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 24 : Sermons for Those Who Have Become Our COWORKERS
[24-22] Is It Beneficial For God’s Church To Have Judges? (Judges 3:7-14)
(Judges 3:7-14)
“So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD. They forgot the LORD their God, and served the Baals and Asherahs. Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan-Rishathaim eight years. When the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel, who delivered them: Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the LORD delivered Cushan-Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed over Cushan-Rishathaim. So the land had rest for forty years. Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died. And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD. So the LORD strengthened Eglon king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD. Then he gathered to himself the people of Ammon and Amalek, went and defeated Israel, and took possession of the City of Palms. So the children of Israel served Eglon king of Moab eighteen years.”
All throughout this discipleship training camp I have been preaching my sermons focusing on the Book of Judges. With 21 chapters, the Book of Judges would take me at least a year if I were to cover all of these chapters in depth. But, at this hour, I would like to focus my sermon on the purpose of the Book of Judges. We will then turn to other passages tomorrow morning and afternoon.
Let me begin by summarizing the gist of today’s Scripture reading: The people of Israel were practicing wickedness in the sight of the Lord God. They were worshipping the Baals and Asherahs. So God sold them into the hand of a foreign king named Cushan-Rishathaim, and the children of Israel served this king for eight years. When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord from their suffering of slavery, the Lord raised a deliverer to free them, a judge named Othhniel. He was the leader of the people of Israel. Having raised him to be the leader of Israel, God worked through Othniel and enabled him to defeat King Cushan-Rishathaim. After prevailing in this war, Israel was then peaceful and prosperous for forty years.
However, once Othniel died, the people of Israel began to worship idols again in the sight of God. God therefore allowed the Israelites to be defeated by Eglon, king of Moam, and as a result the people of Israel were enslaved by the Moabites for 18 years.
This is the gist of today’s Scripture passage.
Do You Have a Spiritual Leader?
Let me raise a question here: Was it bad or good for the people of Israel to have a judge to rule over them? This is a very profound question, and it’s critically important for all of us to know the right answer. We can see from our own various spiritual experiences that it is actually good to have a leader. At the time of the judges, however, people of Israel were often weary of having a spiritual leader over them. They were prone to think of God’s servants as a nuisance, considering them to be too tiresome and meddlesome.
In a similar vein, even among today’s redeemed saints there are some people who don’t appreciate God’s servants, thinking of what God’s Church is doing to spread the gospel as something tiring, meaningless, and cumbersome. While most saints are happy to obey the will of God in unity with His Church, still many others don’t feel this way. In fact, some of the saints might even think that they can do whatever they want to do and still prosper if they did not have any leader. In their own calculation it may seem as though they can all prosper and flourish in body and spirit even without any spiritual leader. In their carnal minds they may regard their leader in God’s Church as someone who just annoys them. It may seem to them that it’s superfluous to have a spiritual leader, and they may feel that a spiritual leader is just someone who meddles in their lives and oppresses them rather than giving them freedom.
But what happened to the people of Israel whenever they were leaderless? They lost their wars. How about us then? For us, having no leader simply means losing our spiritual battles. What would then happen to us? We would be enslaved. Everyone must submit to and serve either the Lord or this world. This is an ironclad law. What would you prefer then—to have a servant of God at your side, or to have none?
As we just saw in today’s Scripture reading, God raised a judge named Othniel to deliver the people of Israel, and it is through this judge that God delivered them from the hand of the king of Mesopotamia. That is why, as it’s written in the Bible, Israel was able to once again enjoy peace and prosperity for forty years. Could Israel have enjoyed this long period of peace if it had no leader? No, it would not have been possible.
No gathering, regardless of its kind, can grow unless it has a good leader. This is as true for nations as it is for churches. A leaderless nation cannot possibly survive for long in a world in which war is a constant feature. For instance, when Korea was annexed and colonized by Japan in 1910 after having maintained its independence for thousands of years, the lack of effective leadership was one of the most important causes behind Korea’s downfall. The people of Korea suffered immensely as a result, losing their sovereign independence and being enslaved by a foreign power. As colonial subjects, they were treated as second-class citizens by the Japanese colonial state and deprived of many of their rights. The conditions were so bad under these colonial rulers that many Koreans migrated to Manchuria and the Russian Maritimes, but as a leaderless and stateless ethnic minority in foreign lands, they still continued to face many forms of discrimination. In the Russian Maritimes, the Soviet government under Stalin went as far as deporting the Korean migrants all the way to Central Asia against their will. Even today, their descendants are still facing discrimination. All of this happened because Korea in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century lacked effective political leadership to resist foreign advances.
