کورونا وائرس اور بین الاقوامی ڈاک سروس میں رکاوٹ کی وجہ سے ، ہم نے اپنی ’مُفت چھپی ہوئی کتاب کی سروس‘ کو عارضی طور پر معطّل کردیا ہے۔
اِس صورتحال کی روشنی میں ہم اِس وقت آپ کو کتابیں بھیجنے کے قابل نہیں ہیں۔
دُعا ہے کہ یہ وبائی بیماری جلد ہی ختم ہوجائے اور ڈاک سروس بحال ہو جائے۔
دُعا ہے کہ یہ وبائی بیماری جلد ہی ختم ہوجائے اور ڈاک سروس بحال ہو جائے۔
Subject 28 : If You Have Confusion and Emptiness in Your Heart, Seek the Light of the Truth
[28-18] Which Gospel Should We Believe in to Reach Spiritual Maturity?
(Exodus 32:25-29)
“Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained (for Aaron had not restrained them, to their shame among their enemies), then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, ‘Whoever is on the Lord’s side—come to me!’ And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let every man put his sword on his side, and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.’’ So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about three thousand men of the people fell that day. Then Moses said, ‘Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, that He may bestow on you a blessing this day, for every man has opposed his son and his brother.’”
“Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained (for Aaron had not restrained them, to their shame among their enemies), then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, ‘Whoever is on the Lord’s side—come to me!’ And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let every man put his sword on his side, and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.’’ So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about three thousand men of the people fell that day. Then Moses said, ‘Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, that He may bestow on you a blessing this day, for every man has opposed his son and his brother.’”
Warm greetings to all my coworkers! I hope and trust that this sermon finds you well in the Lord. I know that all our coworkers are serving the gospel that washes away sins with their diligent labor, placing their faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit the Lord has given us. All your coworkers here in Korea including myself and your fellow saints are doing very well thanks to the grace of the Lord. Although we are facing a great deal of hardship from COVID-19 just like you, we are still doing well, and we continue to work tirelessly to spread the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit. It is my sincerest hope and prayer that all of you who are now serving the Lord’s gospel everywhere around the world would also stay safe from COVID-19 and flourish in the peace the Lord has given you.
Beware of Those Who Ruin the Vineyard
I am happy and rejoiced that today, in our God-established Church, we have people like the tribe of Levi. Even today, it is still possible for God’s Church to grapple with the same problem of idolatry as happened in the days of the Old Testament. In this age also, God’s workers who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have risen to reject and oppose false teachings, and I was very happy to see such devotion to God. They are worthy of God’s approval, and they also deserve His grace as the people of faith. God will make such people continue to live as His workers, and He will bless them to meet the Lord by faith when He returns to this earth. Many more workers of God will continue to arise in His Church to silence false teachings as the tribe of Levi did in the age of the Old Testament.
There are some people who, while believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, are mistaken in their thoughts and as a result stand up against God’s Church. It is our duty to teach them where they have gone wrong. For instance, some people claim fallaciously that John the Baptist written in the New Testament was born in this world without any sin, exalting him way too high. This undermines our effort to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Such beliefs are exerting spiritually wicked influences on the weak. Their purpose for spreading such an evil teaching is to build their own gathering that deviates completely from God’s Church and true faith.
All of us have been washed from our sins with the living water of the gospel of the water and the Spirit that is flowing inside God’s Church. I believe if people serve the gospel faithfully, our God will raise them as His servants. We need to think about why it is that some of us are trying to raise themselves up high. We ought to think about what it is that God finds pleasing in us. We should all learn to be humble and lower ourselves before God.
Peter said in the Bible, “Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.… Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:5-6). From our very birth, we were born in this world as sinners. Because of our sins, we had no choice but to be cast into fiery hell, but we were able to be saved from our sins by faith as we found and believed in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that constitutes the righteousness of the Lord. If we have indeed been saved from our sins, then there is no one in this world who has received greater blessings than this. If we have found, having been born on this earth, the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit and come to realize and believe in the washing of our sins, then this means that we have been saved from all our sins and become God’s own people, for we have now been moved from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God. Here is a question for all of us to consider: is there anyone in this world who has received greater blessings from God than we?
I do not want any of you to drift away from the written Word of God. It is my view and belief that you are momentarily lost in your own confused, wicked thoughts of the flesh. So, if you are one of those who believe mistakenly that John the Baptist was born in this world without any sin, I admonish you to cast aside such beliefs, and from now on unite your heart and faith with God’s workers carrying out His work in His Church. I want you all to also enjoy the many blessings of God.
In the New Testament, John the Baptist was born on this earth as the son of the High Priest Zacharias. Since he was born from his parents, and his parents were born as sinners themselves, it is clear that John the Baptist was also born in this world in a sinful state just like his parents. Just as the Bible says in Romans 3:10, “There is none righteous, no, not one,” apart from Jesus Christ, there is absolutely no one in this world who was born in this world without any sin. By the great providence of God, all human beings are conceived in a sinful state by their parents and born in this world as sinners. Therefore, we, too were born as sinners in God’s sight from our very birth.
When we turn to the New Testament, we see clearly that Jesus’ mother in the flesh, Mary, had put on God’s love. Mary was used as God’s instrument, but just like us, she was also born in this world as a descendant of sinners. Mary, too, was a sinner like us, but thanks to God’s special providence, she was used as an instrument to conceive and give birth to Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, according to the will of God. Put differently, Mary was used for part of the work of salvation—that is, for Jesus Christ to come to this world incarnated in the flesh of mankind and wash away their sins with His baptism and His blood on the Cross. Just like us, Mary, too, had put on the grace of God to be used as His instrument. And just like us, Mary, too, was no more than someone who would receive the remission of sins by believing in the true salvation of the gospel of the water and the Spirit fulfilled by the Lord.
Mary and John the Baptist both were born in this world as sinners just like us, but they had also put on God’s special love. That Mary put on the grace of God means that she was born to be used as an instrument to fulfill His special providence of salvation. That is why Mary and we alike came to put on the merciful God’s special love. Mary, too, was so grateful to be used by God that she thanked Him by saying, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
Therefore, all of us ought to submit ourselves to the teachings of the leaders ahead of us, and follow them by believing in God’s work manifested through them. It is then that we can avoid standing in the file of liars, receive and enjoy God’s blessings in His Church, and devote the rest of our lives to Him as His precious workers. And it is then that we can ensure that we do not go astray from the correct path of faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Having been delivered from our sins by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we must unite ourselves with God’s Church, for this is critical to spreading the gospel. When you abide in God’s Church together with the spiritual leaders raised by Him, you can escape from your erroneous and wicked thoughts of the flesh and be used as God’s instrument. You can then live by faith free from the false teachings brought to you by liars.
There are some denominations that believe in transubstantiation, which teaches that the bread and wine used in the Eucharist are changed into the actual substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. As they believe that the whole substance of bread is changed into the substance of the body of Jesus through the priest’s eucharistic prayer, they attach a special meaning on their worship service. The reality, however, is that they are teaching a grave fallacy to their congregation. The doctrine of transubstantiation is nothing more than a dogmatic teaching; it is not the body and blood of Jesus that the written Word of God speaks of.
The body and blood of Jesus that the Bible speaks of actually refer to the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed on the Cross. When we hold Holy Communion in the Church, we use bread and wine in remembrance of the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and His blood. The bread and wine that are used in the Eucharist are the Word of God that manifests the Truth of the baptism through which Jesus accepted the sins of the world on His body, and of His blood. In other words, we use bread and wine in Holy Communion in remembrance and affirmation of our faith that when Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, all the sins of this world were passed onto His body through His head. This is the biblically sound understanding of the body and blood of Jesus. Therefore, the wine that is used in Holy Communion refers to the blood Jesus shed, and it signifies the life He has given us. The bread we use in Holy Communion refers to the body of Jesus that bore our sins when He accepted the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist.
We should therefore never spread any false teachings, such as exalting John the Baptist, and instead preach only God’s true gospel of the remission of sins, the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. We must beware of those who spread false teachings, and thus ensure that we are faithful to our God. We have been remitted from all our sins by believing in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit before God. We have become saints in our God’s sight. Being faithful to God, all our labor and devotion should now be dedicated to the sanctity of His Church and spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit. If any of our fellow believers abiding in God’s Church is going astray to garner God’s enmity, we all have the duty to lead such saints back to the right path.
Just as there is an order to everything, if some of our brothers and sisters were to spread any teachings that depart from the Word of God, the believers in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit must correct their false teachings with God’s Word and admonish them to return to it. If they do not accept the admonishments of God’s servants, then the leader of God’s Church should admonish them. If they still ignore the Church’s teaching and insist on their own way stubbornly, then we should let them go. If, in spite of this, they still continue to sow confusion in the Church—that is, if they continue to spread erroneous teachings in God’s Church—the Bible says that we must expel them from God’s gathering. The punishment God has set for such people is deportation. God is telling us to eject them so that they can no longer dwell in His Church. This is to ensure that they do not turn into stumbling blocks obstructing God’s people and His work. However, if they realize their mistake and want to return, then we ought to forgive them and accept them back into our fold. This is because God is pleased to protect His Church and people from liars.
Our Faith Ought to Mature for the Benefit of God’s Work
All those who belong to the God-established Church in this age are living by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and they are led by the guidance of God’s Church. They are faithful to God, and to the work of spreading the gospel of the washing of sins, the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Put differently, they are living for the sake of the souls that are to be saved from their sins in God’s sight. In these end times, the entire membership of God’s Church must be awake, trusting in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Only then can we all live by faith and spread the gospel of the remission of sins to all sinners, which is the will of God for mankind.
By our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we must all stop those who, having snuck into God’s Church, try to prey on His workers’ hearts. In the end, they will form their own gathering if they cannot have their way. We have the duty to guide them to God. We know that their goal does not lie in proclaiming the gospel of the water and the Spirit, for they are deceivers trying to prevent the people of faith who believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit from standing on the written Word of God. We must stay away from them. Some of them are trying to demolish the faith of God’s beloved workers with their wicked teachings stemming from the evil thoughts of their flesh.
All of us who are members of God’s Church must watch out for such liars by faith, and we must also devote all our efforts to the work of proclaiming the gospel of the water and the Spirit, for only then can the souls that still remain sinful be delivered from their sins through our faith. Unlike in the age of the Old Testament, in the age of the New Testament, we must hold and support one another in God’s Church with our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. This is because we must all carry on with our lives in this world with the unity of faith by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Even though this world we are dwelling in is evil, we are living in the community of the Holy Spirit, God’s Church where the Spirit works. We are now living with God’s own people. We are the rightful inhabitants of the Kingdom of God. The King of God’s Church and His Kingdom is our Lord Jesus Christ. By believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we have all become soldiers of Jesus Christ. By believing in this God-spoken Word that has blessed us to be born again of water and the Spirit, we have become our Lord Jesus Christ’s own people.
