such traits of ourselves before God as masses of sin. And it is wise for us to recognize that we are bound to hell by the righteous judgment of God and ask Him for our salvation. Did Napoleon Bonaparte not say, “Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools”? Many Christians are trying to show off their own righteousness, as if they can avoid sinning at all for themselves. But this is like mounting a great challenge against God. Such a defiant faith leaves them stuck as evil ones who refuse to receive the righteousness of God and reject even the love of salvation that He has given us.
Do you consider yourselves as good? Do you think on your own that you have a strong sense of justice that cannot tolerate any unrighteousness at all, under any circumstances and in any form? Do you think that you are somehow righteous before God, just because you keep God’s commandments in your heart everyday and try to obey and act upon them out in your lives? If someone does not know the gift and grace of salvation that God has given him and just tries to act righteously even as his heart still remains sinful, all that he is doing is just pretending to be righteous with the righteousness of filthy human beings. The goodness of such people cannot enable them to become the pillars of the House of God, and they are just a useless lump of sin.
In the countries of Eastern Asia, many learn the teachings of Confucius from birth, and so they try very hard to put these teachings into practice. In the West, on the other hand, Catholicism or Protestantism has dominated its religious landscape, and so many Westerners have tried hard to keep the Law of God. But regardless from where they spring forth, whether from the East or the West, when they place themselves before God and are stripped to their true fundamental selves, both those who try to live according to Confucius’ teachings and those who seek to live by the commandments of God are all just masses of sin and seeds of evildoers alike. Human beings are unrighteous, full of blemishes, and masses of sin made of dust and dirt. Even the good people who have done good works not for recognition but out of their sincere hearts, and who are actually discomforted to receive any praise for their good deeds, cannot escape from the fact that when their fundamental essence is uncovered before God, they are masses of sin and seeds of evildoers. Because human righteousness’ is a great evil before God, people cannot escape from the condemnation of sin unless they recognize their punishment and accept the gospel of the water and the Spirit, that is, the love of God. Before God, all human efforts cannot be translated into any goodness, and the will of mankind is only filthy before Him. The fundamental nature of mankind is but of dirt, wood and bronze. Human beings are a type of wood that cannot be raised at the entrance of the House of God unless He first overlays them with gold. And without the grace of salvation given by God, they are nothing more than bronze that cannot but face the judgment of fire. If we do not believe in the gift of salvation, that Jesus Christ the Messiah was baptized in the form of the laying on of hands and bled to death, we then will still remain as sinners. As such, those who do not know that they are evil beings before God and who have not received the gift of God to be saved, are truly pitiful.
Before we knew the righteousness of God, our own righteousness had been our standard of life. I too, had been like this when I did not know God’s gift of salvation and did not have genuine faith. In fact, I had no righteousness of my own, but I still thought of myself as decent. So since my childhood, there had been many times when I could not tolerate injustice and got into a fight with people with whom I was no match. My philosophy in life was to live justly and righteously, since I was born only once and would die only once. My thoughts were, “I would rather die than to lead a worthless life like this, doing nothing else but eating. If this is what life is all about, then it makes no difference whether I die now or I live for another 50 years. Living like this is boring and disgusting. Living without any meaning without any purpose and unable to do anything righteous with no great cause in life is hell itself. What else is hell, after all? For a man to live like a pig, only eating and feeding his own belly everyday until he dies, is the hell of humiliation.” Like this, because I had failed to see myself before God, I was full of self-righteousness. So I thought of myself better than others and tried hard to live righteously.
But I was indeed no more than a mere mass of sin before the righteousness of God. I was not someone who could keep even one of the 613 statutes of the Law not to mention the Ten Commandments. The fact that I had the will to keep them was itself an act of unrighteousness that rebelled against the Word of God that declares, “You are an evil being who cannot but commit sin that stood against God.” All the righteousness of mankind turns out to be only unrighteousness before God. The truth is that human beings simply cannot be righteous. In fact, this present age is the last age whose current is swept across by a culture of decadence and depravity and permeated by sin. This means that our flesh is constantly gripped by such debauched and lewd sins, and that we actually commit these sins in our lives. In fact, our flesh is always dragged along by these indescribably filthy sins, and no goodness at all can ever be found in it.
