Search

Predigten

Subject 6 : Heretics

[6-15] Christians Must Now Turn around and Believe in the Gospel of The Water and the Spirit  (1 Kings 22:51-53)

Christians Must Now Turn around and Believe in the Gospel of The Water and the Spirit (1 Kings 22:51-53)
“Ahaziah the son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel. He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin; for he served Baal and worshiped him, and provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger, according to all that his father had done.”


Today’s Scripture passage tells us that when Ahaziah, the son of King Ahab of the northern kingdom of Israel, assumed the throne in Samaria, he walked in the wicked way of his father and mother—that is, he also followed the way of Jeroboam who had made Israel sin—and provoked Jehovah God to anger just as his father had done. Succeeding his father, Ahaziah ruled over Israel for two years, and died from the wound he suffered from a fall. The question here is this: What exactly did he do during his two years of reign? The Bible says that as he walked in the way of his father and mother, in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who had made Israel sin, Ahaziah also worshiped golden calves and thus provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger. Among those who followed Jeroboam the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel to assume its throne, there was no king who ever feared Jehovah God and pleased Him. It’s all because these kings followed all the sins committed by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel. 


The Incomprehensible Behavior of the Kings of Israel

Why all these kings of Israel perpetuated the sins of Jeroboam time after time is simply beyond my comprehension, no matter how hard I try to understand them. King Ahaziah was no exception; he also emulated the faith of his father and mother and followed the sins committed by Jeroboam. In other words, just like Jeroboam, Ahaziah also presented golden calves to the people of Israel as their gods and told them to worship these idols, thus making them sin. And he made them offer sacrifices to these golden calves to worship them. 
King Ahaziah should have known better than anyone else that his own father Ahab was cursed precisely because he had turned into God’s enemy and stood against Him by not heeding to the words of the servant of God and worshiping golden calves. Yet despite this, just like his father, King Ahaziah also worshiped golden calves as his gods, and so on account of this sin, he fell through the lattice of his upper room and died from the injury. He provoked God’s wrath by standing against Him even after hearing the warning from Elijah the servant of God. Elijah had said to him in advance, “Thus says the LORD: ‘You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die’” (2 Kings 1:4).
Jezebel, King Ahaziah’s mother, was killed when her own henchman Jehu rebelled against the house of Ahab, as the eunuchs who sided with Jehu threw her down through the window. Her dead body was then, devoured by the ravenous dogs. There was nothing left of her except for the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hands (2 Kings 9:30-35). Ahaziah had seen how his father suffered a miserable death for standing against God with his worship of golden calves, and so he should have thought better than to perpetuate his father’s sins, realizing, “My father died like this because of his idolatry. Once I assume the throne, I will never commit such a sin before God. For the sake of my children, the people of Israel, and Jehovah God, I will not worship golden calves.” But Ahaziah was so foolish that during his two years of reign as the king of Israel, he worshiped idols just like his parents, walking in their way and the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. Almost all the kings that succeeded the throne of the northern kingdom of Israel followed the sins of Jeroboam with their idolatry. It’s as if they were all determined to commit the most accursed sin of all before God. 
The Bible writes that these kings of Israel continued to sin and walked in the way of Jeroboam endlessly, even as they were harshly rebuked by God. This shows just how important early education is, and how critical it is to be educated properly at home. The environment in which a child grows up has an immense influence on his later life. In China, for instance, there is a famous story about the extent to which the mother of Mencius, one of the greatest Confucian scholars, went to ensure her son’s proper education. Legend has it that when Mencius was young, his mother moved three times just to find a good environment for her son’s education. In contrast, what did the kings of Israel see when they were growing up? They saw nothing but the heretical faith of their parents sinning after the sins of Jeroboam, and this faith that they emulated from their parents only turned them into heretics before God. 