We must abide in God’s Church and live by faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit written in both Testaments of the Bible, and by trusting in the community of the Holy Spirit who works in God’s Church. Thanks to our faith in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit, all of us have become people of faith following the will of our Lord. By this faith, we must spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit throughout the whole world as commanded by our Lord, live by trusting in Him until the day we leave this world, and enjoy everlasting life through Him. To do so, all of us ought to become one in unity through our faith in the righteousness of God, and we ought to never be slow to devote ourselves to God to reveal His glory. The purpose for our lives in this world must be all about serving God’s gospel that has fulfilled the remission of sins, the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We should strive for harmony with one another through our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and we should live out our faith with thanksgiving to reveal God’s glory throughout the whole earth. In short, we must live by faith to spread the grace of the remission of sins that our Lord Jesus Christ is offering to mankind.
The Maturity of Faith Is Reached When One Lives for the Proclamation of the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
Today, those who obey God’s Church and His commandments are those who are in unity with the leaders of the Church and the saints who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Through our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit the Lord has given to all of us, we are living in obedience to our Lord in unity. Right now, none other than we are God’s workers. As God’s workers who have received the remission of sins by believing in the God-spoken gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we are glorifying God with our lives in this horrid world of iniquities. Such people have already received into their hearts the gift of the Spirit of God by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and therefore they can also unite themselves joyfully with God and His Church.
Living in these end times, does your heart have the evidence of faith testifying that you have become one of God’s people through faith in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit? We have been saved once and for all through our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit and the written Word of God, and the Holy Spirit testifies that we have now become God’s own people. And now, all of us have been called to be the witnesses who preach God’s gospel, the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Therefore, it is only fitting for us to live the rest of our lives as such witnesses, united by our shared faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We have now been entrusted by our Lord to carry out God’s work.
Entrusted by God to proclaim His gospel of the water and the Spirit, we must devote our lives to teaching and guiding, with the Word of God, those who lack faith in the righteousness of the Lord. It’s the predecessors of faith who live such a life, and therefore they have the duty to lead the saints whose faith is weak. Called by God’s Church, such people preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit and dedicate their lives to the saints as God’s workers.
For this to come about, those whose faith is ahead of laypeople must set the purpose of their faith firmly on God’s side. They are of those who are always rejoiced to do God’s work. In fact, those who have been raised to be evangelists according to the will of God’s Church are living such a life that is always pleasing to God. However, those who have not yet been raised by God’s Church as His workers should quietly share fellowship with their predecessors of faith and live in submission to the guidance of God’s Church.
Your predecessors of faith are running the race of faith every day and serving the gospel of the water and the Spirit diligently to ensure your spiritual growth. Those who are ahead must help those whose faith is still young so that they can stand firmly on the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. We should not brag about ourselves just because we are God’s servants. Through faith, every saint must first learn how to submit to the Word of God and live a life that is faithful to Him. In time, the day will come for God to exalt those whose faith is young. God said, “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:5-6). We must all obey this Word.
Like the Descendants of Levi, We Must Live a Devoted Life by Faith
We need to realize here that what God said in the age of the Old Testament through Moses is also spoken to us who are now serving God by our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. God is saying, “On whose side will you stand now? Will you stand on My side or My enemy’s side? Whom will you choose between Me and My enemy? Depending on your choice, I will either reward you or judge you.” Because this is what God is saying to all of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and are living by faith in God, it is imperative that we come to our senses and carry out God’s work on His side.
God is asking us, “Between Me and My enemy, on whose side will you stand?” We must be ready to answer this question with the right answer before God. Not only must we give the right answer to God, but our lives must be in accordance with the life of faith that our God wants us to live. God will then be very pleased by us and work powerfully through us.
We can therefore live the most glorious life of faith in the presence of our God. While carrying on with our lives in this world, we ought to sit in the most fitting place of faith and glorify our God through our faith in the Word of our Lord. If we now serve our Lord and God’s people with His Word, our God will commend us for our faithfulness and grant us all the blessings of Heaven. This will come about for sure if we can show the life of faith that is truly pleasing to the Lord to all those who, in following our footsteps, must serve His gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Except for when we are sleeping, we are spending every hour of the day to serve the Lord’s gospel of the water and the Spirit. We yearn to follow the Word of God even more and live out our faith with the fullness of the Spirit that is pleasing to the Lord. If we all serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit from the God-pleasing place of faith for the sake of other souls, our God will be rejoiced. We will then receive the greatest blessings from our God in both this world and the Kingdom of Heaven. If we serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit from the place of faith that pleases God, no one else but we will receive such amazing blessings from God. Our God will be rejoiced by us if we bear the fruits of faith to His pleasure from where we are standing. He will be looking for those on this earth who are living by faith in His written Word. Undoubtedly, our God will love such people of faith as you and me, and He will be exceedingly rejoiced by us.
All of Us Are the Workers of Faith Building the Kingdom of God
To build the Kingdom of God and deliver sinners from all their sins, we are now working hard by our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We ought to follow the will of God together, and all of us ought to also be in unity with the members of God’s Church sharing fellowship of faith. If we really want to live the life of faith that is pleasing to God, then truly, we must not only have faith in the Word of God that His Church is preaching, but we must also follow the guidance of our Church leaders and submit to them.
What would happen if we were to live without uniting our faith with the faith of the Church leaders who are guiding us? You would then make all kinds of mistakes when trying to follow your Lord by faith. Unless you are united with your Church leaders by faith, your life of faith will run into many difficulties. What, then, must we all do to have the faith that is pleasing to God? First of all, we must believe in the Word of God that the leaders of God’s Church are preaching, and by this faith we must unite our hearts with the Word.
For us to always be victorious in faith before God, we must not only be led by His Word, but also unite our hearts with His leaders. Only then can we live our everyday lives as the victors of faith. To live in this world by obeying the Word of God and trusting in the leaders of faith ahead of us, we must be led by God’s Church. It is then that we can become the true workers of faith. If we run toward the goalpost of faith to spread the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit, we will reach that goalpost by faith without fail. The Lord has tasked all of us to walk on the way of witnesses, and we ought to follow our leaders by believing only in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, the Word of God.
Such a life of faith, however, is not trouble-free. For reasons that are beyond me, there is someone claiming to be my son who brazenly say that anyone who does not listen to him will be cursed. Some others claim that John the Baptist was born in this world without any sin. I want you to realize here that such people’s claims are stumbling blocks to the proclamation of God’s gospel.
Those who believe that John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus, was born in this world in a sinless state are saying such things because they think of the Word of God only as an instrument of their greed, and ultimately, they have fallen into a grave error to deviate from the Word of God. Imagine someone asking, “Was John the Baptist born in this world without any sin?” Such a question itself is a deviation from God’s Word. Questions like these are asked by those who want to exalt a human being instead of Jesus and worship him as their idol. They are thinking in the same way that the many idolaters in this world think.
Quoting Psalm 14:1, the Apostle Paul says in Roman 3:10-12: “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.’” As the Bible says here clearly, there cannot be even a single person who was born in this world without any sin.
Referring to John the Baptist, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). The fact that Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest of those born of women means that John the Baptist was a human being like everyone else, and therefore he was also born in this world as a sinner. If John the Baptist was born in this world in a sinless state, then he would have exalted himself claiming to be the Savior of mankind.
Jesus alone was born in this world by the Holy Spirit according to the will of the Triune God and exactly as the prophets had prophesied in the Old Testament, and therefore He alone could become the true Savior to save all sinners from every sin of the world once and for all. This is because only Jesus was God Himself long before He was born in this world. He is the holy God Himself. In contrast, human beings born in this world are always sinners, for they have inherited sin from their ancestors.
When Did John the Baptist Receive the Remission of Sins?
One may ask here, “When did John the Baptist receive the remission of sins then?” This question is answered by John the Baptist in John 1:32-34: “And John bore witness, saying, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.’” Here, John the Baptist was saying that when he baptized Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God said to him, “Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” So, it is at this moment that John the Baptist came to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.
When John the Baptist baptized Jesus Christ, he, too, knew that Jesus was the Son of God and the Savior of mankind, and that is why he was able to bear His witness after baptizing Him, saying, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Because John the Baptist believed that Jesus was the Son of God, he could also believe that He was the Savior of this world.
It is because John the Baptist had been raised to be the representative of mankind that he could baptize Jesus to fulfill his duty. John the Baptist therefore said that when he baptized Jesus, he could realize from the Holy Spirit’s instruction that Jesus was the Son of God—that is, He was the Savior of mankind. So, it is at this moment that John the Baptist could also receive the remission of sins through his faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior. When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, he fulfilled his duty as the “representative of mankind,” and because he also believed that the baptized Jesus was his Savior, he could be saved from all his sins.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, if you ever come across anyone claiming that John the Baptist was born in this world without any sin, you must realize that such a claim is a made-up fallacy stemming from one’s evil thoughts. You must grasp that such evil thoughts are no more than preposterous lies intended to fulfill one’s own greed of the flesh. I am saying this to you to deliver you from falling into your own thoughts only to sin and propagate wickedness.
The Catholic Church teaches the doctrine of “papal infallibility,” which claims that “the pope cannot err in matters of faith and his words are akin to the Word of God.” Such a claim is at the height of arrogance coming out of the evil thoughts of mankind. We should never be deceived by it, for it is an instrument used by the evil-minded religionists of the world to further their own greed. After all, who can possibly have the power, authority, holiness, and perfection that come even close to our God? Those who say such evil things with such wicked thoughts, and those who believe in such claims, are alike standing against the holy and perfect God. Such evil people’s thoughts are always false, and they will all face the judgment of sins before Jesus Christ for their evil thoughts. We must realize clearly here that such evil people will be judged by God. How can anyone born in this world ever be born without any sin before God? Mary and her parents alike were all sinners in God’s sight, and they, too, had to be washed from their sins through God’s grace by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus had given them.
If you think that Mary was born in this world without any sin in her heart, then you would be elevating a human being to the Godhead apart from God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Nowhere is it written in the Bible that Mary or John the Baptist were born in this world without any sin. Those who make such a claim are just like the people who do not even realize that they are practicing evil in their lives, for they, along with their parents, were all born in this world as the seed of evildoers (Mark 7:20-23).
David, too, confessed, “I was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity.” You and I are just like David, for we were also brought forth in iniquity when we were born in this world. We ourselves were born in this world with all kinds of evil thoughts, and we also know that given our nature, we can all go astray and end up standing against Jesus Christ and God’s Church with our wicked thoughts of the flesh. So, I ask you to turn around from your mistaken, evil thoughts right now, admit your sins to Jesus, recognize that you yourself are destined to hell for your sins, and receive the remission of sins into your heart by believing in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that washes away your sins.
Whenever you come across anyone in this world who has fallen into the evil thoughts of the flesh despite professing to believe in Jesus, realize that such people are trying to exalt themselves to seek recognition from others. Know that these evil people are just trying to elevate themselves. Among the evangelicals that I know, there is a certain leader who is committing frauds in both body and spirit to satisfy his own lust coming out of his evil, carnal thoughts. This church leader is doing very well for himself by defrauding his own congregation. Even now, he is feeding his own lust of the flesh relentlessly by exploiting his congregation. We can see that such false prophets are using church workers to prey on the weak, plundering them for their material possessions and even their souls to satisfy their own lust.
