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Subject 18 : GENESIS
[Chapter 2-8] Is Our Own Judgment Right, Or Is the Truth Right? (Genesis 2:1-25)
(Genesis 2:1-25)
“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’ And the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’ Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said:
‘This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.’
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
In Genesis chapter two, God outlined the purpose of the creation of the heavens and the earth. It’s written that God breathed the breath of life into man’s nostrils. As man was turned into an immortal being by God, from then on, everyone came to have eternal life.
It’s written that God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. On this account man became a living being. That man became a living being means that he became an immortal being. Therefore when one dies, his body returns to dust, while his spirit returns to God. This means that for those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, their spirits and bodies will return to God and enter the everlasting Kingdom of Heaven to live there, but for those who don’t believe in this gospel, they will fall into confusion, void, and darkness and be forever trapped there.
God made the Garden of Eden in the first world. Spiritually speaking, the Garden of Eden shows the heavenly dominion in which the righteous will live in the future. And in the Garden of Eden God planted trees that were pleasant to the sight and good for food, and He permitted its habitants to enjoy everything. He put the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and He also put some rivers to flow in there. With these rivers our God moistened all the land of the Garden of Eden. Clearly, this land was an exceedingly beautiful paradise.
God had allowed Adam and Eve to rule over everything in the Garden of Eden, and to take and enjoy all that was in the garden. The only restriction was that they were forbidden from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden. God had told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Of Everything God Had Done Here, We May Raise One Particular Question
We may wonder here, “Why did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, and why did He tell Adam not to eat from this tree? God was clearly capable of making the entire universe and everything in it according to His wish. Why did He then specifically order Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Shouldn’t He have just not made the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Why did God make the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the first place, when He knew that man would eat from it?”
It’s natural for us to ask such questions and wonder about them. For both Christians and non-Christians alike, this is one of the greatest puzzles. However, if we know and believe in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, then we can find the simple answer to this puzzle. The answer to this question is the following: God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to make us humans fall into sin first and then save us from the sins of the world, to enable us to enter the everlasting Kingdom of God, and to bless us to become His children.
The Garden of Eden was filled with flowers, it had a river flowing in its midst, and it was laden with gold and precious stones. Do you know what Bdellium and onyx are? Bdellium was probably an aromatic gum like balsam that was exuded from a tree, and it is sometimes referred to pearl. The Garden of Eden was also filled with gold and all kinds of sparkling precious stones, such as emeralds and sapphires. God had made Adam and Eve live in such a wonderful place, with rivers flowing and trees growing, where no sin or wickedness existed.
In the Garden of Eden there also was the tree of life, apart from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This means that if man ate the fruit of the tree of life, he would not have died. We need to give some more thought to this tree of life. Of course, spiritually speaking the tree of life foreshadows Jesus Christ. In the garden created by God, there were both the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life, but God had told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Other than this tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God had already permitted Adam to eat from every tree, including the tree of life. In other words, to give us true life, God told us to eat from the tree of life rather than the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus attain everlasting life. So it was God’s will for man to eat the fruit of the tree of life and enjoy everlasting life.
So we need to think again why God had placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. After making the entire universe and all things in it, creating man, planting the Garden of Eden, and putting Adam and Eve in the garden to live there and to rule over everything inside, God did not just tell them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but He also told them to eat from the tree of life. Why did God do this? He did this because He wanted man to eat the fruit of the tree of life that He made for him, to give him true and eternal life. The will of God here was for us to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus Christ our Savior has given to all of us, and thus receive the remission of sins and everlasting life to enjoy them forever. In other words, it was to make it possible for us to attain true life through our faith in Jesus Christ, believing that He has blotted out all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Now, we must receive the washing of sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit God has given us. God has given the Holy Spirit into the hearts of us the born-again and made us His true children. We have to realize that God has given true, everlasting life to those who eat the fruit of the tree of life by faith. We should grasp that in His providence and out of His love for us, God has given us so many blessings like this. In other words, God has blessed us so that only those who have faith in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit would be able live forever in the Garden of Eden made by God. It’s for those who have received the remission of sins that God has made Heaven.
