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Subject 13 : The Gospel According to MATTHEW
[Chapter 25-6] Those Standing on His Right Hand (Matthew 25:31-46)
(Matthew 25:31-46)
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Since meeting you on the day of the Lord, I meet you again today, Wednesday, and the time in between seemed so very long. In recent days, I have been very busy preparing the sermon books about the Gospel of Matthew. I am so glad to be meeting you by taking time out of my crowded schedule. God has allowed us a new translator who will be translating our books into English, and because I have to give her materials to translate, I am busy these days. But, I have discovered that she was translating “the gospel of the water and the Spirit” as just “the gospel” according to the American style of translating, and so I have instructed her to correct some expressions.
Whatever the case is with the world, the gospel of the water and the Spirit is being spread to many people throughout the world. 1,890 people visited our homepage today. After the release of the second volume of my book on the Tabernacle, the number of visitors to our homepage has increased remarkably. Because we are advertising our homepage over the Internet these days, I think we are seeing its effects. According to the Word, “Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon” (Luke 16:9), as we started advertising by paying for it with money, people from countries that we didn’t even know are visiting our homepage, and hundreds of books are being sent out each day. So many copies of the books are being sent out everyday that my heart feels so overjoyed by the fact that the work of God is flourishing.
Now, I plan on preaching the Word of spiritual growth to the born-again by giving them sermons on every Book of the Scriptures in turn. Because they are the nourishment for those who have received the remission of sins by having faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit all over the world, I have the wish to give them the Word of spiritual growth in every language.
We have discussed with our Nepali translator to publish our Nepali edition, and we have finally decided to print 1,000 copies of our book there. We could have sent the books by printing them ourselves, but because he had said he could print them there, we had allowed him to do so. Today an e-mail arrived from Nepali stating that he had printed 1,000 copies along with the cover artwork of the book. From looking at the photograph, the book seems to have been well made. He said that he would soon send two copies of the book as samples. Now, with the fellow worker in Nepal distributing copies of the book, the gospel will get spread very well there. For countries like Nepal, as we send our coworkers the expenses, all they have to do is to print the books there directly. Also, with the countries of South America, like Chile and Argentina, all our coworkers there have to do is to send the books to nearby countries by printing the books there directly. For that to have happened, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds, but rather, difficult. However, as the fruits of salvation start to produce, I am extremely delighted.
Time has well passed since we have started working on publishing books for the spiritual growth of the saints, but we still haven’t reached the amount needed for a single volume. Nevertheless, we will publish a book that is about 300 pages in length by organizing the Gospel of Matthew chapters 1 through 7 as approximately 15 pieces of sermon. The volume one on the Gospel of Matthew will have the first 7 chapters, and starting from chapter 8, it will be put into the volume two of the book of sermons on the Gospel of Matthew. As we make books like this for spiritual growth, they should help people all over the world who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit to grow in their faith. Also, I believe that people will have a good understanding on what Jesus is saying in the Four Gospels. Seeing you all after having worked all day long is truly nice.
Unless one holds onto the passing time and uses it, time is something that just passes by like the flowing water and the blowing wind. If we were to leave time alone saying, “Let the time pass,” naturally, just as the water flows and the wind blows, when will we be able to accomplish the work of God on this earth? We did much work this year also, but whatever the case, we will be doing tremendously more work before this year comes to an end. In doing so, we will cover the whole world with the gospel as quickly as possible. I have been told that we have received e-mails today from nine people in total. They all said that they have received salvation through our books. The number of people who read our books is growing more and more, and there are those who claim to have read volumes 1 through 10 of our series on the gospel of the water and the Spirit. They say that our books were of great interest. I feel so good hearing news like that.
As you well know, the Scripture passage we read today speaks of the Lord separating the sheep from the goats and setting them a place when He comes to this earth along with the holy angels and sits on the throne of His glory. He said, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” Then, as our Lord is the King, He says to those on His right hand, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.”