By any chance, are you not wishing to be like these people? Are you not also making up nonsense, deceived by your own wicked thoughts? Do you want to learn from such evil-minded people how to commit spiritual frauds so that you can also fulfill the wicked lust of your flesh? Do you think that you will really be happy if you satisfy your lust like this? No, of course not! Far from it, you will end up living in this world as Satan’s wicked minion instead of God’s worker of righteousness for the end times, doing evil to everyone only to be cast into hell.
My dear brothers and sisters, I urge you all to realize that the hour of the Lord’s return is not far away. This world is rapidly hurling toward ruin both materially and spiritually. In such end times, do you really want to spend the rest of your remaining days just following the evil thoughts of your flesh? Or do you want to live faithfully in obedience to our God’s will as someone who has received the washing of sins by believing in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the King of righteousness? There isn’t much time left now for you to be faithful to the Lord with all your faith, time, and abilities. Where would you then use your faith and talents? With so little time left to our lives, you and I must devote ourselves to the proclamation of the gospel of the water and the Spirit and use our abilities, time, and faith to carry out the work of the Lord faithfully.
In a short while, all of us will have the honor to meet the righteous Savior who has saved us from our sins. We should therefore reject the idea that John the Baptist was born in this world without any sin, and recognize that only Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are our true God. We must carry on with our lives in this world by faith, by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit with our hearts. Now that we have been remitted from our sins by believing in the holiness of the Lord and the God-given gospel of the remission of sins, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we ought to worship our Lord, praise Him, and carry on with our lives in this world by faith.
To Grow Our Faith, We Must Look Upon the Lord
Why must we submit completely to the written Word of our God? It is to remove tempting opportunities for us to follow and serve the lust of the evil thoughts of our flesh. To do this, we need faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that constitutes the righteousness of the Lord. For us to not depart from faith in the righteousness of our God, we must devote all our hearts and efforts to the proclamation of the gospel. Because we are vulnerable to succumb to our wicked thoughts of the flesh and run toward the world, we must believe in the righteousness of the Lord and run toward His purpose alone. We should never follow the evil thoughts of our flesh. All of us must instead follow the will of the Lord as the people of faith who listen to the written Word of God and believe in it obediently. That is because the Holy Spirit is rejoiced and our hearts can also be at peace only if we carry on with our lives in this world by the faith that is pleasing to God.
The Apostle Paul, too, said that the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. Indeed, because our lives are also pulled by both the desire of the Spirit and the lust of the flesh, we are living every day in a spiritual battlefield, waging war to preach the Lord’s gospel. Therefore, if we follow the evil thoughts of our flesh, it is inevitable for us to garner our Lord’s enmity in our lives. The wicked thoughts of our flesh push us, the believers in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, to walk in the opposite direction from the will of God. That is precisely why we must live in accordance with the Lord’s purpose, recognizing that our own thoughts are always evil in God’s sight.
What about you then? Do you know and admit that your fleshly thoughts in your everyday life are so evil? There aren’t that many people living with this realization that their own thoughts are always evil. This is because even those who believe in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit are not fully cognizant of the fact that their thoughts of the flesh are always wicked. It is because of this ignorance that even the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, deceived by their own evil thoughts of the flesh, end up practicing wickedness while carrying on with their lives in this world.
We can see this happening with some church members making unfounded claims. When we look into the hearts of those who cause division and conflict among us, we can see that their lives in this world are just following their own wicked thoughts of the flesh rather than being devoted to the proclamation of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Can such people following and advocating their own evil thoughts make any contribution to the proclamation of the gospel of the water and the Spirit? No, of course not! Following the wicked thoughts of the flesh brings absolutely no benefit to the righteous work of God that saves sinners from their sins. The teachings advanced by these people are nothing more than their own evil thoughts of the flesh meant to elevate just themselves. Their words are worthless for following the true God.
Let’s imagine for a moment that these brothers go on to establish their own mission organization. Who would join this organization, and who would be loyal to their teachings? We certainly won’t! Live or die, we must be faithful only to Jesus Christ who has delivered us from the sins of this world, and to the proclamation of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. As our Lord has moved us to the Kingdom of the Son of God, we ought to be faithful to Him alone, and we ought to win the race of faith by trusting in the Word of our Lord. Our mistaken brothers must therefore turn around from their evil thoughts of the flesh and believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
We are now advancing toward the will of God, devoting all our hearts and strengths to the proclamation of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. When we run toward the goal of preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit with every ounce of our strength like this, we do not succumb to our own wicked thoughts. We can then also fight and triumph over our evil thoughts. It is by holding on to the Word of God that we can win this battle against our wicked thoughts seeking to turn us into God’s enemies. It is on account of our faith in the written Word of God that we can emerge triumphant as the spiritual victors. Through this faith in our Lord’s gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we can all live the life of faith that fights against our own wicked thoughts of the flesh. For us to live the kind of life that is always victorious by believing in the Word of God, we must discover the will of our Lord from the Word of God, and we must also trust in this will. All of us are now running toward the goalpost of faith that the Lord has given us, to the Kingdom of Heaven. Just as our Lord has commanded us, we must cast aside our evil thoughts of the flesh, and we must run toward our Lord and be faithful to Him for the sole purpose of preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
We are the soldiers of faith who believe in the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Savior. Accordingly, we must admit our own wickedness. For all of us who have such faith, our Lord will clothe us in God’s glory and use us as His instruments. Jesus Christ is preparing to give God’s blessings to all of us who wholly admit the wickedness of our fleshly thoughts by faith and follow the Lord by believing only in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit. God is rejoiced to see us casting aside our evil thoughts from our lives by faith. As we deny ourselves and live by believing in His Word, God will embrace us into His arms and keep us as the victors of faith even in these evil times. We must therefore admit the evil thoughts of the flesh and live the spiritual life that God wants us to live by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit alone. Since our evil thoughts are far removed from the life that is pleasing to God, we ought to strive against them by faith. No longer living according to the lust of the flesh, we must now live out our faith for the Lord, so that God may indeed be rejoiced by this faith of ours.
We must crucify our wicked thoughts and our worldly desires alike, along with Jesus Christ. Our passions and lust were crucified along with the Lord, for we believe in the righteous work Jesus Christ carried out to blot out our sins—that is, we believe that Jesus was crucified while shouldering all the sins of this world that He bore once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. All of us were crucified with Jesus Christ in union by faith. Always believing in this Truth that the Lord has delivered us from the sins of the world once and for all through His water and blood, we must die with Jesus Christ and carry on with our lives in this world with Jesus Christ.
By our faith in the righteousness of the Lord, we must overcome the evil thoughts coming out of our carnal minds, and we must run the race of faith in our lives. Through the gospel of the water and the Spirit the Lord has given us, we have received the remission of sins by faith. We must therefore always look toward our goalpost by placing our faith in the Lord’s righteousness, and we must follow Him faithfully. When we follow Jesus Christ by faith, our Savior who has delivered us from the sins of this world once and for all through the water and the blood, we know that our Lord will protect us and will be rejoiced by us. And it is when we do so that we can set our eyes on the righteousness of the Lord and run toward our destination together with Him by trusting in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
We are often ruled by the evil thoughts of our flesh in our daily lives. Despite this, we can still follow our Lord by believing in the true gospel of the water and the Spirit that has blotted out our sins once and for all. We have the duty to run the race of faith tirelessly, fearing the Lord and looking toward His exaltedness and wholeness. Of course, this kind of faith does not spring forth overnight, nor is such growth of faith achieved in a day. For this to come about, we must learn how to have true faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit from our predecessors of faith. Such faith springs forth when we trust in the Word of God, the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. And it is when we run toward the will of the Lord every day that faith springs forth for us to endure persecution. We can be led by our Lord when we have faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that He has given us. That is why we must not follow the wicked thoughts of our flesh.
As those who believe in and follow the gospel of the water and the Spirit, if we ever defile our hearts with the wickedness of our flesh, we must confess our sins by faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, trusting that our Lord has blotted out all these sins as well, and we must look toward Him by believing in His righteousness with our hearts. And we must realize that we have been made whole, for we believe in the Truth that the Lord has already washed away and blotted out all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Always looking toward our Lord’s righteous work of atonement, we must follow Him by faith and live by faith. Only then can we be victorious. With our faith in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we can always cleanse our hearts whenever they are defiled by our transgressions. It is indispensable for us to realize and believe in this undeniable fact. It is then that all of us who believe in and follow the Lord can emerge as the true victors of faith to transform this world.
We can all please our Lord with our faith in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Is this not the case? Because we believe in the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Savior, we are more than able to please our Lord always. Through your faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you can overcome any wickedness coming out of your own thoughts and prevail over it. This means that we have already become God’s soldiers of faith, and therefore inside all of us we must have faith in Jesus and His righteousness. We can now become forever victorious by believing in the Jesus Christ who has delivered us from all our sins. Whenever we fall into weaknesses, let us remember that we can still follow the Lord by faith, looking toward the atonement that Jesus has made for all our sins with His baptism and blood.
We can be victorious in our spiritual war thanks to our faith in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. When we look upon the righteousness of our Lord, we can realize from our own experience that we have the faith that enables us to follow Him. It is only by our faith in the written Word of God that we can live as the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ and follow Him with our hearts. From where does the power of faith come to enable us to follow the Lord? This power comes from faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has bestowed on us, and it is through this faith that we can renew our strength and emerge victorious. This is because we believe that the Lord has already cleansed our hearts with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
We have received from our Lord the strength to always live victoriously by our faith in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit. We know that such a blessed life of faith enables us to always live for the proclamation of the gospel of the Lord, and it also makes it possible for us to carry out the work of God by faith and abide by His Word to live a victorious life. We are living as the victors of faith because we have been delivered from all our sins by believing in the righteousness of God through His written Word. We have become God’s children by our faith in not just the Word of the Cross, but the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and we have also become God’s true people of faith who can carry out the will of our Lord. By believing in the plan of our holy and merciful God and His righteousness, we have received the remission of sins and can now live forever. Even at this very moment, we believe in the written Word of God, and on account of this faith, we can serve our Lord and live with Him always.
We are now living through these end times that God has set for us by trusting in His Word. We must therefore ensure that we do not end up spending these last days as God’s enemies. To do so, we must hold on to the righteous Word of the Lord unwaveringly and partake in God’s glory. Jesus Christ has now given us the blessings of salvation through the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. By giving us the true gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that enables us to wash away all our sins by faith, the Lord has blessed us, the believers in this gospel, to live an ever more glorious life before God’s eyes. Now, for the rest of our remaining lives, we will give glory to God through faith in the righteousness of our Lord until we go to God’s presence. We will live out our faith until we see the glory of God. We all yearn to see our Lord. For this to come about, we must partake in God’s glory by believing in our Lord’s plan to glorify us.
Because God has given us faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, all of us can receive His abundant blessings that are bestowed on us according to this faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We absolutely need our God’s help every day, for we must serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit as long as we are living in this world regardless of its ups and downs. Believing in the blessed Word of the remission of sins that God has given us, we want to walk with our Lord while carrying on with our lives in this world. Our God also wants us to dwell in His peace and enjoy His wonderful blessings. The Lord wants us to live by trusting in His love.
Just how rejoiced would our God be if we were now living the life of faith that pleases Him by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit? It is absolutely indispensable for us to live by always trusting in our God’s righteousness until we reach the final destination of faith, and the faith that pleases God must be what defines our lives. To bring joy to our Lord, we ought to hold steadfastly on to the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, the gospel of the remission of sins. To achieve this, we must have the faith that pleases our God at every moment of our lives in this world.
