ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ကပ်ရောဂါနှင့်အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာစာပို့လုပ်ငန်းဝန်ဆောင်မှုများပျက်ပြားခြင်းကြောင့်ကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏ 'အခမဲ့ပုံနှိပ်စာအုပ်ဝန်ဆောင်မှု' ကိုယာယီရပ်ဆိုင်းလိုက်သည်။
ဤအခြေအနေ၏အခြေအနေအရကျွန်ုပ်တို့သည်ယခုအချိန်တွင်သင့်အားစာအုပ်များမပို့နိုင်သေးပေ။
ဤကပ်ရောဂါသည်မကြာမီကုန်ဆုံးပြီးစာတိုက်လုပ်ငန်းပြန်လည်စတင်ရန်ဆုတောင်းပါ။
Subject 22 : The Gospel According to LUKE
[Chapter 14-1] Preach the Gospel of The Water and the Spirit To Those Who Cannot Repay You (Luke 14:12-24)
(Luke 14:12-24)
“Then He also said to him who invited Him, ‘When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.’ Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, ‘Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!’ Then He said to him, ‘A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’’”
Jesus Told Us to Invite and Feed Those Who Can’t Repay Us
“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:13-14). “But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind’” (Luke 14:18-21).
We can apply this passage to both the physical and spiritual aspects of our lives. While we are living on this earth, we should refrain from inviting the rich and treating them to a dinner. That’s because the rich can repay us, and once they repay us, our hospitality is all rendered in vain. So whenever we spend money or treat someone to a dinner, we should do so for those who cannot repay us. How can we spend our money on those who cannot repay us? We can do this when we spend our money for the gospel. For instance, we’ve spent a lot of financial resources to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, but has anyone repaid us to thank us? No, that hasn’t happened.
In contrast, if we were to invite the rich and just give them some material hospitality, they would feel burdened by this and think about ways to repay us somehow. But when it comes to serving the gospel and preaching it to the souls, people do not intend to repay us even though we have spent a lot of money for this mission. That’s why we visit places like seniors’ residences and hold a feast for the elderly. It’s better for us to go to such places as these seniors’ residences, or where the hungry are gathered, and show them our hospitality and preach the gospel to them without expecting anything in return. It’s not worthwhile for us to go and preach the gospel in a time or a place that we are likely to get repaid. When we do good things, we should not expect to be paid for our good deed. The Lord said, “Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward” (Matthew 6:2). On the last day, when we the righteous are resurrected, the Lord Himself will reward us. In the future, at our resurrection and the arrival of the Millennial Kingdom, the Lord will give us many rewards to repay us. Therefore, it is right for us not to do good expecting rewards on this earth. That is what the Lord says in today’s Scripture passage.
Today, through this parable of the feast, the Lord is speaking of the feast of Heaven. Verses 16 and 17 say, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’” The certain man here refers to the Lord, and the great supper refers to the feast of Heaven that is prepared with spiritual food, the gospel. That “all things are now ready” means that our Lord has blotted out all our sins. In other words, this passage means that the Lord has blotted out all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Indeed, our Lord has eradicated all our sins once and for all with this perfect gospel.
Some people in this world describe themselves as saved sinners, however, there are no such people as saved sinners. In the Kingdom of God, there are only the righteous that have been saved, not any saved sinner. Is there any sin in this world, my fellow believers? No, there is no sin in this world; whoever believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit is sinless. This means the blessing of the remission of all sins is ready now. Through His servants, God is inviting everyone to a great feast, and this feast is the heavenly feast of the Church, the feast of the genuine gospel. All that one has to do is just participate in the feast and eat this bread of life, the blessed bread of salvation and grace, by believing that the Lord has remitted away everyone’s sins. For us to receive the remission of sins, absolutely no human effort is necessary. What is necessary is just faith in the Lord, for the remission of sins is not received by one’s own effort but by his faith. That’s why God sent out His servants to invite people, saying that everything was now ready.
