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Sermons

Subject 16 : The Gospel According to JOHN

[Chapter 8-6] He Who Is of God Hears God’s Words (John 8:25-47)

(John 8:25-47)
“Then they said to Him, ‘Who are You?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him.’ They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father. Then Jesus said to them, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.’ As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ They answered Him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.’ They answered and said to Him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father.’ Then they said to Him, ‘We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.’”
 
 
We read John 8:25-47. If we look at verse 47, it is written, “He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.” And if we look at verse 31, it says, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” It is written that he who is of God hears His words and becomes a true disciple of the Lord. What will we become if we don’t listen to the words of Jesus Christ who is God while saying we believe in Him? So, all we have to do is hear the recorded Word of God and believe it. Only then can we become true Christians.
But it says that a person who is not of God does not listen to the Word of God attentively or believe in it. People who believe in Jesus Christ who is God as their Savior listen attentively to the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the Truth that comes forth out of the Word of God, believe it in their hearts, and obtain salvation from sin. All of the words of God become the benchmark in our lives, become faith, and always lead us. We must become people who make God happy by becoming listeners and believers in the Word of God by giving ear to it. In order to do so, we must listen to what God is telling us, His commandments, and admonitions in His Word, and follow them in faith.
The words of the Bible are the Word of God recorded for about 1600 years; almost all of the contents of the Word of God were about Jesus Christ who is God and our salvation. The Old Testament recorded of Jesus Christ, who would come in the future; the New Testament recorded the fact that the Savior, Jesus Christ, came to this earth clothed in the flesh of man and eliminated our sins by the baptism He received and His precious blood that He spilt. It also recorded His resurrection, ascension, and that He will come again. It records the work that the Lord has fulfilled to save us from all our sins at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Things of this world frequently change. The words of many philosophers and religious leaders in the world today don’t even last a century before changing, mainly because their words are always imperfect and are the mixture of their own philosophical thoughts and hypothetical reasoning. The recorded Word of God never changes. The Bible was recorded by about 40 Scripture writers, over approximately 1600 years. But the main theme is always about Jesus Christ, and the whole Bible is a united message of salvation; in other words, they all recorded Jesus Christ’s work, His love, and the cleansing of our sins. The people of God who recorded His Word all wrote about Jesus Christ even though each of them had different natures, positions, customs of life, and circumstances. Among the Scripture writers who wrote about Jesus in the New Testament was a fisherman, a doctor, and even a person who had been a tax collector. It was the same in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, all of the prophets recorded about Jesus who would come in the future.
The A.D. system that we use now was also made using references to the time that Jesus came. So, people referenced the time that Jesus came to this world as the year 1 A.D. (abbreviation of Anno Domini in Latin, which means ‘the year of the Lord’). And the time before He came was called B.C. (abbreviation of Before Christ). In other words, the history of this world was started through Jesus Christ.
The meaning of “Jesus Christ” is Savior, and our Savior, Jesus Christ, made this world and saved sinners. Jesus Christ who is God made this world and put on the flesh of man and came to this earth for us so He could save people who had fallen into evil from all the sins of the world. He had the Word of God recorded in the Scriptures through His servants, and gave it to everyone, all the way down to us today.
For 400 years before Jesus Christ came to this earth, there were no prophets of God, so there was no servant of God in Israel to spread His Word. At that time, people’s hearts were empty and confused because there were no servants of God who would spread His Word. At this time, Jesus Christ, whom everyone had been waiting for, came to save humankind from their sins. The reason why Jesus Christ had to come to this earth in the flesh of man was that He was needed by the sinners who were starving spiritually at the time. They were starving spiritually because the servants of God were not on the earth.
Jesus Christ who is God has existed for eternity and will continue to live on for eternity. Our Lord is the Author of this universe; He made this world by His Word. When He created this universe and this world, He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. All the Words recorded in the Bible were spoken by God. Therefore, God showed His will to us through His Word.
But there are two groups of people in the world: those who believe that the Bible is the Word of God and those who do not. People today who do not believe that Jesus is God do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. But people who hear and believe the Word of God are all people who acknowledge that the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the Truth. In this generation, also, people who say they believe in Jesus Christ who is God believe that all the Word of God recorded in the Bible is the Truth of salvation. The Lord said that people who believe in the Word of God become Jesus Christ’s true disciples. Those who believe in the recorded Word of God become true disciples of Jesus. That is because the Lord said in John 8, starting with verse 31, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” God spoke this to us personally. Therefore, God speaks to mankind even now through His servants, and all mankind has to do is believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and know and believe the Word of God that His servants spread.
 
