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Pray that this pandemic will end soon and the resumption of the postal service.
Subject 23 : The Epistle to the HEBREWS
[Chapter 9-2] Learn to See If the Inward Man Is Sick (Hebrews 9:27-28)
(Hebrews 9:27-28)
“And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”
People Whose Soul’s Are Sick
I give thanks to our Lord for having saved you and me from all our sins. Everyone has a body and a soul, which is the inward man. But ordinary people look at the outward man and speak of that person as being righteous or not. However, the Bible speaks of human beings as essentially those created in the image of God. It tells us that all human beings ‘have a soul, that is, the inward man.’ Besides the flesh which can be seen outwardly, human beings have a soul living inside of them. The writer of the Book of Hebrews separated human being into parts: spirit, soul, and flesh. And what this means is that a human being is a spiritual being, not just a mere fleshly being.
Thus, people can be divided into two groups. One type is people whose souls are sick, and the other are people whose flesh are sick. Hence, with all the people that we approach, instead of approaching their outward man, we must learn to perceive what their inward man is like. When we meet people, the important thing to establish is ‘whether they are those whose souls are sick or those whose souls have received healing from the sickness of sin.’
For every person, just because the person is healthy outwardly, it does not mean that their souls are healthy. Human beings have an inward man, and only when the inward man is healthy, the entire person can be healthy. All people may say that they are healthy, but only when they have met Jesus the Savior will they be made healthy. If the inward man is sick, no matter how healthy, capable, bright, and beautiful the outward man may be, that would all be in vain. This kind of person would lose everything. If the inward man of a person is sick, then that person is a sick person.
However, if the outward man is sick, and the inward man is healthy and has become the righteous after meeting Jesus, and received the remission of sins, then that person is healthy. And so, human beings can be divided into two groups, and we could divide human beings into these two types: those whose souls are sick and those who have received healing despite being sick. Put differently, when we look at people, we must see if their inward man has received salvation from sins. Rather than looking only at the outward man, we must look and see whether or not that person’s inward man is healthy.
So, when we meet people, we can most accurately perceive their spiritual state through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Among many people that we meet, there are those who commit suicide despite having all the conditions of happiness from a fleshly perspective. It is said that advanced countries have a really high suicide rate especially among the young. Even now in Korea, we can see that the suicide rate among the young is the highest. The reason why people commit suicide is that their inward man is sick. It is sometimes referred to as the ‘sickness of the soul.’ If someone has a sickness in their heart, then that person has the sickness of sin. For this reason, we must learn to perceive the inward man when we look at or meet people.
God Watches Our Inward Man
We look at people’s outward appearance, but God looks at the inward man. Thus, all people must reside in the faith of believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit by which they can have the remission of sins in their hearts. There are a great number of people in this world who are spiritually sick. When we the righteous look at these people, how should we look at them? We must see them by distinguishing them into those who are sick and those who are not sick. Only when we do this by the Holy Spirit, can we deliver the gospel of the water and the Spirit to these kinds of people.
How is it possible for us to deliver the gospel of the water and the Spirit to someone who is not sick at heart? For Jesus tells us, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance,” (Luke 5:31-32). If we want to preach the gospel to souls, we must first find out whether they are those whose souls are sick or not. And once it is determined that they are indeed the sick, we must then start sharing the gospel of fellowship with them.
Even though they may have met all the conditions of happiness, are physically healthy, and are bright, they are actually sick people. We must treat them as spiritual patients. They are the very people to whom we must preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Human beings actually do have a sickness for they have the inward man in them. What is that sickness? It is sin. That sin makes the inward man become very ill, wither, and later die. Under the premise that the inward man is actually sick, through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we are able to preach the gospel of the Truth to them.
People who have become the righteous will get to meet many more sick people besides the ones they have met recently. When the righteous meet them, they will preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit to them. There are times when we envy the sick. It is because many of them lead a life more joyful than that of the righteous. Far from preaching the gospel to them, there are times when we who have become the righteous are envious of their earthly happiness. The reason for this is because we have been looking at their outward man instead of looking at their inward man. For this reason, we must possess spiritual eyes. We must learn to recognize souls that are dying because of sins. Because the soul, which is their inward man, is actually sick, they are sinners. All those people whose hearts have sin are the sick before God.
We must look for, and find people in this world, who are dying because of their sins. And then, we must spread the gospel fragrance of the water and the Spirit to them. But, can we preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit to those who have yet to see their own image? Even Jesus said that the sick are the ones who are in need of a physician. People may be well off from a fleshly perspective, but if they have not yet recognized themselves as a sinner before God, how would they feel the need for the gospel of the water and the Spirit? Hence, we must select those who have to hear the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We are the ones who must go on living with such perceptions. We must first make the perception, ‘that man is sick in his soul,’ to lead a true life of an evangelist. Hebrews 9:27 says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”
Everyone is born once and dies once. And all sinners will be receiving the judgment of sin from God. Sinners will be suffering the fearsome wrath of God and thus, they will be receiving the judgment of hell fire. We had to find souls that were dying due to their sins and preach to them the gospel of the water and the Spirit by which our Lord has blotted out our sins. I said that everyone dies once. For a human being to be born once and to die once is an appointed principle. Why do human beings die? Why do human beings become sinners? The Bible clearly states that because of our ancestors who had sinned against God, every human being became a sinner, having inherited all those sins. Because all human beings have become such sinners, they will have to die once, whether they want to or not.
How Were We Able to Become the Children of God?
The reason for this is that God’s love has compelled us by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. God has granted to us, we who had been sick because of sins, the gospel of the water and the Spirit through which we can become His children. Then, is it because we are more faithful than others? If not, is it because we all fear God well? This isn’t it either. Then, did He allow us to become God’s children because you and I are those who carry out many righteous deeds before God? No, not at all. Is it because there are many people in this world who carry out good deeds more certainly from a fleshly perspective than those of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? No, not at all.