I went to a Christian bookstore today to buy a Bible, and while there I saw someone preaching the gospel to the owner of the bookstore rather loudly. So I listened to him for a while, and the gist of his point was that since God has already saved us even before the foundation of the world, there is no need for any righteous works of our own. So far so good, right? This man was quite an impressive man. Since I wholeheartedly agreed with what he was saying, and I hadn’t heard anyone saying something so right and worthwhile in a long time, I continued to listen to him silently at his side.
So, after listening to him for a while at his side, I said to him, “Yes, you are quite right. Then you must have no sin at all, right?” To this he said, “How can there be anyone without sin?” So I asked him, “But you just said that salvation is not received by one’s own righteous acts but by faith. And you said that God has saved everyone before the foundation of the world.” He then said to me, “But still, how can there be anyone in this world who has no sin?” I asked him in return, “Do you then have any sin in your heart?” “Of course I do,” he said.
So I told him, “You, too, are mistaken.” I told him he hasn’t received the remission of sins either. This man then got angry with me and refused to talk to me anymore. So I asked him what he was doing here shouting out so boldly, preaching to the bookstore owner, and claiming that salvation is received by grace. But it was useless to talk to him. This man had a lot of useless knowledge to pay back. He also had much to say, talking about Calvinism and Methodism. Then I asked him, “So what’s your conclusion? That you have sin?” He said, “Why do you ask whether I have sin or not?” So I asked him again, “Are you a righteous man or a sinner?” Quoting Romans 3:10, he then said to me, “How can there be anyone righteous, when the Bible says, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one’?” “You are so wrong,” I said to him. I would have continued with the conversation had there been any prospect of winning his soul, but there was no such prospect. He was just talking about some worthless things that he had heard here and there.
Returning to the Word of God, today’s Scripture passage means that God sent out many invitations through His servants. Having come to this earth and blotted out all the sins of the world with His baptism and blood, our Lord has opened the gospel feast of Heaven and invited people to it. It’s written, “‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind’” (Luke 14:17-21). As our Lord said here, we shouldn’t invite to the gospel feast of Heaven anyone who is too busy with his own affairs, makes too many excuses, or has too much to repay.
Everyone falls into one of the three types of people identified here. What was the first man’s excuse? His excuse was that he had just “bought a piece of ground,” which means that he was too busy with his business. He then brazenly asked to be excused, but this makes no difference as anyone who declines the Master’s invitation will be cast out to hell.
In the Book of Esther, King Ahasuerus held a great feast for his subjects, and in the midst of the merriment, he wanted to show off his wife and brag about her beauty and refinement to his subjects. So he sent out his servants to bring Queen Vashti. He must have been quite drunk, as people tend to brag about themselves when they get drunk. Ahasuerus held great riches to boast of as well, but since everyone already knew about it, he wanted to show off his wife instead.
Coincidentally, however, Queen Vashti was also holding a separate feast for the wives of the officers. So when she heard from the king’s servants that he was summoning her, she refused to go. She probably thought to herself, “The king is not alone in holding a feast. I am also in the middle of my own feast. If his feast is important, then mine is also important.” However, the Bible says that Queen Vashti was deposed for this one offence. She was completely ruined. Because of this, a maiden named Esther was chosen to be the next queen. The Feast of Purim (one of the feasts of Israel) originated from this as well. When the people of Israel were at the brink of destruction, Esther went to the king by faith, saying to herself, “If I perish, I perish.” Then she beseeched the king on behalf of her people, and because of her faith and the faith of Mordecai, the Israelites were delivered from their destruction. The people of Israel were delivered from the Gentiles through King Ahasuerus because of this faith of Esther and her prayers to God. Esther could have such faith because she obeyed Mordecai, her spiritual leader. This is Esther’s faithfulness to God and her people.
In contrast, Queen Vashti was deposed for refusing King Ahasuerus’ summons. Like Queen Vashti, there are many people facing destruction for declining our Lord’s invitation to His heavenly feast. The Lord is inviting everyone to this feast so that they would receive the remission of sins and accept the salvation that He has prepared for them, but many people are declining.