The most abominable sin before God is the sin of idolatry like the one committed by Jeroboam. What is the sin that King Jeroboam committed against God? He had misled the people of Israel to replace Jehovah God with golden calves and worship them instead. Moreover, the kings of Israel had also worshiped Baal asking for an abundant harvest, served Asherah asking for fertility, and led their people to worship these idols as well. Just how many idols did Jezebel the mother of King Ahaziah worship in her life? And just how evil was his father King Ahab, who went as far as killing even the servants of God? How many disasters fell on Israel once Ahab assumed the throne? In ancient Korea, when calamities fell on the nation, its kings would say, “My lack of virtue has provoked the heavens to anger,” and offer sacrifices to their god of the heavens. But in Israel, its kings did not depart from the sins that Jeroboam had committed even though it was the chosen nation of God. Far from this, their hearts were hardened even more to stand against God, and they committed the most abominable sin with even more gusto. 
Toward the end of his two-year reign over Israel, King Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his upper room and was severely wounded. He then sent messengers to Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, to inquire about the prospect for his recovery. God then sent his servant Elijah to say to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of His word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’” Indeed, just as God had said, Ahaziah never recovered from his bed and died in it (2 Kings 1:2-17).
This is why I say that it’s simply impossible to understand the kings of Israel and its people. It wasn’t just Ahab and Ahaziah who worshipped golden calves, but all the successors to the throne of Jeroboam, the man who introduced these golden calves, continued to worship them generation after generation. With the passing of Solomon the son of David, the nation of Israel was fragmented into the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel. From the day Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, made golden calves and put them at Bethel and Dan to worship them as his gods, and to the day the kingdom was destroyed, the people of Israel worshipped these golden calves as their gods. Isn’t this utterly pathetic? How could the people of Israel and its kings have done these things? When Israel faced one calamity after another instead of finding any prosperity, its kings should have looked for the cause for this misery, but instead of doing so, they just kept on walking blindly in the way of idolatry, which God hated the most. Tragically, they didn’t realize all the while that the plagues descending on them were because of their very sin of replacing Jehovah God with golden calves. 
Spiritually speaking, the king of Israel had a wrong faith before God. What was this faith then? Theirs was a heretical faith, one that was placed in idols instead of God. Their sin was making the people of Israel drift away from God by committing the same sins Jeroboam had committed. 
In contrast, how was the faith of the servants of God shown in the Bible? Didn’t they worship Jehovah God, knowing and believing truthfully that Jehovah was their true God? It’s upright for us to realize and believe that Jehovah is the real God. If the kings of Israel had led their people correctly to realize that Jehovah God was the true God and to serve Him by faith, they would all have been blessed. But far from it, they sinned against God by constantly praying to all these idols, from the golden calves to Baal and Asherah, to ask for their carnal blessings. They worshiped idols with all their hearts rather than God, even though these idols were completely incapable of bringing any prosperity at all even to their flesh. 
Jehovah God is the real God who brings prosperity to both our bodies and souls, and who blesses us to prosper in all things. Yet despite this, the people of Israel worshipped something else other than Jehovah God—that is, they worshiped golden calves and other idols such as Baal and Asherah. In reality, these idols are nothing more than man’s own creation. To bow down before such inanimate idols is not only primitive, but it is committing an abominable sin against Jehovah God. 
The northern kingdom of Israel lost the God of Truth who had worked in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, its forefathers of faith, all because of the golden calves that it believed in, followed, and worshiped. The people of Israel had forgotten that this God, whom their forefathers believed in, followed, and worshiped, was still alive and forever living, and they had failed to realize that God wanted to be praised by them. In fact, if the Israelites had just turned around from the sin of worshiping golden calves, God would have embraced them back and blessed them at anytime, but because they had betrayed their own merciful God, He let them turn into such heretics worshiping the golden calves in vain. After all, before the people of Israel were reduced to this, didn’t God admonish and rebuke them countless times through His servants, waiting for them to turn around? If they had accepted the admonishments of the servants of God in Israel and realized His will, then they would have surely met the very God who loved them, but they failed to do so. 
