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Pray that this pandemic will end soon and the resumption of the postal service.
Subject 18 : GENESIS
[Chapter 2-3] The Seventh Day, When God Rested after Creating the Universe and All Things in It (Genesis 2:1-3)
(Genesis 2:1-3)
“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.”
I give thanks to our God for delivering us from all our sins through His endless Grace and Mercy. Today I would like to share with you about ‘the spiritual meaning of God’s rest on the seventh day’ after He had finished all things in the heavens and the earth. Today’s Scripture passage tell us that God rested on the seventh day after He had completed all things in all their vast array including us humans in six days. This tells us that God the Father had accomplished all of His plans through His Son, Jesus Christ.
At What Point Was God’s Plan Completed?
This verse tells us that God had finished all of His creative works from the first to the sixth day and rested on the seventh day. This asserts that all of God the Father’s plans were completed in Jesus Christ.
The perfect God created the universe and all things in it, especially us humans. Yet from our perspectives, some aspects of God’s creation may look imperfect. For example, this world is full of sin and villains rule in this world. So doubts start to arise within us as to why God created such a sinful world and not a perfectly beautiful one. Also, when we look at certain organic structures, they appear imperfect to us. Maybe that explains why there are so many evolutionists in this world.
However, the Scripture tells us that God rested on the seventh day because He had completed the works of Creation. This passage presupposes the coming of Jesus Christ to this world in order to accomplish God’s righteousness. Jesus Christ is the Almighty God, the Alpha and Omega, the One who completed all the works of Creation. Jesus Christ came to this world and accomplished all of the Father’s plans. When we enter with faith into the accomplished or completed works of Jesus, the will of God is completed.
Because God created humans on the sixth day, humanity has therefore been given the number six. Number seven in the Bible signifies God. This is so because God rested on the seventh day after He had completed His works of Creation in six days. That is why we call seven the perfect number. As God completed all things on the seventh day, likewise Jesus Christ perfectly completed His will in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
In the Book of Revelation, the number 666 appears. This number tells us that a human being will in the near future pretend to be God. It was the Triune God who created the heavens and the earth. But a human being will rebel against God by trying to take His place. The evil world will arrive when this one person, that is the Antichrist, will make his appearance and bring his rule over everyone.
When the Antichrist makes his appearance with the intention of ruling over the entire world, his first intentions will be to secure absolute military control, and following that, the world economy. Already the world is being reorganized into an enormous economic community. The European Community is leading this movement. Gradually national borders and nationalities will begin to disappear, and everyone will fall under a single great governing system. When this evil time arrives, the Antichrist will send out a decree for an electronical mark to be inscribed on the back of everyone’s hand or forehead, in order to control all people in this entire world. Today’s technological advancements make it very possible to inject microchips beneath human skin in order to control people. Soon the day will arrive when evil dictators will be able to locate and control each and every person living on this earth with the aid of satellites.
Human beings living without God are trying in their own efforts to become perfect and enjoy happiness, but the truth is humans cannot become perfect by themselves apart from God. God rested on the seventh day after He had created all things in six days, including humans. Since Jesus Christ is the Accomplisher of all these works, God tells us that our lives will be completed when we enter into Jesus Christ. Everyone sincerely desires to become perfect, but they should firstly know that they can become perfect creations of God only when they meet Jesus Christ. Regardless of who they are, every human being must first meet Jesus Christ, in order to reach perfection and enter into His rest and receive blessings. Those who have as yet not met Jesus Christ are very anxious people. God has blessed and sanctified the seventh day. This implies people become perfect when they meet Jesus Christ, who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is God’s intention.
Humans should come to know the intentions of God. What are the purposes and intentions of God? God the Father has designed and planned everything in His Son Jesus Christ. God alone is good and Almighty. God wanted to reveal His perfectness, mercy and love to all of us. Thus, God created the heavens and the earth to receive praise and honor. We should know that God planned and accomplished everything to reveal His divinity.
However, we humans, who were created by God’s specific purpose, rebelled against that purpose and tried to become perfect without Him. But we should be fully aware that we can never become perfect no matter how hard we try to achieve perfection by our own efforts. Anyone who tries to achieve perfection with their own effort without first meeting with Jesus Christ, who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, will fail utterly. However, when we wholly rely on Jesus Christ instead of trying to make our lives perfect, we become perfect creatures in Jesus Christ. The foolish are those who do not know that God rested on the seventh day. Those who do not return to Jesus Christ because of their ignorance and try to become perfect by their own deeds are truly foolish people.
The Lord said, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Those who enter into Jesus Christ through their faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit become perfect. However, many people do not know what this verse actually means. The Lord also said, “The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5). Everyone can reach perfection when they believe in Jesus Christ, who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We should all therefore go to Jesus Christ and become perfect creatures by receiving His grace. Anyone who has not met Jesus Christ in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit cannot become a perfect creature in Him. This is the true meaning of this passage of Scripture where God rested on the seventh day.