As this example shows, leadership matters a great deal. This point is also made in today’s Scripture passage, which shows that the people of Israel could prosper in peace only when they had a clear leader to guide them to the right path. The children of Israel could flourish in body and spirit if they worshipped God alone, but they still needed a spiritual leader to be provided such a good guidance.
This is a biblically sound teaching. In the past, however, I rarely spoke about church leadership, as I felt rather uneasy about addressing this issue since I myself am the leader of our Church. As a result, the Church faced a number of serious problems caused by some members going astray in their fleshly thoughts. Wanting to fulfill the desires of their flesh, some members formed their own little factions inside the Church, and when they could not get their way, they packed up and left, going about their own separate ways. This could have been prevented if these people had a clear understanding of spiritual leadership. It is a basic building-block of faith for the people of God to have a spiritual leader. You should be overjoyed to have a leader. And it should also be a joy for you to obey your leader.
You cannot know everything by yourself, nor can you do everything by yourself. There are far many more things that you do not know and cannot do on your own, especially as you carry on with your life of faith in God’s Church. Therefore, whenever you make any decision, it’s actually very fortunate to have someone wiser to consult and seek advice. So, if you have such a leader to rely on, then you should consider yourself very fortunate. Indeed, it’s a wonderful blessing for the righteous to have a teacher.
The problem, however, is that some righteous saints are too prone to ignore their spiritual teacher, and this is a very foolish thing to do. It’s only a matter of course for the righteous to have a leader, but some of them are perishing in their ignorance of this fundamental principle. To give you an example, let’s assume that I am away on a trip and our next gathering is cancelled. You may not think this is not a serious problem, since you’ve been coming to the Church to worship God all this time and canceling a single worship service is not such a big issue. In fact, some of you may even feel delighted for a moment, thinking that it would give you a nice break. But, if our gatherings were to end permanently, then everyone would perish. We were actually unable to hold our summer discipleship training camp last year because of the devastating flood that damaged our training center. There probably were quite a few people thinking in their flesh that it was no big deal to miss out on a discipleship training camp since we had always held it twice every year.
I know such people quite well. Even if you don’t say a single word, I can still read it just by looking at your face. Of course, there are many things that I don’t know about you, but I can at least sense spiritual trouble around the corner. Some saints in our fold have immature and fleshly thoughts. What would happen to them if they let such thoughts go on? Eventually they would no longer prioritize serving the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and instead they would prefer to live freely on their own. Such desires are found in the heart of every righteous saint. However, the righteous can overcome these temptations if they are led by the servant of God reminding them of God’s commandment to preach the gospel. Although fleshly thoughts may still arise from their hearts, they will never allow themselves to give into such carnal thoughts so long as they have a faithful spiritual a leader to guide them. There is no other way for you to overcome such fleshly thoughts but to be guided by your spiritual leader.
As a righteous saint, unless you serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit, your life will have neither any purpose nor any meaning. What joy would you find in your life? The food you eat will have no taste, and the activities that you do for leisure will be no fun. No pleasure of any kind on this earth will bring you any excitement at all. Many of you may think otherwise, believing that you will be able to enjoy your life, but that is completely mistaken. As someone who has received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you will find no joy in life if you do not or cannot live to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit on this earth. In fact, if I were to tell you that you have done enough work and don’t have to carry on with God’s work any longer, and that you can now rest and start enjoying life, then there will actually be countless suicides among you in just a year. Of course, this may not be true for every saint. But many will find no joy in life and lose their will to live. Since everyone is different, each of us may behave differently, but one thing that none of us should ever do is to form a faction in God’s Church. Because we the righteous have the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the very fact that we can live for the gospel of the water and the Spirit and serve this gospel is a tremendous joy, a worthwhile cause, and an enlivening experience that revitalizes our lives. Without this work, life would have no joy, far less any meaning. After all, can there be anything that’s more fun and exciting than God’s work? Sure, everyone enjoys traveling and sightseeing, but this kind of joy is temporary. If you keep traveling all the time, you will get tired of it eventually and even get depressed.
