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Pray that this pandemic will end soon and the resumption of the postal service.
Subject 3 : The Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
[3-22] The Righteousness of the Lord Is Absolutely Necessary for Us Who Always Commit Sin (Matthew 9:9-13)
(Matthew 9:9-13)
“As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, ‘Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard that, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”
Those Who Are Well Have No Need of a Physician
The main content of the passage of Scripture we just read today depicts the scene where Jesus was having a meal in the house of a tax collector named Matthew and the Pharisees criticized Him for eating with such sinners. Our Lord then told them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12).
The key point here is the difference between the viewpoint of the religious practitioners and Jesus’ viewpoint. From the viewpoint of the Pharisees, they considered Jesus and His disciples having meals with sinners as below their standard of common sense. The religious practitioners of those days thought that their way of life was much better than that of the disciples. They questioned how Jesus, “this so-called Great Teacher,” could have a meal with a tax collector named Matthew. They questioned how Jesus could even think about having a meal with a tax collector who they considered a traitor of their country. Matthew the tax collector mentioned here was someone who like today works in a revenue office, and at that time the Israelites thought that tax collectors made a living sucking blood out of the people by collecting much tax. But Jesus and the disciples of Jesus went into the house of this Matthew and had a meal together with him and his friends. This is why the Pharisees criticized Jesus and His disciples.
But the reality was that our Lord came to this world to call sinners. The Lord dwelt in the house of a sinner and had a meal with them because He came to call sinners in this world. But the Pharisees were of a different opinion. Were they not like that? Did they not think like that even though the Lord wanted to save sinners and make them His disciples?
In today’s Word we see the Lord saying something very significant to the Pharisees. He said, “When Jesus heard that, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick’” (Matthew 9:12). Dear fellow believers, from Jesus’ point of view, He considered a person like Matthew mentioned here including the Pharisees here as sinners. In the Lord’s eyes, they were all sinners. All humans are insufficient and weak and commit sins throughout their lives. And if that is not enough, they are born with sin from the moment of birth. This is why we need Jesus, our Savior. But how did these religious people look at this person called Matthew and Jesus? From what perspective do religious people look at someone when they believe in God? Religious practitioners do not know themselves well and instead will always boast of their own righteousness before the presence of God. Religious people will try and brag about their own merits before Jesus. This is why the viewpoint of religious practitioners and that of Jesus are at opposing ends.
These religious practitioners tried to show their holiness to Jesus who is God. But Jesus told them that they all needed salvation because they were sinners who lied and coveted like Matthew. Jesus considered not only the tax collector Matthew who was a public sinner and a traitor of his country but also the Pharisees as sinners. To Jesus, such people who collected tax upon tax from their own people for the Roman Empire were also pocketing the overflow tax for themselves were not the only sinners. All the people who are born to this world cannot but be sinners like that. Hence Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” That is, He was referring to you and me. He was saying that we are the people who commit sins always throughout our entire lifetime.
Jesus said here, all those who are sick need a physician, thus, everyone needs Jesus because everyone is lacking and everyone is tainted with sins. We are such people who are always lacking and cannot but sin like this Matthew the tax collector. In the Lord’s eyes, everyone is insufficient before Him. Everyone is sinners who commit sins from the moment of their birth until the moment they die.
However, how do those who do not know themselves look at someone like Matthew? They look at a person like Matthew as “someone that we must not associate with.” Do they not think like that? But in Jesus’ eyes we are actually no different from a person like Matthew. We are the same insufficient people who always commit sins. We are the people who cannot but commit sins from the moment we are born in this world until the moment we die. This is why the Lord said that those people who are sick with sin need a physician like Jesus. In Jesus’ eyes, we are all the same sinners that commit sins. People commit sins from the moment they are born in this world until they get old and die, but the religious practitioners think that they are different from a sin-sick person like Matthew.
However, He wanted us all to become the people who desire His mercy. Our Lord wanted us to become the people who desire God’s mercy. The Lord wanted from all of humanity a heart that desires God’s mercy. The Lord wanted to give the gospel of the water and the Spirit to those who seek mercy from God, crying out from a sincere heart, “Lord God, show mercy on me. I want to live an upright life after being born in this world and I have tried and resolved in myself to live an upright life, but I have continued to commit sins and have constantly fallen into sin. I am a person who commits sin so often. Lord, please have mercy on me and save me from all my sins. Lord, how did you save me from all my sins?”
