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Subject 11 : The Tabernacle
[11-2] Our Lord Who Suffered for Us (Isaiah 52:13-53:9)
(Isaiah 52:13-53:9)
“Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently;
He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.
Just as many were astonished at you,
So His visage was marred more than any man,
And His form more than the sons of men;
So shall He sprinkle many nations.
Kings shall shut their mouths at Him;
For what had not been told them they shall see,
And what they had not heard they shall consider.
Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
And they made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.”
The Gospel Is Now Spreading throughout the Entire World
This age is indeed heading toward the end. From politics to economics, everything is running toward the end. In particular, the wind of war is looming large, as the superpowers still try to extend their influence over the rest of the world. Closer to my own home, North Korea recently announced that it was developing nuclear weapons, causing a great upheaval throughout the international community. In such a time of crisis-ridden world, I can only hope that everyone involved in these disputes would be able to resolve all their issues with wisdom, not in foolishness, and come to terms with each other so that all may prosper together.
We must pray everyday, so that God would give us more time to still allow us to spread the gospel more and further. It’s not because I am afraid of dying. It is because there still are countries where the true gospel has not been preached yet, and there also are countries where the genuine gospel is now about to blossom. My desire is to continue to spread the original gospel even more, when it is sprouting and blossoming, for the gospel still needs to be preached more and further.
Of course, God makes all things work together for good, but what I am worried about is that the human beings can be so foolish. There are in fact people who threaten others’ life even as they have no idea when and how they themselves would face their own death; some of them go even as far as trying to massacre everyone.
I believe that God surely rules the hearts of all the leaders of the world. And I also believe that He would give us peace.
In this age, the people of Israel are still waiting for the Messiah promised to them. They must realize that their Messiah is none other than Jesus. They must recognize Jesus as the Messiah whom they have been waiting for, and believe in Him as such. In not too distant future, the gospel that pleases our Lord will soon enter Israel, as well as other countries where the door of the gospel has not been opened yet. In fact, the gospel is being spread through the whole world so well that it is blossoming fully in this age of the end times.
I’ve been told that a theological seminary in Bangladesh has made our English publications a required reading for its students to earn their degrees. Having come across the gospel of the water and the Spirit for the first time, the students at this seminary will now all receive the remission of their sins, before they even have a chance to be marveled.
Like this, I hope first of all that all the theologians of the world would receive the remission of sin by knowing and believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And those of us who have received the remission of sin prior to them must pray endlessly for this to happen. Not only must we pray, but we must also live our lives by faith.
The Messiah Came to This Earth about 700 Years after the Prophecy of Isaiah
Isaiah was a prophet who lived about 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ on this earth. Though he actually preceded the coming of Jesus Christ by 700 years, because he knew many things about the Messiah, Isaiah prophesied all about how the Messiah would come and how He would do His work of salvation, as if he had seen the Messiah with his own eyes. From Isaiah 52:13 and throughout chapters 53 and 54, Isaiah continuously prophesied, in detail, how the Messiah would save the mankind from sin. It is simply marvelous that he had so accurately prophesied that Jesus Christ would indeed come to this earth, take upon all the sins with His baptism, shed His blood on the Cross, and thereby bring salvation to all. And after 700 years passed by since Isaiah’s prophecy was made, Jesus Christ in fact came to this earth and fulfilled all His works exactly as prophesied by Isaiah.
Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would come to this earth and act in wisdom. As prophesied in Isaiah 52:13, “Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.” Because Jesus Christ came to this earth in the flesh of a man and actually took upon all the sins of the world Himself with His baptism, He could give up His life on the Cross, and thereby be judged for all the sins of the entire mankind. Just as Isaiah had prophesied, everything was indeed dealt prudently. Because of Jesus Christ, all the sins of mankind have indeed disappeared, dealt prudently, and His name has in fact become very high, exalted and extolled, all in accordance to what had been prophesied before. What Isaiah had prophesied about Christ actually came true.
However, when our Lord came to this earth, the people of Israel did not recognize Him properly. Even though our Lord came to this earth and actually took upon the sins of the world including those of the Israelites, died on the Cross, and rose from the dead again, the people of Israel did not even believe in the baptism of the Messiah, nor in His blood. In fact, the Israelites did not recognize that this Messiah was already born in their nation, and that with His baptism and Cross He has taken care of not only the sins of the Israelites, but also the sins of the entire mankind. They did not realize that this Jesus Christ was in fact the Son of God, the actual Messiah of the people of Israel. The Israelites must now properly realize that Jesus is indeed the Messiah whom they have been waiting for all these years.