Would you be delighted if I were to say to you, “You can now stop working so hard to support the gospel ministry. Don’t do anything. Don’t do God’s work even if you can. From now on the Head Office of The New Life Mission will provide for all your needs and you won’t have to do anything but start enjoying life”? Of course, some of you may like to hear this. However, my fellow believers, you must realize here that this is actually nothing but a clear path to your own spiritual death. It entails your spiritual death and curse.
As described in today’s Scripture passage, the people of Israel were at peace for 40 years when they had a leader. But once their leader died, they began to sin against God by worshipping idols again, and God punished them by allowing them to be enslaved by another nation. It’s written here in today’s Scripture passage that the people of Israel served King Cushan-Rishathaim for 8 years and later on they served King Eglon of Moab for 18 years. Having thus turned into slaves, the people of Israel had to hand over to another nation everything they had worked so hard for. As the righteous, if we don’t serve the Lord we must serve someone else. In other words, if we don’t serve the gospel of the Lord we must serve the power or people of this world. When the people of Israel obeyed the commandments of the Lord God, they were prosperous and peaceful. But when they stopped serving the Lord, disobeyed the will of God, and resented their spiritual leader, wishing to live according to their own wishes, they ended up being enslaved by another nation. They therefore came to pray to God out of their suffering, and every time they did so, God raised a judge for them and delivered them.
It Is an Unchangeable Truth That God’s Church Must Have a Judge
Although this is a basic principle that you may know well, it carries extremely important spiritual implications. This is the issue that I have been addressing over this week. It’s indeed absolutely important for everyone to know this basic principle. If you had no leader, no predecessor of faith, no fellow saint serving the gospel, and no one entrusting you with new gospel work, then you will perish for sure. This is a fatal curse. Take a moment here and ponder on whether or not you really need a spiritual leader, and whether or not this is really beneficial to you. It is indeed entirely for your own benefit to have a spiritual leader. Although this is beneficial to the Kingdom of God, it is also beneficial to you.
Shallow-minded people are satisfied if they have enough food to eat and a few conveniences in their lives. So they do everything to just meet their basic needs. I have met many such people. But how can anyone serve the Lord in this way, and how can anyone follow the will of God with this kind of outlook? Someone who has this kind of self-centered disposition will not only ruin himself but also others. Even among the righteous, there are many people who try to turn everyone else into their slaves while pretending to be carrying out God’s work.
In contrast, those who serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit sincerely under the guidance of the Church will live a beautiful and prosperous life. Whatever you are doing now is absolutely not done to serve another man, but it is done to serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It’s wonderful to serve this gospel of the water and the Spirit precisely because it is serving the Lord, not anyone else. However, if you are not careful, you may actually end up serving another person. This does not necessarily mean that you should not serve anyone in the Church. It’s fine to serve someone in the Church, regardless of whether this person is a leader or a follower, so long as it is to help and support him to serve the genuine gospel. But every other form of serving another person is wrong. All those who ever followed their own greed ended up perishing.
Is the leader in God’s Church beneficial to you or not? What do you think? Your spiritual leader is of course beneficial to you. When I think of myself before God, I am convinced that I am beneficial to you. Why am I so sure of this? It’s because my utmost concern is for your spiritual wellbeing, and therefore I can never allow myself to let you go astray on an accursed path even though I am very tolerant of your human weaknesses. Each and every one of you is also beneficial to God’s Church in its endeavor to serve the gospel. And just as you are beneficial to serving the gospel, so is your church leader beneficial. A church leader is not someone who just rules and dominates over everyone from above. Rather, he is someone beneficial and indispensable to the spreading of the gospel. Your church leader must have the foresight to plan ahead wisely, never seek his own fleshly desires, and sometimes support the gospel ministry from behind just like you. And he is doing everything to make it possible for you to do the good work and ensure that your labor is not in vain. That’s why you need your church leader.