The Lord wants us to seek mercy from Him in this sincere way. In the Lord’s eyes, we humans should ask Him to show mercy on us and seek the true way to receive the remission of our sins from God. This is the very thing humankind must seek from Jesus Christ and be praying for. We humans must first acknowledge in our hearts that we are sinners who commit sins from the moment we were born in this world until the moment we die. And then we must believe that the Lord has saved us who are sin-sick from all our sins by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Lord wanted to meet such a person like Matthew who sought His help to be saved from all his sins with a poor spirit. God wanted to see the heart of this person who sought help from Him by depending on the gospel of the water and the Spirit because he had many shortcomings and did not have any righteousness in himself. Therefore, our Lord said, “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
What kind of a person does God want to save from sins? And to whom does God want to give eternal life too? The Lord came to this world to give salvation and eternal life to those who believe wholeheartedly in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Lord did not come to this world to call people who thought they do not commit any sins and those who try to live a holy life in their own strength. Rather, the Lord came to this world in order to call and give true salvation to all those who could not keep the Law of God properly. We must believe that the Lord has came to call such people who are lacking, weak, and do not have much righteousness of their own, and we must also believe that He has blotted out all their sins. Hence the Lord said, “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Matthew 9:13).
It is really like that. In the Lord’s eyes, we do not have any righteousness before the presence of God, but the Lord came to save us all by the water and the Spirit we who only commit sins until we die of old age. As the Lord said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” all of us humans must receive salvation by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We humans need the gospel of the water and the Spirit which the Lord gave because we commit sins from the moment we are born until we die. We would not need a spiritual physician if we could live a righteous life so that there were no need of the Lord-given gospel of the water and the Spirit. As a sick person needs a physician, it is wrong to say that the sin-sick mankind does not need the Lord who manifested the gospel of the water and the Spirit. From the Lord’s viewpoint, all humans are such beings that need the mercy of the Lord. It is because humankind is such weak beings that are always lacking, always commit sins, and are always weak.
However, before the presence of our Lord, how about these religious practitioners? They come before the presence of the Lord trying to boast of their own righteousness, rather than asking mercy from Him. They claim that they are different from all those other sinners. They think that they are fundamentally different from the people who do not believe in God. Hence, the religious practitioners cannot receive mercy from the Lord because of this. They consequently take their sins by themselves and go to hell on their own.
In order to not fall into such condemnation, we must acknowledge that we are the people who have nothing righteous in our entire life by our works and become the people who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit which God has given. A person who can receive salvation from God is someone who acknowledges before the presence of God that he is a complete sinner and accepts the gospel of the water and the Spirit with the heart seeking mercy from God. Anyone who receives true salvation like this is someone who knows the righteousness of the Lord and can accept in his heart the Word of God that the Lord has truly blotted out all his sins by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Hence, only all those who believe in and depend on only the righteousness of God can receive salvation from their sins. And only those who know that they always need the righteousness of the Lord can receive salvation from all their sins. The Lord sees the faith of such people and gives salvation to them. Those who have already believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit which is the righteousness of the Lord have come to receive salvation by faith.
We Humans Need the Gospel Which Is the Righteousness of the Lord Each and Every Moment
We commit sins always 24/7, so we need the righteousness of the Lord each moment, each day, each week, each month, each year, and during our whole lifetime. We always need the grace of the Lord who came to this world and took up all our sins upon Himself once and for all by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist. We always need that grace of salvation that was accomplished by the Lord who received the judgment on the Cross because He had taken all our sins upon His flesh by being baptized by John the Baptist. Why is it like this? It’s because we humans commit sins everyday because we are lacking. You and I need the Lord’s grace everyday and we are all sick from a spiritual point of view. We always need the righteousness of the Lord because we are all insufficient. In order to blot out all our sins, our Lord received the baptism, was crucified on the Cross, and became our Savior by being resurrected from death. Hence, we need this grace of salvation everyday. We must always abide in the grace of salvation which our Lord has given. While living in this world today, tomorrow, and everyday, we always need the grace of salvation which the Lord has given us by the gospel of the Water and the Spirit.
