You Have Been Allowed To Know
the Mysteries of The Kingdom of Heaven
< Matthew 13:10-23 >
“And the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Why
do You speak to them in parables?’ He answered and said to them, ‘Because it
has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to
them it has not been given.For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he
will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken
away from him.Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do
not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.And in them the
prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:
‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown
dull. Their ears are hard of hearing,And their eyes they have closed, Lest they
should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand
with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes for they see, and
your ears for they hear;for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous
men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear,
and did not hear it. Therefore hear the parable of the sower:When anyone hears
the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes
and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by
the wayside.But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears
the word and immediately receives it with joy;yet he has no root in himself,
but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because
of the word, immediately he stumbles.Now he who received seed among the thorns
is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness
of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.But he who received seed
on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears
fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.’”
For us to further spread the gospel of the water
and the Spirit, we must further fulfill our roles by supporting every ministry
for the spreading of the gospel, we must pray more, and we must live by faith
even more. If we want to serve the gospel by a hundredfold more than now, then
we must exercise our faith by a hundredfold more. We must ask God by faith,
and through our prayers we must be prepared to receive God’s blessings. When
we serve the Lord with our faith, God will surely work in our lives.
Why Did the Lord Speak to His Disciples in Parables?
In today’s passage, when the disciples came and
said to Jesus, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” our Lord answered, “It
has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to
them it has not been given.”
In other words, it was given to the disciples
of Jesus to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. But the mysteries of
Heaven were not given to those whose hearts were hardened. Put differently,
while those whose hearts are hardened may hear the Word of God with their ears,
they do not really accept it into their hearts by faith.
Such people with hardened hearts do not try to
believe in the Word of God; on the contrary, they place their own thoughts above
God’s Word. They do not want to serve God as the King in their hearts, for they
themselves want to be their own kings. By “them” in this passage, our Lord was
referring to such people with hardened hearts. So when Jesus said, “Because
it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but
to them it has not been given,” the word “you” here refers to those who have
truly accepted the Word of God into their hearts and believe in it, and the
word “them” refers to those who have not done so. We all need to understand
this passage properly before we believe in it.
The Reason Why the Lord Had to Explainthe Mysteries of the Kingdom
of Heaven in Parables
Jesus had to speak of the mysteries of the Kingdom
of Heaven in parables, lest those whose hearts are hardened should be able to
understand Him and make bad use of the hidden meanings for their benefit. This
is why Jesus had to speak in parables. Our Lord did not want those whose evil
hearts stand against God to realize the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven,
and it was to prevent such people from entering Heaven that He spoke of them
in parables. He made it impossible for the people of hardened hearts to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven with such dull hearts. Our Lord’s intention was for the
hardened people to turn around from their wickedness and to enter the Kingdom
of Heaven by placing their faith in the Word of God. Since the Lord said here
that Heaven is not permitted to those whose hearts are hardened, anyone who
wants to enter Heaven must repent from his wicked mind and return to the Lord.
It is only in the Bible that we should discover
the Truth spoken by the Lord. The Kingdom of Heaven is permitted to only those
who revere God first, believe in Him, and follow and obey Him. Our Lord, the
King of kings, was speaking to all creations about the gospel mysteries of the
water and the Spirit. And He wanted all those who revere Him, who follow and
serve Him, to reach the understanding of the gospel Word of the water and the
Spirit. He wanted to them to realize, “This is the Word of the remission of
sin.”
But this was not the case for those whose hearts
are hardened before God. The Lord had permitted confused minds to the hardened
people, so that they may not realize the mysteries of entering Heaven. The reason
for this is because those whose hearts are hardened know no fear of God, nor
do they recognize His majesty. It is because they do not acknowledge God as
their Master, but instead try to exalt themselves higher than God. To such people,
God has not permitted the understanding of the gospel Truth of the water and
the Spirit.
In conclusion, our Lord said in verse 12, “For
whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever
does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” To those who
truly fear God, who know His exaltation, and who follow Him by realizing and
believing that He is the Judge and the Savior, God has enabled them to understand
His Word even more, and He has given them even more blessings. So to those who
are clothed in God’s love, He has not only remitted away their sins more than
sufficiently by the gospel power of the water and the Spirit, but He has also
blessed them to live for His righteousness.
Our Lord says decisively, “Whoever does not
have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” He has made it impossible,
in other words, for anyone whose heart has no fear of God and is hardened before
Him to understand the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Just as God set that
all water should flow to a lower elevation, He has set that His Word of the
remission of sin should also flow to those whose hearts are lowly through the
conduit called ‘faith.’ The Lord has enabled the humble-hearted to receive the
blessings of the remission of sin through their faith in the gospel of the water
and the Spirit. In this gospel of the water and the Spirit, He has allowed us
to understand what He meant when He said, “For whoever has, to him more will
be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he
has will be taken away from him.” All His parables were spoken according to
this intention.
Ruminating on the parable of the sower that Jesus
gave in Matthew 13, you and I were able to realize God’s desire and His intention.
As such, we now need to examine ourselves to see whether we had not stood against
God with hardened hearts. Among those whose hearts are hardened before God,
there are the more obstinate ones who do not even repent from their stubbornness
to the last. They say, “There is no God! Where is God? Really, is God anywhere
at all? Since I had believed in Him so ardently and served Him so much, He should
have blessed me; why then hasn’t He blessed me at all?”