God Blessed the Seventh Day
God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it (Genesis 2:3). Therefore, God gave us true rest, and the blessing of eternal life in Christ. The Bible is telling us that true rest lies only in Jesus Christ. However, how do people in general interpret the passage that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day? They concentrate on designating a specific day by treating that day as holy and try to keep it by their own efforts. Most Christians mistakenly believe that they will be blessed if they keep the Day of the Lord holy.
The seventh day does not signify any specific day of the week. Seven is the number signifying God and the seventh day signifies God Himself. Those who have not been born again, especially those of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, insist that the Sabbath day is from Friday evening to Saturday sunset, and that we should keep that day. They think keeping the Sabbath day is doing the will of God. There are many Christians who also think that they will be blessed for keeping the Lord’s Day holy.
However, God is telling us that only Jesus Christ gives us true rest and the blessing of eternal life. It is Jesus the true God who gives blessings to us. That God blessed and sanctified the seventh day signifies that Jesus Christ has given us the blessing of the remission of sin within the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the blessing of eternal life, and the blessing to become perfect people, which indeed is to become the children of God. Jesus Christ blesses all true believers. Jesus Christ does not arbitrarily bless people just because they have kept a certain day of the week or because they have kept a certain regulation of the Law. The blessings that we will receive are not out of our own efforts but from Jesus, the source of all blessings. In other words, we receive blessings by believing in the salvation which Jesus Christ has completed.
The Bible says, “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” Then what kind of blessing is this? It is the blessing of the remission of sin. Anyone can become holy if he enters Jesus Christ by receiving the remission of sins. No matter how much sin we have committed before God, we become ‘the righteous’ if we enter faithfully into the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the Truth of salvation of Jesus Christ’s love for us. Dear fellow believers, do you believe in this truth?
“Because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” Jesus gave us the remission of sin. He completed all His works and rested on the seventh day. The blessing of the remission of sin is the greatest blessing amongst the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places which Apostle Paul mentioned in Ephesians 1:3. Jesus has sanctified us through the blessing of the remission of sin, which washes all our sins away through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. People who have received the remission of sins have already entered the Kingdom of Heaven as perfect people in Jesus Christ as opposed to the imperfect people of this world.
The verse regarding the seventh day from Genesis chapter two relates to such a meaning. When God created the heavens and the earth, He also created man for the purpose of granting to us the remission of sins and to adopt us as His children, and to make us righteous so that we can enter His Kingdom and live there for eternity. The reason God reveals His purpose for creating the heavens and the earth was to have us live in this new heaven and the new earth after we have been adopted as God’s own children by granting to us the remission of sins. The greatest purpose for which God created the universe was to adopt us as His very own children by granting to us the remission of our sins. God did not just randomly create the universe and humans out of boredom.
The opening lines of the Lord’s Prayer are as follows: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10) From God’s prospective, the will of God has already been completed. Thus from the very first chapter of Genesis, God’s great providence toward man is introduced. God’s purpose for creating the universe was so that we would live with God in the eternal Kingdom forever as perfected people in Jesus Christ and God’s own children. Therefore, if we should profess to believe in God yet are unaware of His purpose, we would be in the wrong. It is therefore important for us to know the purpose for which God created us for. God desired to live with us as His very own people for eternity. That is why God created the universe and had us born into this world so that we may be truly born again thanks to Jesus Christ. When all of God’s plans are fulfilled on earth we will live in the new heaven and the new earth with Him for eternity.
What would nominal Christians do if they do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit? There are so many Christians who believe in Jesus but have no knowledge about and why they believe in Him. Because they do not know God’s purpose for creating them, they blindly follow showing off their enthusiasm without receiving the remission of their sins. However, those who hear, obey and believe the Word of Truth are able to distinguish God’s purpose for creating them. They are also able to know and possess knowledge of what God’s purposes for creating the universe and everything in it were, as well as His purpose for creating the Garden of Eden. The will of God is that we are delivered as sinless people in Jesus Christ, and that we live for eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven as God’s own children.
Are you still sinful despite believing in Jesus? Do we still have sins while keeping the Lord’s Day holy? Are you saying that you still have sins in your heart although you have already met Jesus and received your salvation? If this be the case then you are mistaken. Those who still have sins in their hearts despite believing in Jesus Christ have not yet truly met Jesus Christ. The words in Romans 8:1 tells us the truth, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” People like this still remain deficient creatures not having met the perfect Savior Jesus Christ. It is sad to witness the many people who believe in Jesus Christ but have as yet not received the remission of their sins. They place their interests in absurd things and not in the sanctifying Truth. It is truly absurd when we see them boasting of their achievements and their human righteousness in front of their followers. Such are the ways of mere worldly religions.