We have here today a brother who just returned to Church after two years of military service. A young brother like this might fall into many sins while living in a place without God’s Church. At such times, such a young man needed this grace of the Lord who saved us by coming to this world, taking all our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, and being crucified on the Cross. The people who are in God’s Church now also need this grace of salvation everyday. Our Lord took all our sins upon Himself once and for all and received the judgment for all our sins because you and I are insufficient. Dear fellow believers, do you need the grace of the Lord everyday, or don’t not? You do need it everyday. The Lord saved weak people just like us who need His grace everyday.
However, Some People Come before the Lord to Boast of Their Own Righteousness instead of Seeking Mercy from Him
Religious practitioners come to the Lord to continually boast of their good works saying, “Lord, I have done many righteous works during this week. I have done volunteer work three times this week. I have offered up much money, tithed much, offered up much offering of thanksgiving, and witnessed about You much during this week.” They bring their own righteousness like this whenever they come before the Lord.
However, how about the people who truly know and believe in the Lord’s love, the people who know and believe that the Lord has blotted out all their sins by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and that the Lord has become their eternal Savior? Contrary to these religious practitioners, they seek the mercy of God whenever they come before the presence of God, whenever they pray, and whenever they offer up worship in a service. They come before the Lord in a powerless state since they know their shortcomings before the presence of God. Therefore, such people sing praises to the Lord and think about the lyrics of that praise song and acknowledge that they are really such people. And they thank the Lord who really saved them who are like that and ruminate on the gospel of the water and the Spirit again. And they receive new strength spiritually as they do this. They receive new strength spiritually by praising the righteousness of God and go back and do the works the Lord has entrusted to them.
How about you then? Do you belong to the category of these religious practitioners or not? Someone who depends on the grace the gospel of salvation which the Lord has given is someone who seeks the mercy of the Lord. Such people are pleasing to the Lord’s heart. Those who live like this are approved by the Lord. Occasionally there are times when we also are full of our own righteousness when we come before the presence of the Lord. And there are times when we come before God by being filled with the Holy Spirit. However, you and I are not like that every moment of the day. What is important here is that the Lord is pleased with those who come before Him by having faith of knowing and believing in the righteousness of the Lord and the love of the Lord and give glory to God. God accepts such people.
We Were All Sin-Sick Souls
Our Lord spoke about salvation of the sin-sick people, saying, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Dear fellow believers, were we fundamentally sin-sick people before the presence of the Lord? Were you and I healthy or sin-sick before the presence of the Lord? We all were sin-sick. That is, we all were insufficient people.
All Christians throughout the entire world must not emphasize their righteousness and try to show it off before the presence of the Lord. I do not want them to try to accumulate their own righteousness. Cain brought the products of the land such as tomatoes, pumpkins, potatoes, and grains before the presence of God. Cain brought such products of the land which he worked for and offered these things up to God, but God did not accept these offerings.
What is this saying to us? It teaches us that God does not accept the righteousness of humans. However, Christian believers throughout the entire world today bring their own righteousness to God like Cain. They have done much relief work all in the name of the Lord. They have evangelized their cities. They have Christianized their cities. And they have given many things to the homeless. They have treated many sick people medically. They have funded the surgical procedures of 100 blind people during one year. Then they brag about this saying, “We have donated and funded the surgery of 100 blind people and made them see again. We have evangelized the gospel in many countries by funding this work.” Christians are absorbed in exhibiting their own righteousness like this.
However, God does not want people to do such things. God rather wants people to accept the righteousness of Jesus who became the physician and who cured all sin-sick people by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. God admonishes us to believe in His righteousness that saved us from the sins of the world and His judgment. The Lord took all our sins away once and for all by being baptized by John the Baptist and received the judgment for all our sins by being crucified on the Cross and brought us who were dead back to life again. The Lord saved us in the midst of destruction and made us the children of God and the workers of God who can preach the righteousness of God all over the world. The Lord wants us to come to Him with such faith. God wants us to be thankful to Him who made us as such righteous people and He also wants the sin-sick people who still do not know His righteousness to come to Him by faith.