Our God wants to bless your faith and mine now. He has blessed you and me with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and we ought to give glory to Him by placing our faith in this Word. Those who have received the remission of sins into their hearts by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are not living as obstructionists hindering God’s work, and therefore God is always blessing them with the blessed Word of the gospel.
By exercising our faith in the righteousness of Jesus, we have all come to live in this world with a bright heart and bright faith. We have become the light of this world. As someone who believes in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit with the heart, you should realize that you are now living in this world with God’s special blessings. We are joyfully carrying on with our lives in this world because we are living with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given us, and we know from our faith that the Lord loves us and is blessing us forever.
The Golden Calf’s Lesson for Us
I would now like us to look at the lesson about the golden calf in today’s Scripture reading God has given us. Through Moses, the Law of God was given to us living in this present age as well as the people of Israel. At that time, the High Priest of the people of Israel was Aaron. These two men were each raised by God to meet His needs, to fulfill their respective duties. Moses was someone who saw God face to face and relayed the Word he heard to the people of Israel on God’s behalf. This was possible because Moses had put on God’s special grace to see Him face to face. Moses heard God’s Word in His presence, and his job was relaying this Word to God’s people. In particular, God had groomed Moses to lead the people of Israel out of their 400 years of slavery in Egypt and guide them into the land of Canaan.
While on their way to the land of Canaan, the people of Israel sought to rest for a short while near Mount Sinai. At that time, God called Moses to Mount Sinai. Through Moses, God wanted to give His Law to His people. This is because God intended to build His Kingdom. So, called by God, Moses went up to Mount Sinai and did not come down for 40 days. As a result of Moses’ absence, the hearts of the people of Israel came to be troubled a great deal.
As the people of Israel waited at the foot of Mount Sinai for Moses to return, the wind of doubt began to stir up in their hearts. Falling into despair, they came to think, “Moses must have died already in that mountain, or otherwise there is no reason why he would not have come down by now.” Doubt was gradually spreading in their hearts. They wondered, “Are there not enough burial places in Egypt that the Lord God has led us out to here?” As such wicked thoughts gained steam among the people and doubt piled up in their hearts, eventually there were signs of a riot about to break out. Facing such a situation, Aaron, the leader of the people of Israel at the time, came up with a scheme to try to address the crisis. This entailed making a golden calf.
Aaron was facing a dire situation like the calm before the storm, and in his attempt to address the crisis, he said to the people of Israel, “Bring your gold to me.” The people of Israel then gave him the gold they had brought with them when they left Egypt, and Aaron threw it into fire. He then shaped the melted gold into a golden calf and presented it to the people of Israel. Seeing the molded golden calf, the Israelites bowed before it and began to worship it as their god. They started to dance around the golden calf in joy. Convinced that this golden calf was the god who had led them out of Egypt, the people of Israel held a feast for it. They threw a wild party, dancing and prancing around the golden calf. Their feast must have been the biggest feast ever held in the desert by Mount Sinai since creation.
It seems this is how worldly people usually make idols for themselves and come up with feasts to worship them. They commonly make carved images they like, bow before them, and hold feasts dedicated to them instead of God. This is idolatry, which people all around the world commit by calling and worshiping something other than God as their god. Facing a difficult situation, Aaron’s heart was being swayed by the prevailing wind and giving into the general atmosphere along with the people of Israel. It appears that even Aaron couldn’t steer the people of Israel away from such flawed thoughts and foolish acts. Eager to worship the golden calf that their eyes could see, the Israelites danced wildly in a feast, and as they did so, they were drifting further away from God.
Was the golden calf really the God of Israel who had led its people out of the land of Egypt to Mount Sinai here? No, of course not! Clearly, the God who had led the entire people of Israel out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, and who had parted the Red Sea for them to cross it, was the Lord God. It was the almighty and merciful Lord God who had led the people of Israel from Egypt all the way to Mount Sinai. The Lord God wanted to be their God.
This was God’s purpose for them, which He had planned in Jesus Christ even before He created the heavens and the earth. That is why God made human beings, and why He entrusted this world to them. Having planned everything according to His purpose, God was presiding over everything to fulfill this purpose. So, God truly wanted the people of Israel to have Him as their God, and to have His Law. It is because God wanted to turn the Israelites into His own people with His Law that He had delivered them from Egypt and led them to Mount Sinai. He had guided the people of Israel all the way to Mount Sinai now because He wanted them to live in His Kingdom. The God of the people of Israel was indeed the almighty Lord God.
God wanted to establish His Kingdom on this earth and give His Law to the people of Israel who belonged to this Kingdom. Not realizing this great plan of God, however, the Israelites were following their carnal thoughts and standing against God. Like this, people’s flawed, carnal thoughts lead them to stand against the true God, and as a result of this sin, they ultimately give birth to death.
Pascal famously said, “Man is a thinking reed.” As this adage goes, everyone is bound to have one’s own fleshly thoughts always, and everyone is bound to follow their wickedness. However, whenever the lust of the flesh arises in our hearts and minds, before making any decision, we must first ascertain whether this thought is congruent with the written Word of God or just an evil thought of the flesh that seeks to satisfy nothing but our own private greed. And we must also consider whether or not it is in accordance with our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, through which our Lord has brought salvation to all of us. Otherwise, we will end up falling into a great deal of delusion and make grave errors all stemming from our evil thoughts of the flesh. If we just rely on the evil thoughts of mankind, then we will come to stand brazenly against the true God who created us, made us, and saved us from all sins. This, then, would mean that our souls would belong to the enemy, and we would turn into Satan’s slaves.
If we are to live in this world as someone’s servants, it is good for us to live as the servants of the righteousness of our God. If you were instead to live as God’s enemy, then your soul will be trapped in darkness as the Devil’s servant. Isn’t this the case? Satan is someone who spawns God’s enemies. The Devil makes God’s enemies through their evil thoughts of the flesh, and that is how he brings death to them. However, the true God is training us, the believers in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, even more to have faith in His Word, so that He may use us evermore valuably as His servants. Our God is now providing us with His blessed Word, and He is blessing us to bear even more spiritual fruits.
In the Old Testament, the Lord God wanted to build His Kingdom through the people of Israel and dwell with them. To do this, the Lord God had to give the people of Israel His Law and faith in Him, both of which were indispensable to them. So, God had to teach His people why they needed the rule of law, and He had to raise His servant Moses for them. To establish God’s great and beautiful Kingdom for the people of Israel, He established His Law and raised His servant for them. And God blessed His people with fertility and abundance, so that they may multiply manyfold. Like this, God had a great plan of blessings for the people of Israel, so that He may build His Kingdom.
Even for a secular nation to be built in this world, there must first be people to constitute this nation, there must be a ruler to govern them, and there must also be laws by which the people are to be governed. Just as a secular nation requires such constituent elements, the nation of Israel also needed the same constituent elements to build God’s Kingdom. First, the Kingdom of God needed His people; it also needed its King; and it needed laws to govern it. Only then could this kingdom truly be called God’s Kingdom.
If the Kingdom of God in the Old Testament was the nation of Israel, then the true King of this nation was the Lord God. And this nation ruled by the Lord God had to have God’s people, and it had to have laws to govern them. The Lord God was the true King of the nation of Israel, and He was the true God of its people. As the God of all the people of Israel, it was entirely fitting for the Lord God to receive all honor and glory from them.
In the present age also, this truth provides an absolutely indispensable lesson to us the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit: Jesus Christ, our God, must have truly become our King. Living in the age of the New Testament, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts as our God. And the Holy Spirit is now reigning over us as our King, along with Jesus Christ and His Father. Therefore, there must now be the law of the Spirit in our hearts as the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and we must also realize through faith that we have become God’s people. For you and me who believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, this Kingdom of God is now in your heart and mine.
The people of Israel came to worship the golden calf of their own making as their god instead of the Lord God who had led them out of Egypt. It was untenable for the people of Israel, after committing such an offense against God, to continue to live with His blessing and protection. Because they did not know how to stop committing the sin of idolatry and standing against God, God sought to put a stop to their behavior with His wrath. This wrath of God was enough to put an end to their transgression. So, the people of Israel should have realized what a wonderful blessing it was that God had become their God, and they should have thanked Him for it.
God sought to establish His Kingdom by giving the Israelites His Law, but they did not want it, and this meant trouble. Even though the people of Israel absolutely needed God by their side, they solely lacked such knowledge and faith. Not realizing that the Lord God was their King, the people of Israel rejected all His grace, and therefore, they could receive God’s blessings only if they turned around.
Such a Transgression Was Already a Second Transgression
The first transgression was the sin committed in the God-made Garden of Eden. When God created the heavens and the earth and made human beings, He allowed them to live in the Garden of Eden. In this garden, God also permitted them to eat from all trees except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Tempted by the serpent, however, Adam and Eve committed the sin of not believing in the Word of God. Disbelieving in God’s Word, they sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The transgression they committed at this time was the sin of forsaking God and standing against Him along with Satan, believing in his word instead. Because they did not believe in the Word of God, they sided with His enemy in standing against Him, and this was their first sin.
The second transgression for the people of Israel is the sin of replacing with the golden calf the God who had led them out of Egypt to Mount Sinai. Even though God had already become the God of Israel, they betrayed Him by rejecting Him and worshiping this idol instead. They ended up replacing the Lord God with the golden calf. As a result, they foolishly stood against their own God. Because they did not recognize the Lord God as their God, they faced countless sufferings and curses in this world for this sin of not acknowledging their God.
What compelled the people of Israel to do what they did? Was it because God somehow did not treat them well? If this is not the case, then was it because God did not provide them with the food they liked? If neither, then was it because God did not protect them from their enemies’ hands? Why on earth did the people of Israel not believe in God and neglect Him so much like this, as if God had wronged them somehow?
Far from it, didn’t God deliver the people of Israel through Moses when they were suffering under slavery for 400 years in Egypt? Didn’t God help their ancestors and bless them abundantly with earthly prosperity? Why did they then stand against God when He had been so good to them? Was the Lord God such a pushover for them? Were they so oblivious to their wrongdoing because God had not punished them?
So, God decided to punish the people of Israel. He demonstrated to them through their suffering that He was not a wrath-free God. The people of Israel had not faced God’s punishment before, but this time God rebuked them until they realized that they were forsaken by Him. God showed to the Israelites clearly that if they went astray, the punishment of sin would follow them also.
You Must Acknowledge Jesus Christ as Your God
You are now living in the age of the New Testament, but you must also show your fear of God by recognizing Jesus Christ as your God and believing in Him. Only then can you live by faith in the Word of God as someone who has become one of His people ought to live, receive His blessings while carrying on with your life in this world, and dwell in God’s Church. Your relationship with Jesus Christ should never be in trouble. I urge you to build a strong relationship with Jesus Christ, so that you can receive into your heart the remission of sins He is offering and enjoy His peace and blessings in your life.