There are three types of people shown in today’s Scripture passage. The first type is the one who couldn’t come because he had just bought a piece of land and had to go see it now. This refers to business. What was the second man’s excuse? His excuse was that he had just bought some oxen, and so he had to test them to see if they were good and healthy. This also refers to business. What was the third man’s excuse then? The third man’s excuse was that he just got married.
All these three men couldn’t come to the feast because of they were too busy with their own carnal affairs. This means that even though God has opened a feast of Heaven and wants to give the remission of sins and eternal life, many people are saying that they can’t come. Why can’t they come? It’s because they are too busy with the affairs of the world. But does it make any sense for them to decline this invitation over just some riches of the world, when they can be saved, receive everlasting life, and get their future guaranteed if they just come and attend the feast? No, it makes no sense. How can such a thing happen? Yet these people didn’t come. So what did our Lord say to His servants?
“Go out Quickly into the Streets and Lanes of the City, and Bring in Here the Poor and the Maimed and the Lame and the Blind”
What does this passage mean? Do such people as the maimed, the blind, and the lame have anything to pay back their debt? Do they have their own righteousness? Just a while ago the Lord told us not to invite the rich to a dinner, for they will just say, “Thanks for the dinner. I will reciprocate and make sure to invite you to a dinner as well.” The rich, in other words, have the means to pay us back, in which case our hospitality toward them would be nullified. The poor, in the other hand, cannot pay us back. Therefore, the gospel is actually needed by the spiritually poor, the spiritually maimed, the spiritually blind, and the spiritually lame who lack their own righteousness—that is, those who have committed many sins, those who consider themselves sinners, and those who think they are bound to hell. It’s people such as these who know their true selves as sinners that need the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, the gospel is not needed by the pious. Instead, God has invited and saved those who admit that even though they may not have done anything particularly perfidious in their lives, they still have many shortcomings and flaws when reflected on the Word of God and His Law, that they have committed many wrongdoings before man as well, and that they are destined to go to hell. It’s these people whom God has saved.
There are many people in this world who think they have many means to pay back their debts: Those who think they can somehow repay God and serve Him well with their own merits, their own intelligence, or their own good deeds; those who think they can be pretentious before God; and those who think they have much to brag about before Him. Everyone has shortcomings, and yet many people think that they lack nothing and they are just perfect. Some of them think that they know everything about every religion, from Buddhism to Christianity and what their teachings are. They are well versed in arguing for peaceful coexistence with other religions. Our Lord is not inviting such people who are so smooth and so full of themselves that they think they are virtuous and good. In reality, God has called the maimed, those whose entire lives are marked by blemishes, those who are flawed despite trying to live a spotless and blameless life before God, and those who, like the lame and the blind, could not find the Truth by themselves no matter how hard they tried to find God. So God is looking for people who can’t afford not to come to Jesus’ feast of Heaven, and who have no recourse to be saved but by believing that the Lord has blotted out all their sins once and for all. It’s the maimed that God has called. The word maimed is the opposite of healthy.
Many people consider themselves quite decent and good. But such people have not been invited by the Lord, nor do they come even if they are invited. It was the maimed whom the Lord invited here. He invited only the maimed, and it’s these people who accepted this invitation and were saved.
In fact, all of us sitting here, beginning with me, were invariably maimed, blind, and lame. Do you think that you are somehow meritorious? Do you think that you are a decent person? Are you unsure what to say, thinking that you’ll be criticized if you say yes but your pride will be undermined if you say no? But still, you have to say either yes or no. As brothers and sisters, we have to give a clear answer. Do you still think you are decent? In reality, we are all lame. We are all imperfect. Just a moment ago I said that the word ‘maimed’ is opposite to someone who is perfect. Are you and I then perfect? No. If we were perfect, God would not have invited us. No one on this planet is perfect.
However, there are many people who think that they are perfect. Do you know what percentage of people think so? Probably, ninety-five percent of people in this world think they are perfect. Even the maimed think that they are all okay. When Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda, there were all kinds of disabled people gathered there, from the lame to the blind and the paralyzed. Yet these people were all full of themselves in one way or another. The blind bragged about their keen sense of hearing, the lame bragged about their quick sight, and the paralyzed perhaps bragged about their past career. Everyone has an excuse and something to brag about.