The Lord will actually come with all the holy angels, and sitting on the throne of His glory, He will gather all the nations. Then, just as a shepherd would separate his sheep from the goats, the Lord will separate people who have received the remission of sins from those who have not received the remission of sins. And then, He says to those of us who have received the remission of sins, “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” As He told them to inherit His Kingdom prepared for the people of God, He commended them for some merits. He said that when the Lord was hungry, we the righteous had given Him food, that when the Lord was thirsty, we had given Him drink, that when the Lord was a stranger, we had taken Him in, that when the Lord was naked, we had clothed Him, that when the Lord was sick, we had visited Him, and that when the Lord was in prison, we had come to Him. The Lord praised us for having helped Him like so when He was in difficult times.
Why would the Lord say such a thing? The fact is that the Lord has given us the Kingdom prepared for us for we had done such unto the Lord, but did we really give the Lord food when He was hungry? Only if we had the chance to have met the Lord on this earth at some time, we could have given Him something to eat. We have never met the Lord personally, not even once, so what could we have given Him? Thus, we must look at this passage from a spiritual perspective.
Human beings take after the image of God. For that reason, the Lord is saying, “In as much as you did it to a human being, you did it to Me.” The Lord said, “I was hungry and you gave Me food.” Does it then mean that when people were starving and hungry, we had given those homeless a meal by bringing to them a pot of soup and a pot of rice like relief workers? When did we ever do that? But, the Lord says that we the born-again have given food to the poor when they were hungry. We know that by those words, He is referring to the nourishments for the spirit that we can consume spiritually.
We are spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit all over the world. Just as the Lord praises us for giving them food when they were hungry, clothing them when they were naked, and taking care of them when they were sick, we are doing exactly the same spiritually. We are carrying on a spiritual relief work. People in the image of the Lord are dying because they haven’t eaten the Word of God, and we are helping them receive this nourishment for the spirit and thus gain life by acting as calyxes so that the flower of the gospel would blossom, by praying for the spreading of the gospel, and by publishing books and then passing on to them the gospel of the water and the Spirit and the Word of the Truth of God. They read our books and go on receiving the remission of sins. And, messages from at least five people a day arrive through e-mail. Aren’t there so many people who just go on teaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit at their churches without having sent us e-mails?
Truly, we are doing the work that is worthy of praise from God’s point of view. As we have been doing so in the past, even now you and I are sharing the nourishment for the spirit with other souls. We will continue to pass on to them the gospel of the water and the Spirit for all eternity. I know and believe that the work of preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit to souls all over the world is precisely to care for them when they are sick and to liberate them from sins when they are locked up by sins. The work you and I do is that kind of work.
We are not those who give people food for their flesh. From God’s view, for us to serve the gospel is giving people things to eat, taking care of them when they are sick, clothing them when they are naked, and visiting them when they are locked up in prison. Truly, when people are unable to go on living and are starving and thirsty for righteousness, we are clothing them with the garment of the righteousness of God and feeding them with the nourishment of life. Also, when they are in agony being locked up in the prison of sin, we help them to be free from the prison by delivering them the gospel through our books and having them receive salvation from their sins by reading those books. Truly, all these are works that we do before God, and furthermore, the fact of the matter is that God, in His view, is so very satisfied with all of the works that we do.
Just as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats, the Lord will set the righteous at His right hand but the sinners are at the left. And as He said, “Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you,” to those on the right, the fact is that we are those standing on the right from the viewpoint of God the Trinity, those who have receive their blessings from God the Father, and those who share heavenly nourishment with people who are in the image of God, feed them, clothe them, take care of them, and look after them. This isn’t a self-praise. The work that we do is actually in the image of God.