  
Do People Who Hear and Believe the Word of God Seek after the Lord?
 
If you hear the Word of God and believe in it, you will receive the remission of your sins in your hearts. People who believe in the Word of God receive the remission of sins. And those people become Jesus Christ’s true disciples. The Lord said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Our Lord saving us from the sins of the world through the gospel of the water and the Spirit is never-changing Truth.
This Truth is the Truth in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Lord saved all sinners from the sins of the world through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Bible says that the Truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the Truth that leads every believer to the Kingdom of Heaven and “the path of righteousness” (Matthew 21:32). We receive the remission of our sins and become the Lord’s disciples by knowing and believing in the Word of God.
If we look at the work that the Lord did in John 8, we see that He healed the sick on the Sabbath. The Sabbath in the Old Testament was from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday in today’s system. Since God decided in the Law that the seventh day was one of not working but resting, the Jews kept the Sabbath drastically. So, they said that it is recorded that one must rest on the Sabbath and found fault with Jesus about why it was necessary for Him to heal people’s illnesses on the Sabbath. Our Lord countered them by saying, “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:11-12).
They provoked Jesus by saying He did not keep the Sabbath according to the Law. But the Lord said, “I am the Son of God and I was before your father Abraham.” Immediately, the Jews slandered Jesus, saying, “You must be possessed. You’re only thirty-something; what are you talking about? You were before our father Abraham, huh? Ha!” When they met Him, they cynically remarked, “If You say You’re not possessed, how can you say You were before Abraham?” If I said that I was born before General Sunsin Yi (Korean admiral who totally defeated a Japanese fleet during a Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592 to 1598), wouldn’t other people say that I am demon-possessed? Jesus said He was before Abraham, and people said He was demon-possessed and a transgressor of the Law.
The Lord said to them, “If you are really of God, you will believe My words and in Me. But you don’t believe in me because you are not of God; you are of the Devil.” As soon as He said that, they answered, “We were not born of fornication.” Jesus said, “You say you believe in God, but you do not seek after the Word of God; you seek after the words of the Devil, so you reject Me and do not accept my Word.” That means that there are two kinds of people in this world: Those who are born of God and those that are not.
Our God resolved all people’s sins through the baptism of Jesus and His blood of the Cross. In Ephesians, it says, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). In this world, there are people that are born through God, and there are people who are born through the Devil. We must look at the Word of God and take a good look at where we are from. In John 8:44, it says, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” He said that a person that is born of the Devil does not listen to the Word of God. In John 8:47, He said, “He who is of God hears God’s words,” so a person who is of God hears His Word.
 
 