Those belonging to these mere religions are still deficient people and have as yet not met Jesus Christ. All these imperfect people who do not know what they have been created for will be swept into the burning furnace of hell. God will surely do this just as a wood carver would collect and throw his leftovers into the furnace. God has created us as human beings so that we may become high and noble. There are no surer discarded things than people who have not met Jesus Christ and received the remission of sin, due to their stubbornness and unbelieving hearts. God will surely sweep those up and totally incinerate them. That is the Will of God. Even the so-called believers in Jesus will be swept into the everlasting fire of Hell unless they receive the remission of sins. It would have been better if those who failed to reach God’s purpose were not born with the same heart as Judas Iscariot.
God sanctified us by completing our salvation in Jesus Christ and gave us true and everlasting rest by making us into the righteous. God does not call a sinner a righteous person without any reason. We are called the righteous because we really became righteous when we believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are perfect children of God because they have spiritually reached God’s seventh day. We have become the righteous through Jesus Christ, receiving the perfect remission of sins and being chosen to enter into God’s Kingdom, all because we have met Jesus Christ in His gospel. To all true believers, God’s purpose is already fulfilled.
On the seventh day of the Creation, God completed His masterpiece and then rested. God’s purpose of creating the heavens and the earth was to create perfect human beings in Jesus Christ by spreading true faith to all of humanity. That is why God created us as precious in His sight. We must all know this.
Many People Are Leading Their Lives without Knowing Why They Were Born into This World
Many people have their own religions. They believe in something without truly knowing the reason why they believe at all. Dear fellow believers, do you realize why God allowed us to be born into this world? Do you realize fully why Jesus Christ delivered us? There are many people that are born into this world, but only a few enter into the will of God. There are those who say that their families have believed in Jesus for the past three generations. There are, no doubt many similar types of people in this world whose families have believed in Jesus for generations and even hundreds of years in parts of the world where Christianity was proclaimed. Some people even dare to say that they will receive blessings if they believe in Jesus. But what blessings can these actually be? People share many testimonies of blessings like this. Religionists will tell us that they became rich when they were poor before. A certain student gave his testimony that his grades improved from worst to best as he enthusiastically participated in ‘early morning prayer meetings.’ Later he was accepted into a prominent medical school and became a cancer specialist. They maintain that these kinds of things were their blessings, but God’s blessings are anything but these things. The real blessing that comes from God is the blessing of becoming righteous by receiving the remission of sins. Faith that cannot discern the true blessing from the fake blessings is wrong.
Many Christians tell people when evangelizing that they will receive blessings if they believe only in Jesus. Do you know what kind of blessings they are referring to? Is it becoming rich? If this be so, can you not become rich after believing in another kind of religion? Many people believe and say that becoming rich, gaining great status, and forming an intimate Christian family are the greatest blessings for believing in Jesus. However, these are not the true blessings that God intends to give us. Becoming sinless after believing in Jesus is the real blessing that God gives us. It is therefore useless to receive any other blessing, no matter how many they are.
Famous preachers of the world today preach about going to Heaven, while they confess that they are still sinners despite believing in Jesus. Christians in my country become greater sinners when they believe in Jesus. They misquote Apostle Paul’s words when he called himself “the chief among sinners” and regard the sins in their hearts as something natural. However, it is Satan’s wish, and wicked plan to have people remain sinful after believing in Jesus. Yet, what does the Word of God actually say? It informs us that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. God says that He has created man without any sin. If this is true, then is it right for many pastors all over the world to preach that you become a sinner when you believe in Jesus, and if you should confess that you are sinless then you have become arrogant?
The Apostle Paul had acknowledged that he was the worst of sinners while recalling the fact that he had actually stood against the Lord, before he received the remission of his sins (1 Timothy 1:15). Once you believe in Jesus, you have to receive the blessings of complete remission of sins. It is therefore useless to receive any other blessings. Where will believers go in the end, should many Christian leaders of this world exhort them to believe in Jesus but fail to mention a single word about the blessings of receiving the remission of sin and being truly born again? They will surely go to hell. These Christians did not recognize their sins before they believed in Jesus, but then become real sinners once they believe in Jesus. But what does the Bible tell us? It informs us that we will become the true righteous people without any sin, once we believe in Jesus as our Savior who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Christians around the world must realize as soon as possible that they are on a completely irrelevant path from the purpose for which God created us. Those who still have sins despite believing in Jesus believe erroneously. If they continue believing like this, they will certainly be condemned and go to Hell. It seems to be a general trend worldwide where a successful ministry is considered blessed, when a pastor constructs a huge attractive church building and fills it with many followers. However, could you really call it a success if there isn’t a single soul in that church that has been truly born again? What success is there really if the pastor or leader is doomed to Hell? How can we call such a ministry a success, when people with sin go to Hell regardless of how well they kept the Lord’s Day or how good they were? That ministry would be in ruin.