The Sufferings of Jesus Were to Make the Sins of the World Disappear
When Jesus came to this earth, He in fact suffered an extreme affront beyond any description. As shown in Isaiah 53, the Messiah indeed seemed to be a man of sorrow. By taking upon so many sins of ours, He was afflicted greatly—so much so that the Bible tells us that we even hid, as it were, our faces from Him.
But few actually recognized Jesus as the Messiah. Because He had been afflicted too much by the people of His age, many failed to recognize and believe in Jesus Christ the Messiah as the Savior. Our Lord indeed came to this earth in obedience to the Father’s will to fulfill His work of saving the mankind from the sins of the world, and to do this work, He was in fact greatly oppressed. It was not enough for Him to come to this world of His own creation in the flesh of a man, whom He Himself had made in His own image, but He was even despised, ridiculed, stricken, and oppressed, so much so that the Scripture tells us that we hid our faces from Him, for it was too much too bear. Far from being revered as the Messiah on this earth, He was treated and oppressed as if He were insane, whose humility could not even begin to be described with words. As we turn our faces away when we see someone profoundly humiliated and embarrassed, the Messiah was oppressed before His own creations, so much so that the Israelites at that time hid their faces from Him. When Jesus came to this earth, what did He look like? When the Messiah came to this earth, He in fact was like a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. There was not much to speak of, in other words, in His outside appearance. In fact, even when we compare our Lord to ourselves, there was little that was handsome or attractive in this Messiah. Our Messiah’s outward appearance was such that there really was nothing to boast of.
When the Messiah did come to this earth, there was indeed no beauty in His appearance that we might desire or revere Him. But regardless of this appearance, as our Messiah, He dealt prudently, received the laying on of hands from John to take all our sins onto His body according to the sacrificial system, was crucified and shed His blood, rose from the dead again, and thereby saved us from all our sins. Because this Messiah took all our sins upon Himself by actually being baptized by John, He could be crucified and shed His blood for us.
As Isaiah 53:3 says, “He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Because our Messiah had to come to this earth and make all the sins of the world disappear by receiving the laying of hands and shedding His blood, He had to actually be suppressed in such a manner by the people of Israel and Roman soldiers.
The Oppression of the Messiah Was Prophesied about 700 Years Ago
That the Messiah would have to in fact come to this earth, be baptized by John, shed His blood on the Cross, and rise from the dead again had already been prophesied by the prophet Isaiah about 700 years prior to the birth of Christ. As the Prophet Isaiah had prophesied about the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ did indeed come to this earth exactly as prophesied. That is, the Messiah Jesus was born to a virgin on a manger in humbleness, took upon the sins of the world with His baptism received from John the Baptist, went to the Cross, where He shed His blood and died for our salvation, and in three days rose from the dead again.
Just as hands were laid on the head of the sacrificial offering and its blood was shed on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), when a year’s sins were thus atoned, Jesus indeed took upon all our sins with His baptism received from John and shed His blood and died on the Cross, all in accordance to the actual Word of prophecy. After bearing all the sins of the world with His baptism, Jesus in fact faced three years of suffering during His public life. The reason why Jesus the Messiah was crucified is because, with His baptism from John the Baptist, all the sins of the world were passed onto Him, and this is also why He thus was despised, persecuted, and oppressed by everyone.
In fact, people did not only deny that Jesus was the Messiah, but also some of the Jews and the Romans hated and persecuted Jesus beyond any description. He was hated and rejected by them to an extreme.
Jesus in fact took upon all the sins of mankind all at once by receiving His baptism from John the Baptist at the Jordan River, and He then shed His blood on the Cross. The Messiah was baptized by John and shed His blood on the Cross to fulfill His Father’s will. He was stripped naked on the Cross and was spat at. All the surrounding people at that time ridiculed Jesus, taunting Him, “If you really are the Son of God, then come down and save yourself!”