There Are People Who Accept the Word of God in Their Hearts

 
Do you believe that the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus spoke of is the Word of God and the Truth? If so, you are people born of God, people who seek after Him, and people of Him. But people who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that is the Word of God are of the Devil. The servants of God witness of His Word in this world. But two kinds of situations arise among those that hear the Word of God. Some people don’t listen to the Word of God at all and don’t try to believe it. Those kinds of people don’t believe at all when they are told that Jesus took all of the sins of the world at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit in the Word of God. They do not accept the Word of God in their hearts. But some people, interestingly enough, respond positively and accept the Word of God in their hearts as it is spread to them. So, it is possible to know that a person who receives the Word in his heart is born of God, but a person that does not accept the Word of the Truth is born of the Devil.
God made the Garden of Eden and placed man there to live. When man lived there, the Devil appeared as a serpent and tempted them. The serpent found Eve and deceived her, saying, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’? If you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will become like God. He said that because He didn’t want you to become like Him.” Eve didn’t believe the Word of God and became a person deceived by the words of Satan.
In this world, the domain that receives the control of evil spirits coexists with the domain of God. We frequently cross the borderline of these two domains while living on this earth. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve heard the Word of God and the words of the Devil. But they did not believe the Word of God; instead they believed the words of the Devil and sought after them. Therefore, they committed the sin of leaving God, so they died both physically and spiritually.
At that time, God made clothing of skins for them and clothed them in the garments of skins. These garments of skins imply that God personally sacrificed livestock for the sins of Adam and Eve in order to cleanse them. So, they had to receive these garments of skins through faith and wear them. It became that all a person had to do was to tear down the wall that cut them off from God because of their sins. But we hear these two kinds of words as well living in this world now. We hear the Word of God, as well as the words of the Devil. What do you give your ears to?
God tells us of the Truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit through the Bible. And He said that the real Truth is the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus gave us. Jesus Christ made the universe, took all of our sins at once through His baptism, suffered the judgment of sin on the Cross, and saved us from all of our sins. This is the Truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Word of the Truth of God is proclaimed to the whole world through His Church. This gospel of the water and the Spirit is witnessed through the literature ministry and the evangelizing efforts of our brothers and sisters.
On the other hand, there is another class of people in the world, and they do not spread the Word of God but rather, they speak lies. They say, “God took original sin only, and therefore, our personal sins are remitted every time we offer prayers of repentance.” Everything they say like this is a lie. After the creation of the heavens and the earth, Satan went to Eve and said, “Did God really tell you to not eat the fruit of every tree? He said that because He was worried you would become like Him.” Just as they were deceived, there is a class of people today also who continue to be deceived by the false gospel.
But God has you spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit to the whole world by faith so that He allows those who believe in Him to obtain the remission of their sins and eternal life as well. The Lord makes people keep the gospel of the water and the Spirit so that they won’t be deceived by the Devil. But Satan goes to people and lies to them. Therefore, John 8:44 says, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.” John 8:41 says, “‘We were not born of fornication; we have one Father-God.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God.’” Brothers and sisters, do people who were made by God hear His Word? Or do they hear the words of the Devil? All people become either a person of God or a person of the Devil according to which words they hear. Do you understand? That people are born of the Devil means that they hear and believe in his words. He bears his children through his lies. A person with the right heart before God hears His Word and believes it. But if one’s heart is not right, he believes in lies and becomes a child of the Devil. We are either of God or of the Devil depending on what words we believe.
 