To lure people with sweet enticing words and trying to collect as much money out of this constitutes a mere worldly religion. What difference can we find between their ministries and the business activities of a car dealer? If a pastor fails to teach how to receive the remission of sins, that pastor has failed in his ministry. However, many pastors have fallen into deception these days. Do you know why they have failed in their ministries? They fail in their ministries because they do not know the real Truth, which is the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
A truly successful ministry converts every single soul who hears the preaching, into a real born-again saint. What does the word ‘saint’ signify? It signifies sinless people of God who have received the remission of sins. A truly successful ministry is one that blots out all the sins in people’s hearts making them sinless. A ministry where people become the righteous after having received the remission of sins and preach the sacred Truth of Jesus Christ would be deemed a successful ministry.
Korea has unfortunately a tendency to embrace foreign religions and cultivate those religions even greater than their own. It is because of this that Christianity has been somewhat transformed in Korea, where offshoot type of Christianity has flourished. The Jesus they believe in forgives their sins on daily basis instead of granting the remission of all their sins once and for all. But the ultimate truth is that Jesus, who now is in the Kingdom of Heaven, blots out all our sins once for all. God sanctifies us perfectly when we reach the seventh day in faith. Jesus tells us that whoever meets with Him will become a perfect person.
We should all know the purpose for which God created the heavens and the earth. My dear fellow believers, do you know the purpose for which God created the heavens and the earth in seven days? We must know that purpose. We believe in Jesus in order to become the righteous by receiving the remission of all our sins and not to become sinners again. If we should have the notion that to believe in Christianity is to be humble and live a good life, it would probably be better that we convert to Buddhism right away.
To believe in Jesus without knowing God’s purpose is like trying to catch the wind. People believe without knowing the purpose of their faith in Jesus because of their foolhardiness. How clueless they are? Through the Word from Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, God has recorded His purpose of creation and completed all the designs of creation. God’s purpose was to sanctify people in the last days, and He indeed is sanctifying them.
According to His will, God sanctified us in Jesus Christ. The Word from Ephesians 1:4-6 tells us that God’s purpose of creation was to sanctify us in Jesus Christ, so that we will praise God’s righteousness and His glory. The golden rule is therefore to first know God’s intention before we believe, first know before we spread the gospel, and first know before we build churches. Would God be pleased if we should praise, evangelize and devote ourselves to mission fields, without knowing anything? Those who hastily act in faith without knowing the right purposes are like foolish people who build their houses on sand.
Did God create human beings and the universe without any purpose in mind? Just as people would act out with a purpose, so God created the universe and humans with a perfect purpose for all of humanity. That purpose was our sanctification. Thus, the Bible proclaims, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). That is to say, God delivered us in Jesus Christ to adopt us as His perfectly sinless children. That is, we were created as eternal and complete beings. God’s purpose of creating the heavens and the earth was the perfect sanctification of us humans so that we may live with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity. God has done all His works and continues to work for such purpose. Do you understand?
We must know God’s purpose of creation and believe in it. We must therefore first know the purpose before we preach the gospel and do the works of God. When you minister, you should do it in accordance with the purpose of God’s creation. You should have many people receive the remission of sin and then raise them so that they know the purpose of God’s creation, and then they should in turn spread it to others. This is the will of God that we should obey wholeheartedly.
When we see this clearly, how thoroughly and clearly does the Bible reveal God’s purpose of creation? However, people do not even attempt to know or even find out this purpose of God’s creation. And they ignorantly and arrogantly say, “Salvation is in all religions and not just in Jesus Christ. Every human is actually God.” Even today we find Christians insisting on religious pluralism. People think this way because they have as yet not met Jesus despite believing in Him. If we fail to meet Jesus in true Christianity, we come to believe that Christianity is not the only truth, and that there also are respective truths in other religions. Actually, all who have not received the remission of sin say things like this. Of course, there also are respectful aspects in other religions from a human perspective. However, it is absolute foolishness to contend that there is salvation outside of Jesus.
A human being gains the right to become a child of God as a sinless person and a perfect human being, only if he meets Jesus Christ. God made believers perfect and holy in Jesus Christ. God gave us such a blessing. Those who have as yet not been sanctified are the ones who have not reached an understanding of the purpose of God’s creation. Those who still have sin in their hearts as Christians should know the meaning of the Word from Genesis 2:1-3 correctly. It is the will of God that we become sinless and righteous children of God in Jesus Christ. Until the day when everyone in this world knows and believes in this truth, we must believe and continue spreading God’s Word of Truth.
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