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Subject 18 : GENESIS
[Chapter 15-3] The Righteousness That Abraham Received From God (Genesis 15:1-7)
(Genesis 15:1-7)
“After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.’ But Abram said, ‘Lord GOD, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ Then Abram said, ‘Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!’ And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, ‘This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.’ Then He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness. Then He said to him, ‘I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.’”
In today’s Scripture reading God told Abraham to look up towards the heavens and see if he was able to count the number of stars in the sky. And then God said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” It is recorded in the Bible that Abraham believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
I am speaking here of the righteousness Abraham received from God. How did Abraham receive this righteousness? He received it by believing in the Words God had spoken to him. The righteousness Abraham received was by the faith of believing in the Word of God. Likewise, we also become righteous before the presence of God when we have the same faith as Abraham had.
However, those who do not know or refuse to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit say “Look! Did God not account Abraham’s faith to him for righteousness when Abraham believed in the Word of God although he did not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit?” They insist that one is approved as a sinless person only if he believes in Jesus as the Savior although still with sin in his heart. But Abraham’s faith is different from the faith of these kinds of people. The Word states, “He believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.”
In the Gospel of John, it is written that one receives salvation and eternal life when that person believes only in Jesus. So, most Christians today believe that they are saved because they profess Jesus Christ as their Savior. However, becoming a righteous person before the presence of God is not that simple. Jesus said concerning sinners, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
The thing we must keep in mind is that it is not genuine faith before the presence of God when we claim to believe only in Jesus without knowing the righteousness of God. We clearly become the righteous before the presence of God when we understand and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The truth is that we still become God’s people and the righteous no matter how lacking we are if we believe in the Word that Jesus Christ came to this world and received the baptism from John the Baptist in order to blot out all our sins, died on the Cross, and was resurrected from dead.
Do You or Do You Not Have Sins in Your Heart?
Some people who do not have faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the righteousness of God, sometimes think along these lines: “What happens when a person falls back into sin after receiving the remission of their sins? Does that person then become a sinner again? How then can one confess that he is a righteous person when he does not have a firm conviction of his sinlessness?” They really struggle with this.
They become distressed with such things because they do not have faith of knowing and believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit which is the righteousness of God. It is all because they do not have faith of believing in this genuine gospel that contains the righteousness of God. And unlike Abraham, they do not have the correct faith of believing in the Word of God.
Abraham is the ancestor of our faith. When we believe in the complete Word of God, we become approved as righteous people, that is, upright people without sin before the presence of God. How can we be approved as the people of God? We can be approved as the people of God by faith by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit exactly as God told us.
Long ago God said to Abraham, “Look now towards heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them” (Genesis 15:5). This Word means, “I will make your descendants number as many as the stars of heaven.” Abraham believed in God’s Word because God told him personally. Are we not also the people who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit like this too? We cannot become clean by the Law of God, but have all our sins not been blotted out once and for all by our faith of believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that blotted out all our sins? We have all certainly received the remission of our sins once and for all by faith of believing in the righteousness of God.
Would there be sin in the conscience of a person who believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the righteousness of God? No, there can be none. One becomes sinless when one stands firm by the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit as written in the Scriptures. Satan cannot cause any harm to your faith if you believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. A human being can commit sins while living in this world because he has weaknesses and shortcomings and also because he has a strong ego. In times like this, that is, whenever we feel our shortcomings overwhelming us, the thing we must remember is the gospel of the water and the Spirit and the righteousness Abraham received before the presence of God when he believed in His Word just as it was.
We must remember the Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit and also have absolute faith of believing in the righteousness of God. Therefore, no matter what shortcomings we may have and no matter how Satan brings charges against us because of our deeds, we must defeat him by our faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the righteousness of God. We must always stand firm by the faith of believing in the righteousness of God. A righteous person believes in God’s Word of righteousness, proclaims this faith, stands firm by this faith in spite of the Devil’s oppression and condemnation, and always takes care of others’ souls.
We must believe in this since the Scriptures tell us that the Lord has saved us from all our sins when we have the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the righteousness of God, although we are still weak in the flesh. A righteous person must proclaim that he has become sinless by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and he can stand before the presence of God by this faith and do the righteous work before the presence of God by this faith. One cannot do God’s work unless he has this faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Without faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we would have lived the life of a slave being exploited and oppressed by the Devil again and again. It is faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the righteousness of God that defeats the Devil. One is accounted as a righteous person only by faith of believing in the Word of God. We have become the righteous by having faith of believing in the Word of the righteousness of God just like Abraham did. We were able to become the tools of the righteousness and the servants of God when we attained this faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit; and we also become a powerful person in the Lord, and do not die due to our sins. Therefore, I want you to always remember that Abraham followed after the Word of God by faith.
We Must Keep Our Hearts Open
We have received the remission of our sins in our hearts by knowing and believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the righteousness of God. What should we do after that?
Let’s look at the Word from the Book of Exodus chapter 21 verses 1 to 6, “Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them: If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay nothing. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. But if the servant plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.”
It tells us that when a Hebrew purchased a servant, that servant served for six years, and he was set free in the seventh year, but if that servant did not want to be freed and wanted to live with his master, his master would pierce his ear with an awl.
We Must Pierce the Ear of Our Hearts
We must listen carefully to what God is saying to us as we live in this world. We must listen attentively to the Word of God in order to become a servant of God. We must listen carefully to what God is commanding the saints through the Church. Only then can we live righteously as a servant of the Lord. God told the Hebrews to pierce the ear of a servant with an awl as a sign of becoming his true servant. It means that when we do certain spiritual works, we must obey and follow within the ministry of the preceding servants of God in His Church. Only then can we live as the servants of God doing the work of the Master.
Servants of God must have keen spiritual ears. It is because faith really manifests in the heart including spiritual awakening, and one can distinguish the will of the Lord and live according to the Lord’s will only when we obey the command of the Master faithfully. You can understand the Lord’s will only when you understand the meaning of the words of these preceding servants, and you can live according to the will of the Lord and do His will only when you know the will of the Lord. It is important for a servant to have ears that listens well like this. A righteous person must have his ear pierced well. A righteous person must remove all the residues of filth from his heart. One must check and see if the door of the heart is not blocked off, and must pierce it well by faith if it is clogged up.
We must listen carefully to what the Lord is saying to us. We must listen carefully to what the Lord is saying during the hour of these sermons that preach the Word of God, listen carefully to what God is saying in our life, open the doors of our hearts, and believe and follow with a heart of faith. The Lord said that faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17). Therefore, we cannot attain true faith if we cannot understand the Word of God very well.
Faith does not come to us if we cannot listen well to what the predecessors of faith are saying to us. And as a result we would have given up our faith because we would have to follow God reluctantly out of our own faithlessness. We must listen carefully to what God is saying to us. We must listen to His Word and believe in it because there is faith in this Word and there is truth in this Word. I want you all to remember this.
We must listen attentively to all the words of these preceding servants of God even when we do the work of God. It is important to do God’s work faithfully, but it is more important to understand the words and the heart of the preceding servants and obey them. We would most certainly end up dying if we do not understand the words of these predecessors correctly and just interpret them out of our own volition and do as we please. Would it not be the end of it all if his superior told him to stop working and leave him? It would then be the end of it. I want you to remember this.
The limit of your strength or your lacking is not a problem. The important thing is for you is to hear carefully to what the Lord is saying and believe in it. Only then can you follow the Lord until the very end. Those who come after you can also follow you well by faith when you listen carefully to the words of these predecessors of faith and follow them by faith. I want you to open the ears of your heart to the Word of righteousness of God and believe in it.
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