When Jesus began His public life with His baptism, He in fact had to go through many sufferings brought by the mankind. Though Jesus Christ had actually shouldered the sins of the world with His baptism for the sake of mankind, people of those days, unable to fathom this, hated Jesus, who came as their own Messiah, persecuted Him continuously, brought great sufferings to Him, denounced and insulted Him. In fact, Jesus the Messiah was hated so much that the Scripture tells us that He was treated like a worm while on this earth.
Indeed, you have no idea just how much the Pharisees hated Jesus. These Pharisees could not leave the Messiah alone, who seemed to threaten their leadership and popularity. So they hated the Messiah, always trying to find faults with Him, and did not hesitate to launch all kinds of personal attacks against Him every time their schemes failed. The Messiah was subjected to all kinds of insults and denouncements filled with hatred and evilness. Isaiah thus had prophesied just how the Messiah would be oppressed. We can therefore confirm, from the detailed prophecies of the Prophet Isaiah made over 700 years prior to the coming of the Messiah, just what kind of treatment Jesus would receive in this world.
Did the People Believe in Jesus Christ the Messiah Who Came by Water and Blood?
However, regardless of this oppression, Jesus the Messiah quietly did and completed His works. Now the people of Israel and everyone throughout the whole world must realize and believe that this Messiah is Jesus Christ. To make the sins of the Israelites and of everyone throughout the entire world disappear, the Messiah did indeed receive His baptism in the form of the laying on of hands, was in fact crucified, and thus suffered all His oppressions to an extreme—and by doing so, He has perfectly saved the believers in His ministries from all their sins, and has approved the faith of these believers as whole. Despite the fact that the Messiah came to this world in His humble form, and despite the fact that He was baptized, died on the Cross, and rose from the dead again to make all the sins of everyone disappear, those who believed in Him numbered only a few. For us to live, we must believe that Jesus indeed is our true Savior and Messiah, that He is the Messiah for not only the Israelites, but also for the entire mankind.
Even though Jesus actually took upon our own sins with His baptism and assumed our own sorrows, our own diseases, and our own curses, some people may think, “What sin did He commit to face so much oppression?” But Jesus is, in fact, the sinless Son of God. By bearing all our sins, the Messiah vicariously suffered, in our place, all the curses, sorrows, and oppressions of our sins. Through all the oppressions that Jesus had faced throughout His 33 years of life since coming to this earth, He has saved us from all our sins.
Back then, hearing the Word of God spoken through the Prophet Isaiah, did the people of the time believe in Jesus Christ the Messiah, who came by the water and the Spirit? Who believed in this gospel of the water and the Spirit that we are now preaching? Even now, there are many people who have no interest in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, even though they claim to believe in Jesus.
Here, in the main passage, the Prophet Isaiah is now prophesying that the Son of God would come to this earth, act wisely, take upon all our sins, be judged for them, and thereby save us. But not many have accepted the truth He accomplished. However, I am sure that from now on, all the people of all the nations would recognize Jesus Christ as their Messiah and exalt Him high. Do you now realize that Jesus the Messiah was oppressed because of the sins of the people of Israel, because of the sins of you and me, and because of the sins of the entire mankind? The Prophet Isaiah, who would have wanted you to know and believe in this, thus prophesied the ministry of the Messiah in this way.
The Messiah Was Like a Root out of Dry Ground
This is how the Prophet Isaiah foretold of the coming of Jesus Christ the Messiah, that when He comes to this earth, He would come in such a pitiful form. Isaiah said that the Messiah would “grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground” (Isaiah 53:2). When Jesus Christ came to this earth in the flesh of a man, He was not someone whom people would actually see anything desirable. He was not a muscular, tall and well-built man, like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. In fact, He was so diminutive that if we had looked at Him, we would actually have felt sorry for Him, pitying and sympathizing with Him. Nevertheless, His Word was like a sharp double-edged sword.
Jesus the Messiah was not only rather poor-looking in His appearance, but He was also poor materially. Joseph, His father of the flesh, was a mere carpenter. A family whose needs were provided by a carpenter, then as now, was not that well-off, far from living in abundance. Only with hard work could carpenters barely get by.
