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Subject 22 : The Gospel According to LUKE
[Chapter 1-11] Jesus Who Met Our Souls (Luke 1:46-50)
(Luke 1:46-50)
“And Mary said:
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.’”
As we greet this Christmas season and wrap up this year, we truly feel in our hearts something is wanting. There are a lot of complicated things that happen as we live in this generation, but the most important thing we must know is that to us human beings, there isn’t just our outward man but that there is also a soul that is our inward man. So, one of the writers of Psalms said, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God” (Psalms 42:11).
All of us have an outward man as well as an inward man. Our outward man adapts and deals with reality, but our inward man, that is, our souls feel uneasy and disappointed without the Lord’s guidance. Many people are changing quickly because this generation is going really fast and everything has changed. People can’t follow this world that changes so rapidly. The world we are living in changes so quickly that when the cost of living rises, taxes follow behind, and there are more instances of corruption. The natural environment also changes and is being ruined so rapidly. We are living in a world where it is really difficult to get our outward man together. In such a situation, our outward man thinks that he is always just losing things. This generation is “the age of uncertainty” as a famous economist said. There is no one who is not influenced by this uncertainty. So, they feel uneasy about their futures, and try to eliminate that uneasiness. But it isn’t easy to be freed from such uneasiness.
My fellow believers, how about our inward man, our souls, in this Christmas season? Do our souls praise and have joy in the birth of our Savior? Our souls have joy and are in peace because of the Lord’s righteousness. Why is that? That is because the Lord came to us, took all our sins at once for all through His baptism, completely eliminated all of them, and gave us true freedom. It is because He gave us the Kingdom of Heaven that we didn’t really build ourselves. Our souls always have joy because our Lord gave us true freedom.
My fellow believers, all of us have two selves inside each of us. Those are our outward and inward man. Your inward man is your soul. It is your soul that praises the Lord just as Mary praised when she said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant” (Luke 1:46-48). We, too, come to make this confession of faith like Mary, and we come to make those kinds of praises through the same faith as Mary. As we celebrate Christmas, our inward man rejoices in the Lord who came to us. The sins of our souls could completely be remitted all at once by the Lord coming to this earth and cleansing them. Our souls praise our Savior Jesus Christ because we are able to thus enjoy freedom.
The Bible says, “Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). My outward man is uneasy as it lives in and sees this bleak world everyday, but I truly wonder what would have happened to my inward man if not for our Lord’s righteousness. I truly consider it fortunate as we celebrate this Christmas that our Lord came to us. So, my inward man has joy and gives praises because of my Savior.
What would have happened if the Lord had not come to your souls and mine? But our souls have come to be able to stand before God without fear, praise Him, and return glory to Him because the Lord came to them and remitted all our souls’ sins at once for all. All of these are the grace of God’s righteousness.
Our Souls Would Have No Joy If Not for the Holy Spirit of God
My fellow believers, I reemphasize that our souls would have no joy if God were not in us. We have joy because God is in us. Our souls give praise because of our God. We praise the Lord’s righteousness because He did a great work to us so that we could praise and commend Him.
I repeat that each one of us has an outward man and an inward man. As you know, the inward man is more important than the outward man. Your inward man is your soul. God made us living people by breathing the breath of life into our nostrils, and He made our souls into lives that do not perish. God made us as existences that never die; but if a soul has sin, it will be eternally destroyed.
Our souls have fallen into sin because we have fallen into Satan’s snares. What would be more bleak and frustrating than this, if our souls had sin? But as extremely fortunate as it is, our Lord abides with us in our hearts. Jesus Christ came to us in order to abide with us. That is, He came to us in order to save us from all our sins. He is also the Creator who created the entire universe. Jesus Christ who is the true God came to our souls and saved us. Through that, our souls returned to life, had joy again, and praised God again. They praise Him by having received eternal freedom, eternal peace, and eternal blessings by God’s righteousness. I am thankful for the fact that God is alive; and I am eternally thankful for the grace we have received from the living God who came to us.
We would have absolutely no problems if we only had souls, but we also have physical bodies. That is why all the people in this world are dismal. They feel uneasy. The reason for that is because all they have is their outward man and their inward man has not been able to meet the Lord. No matter how unstable the world is or how weak we are, our souls, our inward man, have joy because of our Savior. It is truly fortunate and moving that the Lord came to our souls, and there is no greater blessing than this. There are no people anywhere in this world that are as blessed as we are. There are truly no people as happy as we are.