However, some people in the Church don’t understand this, and so they try to live according to their fleshly desires whenever they face an opportunity. But to live according to one’s fleshly desires like this is to be cursed. Now that you have received the remission of sins, does this mean that you can live according to your own fleshly desires and still go to the Kingdom of Heaven? Is it okay for you to pursue carnal gains, so long as you can somehow find a balance between serving the Lord and serving your own fleshly desires? No, this is not okay at all! Such a balance does not exist; sooner or later you will be drawn to the flesh even more, and you will inevitably be cursed as a result. You will be driven away from the Lord’s peace right away. You will lose your everything and will be cursed in no time.
Do you think that the Lord God will never curse you, since He is the Good Shepherd and the God of love? Think again, because God will still curse you. He will take away and wipe out all the peace and joy that you have enjoyed thus far. Because God is the God of jealousy, He shows no restraint when He is provoked to anger. For all of us to prosper in both body and spirit, all of us must follow the will of God. We must obey God’s will precisely because we have received the remission of all our sins. And we can obey God fully only if we listen to our spiritual leader’s admonishments. It’s absolutely important for all of us to realize this. Therefore, as we follow the will of God, we ought to be mindful of the guidance of our spiritual leader, unite our hearts with his, and serve the Lord in unity. We will then be prosperous and peaceful in both body and spirit, receive God’s blessings, and put on His grace.
No gathering can accomplish anything unless it has a leader. Whenever we hold a discipleship training camp, participants are assigned to small groups so that they would be able to share fellowship on a more personal level. Even in each of these small groups requires a good leader. Without a leader who has spiritually discerning eyes, people find it hard to share fellowship in any meaningful sense even in such a small group. Not only do some people go on a tangent when giving their testimonies, but the timid can’t even say a word during the fellowship time.
Like this, it’s a huge loss to have no leader. Just as a good leader was indispensable to the people of Israel in their war, so do we need a good leader to wage our spiritual war. We are now preaching the gospel all over the world, and this gospel work is financed by the businesses that we run to support our ministry. We have shipped countless books abroad so far. This is a tremendous achievement; even if we were to hand out our books blindly in the streets, it’s not so easy to distribute 500 books a day. Yet, through our websites, countless books have been distributed to so many people in desperate need of these books. And those who have received the remission of sins from reading these books are sending us their testimonies of salvation. All over the world, there now are many, many pastors and missionaries who have become God’s workers thanks to our literature ministry. These new workers are testifying with their lips that they had never heard of such an authentic gospel before, and that they have now become sinless by believing in this gospel. We must therefore continue to work hard to spread this genuine gospel throughout the whole world. And we must pray to God to raise even more workers to labor as we have been laboring.
We believe in the righteousness of God, and we are serving the Lord through various ways and means, including running businesses to support the gospel ministry. We don’t serve the Lord just with our lips, but with our blood and sweat. Yet, some of us may wish they could serve the Lord in another, more traditional way—for instance, just by singing in the choir. What about you then? Would you prefer to do what we are doing now, or the latter? To be frank, from a carnal point of view, singing in the choir may be more appealing to you. It is, after all, quite natural for a churchgoer to join the choir. It’s an honorable, cultured way of serving God. And this is what most Christians usually have in mind when they think about serving in the church.
But we are different. If we had run our ministry as the worldly churches do, we could have never sent out so many spiritual books. Do you know just how much work and financial resources are required to publish and distribute so many books all over the world? I don’t need to explain every detail for you to appreciate that it takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice. Think about the work that goes into preparing the manuscripts. Think about the money that’s spent to translate and publish the books and ship them all over the world. Think about how much work it takes to just wrap all these books one by one and package them. It is by no means an easy feat. Yet the Lord has done this work through us.
Recently we put together a new version of our hymn book titled Praising the Name of Jesus. Each and every lyric in this hymn book is written beautifully. Whose work is this? Is it something that you have done, or is it something that God has given us? It is God’s gift to us, something that we have received from the Lord and moved and written into the hymn book. It should really be only normal to serve the Lord as we are doing.
But this is not how most Christians think when it comes to serving the Lord. They think they have to do something special. For instance, just recently a short-term mission group from a certain Korean church went to Afghanistan to spread Christianity, only to end up being kidnapped. They were eventually released after undergoing tremendous physical suffering and incurring an undisclosed amount of financial cost. This is such a foolish thing to do that it verges on madness. Apparently, they had gone to a Taliban-infested region, walking around in nothing but T-shirts and shorts. The women in the group didn’t even bother to cover their faces as Afghan women do; what was worse, they put on heavy makeup, went around shopping in their shorts, and gave choir performances in busy street intersections. Is the gospel really spread in this way? Is the gospel spread just because one shouts out blindly, “Believe in Jesus or you will go to hell”?
