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Subject 28 : If You Have Confusion and Emptiness in Your Heart, Seek the Light of the Truth
[28-8] How to Pray According to the Lord’s Prayer
(Matthew 6:5-15)
“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Today’s Scripture reading speaks of the prayer that the Lord has taught us. The Lord said, “Do not pray just in form to show off to others, nor emulate anyone who prays in such a manner.” He told His disciples, and us as well, not to pray hypocritically like the religious people of the world. Today, let us consider the content of the prayer that the Lord has taught us.
We need to pay close attention to what the Lord said in Matthew 6:9: “In this manner, therefore, pray.” The prayer that the Lord taught us starts with this: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” The Lord told us to pray in such a way that the name of the Father is hallowed. We need to reflect on this Word and think about whether the kind of prayer we are giving these days is correct. So many Christians recite the Lord’s Prayer ritualistically out of rote memory, but such prayers do not meet God’s requirement. In the prayer that the Lord taught us, He instructed us to pray so that the name of the Father in Heaven may be hallowed. The Lord told us to pray in this way.
In teaching us how to pray, the Lord told us specifically that the contents of our prayer should hallow the name of God the Father. What, then, should be the very first topic of our prayer? To meet what the Lord is asking of us in our prayer, we must first ask for the remission of our sins. We must pray to God the Father to wash away our sins, so that His name may be hallowed. Since it is impossible for us to make ourselves sinless before God on our own, we ought to pray to Him to teach us the Truth that our Lord Jesus Christ shouldered and washed away our sins once and for all.
The prayer that Jesus Christ has taught us entails hallowing the name of God the Father with our faith. To pray like this with the kind of faith that can hallow the name of God the Father, we must first understand His Word promising our salvation with a new covenant. Here we need to grasp what is the new covenant God promised us, but I will address this point later in the sermon.
For us to pray so that the name of God the Father is hallowed, we must first have the faith to put on holiness before God. So, to pray in the way God wants us to pray, we must first pray to Him to give us the faith that can wash away our sins.
The first content of the prayer that God the Father wants from us starts with this: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” The Father of Jesus Christ in Heaven is exceedingly holy. The Lord is therefore telling us to pray so that we may know the gospel Word of regeneration that can wash away all the sins that are now in our hearts. Asking the Lord to help us understand the salvation He has brought to us should be at the top of our prayer topics. No one who has any sin in his heart now can call on God the Father in Heaven, and that is why He told us to ask in our prayer to first wash away our sins right now at this very moment.
Our Father in Heaven is an exceedingly holy God, so how could He be pleased if a sinner were to just pray to Him for His help without seeking the washing of his heart’s sins? If there were any sin in our hearts, God would want us to first pray to Him to wash it away. God is the Savior who delivers sinners from their sins. Therefore, whenever any sinner prays to God, he must first ask Him to save him from his sins. This is because our hearts are sanctified only if we receive the remission of sins into them, and it is only then that we can call the holy God our God and glorify Him in our lives.
While God has mercy on sinners, He cannot side with them. Even though He is the God who saves sinners from their sins, He is not their God. Therefore, for us to call the holy God our Father, we must first receive the remission of sins into our hearts now by believing in the baptism that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, received from John and His blood on the Cross. It is only then that we can call God our Father. As we know, our sins are what separate us from the holy God, and therefore they must be removed from us. That is why we must be washed from our sins once and for all by believing in the baptism that Jesus received from John and His blood.
By believing in the baptism and blood of the Son of God, we must be saved from our sins so that we are able to commune with God. God is not the God of sinners, but He is rejoiced to wash away our sins. We ought to believe in the Truth that Jesus Christ has washed away our sins once and for all with the baptism He received from John and His blood. God is pleased by those who believe in the baptism and the blood that have washed away the sins of mankind. He is pleased by us only if we are first transformed into the righteous from sinners by faith, and then pray to Him in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior.
I keep repeating myself, but what kind of faith must we have for God in Heaven to be our Father now? Without fail, we must have faith in the Truth that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took upon all the sins of mankind and washed them away once and for all with the baptism He received from John and His blood on the Cross. This means our hearts must obtain from the Word of God the faith that washes away our sins. So, I have been testifying lately that Jesus Christ, who came as the Savior of sinners according to the order of Melchizedek the Priest, is our everlasting Priest. Today, I would like to again share the Word with you on this topic.
Jesus Christ Is the Everlasting Priest Who Came Looking for Us according to the Order of Melchizedek the Priest
Let’s turn to Jeremiah 31:33-34 here: “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Was the Word here spoken to just the people of Israel? No, not necessarily. When God spoke to the “house of Israel” here, He was speaking to all of us now. Our God is a merciful God. He is speaking to us of a new covenant so that He may give the remission of sins to all sinners. During the age of the Old Testament, God tried not to forsake the people of Israel no matter how much they sinned. However, the people of Israel could not stop the sins they were committing. As a brood of evildoers, they were all born on this earth full of sins, and therefore they couldn’t help themselves but continue sinning.