But God is still very much alive and actually
exists. And He has come to you through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
So no one should approach God with a hardened heart. Instead, we must cast aside
our hardened hearts, believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit,
and obey Him with this faith.
Before God, we must realize how our own hearts
are, and we must obey His gospel of Truth. God made us be born on this earth
as His creations, and He has given us the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit
to fulfill His love in us. He approached us with His love for us: When we fell
into sin, God saved us from all our sins with the gospel power of the water
and the Spirit. By placing our faith in the Word of God, therefore, all of us
must take the Truth that makes us God’s children. Only then can be we become
God’s children.
We need to remove from our hearts the wicked mind
that does not believe in the Word of God. We ourselves need to believe that
God is alive, and we need to believe in and acknowledge the gospel of the water
and the Spirit that He has given us. If our hearts are hardened, we cannot understand
the God-given Word of the remission of sin even if we hear it. We have all the
more reason to cast aside our own wickedness and listen to the Word of God lest
we should be condemned eternally.
Those whose hearts are hardened before God are
bound to lead their souls to destruction, for they cannot understand the gospel
of the water and the Spirit before God. Therefore, anyone whose heart is hardened
before God must soften it and listen to the Truth of salvation with the ears
of his heart. Sometimes, we the born-again may also see our hearts hardened,
but no one should have such a hardened heart before God. Our hearts must instead
obey God, and we must be capable of having this kind of heart. If our hearts
are hardened before God, it is indispensable that we cast aside such hearts.
Our Lord has told all of us to set aside our hardened hearts and to listen to
Him.
In the Age of the Old Testament Also, God Did Not Tolerate Anyone
with a Hardened Heart
Referring to Isaiah 6:9, Jesus said, “And in
them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear
and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive.’”
Let us then turn to Isaiah 6:9-13 here: “And
He said, ‘Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ ‘Make the heart of this people dull, And
their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear
with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.’
Then I said, ‘Lord, how long?’ And He answered: ‘Until the cities are laid waste
and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate,
The LORD has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst
of the land. But yet a tenth will be in it, And will return and be for consuming,
As a terebinth tree or as an oak, Whose stump remains when it is cut down. So
the holy seed shall be its stump.’”
Jehovah was angered and had decided to root out
those with hardened hearts. Why did God get angry at the people of Israel? It
was because their hearts were hardened before God. Because with their hardened
hearts, they had stood against God. The people of Israel were supposed to acknowledge
God as the absolutely perfect God, to obey Him and believe in Him, and yet in
their heart they had fundamentally stood against God and failed to recognize
His Word. This is why God declared destruction upon such people.
God also said, “But yet a tenth will be in
it, And will return and be for consuming.” In other words, there was not
a single descendant of Adam who revered God and practiced good deeds at that
time. However, because God brought them to life by especially manifesting Himself
to His servants, speaking to them, and transformed their hearts with His Word,
there arose the people of God. He wanted to save the souls of those who knew
His will, and who obeyed and believed in Him according to His Word.
This is why the Lord left a stump that would become
the holy seed on this earth, when all sinners were supposed to be destroyed,
as it is written, “As a terebinth tree or as an oak, Whose stump remains
when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump.”
God the Father laid the foundation of salvation
and completed it through Jesus Christ: God the Father made Jesus be born on
this earth, take upon the sins of this world once for all by receiving His baptism
from John the Baptist, and be crucified and shed His blood on the Cross. In
other words, Jesus Christ has become the holy stump on this earth, and God has
perfectly saved all those who receive the remission of their sins by knowing
this Jesus Christ and placing their faith in Him. God has made it possible for
all those who understand and believe in the gospel Word of the water and the
Spirit to become the people of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Holy Seed on This Earth Is Jesus Christ and His People
The holy seed on this earth is Jesus Christ, the
Son of God the Father. It is He who came to this earth, blotted out all our
sins, and turned His believers into God’s own people. God said here that the
Word of power, the Word of the remission of sin that Jesus Christ fulfilled,
has now become a stump on this earth, and that through Jesus Christ, the believers
have become God’s people, and His Kingdom has been established. As we have been
taught by the parable of the sower, we can all become God’s own children when
we admit our wickedness and believe in the gospel power of the water and the
Spirit.
What is the greatest sin that one can commit against
God? It is to live a religious life before God. To worship other gods before
God, to believe in just about anything, is a great sin. Living a religious life
constitutes a great sin before God.
God commanded us, “You shall have no other gods
before Me.” Apart from our own God who created this universe, who could ever
be the God of creation? Nothing apart from God is the God of creation. Yet despite
this, people believed in and followed in something else other than God, and
this constitutes a great sin.
Therefore, the preachers of the true gospel must
first teach such idolaters about their own flaws before preaching the gospel
of the water and the Spirit to them. They must teach that the One who created
the universe is God, that only the Triune God is our Lord and the God who has
truly bestowed us with His goodness of salvation, and that nothing else is the
God of creation, but all else are only false gods.