Nor did the Messiah, having come to this earth, attend a school. And so the Pharisees tried to deride Him for it, but they could not do so, since it would only reveal that Jesus Christ the Messiah was indeed the Son of God. Jesus never even set a foot in the Gamaliel’s School, the most reputable Jewish school of the time, where one of the greatest scholars of the Law, Gamaliel, had been teaching the Law. In this school, students could learn from the great teachers of the Law, trained not only in the knowledge of this world, but also in the Law itself. But Jesus was not trained in such a school. There is no record whatsoever that He attended a school. Yet despite this, there was nothing about the Law of the Old Testament that the Messiah did not know, and where the Old Testament taught about the Messiah, He was even more widely knowledgeable and had greater faith than any. There was nothing in what He said that ever was illogical or departed from the Law of God.
Why Did the Messiah Have to Be So Oppressed, Humiliated, and Despised?
To actually become the real Messiah to the people of Israel, and to save them from all their sins and make them God’s people, our Messiah came to this earth and willingly embraced all His sufferings, insults, derisions, and scorns. The suffering and contempt that the Messiah actually went through for the sake of the people of Israel were extremely sacrificing and oppressive. The oppression that the Messiah suffered for our sake was such a great suffering that we would have hidden our face from Him. Because Jesus was the Messiah who would save us from our sins and judgment, He did indeed deliver us from our sins by being oppressed and despised beyond any description before all kinds of people. Jesus thus was oppressed in this world.
Because Jesus the Messiah was so greatly oppressed and despised, people of those days could not bear the sight of Him. We must never forget that although Jesus came as your and my Messiah, indeed, as the Messiah of all the mankind, to fulfill and complete the role and the works of this Messiah, He was oppressed greatly, and by being so He has delivered us from our sins and the condemnation of sin.
Even as the Messiah was crucified, people did not cease to mock Him: “Why don’t You come down from there? If You are really the Son of God, then just come down from the Cross. How can You possibly be the Son of God? If You really are this Son of God, then come down and save the thief hung next to You; better yet, come down and save Yourself!” They continued with their ridicule: “Oh, yeah, why don’t You turn this stone into bread? If You are the Son of God, give us the proof! Show us the proof so that we can believe. If You can’t even do that, what kind of Messiah are You? How pathetic!”
People thus insulted the Messiah, denounced Him, and ridiculed Him endlessly. They stripped Him naked, slapped His face, and spat at Him. Christ suffered the greatest mockery, humiliation, and insults, the likes of which had never been seen before, nor ever seen again. He also was condemned with the punishment of crucifixion, a punishment reserved for the worst kind of criminals at the time. Our Messiah was whipped by the soldiers, both His hands and feet were nailed on the Cross, and spilled out all the blood that He had in His body.
Jesus really bore all such contempt, pain and oppression, so that He could fulfill His ministry as the Messiah, for our own sake. By being crucified, He took upon all our sins, all our curses, all our diseases, and all our punishment of sin. He took in our place all the oppressions that you and I were supposed to bear, and for our own sake He even gave up His own life. This Messiah has now become the Savior for those of us who believe that Jesus indeed is our Savior. He willingly became our Messiah. He came to this earth according to His Father’s will, and took upon our sins and the punishment of sin on the Cross for our sake, and rose from the death again—all to save us!
My brothers and sisters, do you think it was easy for Jesus to go through all such suffering and humiliation before all these strangers? If we were in His place, if it had been we who faced all this contempt, of being stripped naked, insulted, tortured, and crucified, not just before our own family or husbands or wives, or even our loved ones, but before our own enemies, we would have gone insane before dying! Christ was crucified, so that everyone could see His humiliation, not in some obscure corner, but high above, so that all could point their fingers and spit at Him.
Even greater suffering, sorrow, and hardship came to Christ before His crucifixion. Before nailing Jesus on the Cross, people made sure that He would go through all kinds of sufferings. He was brought before the multitude and judged in their presence, was spat at, and His face was even slapped by a servant of the high priest. He was spat at! People slapped His face, whipped Him, and stoned Him! Jesus the Messiah went through all this oppression for none other than our own sake!
The Scripture tells us that He was thus oppressed for our sake, saying, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). The Messiah went through such sufferings so that He could deliver all the people including the Israelites from their sins and the condemnation of their sins. This Messiah took care of the sins of the world and the punishment of sin by receiving baptism from John, and completed His ministry as the Messiah by being oppressed by His own people, the Roman soldiers, and the people of many other nations.