Therefore, God sought to give the Word of a new covenant rather than the Word of the Law. Put differently, God sought to wash away the sins of mankind and give them salvation through the baptism and blood of His Son. This salvation and the remission of sins were promised to not only the people of Israel but the entire human race. This was the Word of promise that God would save us from all our sins once and for all and make us His own people forever.
With a new covenant, God promised that He would save all sinners from the sins of the world. Having established a new covenant of salvation for mankind, when the time came, God sought to give them salvation through the baptism His Son Jesus Christ received and the blood He shed. The new covenant that God gave us promised that His Son Jesus Christ would come to this earth and save mankind from all sins by being baptized by John and crucified. God made this covenant with mankind in His Son. Because the people of Israel could not keep the old covenant that God had made with them, He ended this covenant and made a new covenant with the entire human race. God knew that every human heart was corrupt and therefore all human beings were sinners. Just as humanity now is living in sin, the ancient people of Israel were also lovers of sin. Yet, because they did not know that their true selves were nothing but piles of sins, they still tried to reach salvation by keeping the Word of God. However, they just could not keep the promise they made with God in their lives.
So, when the time came, God made a new covenant with all of us for the remission of sins. He promised not only the people of Israel but also all the Gentiles, “I will save you from all your sins.” God made this covenant with us in His name. Because God knew that human beings were too weak to keep His Law, He promised to save them from all their sins with the Word of the new covenant. As we know, human beings are simply incapable of keeping the Law, and therefore it was only right for God to abolish the old covenant.
In God’s sight, we are indeed full of sins and totally incapable of keeping the Word of His Law no matter how hard we try. Despite this, people in not only the age of the Old Testament but also the age of the New Testament are recklessly challenging themselves to keep the Law of God. So many people are trying to observe the perfect Word of God, not knowing that they themselves are a brood of evildoers. God says to them, “If you want to keep the Word of the Law so badly, give it a try.” And when they run out of their willpower and strength, God gives them the Word of the new covenant, saying to them, “From now on, I will save you from the sins of the world.”
Even at this very moment, there still are many people trying to keep the Law of God on their own. But God is just watching them. He waits until the entire human race gives up trying to keep the Word of His Law, and when the time comes, He tells them to be saved by faith, saying that His Son Jesus Christ took away their sins by being baptized by John, was condemned for their sins by being crucified, and has thereby saved them once and for all.
When sinners come before our God and ask for His merciful salvation, Jesus tells them to be washed from their sins by believing in the baptism He received from John and His blood on the Cross. For those who seek to wash away their sins with faith in the baptism that the Son of God received from John and His blood, God the Father grants their wishes and saves them. But, for those who otherwise try to reach salvation through their own effort, God just tells them to keep on trying with even more work of their own.
What Kind of People Must We Be before God?
What would you do now then? Would you wash away your sins by believing in the baptism that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, received from John and the blood He shed on the Cross? Or would you try harder to keep the Word of the Law of God on your own? The Lord is asking us what we would choose. God wants us to be saved by believing that His Son Jesus Christ has now become our Savior by being baptized by John and crucified, rather than offering Him the Old Testament’s sacrificial animals.
God wants us to be saved by believing in the baptism that His Son Jesus Christ received from John and His blood on the Cross. We can now reach salvation from all our sins by believing in the Word of God. God is waiting for us be saved from all sins by placing our faith in the gospel Word of the remission of sins.
Therefore, in obedience to the Lord’s will, we ought to receive salvation by believing in His baptism and blood. God is teaching us that obedience is better than any sacrifice. Rather than being so obstinate before God and refusing to believe in the Word of His grace, God wants us to believe obediently in the Word of salvation that He has given us. This is all the more so because God wants mercy and compassion for us. He wants us to believe in the baptism that His Son received from John and His blood, and to wash away our hearts’ sins once and for all with this faith.
When the time came, God said, “Since you broke the old covenant all on your own, I will now make a new covenant with you for your sake” (Jeremiah 31:31-34). And He also promised, “I will put My law in your hearts and write it in your minds, and I will be your God and you will be My people.” Put differently, God the Father promised to save us from our sins through His Son Jesus Christ, as He would wash away our sins by being baptized by John and be punished for our sins in our place. This is the Word of the new covenant that God has given us.
The Lord has now written the Word of the new covenant in our minds and hearts, and He has given us the Word of testimony proving that He has washed away our sins. This Word of testimony tells us that Jesus has washed away our sins with the baptism He received from John and His blood on the Cross. God said to us, “You are incapable of living according to the Word of the Law that I have given you. I have therefore now come up with a plan of salvation for you, so that I may be your God. I have raised up My Son Jesus Christ as the everlasting Priest to save you from your sins now. With the Word of the baptism that My Son received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed, I have now washed away your sins once and for all.”
In the Old Testament, God the Father had promised to send Elijah, and according to this promise, He sent John the Baptist to this earth to fulfill the role of Elijah in the New Testament. Jesus therefore took away the sins of mankind once and for all by being baptized by John, was crucified, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us His believers from the sins of the world. And Jesus completed all His work on this earth, saying on the Cross, “It is finished!” In this way, God Himself has become our Savior once and for all, just as He promised us, “I will be your God and you will be My people.”