We need to ask here then what kind of people can enter the God-made Heaven. This place can be entered only by those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Word of God, by receiving the remission of sins. The Word of God is absolutely just, and good, and holy. All those who believe in this true Word of God can receive the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, become God’s children, and live forever in Heaven.
However, those who eat only from the God-made tree of the knowledge of good and evil leave God and come to have their own standard of good and evil, and so they commit many sins against God to be sentenced to the everlasting punishment of hell. And based on their fallacious standard, they challenge God to judge even His righteousness. That’s why many people are now judging the God of righteousness to be good or evil all on their own in vain, based on their confused thoughts. These are nothing more than empty thoughts. And far from acknowledging the righteousness of God, they are standing against it. It’s a sin for anyone to judge God to be good or evil all on his own carnal thoughts. Such people can never come into the Kingdom of Heaven. If they really want to enter Heaven, they have to throw away their own standard of judgment first, and believe in the gospel of the water and Spirit even now. That is the path that God has set for mankind. This is what today’s Scripture passage is telling us.
Today, God has given a wonderful Heaven that’s like the Garden of Eden only to those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. God the Father has enabled you to realize and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit He has given you through Jesus Christ. However, for those who still cannot believe in the Word of God proclaiming that Jesus Christ has saved them from all sins through the water and the Spirit, it’s ultimately impossible to enter Heaven.
To whom does Heaven then belong in God’s sight? It belongs only to those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the righteous Word of God. Even though many Christians today are attending church with the Bible tucked at their sides, they are only eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for there is no one preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit in their churches. So when they read the Word of God, all they can make out is just letters. Despite the fact that such people have believed in Jesus as their Savior all this time, they have neither heard nor understood properly the gospel of the water and the Spirit written in the Word of God, not even once. Therefore, they can’t help but wonder why God made and placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil even when He knew that Adam and Eve would eat from it. However, those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit know that God did this out of His providence, so that everyone would be able to be remitted from all sins and enter Heaven by faith. The answer to this question is as simple as that.
Even Now, Satan Is Trying to Deceive You
In Genesis chapter three, we see the serpent approaching Eve and saying, “Did God tell you not to eat from every tree in the garden?” Eve then said, “No.” “What did God say then?” Eve said, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die’” (Genesis 3:2-3). What God had actually said to Adam and Eve was this: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). What was then the difference between the Word of God and the words of Eve? Eve omitted the definite name of the tree from God’s Word and added some words (“nor shall you touch it”) arbitrarily to God’s Word. This means that Eve did not believe in what God had told her. As Eve did not believe in the Word of God with her heart, Satan tempted her right away and deceived her, saying, “Just eat it, and you will become like God. God forbade you from eating this fruit because He was afraid that you would become like Him.” Satan succeeded in deceiving Eve by saying that if she ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she would, first of all, become like God; second, she would live forever; and third, she would become wise.
It’s written in Genesis 3:1-6: “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’’ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”
When Satan asked Eve a deceptive question, she answered him hesitantly, saying, “God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” So the Devil stirred up her heart into eating the fruit, saying to her, “You will not surely die.” Who is the serpent here? It refers to the fallen angel. The Book of Isaiah explains how Satan came into existence (Isaiah 14:12-15). God had made spiritual beings to serve Him, but the chief of these God-made angels revolted against Him. This angel had been serving God as His closest lieutenant, but his pride got a better hold of him and he no longer saw God above him, while below him he saw countless angels serving as his minions. So the angel thought to himself, “Hmm. I have so much power now, maybe it’s time for me to challenge God.” He then said to other angels, “Gather around and listen. I am an angel just like you, but I’m tired of serving God towering over us. Let’s drive Him out and take His place.” Lucifer’s words struck a chord among some angels. Not all of the angels agreed with Lucifer, but enough of them agreed that they decided to challenge the authority of God. But as mere angels, they were no match to God. God struck them down and said, “Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depth of the Pit” (Isaiah 14:15).