We Had Been Unrighteous and Filled with Sin, but the Lord Has Now Made Us His Own People by Saving Us from All Our Sins with the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
We were all unrighteous, but through the gift of salvation, the Lord has saved such beings as us from all our sins. The boards of the Holy Place, the House of God, each measuring 4.5 m in height and 675 mm in width, were overlaid with gold and raised as the walls of the Holy Place. Under each board, two silver sockets were placed. These silver sockets here manifest that God has saved you and me entirely by Himself.
The truth is that God has saved us from sin out of His love. In this love, Jesus Christ came to this earth and was baptized to take upon all our sins, bore the condemnation of our sins by dying on the Cross, has thereby saved us from all the sins of the world and all condemnation. By believing in the gift of salvation He has given us, we have been born again. This Lord-given gift of salvation is incorruptible like gold, and so it is forever unchanging.
The salvation that the Lord has given us is made of the baptism and blood of Jesus, and it has entirely and cleanly blotted out all our sins. It is because the Lord has saved us from all our sins that you and I could have been wholly delivered from all the sins that we have committed and will commit with our minds, with our thoughts, and with our actual acts. By believing in the gift of salvation that God has given us in our hearts, we have become His precious saints. Through the boards of the Tabernacle, which were both its pillars and walls, God is telling us of the salvation of the water and the Spirit. And through the silver sockets of the boards, God is telling us that it is 100 percent His grace and gift that we have become His children.
If we take out our faith in the baptism and blood of Jesus, then there is nothing remaining in us. We had all been such beings that were bound to be condemned for sin. We had been mere mortals who were bound to tremble before our certain deaths in accordance to the law of God declaring that the wages of sin is death; and we were to realize and mourn over the righteous judgment of fire awaiting us. This is why we are nothing if we leave out our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Living now in an age that is permeated with sin, we must never forget that our fate had been that of waiting only for the judgment of fire. This is who we really had been, and yet grace was bestowed upon us entirely because God has given us the salvation of the water and the Spirit. The Messiah came to this earth, was baptized by John the Baptist, shed His blood and died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us from all our sins, all our unrighteousness and all our condemnation. By believing in this perfect gospel of the water and the Spirit, we have now been saved from all our sins, and we can only thank God with our faith.
Though we are insufficient in the flesh, our workers and co-workers, ministers, and I are preaching this gospel of the water and the Spirit throughout the whole world. Though this age is such a depraved one, because we believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we have been able to serve the Lord purely, free from any wickedness. That we have come to have this mind is not because of our own volition, but because the Lord has given us holiness by clothing us in His grace of salvation. It is because the Lord has saved us perfectly from sin and condemnation that we have been clothed in the power of this salvation, and it is entirely because of this that we have been able to serve the Lord purely. Because the Lord has saved us from all our sins with the water and the Spirit, I believe that we can serve Him in spite of our insufficiencies, no longer bound by our sins, shortcomings and condemnation.
Truly we cannot preach the gospel throughout the whole wide world, had it not been for the grace of our Lord. Spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit throughout the whole world and serving this gospel purely would not have been possible at all but for the grace of the Lord. It is 100 percent by the grace of God’s salvation that you and I are able to lead our lives of faith defending and serving this genuine gospel. We have become the pillars of the Kingdom of God and the people of this Kingdom by faith. Because the Lord has given us faith like gold, we now can live in the House of God. In this age when the world is covered with sin, in an era when people, swept by sin, are forgetting or blaspheming God, we have been washed with clear water and become clean, and as a result we have been able to drink clear water and serve the Lord in pureness of spirit. So, words cannot express just how profoundly grateful I am for this blessing.
This is indeed how we became righteous by faith. How could we have become righteous? How have we been able to call ourselves righteous when there is no goodness in us? How could such sinful beings as you and I become sinless? Could you have become sinless and righteous by the righteousness of your flesh? The thoughts of the flesh, your own efforts, and your own deeds—could any of these turn you into a righteous person who have no sin at all? Could you have become righteous just by faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? Could you have become righteous just by your faith in God’s salvation manifested in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen? Could you have become righteous without believing in your salvation through the gospel of the water and the Spirit which was fulfilled by the Messiah and revealed in the Word of God? You could never have become like this! In short, by believing in only the scarlet thread, we can never become righteous.