If, on the other hand, if they preach the gospel
of the water and the Spirit to people without first plowing the fields of their
hearts, it would be a great mistake. When we preach the gospel of the water
and the Spirit to others, we need to first teach them what sins they have in
their hearts, and that they are bound to be condemned for their sins and cast
into hell. We need to first tell them that they are the seeds of evildoers,
and teach them that if they have even the smallest of sin, they will be cast
into to hell. Only after then should we preach the gospel of the water and the
Spirit to them, because unless they first recognize their wickedness and sinfulness,
the gospel cannot be deeply rooted into their hearts.
We also need to teach them that life in this world
is completely empty, that the pursuit of worldly pleasures is all in vain, and
that everything in this world is meaningless, nothing more a dream in a summer
night. We should then testify to them who the living God is, and preach to them
how the Son of this God came to this earth, blotted out all our sins once for
all through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, through His baptism and
bloodshed, and thereby has saved us from all sins. Therefore, when we are preaching
the gospel of the water and the Spirit, ignoring these procedures will only
result in fruitless labor.
As such, those who preached the gospel of the
water and the Spirit without first plowing the sinners’ hearts to disclose their
sins should admit their own mistakes to God. And those who heard the gospel
of the water and the Spirit from such preachers, because they heard the gospel
without realizing their own sins, could not become truly good fields. If we
fail to plow people’s hearts before we preach the gospel of the water and the
Spirit to them, they cannot become God’s true children, but instead become just
nominal Christians.
As I said before, the sins in my heart had agonized
me before I met the gospel of the water and the Spirit. However, God enlightened
me on the mystery of this gospel Truth while I was reading Matthew 3:13-17.
At that moment, I realized that Jesus, by being baptized by John, took upon
the sins of the world and fulfilled all the righteousness of God. I also realized
that the gospel of the water and the Spirit is linked to both the Old and New
Testaments. Both the Old and New Testaments testify, in other words, that our
Lord took upon our sins of the world by being baptized by John, died on the
Cross, rose from the dead, and has thereby saved us from all our sins.
I was so happy to discover this Truth that I could
only give thanks to God. At first, because I was so deeply disturbed by Christians
who professed to believe in Jesus without knowing the gospel of the water and
the Spirit, I only taught them the gist of the right answer. I was so excited
that I preached this true gospel directly to everyone I met at first, not plowing
his heart beforehand. I made such mistakes for a while.
Of course, to those who wanted to listen carefully
to the Word of God and believe in it, I also plowed the fields of their hearts
first. However, when I encountered someone with a hardened heart, I immediately
preached to him, “This is how Jesus took upon your sins and the sins of the
entire mankind in the Jordan River, and by being crucified to death and rising
from the dead again, He has saved us from all our sins.” In the end, I only
ended up turning such people into wicked religionists before God. As the fields
of their hearts had still remained as wayside fields or stony fields, the gospel
of the water and the Spirit planted in their hearts became useless as time passed
by: Some were devoured by the Devil, and some sprouted but withered away shortly.
This was all the result of the fact that they had not deeply understood the
power of the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Everyone Was a Sinner from the Very Beginning.
People’s hearts have been filled with evil things
from the very beginning, but it usually take them a long time to reach the clear
understanding of their sinful nature. This is a problem for everyone. So it
is quite normal for most Christians not to realize that their hearts have been
stony fields, but to discover their true selves only later on.
If someone accepts the gospel of the water and
the Spirit while he doesn’t recognize his sinfulness to the full extent, his
faith is too fragile to stand against the storms of his sin, as the house built
on the sand cannot withstand a storm.
As we have carried on with our lives while professing
to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we, too, have seen our
worthless selves being revealed. For some of us, it is hard to admit the sins
that we are actually committing, finding it too difficult to bear with this
fact. So such people find themselves unable to say without any doubt that they
really believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. They ultimately end
up turning into religionists, for they do not have the faith that holds onto
the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Strictly speaking, they are not
God’s children and the Holy Spirit does not dwell in them. What would be the
result is as clear as daylight. They would eventually leave God’s Church, for
they cannot unite with the Word of God in the Holy Spirit.
Through the passages in Matthew 13, our Lord is
teaching us how we should preach the gospel, how we should minister, and how
we should serve other souls. He is also telling us how we can realize the Truth
that enables us to receive the remission of our sins, as well as how we can
discover the mysteries of Heaven. To understand all these teachings, we need
to first humble our hearts, acknowledge God, admit that He is our Master and
the Lord of the entire universe, and believe in His Word. Recognizing God properly
is the first step to receive all His blessings.
Our Lord said, “I have nourished and brought
up children, And they have rebelled against Me; The ox knows its owner And the
donkey its master’s crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider”
(Isaiah 1:2-3).
It is indeed because of God that we were born
in this world, and it is by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the
Spirit that we have been born again. But some of us have ended up becoming mere
religionists, for they have failed to know God, to realize their sins, and to
understand that they are the seeds of evildoers and are bound to hell for their
sins. Is there anyone among you who, by any chance, has received the gospel
Word without the field of his heart being plowed first? I want all such people
to plow the fields of their hearts once again even now, to discover and admit
their sinful selves, to truly believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit,
and to be saved from all their sins. It is my sincerest hope and prayer that
by doing so, you would all be saved from all your sins and become God’s people.