Only God is omnipotent; all creations including man and spiritual beings such as angels and demons have limited power. But the Devil teaches that everything is possible, claiming that there is nothing impossible. But this is a demonic and arrogant notion. What we should realize here is that it’s because Satan challenged the authority of God that hell came into existence. God did not make hell from the beginning, but He made it to punish the arrogant angels that challenged His authority for their offence. Hell is the place of everlasting fire prepared for Satan and those who stand against the righteousness of God in disbelief.
From the beginning, God made angels and men as personal characters. In other words, He gave them free will to either obey Him or disobey His authority to their liking. God did not make these creatures like man-made robots. The problem, however, is that there are those who reject the love of God and His blessings, asking for His enmity by standing against Him directly. That is why God made hell for these people, to throw them in there and judge them. Hell is where the wrath of God is revealed. To those who stand against Him, God says, “You shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depth of the Pit.” God will cast these rebellious angels and their followers into hell. He made a prison for those who oppose His authority. So applying this principle to every mankind, God will cast human beings into hell and imprison them there if they listen to the words of the wicked Devil and stand against the love of God and the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit that constitutes His righteousness. Therefore, for those who are now bound to that place, their hearts are bound by sin. Whoever doesn’t want to end up in hell must receive the remission of sin by believing in the tree of life the Lord has given—that is, in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. God has saved mankind through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, so that anyone who believes in His Word may enter Heaven.
However, the serpent cast doubt in Eve’s mind so that she would not be able to believe in the Word of God, saying to her, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Listening to these words, Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil forbidden by God. And she judged His Word with her own arrogant thoughts and ended up challenging God’s authority. The result of all this was the fall of man. Man became evil because he listened to the Devil rather than to the righteous God. In essence, Satan made Eve commit the same evil deed against God that he himself had committed. Because Lucifer had also judged good and evil based on his own standard and challenged the authority of God, for this sin he was deservedly condemned to be cast into the accursed pit.
God had said to Adam and Eve that they would surely die if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but Satan told Eve a completely different story, saying to her, “You will not surely die.” This is the exact opposite of what God had actually said: “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Yet Satan deceived Eve by saying, “If you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
But how can man know good and evil before God? And where is the real standard of good and evil? The true standard of good and evil can be established and determined only by the Supreme Being. My fellow believers, all of us may have our own standard of good and evil. But we can never have the absolute standard of good and evil that God has. This absolute standard of good and evil is not something that man can establish. There is no one else but only God who can establish the standard of good and evil. Even though many people are sure of their own judgment to say that this is wrong and that is right, it’s all nothing more than a convenient standard set to gratify their own lust. After all, when we look at our own standard based on the Word of God, isn’t it filled with so many errors?
Not a Few Parts of the Word of God Are Beyond Human Comprehension
As an example, consider the statutes written in Leviticus chapter 13 on how a priest should diagnose lepers. If leprosy was spread all over a patient’s body, the priest had to declare him to be clean, but if the outbreak of leprosy was partial, the priest diagnosed him to be unclean and sent him to the lepers’ colony outside the village. This particular passage is simply beyond our common sense to understand. But the passage actually speaks about the condition of those who are to receive the remission of sins. For those who claim to have sinned just a little bit, God cannot remit away their sins, for these people have not admitted themselves fully as complete sinners. In contrast, for those who confess before God, “I am a completely depraved sinner whose heart and acts are filled with sins. I am a sinner bound to hell,” God gives them His perfect gospel, thereby enabling them to receive the remission of sins by believing in this gospel, and also enter the Kingdom of God by faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is what is meant by the passage in Leviticus chapter 13.