With the new covenant God made with us, He said to us, “I will send My Son Jesus Christ as the everlasting Priest to blot out your sins. And He will take away your sins once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, who will come in the spirit of Elijah. Believe in the salvation that My Son will fulfill by being baptized and bearing the condemnation of your sins once and for all by being crucified. With the baptism that My Son will receive from John and His blood, I will wash away all your sins.” In other words, God promised us, “I will save you from the sins of this world once and for all if you believe in the work of the baptism and blood of Jesus Christ.” And Jesus has indeed saved us by being baptized by John, crucified, and thus being punished for our sins in our place. As well, God the Father’s promise to “write My law of salvation in your hearts and minds” has been fulfilled.
We must believe in the Word of God, who is our Creator and Savior. God promised us our salvation with the Word of the new covenant like this so that we would be able to call Him our Father. In short, all our sins are remitted away once and for all by believing in the salvation that Jesus Christ our Savior has fulfilled with the baptism He received from John and His blood. By believing at once in the baptism that our Lord received from John and His blood, our hearts are now able to receive the remission of sins and put on holiness. Out of His mercy, our God has saved us and given us eternal life. By saving us from all the sins of the world once and for all, Jesus Christ has enabled us to call God in Heaven our own Father.
“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” The prayer that God is teaching us through the Lord’s Prayer here has been fulfilled with the Word of the baptism that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, received from John and His blood on the Cross. This means we ought to be washed from our sins by placing our faith in this Truth now, and then call God our Father. For us to be able to call the holy God our Father by faith, we must first believe in the baptism that His Son Jesus Christ received from John and His blood on the Cross as our salvation.
As you and I already know very well, we are all Adam’s descendants, and therefore we were all born in this world as completely depraved sinners before God. However, by believing in the baptism that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, received from John and the blood He shed, we have been washed from all our sins. Without this washing of sins, we cannot call God our Father. While we may call on the name of God, we must call on His holy name only after first being washed from our sins as He so desires, and therefore it is absolutely indispensable for us to believe in the gospel Word of the baptism and the blood of salvation that enables us to be born again.
If we accept the baptism that the Son of God received from John and His blood as our salvation, we can all become the holy God’s children. If, however, we refuse to accept into our hearts the gospel of salvation God has given us, we cannot become His children. We must therefore be saved by believing with our hearts that God sent His Son to this earth and made Him take away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John. And we must also believe that the baptized Jesus Christ gave up His body on the Cross to be sacrificed for sinners as their propitiation. Like this, it is only through faith in the baptism Jesus received from John and the blood He shed that we can receive the everlasting remission of sins and become children of the holy God. Such salvation is the will of the holy God for us. The Lord’s Prayer therefore teaches us that we must obtain, from the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, the faith that enables us to be born again, so that God may be our God.
By our fundamental nature, all of us were nothing but piles of sins before God. We were all born in this world in a state where the holy God was not our Father. We ought to realize here that this is precisely why God told us that the very first subject of our prayer should be asking for the washing of our sins. And God told us to believe that Jesus has cleansed away our hearts’ sins by being baptized by John, and to thus sanctify our hearts and become righteous to be able to call God our Father.
Who Has Faith in the Righteousness of God to Be Born Again from His Sins Once and for All?
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has blotted out our sins once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist and shedding His blood on the Cross, and those who realize and believe in this Savior are the ones who have the faith to be born again. In God’s sight, those who are saved from their sins are those who are truly born again. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has saved us once and for all with the Word of the baptism and blood of the remission of sins. Therefore, by believing now in the baptism that Jesus received from John and His blood on the Cross, we can receive the remission of sins into our hearts and call God our Father. It was to teach us this lesson that the Lord taught us His prayer. Jesus was teaching all of us to pray by believing in the baptism He received from John and His blood on the Cross.
We have now become people of faith who are able to pray like this to God the holy Father. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has given us salvation by accepting our sins once and for all through the baptism He received from John and being punished for them on the Cross in our place, and by believing in this salvation, we have now been washed from all our sins once and for all. This is all because God the Father made His Son Jesus Christ take away the sins of this world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, be crucified, and thus complete the work of salvation to deliver His believers once and for all.
The purpose for which God the Father has saved sinners from sin like this is for us to glorify His name. Jesus has saved from sin those who believe in the baptism that He received from John the Baptist and His blood so that the name of the Lord may be praised. By making His Son receive baptism from John and be crucified, God the Father sacrificed His Son in our place. Therefore, whoever believes in this Truth of salvation—that is, in the baptism that Jesus received from John and His blood—can receive the remission of sins into the heart and praise the name of the holy God. Because we have received the remission of sins into our hearts by believing in the God-given salvation, we are now able to praise God the Father as we have become His children. We can now pray to Him, calling Him, “Our Father in Heaven.” It is when we receive the remission of sins into our hearts that we are able to call God our Father.