Jesus Christ is the Messiah and God Himself. Why, then, did the people of Israel refuse to believe in Jesus, push Him out, and stand against Him so much? Why are they ignoring Jesus Christ so much even now, as if He were not their Messiah God? The Triune God, who created the entire universe, is just and merciful; He is the just and mighty God who has delivered mankind from sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the God of the whole universe, and He is the Messiah to all mankind. He is the God who is offering mankind mercy, love, and grace. You cannot fail to believe in Jesus’ divine status as our just God, for otherwise you will lose your life. Because Jesus Christ is a merciful and gracious God, He is the just God who bestows His grace on whomever is worthy of receiving it, and He brings His judgment to whomever deserves to be condemned by Him. All of us should never forget God’s justice.
Full of justice and mercy like this, Jesus Christ wants to become the God of the people of Israel. Why, then, do they refuse to believe in the merciful love of Jesus Christ, their Messiah, so ungratefully? Why are they living with their hearts standing against their Messiah like immature children? Why do the people of Israel refuse to believe and accept that the merciful Jesus Christ is the Messiah for whom they are waiting? Shouldn’t they believe that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is their God, and thank and rely on this God? The people of Israel must repent from their sin of rejecting Jesus Christ as their God, and of refusing to believe to this day that Jesus Christ, the King of kings, is the God who will return to this earth and judge the enemies. They ought to realize that they are not receiving the Messiah as their God because the evil spirit in their hearts is keeping them captives, along with their wicked thoughts.
It is written in Mark 7:21-23: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” The people of Israel are no different from what is described in this passage, and that is why they have not received their Messiah to this day. Their hearts and minds are completely saturated with evil thoughts. From the very day they were born in this world from their parents, they, too, were born imbued in wicked thoughts, and therefore they must confess and admit to God the evil sins they have committed according to their vile thoughts. The entire people of Israel must recognize that from the day they were born in this world from their parents, they were all born contaminated by sin. Therefore, they must seek God’s mercy from Jesus Christ the Messiah, and they must accept from Him God’s merciful love. None other than Jesus Christ is their Messiah.
Human beings always think evil and do evil precisely because their hearts and minds were saturated with evil from the day they were born in this world. Accordingly, human beings must admit their true selves, that they are a seed of evildoers. How can anyone do anything good when all human beings are nothing more than heaps of sins? How can anyone love? It is precisely for this reason that all human beings must admit their true selves, that their lives are full of wicked thoughts; seek to return from this wickedness; and when they can’t do this, live by believing wholeheartedly in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, the gospel of the remission of sins, and God’s mercy and grace. It is when the wicked accept God’s grace and live by faith that they can truly live the godly life of faith that God wants them to live.
How dumbfounding and foolish is it for the people of Israel to worship the golden calf instead of God, when they were all born as a seed of evildoers who needed God’s mercy? Isn’t such a behavior what one would expect from the opponents of Jesus Christ, the almighty God? Just how foolish and shameful is it for God’s own people to engage in such a behavior? God wants to give to His people all the blessings of Heaven that are reserved for the righteous in this world, so why would they replace this merciful God with their own idol? Why are they unable to please God by believing in His great mercy when God chose them personally, came looking for them, and sought to be their God?
When I look at the people of Israel, I see that they, too, were born in this world with fundamentally evil nature, and that is why they are indulging in such depravities. Therefore, they, too, must be saved from their sins now by accepting and believing in Jesus Christ, the Messiah of mankind, as their God. They must realize that all of us are able to wash our hearts from wickedness and live properly as God’s people ought to live because we are abiding by the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that Jesus has bestowed on mankind.
Jesus Is God Himself Deserving To Be Welcomed By This World
The God of mankind, Jesus Christ, sought to be the God of the people of Israel and Gentiles alike. From the perspective of the people of Israel, everyone in this world who was not Jewish was a Gentile. For these people to receive Jesus Christ as their God, they, too, had to accept His work of salvation into their hearts by believing that He was the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. All the people of this world had to be delivered from their sins by believing in the gift of salvation that this God, Christ, gave to them through the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit to blot out the sins of mankind. God the Father wanted to turn into His own people all those who believed in the salvation of the remission of sins achieved through His Son’s sacrifice. Therefore, we had to accept into our hearts the righteous work of the remission of sins that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fulfilled once and for all by being baptized on this earth and shedding His blood on the Cross.
For the people of Israel, it would seem rather strange that we, the Gentiles, are blessed to become God’s people by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit with which our Lord has blotted out all our sins. Today, we can be blessed to become God’s people only if we have faith in the gospel of the remission of sins that our Lord Jesus Christ has given us—that is, the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. However, we can still see that countless people are suffering, having fallen into useless religion in their futile attempt to obtain the blessing to become Jesus Christ’s people. Instead of accepting the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fulfilled on this earth to blot out their sins, they are holding on to just the Cross and devoting themselves to Jesus Christ with all their strengths.
People today cannot be delivered from their sins no matter how much offering, sacrifice, and hard work they devote to Jesus Christ. It is entirely according to His own way that the Lord has completed the work of saving mankind from sin. This way of salvation was for the Lord to come to this earth and personally bear all sins by being baptized by John the Baptist at the age of 30, so that He may deliver all sinners from their sins. Having thus shouldered the sins of the world, the Lord went to the Cross and addressed all the condemnation of the sins of mankind through His crucifixion. Mankind must stop thinking and acting as though salvation was achieved only on the Cross, abandon such religious ideas, and believe instead that the Lord has saved them from their sins once and for all through the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit according to His way and the Truth He fulfilled. Only then is it possible to receive the remission of sins. Humanity must now realize that the remission of sins achieved through Jesus Christ’s work of the water and the blood is in God’s plan, and they must accept it into their hearts by faith. Only if they do this can they avoid opposing Jesus Christ and not being able to accept Him into their hearts even as He is standing right at their door.
What Does It Mean to Accept Jesus into Our Hearts as Our Savior?
It means that we must believe in and accept the Truth that Jesus, having come to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man through a woman’s body, bore all our sins once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. That we believe in Jesus Christ means that we must live by faith in the righteousness of God. The “righteousness of God” refers to the work of salvation that the Lord carried out on this earth to save mankind from their sins—that is, it refers to the baptism He received from John the Baptist and the body He gave up on the Cross—and our salvation depends entirely on our faith in this work the Lord Himself fulfilled to save us from our sins.
It is by believing in the gospel work of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has fulfilled for us, and by thus accepting into our hearts the baptism of Jesus and His sacrifice on the Cross, that we receive Him as our Savior. For us to truly become God’s people, we must believe that Jesus Christ, who came to this earth to save sinners, has delivered us from all the sins of this world once and for all through His gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. In other words, we can say that we have received the Lord only if we wholeheartedly believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has fulfilled for us.
By believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ and His blood, the acts of love He carried out long ago for us, the sinners, we can now receive the blessing to become the holy God’s people. Jesus Christ is the Savior God who has remitted away all our sins once and for all through the baptism He received in the Jordan River and the blood He shed on the Cross. We must believe in this Truth now with our hearts.
God the Father is now speaking to us about the baptism through which His Son bore all the sins of mankind once and for all. This baptism that Jesus received in the Jordan River is the Truth that washes away the sins that are in our hearts now. Jesus shouldered the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, and this event speaks of the remission of our sins. It is absolutely indispensable for us to believe that our God has blessed whoever believes in this baptism of Jesus and the sacrifice He made on the Cross to be washed from all sins once and for all and receive true salvation through faith in the righteousness of God.
What Kind of Faith Do We Need for Our Spiritual Growth?
Even though the people of Israel called themselves God’s people, they switched their God to the golden calf. Did they do this because they did not need God? Yet, despite committing such a sin, they could be called the people of the Kingdom of God because Abraham was their ancestor. So, they were called God’s people even when they sinned like this. Abraham became the father of faith before God by believing in His Word. Even though the people of Israel, his descendants, continued to sin, they could still receive the remission of sins by faith because they had sacrificial rituals through which they could be washed from their sins. They were proud to call the Lord God their God, but they ended up betraying Him with the golden calf. Are they then really God’s people?
Their wrongful acts of idolatry were enough to provoke God’s wrath. Since they replaced their God with earthly gold, they deserved to face His wrath. However, because they were still God’s people, they could find His mercy. This is because the Son of God came to this earth for them and solved away the sins of this world by bearing them on His body through His baptism and shedding His blood on the Cross. In God’s eyes, the people of Israel and Gentiles alike deserved to be cursed by Him for their sins. However, thanks to the righteous act of Jesus Christ, they were more than able to receive the remission of sins and God’s blessings by believing in His love.
Why, then, are so many people around the world so ungrateful even though Jesus Christ is their Savior and wants to guide them? Why are they offending God by replacing Him with something so insignificant like a golden calf? This is all because they do not have faith in God, His love, and His righteousness.
In the age of the Old Testament, the people of Israel could be delivered from all their sins if they just recognized Jesus Christ, the Messiah, as their God and followed Him with their hearts. They were more than able to live with God’s abundant love, blessings, and protection. If they realized that Jesus Christ was the Messiah they were waiting for, they could have been blessed to be remitted from all the sins they committed by disobeying God. To the Israelites, it was only a matter of course for the Lord God to be the God of Israel and their King, and, with the advent of the age of the New Testament, they could have received God’s abundant mercy if they just realized and believed that Jesus Christ was the Messiah for whom they had been waiting.
Why, then, did the people of Israel end up being such fools so tragically? Why did they fail to receive their Messiah as their God, when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had come to this earth to build the Kingdom of God, be the King of Israel, and take care of His people? Why are they still not able to accept Jesus Christ as their God and Savior? They must all accept by faith God’s plan fulfilled through Jesus Christ, their Messiah. That is because Jesus Christ planned to build God’s Kingdom for the people of Israel as their Messiah. However, because they failed to accept Him as their Messiah, they ended up betraying their merciful God. Even now, God is admonishing the people of Israel to receive Jesus Christ. Despite this, the people of Israel still continue to live in opposition to God, oblivious to His plan fulfilled through Jesus Christ. Ignorant of God’s plan, the people of Israel can be called collectively as an entirely obtuse people.
In the present age of the New Testament also, there are some people who, even after coming into God’s Church and believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, end up remaining as God’s enemies by refusing to serve this gospel and trying to put themselves above His Church. Today, these are the people who think their faith is better than the faith of their brothers and sisters. Instead of devoting their hearts to the proclamation of the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit, they follow their own evil thoughts of the flesh, and as a result, they end up embarking on a road to perdition. There also are some people who lose their God-given blessings to someone else. Such people must recognize and believe that Jesus Christ came to this earth to wash away the sins of mankind, bore the sins of all the people of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, and thus became the scapegoat of the age of the Old Testament.
Because the people of Israel failed to recognize their Messiah, they ultimately lost God’s blessings to Gentiles. The Gentiles were now able receive the blessing to become God’s people by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and that Jesus Christ was the Savior of mankind. Today, not just the Gentiles but also the people of Israel must believe wholeheartedly in the Truth that Jesus Christ has washed away the sins of this world once and for all with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. We, too, must admit all our wickedness before the Messiah, our Lord God, and at the same time confess true salvation by believing that Jesus Christ has remitted away the sins of mankind once and for all through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. When we wholeheartedly believe in Jesus Christ, our Messiah, and the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that He has made for us, we can be freed from all our transgressions. Like this, Jesus Christ, our Lord, has given the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit to everyone living on this earth, and He is admonishing all to believe in it.