In today’s Scripture passage, when asked, “When did we do such work,” the Lord answered, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Even though the sinners have sins in their hearts because they have not been born again for not having accepted into their hearts the gospel of the water and the Spirit and for not believing in it, they are all high and noble in God’s view because they are also human beings in the image of God. Therefore, God praises us who are doing the work of sharing the spiritual food, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, with all the people in this world, feeding them, clothing them, looking after them, and freeing them from prison. The fact of the matter is that people in the service of the gospel of the water and the Spirit are truly the ones who will receive the blessing from God the Father as well as the ones who will inherit the Kingdom prepared by God the Father and live there. From God’s view, we truly are such ones.
Because you and I are lacking, sometimes it gets difficult for us to live such a life. But, to live for the righteousness and to do the work of taking care of others and bringing them back to life is so very rewarding. A few days ago, a worker at Busan Church, not having been listening to the minister there for a while, left the Church to go to his parent’s house with his wife and child. Because if one does not want to live for the gospel, then there isn’t that much we can do for him, we gave him back all that he had offered before the Lord, and told him, “Try to survive out in the world.”
But, his parents had shown him a cold shoulder because their grown son was living inside their house without getting any job, so he came to say that he wanted to come back to the Church and to serve the gospel. Having been living jobless, somehow he got to marry a sister of ours who had received the remission of sins, and started living within the Church. Ignorant of the fact that such a life was of grace, he said he will live a better life by leaving the Church, but in the end, he came back asking to be allowed to live within the Church again for he had wronged. When he had set his heart to leave the Church, he had to come to that decision after having thought about various things, but when faced with at little hardship outside, he said, “I want to come in again.” And, that truly is an act of disgrace. As it is written, “And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (1 Timothy 6:8), for a person living in the flesh, one should just be satisfied with having things to eat and to wear. And, what can we do to live for the righteousness of God and to live with a spirit of devotion to the welfare of humankind, benefiting the spirit, is what is most important. So, how can living on this earth at a certain level of living be of importance?
When I think about it, I get to thinking that it could be possible since he is spiritually young, but I hope for him to become more mature as he lives having come into the Church. In actuality, I am of no significance, nor is he. Thus, we must be thankful for having been allowed to go on living serving the gospel. If not living in service of the gospel, then what else can we do while we go on living? What else could there be except for a life of just barely making ends meet by earning money through hardship? There isn’t anything else.
It is said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4), and as such, people cannot go on living just by eating bread for the flesh alone. The born-again cannot go on living just by eating, drinking, and taking in pleasures. What do they then eat to live? The fact is that in order for our souls to live, we must eat the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, receive the everlasting life by eating that food of life, and do the righteous work of sharing it with others. Only then, will there be a spiritual fruitfulness in having lived in the flesh until our hair has turned all white.
We are passing on the gospel to all the people throughout the world. We are distributing our books to those people, and that precisely is the work that we do unto the Lord. It is the case that the Lord tells us, “Did you not give Me food, clothe Me, take care of Me, and deliver Me from prison?” Truly, the work that we are doing is worthy of an award before God. People living for the gospel of the water and the Spirit are sufficiently qualified to receive the award of inheriting the Kingdom of God. Because we have received the salvation from God without having done anything, we are passing it on for nothing in return. Because we have received everything freely before God, we are able to give freely. Since we have received salvation and the gospel but also material things, the natural environment such as the air and the light, and all things that are necessary and good from God, we are passing them on, and because God rejoices over us doing so, we are doing that work incessantly. Our souls rejoice over us living like that. Because the Holy Spirit is inside our hearts, we feel worthwhile and happy about such work and are so very thankful to the Lord for allowing us to do such work.
Will there be, however, only good things? Like today, there are many things that drain us of strength, be fretful, and be physically tired. Just today alone, which has been this way, haven’t so many people received the remission of sins? And through them, isn’t it the case that this gospel will be spread to so many souls? It is all because we are doing God’s work even though we are lacking. Thus, although the righteousness of our flesh continues to break down and even though we don’t always achieve His works perfectly, the fact is that we are still thankful to God. The work that brothers and sisters of the Church all over the country as well as all the servants of God do by uniting together in this manner is the work of God. And, to do the work unto people who are in the image of God is in turn doing the work unto God. And so, saving God’s people is the good work of clothing them when they are naked. The very fact that we are being used for that work is what that is so very thankfully blessed.