If you want to receive the remission of sins from God, you have to first realize that you can’t help but commit sin until the day you die, and only then can you grasp that you yourself are a grave sinner. And only when you believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by the Lord can you be remitted from all your sins by faith. To do so, you yourself must know what kind of a person you are before God, and you must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. If you don’t realize that you are a sinner even though you have committed countless sins time after time, then you can’t really appreciate the need to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and therefore you will be cast into hell, for without realizing this need, you won’t be able to believe in the gospel even when you come across it. Do you grasp this, my fellow believers?
Everyone must be humble enough to admit his sins before God and ask Jesus to remit them away. It is for such people that God came to this earth and washed away all their sins clean with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Yet despite this, some people say, “Lord, I’ve only committed a few sins. Please forgive them. I will never sin again from now on.” God will then just tell them to depart from His presence, saying to them, “Well, since you’ve committed so few sins, it seems as though you don’t need to be washed from your sins. After all, that’s what you think. You think that maybe you’d be able to wash all your sins away on your own with your emotion, perhaps by offering prayers of repentance in tears.”
There are so many things in the Word of God that we can’t quite understand. Once, Jesus was eating in the house of Simon, a Pharisee. Then, a woman in the city who was a sinner brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping. And she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. And she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now when Simon who had invited Jesus saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, “This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.” Knowing Simon’s mind, Jesus told a story to him, “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?” Of course, the one who was forgiven more would love the creditor more.
The creditor canceled all his debtors’ debts, but the one who owed only a small sum thought that he could pay it off since it wasn’t much, and as a result, he did not seek his creditor’s mercy and did not believe that the creditor had also forgiven his debt. Therefore he remained a debtor always. This shows that God has forgiven all our sins freely, but there are two kinds of people: One group of people think they are not sinners; the other group of people think themselves as grave sinners that deserve to go to hell. Therefore, just as those whose heavy debts are forgiven are thankful to the creditor, those who have been forgiven from their grave sins by the grace of the Lord are thankful to God and also preach to the sinners of the world, “My Master has forgiven my sins like this, and so you should believe in Him also.” The Bible says that only those who know themselves as grave sinners and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can receive the remission of sins and enter Heaven.
God made and placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, and made it known that only those who did not eat from this tree could live in the Garden of Eden. God had said to Adam, “If you eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die,” but Satan said, “Even if you eat from this tree, you will not surely die.” Why did God then make and place such a cursed tree by the tree of life? It was to make us humans more glorious than the status that we had in the beginning. We were mere creatures and not the children of God in the beginning of His creation. But, as Adam and Eve sinned, we were able to wash away all our sins by believing in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit, and enter the Kingdom of God as His children. This wisdom is the very wisdom of God, His mercy, His justice, and the blessing that God has bestowed on man, one of His creatures. Having made us, and prepared His law of good and evil, God wanted us to have faith in His standard of good or evil. God wanted us to know His justice and His love. He wanted us to attain salvation by believing in His love, and to also enjoy everything in the Garden of Eden—that is, Heaven—by believing in the righteousness and justice of God.
However, Satan interfered with Eve so that she would not be able to believe in the Word of God. He incited doubt in her heart and stirred up her greed of the flesh, saying, “Did God say that you shouldn’t eat the fruit of every tree in the Garden of Eden?” So the Devil is an expert in planting doubt and making people stumble. His words are the opposite of God’s Word. God had told Eve, “You shall surely die,” but Satan said, “You will not surely die.” The Devil even said to Eve, “Far from dying, you will become like God and know good and evil.”
But did anything happen according to what the Devil said? Did Eve and Adam really come to know good and evil when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Of course not! Man can live only by faith in obedience to God; by ignoring God, no one can know good and evil. Even though everyone claims to know good and evil, it’s all nothing more than one’s own understanding of good and evil.