Do you know just how smart everyone thinks he is? Starting from me and including you, everyone living on this planet thinks they are smart. This is the same when it comes to nations. Everyone is proud of his nationality. For example, the Chinese think they are so smart. They look down on us Koreans as though we were dimwitted. They are very proud of their long history and splendid culture. The Chinese think that they are superior to the other races, arguing that they have longest history, that they invented gunpowder first, and that they were the first to come up with a written language. The Chinese seem to be one of the most self-conceited nations. You might know how racism has brought about conflicts between nations in human history. Racism also stems from such a notion of ethnic superiority.
My fellow believers, how self-conceited are we also? How pretentious do we get if there is even the slightest thing to brag about? It’s all ridiculous, like midgets arguing over who is taller. How tall can a midget be even if he is tall? To us, they all are short. Yet amongst themselves they still compare each other and argue over who is taller than whom. So do we also argue over who is better than whom, bragging how big our houses are and how much money we make. Even animals brag about themselves. You probably have seen a peacock showing off its brilliant plume. Similarly, some kinds of fish open up their fins to try to make themselves look bigger, as most fish don’t attack any fish that’s bigger than them. But in reality it makes no difference whether they are big or small. Human beings are no different from these animals. That’s how every human being really is.
Everyone is disabled. Our Lord told us to bring the maimed, the lame, and the blind. It’s so frustrating to see so many people declining this invitation thinking that they are really smart, when in fact they are all maimed. However, those who think that they are disabled do come. Those who have committed great sins and whose lives are marked by blemishes are lame. The blind are those who admit that they are completely ignorant. God told us to bring them all—those who are pretentious and self-conceited. He told us to compel them to come.
Anyway, we the redeemed were all disabled. It’s because we were maimed that we were invited by our Lord and saved. Instead of pretending to be smart and being self-conceited, believe in the Lord. Your faith is better than your intelligence. Measuring and calculating every angle is something that only fools do. Is anyone justified to do this before God? Only fools do this. Some people investigate this gospel to stand against it, but it’s laughable. However, those who are truly wise surrender to God at the earliest chance they get. They ask for mercy to God who can show infinite mercy on them. Only fools would go to the king and demand to know if he is really king or not and how good of a king he is.
We were saved because all of us were insufficient. If we had been full of our own merits, we would not have been saved. Such grace is not bestowed on those who are full of their own righteousness. They cannot partake in the feast of Heaven. God does not allow it for them. If we were self-conceited, God would not have invited us. Now that we have been saved at this heavenly feast, we have realized that we were indeed lame. This is why God had compelled us to come and preached the gospel to us, and we were saved as a result. You must grasp this. Now that you have received the remission of sins, do not be self-conceited. If you are too self-conceited, God will break your righteousness.
In particular, those who have had some theological training are prone to mistakenly think that even though they have been saved by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they somehow have more knowledge than the rest and are quite different from everyone else, despite the fact that they have received the same salvation. Those who think they are well educated need to be ejected of their prior learning and should be injected with new and spiritually correct learning. Those who are highly educated are prone to cause more trouble in God’s Church. I’m not saying that you should neglect your education, but that there is nothing spiritually correct that you can learn from the world. Even if someone has gone through graduate training, he doesn’t really have much knowledge to show. In fact, he has no real knowledge at all. Between a high school graduate and a college graduate, who has more knowledge? Of course, the college graduate would be more knowledgeable as far as secular knowledge is concerned. But when it comes to the question of who is wiser before God and whose faith is better, he is actually at a disadvantage in God’s sight. That’s because someone who only finished high school knows his shortcomings and realizes that there are far many people better than him in this world.