Even before the universe was created, long before the foundation of the world, the Triune God planned to save mankind from their sins so that we would come to praise Him. When the time came, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to this earth and made Him bear the sins of this world on His body once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist; and having been baptized by John, Jesus was punished for our sins by shedding His blood on the Cross, thus saving His believers from their sins. Our Lord has saved us the believers from all our sins once and for all by taking them away through the baptism He received from John, shedding His blood and dying on the Cross to be punished for them, and rising from the dead again. On account of this faith of ours, we have now received the remission of sins in God’s sight.
We must believe with our hearts that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has made us righteous with the baptism He received from John and the blood He shed. We must believe in the true Word of salvation that our Lord has fulfilled deep in our hearts and minds. Because the Lord completed the work of His baptism and the shedding of His blood that save us from the sins of this world, it is now possible for us to be saved by faith. In other words, we can now become God’s children by faith because Jesus has saved us from the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John and the blood He shed on the Cross. It is because we believe in the baptism of Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood that we have been blessed to call God our Father now.
The Lord is trying to teach us such prayers of faith. So that we may be able to call on “our Father in Heaven” and pray to Him, the Lord Jesus Christ has saved us from all sins once and for all by being baptized by John and shedding His blood on the Cross. And He is telling us that those who believe in this Truth of salvation are God’s children (John 1:12). Because Jesus paid off the wages of the sins of mankind once and for all with the baptism He received from John and the blood He shed, those who believe in this Truth can be saved from their sins once and for all.
Whoever believes in this Truth of salvation can now receive the remission of sins into the heart and become a child of God. Jesus Christ came to this earth according to the order of Melchizedek, and it is thanks to His baptism and the shedding of His blood that we have reached salvation. So let us all remember that we have been saved by placing our faith in Jesus Christ’s grace of salvation.
Only those who have been saved from their sins by believing in the God-given love of righteousness are qualified to call the holy God their Father in His presence. In contrast, those who have not yet received the remission of sins into their hearts do not have sufficient faith to call God their Father. So, they cannot pray to God and call Him “our Father in Heaven.” Such people ought to pray first for deliverance from their sins. They should then believe in the baptism that the Lord received from John and His blood, and wash away their sins with this faith. It is only after this that they can call God their Father.
God’s purpose is making us humans sinless like Himself. That is why our Lord told us to pray for the remission of our sins according to the prayer He taught us. For us to become God’s children, we must first realize exactly when and how Jesus Christ, the Son of God, blotted out your sins and mine, and we must believe in this with our hearts. God has now given us the born-again faith that enables us to reach salvation from all our sins, and the Truth of this salvation is that His Son Jesus Christ shouldered your sins and mine once and for all through the baptism He received from John, died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby become our Savior.
Where Is the Word of the Remission of Sins Written in the Bible?
The Lord said, “till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). Where, then, is the Word written testifying that the Lord has saved us from the sins of the world? God said that His Son would come to save us from all sins as our everlasting Priest, but where is this testimony written in the Word?
Now then, let us turn to the Bible and look for the evidence at this hour. Let us first verify from the written Word that Jesus was raised to be the everlasting Priest of this earth. It is written in Psalm 110:4:
“The Lord has sworn
And will not relent,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”
Here in the Old Testament, we see the word “Lord” used to refer to the holy name of God, and this name means “He who exists by Himself.” Referring to Jesus Christ, He who exists by Himself said, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” God said this because His Son “Jesus Christ” would save the believers from their sins by being baptized by John and crucified for our salvation.
As it is written, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek,” God the Father has raised His Son to be our everlasting Priest. As such, to save you and me from the sins of this world and condemnation, Jesus was baptized by John, the greatest of those born of women (Matthew 11:10-12; Matthew 3:13-17), and He was crucified, thereby saving all those who believe in this Truth from all the sins of the world. Therefore, it is now by believing in this true salvation that we are washed from our sins. God has saved us from our sins once and for all through the baptism His Son Jesus received from John and His blood on the Cross, and He has made us, the believers, His own children.
God the Father has raised His Son Jesus Christ as our everlasting Priest. Why, then, did God raise Jesus Christ as the everlasting Priest according to the order of Melchizedek? The account of Melchizedek is found in Genesis 14:17-20:
“And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley), after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him. Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said:
‘Blessed be Abram of God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
And blessed be God Most High,
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.’
And he gave him a tithe of all.”
It is based on Melchizedek the Priest that God is saying that His Son is the everlasting priest who would save mankind from the sins of the world.
Based on this passage from Genesis, God said in Psalm 110:4, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.” There is a great deal of time difference between when Genesis was written and when Psalm was written. Psalm was written long after God blessed Abraham through Melchizedek the Priest. Despite this, the writer of Psalm 110:4 recorded God’s prophecy that He would raise His Son as the everlasting Priest according to the order of Melchizedek the Priest. And we can now discover that Jesus has indeed become our everlasting Savior according to this Word of prophecy.