God prophesied that the Messiah would save these very people who stood against Him from all their sins—indeed, from all the sins ever committed by the entire mankind—and just as it had thus been prophesied, Jesus Christ indeed came to this earth as this Messiah, actually went through all this oppression, and saved you and me from our sins and the condemnation of our sins by shedding His precious blood.
That we have been saved from sin and the condemnation of sin by believing in the Messiah did not in fact come without paying the price of sacrifice. It is because Jesus Christ came to this earth and faced all such oppression that we could have now become sinless, and it is because this Messiah was judged for all our sins that we could, just by believing with our hearts, have received the gift of salvation and of the remission of sin, and become the children of God. It is because of our Messiah that we could have become such happy people.
We must thank the Messiah for giving us this happiness and for bestowing us with His blessings. The salvation that the Messiah has given us came to us only through our faith, for though we have not given Him any offering of our own, He Himself gave His priceless offering before God the Father. We must believe that God Himself has indeed saved us by suffering all this oppression, and we must thank Him for it.
Hear, O Israel, Turn around and Believe in Jesus Christ
The people of Israel must repent now and believe in Jesus the Messiah as their Savior. Even until this very moment, the Israelites still do not recognize that their Messiah has already come. Just as it had all been prophesied by the Prophet Isaiah that the Messiah, the Servant of God, would come to this earth, and just as this Word of prophecy foretold us that this Messiah would, coming to this earth, save us all by taking upon all the sins of mankind with His baptism and being crucified on the Cross, Jesus Christ has indeed fulfilled all His works of salvation. The people of Israel must now turn around, and know and believe in this truth. They must admit the sin that their own people committed by crucifying Jesus. And they must recognize their true selves to be simply a mass of sin from their birth, and by believing in this Messiah now they must be saved from all their sins and the condemnation of sin.
There is now no other Messiah. Because Jesus Christ already came as the Messiah, there is no other Messiah. How could there actually be any other Messiah? How could there be another Savior? When the people of Israel go through even more difficulties in the future, would they hope that some kind of Hollywood action hero, like the Superman, would emerge and become their Messiah?
Even from now, the Israelites must recognize Jesus Christ as their Messiah. They must believe that Jesus Christ is indeed their own true Messiah. Their Messiah had already come to this earth 2,000 years ago, and to take upon their sins and to make them the true children of Abraham, He was baptized, just as they had to be circumcised, and was crucified, all so that they would receive the spiritual circumcision. The Messiah became the true Savior of the people of Israel by taking upon their sins with His baptism from John, carrying the Cross and shedding His blood to be oppressed, and rising from the dead again.
The Israelites must repent to believe in the Messiah. They must now believe in Jesus Christ as their Messiah. All that remains to be fulfilled now is for the people of Israel to believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior. They must realize that the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah is this very Jesus Christ. They must realize and believe that this prophesied One is none other than Jesus Himself. The prophecies of the Old Testament have been all fulfilled through Jesus Christ, leaving out neither the smallest letter nor the slightest stroke. In the main passage, it is also said that many nations would be sprinkled.
Isaiah 52:14-15 state, “Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men; So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; For what had not been told them they shall see, And what they had not heard they shall consider.”
Coming to this earth, Jesus Christ faced sufferings that were far greater than that of any criminals of this world condemned to death. He sacrificed Himself by taking on more pain and oppression than any criminals of this world, all in order to make the entire mankind His own people. He has saved His people who would receive the remission of sin by believing in Him. This is how He has saved them.
People will hear the wonderful news of salvation, which they had neither heard nor seen before. All those who still have not even heard that the Messiah was Jesus Christ will indeed hear it and believe in it eventually.
Jesus Is the Messiah, Who Once Came and Will Come Again
Today, we are now approaching the end times. It will be an age of death and tribulations. Those who believe in the Messiah, however, actually have no fear of death. On the contrary, they are waiting even more for the happiness of Heaven and their resurrection that would follow their death. That the darkness is descending on the world does not mean that we, the righteous, are also darkened. When this gospel is definitely all spread, the Messiah will in fact return.
Jesus Christ, our Messiah, came to this world as the Lamb of God, as the sacrificial offering, and had His body baptized by John, and gave it up on the Cross. Like a sheep before its shearers, Jesus the Messiah quietly took upon our sins, faced great sufferings by bearing our own judgment of sin on the Cross, rose from the dead again in three days, and thus became the perfect Savior for all those who believe.