We must come to the Lord because we are so thankful for His salvation that blotted out all our sins by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And we must also depend on the righteousness of the Lord in order to preach this salvation to other people. Because we are so thankful for the grace of salvation we have received from God, we devote ourselves to the preaching of the gospel of the water and the Spirit to all peoples. We must come to the Lord in order to fulfill the works the Lord has entrusted us with and to thank the Lord who has fulfilled all these things. Hence, we are having worship services a few times every week to share God’s Word, to pray, and to give praise to the Lord. God is pleased with such worship services we offer up to Him. I give thanks to the Lord for taking all our sins upon Himself and blotting them out. I give thanks by faith for making us sinless people. And I am also so very thankful for making us His workers who can do the righteous work.
People throughout the entire world have fallen into religions, and to worsen matters Christian leaders today preach only the blood of the Cross without even knowing the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is why we must instruct them of the righteousness of the Lord. We must preach to all the people of the world and instruct them that the Lord has saved all the people of the world from its sins and judgment, made us the true believers into the children of God, given eternal life, given eternal riches and power and blessings. Christian leaders of the entire world must believe and preach this gospel of the water and the Spirit to themselves first, then to all the believers in their churches, and to all the people of the world. They must believe in this work of salvation and preach to the lost souls that the Lord took all their sins and all the sins of the whole world upon Himself by receiving the baptism, received the judgment on the Cross for those sin, shed His blood and died on the Cross, and thereby has became our eternal Savior by being resurrected from death. They must preach by faith the love of God and the salvation of God that saved all humanity. They must boast of this and preach this truth whenever they stand behind the pulpit. And they must praise this and desire to preach this wonderful gospel all over the world.
For example, a certain woman named Mary poured an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil that was worth about one year’s worth of wages upon Jesus. She broke the alabaster flask and poured the very costly fragrant oil all on the head of Jesus. At that time, Judas saw this and thought indignantly, “Why is Jesus letting this woman pour such precious perfume on His head? Would it not be better to sell that costly oil and distribute the money to the poor?”
But what did Jesus say at that time? He said to His disciples, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always” (Matthew 26:10-11). The Lord already knew that He would die on the Cross because He took all the sins of all humanity upon His flesh by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist. And He would become our eternal Savior by being resurrected from death. He was speaking about this. Thus, the Lord told them, “Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.”
No matter how many good works we do in the flesh, there are many poor and sick people in this earth. It’s because humanity continues to become sick and continually commits sins because they have departed from God, and Satan is now ruling over this world. And humans continue to die and suffer tribulation because of this. And only when they start suffering terribly will they start thinking of returning to God. The Lord closes His eyes and pretends to not see these people who do such things and suffer unrighteous things now. The Lord is letting such things happen now in order to judge them on the Day of Judgment. Therefore, in the Lord’s eyes, this woman who poured this very costly fragrant oil out on the head of Jesus was a righteous person.
Would poverty disappear if we consistently helped the poor? Of course it’s better than not helping them at all. But what would change fundamentally? Can it be worthwhile for Christians today to just do such things, like providing relief to the poor unconditionally without end? We Christians must know the love of God and know and believe that God has blotted out all our sins by the gospel of the water and the Spirit and then to preach this gospel. We must rather help people with the purpose of preaching this gospel. However, today’s Christians put aside the righteousness of Jesus who is the physician of the sin-sick and put aside the salvation of Jesus that saved all humanity by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Instead they try helping people in a fleshly way all to boast of their own righteousness and then tell people to believe in Jesus by modeling after their righteousness. Like this, they are consequently boasting of their own denomination and come to establish their founders and leaders. This is so wrong.
The viewpoint of these religious practitioners and that of Jesus was different like this. When Jesus looked at the person called Matthew, he was someone who always committed sins and therefore needed Jesus always. Matthew was a person who could not but die if it were not for Jesus Christ. He would have been destroyed if not for Jesus. He was a person destined for hell if Jesus had not taken this person’s sins upon Himself by being baptized by John the Baptist and be crucified on the Cross and become this person’s Savior by being resurrected from death. Hence, Jesus was absolutely necessary for this person, and like him Jesus is a physician to us all.