Those who preach God’s gospel should never forget
the fact that when they are preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit,
they should first plow the field of the sinful heart, and then preach the gospel
of Heaven. Why? Because the Lord Himself told us here that there are wayside,
stony, and thorny fields in the fields of human hearts. We should all realize
that it is never too late for us to preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit
after we first explain the Word of God sufficiently to people. We should sow
the seed of the true gospel after they thus come to realize and admit their
sins, humble their hearts before God, and acknowledge that they are piles of
sin bound to hell. Only when we first plow their hearts and preach the gospel
of the water and the Spirit can they really become God’s people by believing
in this true gospel.
It is only when we teach sinners with the Word
of Truth that they are in fact sinners destined to hell, and when they, too,
come to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit through the Word of
God, that they can finally believe in Jesus properly. Just as a farmer plows
his fields, turns over the soil, tills the earth, sows his seeds, and then waters
the field, we the spiritual farmers must also preach the gospel of the water
and the Spirit in this way.
At first, we did not know how to farm properly,
for we had preached the gospel of the water and the Spirit right away, without
turning over the fields of people’s hearts. As a result, among those of us who
heard the gospel of the water and the Spirit without having the fields of their
hearts properly plowed first, not a few have gone astray along the way; some
have left the Church, and others have stood up against it. All these unfortunate
results are due to our mistakes of not first plowing and turning over the fields
of their hearts properly.
I repent before God from all such mistakes. My
coworkers also repent from their mistakes. Since I myself have made these mistakes,
how much more would my coworkers have made the same mistakes? At first, we all
preached the gist of the gospel too easily, taking it too lightly because we
intended to give the correct answer first, and to teach them in detail down
the road. So in a way, it was just a foretaste edition of the true gospel, but
hearing this, many of them came to believe that this is their salvation. But
this is not the real salvation from sin.
Such people should first have admitted their sinfulness
as the Prophet Isaiah had professed when he had seen the majesty and glory of
God: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the
King, The LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). True salvation is given only when
one first admits to God that he is a sinner who is inevitably bound to hell
for his sins, and then believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. When
we come to have such concrete faith, we become so thankful that the Lord came
to us and cleansed away our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
We could not avoid but be judged by God and cast into hell, but by admitting
to God that we were sinners and believing in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit, we have received the remission of our sins.
This is why I want all of you to also cast aside
your hardened hearts and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
If your hearts are hardened, you will surely die before God. Are your hearts
hardened, or are they pure before God? They must be pure before the Word of
God. How pure must your hearts be? They must be very pure, not just slightly
pure. Since the Word of God says that sinners cannot avoid but be cast into
hell, we must believe that everything will be fulfilled exactly according to
this Word. Therefore, all of us must believe with a pure heart that through
the gospel power of the water and the Spirit, our Lord has saved us from all
our sins, when we were all bound to hell and incapable of reaching our own salvation
through our own tears, efforts, and labor.
The Lord said, “It has been given to you to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” To whom has it been permitted
to know the Word of God about His Kingdom? The Lord said that it is permitted
to those whose hearts are pure. Only those who have truly pure hearts can accept
the Word of God just as it is written, and only they can receive the remission
of their sins by the power of this gospel. In contrast, those whose hearts are
impure and hardened cannot possess the gospel, the very mysteries of the Kingdom
of Heaven.
As we hear the gospel of the water and the Spirit,
and as we have led our lives of faith until now, have our hearts been pure or
not? We need to think about this carefully. Contemplate upon yourselves to examine
if you are pure or not, and if you find that you had failed to be pure, then
cast aside your own stubbornness and place your pure faith in the gospel of
the water and the Spirit.
I am not speaking here about whether your acts
are insufficient or not. What I am admonishing you is to ask yourselves whether
your hearts that believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit are really
pure or not, and to examine whether your hearts are hardened or not. If you
discover that your hearts are indeed hardened, then you must repent and turn
around. We should not just beg God for His forgiveness, but we must all return
to God by placing our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
We must admit our mistaken beliefs of the past,
recognize our misplaced hearts, humble our hearts before the gospel of the water
and the Spirit, and believe in this gospel. If we find it hard to humble our
hearts, then we should at least humble our carnal bodies. Only then will God
see the center of your hearts and give you the remission of your sins. It is
my sincerest hope and desire that all of you, through your faith in the gospel
of the water and the Spirit, would receive the remission of your sins and live
as the people of God, and when the Lord returns, to meet Him and live forever
with all His blessings.
Your may have met the wrong kind of gospel witnesses,
and as a result, your faith may actually be on a wrong footing. While there
is no doubt that mistakes were made by such insufficient witnesses, fundamentally
speaking, however, isn’t it really your hearts that are wrong? What is God rebuking
us for? He is rebuking us for the fact that our hearts are not pure. It is absolutely
essential for you to cast aside the stubbornness of your hearts and believe
in the Word of God purely, for you can no blessing from God if your hearts are
hardened.
In This Age and Time, It Is a Blessing
for Us to Hear and See the
Gospel of the Water and the Spirit, and to Believe in It with Our Hearts
Our Lord said in Matthew 13:16-17, “But blessed
are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;for assuredly, I say
to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and
did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”
Indeed, our Lord came to this earth over 2,000
years ago, and He really began to spread His Word of the remission of sin and
of the Kingdom of God when He turned 30. When our Lord spoke about the remission
of sin, He told people about the Kingdom of God by explaining the Word of the
Old Testament, and He also taught them how they could be remitted from their
sins and be blessed. Those who actually saw Him with their own eyes and heard
directly from Him at that time were indeed blessed. From the foundation of the
world, hardly any prophets or believers in the Old Testament actually heard
what God Himself said about the Kingdom of Heaven when He came to this earth
in the flesh of man and revealed Himself.