Only a few knew that the Messiah was Jesus Christ at the time. There were a few who knew that Jesus Christ became our Messiah by being quietly born unto this world about 2000 years ago, testifying the gospel of the Kingdom for three years after His baptism, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again. The few, who looked for and believed in God, testified that our Lord is the true Messiah who quietly fulfilled all His works.
Those servants of God spread the news throughout the whole world that the Messiah has saved us from our sins by coming to this earth and being oppressed. God Himself, in fact, is spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit by allowing printing techniques to advance, by moving the history of the world, and by making the nations that preach this gospel strong and wealthy.
“Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah! If you believe in Jesus as your Messiah, you will be saved. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is the Creator who made the whole universe. He is God. He is the Messiah our Savior.” The servants of God continued to preach to the people that Jesus is the Messiah, and also about His baptism, His death on the Cross, and His resurrection.
Few Israeli youths had realized that 2,000 years ago, a young man called Jesus came to this earth, and that when He turned 30, He took upon the sins of mankind by being baptized by John. At that time, only Jesus’ own disciples knew that He was the Messiah, and this knowledge was shared with only a handful of people who really feared God—all the rest remained oblivious to this truth. All in all, there were only about 500 saints (1 Corinthians 15:6) in this nation of Israel who knew that the Messiah carried the sins of the world to the Cross, that He died on it, and that He rose from the dead again. All others had no idea.
On the fiftieth day since the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, the Holy Spirit actually descended upon His disciples. When Christ’s disciples were praying in an upper room, the Holy Spirit did indeed descend upon them, making them speak in tongues and testify that the Messiah is Jesus Christ. Then, His disciples, not fearing death, boldly testified, “Jesus is the Messiah. The Messiah is our Savior. The resurrected Jesus is our Messiah.” Many people therefore came to believe at this time.
Through Jesus the Messiah, God has indeed saved you and me from all our sins and the condemnation of sin. Because He suffered such great oppression to thus save us from our sins and judgment, we absolutely must believe in Him; those who do not believe must all repent, turn around and believe also; and we must all spread this truth with faith.
The people of Israel, in fact, are now fearful under an extremely tense situation. They must therefore hear this Word of the Tabernacle that God had actually spoken to them. We also are now entering into the end times. The gospel of the water and the Spirit manifested in the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle will in fact surely make its way to the people of Israel. They, too, will come to believe that Jesus Christ is indeed the Messiah that God had spoken of to them.
God had already told the people of Israel about the sacrificial system, and they believed in it. In fact, they still desire to give offerings to God according to this Tabernacle’s sacrificial system. Among the Israelites, there are still some fundamentalists who live in the wilderness. Even now, these people live in the wilderness giving offerings in this way. They are, in other words, giving the kind of offerings that were once offered in the Tabernacle before. Perhaps they are the descendants of Aaron. To keep the traditions of their families, they are living in the wilderness instead of cities. Although they are Israelites, they live as a secluded tribe, isolated from the ordinary people. To these people also, we must in fact preach the Word of the Tabernacle that the Messiah has already come to us and has saved us according to our faith.
We must thank Jesus for coming to this earth, for thus being oppressed, and for being judged in our place, all in order to save you and me, as our Savior, from our sins and the condemnation of sin.
“Love Is as Strong as Death, Jealousy as Cruel as the Grave”
That we have in fact been saved from all our sins and the judgment of sin was not achieved by a fluke, as if it came by an accidental delivery of mail. Our salvation is not some kind of chain letters that keep telling us that we have to forward them to over 20 people or else we would be doomed. Nor is our salvation of the remission of sin like one of those many fliers advertising two-for-one pizza deals, where we can simply place a call and fill our stomach to our hearts’ content.
Our salvation, in fact, came by God’s sending of His Son to us, by passing of all our sins onto Him, and by making Him suffer and be oppressed for all these sins of ours. This is why you and I must wholeheartedly believe in Him and thank Him. Knowing how our salvation came by, how could any of us ever throw it away as a pair of worn-out shoes, put it aside as some useless broken tool sitting in the attic, or ignore it as if it belonged to someone else?