Mary Was a Person Who Put on Special Grace in Those Times
Mary was one of Elizabeth’s relatives. One day, when Mary was alone, an angel appeared and said, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:28) Out of many women, Mary had put on special grace of salvation. My fellow believers, you also have received a very great blessing of having put on the grace of salvation. You have put on special love before God.
Can our spirits become like Mary’s spirit that was used by God? Can we have spirits like that of the Apostle Paul, and can we receive the remission of sins just as he did? The question is: Can our hearts be just like Mary’s heart, can our salvation come about through the Word of God just as hers did, and can we praise God just as she did? Yes, we can because you and I have put on God’s special grace of salvation. We give praises, are thankful, and return glory to God because of the Holy Spirit. Our souls rejoice in our Savior and our souls praise our Lord. Our souls praise and rejoice in the Lord because He saved us from all our sins, because He came to us, and because He met us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. He rescued us from all our sins and completely cleansed them, He blessed us so that our souls could go and live in the Kingdom of Heaven, and He made our souls into His people.
We are now living in a complicated and bleak world. As we are living in an aimless world that is full of sins and iniquities, we feel uneasy and have a hard time. But, my fellow believers, I hope that you don’t underestimate yourselves because of the weakness of your outward man. We have the Word of salvation that we have received from God. Our real existence can be found in our inward man. Our outward man is not what we are truly like.
Larvae that look ugly crawl up out of the ground, build cocoons in trees, and hang in them until they wake up one moment, cast off their skin, become cicadas, and sing refreshing and beautiful songs in the summer. That is what our inward man is like. Our inward man is like a cicada that has shed its skin, not a larva. Our real entity is our inward man, not our outward man. It can be said that our real entity is our inward man, that is, our souls. Our Lord clothed our souls, our inward man, in the grace of salvation. He completely eliminated all our sins once and for all through the Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
The Lord Made Us Do the Precious and Lofty Work of God
This work is spreading by faith that He took all our sins and shed His blood. Our Lord has regarded our lowly states. He has done it to us just as He did to Mary. Mary, being full of the Holy Spirit, said, “Henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). Was Mary a person who was blessed before God? Yes, she was. She was a blessed woman.
The Catholic Church calls her “Mary, full of grace.” The meaning of those words is right if nothing else. They begin to pray, “Hail Mary, full of grace.” This means that she received a fullness of grace. They continue to pray, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The words in their prayer are not wrong so far, but the problem arises from then on. The last part of their prayer to Mary goes, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” How about these words? The evidence of deifying Mary is revealed in this prayer. They call Mary as “Holy Mary, the mother of God.” It is total nonsense.
Mary was truly a blessed woman. But she became a blessed woman by admitting that she had been a wretched woman destined to hell without the Lord’s grace. She was merely a human being, but she received God’s blessings with a humble heart by faith. So, what kind of people are you and I before God? You and I are also blessed people. We must properly know what kinds of existences we are before God. We have received something precious from God; it is wrong to be ignorant of that fact and be in despair because we are too attached to our bodies. The Apostle John said, “I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2).
More than our outward man, we must want our inward man to prosper, and we must know what kinds of blessings we have received before God. John is also saying that he hopes that we know what kinds of blessings our souls have received before God and how big the blessing of salvation we have received is.
My fellow believers, when you look at yourselves, I hope you are not pessimistic from just looking at your outward man or the darkness of reality. You and I don’t have a lot of interest in this world because we are people who have been greatly blessed before God. Mary received this blessing a long time ago, and all our predecessors of faith who believed in the Lord’s righteousness also received the same blessing of salvation. I hope that you live absolutely knowing the fact that you and I in this generation are blessed people who have received the blessing of salvation from God. Do you understand? We are people who have received the great blessing of salvation from God. It is the evidence of the great blessing that we have no sin in our inward man because we have received the remission of sins, isn’t it?