We must realize that Jesus Christ has gathered those who believe in this the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has given us, and He has made them God’s own people. God wants all of us to know and believe in the gospel mystery of the water and the Spirit, which is the Truth of the remission of sins hidden in the God-established plan of salvation and His providence. He also wants us to spread, through our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, this gospel of salvation throughout the whole world. God is now admonishing us, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, to realize that we are the blessed who belong to God’s plan, and to give thanks to Him in our lives. Therefore, we want to live with thanksgiving to our God, believing in the true gospel of the water and the Spirit that our Messiah has given us.
All of our lives are blessed to receive God’s help according to His time, for we know and believe that Jesus Christ is our Messiah. It is absolutely important for us to be conscious of this fact through faith. So I urge you to realize now that each and every one of us who believes in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit is a constituent of God’s Kingdom, to believe in our Lord Messiah, and to receive and enjoy, through this faith, God’s blessings in your life from now to eternity. I ask you to believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us, and to know that we are the saints who believe in our God as our Messiah. Let us all live a life that glorifies God, believing that each and every one of us is an indispensable constituent of the Kingdom of God—that is, we have become God’s people. As God’s people, all of us are also His soldiers called by Him.
In fact, God’s Church now is His Kingdom on this earth, for we believe in Jesus Christ our Messiah and His righteousness. Thanks to our Messiah, God’s Church now is full of countless heavenly treasures. The living water of the gospel of the water and the Spirit is always flowing in God’s Church, quenching a myriad of souls’ thirst. God’s Church is like the most blessed oasis in this world. Yet, some people who have become saints by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit are following the evil thoughts of their flesh, only to end up leaving God’s Church as they seek to live on their own. This is so foolish! They are like people who willingly give up the treasures God has given His Church. If those who have become God’s people were to now leave the gathering of His Church, they will not only be preyed upon by liars, but their souls will also suffer from spiritual thirst and live an accursed life. They should realize that they can live with blessings only if they stay in God’s Church, where the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit given by the Messiah flows, even if it is just a small group.
If you were to depart from the gathering of God’s Church, even if it were one of its small groups, then you will be like a homeless person unable to get any spiritual food. Your soul will then be spiritually famished, for you will not be able to feed on the God-given Word of life in time, and ultimately your soul will die of thirst. Those who have become God’s people can live only if they feed on the bread of the soul by faith, which the Holy Spirit speaks in God’s Church whenever they need it. All of you can live in this world only if you abide in God’s Church and feed on the Word of God, the bread of the soul, by faith. Is your soul not living in hunger now, unable to get any spiritual food? Are you not perishing now from your lack of faith in the Word of our Messiah? As you carry on with your life on this earth, you must be someone who has a spiritual self-esteem in God’s eye. Why, then, would you want to leave God’s Church and give up His blessings?
Having a spiritual self-esteem means living with a spiritually satisfied heart. Such a life of self-esteem is a blessing that flows when your heart finds fulfillment by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and preaching this gospel to others despite facing life’s hardship. Where can you find such a sense of self-esteem that comes from preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit and serving the Messiah, and where can you live such a noble life? Do you intend to leave God’s Church, His people, and their gathering as if you were throwing away an old, worn-out pair of shoes? Do you really know what it means to leave God’s Church? If you were to depart from God’s Church, it would be the same as leaving the Kingdom of God and all His blessings. If you, someone who has become a saint, were to leave God’s Church and your fellow saints, from then on you would have nothing to gain in your life, and only an accursed life would await you in the days ahead.
When you abide in God’s Church and quietly share fellowship with your brothers and sisters through your faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, it is then that your life is blessed to receive little morsels of the God-given spiritual grace. Do you not realize that living in God’s Church by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit is living the most blessed life? If you drift away silently from the gathering of God’s Church, you will end up living in curses, for you will drift away from the spiritual fellowship of faith and God’s grace. To feed on the Word of life that is now flowing from God’s Church, you must turn to the spiritual books that contain the bread of life provided by The New Life Mission, and you must build a close relationship with your fellow believers who share the same faith. As you have received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you should realize that these books are the bread of life that has been prepared for you in advance.
What you must grasp is this: if you believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, you must not leave the gathering of God’s Church, and you must live by faith in unity with the Church where you are dwelling now. In doing so, you ought to feed on the bread of life that is falling from the gathering of God’s Church and thus nourish your soul as you carry on with your life. You must also unite yourself with God’s workers in His Church. It is then that you can live under God’s protection and grace, receive the blessings He is offering, carry out the Lord’s commandment on this earth by faith, and live a worthy, fulfilling life of faith.
It seems you don’t still appreciate just how painful it is to leave God’s Church and no longer be able to drink the water of life flowing from it. Just as your body will wither away without water, so will the souls of the righteous wither away unless they ruminate on the Word of the water and the Spirit, the Word of God, every day by faith. The guidance of the Holy Spirit is secured in the saints’ hearts by feeding every day on the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit flowing from God’s Church.
We ought to know that if we have indeed become God’s people by listening closely to His gospel Word of the water and the Spirit and believing in it wholeheartedly, then we must now dwell in God’s Church and abide with His saints. And we ought to now accept into our hearts the guidance and admonishments that our predecessors of faith in God’s Church are offering, and to thus nourish our faith. If you otherwise reject them, your soul will starve to death amid a spiritual famine, for there will be no bread of the Word. In the end, you will be preyed upon by the liars of the world. You will come to feed on the liars’ corruptible food, and you will bear the fruit of wickedness in the end.
The Word of God preached by some people actually contains poisonous teachings that are harmful to the listeners. If the listeners just lap up such teachings without realizing that they are poisonous, and they do this not just once or twice but continuously, their souls will fall ill and ultimately perish. Therefore, if you have now been moved from the place of sinners to the place of the righteous by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you must live by feeding constantly on the spiritual bread that is always flowing from God’s Church. The nourishment of life is like the living water for your soul, and you must fill your soul with it by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. As you feed on the Word of God by faith every day and every year through the Church, one day, you will suddenly discover that you have become a spiritual person.
Those who do not depart from God’s Church and live by faith are like those who live amid God’s blessings always. If we really believe that Jesus Christ is our God, then we ought to now recognize God’s Church by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and we ought to also recognize the faith of the leaders preaching the Word to us.
The people of Israel sinned against God because their hearts did not hold on to the Word of God by faith. They went astray because they did not believe God’s servants were relaying His Word. However, far worse than any other transgression was the fact that they did not believe in Jesus Christ their Savior with their hearts, and they drifted away from their leaders guiding them. They did not trust their leaders. By believing in the golden calf cast in the fire as their god, the people of Israel were asking for the Lord God’s curses. They were like the people today who leave God’s Church and walk into destruction out of their own volition.
The people of Israel should have at least believed that the Jesus Christ who appeared in the age of the New Testament is the Messiah for whom they were waiting. They should have realized that the Lord God was their God, and they also needed the eye of faith to recognize in their lives that Jesus Christ was their Messiah. If they are now still living like the blind without such an eye of faith, they ought to pray to God. We, too, should pray to God to give them the eye of faith to know and believe that Jesus Christ is their long-awaited Savior. Spiritually speaking, the people of Israel are like an unborn child. I do not think that they are inexorably destined to be totally abandoned by God for not recognizing Jesus Christ as the Messiah for whom they have been waiting. I believe that the day will eventually come when they, too, kneel before their Messiah God and confess their faith, saying, “Lord, You are the Christ and the Son of the living God.”
The people of Israel do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord God, but I believe that there is reason for this. I can see that hidden behind their refusal to believe in Jesus Christ as their Messiah is God’s plan to save Gentiles from all their sins. As we believe in the Word of God, we can see that everything that ever happens in this world has God’s detailed plan hidden behind it. We can realize that God had a profound plan for us to bring the remission of sins through Jesus Christ our Messiah, and that He has blessed us to live a glorious life.
In this age of the New Testament, it is imperative for us to realize and believe that God’s purpose for the age of the Old Testament was building His Church through Jesus Christ, the Messiah of mankind. We can see that for the Lord God to build His Church in the age of the Old Testament, there first needed to be His people, these people needed God’s statutes, and they also needed the Savior God. That’s because God was preparing every sinner’s salvation from sin through His Son, Jesus Christ.
The Bible also teaches us that in the age of the New Testament, the Triune God made a majestic plan for Jesus Christ to become not only the God of the people of Israel but also the God of us, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Scripture makes it known to us that the gathering of God’s Church, the law of the Spirit, and the saints who believe in Jesus Christ as their God are all indispensable. In the days to come, the people of Israel will also come to realize that Jesus Christ, the Messiah of mankind, is the very God for whom they have been waiting all this time. For them to realize that they are God’s holy people, they must reach faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. When they realize this, they will put on God‘s special blessings.
They must also reach the faith to accept into their hearts and believe in Jesus Christ returning to this earth as their God. All human beings must believe that Jesus Christ, God Himself, has given us the remission of sins and eternal life through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. All of us now living on this planet earth must believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior for whom we have been waiting. We must know and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that constitutes the righteousness of God, and through faith in this gospel, we can become God’s people.
From now on, we ought to devote the rest of our lives to the glory of God and live out our faith. Living in the 21st century, you and I still continue to sin, but Jesus Christ came looking for us, and He has remitted away all your sins and mine once and for all through the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. We ought to reach the faith that saves us by believing in this true gospel Word of the remission of sins. It is to become your God and my God that Jesus Christ came to this world looking for us as the Savior who blotted out our sins, and it is for this purpose that He gave us the gospel of the water and the Spirit. So let us all receive everlasting blessings by believing in the Jesus Christ who came by the water and the Spirit as your God and mine.
Like the people of the Old Testament, are you also intent on believing in the golden calf as your god and rejecting Jesus Christ, the true Savior and Messiah of mankind? The people of Israel and everyone all over the world must now believe that Jesus Christ is the King of kings who came looking for them as the Savior of humanity. So let us all believe in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and enter together into His Kingdom of glory. You and I must reach the faith to believe that the Savior of mankind, Jesus Christ, is the true Savior God who has delivered us from all our transgressions. Now, for all of us to enter into the Kingdom of God that Jesus Christ has prepared for us, we must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us; and it is my sincerest hope and prayer that we would all put on the glory of God by this faith.
You must not reject the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our King of kings, and you must instead accept Him into your heart as your Savior and your true God. Jesus Christ has washed away all your sins and mine with the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and I pray for God’s blessings for you, so that you may accept this gospel Truth of salvation into your heart, believe in it, and receive the right to become God’s child and live forever. By accepting Jesus Christ into our hearts as our God and our Savior, we can now receive and enjoy God’s blessings to reach eternal life.
Jesus Is the God Who Has Revealed Himself to All of Us
Christ is God Himself, who has brought the remission of sins to all sinners through the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that He fulfilled Himself. He was pleased to reveal Himself to us through the baptism He received and the blood He shed in His life. Jesus Christ is the God of humanity, and He is the true Savior who delivers mankind from all sins.