Is there anyone among you who, though attending God’s Church, has not yet received the remission of sin? Is there anyone who actually has not yet believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? If there indeed are such people, they must all repent and believe in the Messiah before it’s too late. If you are lost, and not sure which road to take, just believe in the Word of truth with all your hearts. Those who do not believe are rejecting this love of the Son of God, the love with which He has saved them by going through all these sufferings for none other than their own sake.
Those who underestimate the value of His love and reject it will be followed by curses. The Scripture tells us, “For love is as strong as death, Jealousy as cruel as the grave” (Song of Solomon 8:6). God’s love is so strong and great that it brings about the cruelest punishment to the people who reject it to the end. It tells us, in other words, that if one does in fact die while remaining sinful, he/she will indeed suffer the merciless pain of hell like the grave. Hatred is as cruel as the grave. When the Messiah has loved you this much, when He was thus baptized, shed His own blood, and suffered all kinds of oppression, all just to save you, if you do not believe in this love and reject it, you will surely suffer this cruel pain. This is none other than hell.
God thus said, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). When we die, our flesh may end, but before God, it is not the end of us. To trample cruelly on those who reject the love God, God has made them live forever and never die, and will indeed bring them merciless sufferings. He will, in other words, actually cast them into the fire burning forever, and make them suffer all its pain incessantly, endlessly, and forever and ever. This cruel suffering is none other than the cruel judgement of God. Do you think God would never be able to bring Himself to do such a thing? Do not forget that nothing is impossible for God!
The great and utmost love of God for us, by suffering Himself for our sake, has saved us from all our curses, all our sins, and all our condemnation. What can solve away all your problems is this love of the Messiah. Indeed, there is nothing that is greater than the Messiah’s love. Without faith in this Messiah, the love of God cannot be ours. This love is given to us only by this God, the One who has become our Messiah, and it is His Father who has sent Him to us. The Almighty triune God has loved us in this way, and has thus saved us from our sins and condemnation. This is why we must believe in the Messiah, why we must thank Him, why we must give glory to Him, and why we must be satisfied with our faith in this Messiah.
How thankful is it that the Messiah has given us the gospel of the water and the Spirit? If anyone does not know just how priceless this love is, how it can never be exchanged for anything else in this world, he/she must surely be one the most ignorant and stupid people. How terrible sufferings and afflictions did our Lord go through for us? Because we are so thankful for His love, though we are insufficient, we still dedicate all our remaining strengths to the spreading of this love to those who remain ignorant of it.
To do such works of God, we must also face hardships and sufferings. We cannot seek to prosper for only ourselves. If we have indeed been saved by receiving His love of sacrifice and being clothed in it, we must also share this love with others. Just as Jesus Christ faced all His sufferings to make our sins disappear, not with the love of the flesh, but with His true love, we must also do His works in faith, willingly embracing hardships, oppression, hatred, suffering and despise, if these mean that others would also receive the remission of their sins. We must suffer such hatred in the name of love. If you and I have truly received the remission of sin, then I believe that such love is indeed found in our hearts.
And the born-again, who really know who they were before and how great and strong Jesus’ love of salvation is, bear fruits. The saved are the trees that bear the fruits of salvation, “for a tree is known by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33). Before you have been saved, you were completely immersed in your sins, and thus could not even complain if you were indeed cast out to hell. Yet you believed that God has become your Savior by coming to this earth in the flesh of a man and being oppressed for your sake, and that by suffering on your behalf He has saved you from your sins and judgment. By thus believing, you have been saved. If you have indeed received this love, then you and I must surely have hearts that desire to live for others.
If anyone does not have such a heart, then he/she has not received the remission of sin. To be exact, this person is only pretending to have received the remission of sin.
Just as Christ faced all His sufferings and has saved us from all our sins and judgment because He has loved us, if we have indeed been saved by believing in this love, then this love is also found in our own hearts. Why? Because Christ now lives in our hearts. As He was oppressed for our sake and has loved us, we must also desire to live for others and to face hardships for their sake. Because those of us who have received the remission of sin no longer have any sin left in our hearts, our hearts have all been transformed, becoming like the heart of Jesus Christ.
I thank Jesus Christ for coming to this earth, for being baptized and shedding His blood on the Cross, for embracing all His sufferings for our sake, and for thereby becoming our Messiah who has delivered us from all our sins.
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