If Ahaziah the king of Israel did not know the will of God, then all that he had to do was just ask Elijah the servant of God. If he had just asked the servant of God, Ahaziah could have found out who was the God whom his forefathers had followed, believed in, and worshiped; what offended this God and what pleased Him; and how he should lead the nation of Israel. But far from seeking counsel from Elijah, Ahaziah considered him his enemy. This is why the people of Israel could not realize the will of God and his love. Even though it was actually God’s servants like Elijah who knew the will of the God of their fathers, they ignored the words of such servants of God and did not listen to His commandments, and so there was no way for them to know the will of God, no matter how much they wanted to be blessed by Him. The obverse side of the very fact that the people of Israel worshiped idols so much implies that they actually yearned to receive many blessings. In other words, they worshiped golden calves, Baal, and Asherah so much precisely because they wanted to receive more blessings through these idols. 
By what kind of faith, then, could these Israelites have received the God-given blessings? The foundation of the nation of Israel is traced back to one man, Abraham the forefather of all Israelites. The word “Hebrew” means “to cross over,” which is in reference to Abraham’s crossing of the Euphrates River. Similarly, when the people of Israel left Egypt and entered into the land of Canaan, they had also crossed a river, this time the Jordan River. That’s why the Canaanites called them Hebrews, to indicate this crossing. Then given the fact that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the Israelites’ forefathers of faith, the people of Israel should have known all about how and by what kind of faith Isaac and Jacob were blessed, and how their ancestors had been freed from their oppression in Egypt and entered into the land of Canaan led by Moses—in other words, just by turning to their own history, they could have known everything there was to know about Jehovah God, but despite knowing it all, they still got nearer to the golden calves than God. The Israelites also had the record of their past kings; as all the achievements and failures of their kings were recorded by the scribes, they could have easily seen how and why they were led astray. 
Most importantly, the people of Israel had the Pentateuch with them, the five books of the Law of God written by Moses. Also known as the Torah, the first five Books of the Old Testament—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—are called the Five Books of Moses. The Torah, written by Moses, was inspired by the direction given by the author God, Himself. It showed His commandments and the history of Israel. In other words, the Israelites now had the Books of the Law of God. Just as we now have the Bible, the Word of God, so did the people of Israel have the Torah, the Books of the Law of God made of papyrus scrolls. Since the Torah was written in their own language, there was no reason why they couldn’t read it. Yet even as they read it, they still worshiped the golden calves instead of Jehovah God, all the while asking Him for His blessings in complete nonsense. They should have thrown away their golden calves and returned to Jehovah God. But the Israelites just couldn’t cast away their golden calves, which is the reason for them being cursed by God. 
Although every king of Israel wanted to be blessed by Jehovah God, no king knew on his own how he could receive the God-given blessings, and therefore every king should have asked the prophets of Israel. Once Jeroboam assumed the throne, he should have ensured throughout his reign that the people of Israel were serving Jehovah God faithfully; he should have appointed only the descendants of Levi to the priesthood as the southern kingdom of Judah was doing; and he should have sacrificed to God according to the sacrificial system established by Him. And if there ever was anything he didn’t know, all that he had to do was just ask the priests. Since the prophets of Israel were the most knowledgeable of the will of God, every king of Israel should have sought their counsel, and they should have ruled Israel and led its faith according to God’s pleasure. Yet King Ahaziah did not seek any advice from the prophets of God. His father King Ahab also had not listened to the words of the prophets. Like this, from the king all the way down to the lowliest of all, the people of Israel were too arrogant before God and disobeyed His Law and His will. For such wicked sinners, not only are they themselves destroyed, but even their descendants are also destroyed for the sin of worshiping golden calves and idols. Destruction was indeed perpetually brought upon all these people one generation after another.