This shows us that even before making the universe and mankind, the Triune God planned to send His Son Jesus Christ to this earth, save the entire human race once and for all through the baptism the Son would receive and the blood He would shed on the Cross, and make the believers God’s own children. Transcending time, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ has fulfilled His everlasting priesthood.
That is why the Bible says, “Jesus Christ is the everlasting Priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” It means that God the Father put in place a plan of salvation to deliver mankind from all the sins of this world through His Son. And when the time came, God sent His Son to this earth, and Jesus has saved us from all sins once and for all through the baptism He received from John and His blood. God is then telling you and me that the gospel we believe in now is the gospel that enables us to be born again from our sins through the baptism Jesus Christ received from John and the blood He shed.
Even before the foundation of the world, God prepared His Son Jesus to be our everlasting Priest according to the order of Melchizedek the Priest. And when the time came, He sent His Son to this earth as the Savior of mankind. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, then carried out His work of salvation on this earth, fulfilling the will of God the Father in raising Him to be the everlasting Priest to save His people from the sins of the world. This work of salvation was fulfilled according to God’s plan. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born on this earth through the body of Mary, shouldered the sins of this world by being baptized by John, was crucified to death, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved those who now believe in this work of salvation from all their sins once and for all and made them God’s children.
It absolutely is not by keeping the Word of the God-given Law that you and I can now become children of the holy God. Rather, we are saved only by placing our faith in the work of the baptism that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, received from John and His blood on the Cross. This is because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has become our everlasting Priest of salvation by being baptized by John the Baptist on this earth and shedding His blood. It is now through our faith in this gospel of salvation and the remission of sins that we are delivered from all our sins once and for all and become God’s children.
Through the Word of the God-given Law, we have come to realize the sins that are in our hearts and to recognize that we are sinners. And we have become God’s people once and for all through our faith in the work that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, carried out on this earth by shouldering the sins of this world on His body through the baptism He received from John and the suffering He endured on the Cross. By believing in the baptism and blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we have become God the Father’s children who have received the remission of sins. Because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has saved us from the sins of the world through His baptism and blood, we are now able to call Him our Savior, and we can also call His Father our God and our Father.
To those who still do not believe in this salvation, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, wants to bear witness that He Himself is the Savior who came to this earth as the everlasting Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. Jesus Christ took away our sins once and for all by being baptized by John. It is because Jesus shouldered our sins by being baptized by John like this that He died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby become our Savior for those of us who now believe. We can become God’s children by believing in this fact of salvation. Thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we can be made sinless in our hearts and call the holy God our Father.
Many People on This Earth Still Do Not Know This Truth
Some Christians recite the Lord’s Prayer blindly as if it were a spell. In the movie Titanic, there is a scene where people are praying together as the ship is floundering and sinking. How should one pray in times like this? One ought to be specific and ask God, “Lord, our ship is sinking. Please deliver us from death!” But, in the movie, the people just recite the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.... Amen.”
However, this is not why Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer to His disciples and us. He gave us the Lord’s Prayer for us not to just memorize it and chant it, but to ask God to make us His children. Our Lord came to this earth as the everlasting Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and He took away our sins once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist. He was then crucified to be punished for our sins in our place, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us His believers from all the sins of the world. Therefore, the Lord wants us to believe in this gospel and be saved from all our sins to become God’s children by faith.
This is why the Lord told us to pray first so that we may be washed from our hearts’ sins and reach salvation. The problem, however, is that many people just recite this prayer as if they were casting a spell. Christians all over the world these days are regurgitating the Lord’s Prayer out of memory only as a religious ritual. Because they have been accustomed to reciting the Lord’s Prayer like this for so long, they are not willing to learn about the real meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. They think mistakenly that by reciting the Lord’s Prayer once, they are praying according to the Lord’s teaching. However, the Lord taught this prayer so that we would have the faith that saves us from sins in accordance with the will of God.
The same goes for the Apostles’ Creed that many Christians are reciting. Many Christians believe in Jesus according to the Apostles’ Creed, but this creed leaves out the Word of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist. The first sentence in the Apostles’ Creed is written as the following: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” As is written here, we ought to indeed believe in God as the Creator who made the heavens and the earth. But we ought to also believe that Jesus took away our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, was crucified, and has thereby saved us from our sins.
However, those who made the Nicene Creed in AD 325 wrote into this creed only the crucified Jesus. The Nicene Creed was made to be used in an interrogative form for the rite of baptism for new church members professing to believe in the Son of God as their Savior. When baptizing a new believer, the pastor would first recite the Apostles’ Creed and then ask, “Do you believe in Jesus as your Savior?” When the new believer answered and said, “Yes, I do,” the pastor would baptize him, saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The believer would then become a formal member of the church. From then on, the new church member would be obligated to make various donations to the church, such as tithes, thanksgiving offerings, and regular Sunday offerings.
In the Catholic Church, newly born babies receive infant baptism with their parents attending the ceremony. There are also some Protestant denominations that perform infant baptism. Some churches set aside at least one day a year earmarking it for infant baptism. With the parents holding their baby, the pastor would sprinkle water on the baby’s head three times, saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Do you think a newly born baby has any idea about his sins? Would this baby know why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was baptized by John? Everyone was born as a sinner, but could a newly born baby be saved just by receiving infant baptism? As adults, we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as our Savior because we have now realized all our sins and want to be saved from them once and for all, and we reach salvation by believing in the baptism that Jesus Christ received from John and His blood on the Cross.