Because Jesus Christ, our Savior and Messiah shouldered all the sins of the world, including all the sins of our entire lifetime through the baptism that He received from John the Baptist to blot out all our sins on our behalf, we have become righteous by faith. Just as the sacrificial animal of the Old Testament accepted sin when sinners or the High Priest put their hands on its head, in the New Testament’s time, Jesus accepted all the sins of the world onto Himself by being baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus took upon all our sins through His baptism (Matthew 3:15). And John the Baptist testified this momentous event by crying out, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) Having received His baptism, Jesus lived the next three years of His life for our salvation, paying off all our sins and condemnation by going to the Cross and giving up His own body to God, like a silent sheep before its shearers, and has given us new life.
It is because Jesus Christ took upon all our sins through the baptism that He received from John the Baptist that He could give Himself up quietly and was nailed through both His hands and feet when He was crucified on the Cross by Roman soldiers. Hanging on the Cross, Jesus shed all His blood that was in His heart. And He embraced the final stage of His ministry for our salvation, crying out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) Having thus died, He rose again from the dead in three days, ascended to the Kingdom of Heaven, and has thus become our Savior by giving us eternal life. By shouldering the sins of the world through the baptism that He received from John the Baptist, and by His Cross, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus has become our perfect Savior.
Faith in the Blood of the Cross Alone and the Doctrine of Incremental Sanctification Has Not Saved You from Your Sins at All
Christians cannot be saved perfectly from their sins by believing only in Jesus’ blood of the Cross. Because people commit sin everyday with their eyes and acts, they cannot blot out any of their sins just by believing in the blood of the Cross alone. One of the most pervasive iniquities committed in people’s lives is sexual immorality. As a culture of explicit and obscene sexuality pervades this world, this particular sin is ingrained in our flesh. The Bible commands us not to commit adultery, but today’s reality is that because of the circumstances that surround us, many people end up committing this sin even as they do not want to. God declares that having lustful thoughts alone is committing the act of adultery itself, and yet what our eyes see everyday is all obscene. So people are committing such lewd sins every minute and every second. If this is the case, how can they be sanctified to enter the Kingdom of God by offering their prayers of repentance? How can they become righteous? Do their hearts become righteous when they discipline themselves for a long time and somehow get sanctified when they get old? Can their characters become meeker? Do they become more patient? Of course not! What happens is the exact opposite.
When people get old, they become hot-tempered and impatient. With aging comes hormonal changes, and even those who had been quite patient before find it hard to calm their anger and frustrations down. And they increasingly think of themselves before they think of others. As their bodily functions deteriorate, their instinct for self-preservation becomes stronger. So when we get older, we become more like a child. As a saying goes, what crawls on four feet when infantile, stands on two feet when young, and walks on three feet when old is none other than human beings, and everyone is like this.
Among Christian doctrines, there is this doctrine called the “doctrine of incremental sanctification.” This doctrine holds that when Christians believe in the death of Jesus on the Cross for a long time, give prayers of repentance on a daily basis, and serve the Lord daily, then they gradually become holy. It claims that the more time goes by since we began to believe in Jesus, the more we are made into someone who has nothing to do with sin and whose deeds are good, and that by the time death approaches, we would have become completely sanctified and therefore completely sinless. And it also teaches that because we have offered our prayers of repentance all the time, we might surely be washed of our sins everyday, as our clothes are washed. And therefore when we die in the end, we would go to God as someone who has become perfectly righteous. There are many Christians who believe like this. But this is only a hypothetical speculation conjured up by man-made thoughts.
Romans 5:19 says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” This passage tells us that all of us are made sinless by one Man’s obedience. Jesus Christ achieved what you and I could not do when He personally came to this earth. Knowing well that you and I could not free ourselves from sin, Jesus remitted all our sins on our behalf, something that neither you nor I could ever do. By coming to this earth, being baptized, being crucified, and rising up from the dead, He has saved you and me and cleansed us from all our sins once for all.