When Jesus walked on this earth, the people of
Israel actually met Him, saw Him with their eyes, and heard what He said about
God and His Kingdom. Such people were tremendously blessed, and yet even among
those who heard the Word directly from this Jesus, there were still many who
did not believe in Him. In that age and time also, in other words, there were
many people who, by hardening their hearts, stood against Jesus and did not
believe in Him. Among the four different fields of the human heart, theirs were
of the three bad fields that should have been plowed.
We Can Hear God’s Word of Truth from Jesus’ Disciples
Who Believed in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit
In this age and time, you, too, can also hear
the gospel of the water and the Spirit from those who have become the true disciples
of Jesus. In fact, those of you who have met the servants of God spreading the
gospel Word of the water and the Spirit and heard from them this gospel are
the truly blessed ones. No one is more blessed than those who know Jesus and
believe in Him properly. However, even if one meets Jesus, if he hardens his
heart and does not believe in what He said, and therefore fails to receive the
remission of his sins, he is no different from the most wretched.
Now in this age, the truly blessed are precisely
those who know the gospel of the water and the Spirit and believe in it accurately.
Yet among those who have met the preachers spreading the power of this gospel
Truth, there are those who were unable to receive the remission of their sins
because of their failure to believe in the Word of God. They are the ones whose
hearts are truly hardened. All such people must repent from their stubbornness
and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, for their hardened hearts
will only lead them to hell.
My fellow believers, are the words of the servants
of God spreading the gospel power of the water and the Spirit merely the words
of man, or are they the Word of God? They are the Word of God. It is not easy
for you to meet the preachers of the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit
anywhere. They are simply not found among the religionists of this world. No
matter how someone may be the most famous pastor of this age, and no matter
how he may exercise the power of God, no one else but the true preachers of
God can preach the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.
You are the blessed, for you can hear the gospel
of the water and the Spirit in this age and time through our Christian books
series. The Word of the true gospel is given to you for free, as it is written
in Romans 10:8-9, “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth
and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has
raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Yet there still are people who, because their
hearts are hardened, do not believe in the gospel Word of the water and the
Spirit even as they hear the Word of God. These people are truly misguided.
Why? Because they cannot realize the Truth of salvation, for as their hearts
are hardened, they cannot hear even as they hear, nor can they see even as they
see with their eyes. They are therefore bound to be destroyed for their sins
even in the midst of such blessed opportunities.
Now, you can hear the Word of the gospel power
of the water and the Spirit in God’s Church and through our ministries. You
can now hear the Word of the water and the Spirit that holds the mysteries of
the very faith that enables you to enter the Kingdom of God. It is by hearing
and believing in this gospel of the water and the Spirit with all your hearts
that you can go to Heaven. Unless you hear this gospel Word of the water and
the Spirit, you cannot enter Heaven no matter how much you yearn to do so.
Where else but only in God’s Church could you
hear the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit? Throughout the entire world,
it is only the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit who can spread
this gospel. Where else, then, could you ever hear this gospel, unless you first
meet such servants of God? We are not boasting of ourselves, but I am only saying
that there actually is no one else who preaches this true gospel except us.
No matter how hard we look, there simply is no one else who is preaching this
gospel Truth. We have heard many people confessing to us with their own words
that they could not find this Truth, no matter how much they had continuously
searched for it throughout the whole of Christianity.
Now, throughout this world also, there have arisen
multitudes of the born-again who have seen, heard, and come to believe in this
gospel Word of the water and the Spirit through our literature, both in hard
copies and e-books. If you are one of them, you, too, must truthfully believe
in this gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit with all your sincere heart.
You must indeed listen to us and believe in the Word of God in humility. Only
then can you at last realize the mysterious Word of Truth that enables you to
enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Christianity is the gathering of those who follow
Jesus Christ. Today, many people claim to follow Jesus and to want to become
His disciples, but they need to recognize that they now actually believe in
only one of the many religions of the world. They do not know and believe in
Jesus properly, nor are they obeying and following Him. They only think to themselves
that they are obeying Jesus, when in fact they are not following the real Jesus
but only the elusions of their own making. If they do not like what the Word
says, they even alter the Word of Jesus for their own taste to fit their own
beliefs.
Most of them really have the image of a handsome
Jesus. Did He really have the face of a good-looking man, when the Bible in
fact says, “He has no form or comeliness”? (Isaiah 53:2) They believe
all on their own, revising even the essence of Jesus, as well as His Word. It
is because this is what they are doing that I can summarily describe their hearts
in a word as stubborn hearts.
But whatever God said in the Bible is entirely
infallible, if He indeed said so. All we have to do before His Word is kneel
before it, and obey and believe in it with a yes. Even if you find it hard to
lower your hearts before God’s Word, you must still force yourselves to humble
both your bodies and hearts before God and acknowledge that He is right. If
your hearts are not pure, you must repent. Only then can you accept His Word,
and become God’s people and workers.