The Israelites Need for True Spiritual Leaders 


Israel was a theocracy. The real king of Israel was the Lord, God. Israel was a nation that was ruled by God Himself through His servants. So its kings should have asked the servants of God for His will and led their people accordingly. God would then have taken care of the rest and been with them to protect them all. There was no reason for the kings of Israel to seek counsel from the neighboring countries, since they could have asked the servants of God about anything and everything. Except Israel, there was no nation in this entire world that was ruled by God, Himself; Israel was the only nation privileged to be under the direct rule of God. 
Yet despite this, the Israelites were asking for God’s curses out of their own volition, for they had forgotten how their forefathers were the fathers of faith who had believed in Jehovah God, and how this God of their forefathers was none other than their own God of Truth. The kings of the northern kingdom of Israel not only neglected the wonderful blessing of having God’s servants in their kingdom, but even worse, they drifted away from the God of Truth and His servants to worship idols, instead, according to their own wishes. By doing so, they replaced God with golden calves all on their own and followed the sins of Jeroboam. As this abominable sin, introduced by King Jeroboam was inherited by the succeeding kings to be passed onto one generation after another, the people of Israel totally came to worship the golden calves as their gods instead of the Lord God. In other words, with its faith corrupted, the nation of Israel ended up worshiping these golden calves as their gods. Even if the people of Israel knew that the golden calves were actually nothing more than idols, they probably couldn’t have spoken out about this as they were too afraid of their kings.
Jehovah God is not a mere creature. The Lord God is the holy God and the Almighty God. If the people of Israel knew that this God was their God, they should have asked their kings to return to their true God, but they failed to do so. Perhaps the Israelites were too fearful of their kings, perhaps they were too beholden to their carnal lusts, or perhaps they were too afraid that they would be reunited with the south kingdom of Judah—whatever the reason might be, it’s hard to understand why they chose not to turn back to God. Nevertheless, Israel was the only theocracy ruled by God in the history of mankind. God had personally chosen this nation as His own people and His priest for the sake of the entire mankind. 
Of course, the Bible says that the countless trials that the people of Israel had suffered on account of their idolatry were in order to spread the gospel to the Gentiles. In other words, this, too, came about from the profound providence of God. So, referring to how the people of Israel were leading fallacious lives of faith, refusing to submit to God in disobedience and worshiped idols so much instead, the Apostle Paul said: “I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles” (Romans 11:11). In other words, Paul is saying here that the people of Israel were allowed not to obey God for a while so that the mercy of God may also be bestowed on all the Gentiles. 
If we humans could do everything, there would be no need for us to believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord of our salvation. But all human beings are too insufficient and incapable of achieving their salvation from sin by themselves, and that is why Jesus Christ the Savior is so absolutely indispensable to everyone. However, Israel was a nation with an insatiable demand for signs and miracles. As the Bible says, “For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;” (1 Corinthians 1:22), the people of Israel had indeed sought after signs and miracles endlessly. The faith and beliefs of Christians in Korea are similarly demanding of miracles. Even as they profess to believe in God, they want to see signs and miracles before they follow Him. There is much in common between the faith of these Korean Christians and the faith of the Israelites. They both tend to be overly reliant on their own emotions. 
Just recently, the coach of the Korean national soccer team was replaced. In its first match since the arrival of the new coach, the Korean team played against the Iranian team and defeated it 2-0. Koreans were ecstatic with the win. While the result of the match was obviously gratifying, the very play of the Korean national team had drastically changed from when it was led by the previous coach. So the media praised the new coach effusively. Then the former coach criticized the new coach in an interview with reporters from his country, saying, “The new coach won the game with the players that I had already nurtured and made all ready. The members of the technical committee of the Korean Football Association are just terrible. Korea is a grave for foreign coaches.” However, what’s quite clear is that even when it comes to a sport, what kind of a coach leads the players makes a tremendous impact on their game. 
Israel had God’s servants—that is, they had prophets. If its kings wanted to be good rulers and receive God’s blessings both materially and spiritually, all that they had to do was just listen to the advice of the servants of God and trust in them. Had the kings of Israel and its people sought counsel from the servants of God, they could have all lived blessed lives, but they didn’t do this. Of the kings of Israel, those who were destroyed both physically and spiritually had invariably failed to seek any advice from the servants of God. That is why they were all destroyed in the end.
King Ahaziah was no exception; by the second year of his reign, he was already bed-ridden and eventually died from his wounds. This happened because he had rejected the God of Israel and worshiped a foreign idol called Baal-Zebub. Such an idol could not be the God of Israel. Yet despite this, Israel was filled with all kinds of false gods. There were so many idols in Israel at that time that it was practically an exhibition hall of world religions. 
There is a lesson that we should draw from all of this, and it is that Christians all over the world are now also worshiping golden calves instead of God just like Jeroboam. Today’s Christians are following the footsteps of the kings of Israel who had replaced God with golden calves and worshiped them instead. So no matter how diligently Christians all over the world try to lead their lives of faith, it’s all very useless. Herein lies the reason why despite their effort, so many Christians remain unable to receive the God-given blessings, reach their salvation, and live out their faith in fear of God. Today’s Protestant faith originated from the Reformation in the 16th century, but when viewed spiritually, from the very beginning its followers have been worshiping golden calves according to their carnal desires. So even now, the faith of Christianity cannot be changed unless they fundamentally reform their faith by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. 