Even if the things of your outward man don’t prosper, the Lord will take us to the Kingdom of Heaven when the time comes and make us glorious forever because He came to our inward man, eliminated all our sins, and made us into His blessed people. No one has ever received bigger blessings than the blessing of salvation that we have received. What we have to think of during this Christmas season is that God is alive and that He came to our souls, and we must be thankful with faith that He eliminated all our sins once and for all through the Truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. By eliminating all our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Lord gave holiness to our souls, our inward man, and He met us personally. There is nothing greater than this. There is nobody who has received greater grace than the grace of the Lord’s salvation. You and I whom God has met are those who have received such great grace.
The Lord met you and me and eliminated all of our sins in this generation, just as He met Mary and eliminated all the sins of her soul. This Christmas, we must give praise and be thankful for this in faith. Our Lord came to us, eliminated all our sins, and became our Savior. Among all the many people in this world, we have specially met the Lord who became the Savior. He came to us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. So the Lord was conceived in our hearts, and the faith in our hearts grows everyday. My fellow believers, do you know that Jesus Christ came to your hearts, eliminated your sins, and makes your faith continue to grow? Do you know the fact that the Lord is alive in your hearts and mine and blesses us?
Who is in our souls? The Lord is. Who is in the Lord? Our souls are. We have become one body; He eats with us and we eat with Him. This is a very glorious relationship. My beloved saints, we are people who have truly received the precious blessing of salvation from God. Our souls have truly received great blessings before God such that they cannot be expressed in words. Our God met our souls and did the great work of salvation. He eliminated all our sins at once. He rescued us from the judgment of sin. Our souls will go and live in the Kingdom of the Lord when the time comes.
So, our inward man must be thankful, give praise, and grow well before God. But there are people who are sometimes weighed down heavily by things of the world because of their outward man and souls who become disheartened. I hope that you use all your power in strengthening the faith of your inward man. If the faith of your inward man grows, your outward man grows automatically. As we celebrate this Christmas, let’s think again before the Lord about how great of a blessing we have received, and let’s praise and be thankful to the Lord who clothed us in that great blessing and much grace.
The weather is cold and living in the world is difficult lately, and I know that your hearts are probably wearied for various reasons. But we must never forget that the Lord has met our souls, eliminated all our sins, and made our souls blessed. We must be thankful for those things, and we must live with the Lord beside us. We can never forget that our Lord has met us. Mary lived in thanks, never forgetting for her entire life that the Lord met her. When she met the Lord, she said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation” (Luke 1:46-50).
Mary immediately praised the Lord through her spirit when she met Him. This praise and this confession of faith of Mary has now become yours and mine. Our Lord has met us and given us great blessings so that our souls could make such a confession and such praises. Whether all people are blessed or not is determined by whether they have met the Lord or not.
You should also really praise the Lord and remember Him as you read this confession of faith that Mary made. Just as Mary made a confession of faith when she said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant” (Luke 1:46-48), you must praise that the Lord regarded your souls. As we commemorate this Christmas, we must be thankful in our hearts. We can never forget this and must eternally be thankful for and praise that our Lord regarded us.
People’s hearts swell when Christmas comes. As this world is really confused in such an atmosphere, Satan is all the more unyielding, knowing that his time is almost up. If we read the Book of Daniel, it speaks of the signs of the last days; it says that knowledge will increase then. How much has knowledge increased now? We are currently in the generation of the computer. I heard that a computer chip the size of a thumbnail has enough memory to hold several hundred million words. In the future, trains will not run as they do now. They say bullet trains will be built that can practically fly at a speed of 500 km/hr (313 mph). Then, they might be as fast as an airliner. I’ve also heard that since passenger planes are also slow, tiresome, and tormenting, the day isn’t far off when passenger planes will travel a little faster by having supersonic engines installed in them. It’s hard for us to keep up with the world because it changes so quickly. People who go wild trying to catch up with the world in these kinds of times are rather foolish. A person will fail in a year if they abandon everything they need to do and try to catch up with the world. People will get run down because advancements will be made tens of times more than what they know by studying hard their whole lives. They can never keep up with the world. People merely follow far behind the world; they can’t keep up. A person who works hard to keep up with the world will ultimately have a hot temper or, in serious instances, they will go crazy.