Only God is good, and only God can bless us. Unless our hearts have faith in the Word of God and His love, we cannot believe in Him. Yet even though God loves us, we think there is something wrong with Him, wondering, “Why did not God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then tell Adam and Eve not to eat from it knowing that they would eat from it? Did God then make us as toys out of boredom?” Those who fundamentally doubt God can never believe in His love or His profound will. This profound will of God is that out of His love for us, He wants to make us His children.
What we see as good and evil based on our own human standard is far different from what is good and evil in God’s eyes. What God regards as good and evil is what is really good and really evil. What is then our standard of good and evil? It’s a standard based on our own selfishness. So whatever we judge to be good and evil are determined by whether it is beneficial to our own flesh or not. Which judgment is right then? Is it God’s judgment or our own judgment? It is God who makes the real judgment of good and evil.
Who has made Heaven, and who will enter it? It is God who has made Heaven, and it can be entered only by those who believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit God has given us. All those who don’t believe in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit cannot enter there. So even though many people today are attending so-called churches, those who don’t believe in the Word of God that has come by the gospel of the water and the Spirit cannot enter Heaven. What do these people then believe? They believe in their own pastors’ teachings. Yet these pastors, who don’t know the gospel of the water and the Spirit and therefore do not believe in it, can only rely on their own fleshly will and emotion, boasting of their own merits. They are good at memorizing Bible verses, and they give eloquent sermons. They preach philosophical sermons, preparing their notes thoroughly beforehand for their sermons, and deftly commenting on which theologian and which famous person said what.
And they are also experts at exploiting the congregation’s souls by promising fleshly blessings. Since these pastors are all ignorant of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they say to their congregation, “Someone offered a fifth of his income to God by faith, and God has blessed his business to prosper by fifty-fold. Do you believe in this?” When the congregation says amen, they say, “I hope that you would also trust in God and offer a fifth of your income to Him, even if you have to go into debt, and be blessed by God for this. I am sure that God will bless your business by fifty-fold. If you offer half your income to God, He will bless you far more than those who just offer a tenth.” This is what many pastors say nowadays. Such pastors are all liars. If the senior pastor says these things, most members of the congregation would just believe so.
So whenever you hear any pastor preaching, you have to examine carefully whether what this pastor is preaching is biblically founded or not. If a pastor does not preach the Word that blots out sinners’ iniquities from their hearts, then he is not fulfilling his calling. Every pastor should teach, “If you have sin, you have to first believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.” Yet far from this, most pastors just teach their congregation that their sins are blotted out if they offer prayers of repentance. That is not true. Such sermons are all wrong. It’s practically the same as saying to someone who is suffering from appendicitis, “You should just cut open your belly and take out the appendix by yourself.” These people, who are only advocating the prayers of repentance, must also turn around and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and only then can they be saved from sin.
It is by the gospel of the water and the Spirit that our Lord came to this earth as the Savior. What is the gospel of the water and the Spirit then? Most churchgoers do not know what it is. They just say, “Well, water is simply water, and the Spirit is the Holy Spirit.” These Christians are spiritually blind. Every sinner, therefore, must receive the remission of sins and become God’s child by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Word of God. It’s because we have been washed from sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we have received the Holy Spirit and are now able to enter Heaven.
But many people still do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and therefore they cannot believe in this gospel. They believe in God’s Word arbitrarily by interpreting it on their own. That is why they still remain sinful and they will be cast into hell. Today, those who do not preach God’s gospel of the water and the Spirit even as they claim to believe in and preach the Word of God are pseudo-Christians. If someone calls himself a pastor but he does not abide in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then he is a heretic in God’s sight. If God permits, I will speak out about heresy also. Actually, I’ve already published a collection of sermons on heresy titled Heretics, Who Followed the Sins of Jeroboam.