However, How Are These Religious Practitioners?
The Lord told these religious practitioners that they are wrong. The Lord told them, “Do not boast of your own righteousness. You do not have any righteousness. The righteousness you are boasting of is nothing and totally invalid. Even if you have provided relief for people who were dying and you have treated the sick medically with your hard earned money and even if you have lived such a life throughout your life, all such good deeds become invalid if you have hated or lied to someone even once in your entire life.” The Lord says to these religious practitioners who boast of their own righteousness, “Know your sins and know that you are not upright before the presence of God. Know that you commit many sins constantly. Ask God to have mercy on you and thus receive the remission of sins by accepting His love of salvation that the Lord gave to you and to all of humanity.” The Lord wants to meet such sin-sick people and save them completely.
The viewpoint of these religious practitioners and that of Jesus are very different. The faith of the Christian believers today is also so wrong. What is the difference between Christianity and Buddhism? When we watch Christian TV programs these days, they tell viewers that they have to buy broadcasting equipment in order to preach the gospel throughout the entire world. And so they ask viewers to call a particular phone number and would then charge them a certain amount for that phone call and then deposit the profit into the bank account of this particular Christian broadcasting company. They tell the viewers that this would allow them to buy the necessary equipment to witness Jesus throughout the entire world. Hence, they ask the viewers to call this designated number a few times to support their Christian broadcasting company. And I thought only Christian broadcasting programs did such things.
But when I flipped to a Buddhist TV program, they also were collecting money in the same way. They were saying that if viewers called them on the Buddhist TV program, they would be able to buy some broadcasting equipment with that profit enabling them to spread the scent of Buddha in the Buddhist world. There is nothing different between Christianity and Buddhism. Even the way they collect money is same. Today’s Christian leaders say that believers would receive blessings when they offer up a lot of money, and tithe a lot by faith. Swindlers in Christianity tell lies that the religious are cured of their sicknesses and become rich when they pray a lot. And what do the Buddhists do? They say that their children will be prosperous and have their wishes fulfilled if they give a lot of alms, pray much, and bow to Buddhist statues earnestly. Even this is not any different from Christianity at all. They say such and such things happen when a believer does certain things.
The Lord Is Not Pleased with Such Faith
The Lord is not pleased with the faith of religious practitioners. The Lord is not pleased with such faith that religious practitioners throughout the entire world have these days. Instead, God is pleased with His workers who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and work for the spreading of this gospel. We must acknowledge our own shortcomings and yearn for the mercy from the Lord and believe in and depend on the righteousness of the Lord everyday. The Lord is pleased with us who are like this and approves us to be right. And the Lord entrust us with the work of serving the gospel.
Dear fellow believers, you must receive the cleansing of your sins first if you believe in the Lord. Then only will you receive salvation and from all judgment. You can then start helping others after you have received the remission of your sins. We need the righteousness of the Lord everyday even after receiving the remission of sins by faith. Hence, we live the life of faith by this grace. The Lord is pleased with you and me who carry out the Lord’s command like this and preach the gospel of the Lord just as He commanded us too.
We must live out our faith properly. We must know the righteousness of God before we start to live out our faith. We must know and believe in the truth of God. The Lord said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). The gospel of the water and the Spirit is none other than the Truth. The gospel of the water and the Spirit is the Truth that saved you and me from all our sins. We must live out our faith after receiving salvation from our sins by knowing and believing in this. After receiving salvation from our sin, we must then serve the Lord and preach the righteousness of the Lord throughout the entire world.
But religious practitioners do not know this gospel of the truth and instead boast of their own righteousness before the presence of the Lord. They offer up their life as a missionary and dedicate their life to do volunteer works and do all night prayers at the risk of their own health. All these things are the fruit of the ground that Cain had offered to God. And they bring such earthly things to the Lord.