Those who are insufficient are receptive. In contrast, those who are highly educated are judgmental rather than receptive. Now that you have received the remission of sins, do not be so self-conceited. Do not be so arrogant just because you are educated. It’s been my observation that the highly educated have more difficulty leading their lives of faith. I’ve seen their faith struggle to grow. Although those who are insufficient grow their faith step by step, those who are highly educated have a great deal of difficulty growing their faith. It’s because they approach everything as an intellectual exercise. Because such people try to understand everything with their own head first before believing, they cannot build their house of faith from the beginning, even though the Lord has already laid the basic cornerstone of salvation. If all our intellectual curiosities are met in our heads, there won’t be any need for us to believe with our hearts. So among the redeemed, those who are highly educated are disadvantaged when it comes to the growth of faith.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get an education. But the reality of education in Korea is that even when one graduates from college, once he gets a job at a company, he has to be trained all over again as though he were no better than a kindergarten student. This is because the educational system in Korea is rather impractical and apt to indulge in academic discussions. So, one must learn again what actually matters apart from what he learned in college.
Likewise, once we actually come into this life of faith, we must learn everything all over again. We have to learn what faith is all about and how to lead a spiritual life from the beginning. It’s because we are all insufficient that God has saved us perfectly. Everyone is the first when he is alone, but the last when there are several people. Do you grasp this? Don’t you agree with this? It’s because we are insufficient that God has saved us; if we were meritorious, would God have saved us?
My Point Is That When It Comes to Our Salvation, It Is Absolutely Not Because of Our Own Merits That We Have Been Saved
My fellow believers, if I were meritorious, I would never have stood here and preached like this. I would not have been able to do so. It’s precisely because I have no merit that among so many countless people in this world, I have received the remission of sins and am now carrying out this work. I know many people in Korean Christian communities. From the gifted to the ordinary, I have countless acquaintances. Among all those people, I have no merit. I have no merit to have received the remission of sins. I am no good to be God’s servant. Otherwise, if I were meritorious, I would not be sitting here like this. If I had many merits, I would probably have gone abroad to Europe or the US for graduate studies and taken a doctorate in theology, and I would be pretending to be virtuous and upright. I’d be committing a fraud.
But I am here because I am insufficient. It’s also because you are insufficient that you are sitting here at this place, taking part in this feast of Heaven and eating manna from Heaven. If we were self-conceited, we wouldn’t be sitting here but somewhere else. We would all be sitting in a big church and a big denomination boasting about ourselves. A self-conceited congregation would be sitting under a self-conceited pastor, bragging about each other’s non-existing accomplishments until they come before the judgment seat of the Lord.
Our Lord is saying to us to go out into the highways and hedges, and compel the maimed to come into His Church, that it may be filled. Your evangelizing effort should be compelling. This means that instead of saying just a few words and then giving up, you have to be persistent. You have to keep asking people to come to the Church. That’s what evangelizing is all about. The elementary foundation of evangelization is compelling people to listen to the Word of God. To be persistent is to evangelize. You have to insist on people to come to the Church, make them listen to the Word, and thus make them receive the remission of sins. That is what is meant by evangelization.
Our Church is holding a revival meeting in two years. But what use is it unless you come with some souls to the meeting? They will follow you only if you are persistent. They wont’ come if you talk to them just once or twice. In particular, Korean culture requires persistence. For example, let’s say someone happens to drop by your house when you are having lunch. The socially acceptable custom is for you to invite him to your lunch table at least seven, eight, or even ten times. Just inviting him two or three times will not be enough, since in Korean culture, it’s not unusual for people to decline an invitation repeatedly out of politeness. If you otherwise withdraw your invitation the first time it’s declined, you will be considered a bad host.
Likewise, when it comes to inviting sinners, you have to invite them at least ten times. That’s how you should evangelize. You have to keep asking them to come to the Church. You have to do so diligently. You should also tell them how wonderful the atmosphere and pastors are in the Church. That is the right thing to do before God.
However, when you praise the pastors, you shouldn’t brag about their fleshly accomplishments. Instead, you should tell them honestly what you actually like about our Church—the wonderful worship services we have, the sermons that are based on the Word of God, the salvation that you’ve received here, and the life of faith that you are leading. Tell them you like our Church because it believes in the Word of the Scriptures and it is a biblically sound Church. If you were to boast of such things, then you are more than welcome to do so. However, if you brag about your pastors in fleshly terms, people will be disappointed once they see them and never come again.