Along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is the God who created this world. He is the very God who, through the baptism He received personally from John the Baptist and the blood He shed on the Cross while shouldering the sins of the world, has completed the work of saving all the sinful human beings from all the sins of this world once for all. And Jesus Christ has blessed us to believe with our hearts that He is the “Savior God who loves mankind.”
The Bible says, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12). The way for us to receive the right to become God’s children is receiving the remission of sins through faith to reach salvation, by believing that our Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth and washed away all the sins of mankind with His baptism and blood once and for all. We reach salvation through faith, by accepting that Jesus Christ is the Savior who also bore the condemnation of our sins. To receive the Lord is to accept into our hearts, by faith, all the righteous work the Lord carried out when He came to this earth. And it also means accepting Jesus Christ into our hearts as our God and our Savior. This is what it means to “receive” the Lord.
Today, there are some people who, despite believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, are not standing on God’s side, have rejected His will instead, and are carrying on with their lives while being seized by their own evil thoughts. They are tragically and pitifully living as captives to their own wicked thoughts. Even though they believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, they still want to live on the side of mankind rather than God’s side. Aaron knew very well that the Lord God was the God of Israel, yet he still failed to prevent the people of God from sinning. If Aaron had tried to stop the people of Israel from sinning, they would not have replaced God with the golden calf. Today, because we believe in the Jesus Christ who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit as our Savior and our God, we can all live by this faith. By believing in the righteousness of God, we have received the remission of sins and everlasting life.
The people of Israel who escaped from Egypt under the guidance of Moses in Old Testament times lived like today’s pilgrims treading through the difficult way of the wilderness on this earth. It was therefore absolutely indispensable for the people of Israel to live by entrusting themselves to the Lord God and believing in Him. However, the Israelites believed that they had become God’s people not through such faith, but on account of their ancestors’ faith. In reality, they were no more than practitioners of worldly religion, not the true believers.
Many Christians today professing to believe in Jesus are also living only as religious practitioners who are practically atheists, for they have not personally seen the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Because they only pitied the weakness of mankind without realizing the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, they came to believe in Jesus as their Savior like any other follower of worldly religion, and therefore their faith is highly problematic. Since in their flesh all human beings follow the lust of the world and the wickedness of their own thoughts, even if they profess to believe in Jesus as their Savior, in reality, they end up rejecting the Truth that the Lord has blotted out all their sins with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. This happens because they all rely on this world’s religion and the wickedness of their carnal thoughts.
That is why God is saying to us, “Do not worship any idols before Me.” And God is saying to all of us, “Do not serve any god but Me.” Yet, the wickedness of our own thoughts pervades our lives, so how are we really living before God? Weren’t we all born with the twelve ingredients of sin in our hearts and minds from the day we were born, and aren’t we living with these sins? This is precisely why we commit so many sins while living in this world, all stemming from our evil thoughts. Sometimes we deliberately disobey God and do what He commanded us not to do. We are far more used to following our evil thoughts into committing many sins. Like this, because we follow our wicked thoughts naturally and surrender our hearts to our idols, we are committing many sins against God in our lives.
Let’s consider money here, which we all need to carry on with our lives in this world. While money is essential for people to make a living in this world, it is not more precious than God. However, some people rely on money more than God, trust in it more, and follow it more. But, what happens when people turn greedy over money following their evil thoughts? Once we get greedy over money, it is inevitable for us to follow money more than our God. This then constitutes idolatry before God.
As we carry on with our lives in this world, there are times when we sin against God. Whenever we sin against our God, we must ruminate on the baptism the Lord received in the Jordan River to bear our sins and the blood He shed on the Cross, and we must believe in them with our hearts. Whenever we sin, we are compelled to remember the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our Savior. The righteous work of our Lord Jesus Christ is guiding us to faith, and we can be absolved of our sins by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given us. We come to live by cherishing and relying on Jesus Christ our Lord more than anything in this world. Our Lord is making it known to us that we have already received the remission of sins through our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that He has given us.
We commit many sins while living in this difficult world. Whenever we sin against God, we can once again remind ourselves that the Lord has remitted away all our sins by confessing our faith in the God-given gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. We must live by believing in God’s love and the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has given us. As those who believe in the remission of sins that our Lord has given us, we must confess our faith in His righteousness and follow Him. Tempted by this world to sin, we commit transgressions every day, but our Lord has washed away our sins with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and we must confess our faith in this gospel every day of our lives. Without this, we cannot keep our hearts clean even for a day. We commit so many sins in our lives that they cannot be glanced over, so we must confess them and look upon the Lord who makes us perfect. It is then that we can be cleansed forever. And we must admit to the Lord that we cannot help but live a flawed life and come short of His glory.
Therefore, it is all the more imperative for us to look upon our Lord and follow Him by placing our faith in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit and the love of our Lord. Trusting in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us, we must believe that He has remitted away all our sins once and for all with the water and the blood, and we must run toward the goalpost of our lives by trusting in the righteousness of God. It is a must for our hearts to always ruminate on the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that we already believe in, and it is when we do so that we can live on this earth properly as the righteous by believing in our Messiah. Whenever all of us ruminate on the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit, our faith is made all the more stronger; and whenever we confess our sins by trusting in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our Savior, the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that Jesus Christ has given us, the gospel that washes away sins, shines even more brightly in our hearts. That is how we come to boast of the righteousness of our Lord, and how we emerge victorious in the race of faith we are running for Him.
We all have to carry on with our lives in this world, and we can live only if we confess our sins by trusting in Jesus Christ who always makes us perfect and we look upon Him. We must look upon our Lord’s righteousness by faith like this because whenever we fall into our weaknesses, this Lord, who has saved us, is always alive. We can be made perfect by setting our eyes on the Lord because He has completely washed away all our sins once and for all. The Lord, who has made us perfect, is in our hearts, and therefore we can all live energetically by relying on Him on account of our faith. When we look upon our Lord through our faith in Jesus Christ and the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we can see from this Word that our sins have already disappeared white as snow. And thanks to our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that has washed away our sins, we can continue to experience God’s mercy while living in this world. So, we come to thank the Lord for the fact that we are now able to live out our faith and proclaim the gospel of the water and the Spirit that always pleases our Lord. Our Lord has made us perfect, and by looking upon Him through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can truly experience perfect salvation. We come to praise the Lord for blessing us to put on God’s blessings in our lives.
Therefore, it is Jesus Christ, our Savior, who is absolutely indispensable to us and whom we can rely on while living in this world. Just as the true God for the people of Israel was the Lord God, in the age of the New Testament, for the Israelites and us alike, the true Messiah, our God, is Jesus Christ. We live in this world committing transgressions, but He came looking for us through the gospel Truth that washes away sins, bore our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, and saved us by shedding His blood on the Cross. Truly, Jesus Christ is the Messiah of the believers.
While living in this rough world, Jesus Christ prepared the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit for us and for the salvation of all sinners, and this Word is the true Word of salvation that has remitted away all our transgressions. Through faith in this gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that washes away sins, we were able to receive our everlasting remission of sins once and for all. The Jesus Christ who came to this earth is the God who has bestowed salvation on us and the people of Israel alike. On this earth and in Heaven, Jesus Christ is the Savior God of all the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Just as the Jesus Christ, who came to this earth for us, was the God of such fathers of faith as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the age of the Old Testament, He is now the God of those who believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. If the Lord God was the God of the fathers of faith in the Old Testament, in the present age of the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the true God of salvation for everyone who believes in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. He is the true God of salvation who has blotted out the sins of this world once and for all with the baptism He received on this earth and the sacrifice of His blood. Having come to blot out the sins of mankind, it is only fitting for Jesus Christ to be the God of those who believe in the baptism He received and the blood He shed. To the people of Israel also, Jesus Christ is the true Savior God. This is the truth of all truths, for it is crystal clear that Jesus Christ is the God of all of us who now believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
However, many people including even the people of Israel can neither recognize nor believe in their own Messiah who came to this earth by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and they are instead rejecting Him. They are unable to recognize who Jesus Christ is, the Messiah of mankind who came to save sinners from their sins. Today, now that we have become people of Israel spiritually speaking, the One whom we should look upon is Jesus Christ. That is because Jesus Christ is the Messiah of those who now believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. We must all live by faith, realizing what an honor it is that we know and believe in Jesus Christ, our God. We must never forget the singular fact that the Jesus Christ we believe in is our God.
Even though Jesus came looking for all those living in this world as their Savior, countless people still have not accepted Him as their Messiah. We must recognize Jesus Christ as our Savior, and we must also believe in Him with our hearts and praise Him in our lives. As we carry on with our lives, we must wholeheartedly cherish our faith in Jesus Christ, the blessings of salvation He has given us, and the heavenly promises He made to us. We believe in the grace of salvation that Jesus Christ has given us, and we should never render this faith of ours in vain.
In the age of the Old Testament, there was a time when the people of Israel fell into idolatry, abandoning the God they had believed in since the days of their ancestors. While facing some hardship for a short while, they lost their God as they lost their reason. We should never allow ourselves to fall into disbelief like this. On the contrary, we should believe that Jesus Christ came looking for us as the Messiah, believe in His righteousness and the remission of sins that He fulfilled once and for all, and thank Him with this faith. We have all the more reason to believe in the written Word of Jesus Christ and His righteous work, praise Him, thank Him, and live by faith.
It is indispensable for us to realize that while we are carrying on with our lives on this earth, and into eternity as well, we must live by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given us. We ought to grasp here that standing against our God by not believing in His love nor believing that He is our Messiah is the gravest of all sins that we could possibly commit against God. The people of Israel, unable to recognize that Jesus Christ is their Messiah God, have rejected Him and are living in this sin. Such people cannot help but live as sinners before God; they are living as God’s enemies; and they are bringing sorrow to Jesus Christ, their Savior. They must turn around and believe in Jesus Christ as their God. Only then can they put on the love of God that the Messiah is offering.
Today, having come to mankind through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, Jesus Christ is the everlasting God for all those who accept into their hearts the atoning remission of sins fulfilled by the Messiah. Even at this very moment, Jesus Christ is saving all the sinners of this earth from all the sins of the world and guiding them to the Kingdom of Heaven. Having come looking for us by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, Jesus Christ now wants to become our Savior. So why would we ever want to remain sinners by refusing to believe in Him with our hearts? Spiritually speaking, those of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit today have received the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and therefore we have now become God’s people.
Jesus Christ is now our God and our Messiah, and we should never reject Him based on our own judgment and our own wicked thoughts of the flesh. If people do not believe that the Jesus Christ who came to this earth by the gospel of the water and the Spirit is their Savior, and they instead turn themselves into His enemies, they will end up as failures, for their lives of faith on this earth will be completely ruined. They must turn around and believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit together with us, for they will otherwise perish in the end.
Is Our Faith Now Standing with the Word of God?
As you carry on with your life of faith before God, you must examine whether or not the center of your heart believes in His Word. It is time for us to ask ourselves if we really believe in the written Word of God as it is, and to examine ourselves. We can then see that sometimes we are revealed as God’s servants, and other times we are exposed as insufferably indolent people before God. Although we now believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and we are serving this gospel in our lives by faith, we must still ponder on how God sees us, whether we are pleasing Him or provoking His hatred; and we must stand before God by trusting in His Word rather than ourselves. All of us must carry on with our lives in this world by faith in the written Word of God. Otherwise, we will be abhorred and abandoned by God.