By obeying the will of God the Father, Jesus Christ could personally fulfill our salvation, which is also known as the remission of our sins. Obeying God’s will as the Messiah, Jesus Christ has bestowed on us the grace of salvation through His baptism, death on Cross and resurrection. By thus giving us the gift of salvation, Jesus fulfilled the remission of sin perfectly. And now, by faith we have been clothed in the grace of this salvation, for the Lord has perfectly fulfilled our salvation from sin which could never have been achieved by our own works or merits.
Many people do not believe in the baptism that Jesus received, but instead believe only in the blood that He shed on the Cross and try to become sanctified through their own deeds. In other words, even as Jesus took upon all the sins of mankind when He was baptized by John the Baptist, people still do not believe in this Truth. Matthew Chapter 3 tells us that the first thing that Jesus did in His public life was to be baptized by John the Baptist. This is the undeniable Truth attested by all the Four Gospels.
Jesus took upon all our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, the representative of all mankind and the greatest of all who were born of women, and yet there are so many people who ignore this fact and do not believe in it. Such people believe in Jesus without believing in His baptism, and fervently praise only the precious blood that He shed on the Cross. Having much compassion for the death of Jesus on the Cross, they rouse up their emotions, make all kinds of racket in their praise, singing out at the top of their voices,
“♫There is power, power, wonder working power
In the blood of the Lamb;
♫There is power, power, wonder working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb.” They try to go to God, in other words, fueled up with their own emotions, vigour and strength. But you must realize that the more they do this, the more sins they end up having and the more hypocritical they become.
When it comes to believing in Jesus Christ, two graceful ministries of Jesus are absolutely necessary. What are they? One of them is that Jesus took upon all our sins by being baptized, and the other is, that He paid off all the wages of our sins by carrying the sins of the world to the Cross and being crucified to it. Whoever wholly believes in these two graceful ministries of Jesus can be made righteous for sure. Our faith in both the baptism of Jesus and His blood of the Cross, the two pivots of His gift of salvation, makes us stand firmly in the House of God. By the grace of God, we are made His truly unblemished people. By believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by Jesus, we receive faith like pure gold that is forever unchanging. By believing in this gospel of the water and the Spirit manifested in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen, we become the saints who have received the salvation of the perfect remission of sin.
The Age of Theology versus the Age of the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
Excluding the Early Church period, since the proclamation of Rome’s Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., Christianity has been spreading the gospel of only the Cross that leaves out Jesus’ baptism. From the Early Church period to 313 A.D., before Christianity had deteriorated as a mere religion, it had preached the gospel of the water and the Spirit vigorously, but afterwards the Roman Catholic Church came to dominate the religious realm of the Western world. Then from the early 14th century, a culture that centered everything on man-made thoughts and called for the restoration of humanity began to emerge from Italy. This was called the Renaissance.
By the 16th century, the undercurrent of this humanistic culture that began in Italy started to spread throughout the whole western world, and scholars who studied humanistic, man-made philosophy began to study theology. Interpreting the Bible with their own logics and perspectives, they began to build various Christian doctrines. But because they did not know the Truth, they could not understand the Bible properly. There were so many difficult passages in the Bible, and as a result drove them to fabricate their own Christian doctrines by incorporating their secular knowledge with their philosophical perspectives. This is how Calvinism, Arminianism, Fundamentalism, Liberalism, New Theology, Conservatism, Rationalism, Higher Criticism, Mystical Theology, Religious Pluralism, Liberation Theology, and even the Death of God theology arose.
The history of Christianity may seem very long, but it actually is not that long. For 300 years since the Early Church period, people could learn about the Bible, but this was soon followed by the Medieval Age, the dark age of Christianity. During this era, reading the Bible itself was a crime punishable to death by beheading. It was not until the 1700s when the wind of theology began to blow, and then Christianity seemed to blossom in the 1800s and 1900s as theology grew vibrant and active, but by now many people had fallen into mystical notions in their faith, believing in God based on their own personal experiences.
But is this the truth? When you believed in this way, did your sins actually disappear? You sin everyday. You sin everyday with your thoughts, acts, and shortcomings. Can you then be remitted of these sins just by believing only in the blood that Jesus shed on the Cross? That Jesus shouldered all our sins by being baptized and died on the Cross is the truth. Yet there are so many people who say that their sins have been remitted by believing only in the blood of the Cross and offering their prayers of repentance. Were your sins in your hearts and consciences cleansed away by offering such prayers of repentance? This is impossible.