Anyway, your effort at evangelization must be compelling. This means you should admonish people forcefully when you try to evangelize them. Rather than inviting them just once or twice, invite them again and again if they refuse. Keep asking them to come to the Church. You should also be persistent like this when it comes to your own family. What will happen to the people who have refused your invitation? They all will go to hell.
Let’s say that when you preached the gospel to people, one of them said that he had bought some oxen and had to train them. So you gave up on him and turned to someone else, but this person said that he had to go on a business trip. You then gave up on him also and turned to still another person, who then said that he couldn’t come as he just bought a piece of land. Our Lord told us that rather than inviting people just once like this, we should invite them continuously. In other words, we must ask them persistently.
If some people come without being invited, you need to teach them that they themselves are maimed. You have to let them know that they are spiritually lame, maimed, and blind. You should say to them, “You’ve been a Christian all this time, but aren’t you still completely ignorant? Aren’t you still unable to understand the Bible even as you read it? It’s only fitting that you should be ignorant, for everyone is like you. But if you read the Bible after you are born again, you can understand everything.” When you read the Bible, you don’t need to struggle with ignorance. Once you are born again, you come to know it all clearly. You have to teach people that they are spiritually blind and lame, that they themselves are maimed. You have to teach them what a grave sinner they are before God. You should then invite them to come to God’s Church, listen to the gospel, and receive the remission of sins. Do you understand what I’m saying here?
Evangelizing is all about persistence. It’s about admonishing repeatedly. That’s what evangelizing is all about. For those who are self-conceited, if your repeated and persistent admonishments fall on deaf ears, then you can give up on them. They will then be cast into hell. You should also talk to your family, but not just once or twice. You have to invite them repeatedly. If you insist long enough, they will come to the Church at least once or twice even if it’s just to do you a favor. There are many such people who came to the Church, heard the gospel, and received the remission of sins in this way. These people heard the gospel and received the remission of sins because the ones trying to evangelize them compelled them to come to the Church. If the evangelizers had given up after just trying once or twice, then all these people would have faced a tragic consequence unable to partake in our Lord’s feast. To avoid such a consequence, we must be persistent with people, bring souls to God’s Church, and preach the gospel to them. Keep on admonishing your family. I’ve been admonishing my foster mother for over ten years, even though so far my effort has not been successful.
Will you give up on your own family members after just inviting them to God’s Church once or twice? Do you think this is acceptable? What does the Word of God say? Didn’t God say that we should compel them to come to His house even if they refuse? He told us to go out to the streets and compel the people there to come and fill His house. Did He say that we can just talk to them once and give it up if they don’t listen to us, since it hurts our pride? No, He told us to compel them and fill His house. No matter what, you must try indefatigably to bring your family members to the Church, even if they just listen to the sermon and leave. You must keep on preaching the gospel to them. Only then can your family avoid hell. Only then can the families of the righteous avoid hell. Unless we compel them, they will all go to hell.
What a terrible tragedy this would be. The feast of Heaven refers to the everlasting life of the Kingdom of Heaven, and those who don’t attend this feast will be cast into hell. They will burn in fire forever. If there are any souls in your family that still have not received the remission of sins, you must preach the gospel to them and make them receive the remission of sins no matter what. You must also realize that we were all maimed, and that our God has saved us.
There are several elderly people here with us, and if their children had not compelled them to come to the Church, they would be heading straight to hell. It’s because their children cared deeply about their parents’ destiny that they spoke to those elderly people. That is how our elderly brothers and sisters heard the gospel and received the remission of sins. Don’t you then have the same desire for your children who are still with sin? Do you not care even if your children are cast into hell? If you believe in this Word, you will be able to compel your children and fill the Church with their souls. But if you don’t believe in it and just take it as a mere hypothesis, then you won’t need to compel them. Nor will you do this. Rather than just understanding today’s Scripture passage merely as an intellectual instruction, we must believe in it with our hearts, listen to it carefully, preach the gospel to the souls around us, and compel them to come to the Church.
Let us all act upon this realization.
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