The Lord is not happy with such things. The Lord clearly said, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13). Every human being must seek mercy from God. The Lord wants a person who seeks mercy from the Lord to say sincerely, “Lord, have pity on me.” The Lord does not want people to offer sacrifices blindly. God does not want us to set up a table adorned with food before Him and tell Him to eat it and then ask that He bestow many blessings upon us. Our Lord does not want such things. The Lord is not pleased with us when we bring a lot of things out of our merits to Him and ask Him to give us something conditionally. The Lord wants you and me to come before the presence of the Lord with thanksgiving because He has saved us by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And the Lord is pleased with someone like this who works by knowing and believing that he is a person who always needs the righteousness of the Lord.
When we look at the spiritual lives of Christian believers throughout the entire world, we can see clearly that they are full of religious hypocrisies and wrongdoings. They must change their thinking. Let’s read the Word from Matthew 9:14-17: “Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.’”
Dear fellow believers, we cannot understand the Word from verse 17 if we just look at it from the context of a Korean culture. Why is that so? It states that they put wine in a wineskin, but we Koreans do not put wine in a wineskin. We put liquor in a jar or a wooden barrel. However, the culture of this region as recorded in the Scriptures is the Palestinian culture. The people of this region used the skin of a goat or sheep much because they used to engage in stock-farming. They skinned a goat or sheep and dried its skin sprinkling it with salt, then leaving it in the sunlight to dry. When dried they then made sacks out of these skins by tying both sides of these skins to store drink in it. That is what a wineskin mentioned here is.
When the wine has been fermenting in this wineskin for a long time, the wine becomes spoiled because the wineskin is made of skin. It starts to rot. After a long time a wineskin can be moth-eaten or becomes rotten or worn out. What would happen if one made new wine and put it in one of these old wineskins? This new wine would spill out. One would not be able to drink that wine. Anyway, the main point of this Word of the Lord is that people must change the way of thinking that they used to have all throughout their religious lives.
If someone comes before Jesus after realizing his sins, he can receive the cleansing of all his sins by faith of believing in the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and the blood He shed on the Cross. He thus becomes a child of God. The Lord wanted all of us humans to become like this. The Lord wanted us to receive from God instead of offering something up to Him. The Lord wanted us to receive salvation and eternal life from Him and to receive such blessings of becoming His children.
However, if people try to accept the teachings of this Word of Jesus with their ingrained thoughts by which they used to lead their spiritual life before, then this new wine of the Word will spill out and be ruined instead of being stored in the heart. This wine of this powerful Word makes that old wineskin burst, and then this Word is spilled to the ground and becomes useless to them. The religious practitioners of this world must change their fundamental thinking without delay. Christians today have practiced their religious lives for so long now because they do not know nor believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It means that they have come before the presence of God only by believing in the blood of Jesus on the Cross alone. They have practice religious lives insisting that that we must also sacrifice to the Lord since the Lord first sacrificed Himself for us like this and that we must give up our lives to the Lord also. However, we must not live such a life of faith from now on.
They must now know that they are sinners who commit sins everyday before the presence of the Lord. They must acknowledge that they are the people who commit sins until the moment they die. And they must know that they cannot cleanse their sins by offering prayers of repentance diligently or by weeping and lamenting. Thus, they must accept by faith the remission of sins the Lord has given.
The Lord said,
“‘Come now, and let us reason together,’
Says the LORD,
‘Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool’” (Isaiah 1:18).
The Lord took all our sins upon Himself by being baptized by John the Baptist and received judgment for all our sins by shedding all His blood on the Cross. He became our eternal Savior by dying like this and being resurrected. The Lord made us as white as snow by saving us from sins like this. Hence, everyone must believe in this gospel of salvation. Everyone must now believe in this and come to God with thanksgiving. Everyone must become someone who gives thanks to God because they have become sinless in their hearts. The Lord commanded the disciples to preach this precious gospel of Truth to the people and likewise, we must become such people of faith that preach this Truth with gratefulness.
Christians throughout the entire world are sin-sick before the presence of the Lord. But the reality is they do not know that they are sin-sick. They are the sin-sick people and they have to receive mercy from the Lord in order for them to live, but they do not know this. Therefore, they must really seek mercy from God. They must seek mercy from the Lord, pounding their chest and praying sincerely, “Lord, have mercy on me. Please save me. Lord, I have not lived righteously and I have not tithed and I am a person who only has evil thoughts everyday. I am such a person. Lord please save me. I will be saved if you Lord save me, for I cannot receive my salvation and consequently will go to hell if you Lord do not save me.” We must have such a pure and honest heart. We must become such humble-hearted people.