Was it said, “To endure is bitter, but its fruits are sweet”? Doing the work of righteousness is not always easy, but the fruits of righteousness produced through our sacrifices are ever so sweet. Having devoted themselves to the work of righteousness with all their hearts, the servants of God seem tired with all their strength depleted. Even more so, we must do the work of God with the hope and by waiting for the day when the Kingdome of God prepared for us by God the Father is granted upon us. Truly in our flesh, we have nothing to boast, nothing to rejoice, and nothing to be happy about. However, with the realization of the will of God on this earth, we must have other souls, through us, eat the food of life and receive salvation, praise God by wearing the garment of righteousness, and receive liberation by having come out from the prison of sin. And by these things for which we are thankful, the fact of the matter is that we should be happy, be thankful, bring glory before God, and go on living by faith
Of course, difficult work truly abounds. I believe you all have truly many difficulties of your own. But, I also believe that as the ministers and workers look toward the Lord, serve Him, and follow Him unyieldingly, the Lord will resolve the difficulties. It isn’t the case that the Lord will take care of all difficulties just because you have been serving and following only the Lord as a good soldier, but I am thankful that the Lord has allowed me to live in service of Him like this. Are you also the same?
If we have not been worshipping the Lord because of a truly busy schedule in this world, then what pleasure would we live for? There are over 6 billion people in this world, and if we do not pass on to them the gospel as if having no ability to do so, what pleasure would we live for? What pleasure would there be for us? Aren’t you also the same? I am sure you are. We are happy and good because we are able to do the work of God, so if has been the case that we cannot do the work of God, then what else would make us happy and good? There would be nothing good. I am sure that you all believe so because there is the Holy Spirit in your hearts. And, I give true thanks to God for having given us the faith and the proper environment so that we can always rejoice, always offer prayers, and always be thankful. I give so much thanks to God for having allowed us, after having received the remission of sins, to do the work such as feeding, clothing, and taking care of the needy, looking after the sick, freeing the imprisoned, and so on. God has entrusted you and me with such works, and I am truly thankful just for being able to do the great work of God while we go on living on this earth. If it is the case that I cannot do the work of God any more, then I desire to go quickly to God for there will be nothing more to expect from this world.
When read the Gospel of Matthew chapter 1 verse 1, it is said, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham,” and then the genealogy of Jesus Christ appears in what that follows. The Gospel of Matthew chapter 1 speaks about how we can become a part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. And, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 speaks about the fact that we must believe in and follow the Word of God, just as the wise men of the Orient met baby Jesus and offered Him a few gifts after having suffered hardship because of losing track of the star that they were chasing in search of Jesus due to their own thinking, but then once again having received guidance of the star. Then, chapter 3 speaks about the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
There is a drawer in my room where I had carefully filed all the past sermons that I had made using recording tapes. And if you look inside, you will see that it is filled with documents of sermons based on the Scripture passages of the Old and the New Testament. Just as Jesus had said, “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old” (Matthew 13:52), whenever necessary, I like taking out past sermon documents and then publishing them into books after having made some revisions. Having done so, when a volume of a book comes out, it gets translated into all the various languages of the world. Once a new English book comes out, it then has to get translated into tens of languages, and therefore, it is a very difficult work. But, because it is the work of the Lord, all my fellow workers stay diligently working feeling happy while doing this work.
An upcoming book contains messages for the spiritual growth of the born-again, and so it was made so that those who have already received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can read it with ease. When I do publish the sermons in order starting from chapter 1 of the Gospel of Matthew, I believe it will be great nourishment for the souls of the born-again. I have the faith that truly, God has entrusted us with the work of giving food to people who are in the image of God, clothing them, and visiting them when they are locked up in prison.