 
People Who Lie before God Are Born of the Devil
 
People of the Devil are the same as these words in John 8:44: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” He said that every time a person of the Devil lies, he speaks from his own resources. If people do not believe the Word of God, they ultimately come to lie. They lie, saying, “People don’t become the righteous by believing in Jesus. That’s ridiculous.” Every time people lie like this, they are speaking from their own resources. They say that the Lord eliminated all of their sins, but they have sins in their hearts, and if they want to get rid of those sins, they must offer prayers of repentance. But those words are downright lies. I hope that you know that the people who say these things are downright liars. These people deceive others by lying to them. They always lie. People of the Devil say lies from their own resources.
We believe in the Word of God and the gospel of the water and the Spirit because our souls are of God. You and I believe in God now because we obtained the remission of all our sins by believing in the recorded Word of God or, in other words, the gospel of the water and the Spirit. So, we are receiving protection as children of God through faith in His Word. The Holy Bible is the Word of God. But some people, looking at the same Word of God, don’t believe in it and teach by lies and their own words.
In Romans 6:23, it says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And in Hebrews 9:27, it says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” God the Father, instead of letting us die because of our sins, had His Son Jesus receive baptism in the Jordan River from John the Baptist and take all the sins of the world. Jesus then received judgment on the Cross instead of us and saved us. By taking all our sins at once and suffering the judgment of sin by hanging on the Cross, Jesus became our eternal Savior. He is the Savior who enabled us to receive the remission of our sins and not the judgment of sin, by receiving the transference of mankind’s sins through His baptism and receiving the judgment of our sins. Do you believe in this Truth?
But there are also people who do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and there are people who don’t believe it even though they know it. Those kinds of people say they believe in the Lord, but the truth is that they don’t believe in God; they would rather believe the words of Satan. They all seek after the thoughts of Satan.
God firmly promised salvation through His Word, He fulfilled every whit of that promise through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and eternally completed all at once the work of eliminating all sins, including those that would be committed in the future. People must believe in the God of these Words, but because they can’t do so, many people believe that Jesus has not yet eliminated all sins. The people who taught those people false belief are all liars. There are many sinners in today’s Christianity. Christian sinners are people who actually do not believe in the Word of God. There are many people in this world who do not have the Spirit of God but listen to the words of the Devil and lie because they are possessed by evil spirits. The Devil enters those people’s hearts, shows them illusions through doing his works, has them speak in strange tongues, and makes them emotionally unstable. They witness that Jesus appeared to them and threw a fireball into their hearts. But that is the work of the Devil.
The Lord did works from the creation of the heavens and the earth until now and will continue to do works through His Word alone. He does not do works through these kinds of false miracles. For a short while in the New Testament times, the Lord performed miracles in order to make us believe that Jesus Christ is God. In this generation when the Word of God has all been completed, God does not do works through miracles.
People deceived by the Devil do not believe in the Lord as their Savior. So, they are sinners until they die. They have now become the same as the Devil, the father of lies. Don’t we lie, too? When things are not advantageous for us, we lie. Normal people say that they don’t usually tell lies, but when things are unfavorable for them, they tell lies to gain an advantage. But the lies that the Bible is talking about don’t designate the lies that pour out while people conduct their lives; they speak of the words that deny or pervert the Word of God. They always teach lies. All people are liars who say that the Lord did not eliminate all sins even though He did through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and they are liars who say that a person is a sinner even if He believes in Jesus.
Some people say, “Didn’t the Apostle Paul say that he was chief among sinners?” They say that, therefore, no matter how much people believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, there cannot be any righteous people. They say, “We believe in Jesus, but we all are sinners until we die.” They pervert the whole gospel of God and lie. But if we look at the context of the beginning and end of the Word of God they are speaking about, the Apostle Paul was gratefully reflecting that he was chief among sinners before, but the Lord met him, saved him, regarded him loyally and made him into a person that spread the gospel. The Apostle Paul was that way before, but he later believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and became one of the righteous. Since he came to know the Truth that the Lord was his Savior through the Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, he became one of the righteous and a true disciple through faith in them. He gave the witness of his faith that he had become a true servant of God who was proclaiming the Truth that Jesus had eliminated all sin. The Apostle Paul said, “By loyally regarding me who was like an evil chief and by loving me, the Lord made me His servant.” We must know the true meaning of these words: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15).
 
 

