အင်္ဂလိပ်၊ 22
Rev. Paul C. Jong
ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ကပ်ကြီးသည် ကုန်ဆုံးခဲ့သော်လည်း အမျိုးမျိုးသောနိုင်ငံတကာခက်ခဲမှုအခြေအနေများကြောင့် စာအုပ်များ ပေးပို့ခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် ရရှိခြင်းတွင် ခက်ခဲမှုများရှိသေးသည်။ နိုင်ငံတကာအခြေအနေတိုးတက်လာ ၍ စာတိုက်များပုံမှန်ဖြစ်လာသောအခါ ကျွန်ု်ပတို့သည် စာအုပ်များကို ပြန်လည်ပေးပို့ကြလိမ့်မည်။
Rev. Paul C. Jong, Sermons on Genesis (I), The Will of the Holy Trinity for Human Beings. Seoul, Korea: Hephzibah Publishing House, 2005.
God said,"The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep,"(Genesis 1:2) this describes the condition of the hearts of those who are not born again.
Before being born again, I was confused because of sin that lodged deep in my heart. And the Spirit of God could not dwell in my heart due to the state of being sinful. Currently, I have received the remission of my sins by believing in the Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Then God said,"Let there be light; and there was light...
The very first thing that God wanted to do to me is written here in Genesis 1: 1-5. As a builder constructs a house for a purpose, so did God create His whole universe and everything in it according to His own plan. What was His plan? It was to make a person like me His own child, and He achieved this. God saw what He did for me, and it was good. My knowledge of God begins from knowing the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit that has come by Jesus Christ. It means that the Lord has blotted out my sins and now dwells within my heart.
Therefore, God is so happy to see me made righteous and transformed into light that His joy is beyond description. This is why there is a celebration in the Kingdom of Heaven when a single sinner realizes his sins, believes the gospel of the water and the Spirit bestowed by Jesus Christ, and is thereby saved and becomes God`s completed work (Luke 15:7-10).
As I look at God`s creation of the heavens and the earth, I can discover that He continued to divide on the second day as He had done so on the first day. It is extremely important to discern God`s Word from Satan`s evil words. In other words, God is saying to me that I must have the faith that spiritually separates the water above Heaven from the water of the earth.
If I am unable to separate the truth from falsehood, not only would I be unable to do God`s work, but I will end up standing against God.
When the third day came, God said,"... let the dry land appear, ...let the earth bring forth grass"... (Genesis 1:9-11).
Through His work achieved on this third day of creation, God is showing clearly that the gospel bears abundant fruits through I who know that I am filthy and foul. My carnal thoughts are always evil. "I have a murderous carnal nature, I am adulterous, and I am perverted. This is who I am by nature "- it is through a person who thus admit himself honestly that God bears spiritual fruits.
On the fourth day of God`s creation, He placed two lights in the firmament and divided the day from the night.
So when I deal with souls, it is God`s will for me to discern whether these souls have been saved or not. As an evangelist when I divide souls, I should not divide based on my own carnal standard, but based on the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit given by Jesus Christ.
God created the stars and placed them in the heavens to give light to this earth. That God made the stars means that God made His workers on this earth. Just as the people of God made the articles used in the Tabernacle with gold, God has given true faith to me who now believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and He has refined my heart, so that I may lack nothing to be used as His servant.
Through the work of creation that God did on the fifth day, He is telling me about how the righteous are to live by their faith in God and in His Word.
God said,"Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth." As I ponder upon this passage, I need to first keep in mind for whom the Bible was given. I can then realize that this passage was spoken to me who has received the remission of sin to live by faith.
God says," The just shall live by faith"(Romans 1:17). It is said that I should live by trusting in God: I pray to the Lord and ask Him for my needs, and I also believe that whatever I ask from the Lord, the Lord would answer me. Placing my faith in God is to pray to the Living Lord for help whenever I encounter any difficulty in my life and to get my prayers answered by Him.
The Apostle Paul`s faith included the belief that God would infallibly fulfill what He promised. So to me also, he admonished," Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit"(Ephesians 6:18).
On the sixth day, the last day of God`s creation, I believe God created mankind according to His image by the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:26).
I have faith that the purpose for which God created man and woman was to establish His Church. That God created a woman out of the man`s rib foretells the fact that God the Father would fulfill His plan through Jesus Christ. And the one who made and fulfilled such a plan is the Triune God.
God has created me as His child. By His grace God has remitted me from my sins. Through Jesus Christ God has washed away all my sins as white as snow. So that there may be no more sacrifice for sin, no more reason to receive the remission of sin again, God has saved me completely and perfectly (Hebrews 10:18).
On the seventh day God rested. That He rested on the seventh day manifests that He has completed my salvation once for all.
The Apostle Paul described us " As unknown, and yet well known;... as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things"(2 Corinthians 6:9-10).
I am such a person. I may seem to have nothing, but I am magnificent. I am not saddened even if the affairs of the world make me suffer. I live a life that is more than worthwhile. I have received the remission of sin. And this wonderful blessing came to me not because of my own merit, but all because of Jesus Christ.