When God made man, did He create man just to take him to hell and make him suffer? Or did He make man to let him live in the Garden of Eden? Do you believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? God made man to give us happiness, to bring the remission of sins to all mankind, to accept us as His own children, to give us everything in the Garden of Eden, to let us live there enjoying all its wonders, and to allow us to live forever praising God, thanking Him, and enjoying His glory. Do you believe in this fact? Or do you think that God made man out of boredom, just to toy with him and throw him into a garbage can when He is tired of playing with him? You must realize God’s profound desire for us, the fundamental purpose for which He made us.
When God made man, He blew the breath of life into his nostrils and turned him into an immortal living being. What then is God’s purpose in making man immortal? It’s to make him live in Heaven for eternity. God first made man as an immortal being, and then gave him the Kingdom of Heaven. Why then, after making the Garden of Eden and placing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in there, did God tell man not to eat from this tree in particular? That’s because God had a will for mankind that He wanted to fulfill. He did this in order to turn us, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, into His children.
The Bible told us that an angel was cast out for challenging God and became the Devil. But when we turn to Genesis chapter one, there is no mention of God making angels. This means that the ultimate purpose of the whole creation is for man, the creature made according to the image of God. The beginning of the Bible states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” What this passage means is that God wanted to make human beings His children by blotting out all their sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit and saving them from sin. God created us and let us fall into sin in order to save us from sin and make us His people. That’s why everything was so disorderly and imperfect at the beginning. To make us His children, God the Father planned to send His Son Jesus Christ with the precondition that this Son would fulfill His righteousness through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
For what purpose then did God make man from the beginning? He created man for the purpose of making us, who had fallen into sin, righteous and His children, to give us heavenly blessings, and to enable us to live forever with God and enjoy the glory of Heaven. That is what is written in the Bible. The Bible says that God the Father chose us in Jesus Christ and saved us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, so that the Father would accept us as His children of glory and grace. In other words, God made us so that we would live in the Garden of Eden, the Kingdom of Heaven.
To Bless Them Forever, God Made Humans
God made all things and finished all His work of creation. He fulfilled all His will in Jesus Christ through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, so that you and I may receive the remission of sins in Jesus Christ and enter Heaven. Do you believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit with your heart? Do you believe that the gospel of the water and the Spirit has blotted out all your sins and mine once for all? Is there anyone who still doesn’t know the gospel of the water and the Spirit? If you don’t know this gospel, all that you have to do is just learn about it and be blessed by God. It’s as simple as that.
Yet despite this, do you still not know the purpose for which God made you, wondering why God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and forbade Adam and Eve from eating it, blaming God for this, and refusing to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? Most Christians profess to believe in God the Father and Jesus Christ even as they don’t know the reason why God created mankind, nor how Jesus has blotted out all their sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Is it really okay to believe in Jesus like this, without knowing the gospel of the water and the Spirit? No, that is just an unrequited love. This unrequited love will only hurt you.
The wages of sin is death. But the gift in Jesus Christ is the remission of sins and everlasting life. By making us believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, God has given us the remission of sins and eternal life to live forever in Heaven by faith. My fellow believers, if you love someone without being loved in return, your heart will be broken, you will be lovesick, and you may even die from your unrequited love. Even though you may trust in God and believe in Jesus as your Savior, if you don’t know how Jesus has blotted out your sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has given you, and if you can’t believe in this gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, then you will face spiritual death.
There are many ridiculous Christians nowadays. All that they do is just attend church and offer prayers of repentance, and since they do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit that is manifested in the Word of God, they have not been able to be washed from their sins. In John chapter three, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Shouldn’t Christians then learn from the Word of God what the gospel of the water and the Spirit is? Shouldn’t they understand this gospel and believe in it? And shouldn’t pastors today be teaching this gospel to their congregation?