The Gospel Truth of the Water and the Spirit Revealed in Matthew
13:18-23
Our Lord Himself interpreted the parable of the
sower in Matthew 13:18-23 by saying, “Therefore hear the parable of the sower”(Matthew
13:18). He explained to us by drawing an analogous parallel to something
else that we are familiar with, so that we may understand His Word on the mystery
of Heaven and grasp it more easily.
In Matthew 13:19, Jesus said, “When anyone
hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one
comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received
seed by the wayside.”
Not just anyone, in other words, can understand
the Word of Heaven. When one hears the Word of salvation that explains the Kingdom
of God and yet does not understand it, the wicked one comes and snatches away
what was sown in his heart. To understand His Word properly, we need to realize
first that we are sinners who have worshipped idols before God. From the day
we were born, we have fundamentally failed to know God, to honor Him and to
serve Him. This failure to know and believe in God as God is the sin of idolatry,
which is the greatest sin before God. This is who we were. We need to recognize
just how flawed and how truly stubborn we are.
Because Adam and Eve, the first father and mother
of mankind, sinned against God, they passed on the twelve sources of sin to
all of us as our inheritance. And as a result, from our very birth we have been
removed from God and turned into the accursed people who left Him. We were such
seeds with hardened hearts that could not be saved from all our sins, but instead
stand against God and disobey Him, and therefore destined to be accursed in
the end, unless Jesus Christ saved us first. We must therefore admit here that
we were the seeds of sin who could avoid but be cast into hell for our disobedience,
and that we were terrible piles of sin who had been bound to live while bearing
such fruits of sin and standing against God throughout our entire lifetime.
We must realize our fundamental, true selves. If we fail to do so, everything
will be snatched away from us.
Ephesians 2: 1-3 says, “And you He made alive,
who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to
the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once
conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”
God is telling us here, “You are the seeds of
evildoer who worship other gods before Me. You are basically the seeds of evildoer
who have fundamentally stood up against Me, having sided with Satan the Devil,
the prince of the power of the air.” When God says this to us, we must admit
to Him, “We have indeed done so. While we did not do so intentionally, we still
were ruled by the Devil and did not even know God.”
We were so wrong, our forefathers were also wrong,
and so will our descendants be. This flaw is the sin that makes it inevitable
for us to be cast into hell. We indeed were such terrible sinners who, had our
Lord not remitted away this sin with the water and the Spirit, simply could
not receive the remission of our sins.
This is why we must first realize our fundamental
existence. We shouldn’t just hear the Word, but we must reach a clear understanding
of it. We must truly realize how we are the seeds of sin and of evildoer; how
we really are incapable of keeping the Law and doing good deeds before God,
but only of committing evil deeds; and how we cannot be saved from our sins
but only through Jesus Christ. We must recognize that we had been bound to follow
only our flesh, to seek only after the fame, wealth, and glory of this world,
and to be cast into the everlasting fire and perish forever. And after realizing
the wickedness of our hearts, we must humble our hearts, and accept into our
hearts with thankfulness that the Lord has blotted out all our sins.
The Lord said to us, “You are the seeds of evildoers.
Your sins cannot be washed away, not even with soap.” This is why when Jesus
Christ the Son of God came to this earth, He was baptized by John the Baptist,
saying, “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”
And when He came out of the water, God Himself testified, “This is My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, He
took upon all our sins. Our Lord told us that He came to this earth to save
you and me who had been bound to hell for our sins, and that He took upon all
the sins of mankind once for all by being baptized by John the Baptist, the
representative of mankind. “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting
for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). This is what Jesus
said when He was baptized. Jesus bore all our sins by being baptized. Do you
believe now that all your sins were passed onto Jesus Christ?
Is there anyone whose heart is overwhelmed by
a sense of guilt, thinking, “It’s true that I believe in this gospel. But even
though I believe in the Word, I have committed so many grave sins, and am going
so astray before God even now. So I can’t dare to say that I am sinless”?
My fellow believers, because there is no sin that
our Lord did not take away from us, it is only right that all our wrongdoings,
no matter how grave they are, were indeed passed onto Him. Our Lord said, “For
thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness,” and then He was baptized
by John the Baptist. At that very moment, all your sins, no matter what kind
of sin you might have committed, and no matter how grave they might be, were
all passed onto the Lord. If you have indeed admitted your sinful nature to
the full extent, and cast aside your hardened hearts before the Lord, then you
now have to acknowledge the gospel Truth. You must acknowledge that Jesus is
the Son of God, God Himself, and our Savior, and that the Lord took upon all
your sins, no matter how insufficient you might be, and what kind of sin you
might have committed. Our Lord took them all away. Do you acknowledge this now?
Mankind is always insufficient. You must never
forget that when you point your finger at someone, all other fingers are actually
pointed at you. Everyone sins. You and I alike, we all commit sin. Do you think
you could throw a stone at the adulterous woman, when our Lord said, “He
who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first” (John 8:7).
You surely don’t. You and I are committing the same sins that everyone else
commits.
But by being baptized by John, Jesus took upon
all the sins of this world and accepted them all onto Himself. All your and
my sins were passed onto this Jesus when He was baptized by John the Baptist.
Do you acknowledge this? Do you admit that had Jesus not taken upon our sins
through His baptism, you and I would be 100% bound to hell for our sins?