When we look at today’s Scripture passage, it is said that the Lord will set the sheep on His right hand, and I offer deep gratitude for you and I being allowed to be on the right hand of the Lord. Inside my heart, I have the strong conviction that I will be on His right hand when the Lord should come even at this moment and divides all the nations into right and left after having gathered them up. I’m not boasting myself that I have good faith, but rather, I am so convinced because the Word of God recognizes that my faith is true and also because the Holy Spirit inside my heart confirms it.
How about you? Will you also be standing at His right hand? Yes, I am sure you are. I am on His right hand, so you are also on His right hand. If I were on the left, you would also be on the left. It is because you and I believe the same. And, the fact is that we will be receiving the same award when at the day the King arrives He will say, “You blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom the Father prepared for you”.
It is the case that you and I serve the gospel by uniting our hearts together. Just as 11 players in a soccer match unite as one, pass this way and that, make goals, win, and receive an award, you and I must move forward as one with the same objective until the time when we get to stand on the right hand of God. What would have happened if we had been on the left? The Lord has said, “But the goats on the left,” but what are goats like? Doing as it wishes and ramming into its master is what a goat is like. Sheep and goats seem alike but they are somewhat different. The characteristics of a goat are that it does not obey very well and that it tries to do things its own way. Even though a sheep does try to do things its own way in a similar fashion, but once its master starts leading it ahead, the sheep would just follow. When its master says, “Let’s go,” leading it ahead, a sheep then just follows, but a goat doesn’t even follow even if its master says, “Let’s go,” leading it ahead.
Like this, people who have received the remission of sins, despite their lacking, follow the Lord when He speaks. When the Lord says, “This is right,” people who have received the remission of sins start following Him, saying, “Yes, it is right.” However, those who haven’t received the remission of sin do not follow the Lord even until death. Putting up whatever excuses, they tend to resist the will of God. That is why the Lord divides sheep from goats. People who have received the remission of sin are sheep that are led by the Shepherd, but people who haven’t received remission of sin are goats that haven’t received the guidance of the Lord. What would have happened if we had been goats?
The Lord has said to those on His right hand, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” but He has also said to those on the left hand, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” The Lord is saying that He will throw those who have left the Lord and lived for the devil and his angels, that is, those who have acted as servants of the devil, into hell. The fallen angel is the Devil. Those who listen to the fallen angel and do as he says are the servants of the Devil. The Lord tells those who haven’t been born again to enter the everlasting fire prepared for such angels of the Devil.
The everlasting fire is hell. Dear fellow believers, are Heaven and hell existential places? They are places that truly do exist. Once in a while, people say that Heaven and hell are not existential places, and if they are not existential places, then it means that they are a fabricated place that does not actually exist. If so, does it mean that the Word of the Lord is a lie? It is clear that places named Heaven and hell do exist.
The Lord has said that we who have truly been born again must deliver the gospel, the food of life, to people. Because people die if their souls do not eat nourishments for the spirit, just as people die if they do not eat food for the flesh, you and I must continue the work of spreading the gospel all over the world under God’s guidance. Referring to the woman who had poured perfume on His head, the Lord told us to remember forever and ever the work that she had done.
“Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food.” This was said to the goats on His left hand. In this world, there are so many ministers carrying on relief work, but the fact is that the Lord is saying they gave Him no food. People who haven’t been born again do the work of giving out food for the flesh to those who are starving, but why do you think the Lord said that they did not give them such. It is because they did not give them the nourishment for their spirits. What the Lord spoke about was the bread of life, that is, the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
A human being truly gets to lead an everlasting life only when he has eaten the nourishment, that is, the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
The fact of the matter is that only when people go on living by having faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, do people get to receive the remission of sins and to live for all eternity. Just as the Lord had said that man should not live by bread alone, but by having faith in every word of God that proceeds from the mouth of God, human beings have to eat food for both the spirit and the flesh. Those who haven’t been born again gave Him no food. And, when He was naked, they did not clothe Him, and when He was thirsty, they did not let Him drink.