Once people go through puberty and reach a certain age, they all realize their sinful selves. It is only then that people can finally see themselves as sinners. It is after we grow up and reach maturity that we can realize and believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took away the sins of the world once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, shed His blood, and has thereby become our Savior; and it is then that we reach salvation by faith.
We must all realize that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took away all our sins by being baptized by John, shed His blood on the Cross, and has thereby saved those who believe in this fact from all sins. It is by believing in the righteous work of Jesus like this that we become God’s children. And that is how we come to be able to call the holy God our Father.
We are made God’s children by faith, by realizing and believing that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had to shed His blood on the Cross because He shouldered the sins of this world through the baptism He received from John. We are then to live for the spreading of the Lord’s gospel until we go to Heaven. Through His Son, God the Father has fulfilled our everlasting remission of sins and saved us from the sins of the world. Placing our faith in this Truth of salvation, we are to live the rest of our lives for the Lord, and then go to His Kingdom when He calls us.
Coming to God’s presence with this faith of ours in the Truth of salvation, we are to enter God’s Kingdom that He has prepared for us. This is the Truth that the Bible speaks of in both testaments. This is the first very subject of our prayer that Jesus has taught us to pray. I hope and pray that everyone reading this book would come to grasp the full meaning of the Lord’s Prayer and believe in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
You must not let yourself continue to just recite the Lord’s Prayer like a religious ritual. If this is how you still think and believe about the Lord’s Prayer, then you must listen to the Word of salvation that is being preached to you now to learn about how the Lord told you to be holy, believe in this Word with your heart, and receive the remission of sins.
What Is the Second Lesson from the Lord’s Prayer?
The second lesson from the Lord’s Prayer is found in Matthew 6:10, which says, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Here, Jesus Christ is teaching us to pray for His salvation to be fulfilled in our hearts. And He is telling us to build God’s Kingdom on this earth. Put differently, He is commanding us to expand the Kingdom of God by faith.
It is written, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God the Father promised that His Son would be baptized by John and shed His blood as our everlasting Priest according to the order of Melchizedek the Priest, and that He would make those who believe in this God’s children. From the day Adam and Eve sinned before God, all human beings became sinners and lived as such, but when the time came, God the Father sent His Son to this earth as the everlasting Priest and saved mankind through the Son’s baptism and blood; and we can now be saved from our sins by believing in this work.
God said in the Old Testament, “The virgin shall conceive and bear a Son” (Isaiah 7:14). Just as prophesied, when the age of the New Testament arrived, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born through the body of Mary, took away the sins of mankind once and for all by being baptized by John at the age of 30, was punished on the Cross for our sins, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us, His believers, once and for all from the sins of this world and their condemnation.
Therefore, those who believe in the baptism that the Lord received from John and the blood He shed have the responsibility to preach this gospel to everyone while they are living on this earth. Having believed first, we have the duty to spread the Word of the baptism of Jesus and His Cross to every tribe throughout the whole world. “May the will of God the Father be done on earth as it is heaven.” By raising His Son to be our everlasting Priest already, God the Father has washed away all our sins with the baptism His Son received from John and His blood on the Cross.
God the Father has already fulfilled our remission of sins once and for all by sending His Son to us. And Jesus Christ, our God, is now sitting at the right hand of the throne of God the Father. He is telling those who have already received the remission of sins to spread God’s gospel so that the salvation that the Son of God has fulfilled for us would be fulfilled in the heart of everyone else living on this earth, and to pray to God until this goal is achieved completely. Put differently, that we are spreading the gospel now means we are praying for the will of God to be fulfilled on this earth. That is why we are carrying out our ministry in various ways to spread the gospel, from running our literature ministry to sharing audio books and e-books, conducting street outreaches, and providing individual spiritual counseling.
We ought to pray according to how the Lord has taught us to pray. The Son of God has fulfilled our salvation once and for all by shouldering the sins of this world through His baptism and shedding His blood on the Cross, and the Lord told us to pray so that we would be washed from our sins by believing in this salvation and His will would be fulfilled in our hearts. We must now live according to this will of God, spreading throughout the whole world the salvation that His Son has brought to us. It is when God’s Church preaches salvation on this earth that His Kingdom expands more. You and I who now believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit are God’s people, His soldiers, and the people of His righteousness doing His will. We are the ones who are now expanding the Kingdom of God on this earth. We are the workers of God’s Kingdom who are spreading the gospel and expanding the Kingdom on this earth.
“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”
The third lesson from the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Here God is commanding those who have received the remission of sins into their hearts to pray for their daily bread. Since we are all human, we all need our daily bread in both body and spirit to sustain our lives. Just because we have become God’s people, this does not mean that we don’t need our daily bread, and therefore we must always ask for our spiritual bread in our prayer. For God’s people, their daily bread is carrying out God’s work.