Yet they just say, “Water is simply water and the Spirit is the Spirit.” But who doesn’t know this? The water that the Bible speaks of refers to the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist. So you must learn why Jesus was baptized, understand this reason, and believe in it. But Christian leaders today are just telling their congregation to believe in God blindly, and that is why anyone who believes in Jesus, attends church, and gives up his old evil ways is considered a good Christian. After all, when a drunk quits drinking, a smoker gives up smoking, and a hooligan stops fighting with everyone, are they not all praised as good Christians? This kind of faith only produces disciples of Confucius or Socrates obsessed with formal ethics; it has nothing to do with the faith in Jesus who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
My fellow believers, many of today’s church ministers are actually turning their congregation into disciples of some sages. Even though they have put up a cross and are calling on the name of Jesus, in reality, they do not have the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Their idols are Confucius, Buddha, and Socrates—in short, philosophy is the object of their worship. If we believe in Jesus as our Savior, then of course we all have to live virtuously. But when those who neither know nor believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are just told not to commit sin time after time, they actually end up committing even more sins.
God took out one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman out of it. This shows the secret of salvation through Jesus Christ. Where then did our salvation come from? It came from the heart of God and His love. It’s all because God had decided in His heart to save us sinners, to make us righteous in Jesus Christ according to His will. The Scriptures say that Adam is a type of Jesus to come (Romans 5:14), and the woman Eve implies the Church that’s composed of us the saved people. And the rib that God took out of Adam is the closest one to Adam’s heart. Out of His absolute love, God the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ to this earth; and He made Jesus Christ take upon all our sins once for all by being baptized, bear the condemnation of sin on the Cross in our place, and thereby made us sinless and turned us into God’s children. Because this was predetermined by God, our salvation was achieved in Jesus through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
It is written in the Bible, “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: ‘This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
To make Adam’s wife, God put him into a deep sleep. He then took one of Adam’s ribs, closed up the flesh in its place, and made the rib into a woman. Adam was astonished when God brought her to him. So referring to Eve, Adam said,
“This is now the bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.” Who are then those who have now become Christ’s brides? They are those who have been washed from all their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by Jesus.
The brides of Jesus are beautiful. They have no sin, and they don’t get embarrassed before God. Does a married couple get embarrassed over each other’s nakedness? Are little children ashamed to be naked before their own parents? Is it a shame for a wife to be naked before her own husband? Are we the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit ashamed before Jesus Christ, our Husband? Do those who have received the remission of sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit feel embarrassed before God?
It is written, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” To whom should everyone go when he leaves his parents of the flesh? He should go to Jesus Christ and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit He has given us. Only then can one stop remaining a sinner and instead become a righteous person and a bride of Christ. If you still remain a sinner even as you believe in Jesus, then you are not a bride of Jesus Christ. You must believe that by being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus took upon Himself all your sins and all the sins of the world once for all, even the sins that you will commit in the future, and that He was condemned for them all in your place. Is it then right for you to live as a sinner every day, today and tomorrow? If we really believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then how can we still be sinners, when Jesus has blotted out all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit? We must believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit given by our Lord.
“A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The Bible says that two shall join and become one body. When a man and a woman get married, it means that they are uniting their hearts together. At the wedding, the bride wears a veil. Do you think this veil is worn just to look pretty? Why do you think a bride wears this veil on the wedding day? By wearing the veil, the bride is confessing, “From today on, my head no longer exists. Henceforth you are my head. You are my head and I am your body. You have dominion over me.”
However, so many men and women in this world think that marriage is just a union of the body. The real marriage, in contrast, is a union of both the heart and the body. For the body to become one, the heart must be united first. If we want to marry Jesus Christ, then we must first unite our hearts with Jesus’ heart by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Our hearts must be in union with the Lord first, professing, “Lord, You are truly my Groom. To take me as Your bride, You have washed away all my sins with Your baptism and Your blood on the Cross.” We were all sinners, but to make us His brides, Jesus Christ came to this earth, washed away all our sins once for all and made us righteous by being baptized, and paid off the wages of our sins, which is death, by bearing the condemnation of sin in our place. And rising from the dead again, He has crowned us with His own crown, clothed us with the garment of faith that never gets soiled, shod us with the shoes of witnesses who preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and adorned us with the gold necklaces and diamond earrings of faith. Wanting to marry us, the Lord thus paid for everything to adorn us. And He is still proposing to every sinner with the gospel ring of the water and the Spirit. Once you accept this proposal and marry Him, you will also become one heart and one body with Christ.