If you acknowledge the Word that Jesus spoke,
then this means that your hearts are not hardened. But if you acknowledge this
only with your thoughts and do not recognize it with your hearts, then this
can only mean that your hearts are indeed stubborn. To refuse to accept the
Word of God into the heart is the worst sin committed out of a hardened heart,
whereas he who acknowledges it with all his heart is one whose heart is humble.
You and I must therefore acknowledge the Word with our hearts.
When our Lord baptized, the gates of Heaven were
opened, and God the Father said, “He who was baptized just now is My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God the Father is saying, “My Son took upon
all your sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, the representative of mankind.
My own Son thus became the propitiation for your sins. As the heavenly High
Priest, He accepted all your sins onto His own body by being baptized, and by
sacrificing this body of My own Son, I have washed away all your sins. This
is how I have saved you from all your sins.” You and I must acknowledge this
Word with our hearts. Only when we acknowledge this with all our hearts does
it mean that our hearts are not hardened.
My fellow believers, do you acknowledge the Word
of God sincerely with your pure hearts? You must never harden your hearts before
God. To have your heart hardened before God is for you to be truly wicked. To
stand against God and disobey God’s Word with your hearts is a thousand times
more wicked than to offend His Word with your flesh. Standing against God with
your acts is also evil, of course, but to do so with your hearts is truly evil.
When you do this in your hearts, God know it all.
But if you think that God does not know it, and you shamelessly and brazenly
reject His Word with your hardened hearts, you are committing the blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit, a sin that is unforgivable before God. What is this
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Not believing in the gospel Truth is the
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
consulted with one another and planned to blot out all the sins of us mankind,
have fulfilled this according to the plan, and guarantee it to us. In short,
the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the sin of not believing that the Lord
has blotted all our sins with the gospel power of the water and the Spirit and
made us God’s own children. A heart that does not believe that the Lord has
saved us who had been bound to hell from all our sins, and that He has thereby
made us God’s people, is a heart that blasphemies the Holy Spirit.
Some people insist that to prevent people from
speaking in tongues and laying their hands on someone else’s head to say healing
prayers is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. But this is absolutely nonsense.
It is those who stand against the gospel of the water and the Sprit that are
committing the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. All other sins can be forgiven,
but anyone who rejects the gospel power of the water and the Spirit and does
not believe in it cannot be forgiven from this sin. Therefore, the Apostle John
also defined this sin as ‘the sin leading to death’ (1 John 5: 16).
In the gospel power of the water and the Spirit
is found the Truth of salvation, through which God has saved us. That God has
saved us from all our sins presupposes that we had fallen into sin and could
not therefore avoid but be bound to hell. This is why God had pity on us and
has saved us with the gospel power of the water and the Spirit. It is by believing
in this Truth, that Jesus Christ has saved us by coming to this earth, being
baptized, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again, that you and I
can become God’s children and be freed from the evil schemes of Satan. It is
by putting on the gospel power of the water and the Spirit that we can be removed
from our old places where we had fundamentally stood against God and saddened
Him, and receive our salvation from God. Therefore, far from hardening our hearts,
you and I need to humble them. This is what our Lord is telling us here.
Your hearts might still be like thorny fields,
which are full of the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, or
like stony fields that still have many unrevealed sins. You also had lived religious
lives, worshipped other gods before God, committed idolatry, and stood against
God. In other words, your hearts might have been like a wayside field. When
your unrevealed sins are manifested through your acts, all that you have to
do is just admit that this is who you really are. Yet in spite of this there
are so many terrible sins in your hearts that you find it difficult to admit
them. But through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Lord has still
saved us. Do you believe this with your hearts?
This is to humble your hearts. The humble faith
that is blessed by God is the faith that makes you His children, and it is the
heart that has been saved from sin. With this faith, you must plow the field
of your hardened, tough, and stubborn hearts. And you must accept what God has
done for you into your hearts with a yes. This is the humble faith. This is
the good field.
There have been not a few believers who have left
God’s Church and this blessed gospel by seeking the deceitfulness of the riches,
fame, power, and their own lusts, even as they had once believed in the gospel
of the water and the Spirit. But even so, our Lord has blotted out even the
sins of such people. In fact, with the water and the Spirit, the Lord has blotted
out all the sins of everyone, of all those who left the Church to pursue their
sexual lusts or carnal pleasure, or because they did not find the Church to
their liking. Yet these people decide on their own, “Because of what I did,
I am forever separated from God,” and they cut themselves off from Him. None
other this constitutes the greatest sin before God. Because this constitutes
the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, such people will ultimately reach their
own destruction.
Are there still stones in the fields of our hearts?
Are there sins that are yet to be revealed? We know all about sin, but only
superficially. “Oh, so this is what God is saying,” we think to ourselves. But
this is all we know, and there still remains much that we do not realize, since
such sins as murder, adultery, jealousy, fighting, thievery, and sexual immorality
have not been actually carried out but only entertained in our wicked thoughts.
Do you not have much that your hearts desire to do? Of course there is. Will
you not then actually carry out these things sooner or later? You will. Does
this then mean that you can do them freely? No.
Human beings are not that special. Everyone is
insufficient. But the Lord has saved us from all our sins. To believe this is
faith.