This, however, is how today’s churches all over the world try to evangelize. They think mistakenly that this is how they can evangelize the world and serve God. They think that there is no other way to serve the gospel but in this way. So, they are sure that this is how they can serve God. But this is just foolishness, not serving the true gospel. Trying to convert non-Christians in this way can only backfire. If you try to spread the gospel in this way, then far from turning anyone into a believer, you will just turn yourself into a hypocrite and a hireling who works to satisfy one’s own greed. Even worse, instead of bringing the gospel, you will end up bringing a band-aid solution to temporal problems. Like this, once you offer material benefits rather than the gospel Truth, people will just wait for such things. Far from wanting to hear the Word of God, they will just want to get some material gain from you. That is why it’s so foolish to try to convert people to Christianity by offering material incentives. Of course, it would be noble for us to go to a faraway land and offer our voluntary services to the people in need, but far more important than this is making the gospel of the water and the Spirit accessible to them in their own languages through our literature ministry. This is God’s work. God has given us the wisdom to carry out such works, and words cannot express just how thankful I am to the Lord for enabling us to serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit diligently like this. Just as we have served the gospel of the water and the Spirit faithfully to this day, we will continue to serve it diligently until the day the Lord returns.
It Is for Your Own Good That There Is a Judge in God’s Church
Supporting the gospel ministry by running businesses also requires a leader. We have served the Lord very well to this day. I tend to be very willful. It doesn’t take me long to make a decision, sometimes less than five minutes. But, more often than not, I like to listen to your opinions humbly when I have no idea on some issues. In times like this, all of us must pool the God-given wisdom in unity. We need to consult with one another, share our thoughts, and do everything by faith. Especially this week, I want to discuss with you how to make a Japanese website for our Internet ministry.
I cannot emphasize enough just how wonderful it is for God’s Church to have a judge. This judge is in the Church so that he would lead our gathering according to the will of God. Even though the judge may have some shortcomings, it is God who has established him; it is God who holds him; and it is God who will be with him, guide him, and protect him for all the days of his life. We must believe so. If we otherwise don’t believe in this, we cannot live out our faith. This is the main point of my sermon today.
The Book of Judges explains throughout its 21 chapters how the judges had delivered the people of Israel and how they had worked. You can find this out if you read the Book of Judges. The basic building block of every life of faith is to recognize one’s spiritual leader. In worldly churches, new attendees tend to think right away that the senior pastor is the most important leader. Below the senior pastor there are junior pastors, evangelists, elders, deacons, and so forth; and everyone obeys and submits to the chain of command. But this is not necessarily the case in God’s Church.
Do you know how priests are addressed in the Catholic Church? They are called father, presumably because they are considered to be spiritual fathers. I am not sure why worldly believers find it so easy to obey and respect their leaders. But in God’s Church such active obedience is not easy to come by. This is something that cannot come about by force, but it is God’s law for every born-again saint to obey his spiritual leader. And it is God’s will to achieve His works through His judges.
All of us must obey the will of God in unity. The Church must submit to the will of God, who is our Shepherd-in-Chief. Those who lead the congregation ought to obey the will of God in unity with the judge, and those who are following in their footsteps ought to also obey the will of God in unity. Like this, an active order must be established. Only when a Church is ordered properly like this can it become a truly beautiful Church, a powerful Church, and a Church that can overcome the enemy. And only then does it become a Church that can bring God’s grace and mercy to countless people.
It’s also important for us to be attentive to the businesses that we are running to support the gospel ministry. Although these businesses are still going well, they will soon face a decline. So, while we are running these businesses, we also need to prepare ourselves for the future and plan ahead. We are facing many challenges in our endeavor to serve the gospel. Whenever the district leaders of our Church get together, they consult with one another and make decisions so that you would be able to run the supporting businesses freely, energetically, and effectively.