My fellow believers, our outward man can’t keep up with this world, but our inward man has joy in God and praises Him. It lives eternally, praising the Lord. We live today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and we will live eternally, praising the eternal Lord, even after we go to the Kingdom of the Lord, which is the eternal world. This Christmas, let’s remember that our souls praise our Lord. Let’s not forget that our Lord has regarded us. Let’s not forget that He has met and saved our souls. My fellow believers, do you wonder why I keep repeating myself even though you know it? That is because we must always ruminate over this obvious Truth. Do you eternally have joy in the Lord? Yes, you do. My soul has joy in our Lord. We live forever. If not for the Lord, we would have no joy and no eternal life. Therefore, we must be thankful for His existence and also for Him meeting us.
We must think of our spirits. People are eternal existences. The physical world that we see is not everything. The Lord made us as eternal and immortal existences. He gave us life by breathing the breath of life in our nostrils, and thus, He made us living beings that never die. We praise the Lord who made us eternal existences, and we praise Him who has met our souls that never die. We rejoice in Him. We take pleasure in this. We praise our Lord who has regarded our lowly souls, and we thank Him immensely.
Our inward man, our soul, praises God, is thankful to Him, and returns the glory to Him. We praise the Lord who has given us as great blessings as Mary received. When we think of the fact that the Lord has met our souls, we automatically praise Him, and our hearts can be peaceful and thankful even though our outward man is so insufficient and the world is completely dismal. If that was not the case, that is, if the Lord had not met us, or if He did not exist, it would be hard to live our whole lives because we would feel too uneasy. Thankfully, the Lord does exist, and He has met our souls. Therefore, our souls are peaceful like this even though we live in this uncertain generation. Of course, there are times when we fall into uneasiness for a short time, but we are mostly in peace. Are your souls peaceful? I see that you all are. I hope that you don’t forget that we are peaceful because our Lord met us. The blessing of salvation that we have received is extremely great. Even though the world today is very uneasy and uncertain, our souls have joy.
We praise the fact that our Lord exists forever and we will live forever with Him. That is because He has met us. When we first believed in Jesus, we didn’t know how we got such a great blessing or why our souls had put on this kind of glory. But as time passed after we met the Lord, we were surprised and thankful that we really have gotten these blessings from God. My fellow believers, go out into the world and meet some other souls. Look closely at whether they are souls who have received blessings through the Lord like you have. Their souls are in despair. Where is their praise? Where is their gratitude? Where is their joy in all things? They are only full of worry and despair. But souls who have met the Lord have joy in God. That is because they have met the Lord.
I truly give thanks to the Lord for meeting us. How could you and I live if He had not done so? This generation is this complicated and we have to live in a world that is so busy; could we worship in peace if the Lord had not met us? This generation is one in which a person cannot live that way. It is a generation that is hard to survive in even if one works to death.
It is also hard for students attending school to study hard. They are students who feel they’re not good enough even if they study until 12 or 1 o’clock in the morning. A long time ago when I went to elementary school, we studied under small kerosene lamps or took our notebooks out under the moonlight if those lamps weren’t good enough. Then, we just went to bed quickly not finishing our homework. We used to be swatted with a switch a few times by the teacher when we went to school the next day. That was it. So, there were a good many students who graduated from elementary school without properly knowing even the Korean alphabet. At that time, people could continue on in life even in those circumstances. People could graduate from elementary school even if they didn’t know how to read. Everyone graduated if they just attended school. But now is a generation when that can’t happen. People of all ages lately are afflicted with obsessive-compulsiveness and live a crazy life that is pressed for time and business. The more this generation is this way, the more uneasy and difficult it is to live without the Lord.
Not just individuals, but people are also collectively afflicted by the instability of this generation now. People in our country feel uneasy. The socio-political situation of our country is extremely unstable: Politicians are uneasy, and farmers are all uneasy now because the UR (Uruguay Rounds) negotiations have been pushed through by WTO. Government officials in politics are also uneasy. People involved in trade, those in business, those who work, and even small business owners are uneasy. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t feel uneasy. Even our nation’s president is uneasy now.
But what are you and I like now? Our outward man feels uneasy often, but even that is just a very little while. We get caught up in the mood of the world and feel uneasy for a short time, but we become light-hearted again after a little while. We are able to live in peace like this because the Lord takes care of us.