Jesus said that the mysteries of Heaven have been
given to us. What, then, are the mysteries of Heaven? It is the Word about the
gospel power of the water and the Spirit. Some people may be reminded of some
illusions of Heaven by the phrase ‘the mysteries of Heaven.’ A while ago, a
mystical false prophet, who insisted that he had been to Heaven, testified to
Korean Christians that the angels in Heaven had been busy to prepare many apartment
buildings for the saints to come. Subsequent to this false prophet there arose
other similar witnesses in Korea who claimed to have visited Heaven. But by
‘the mysteries of Heaven,’ our Lord did not mean such deluded illusions.
Jesus taught us the mysteries of Heaven, the gospel
of the water and the Spirit, so that we would testify that the Lord has saved
us from all our sins, even though we are insufficient. That’s why I testify
to you now that the Lord has become our everlasting Savior, and that to save
us from all our sins, He was baptized, died on the Cross, rose from the dead
again, and lives even now. Do you believe in the power of the gospel? If you
believe, then you are safe.
The kind of faith that is approved by God is of
the heart. If you try very hard to believe some truth in His Word even though
you can never acknowledge it, this in itself cannot constitute your faith. Faith
is a concept that belongs to grace. If we try hard to have faith in God’s Truth,
our efforts on their own cannot be of His grace, for the Lord said; “Now
to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him
who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
accounted for righteousness” (Romans 4:4-5).
Trying hard to believe with one’s own will is
in itself a work. Just accepting God’s Word with your pure hearts is faith.
When the Lord says that He took upon all our sins by being baptized in the Jordan
River, and that because of this all our sins were passed onto Jesus Christ,
to acknowledge this Word is faith. To just acknowledge the Word of God is the
heart of the blessed one who is poor in spirit. He who has a heart of fearing
God needs not to try hard to believe in His Word.
Just saying, “I’ll believe. I’ll try hard to believe
Your Word,” only indicates that our hearts are hardened. When the Word comes
upon us, we must say yes to it and believe in it. There cannot be “no” before
the Word of God. Can there be anything in the Word of God that can be denied?
Of course not! We must acknowledge that the Lord has saved us from our sins
with the gospel power of the water and the Spirit. Therefore, to say only reluctantly,
“I’ll try to believe,” is not right.
The Lord said that “he who received seed on the
good ground is he who hears the Word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit
and produces; some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” He said that those
who understand the Word bear fruit. You and I must also understand.
In Korea, there is a weird sect called “I’ve-got-it
Sect.” Its members try very hard on their own to convince themselves of their
own remission of sin, for they do not know the whole Truth of the gospel of
the water and the Spirit. Because of their ignorance of the gospel Truth, they
cannot but try to explain the remission of their sins by applying all kinds
of allegories and metaphors. And when they happen to reach an understanding
of such teachings by chance, they proclaim to be born again by such an understanding.
Now, they regard us as a heretic. Why? Because they have found that their gospel
is different from the gospel we are preaching.
Does this then mean that they understood the Word
properly, or does this mean that they misunderstood it? They only claimed to
understand when their understanding was of something worthless. It is as if
they were joyously claiming to have discovered a goldmine, when in fact they
were rolling only in their own filth. All knowledge, apart from the Word of
Truth on the gospel power of the water and the Spirit, is no more than waste.
If anyone does not understand this hidden Truth of the water and the Spirit
even as he reads the Bible, all his understanding is 100% in vain.
Jesus said that he who understands the Word bears
fruit by a hundredfold, sixty and thirty. Those who do not understand the Word
cannot bear fruit. What about you then? Can you understand the Word? Do you
now realize clearly in your hearts and profess as follows? “Ah, I had indeed
been bound to hell, and yet the Lord has saved me with the power of the water
and the Spirit and has become my Savior. The Lord has thereby become my Master,
and the God of my salvation. I can now believe that He will take me to the Kingdom
of Heaven. My faith may not be great, but I now have faith, even if it is as
small as a mustard seed.” Do you at least realize that you have now become God’s
people? If yes, then you are all right. You are now to hear the Word and continue
to grow.
Those who do not understand the Word even as they
hear it are hardened in their hearts. You must understand the Word of the gospel
as soon as you hear it, and whenever your insufficiencies are revealed in your
lives, you must realize how the gospel power of the water and the Spirit that
has saved people like you is such an amazing Truth. “Ah, I am this much insufficient,
and yet the Lord has saved me like this. Hallelujah! Thank You, Lord!”
This is how you can no longer be bound by your
sins, follow the Lord, and serve Him with your renewed and cleansed hearts.
Those who have reached this true understanding are the truly blessed ones and
the citizens of God’s Kingdom.
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God has given us all the Truth so that you may
understand it. Anyone can now understand this Truth, if only he would not harden
his heart. If we cast aside the wickedness of our hearts and humble them, we
can all reach this understanding. If you have no such realization right now,
then cast aside the wickedness of your hearts and keep on hearing His Word through
the servants of God. The understanding of the Word will then come into your
hearts someday. When this realization is upon you, the Word will become your
faith in the Truth that abides forever, never to disappear.
What you realize on your own is not the true understanding.
Understanding what God’s Church is teaching you with the gospel of the water
and the Spirit is the only proper understanding.
I thank the Lord for giving us this Word on the
mysteries of Heaven, and for allowing us to know these mysteries with pure hearts.
It is my hope and prayer that all those who still
do not know the mysteries of Heaven would cast aside the stubbornness of their
hearts, humble them instead, and pray to God to give them the understanding
of this Truth.
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