However, despite the fact that the Groom has given a spotless dress adorned with all kinds of priceless jewels to everyone, some people didn’t put it on, as they didn’t believe Him. So when the Lord asked them to marry Him, they said, “No, I won’t marry You as I can’t trust You. You just look like a charlatan.” Since these brides didn’t adorn themselves spiritually for the wedding, they are not qualified to marry the Lord. The Lord will demand from them a large indemnity for the wedding dress He had given them. But they cannot pay indemnities; they have nothing to offer except their bodies. What will the Lord do then? He will say, “Cast them all into hell!”
My fellow believers, the Lord has asked us to marry Him by giving us the gospel of the water and the Spirit. If we reject His proposal in spite of this, then we will just be asking for His wrath. Do you grasp this? Jesus received baptism on His body and even gave up His own life for His brides, and He has thereby cleansed away our hearts’ sins as white as snow. He has crowned us and given us all the treasures of the Garden of Eden. And He is now extending His hands to us, asking us to live with Him. The Lord wants us to believe in His love completely. It is written,
“Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy as cruel as the grave;
Its flames are flames of fire,
A most vehement flame” (Song of Solomon 8:6).
God had planned to give everything to all of us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and He made everything under this plan. However, His love can be changed into wrath if one rejects His grace to the end. Even though God made us and gave us everything, many people still listen to the words of the Devil instead and reject the love of the Groom, saying, “I can’t believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It’s too suspicious.” The Lord’s proposal will be withdrawn if we reject His love to the end. What happens when one sides with the Devil before the Groom? He ends up turning into one of the Devil’s servants. What will happen to the bride that rejects the love of the Groom? She will be cast into the Devil’s destination. Do you grasp this?
It’s with a good purpose that God made us. Yet do you still find it hard to believe in the Word of God? Is it possible for us to still have sin in our hearts even when we believe in Jesus? No, that’s impossible. Is there anyone here whose heart still remains sinful, even as this person believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? If so, then there is something wrong here. Such people have sin only because they do not really know the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Only when you understand the gospel of the water and the Spirit clearly manifested in the Bible, can you then believe in this gospel and preach it. If you otherwise don’t understand this gospel, then you will be placed under the curse. And if you try to be a minister in this state of ignorance, you will just end up patching a few quotes from here and there in your teaching, and ultimately turn into nothing more than a teacher of ethics. You should never allow this to happen to you.
To us only, to those who believe His Word of the water and the Spirit alone, God has given the remission of sins, as well as the right and blessing to possess Heaven. But for those who don’t believe in the God-spoken Word of the water and the Spirit, God has set that they should be deceived by the Devil to ultimately turn into his slaves and be cast into hell where the Devil is heading for. That is the gist of the today’s Scripture passage.
It is to enable us to live in His wonderful Heaven that God made us, allowed us to turn into sinners for a short while, and then spoke the gospel of the water and the Spirit to us and saved us. There is something that God the Father achieved by sending Jesus Christ to this earth and working through Him. That is the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and He wrote it in the Bible. For those who spread this gospel Word and those who accept this Word exactly as it is, God has permitted them to enter Heaven. However, for those who don’t believe in the Word of God that has come by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, God has allowed them to turn into the Devil’s slaves. That is the will of God.
As such, all those who still do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and therefore have received neither the remission of sins nor the Holy Spirit into their hearts, should take this opportunity to believe in this genuine gospel, be washed from all their sins, and become Christ’s brides. It’s out of His desire to bring the remission of sins and the Holy Spirit into the hearts of the righteous that our Lord has given us the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
I give all my thanks to our God.
Copyright © 2021 by The New Life Mission