Today There Are So Many Christians Who Lie Well by Their Own Thoughts

 
It is a lie to say one is always a sinner even though he believes in Jesus. Brothers and sisters, did Jesus take away all the sins of the world or not? Jesus took away all the sins of the world by receiving baptism and dying on the Cross. Do you know this Truth? Do you know the fact that the Lord has eliminated all your sins? A person who knows this is one who believes in the gospel. But a person who still doesn’t know this Truth must learn it.
In John 8:31-32, it says, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” Who are the servants of the Lord? Those who believe in His Word are His servants. Those who witness according to His Word are His servants. And those who have truly obtained freedom from sin or, in other words, those who know the Truth and believe it are His servants. The path to obtaining freedom from sin is not dependent on whether one’s actions are good or bad; it is dependent on whether one knows and believes in the Truth. Free people who have obtained their freedom from sin by faith in the Truth are the people of God. But there are many people in this world who do not know the Truth. Jesus is the real Truth as it is written, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
If you believe in the Lord who is the Way and the Truth, you will go to Heaven. He has eliminated all our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is true. If people just properly know and believe in the Lord, they receive the remission of their sins, become God’s children without a single sin, and really come to enter and live in the Kingdom of Heaven. Since the Word of God is life, people who believe in it and are born again, never die. Therefore, we believe in the Word of God and truly become Jesus Christ’s disciples through faith; we believe in the Word of God knowing that it is really the Truth. Are you people who have become true disciples of Jesus by knowing the real Truth? Or are you people of the Devil who do not know the Truth? We must think about whether we are really of the Truth or of the Devil.
In Genesis 1:1-2, it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” That means that people’s hearts were confused because they didn’t know what the Truth was. Being void means that people were not satisfied. If people do not know the Truth, their hearts are confused and void, and sins cannot disappear from them. Therefore, you just have to know the Truth and believe it. If you truly want to receive the remission of your sins, you must abide in the Word of the Lord.
During the Nathanael Book Exhibit at Gangwon University, I went to a restaurant to eat something, and a certain sister said she lost her notebook. How could we find that notebook in a campus as big as that? So, I told her to write the following on a piece of paper and stick it to the wall. “I lost my account book at this establishment. I will reward the person who returns it to me.” At that time, the thought of these Words occurred to me. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). So, I prayed to the Lord, “Lord, please find the notebook. I believe in You.” The Word was telling me to believe that the Lord would find it and to make my request. So I prayed in great conviction, “I believe in the Lord.” And we did everything that man can do to find it. We went to the broadcasting room, broadcast it, and waited. After a while, that sister came in and told us the news that she had found it.
Brothers and sisters, how do we become the Lord’s true disciples? The Word of the Lord must dwell in us. That means that we must know and believe the Word of God. Only then do we become the Lord’s true disciples and receive the remission of our sins and salvation. Every person who abides in the Word receives salvation.
The Lord eliminated all your sins and mine at once through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Where is the proof that He eliminated our sins? It is in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that is the Word of God. It is all recorded in the Bible that the Lord eliminated all sins in the Jordan River. If we look at the words in Matthew 3:15, it says, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” If we abide in those Words we will come to know that our sins and all the sins of the world went over to Jesus through John the Baptist. And we can know the fact that we have become God’s sinless people. “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). Have you become true disciples of the Lord through faith in the Word? It isn’t just that we will receive salvation through knowledge and faith in the Word of the Lord; we become His true disciples.
I can’t imagine how many liars there are in our country. Some liars tell their congregations, “You may not be able to pay more than $100 for tithing, but if you pay $300 by faith, your income can become $3,000.” That may be plausible, but it is a lie. If people’s defenses are exposed by that kind of liar, their property disappears in no time. If they listen to that kind of liar once, they will lose their souls. The remission of their sins and eternal life that the Lord has given them will disappear along with their property. Several denominations in our country sometimes make a commotion of uniting to have a large revival called a “Grand National Meeting,” and if you look at the preachers in that meeting, they are all liars. Get a copy of some tapes of their sermons and listen to them for a moment. They say that a person is born again if he only believes in God somehow. They make huge chapels, brag about it, and pray really eloquently. But they are people who do not spread the Truth of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, for they don’t believe it.
The preacher must stand at the pulpit and speak the Truth, even if he says just one sentence. Even if a person can’t accomplish something big, he must know the Word of God, abide in it, believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and spread the Truth. That kind of person is the Lord’s true disciple and truly a saint. People sometimes choose the church they will attend by looking at things like the church building or the number of members in the congregation.
But the grand appearance of a church’s building or the number of the congregation is not important. You must distinguish whether a church has the Word of God or whether Satan’s lies are rampant there. A church has to have the Word of God that comes through the gospel of the water and the Spirit in order to be able to truly lead souls to God.
You must truly know the Word of God, believe in it, and become true disciples through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Only then can you come to possess the Kingdom of Heaven by faith. Brothers and sisters, do you believe this? You must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of (2 Timothy 3:14).
All of us praise our Lord. We give thanks and praise to the Lord who taught us the Word of God and saved us from all our sins.
 
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