Dear fellow believers, you who have received the remission of sins also become spiritually thirsty on many occasions. But when you listen to the Word of God, the thirst goes away for your spirits and hearts have eaten the food of life. While in this world, we have surely received the remission of sins, and we go on living diligently. But, what is it like to spend a week without having attended Church? In such a case, your spirit feels somewhat uneasy and empty. Even though the flesh was well fed and well cared for, the fact that the heart feels somewhat empty precisely means that your spirit has been thirsty for the Word of God. Just as the Lord had said those who haven’t been born again gave Him no drink when He was thirsty, they cannot give anything to those whose souls are in thirst. How can goats give nourishment for the spirit? It is impossible because they do not even have the food of life for themselves.
And, when the Lord was a stranger, they did not take Him in. This Church is the House of God, and we are all strangers. Having gathered in the church of God, to share fellowship with each other, to live for the Lord, and to serve the gospel is what welcoming those who have become strangers and feeding those who have become starved are. It is a life that is truly different from that of the sinners who didn’t clothe them when they were naked and didn’t take care of them when they were sick and in prison. Those who truly take care of people who are tied up by sins, sick in their spirit, and in agony are you and I who are in the service of the gospel, having been born again by the water and the Spirit in the church of God.
On the other hand, people who haven’t been born again just get happy and pray for blessings only when one of them places an envelope full of donation money on top of the pulpit. Despite all of it, they say, “When did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?” The Lord then said, “Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”
The Lord says, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Everyone in this world is in the image of God. Thus, people have the desire to live for all eternity. They seek holiness though not holy, and they desire to create something creative though they do not have the power to do so. Because people are fundamentally in the image of God, they all seek God. And we should know that all things such as passing on the gospel to those seeking God, having people who have received the remission of sins eat the bread of life to their fill by passing on to them the Word of God which is the food of life, and taking care of and leading them when they are spiritually ill are illustrations of the works guided by God’s Holy Spirit. Therefore, you and I have been blessed enough to receive the eternal life and that we can to do such work before God for we have faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, also.
We are those who have received great blessings before God. This work that you and I do is what God finds joy in. Especially, those works that we do unto those who have received the remission of sins are all exactly the same as doing them unto God. The Lord said, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me,” and thus, you and I are doing good for the Lord by spreading the gospel to people incessantly all over the world. It is only fitting that brothers and sisters who have received the remission of sins before God go on living by helping each other even in the fleshly needs. The Apostle Paul told us to do good even more to those who are of the household of faith (Galatians 6:10).
We who have become people of God must be those who love and cherish each other, be generous, obey God’s commands, believe in the Word of God, worship God by faith, and feed nourishments to people. Right now, we are doing such works. I give thanks to the Lord who has allowed us to do such works. It is said that the righteous will go into eternal life, but the sinners into everlasting punishment. The fact is that sinners go to hell to suffer everlasting punishment. Doing any good toward those who have received the remission of sins is doing the will of God. And, if one were to do good and grant virtue to those who have received the remission of sins, that person will receive blessings from God.
The Lord God promised Abraham,
“I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). If one were to do good to the righteous, that person will receive blessings before God, but if one were to do evil and things that are wicked to the righteous, that person will receive punishment before God.
That is why one is to do good even more for the righteous. Even if that person isn’t a born-again, when a person does do a good to the righteous, he or she will receive a blessing. The works that the born-again do before God are the works of passing on the gospel of the water and the Spirit to all the people throughout the world, and attending to, feeding, clothing, and taking care of them spiritually. For this reason, you and I should carry out such works by faith, and pray to God to give us the power to do such works. I give thanks to God who has allowed you and me to do these precious works.
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