We receive our daily bread when, first of all, we listen to the Word in God’s Church. Second, we receive it when we gather together as God’s people and share fellowship with one another. Third, when we support the gospel ministry for its proclamation, this constitutes our daily bread for our souls. Fourth, we receive our daily bread when we preach all over the world the gospel that saves people from their sins through the baptism that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, received and the blood He shed on the Cross, and it is when we carry out this work that we come to have abundant spiritual bread.
Therefore, we must carry out the Lord’s work every day by faith, and we must spread the faith that God is our God. We ought to pray for our daily bread, and we ought to also look for God’s work always so that we may never go hungry from the lack of spiritual food.
When the Lord told us to pray for our daily bread, He did not mean that we should pray for just the bread of our flesh. It is absolutely imperative for us to spread the gospel and work diligently every day to look for God’s lost sheep and save them with the gospel Word. The Lord is telling us to pray so that we may continue to carry out this work of spreading the gospel. We ought to pray now for the gospel to be proclaimed successfully, so that we may expand the Lord’s Kingdom.
Those who now believe in the Truth of salvation must always have their faith ready to share the gospel Word of God in body and spirit. We must therefore carry out God’s work by faith. Otherwise we will succumb to spiritual and physical indolence. Those who do not labor to spread the gospel as they are supposed to always do little else but complain about God’s Church. So, to make sure that this does not happen to us, we all need to do our parts and be able to help one another also. To carry out such work, we must become God’s faithful servants. God told us to pray always for our daily spiritual bread precisely because we have the duty to carry out His work to spread the gospel. Like this, we must pray for specific goals.
God is telling us to believe according to His Word and to also preach this Word. He is telling us to be saved from our sins by placing our faith in the gospel Word of the new covenant of salvation and live as His children. God is telling us to live the rest of our lives by faith worthy of being His children. He is telling us to live by faith as His army. He is telling us to always carry out His work by faith for the salvation of the souls that still remain sinful. God is telling us to be the people of faith who always have something to share with many people.
If we were to seek just our own prosperity, we will not prosper and end up starving ourselves. We must therefore always work hard so that we have something to share with others. There are many people in this world who still have not reached salvation. That is why the Lord told us to undertake our literature ministry for their salvation. To support the gospel work and carry out our literature ministry, we must devote our lives to God.
“Forgive Us Our Debts, as We Forgive Our Debtors”
The fourth element of the Lord’s Prayer says in Matthew 6:12, “And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.” As those who have received the remission of sins, we have the duty to live for the Lord, but sometimes we fail to do so, and this may result in some tension. We all make many mistakes to wrong one another. But we should not hold a grudge over such wrongdoings.
While we can forgive one another for our individual failures, we cannot tolerate anyone who stands against God and tries to undermine His Work, for such people are contesting God. Whether God will forgive their sins or not is not ours to know.
We should admit our mutual wrongdoings to one another and live according to the will of God by faith. However, when it comes to those who stand against God’s work in their lives, we should leave them up to our God. We cannot be with such people. We ought to therefore let God deal with them. Certain sins are committed against God, while certain wrongdoings are committed against one another. Recognizing the Word of salvation that the Lord has given us, we can forgive one another for our mutual wrongdoings. However, as far as God’s opponents are concerned, we should leave them up to God and separate ourselves from them.
How can anyone, while professing to believe in the God-given gospel of salvation, still obstruct His work with a malicious heart? God says such people are evildoers. They must return to God and believe in the true Word of salvation that God has given them. If they do not believe wholeheartedly in the gospel Word of salvation that the Lord has given them, then they are just abusing God’s gospel to do evil in their lives. God will judge them for their sins. We need to realize here that it is spiritually very problematic for anyone who has been saved to neither serve the gospel of salvation nor unite his heart with God’s Church.
Those who stand against and obstruct God’s work even though God has saved them from their sins are evildoers in God’s sight. God does not give any spiritual blessings to such people. His blessings only drift further away from them. The Lord said, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
The faith that saves us from all our sins is the faith that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has blotted out our sins by being baptized by John and dying on the Cross to bear their condemnation, and it is by believing in this Truth of salvation that we can receive the remission of sins and the grace of salvation into our hearts. And if we want to be blessed by God, we must carry out the Lord’s work by faith, devoting our hearts and bodies to the proclamation of the gospel to God’s pleasure. Having saved us from the sins of this world, God is now saying to us, “Are you asking Me to bless you even though you are not spreading this gospel? If you wish to receive My blessings, you should also do what I desire.” This is the God-spoken, true and most just Word. “How can you ask Me to bless you when you are not doing My work? What will become of you if I bless you? Far from doing My work, you are standing against Me, so how can you ask Me to bless you?”
God does not bestow His blessing on such people. God demands repentance from those who are deliberately undermining His Work. I do not know how much longer God would wait for such people in these end times. Although God is the God of love, He is also a just Judge.