Present-day Christianity around the World Must Change Its Gospel


Many Christians and pastors all around the world say often that Christianity today is in need of a change. The problem, however, is that they only point out the need for change, without knowing what exactly it is that should to be changed. This is because they are ignorant of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. So the believers leading their lives of faith under the guidance of the pastors who, spiritually speaking, worship golden calves continue to worship these golden calves themselves, even as they feel that something is wrong. Just like the people of Israel, today’s Christians also like to worship golden calves, and they are still heading in this direction. That is why Christianity today is declining into spiritual ruin. 
Isn’t today’s Christianity facing a spiritual ruin? Someone must now point out its mistakes, but as its present leaders do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they are incapable of leading it to the right path. In other words, even those who feel that something is wrong with Christianity do not realize that its decline stems from the ignorance of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Most Christians just think that it’s because of the lack of their virtuous deeds, and so they try to reform their mistaken acts and address institutional problems. This, however, is not real reform. They must instead believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and reform their faith itself. Christianity throughout the whole world must now believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and every Christian must also know the gospel of the water and the Spirit properly and launch the right reform of faith. To carry out this reform of faith properly, Christians must meet Jesus Christ our God, who has washed away all the sins of the world, through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. For today’s Christians to reach their perfect salvation, they must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given us. So they must realize the true salvation that the Lord has brought to us humans, and they must first receive the blessing of the remission of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
We Christians must have the proper understanding of the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus has given us now, but many Christian do not know this gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, and that is why they are facing spiritual ruin. It’s because Christians all around the world are ignorant of the gospel of the water and the Spirit that they cannot make any progress to institute any true reform of faith despite their effort. That is why I’ve decided to write my books on heresy. I have every confidence that through these books, Christians will come to realize what the sins of Jeroboam were, how they also have been trapped into the same sin, and why the gospel of the water and the Spirit is now so indispensable to them.
Many people think since Jeroboam’s offences were committed against God by himself that only he was punished for these sins. This, however, is not the case. The greatest sin that today’s Christianity is committing against God is that it is following the sins of Jeroboam. Present-day Christianity is walking in the same way of sin that King Jeroboam had walked, and therefore it is also subject to the same curses that fell upon Jeroboam. The sins of King Jeroboam were not merely his personal sins, but they were the sins that misled the people of Israel to draw them to golden calves, and thereby making them sin against God. Put differently, the consequences of Jeroboam’s sins were not confined to just himself. The offence of one man, Jeroboam, turned into the offence of the entire people of Israel. That’s because through Jeroboam one man, the entire people of Israel came to embark on the way of worshiping golden calves. Today’s Christians have also replaced their God with golden calves. In other words, they have replaced Jehovah God with the power, wealth, and glory of this world, having a greater regard for earthly idols than the heavenly God Himself. 
The sins that originated from one man, King Jeroboam, had made all his people sin against Jehovah God, and that is the reason the entire nation of Israel was destroyed by God. This was the most abominable sin in His sight. Only if Christians today realize this, can they return to Jesus Christ who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit and meet the God of Truth. The sins committed by Jeroboam were not just his individual sins, but also the sins of his nation, and these sins are the very sins that today’s Christians are now committing. As Christians, you and I may also commit sin with our insufficient acts, but the sins of today’s Christians are on a fundamentally different dimension, as they are ignoring Jesus Christ, who came to this earth by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and instead worshiping golden calves as their gods. Therefore, Christianity today must cast away these golden calves and believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior. This worship of golden calves is the sin of today’s Christians and the sin of pastors in Christian communities. It’s as if they are saying now, “Get out of our way, Jesus Christ. We want to worship and serve golden calves as our gods.” Even though they don’t actually say this with their words, in their hearts, they seek only carnal blessings. None other than this is the very offence of today’s Christians. 
The prevailing sin of today’s Christians is that they have drifted away from the gospel of the water and the Spirit and are instead worshiping golden calves before God to great abomination. By refusing to believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit with their hearts and rejecting it instead, Christians are now committing the same sin that the people of Israel had committed by worshiping golden calves. Some Christians may then argue by asking, “When did we Christians ever worship golden calves?” But doesn’t the very fact that so many Christians today are seeking only material prosperity, physical health, and worldly fame prove that they are actually worshiping golden calves? Isn’t this really the case? Quoting 3 John 1, which says, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers,” some denominations mesmerize the minds of today’s Christians with their advocacy of the so-called “Three-fold Blessings” or “Four-fold Gospel.” What is this kind of a faith if not one that worships golden calves? Even though they say with their words that Jesus Christ is their Savior, in the end, they are actually worshiping and following golden calves in this world more than God Himself. 