If you are Christians, then you must now know and believe in the salvation of this truth, that Jesus Christ came to this earth and took upon all the sins of the world by being baptized by John the Baptist. In spite of this evidence before you, do you yet still ignore this truth, not even trying to know it, nor to believe in it? If so, then you cannot say that you truly believe in Jesus as your Savior. If this is the case, then you are committing the sin of mocking Jesus, of lowering and despising His name. You are, in other words, committing the sin of blaspheming the name of Jesus and mocking God out of your own volition. Jesus came to this earth to make our sins disappear, and in accordance with this very purpose of His coming, He was baptized to take upon all our sins and by carrying the sins of the world and being crucified, He bore the condemnation of all those sins.
Yet in spite of this heavenly Truth, many people still do not believe in this salvation of Jesus Christ, and are as a result committing such an unforgivable sin against God. By leaving out Jesus’ baptism from this salvation plan which was fulfilled by Jesus Christ and believing in Him in whatever way that seems fit, they can never be clothed in the grace of salvation. Yet despite all these truths many Christians do not believe in the truth just as it is, namely, that Jesus has blotted out all their sins, but instead follow their own thoughts and believe in whatever twisted truths that they want to believe in. Nowadays, people’s hearts have been hardened by their mistaken doctrinal faiths, believing that their sins can be blotted out just by believing in the blood of the Cross alone.
But the answer of salvation planned by God is as follows: The everlasting remission of sin is received by believing in the baptism of Jesus, the Cross, and His resurrection. Yet there has risen a countless number of people who believe in Jesus by taking out the baptism that He received from this truth of salvation, misunderstanding and misbelieving the following equation to hold true: “Faith in Jesus (the Cross and His resurrection) + prayers of repentance + virtuous deeds = salvation attained by sanctification.” Those who believe in this way are only saying with their words that they have received the remission of their sins, but the truth is that their hearts are actually filled up with piles of sins that still remain unresolved.
Those who believe only in the Cross of Jesus actually end up with more sins. Why do you not believe in this truth just as it is said that Jesus has blotted out all your sins by being baptized by John the Baptist; but you instead believe in such man-made false doctrines, even as you profess to believe in Jesus? You must realize the fact that each board of the Tabernacle made of acacia wood had two tenons coming out, and that underneath them two sockets of silver were placed to hold the boards in place. The gospel of the water and the Spirit (the baptism that Jesus received and the blood of the Cross) is the absolute Truth.
When we open the gate of the court of the Tabernacle and walk into the courtyard we would see firstly the altar of burnt offering and then the laver of bronze. What kind of place is the altar of burnt offering? It is the place where burnt offerings are given. It is the place where the sacrificial offerings that bore the sins of the Israelites are condemned for them. What kind of place is the laver? It is the place where bodies are washed and cleansed. It is, in other words, the place where the hearts defiled by sin are washed clean. Only when we go through this process by faith can we open the screen of the Tabernacle and enter into the House of God and not before.
The screen of the door of the Tabernacle was all made of blue, purple, and scarlet thread and fine woven linen. It was woven by embroidering fine woven linen and blue, purple, and scarlet thread. To enter the Kingdom of God, we must believe in this truth. We can enter the Kingdom of God only when we have faith in the ministries of Jesus manifested in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread. Jesus came to this earth and became the fulfillment of the blue, purple, and scarlet thread. The blue thread refers to the baptism that Jesus received, and the purple thread tells us that Jesus Christ is God Himself. The scarlet thread tells us that Jesus bore the condemnation of all our sins with the blood that He shed on the Cross.
Do you still have sin that is intact in your heart? Do you have sin, in other words, sin in the center of your hearts? If you have sin in your hearts even as you now believe in Jesus, then clearly, there is a serious problem with your faith. It is because you believe in Jesus just as a matter of mere religion that your consciences are not clean and you still have sin. But by believing God through the truth manifested in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen, you can also make your consciences clean.
The very fact that you can now realize yourself to be sinful owing to your misguided knowledge of Jesus is extremely fortunate in itself. Why? Because those who truly realize that they still have sin will recognize that they cannot avoid but be bound to hell for this sin, and when they do so they can finally become poor in spirit and thereby be able to hear the Word of true salvation.