Therefore, we the righteous must desire to please the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts, and we must yearn to follow His will. If we are always standing with the written Word of God, then it means that we are always walking with the Holy Spirit in our lives. If, in contrast, we do not hold on to the Word of God in our hearts and follow our thoughts of the flesh, then we will be seized by our fleshly thoughts rather than the Word of God, and our lives will end up falling into the swamp of our own lust. Therefore, for us to escape from our carnal thoughts, we must get nearer to the written Word of God, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the leaders of God’s Church.
To get nearer to the Word of God, there are several necessary steps to take. First, we need to read the Bible every day, even if it is just a little bit. Second, we need to listen closely to God’s servants who believe in and preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, so that the bread of faith is supplied to us every day. Third, we need to devote our lives to serving God in close unity with His laborers who are carrying out His work. Doing God’s work here means supporting the proclamation of God’s gospel, and it also means laboring together with our fellow saints to preach the gospel.
Now that we have been born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, walking with the Spirit of God should be as natural as breathing for us. For this to come about, we must be in unity with the leaders of the Church. That is because the Holy Spirit works with those who believe in the Word of God, follow it, and obey it in unity. So, unite your hearts with God’s servants walking ahead of you, and do not stop carrying out God’s work. Seeing that your heart is in unity with God’s servants, the Holy Spirit will then guide you to the right way. If you are now siding with the enemy, you will end up belonging to the Devil and face all kinds of pain and suffering brought to you by Satan, and therefore you must escape from this rebellious life by placing your faith in the Word of God.
How Should We Lead Our Lives of Faith Before God?
Of course, we must believe in the written Word of God, and according to this faith of ours, we must admit that we ourselves have carnal thoughts that are fundamentally evil. We must also carry on with our lives in this world by the faith that has saved us from our sins, believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that has blessed us to be born again as the righteous from sinners. We will then be able to live out our faith to God’s pleasure. Even though our acts may come short before God, the center of our hearts must follow His written Word by faith. All of us must now carry on with our lives in this present world by our faith in the written Word of God. If we now want to live the kind of life that God wants us to live, then we must believe in and follow His Word that is preached by His workers abiding in the God-established Church on this earth.
This is because our God does not judge us based on our acts of the flesh. If we now believe wholeheartedly in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit written in both Old and New Testaments, and we work to spread God’s gospel with our hearts united with those ahead of us, then our God will be rejoiced by you and me. God will use you as His worker more than adequately, and He will be pleased by you. This is because the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts judges us based on the faith we have in the Word of God from the center of our hearts.
If our hearts desire to live out our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, the written Word of God, the Holy Spirit will be rejoiced by us. Though we may walk in the valley of the shadow of death, our God will deliver us from there. Though we may fall short, God will guide us to the way of righteousness for the sake of His name. We believe that the Jesus Christ who came to this earth by the gospel of the water and the Spirit is our Savior God. As the believers in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, we are preaching and serving this gospel of God, and our God is blessing us all.
Therefore, we must follow the written Word of God, and we must be in unity with our fellow saints who believe in and follow the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. By our faith in the Word of God written in both Old and New Testaments, we must follow our Lord, and we must also live the blessed life, where we are led by the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts. Seeing our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is rejoiced to find out that we are the followers of the Word of God. God has turned us, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, into His workers following His Word, and He is pleased to see us exercising our faith.
The God we believe in makes it known to us what kind of God He is. And He is rejoiced to see that all of us believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is therefore imperative for us to get nearer to the written Word of God and His servants, for only then can we be led by the Holy Spirit. Following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will then be able to preach, by faith and throughout the whole world, the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given us. Until then, as those who believe in and follow the true Word that has blessed us to be born again of water and the Spirit, we must realize that following our Lord’s will is the very guidance of the Holy Spirit.
We can see that those who profess to believe in the Lord according to their evil thoughts have their hearts gone astray due to such wicked thoughts of their own. We need to realize that when our hearts turn dark, we are making the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts uncomfortable. We can also see that when our hearts are in the darkness, we are rejecting the guidance of the Holy Spirit. With our hearts rejecting the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we cannot please God. On the contrary, our hearts will get filled only with sorrow.
For us to follow our Lord by faith, we must first receive the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Word of God written in the Bible, and we must submit to the guidance of our predecessors of faith. We ought to realize that we cannot otherwise be led by the Holy Spirit if we hang on to our evil thoughts. Even if all of us are carrying out God’s work, we are not necessarily all living by the guidance of the Holy Spirit to the same extent, and there are degrees of differences even when it comes to such a noble life of faith. Accordingly, you should recognize that there are leaders before you who are guiding the saints of the Church into God’s will. Led by the Holy Spirit in their hearts, these leaders are living for the glory of God.
What Is the Right Life of Faith?
We must live by believing with our hearts in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit written in both Testaments of the Bible. We must live in submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts. We must also realize that for all of us who have received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given us, the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is the God who works according to the written Word. So, we know that all of us can carry out the work that brings joy to our God. In other words, God has made it known to us that He is always with us, the believers in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts on account of our faith is letting us know through the Word of God that He is with us. We know that we are walking with our God in this rough world by our faith in His Word. Even though our flesh is imperfect in every way, we are still able to please the Holy Spirit and follow Him by our faith in the Word of God written in both Testaments of the Scripture.
To do this, we must unite our hearts and faith with God’s Church and follow its guidance. What does it mean to unite our faith with the Church here? It means living out our faith by believing in the Word of God preached through His Church, submitting to the will of God that is relayed to the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and uniting our hearts with our predecessors of faith.
Together with my coworkers whose hearts are now in unity with God’s Church, I can fulfill my duty to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit by faith. I am so grateful to my God that I have these coworkers partaking in the work of proclaiming the gospel by faith, and my heart is also rejoiced. I thank my God for giving me these coworkers. God’s work is not something that is done only by certain people. Rather, God’s work can be carried out in unity by all those whose hearts now have faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. No matter who you are, if you have received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that our Lord has given to all of us, and if you want to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then you can serve the Lord. When it comes to spreading the gospel of the water and the Spirit, all of us can participate in this work together.
Led by the Holy Spirit and abiding in God’s Church, we, the believers in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, are faithfully fulfilling our duty to expand the Kingdom of God even at this very moment. Throughout the world there are now countless workers of God who believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit and are working to spread this gospel of God. They are preaching the gospel as well as supporting its ministry. Together with these workers who are led by the Holy Spirit, we must proclaim God’s Truth in unity. The Holy Spirit will then give us the strength and faith to stand with our coworkers, so that we may be used as His instruments to expand the Kingdom of God. Moreover, because God loves His workers, He answers them whenever they pray and provides for all their needs wherever they are. I know very well that the Lord loves His workers and is blessing them. Believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit written in both Testaments of the Scripture, we seek to follow the Lord by this faith, and together we are all dedicated to the cause of the world mission to build God’s Kingdom.
We know that there are many people throughout the whole world who need the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit and are asking us for our help. We can lead these people to the Lord who is offering salvation to them. We can also proclaim our Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness to those who are living outside His Kingdom. We are working together with the saved saints to guide all the people of the world, who are Adam’s descendants, to the water and the Spirit.
Are you now living out your faith to the Lord’s pleasure, following His guidance through your faith in the written Word of God and the gospel of the water and the Spirit? For us, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, there are now many souls throughout the world to whom we need to preach this gospel. We shall faithfully fulfill this duty of ours before God, following the guidance of the Holy Spirit and devoting our lives to the gospel ministry to the Lord’s pleasure. We should never chase after prestige and power like the people of the world. We should never turn ourselves into the objects of God’s hatred like these people.
Even in our gathering, there are quite a few people who, despite professing to believe in the Lord’s gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, are not actually doing the work that pleases Jesus Christ. However, they, too will come to truly believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and have the faith to carry out God’s work together with us. We must therefore strengthen our hearts with our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and we must fulfill, by this faith, the task the Lord has entrusted to us to spread the gospel. To do so, we must be faithful to the Lord by trusting in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that pleases Him.
When facing those standing against God, we must resolve our hearts with determination as the following: “Even though you are standing against God’s work, we believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit written in the Bible, and we will serve this gospel and proclaim it by faith throughout the whole world, for this is God’s will.” With this kind of faith, we should leave it up to the Lord to deal with those who stand against the will of God. Because God has given us such a goalpost of faith, we must unite our hearts with those who are walking ahead of us and live in unity by this faith. Having raised the goalpost of faith in the Holy Spirit, you and I are now living according to this goalpost. Like the pilgrims of faith walking toward the Kingdom of Heaven, all of us must live with such a disposition of faith.
Those whose hearts are led by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit are bound to see their desire to know the will of God and live by faith in His Church grow, and they will therefore be able to carry out God’s work even more. As time goes by, there will be more and more people of faith who follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, like the sun rising from the east. These people will see their faith grow more and come to live as God’s great workers. As more of us come to belong to the Holy Spirit, we will bring, just as we ought to as the people of faith, joy to God with our faith in His written Word. Those of us who have this kind of faith are invincible to the people of the world. By always living out our faith in the Word to the Lord’s pleasure, we will bring joy to God. We are the righteous who will always live as God’s servants before His Word.
We are now all living in this hopeless world with the guidance of our Lord and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is rejoiced that we are always abiding by the gospel of the water and the Spirit and working with the Lord, and He will lead us to the path that pleases God. Abiding by our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that has saved us from all our sins once and for all, we will always live a victorious life by our faith in the Lord. We are so grateful to the Lord for blessing us to live such a life of faith. We give all honor, glory, thanks, and praise to the Triune God, and to our Lord Jesus Christ who has become our Savior.
As someone who believes in the written Word of God, you are now serving His work standing with our Lord, who is the Shepherd of God’s Church, and the Holy Spirit. Because God looks at your faith for His discernment, you must now live by faith according to the Word of God. To this day, we have run our race by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and it is thanks to the guidance of the perfect Word of God and the Holy Spirit that we have come this far. Knowing all about our circumstances and our faith, the Lord has protected us even more, and He has blessed us and guided us to where we are now.
When the Lord judges our faith, He will undoubtedly judge based on whether or not we have lived according to the Word of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. To those of us who have worked in unity with God’s Church that constitutes His Kingdom according to our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, our Lord will give His grace and heavenly blessings to enjoy.
As the final Judge, our Lord will judge our faith and give us rewards or punishments depending on the fruit of our lives of faith. Leaving it up to God to decide on all judgment and standard, we want to live the rest of our lives by placing our faith in the Lord until we finish our race beautifully. Led by the Lord and inspired by the Holy Spirit, we will live the remainder of our lives serving the proclamation of the gospel until we return to our Lord. And we will live with Jesus Christ, the focus of every life of faith, and our Lord will lead His people to His Kingdom and be with us. We give all our thanks to God with our faith. Amen! Hallelujah! The Lord will call us His loyal servants for living by such faith, commend us for our hard work, and bless us forever to live in the Kingdom of Heaven. Believing in the Word of promise our Lord gave us, we will live with the hope that the promises God made to us will be fulfilled. Amen!
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