Given the fact that we now believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, it is unconscionable for us to mistreat the righteous, who are in the likeness of the image of our God. God is telling us to walk by faith in His love, follow the way of faith as we ought to, and live by faith. In our hearts we have the duty and the faith to cherish and love one another. God is not pleased by anyone who mistreats His people for no reason, torments them, or harms them.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has blotted out the sins of mankind. Just as God said, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7), those who believe in the baptism of Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood will be saved, but those who do not believe will be cast into hell for their sins.
God the Father sent His Son as our everlasting Priest and made Him shoulder the sins of the world once and for all through the baptism He received from John the Baptist. The Lord was then condemned for our sins by being crucified and shedding His blood on the Cross, and He has thereby saved His believers from their sins once and for all. Those who have become God’s children by believing in this salvation must live out their faith and their everyday lives must also be lived according to God’s pleasure. Otherwise there will be no blessing from God. Although we will enter the Kingdom of God on account of our faith in His righteousness, those of us who do not carry out God’s work while living on this earth will have no peace.
That is why I say to those who have received the remission of sins to do what they ought to do by rights. I teach them, “Do you want to be blessed? Then serve the work that pleases God.” So I give them God’s work to spread the gospel. God’s work is not something that can be done just for a few days for immediate results, but if we preach the gospel steadily without ceasing, the power of this gospel will eventually be manifested in the hearts of the believers. If we live out our faith before God in unity with His Church, God will pour on us and fill us with the spiritual blessings of Heaven. We will then hear others saying to us, “You have truly been blessed by God!”
I have devoted my entire life to the proclamation of God’s gospel. I am living by faith, knowing very well that it is the will of God the Father for me to spread the gospel throughout the whole world together with my co-workers. Ever since I first found the righteousness of the Lord, I have lived only for the spreading of the Lord’s gospel to this very day. I have also suffered many losses because of this. Even though I have never done anything wrong to those who do not believe in this gospel, they have accused me of heresy and denounced me unjustly.
Because I have gladly chosen to live my life for the spreading of God’s gospel, I have suffered many losses, from my reputation to my possessions and even my friends. My losses have been countless. I have given up so much for the expansion of the Lord’s Kingdom. And to this very day, I have lived by faith to do what the Lord is pleased by. As a result, I am now living happily preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit together with you. Whenever I had any need while preaching the gospel, I prayed to God. God then made sure to meet all my needs, ensuring that I would be blessed to receive His help.
Abraham dug a well wherever he went. Where he lived was like a desert. In countries like Korea, you don’t have to dig that deep to find water, but Israel is so arid that digging a working well is like winning a lottery. After all, isn’t this why the Samaritan woman drawing water from Jacob’s well in the Bible bragged about how this was her ancestor’s well? Every time Abraham dug a well in the desert looking for water, he found it. The nearby inhabitants were shocked by this. They had spent their entire lifetime there digging countless wells with very little success, but wherever Abraham dug a well, he found water. So, being jealous of Abraham, some of them dumped rocks into his well and sealed it, but Abraham just handed it over to them, saying, “Here, you can have this well.” He then went somewhere else, dug a well, and found water again. Like this, Abraham dug a well wherever he went.
I, too, have many earthly needs for spreading the gospel. Whenever I feel in my heart that there is something that would be useful for preaching the gospel, I pray to God for it. This place where we are now worshiping is also a blessed place that God has given us. When we forgive those who sin against us, we say, “Don’t worry about this sin, for the Lord has blotted it out also. From now on, let us live in harmony by faith.” This is how we forgive each other. As we carry on with our lives before God, we must stand upright and fitting in His sight. God blesses such people who are approved in His sight, saying, “You are fitting to receive My blessings. You will not do evil against Me.”
The fifth element of the Lord’s Prayer says, “Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” We ought to pray so that we would not stumble over hardship and fall into where God does not want us to be. When we get angry, we sometimes feel like we could act out evil. But, since we should not do what God does not want us to do, we need to pray to Him and say, “Lord, please stop me from doing such a rash thing. Please help me control my emotions. Watch over me, Father, so that my thoughts do not go astray to do evil.”
As we carry on with our lives on this earth and spread the gospel, our hearts can be stirred up to anger when we see people standing against the gospel Word that we are preaching. Evil thoughts can arise in us in times like this, but we should not act on our anger, which is precisely why we pray to God to give us the strength to control ourselves. Evil thoughts can arise in anyone. And anyone can wish to take matters into his own hands to punish evil.
If we face hardship to spread the gospel on this earth, this, too, is a blessing for us in God’s sight. However, God did tell us to pray so that we would not face insurmountably difficult temptation. This brings us to the end of the Lord’s Prayer.
It is very important for us to realize from the Lord’s Prayer what it is that we should be praying for, keep this in our minds whenever we pray, ask for God’s help, and live for the proclamation of the gospel. We ought to also seek harmony with our brothers and sisters, and live by faith for the sake of spreading the gospel. While living in this world, we ought to receive God’s blessings, dedicate our lives to preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and then go to God’s presence by faith. Realizing and believing that this is what our Lord is telling us, we must live by faith. Hallelujah!
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