If you really want to receive the remission of sin from God even now, then your hearts must be prepared. Those whose hearts are ready before God would admit to Him like this: “I have believed in Jesus for a long time, but I still have sin in my heart. Because the wages of sin is death, I cannot but be cast into hell. God, I want to receive the remission of sin.” Like this, they recognize themselves as wholly sinful beings before God. Those who recognize the Word of God, those who believe that the Word of God is surely fulfilled exactly as it says—none other than these are the ones whose hearts are ready. Such people will hear this Word, see the Word with their own eyes and confirm it, and from doing this they will come to realize, “Ah, I had believed mistakenly all this time. And a countless number of people are making the same mistake now.” And by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, regardless of what others might say or do, they then will infallibly receive the remission of all their sins.
When I think about just how many throughout this world are misbelieving, and just how many are walking on the wrong path my heart aches very much. Brothers and sisters, the gospel with which the Lord has saved us from our sins was fulfilled by the baptism that Jesus received and the blood He shed on the Cross. Jesus took upon all our sins with His baptism, bore all the condemnation of sin with the blood on the Cross, and has thereby saved us. Hence, we must believe unequivocally that God has saved us by giving us the faith that believes in the truth manifested in the blue, purple, and scarlet thread and the fine woven linen. I am so thankful for the fact that Jesus Christ has personally saved you and me in this way. You and I, who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, are therefore always at peace, and our hearts never waver.
Those Who Have Been Saved from Their Sins Must Defend Their Faith by Believing in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
This world is so full of evil doctrines that even the hearts of the born-again can be tempted and defiled. That is why Jesus Christ said, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (Mark 8:15). We cannot even count just how many such deteriorated teachings there are, defiling people’s hearts just by hearing it only once. We must realize just how this world is flooded with sexual immorality. We who believe must know exactly in what kind of age we are now living in order to defend our faith. Yet even as we live in such a sinful world, in our hearts is the unassailable truth that the Lord has delivered us from all our sins. The Word of testimony that bears witness to our unchanging salvation is the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We must have faith in the Truth that is neither shaken by the world nor dragged along by it.
This world is not of the truth. Rather, it is full of Satan’s liars. However, God told us that the righteous can overcome the world. It is by their faith in the gospel of this unchanging truth that the righteous overcomes the Devil and triumphs over the world. Though we are insufficient, our hearts, our thoughts, and our bodies are still in the House of God and are standing firmly on the gospel of salvation with faith. We are standing steadfastly on the gospel of the water and the Spirit with which the Lord has saved us perfectly.
The boards of acacia woods, which were raised as both the pillars and the components of the walls of the Tabernacle, were overlaid with gold. And because the boards stood on silver sockets, they were firmly fixed and did not waver. Likewise, the faith of those of us who have been born again of water and the Spirit is also forever unchanging. Just as the gold-leaf overlaying the boards of acacia woods did not change, nor does our faith like pure gold ever change, for you and me, the acacia woods that could not but be burnt by fire, has been perfectly saved in this way.
Because of this, we are so thankful to God. No matter how sin abounds in this world, at least we the righteous truly have spotless consciences and faith that shines like gold in our hearts. We the righteous will all lead a life that overcomes the world by this faith. Until the day of the Lord’s return, and even after when we enter His Kingdom, all of us will praise this faith. We will forever praise the Lord who has saved us and praise our God who has given us this faith.
Our truthful faith will not be shaken under any circumstances because it is built on the rock. Henceforth, no matter what happens to us as we live on this earth until the day we stand before the Lord, we will defend our hearts by faith. Even if everything in this world is destroyed, even if this world is drowning in sin, and even if this world becomes worse than Sodom and Gomorrah of the old days, we will not follow this world, but we will believe in God unwaveringly, we will pursue His righteousness, and we will continue to spread Jesus’ two ministries (the baptism of Jesus and His death on the Cross) of salvation, the true graces of God.
I am utterly amazed by the grace of God, just how we have come to believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit. I can only be infinitely grateful for how we have come to know and believe in this gospel, and how we have come to do the good works of God. As the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the grace of God that He has bestowed on us freely, all that we can give to our Lord is just thank Him with our faith and spread the Truth of this gospel until the day of His return.
I thank God for giving us this truth.
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