That is because our Lord has met us. Our Lord has met our souls. He has met your soul. We can live happily because the Lord has met us. How could we live in joy if He had not? We couldn’t live a normal life in this crazy world. Is this a generation in which one can live light-heartedly? This generation isn’t one in which people can be light-hearted. In the near future, tribulations and disasters will arise in this world. It is said that even a creature of no account makes preparations or takes shelter when it knows in advance that a typhoon is coming. How can we who are the supreme creations live light-heartedly facing such disasters if we were not crazy?
Even so, our souls are peaceful like this because our Lord has met us. Our souls are peaceful because our Lord is in us. He did a great work for us, He has saved us from the curse and destruction of this world, and He has rescued us. My fellow believers, we are the only ones who will not perish when the world is destroyed.
My fellow believers, our inward man is not uneasy for the Lord has met with our inward man, unlike our outward man. If you feel uneasy, ruminate on these words:
“Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance” (Psalms 42:5).
You won’t be uneasy if you look to the Lord. My fellow believers, look more to the Lord the more perilous this world becomes. Pray to Him. Ask Him for help. This way, we live enjoying peace and praising the Lord through faith in Him.
The beloved saint Mary prophesied,
“For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation” (Luke 1:49-50).
Mary was a God-fearing woman. Are there people who fear God in this generation, too? God meets people who fear Him. So, are there people who fear God in this generation? It is really difficult to meet people who fear Him. There may not even be one person in ten thousand who fears God. Almost all people in this world don’t know how to give ear to the Word of the Lord because they’re so full of themselves, and consequently they don’t fear God. So, we are only thankful that we somehow met the Lord, somehow came to fear God, and somehow became these kinds of blessed spirits.
Concerning the question of by what people live, the answer is that they live by every Word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God. We must live by caring about our souls. More than our outward man, our inward man must prosper. We must become people who think about what blessings God has clothed our souls in, people who are thankful for that, people who praise God, people who believe in Him, and people who witness of this gospel.
Because we live in these last times, our God holds firmly to our souls, according to the circumstances clothes our souls in His love through compassion that can’t be fully expressed in words, and supplies whatever our bodies need. We who live in the last days must take care of our souls. We must examine our inward man closely and increase our interest in it. The outward man thinks, “What should I eat? What should I drink? What should I wear?” It frequently worries uselessly about those kinds of things, but those daily necessities are taken care of automatically if we just walk by the Word of God. Our Lord has promised us, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you”
(Matthew 6:33).
Our inward man must think of and rejoice in the grace God bestowed on us. We should be thankful that He who is mighty performed a great work that has eliminated all the sins of our souls, and we must witness this salvation to all the people of this world. The Lord has met our inward man. Therefore, we must live eternally in the Lord by praising Him. We must live by thinking of, believing in, and being thankful for how our inward man has met the Lord. We must think a lot by being inclined to our inward man.
(Matthew 6:33).
Our inward man must think of and rejoice in the grace God bestowed on us. We should be thankful that He who is mighty performed a great work that has eliminated all the sins of our souls, and we must witness this salvation to all the people of this world. The Lord has met our inward man. Therefore, we must live eternally in the Lord by praising Him. We must live by thinking of, believing in, and being thankful for how our inward man has met the Lord. We must think a lot by being inclined to our inward man.
If your heart becomes carnally minded, you will become like Lot. People who care a lot about their outward man are like Lot, not Abraham. Lot is a person who was ruined by caring about only the outward man and only seeking after material prosperity. Only two of Lot’s daughters received the remission of sins; all the rest of his children weren’t able to do so. His wife and descendants couldn’t receive the remission of sins, either. That is because Lot didn’t think of his inward man, that is, his soul.
We who live in these last days must think more and more of our inward man. Our jobs, business, or studies are all trivial things we do routinely in our daily lives. These things are of minor importance. But, if your outward man takes away the initiative from your inner man, it is like a case of the tail wagging the dog. My fellow believers, we must think of our souls that are our real existence. We must think of what kinds of blessings our souls have received from God. We must always think of our God and be grateful before Him. We must think of how our souls have received blessings from God.