Then, what is it that allows us to be delivered from our sins? It is because we accepted the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit into our hearts by faith. And by doing so, we have received the remission of sins into our hearts. The Apostle John confesses that we were able to become the children of God because of God’s unconditional and self-sacrificing love. God says, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him,” (1 John 3:1). This love of God is referring to the unconditional love towards sinners. Our salvation was possible because God has loved all those of us who had been sinners from His side.
Because of the Lord’s love which He pours upon us constantly, all of us were able to receive the cleansing from all of our sins once and for all, and also, we were able to become God’s people. The love by which our Lord loves us is exactly the same love by which God the Father loves His Son. Even though the Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit is within those of us who believe in God’s love, the love of God the Father was clearly shown to all of us through Jesus Christ. For God the Father loved us through His Son Jesus Christ, that love is in turn the agape love of the Triune God. Just by the faith of believing in God’s agape love, we were able to become God’s people.
Now, What Kind of Existence Were We Fundamentally before God?
The fact is, we were fundamentally corrupt beings before God. We were supposed to suffer destruction because of our sins. In Jeremiah 17:9 we read, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” And in Romans 3:10 it says, “There is none righteous, no, not one.” There isn’t a single person who does not commit sin. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Like this, when we were corrupt, sinful, and destined to be cursed, God saved us all from all our sins by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. God has made us into His children so that He may clothe us with His unconditional love of salvation. Because God had desired to clothe us with such love, we have become His children, wearing the love of God by believing in His righteousness.
Therefore, we have to keep the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, which witnesses this fact in our hearts by faith. We must remember that, even though we ourselves were a brood of evildoers, we were able to receive the remission of sins because the Lord has saved us from the sin of the world by the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit that He has made for us. Now, we mustn’t pretend to be spiritual before God without knowing our fundamental selves. For we have become the children of God by God’s grace despite being unable to hope for His love. Such grace was all possible because of our faith in God’s unconditional agape love. And so, God has made us into His children who have been saved from all of our sins, and He has made us to live out our lives from here on as those who are ever more thankful to God and have much faith.
Before God, Do You Belong to Those Who Are Like Essau or Like Jacob from a Spiritual Perspective?
Those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit belong to the Likes of Jacob, not Esau. God loved us all equally and did not hate us. Thus, we had to receive the cleansing of sin by faith, by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit which is the righteousness of God, rather than to boast about our greatness. We all should become those who belong to the likes of Jacob, rather than to the likes of ‘Esau,’ as shown in the Old Testament.
What we must realize is that even inside God’s agape love, people who belong to the likes of ‘Esau’, cannot be saved. Such people arrive at their destruction for they refuse to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is God’s great love. What we must realize here is that it was not because God did not love Esau and therefore did not wash away his sins, it was because people who belong to the likes of ‘Esau’ refused this love of God. God had clothed them with the love of the remission of sin which blots out all their sins of even those belonging to the likes of Esau. But in the end, because they do not believe in God’s love wholeheartedly, they have come to be at a position where they cannot but receive the judgment of sin, because of their sins.
It is difficult for those belonging to the likes of Cain and the likes of Esau to accept God’s love because they have their own virtues. It’s because they have their own righteousness, their own sense of judgment, and a heart that relies on their own good deeds. For this reason, they do not purely believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the love of God and the gospel of the cleansing of sins in their hearts, and thus remain as sinners.
The Apostle John spoke like this to the saints about what he believed to be the love of God, saying, “Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him” (1 John 3:1). The Apostle John became a child of God by having been clothed with the Father’s love and with the salvation from all sins. What this means is, that we must also know, and believe in, that love of salvation. However, because people in this world right now do not know the great love of God the Father through Jesus Christ, they have arrived at a point where they persecute those of us who believe in that love.
People in this world right now go on living day by day without realizing the fact that God the Father has delivered us all from the sin of the world by the power of the gospel of the water and the Spirit through Jesus Christ. Thus, because the people of the world do not properly understand how different we who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are from them, they are unable to comprehend how precious the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which we are preaching to them is, and thereby unable to believe in it. And for this reason, people of the world cannot but know that the righteous people who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are simply very differently from them.
They will be the very people committing the sin of persecuting us in the future. Put differently, the reason they fundamentally do not know who Jesus Christ really is, they will not be able to recognize those of us who have been clothed with God’s love, as well. To us, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Creator, the Master whom we believe in, and the Savior who has saved us from all the sins of the world and all from the eternal destruction.
People of the world cannot recognize those of us who have become the children of God by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And so, they will rise up against us and thereby become the enemies of Jesus Christ. If we were to view this world right now from the view point of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can see that the enemies of Jesus Christ are great in number. Also, the Lord has always reminded us that such antichrists are those who are constantly trying to deceive us.
We mustn’t become the enemies of Jesus Christ by not having the faith of believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit before God. What makes people become the enemies of Jesus Christ? People become the enemies of Jesus Christ, not because their works is incomplete before God, but because they profess to have faith, without even knowing who Jesus Christ really is, and because they do not realize that Jesus Christ is the Savior who has delivered all of us from the sin of the world, by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Also, even if someone knows about the gospel of the water and the Spirit, he becomes an enemy of Jesus Christ by not believing in it from the heart.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God to us, and He is our Savior. But many people are becoming the enemies of God by not believing in this truth. And so, I am thankful that we have become those who are thankful before the Lord, by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, by which He has blotted out our sins. The enemies of Jesus Christ are those who do not believe in this Truth, Jesus being God, and having delivered us from the sin of the world, by coming down to this earth, by the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
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