The sad reality of Christians all across the world is that they are serving golden calves as their gods. This is evident not just in certain denominations, but also in every Christian denomination. Therefore, today’s Christianity prizes only the blood of the Cross, while showing no interest in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the real gospel that Jesus spoke of. If people could receive the remission of sin just by believing in the blood of the Cross, alone, wouldn’t it be so easy for anyone to attain it? Is the gospel of Truth through which the Lord has saved us from the sins of this world really that simple and easy? Although many Christians say that one is saved from sin just by believing in the gospel of the blood of the Cross, alone, the real gospel is the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Put differently, Christians today are actually worshiping golden calves with their hearts. So it’s absolutely critical for us to grasp the faith of heresy. 
The real gospel of Truth that Jesus has given us is the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The gospel of the Cross critically differs from the gospel of the water and the Spirit. However, most Christians have been familiarized with the gospel of only the Cross, for a long time. It is therefore not so easy to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. For people today to understand and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they must first realize that they are indeed sinners, grasp how exactly the Lord has saved us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit for our sake, and believe in it. All those who now believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have received every God-given blessing.
Despite professing to believe in Jesus as their Savior, Christians today have golden calves firmly planted in the center of their hearts. This is the reality of their faith. Having created their own version of Jesus Christ, today’s Christians believe in this Jesus Christ of their own making. None other than this is the faith of worshiping golden calves. Since the people of Israel believed in golden calves as their gods, how could God not have poured out His wrath on them? That’s why the Israelites were cursed and went through immense physical and spiritual sufferings, all because of the golden calves. Because the people of Israel believed in these golden calves as their gods, they not only drifted away from God’s blessings, but also even worse they were cursed and destroyed. Yet despite this, they still did not turn around from their way, for they failed to realize the cause of their misery. Christians today must not repeat this mistake of the Israelites. Rather than believing in the blood of the Cross, alone, they must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, realize the righteousness of God, and truly become His children. 
Christians all around the world must repent from their sin of worshiping golden calves as their gods—that is, they must repent before God from the offence they committed by following the sins of Jeroboam—and they must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It’s not really the righteousness of God that they are serving, but they are actually worshiping the riches of this world as their gods. Invoking the name of Jesus Christ, Christians today and their ministers are invariably seeking only worldly values such as riches, power, and fame. To put it simply, present-day Christianity is committing an abominable offence against God. And that is why so many Christians are spiritually accursed now, for they are unable to believe in Jesus Christ who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit as their Savior.
Christians who have received the remission of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have attained their eternal salvation and everlasting life from God. Jesus Christ our Lord is a merciful Savior. Even though the people of Israel were cursed by God for their foolish and hardened hearts, among today’s Christians, those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have received by faith the heavenly blessings bestowed by Jesus Christ.
By following the sins of Jeroboam, many pastors around the world are ministering erroneously, leading their own congregation to worship golden calves also. Such pastors are now trapped in the greatest of all sins, the sin of worshiping golden calves before God. The Lord said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). Yet in spite of this warning, many pastors are still making countless people sin. As such, they must also believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and return to God. To avoid the certain condemnation that’s awaiting them, they must all return to the truly living God and wholeheartedly believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus Christ has given to them. These people must now be saved from all the sins of the world by placing their faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Only then can they become righteous. 
Moreover, whoever receives the remission of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit with the heart must become a servant of the righteousness of God and thus reach his victory, rather than continuing to be a servant of golden calves. I am sure that when we believe foremost in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that has become the righteousness of God, and when we follow the Lord by seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness by faith, God will indeed bless everything to prosper. 
It is my sincerest hope and prayer that Christians around the world trapped in heresy would all return to God and reach their salvation by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. May the blessings of our God be with you.
 
This sermon is also available in ebook format. Click on the book cover below.
Heretics, Who Followed the Sins of Jeroboam (II)