Just as you all are working tirelessly to serve the gospel in each church, all of your church leaders are also working tirelessly. If the district leaders of our Church were to just wasting their time when they get together, could they ever ask any of you to do anything with such a bold face? No, of course not! They couldn’t possibly ask you to do anything if they themselves were not working as hard as you. To be completely honest with you, when the district leaders get together with me, they occasionally play some soccer. So many of our ministers are such huge fans of soccer that it’s impossible not to play any game when we get together. I myself enjoy playing soccer as well, but obviously this is not why I call our district leaders together in the first place. They come together because there is work to do, not just to play soccer. So I make sure that everything that needs to be done is finished before playing any soccer game.
All the predecessors in the Church have a duty to serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit, obey His commandments, and to take care of everyone following in their footsteps. They obey me first, and make the saints in each Church obey them for the achievement of the will of God. Guiding the flock like this is also beneficial to us both in body and spirit. It benefits our souls, our bodies, and even our circumstances. Moreover, we are also blessed by God, and so how wonderful is this? The joy that comes from obeying the Lord is so great and so wonderful that we can’t help but thank God. By helping others receive the remission of sins, by serving this precious gospel work, we ourselves are overwhelmed with joy. I am sure that you know what I mean. Nothing is more joyous than carrying out God’s work. Even though we may be exhausted physically, we are joyful spiritually.
The Lesson of the Book of Judges
The Book of Judges covers the period during which the people of Israel were ruled by the judges, from the time the Israelites conquered the land of Canaan to the time their first king Saul was crowned. Throughout its 21 chapters, the Book of Judges records what happened to the people of Israel over this lengthy period, both good and bad, but there is one clear and consistent pattern that we can see: It is the fact that while the people of Israel suffered greatly when they had no judge, they were victorious, prosperous, and faithful to God when they had a judge. What the Book of Judges is teaching us, then, is just how beneficial and indispensable our spiritual leaders are to us and to God’s Kingdom. This is the lesson that God is teaching us here. And it’s to teach us this lesson that the Book of Judges records so many events that occurred over this long period.
So, I can say boldly to you that I am indispensable to you, just as you are indispensable to me. All of us are of the same body. We are God’s Church, His Kingdom, and His one family. Each of us is indispensable to one another to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit all over the world. And because we are the members of the same body, we can carry out this work only if we pool our strengths together. Everyone in the Church is indispensable, from our saints to our workers, our district leaders, the chief leader, and even the children at our Sunday school. I am absolutely convinced of this fact, and I hope you also are. Accordingly, all of us ought to pool our strengths and follow the direction that the Church sets for us. And we need to be farsighted. If we instead see only a year or two down the road myopically, we are bound to fail. Even our businesses will fail with such a shortsighted outlook. We should be living today with a clear sight on the future, seeing all the way to the very end.
I am very happy that I have you at my side. How about you then? Are you also happy to have me at your side? Are you really happy to have me as your leader? Just as I am a servant of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, so are all of you also servants of this same gospel. Our Lord has blessed us to meet with one another and live a godly life in unity. Thanks to this blessing, we are now spreading the gospel throughout the whole world. No one else is preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit but only us.
The first priority for our prayer is the spreading of the gospel. God has answered our every prayer. Long ago, when I first encountered the gospel of the water and the Spirit, I prayed to God to help me to preach this gospel to everyone all over the world. But for a while I had forgotten all about it and lived my life at the mercy of the waves that had struck me. However, God drove me back to the right path and made me carry out His work as the leader of His Church. This work is not something that I have intended, but it is what the Lord has done. I did not become a judge because this is what I wanted for myself. Nor did I become God’s servant because I was any better than you in my flesh. But now, you and I are together serving the gospel of the water and the Spirit. I am so happy and joyful to do this work.
If we were to divide our spiritual age into infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, and senior age, we would find ourselves in young adulthood. In Korea the average life expectancy for men is around 75. Women are expected to live for about 82 years. Evangelist Kim, and I myself are nearing 60 years old in our physical age, but spiritually speaking, we are all still young adults. So I would appreciate it very much if you would call me a young man. I am indeed a young man in my spirit and my heart. And if I am a young man, then most of our saints and workers are still in their infancy. I am a young worker of God serving the Lord together with you. You, too, are God’s worker serving the Lord together with me.
I give all my thanks to the Lord. Hallelujah!
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