We must never come before the Lord like the Pharisees, saying, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess” (Luke 18:11-12). Those who have lived a spiritual life in this way until now must change their way of thinking before the presence of the Lord. We must look at ourselves from the Lord’s viewpoint instead of our viewpoint. What kind of faith must we have to come before the presence of the Lord to please Him? The Lord is pleased with those who come before Him by believing in His love and His righteousness instead of their own righteousness. We must lead such a spiritual life that returns glory to God out of gratefulness for the salvation of the Lord. Dear fellow believers, is this true or not true? It is true.
Today’s passage of Scripture is very simple and easy to understand. We can even memorize it completely. However, many people do not understand what this Word is really saying. The Lord said, “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” This verse means that there is no one who is sinless in this respect. Everyone has sin, for it is written, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But despite this, the Lord came and saved us humans by His righteousness when we could not but go to hell. Because the Lord so loved us, He took all our sins upon Himself by receiving the baptism, was crucified to death on the Cross, and saved us all by being resurrected from death. We have been saved from sin by faith because of this salvation. The Lord has called us sinners and blotted out all our sins by this gospel of the water and the Spirit and made us the children of God. The Lord has made sinners the righteous without having even one iota of sin. The Lord came to this world to fulfill this for us.
However, people misunderstand today’s passage of Scripture and always condemn themselves. They think it is true that they have sins even if they believe in Jesus. They think it is proper that they call out to the Lord in their state with sins. They think that when they come before the presence of the Lord, they must always come as sinners and that they must be people with sin, and not people without sin. Also, since the Lord said that a sick person needs a physician and a healthy person does not need a physician, they misunderstand this also and insist firmly that they must be always sinners. Hence, they continue to remain religious practitioners. And although they do not have anything righteous, they continue to boasts of their own righteousness. Therefore, they cannot receive the remission of sins and lose their everything by being deceived by swindlers. These sinner Christians are being plundered by them.
The Lord said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The Lord came to this world to save us by taking all our sins away through the baptism He received from John the Baptist, was crucified on the Cross, and was resurrected from death. The Lord came in this way to this world to make us the sinless children of God.
However, hirelings, that is, the religious leaders of today, have come to rob the people. These religious leaders who are the hirelings rob people of their offerings, time, effort, and everything. You must clearly know that someone who has sin in his heart cannot go to Heaven even if he believes in Jesus. Hence, the people who are leading a spiritual life deceived by these religious hirelings will go to hell. You must not live such useless spiritual lives being deceived by these hirelings. I have spoken about such things a lot these days. The Scripture talks about such things clearly, but people do not know this. Why do they not know this? It’s because they interpret the Word of God in a fleshly way.
There has not been any righteous person originally, for it is written, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). Everyone was a sinner. However, the Lord came to this world and saved us by receiving the baptism from John the Baptist, was crucified on the Cross, and was resurrected from death. Therefore, after this work of salvation, all those who know and believe in this fact have become the righteous. They have all become the children of God.
Dear fellow believers, you must not interpret the Scriptures in a fleshly way. You must read the Word in a spiritual way. And you must look at yourself from the Lord’s standpoint, and from the Lord’s viewpoint. And you must see whether or not the Lord has blotted out all our sins from the Lord’s viewpoint. We must see whether you and I are such beings who need the Lord everyday from the Lord’s viewpoint. You must know and believe in the spiritual gospel of the water and the Spirit. All people throughout the entire world must return to the gospel of God by faith. Everyone must return to God by knowing and believing in His righteousness. And we who believe must preach this gospel of the water and the Spirit continually throughout the entire world.
There are still so many lost souls in this world. We have preached this gospel of Truth a lot through our electronic e-books and also through our printed books. Not all the people throughout the entire world who use internet have visited out website. We have also distributed this genuine gospel to many among the lost people of this world. Now we have plans to make leaflets that introduce this gospel of the water and the Spirit to the people who cannot use the internet. We will work in this way so that everyone can meet the Lord. We hope and pray that many sin-sick people will meet the Lord through all our ministries.
Halleluiah!
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