We must first become spiritual people. If we try to become spiritual people first, all our physical problems will be resolved. But if we first become a physical person, we ultimately become like Lot. You probably know Lot, Abraham’s nephew, very well. Was Abraham richer than Lot? Or was Lot richer? Abraham was much richer. Abraham sought after his inward man, that is, his spirit. Therefore, God blessed Abraham to make him very rich. God also made Abraham’s son, Isaac, the richest man in those days.
If we first think of what blessings God has given to our souls and praise God, give thanks, and have joy with faith through our inward man, our Lord will make our outward man prosper also. So, what is there for us to feel uneasy about as we live in these last days? We usually feel uneasy when things concerning our outward man don’t turn out well. But, even if things go well for our outward man, won’t they perish when this world is destroyed? Our outward man will also be destroyed. Therefore, our inward man must prosper first. Our outward man is only necessary temporarily while we live in this world now; it is never eternal. We must live spiritually, knowing that truth. Whether you and I conduct business, attend a job, or are engaged in studying, we must live by thinking of the fact that our Lord has met our souls that are our inward man, and make praises and witness just like Mary did.
We should not care about our outward man first. Our souls must prosper first. My fellow believers, how grateful are you before the Lord? Our God has eliminated all the sins of our inward man, that is, our souls; then, how grateful are you before Him for this? How thankfully do you live to the Lord who eliminated all your sins and mine and who met your souls and mine? We must be thankful to Him without end. Are you thankful? Yes, you are. The thing that we have most to be thankful for is that our Lord has met our souls and eliminated all their sins. We cannot forget this and must always be grateful for it. As we live in these last days we must have the same faith as Mary’s that says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant” (Luke 1:46-48).
Our Lord has saved us from all our sins by regarding our souls, coming to us, meeting us, taking all our sins, and receiving the judgment for us. Therefore, we must praise the Lord and be thankful to Him forever. We cannot compete amongst ourselves about who is better off or be jealous of who has received more blessings from God. There is only one thing we have to say in this world, and that is, “I give thanks that the Lord has eliminated all the sins of my soul.” We must live by being eternally thankful like this. This must be engraved in our hearts. My fellow believers, there can never be anyone among us who forgets the fact that the Lord came to us as the Savior and has eliminated the sins of our souls, or who is ungrateful or hides the fact that he has received the remission of sins.
My fellow believers, be alert in this unstable and uncertain generation. If you fail to do so, you will lose the salvation of the Truth in an instant by Satan who is watching for every opportunity to pounce upon you like a roaring lion. Be thankful before God. Be thankful that He has given peace to our souls. Have joy in that. No matter how perilous this world is, even if, contrary to your wishes, a lot of work by your hands isn’t settled well, and consequently, even if you live in a lowly state because of that, I hope by all means that you live with joy. God originally saved lowly people like us.
My fellow believers, be thankful that you have met the Lord. Don’t be thankful because of your desirable circumstances; be thankful because you have met the Lord. We must praise that the Lord has met us. We shouldn’t listen to the Bible inattentively; I hope that you listen to it by faith.
My fellow believers, the time has come for us to be awakened from sleep. We must now clearly know with clear minds what kind of generation this is. There is not much of this world left to us. I’m over 50; if I live till I’m 70, whatever they turn out to be, there will be changes in this world for the rest of my life. Even if God doesn’t do anything, Satan will totally change this world. The time has now come for us to be awakened from sleep. We must live with our inward man praising the Lord and by being thankful to Him who has met that inward man.
Now is not the time for us to be easygoing in this world. We might be the ones who are on the last train. I mean that we are on the last train of salvation. The whistle blew and the first train left when man was born into this world. Trains left every hour afterwards, and it is now 12 at night, the time for the last train to leave. The last train of salvation in this world is leaving, and we stop and pick people up at every station on the way. People on the train here are people riding the last train just like us. People not on the train become the wretched ones who missed it. Eternal destruction waits for them. But we who are on the last train obtain eternal joy.
We must praise God by our spirits in these last days. Just as Mary was moved by the fullness of the Holy Spirit and praised the Lord with a prayer of prophecy, we must also praise God through our hearts. By doing so, our inward man can rejoice everyday. Do you understand, my fellow believers?
Don’t be repressed by your outward man. Rather, rejoice in the Lord always with your inward man. Be thankful and rejoice everyday. When our Lord comes, I hope that we will meet Him, enter His Kingdom together, and live enjoying eternal happiness.
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