[Chapter 2-7] The Followers of the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans (Revelation 2:12-17)
(Revelation 2:12-17)
The Way of Balaam
It
is said here that among the seven churches in Asia, the Church of
Pergamos had some members who followed the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
These people were consumed only by their desire to build up their own
worldly wealth and fame, and had no interest in saving souls. Ministers
in particularly must be very careful so as not to end up following this
doctrine of Balaam. Balaam made the saints worship the world and led
them to their destruction.
God
gave us His Word of promise that to those who overcome, He will give
the hidden manna and a white stone. Put differently, this also means
that the pastors who pursue the world will end up losing their manna.
The manna here means “the exquisite Word of God,” and losing the hidden
manna means losing the will of God that is hidden in His Word.
When
the born-again servants of God pursue the world, they come to lose the
sight of His Word. This is a fearful prospect. I am fearful of this
possibility, and you, too, should fear it. God tells us that to those
who overcome He would give the hidden manna and a white stone, but those
who lose to the world by compromising with it and surrendering to its
worldly fame or pleasure will not be given this manna.
The
Bible tells us, “And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a
new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.” How
true is the Word of God! Those who love the secular world are those who
have not been saved from their sins by not believing in the baptism of
Jesus Christ and His blood on the Cross. These people do not know the
truth that Christ has forgiven all their sins with His baptism.
Some
people’s faith in Jesus remains only on a theoretical plane. They think
that Jesus took away their sins, and therefore they have been made
righteous, but their faith is empty because there is no Holy Spirit in
their hearts. This is a theoretical faith. If one has really received
redemption, he/she must fight and overcome the things of the world—the
worldly fame, honor, wealth, or power. Overcoming the world means
holding onto the Word of God that has allowed us to be born again,
fighting against those who pursue the wealth and honor of this world,
and keeping the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
God
tells us that He would write into the Book of Life the names of those
who have been redeemed, and in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells. As
the Bible tells us, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old
things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2
Corinthians 5:17), those who have been born again and who has the Holy
Spirit dwelling in their hearts know that they no longer are what they
used to be before. They realize themselves that their old selves have
now become new creations by believing in the water and the blood of
Jesus Christ. With their faith they know that their names are written in
the Book of Life. This is how they can see the hidden manna of God, and
this is how such servants and saints of God can hear God’s Word of
truth, the exquisite voice of God.
Manna
was given to the Israelites when they were wandering in the desert for
forty years before reaching the promised land of Canaan. According to
the Bible’s description, manna was like white coriander seed, round and
small. When the Israelites woke up in the morning, the surface of their
surroundings was covered by manna, as if it had snowed overnight. The
Israelites then gathered manna and ate them in the morning. This was
their daily bread. Perhaps they fried it, perhaps they boiled it, or
perhaps they baked it; regardless, this was the staple of the Israelites
during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
Because
manna was small like coriander seed, one could not be filled by just
having a single manna. But God gave them enough manna overnight so that
the need of every Israelite was met for the day—no less and no more than
a day, for manna could not be stored. But on the sixth day, God gave
them enough manna to last for two days, so that the Israelites would not
have to gather manna on the Sabbath day.
The Bread of Life
The
Word of God is our manna, our bread of life. In the Word of God is
found the bread for our souls, the bread of life. It is not that in a
particular passage you would find a huge loaf of bread, but that the
great will of God is found throughout the Scripture, even in its
smallest details.
To
the servants and saints of God who did not make compromises with the
world, God has given the bread of life. And He continued to give to each
and everyone of us this daily bread that meets both our physical and
spiritual needs.
Because
of this manna, the Israelites never went hungry during their 40 years
of wandering in the wilderness, even though the desert produced nothing
eatable for them. Likewise, to those who reject the deeds of the
Nicolaitans, God has promised that He would give His hidden manna to
eat. To the servants of God who do not pursue such things of the world
as wealth and status, God gives His exquisite Word, the Word of Life
that allows them to be born again by the gospel of the water and the
Spirit.
We
must hate and reject the deeds of the Nicolaitans that prevail in
today’s Christian communities. We must not follow the faith of those who
are not born again, and we must refuse to conform to the world. Though
it is the law of God that our flesh pursues the things of the flesh and
our spirit pursues the things of the Spirit, we must nevertheless reject
the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, hate all the deeds that conform to the
world, and instead feed on God’s manna by believing in the Word of
truth that God has given us. Recognizing that we have now become
righteous and that we now have the Holy Spirit residing in our hearts,
we must all live by faith.
The
born-again must fight the world. They must fight the Nicolaitans. As
you know well yourself, too many of today’s pastors pursue their own
wealth and fame, adorn themselves, conform to the world, and try to be
successful in worldly ways. We must fight these false prophets.
We,
too, have our flesh, and so we also have the desire to pursue secular
gains. But those who have the Holy Spirit in them must know that they
cannot follow the world in their hearts, that they must deny the things
of the world, and that they must live only by faith. If your heart
unites with those who follow the world, approves their faith, and
pursues the world as they pursue it, you will end up following in the
path of Balaam, moving toward your ultimate destruction. This is the
path for the destruction of both your flesh and spirit. When you follow
the world, you will lose your faith. God said that He would spit such
people out of His mouth; these people will no longer eat manna, and will
end up losing their faith completely.
The
reason why God rebuked the Church of Pergamos was because its members
followed the doctrine of Balaam. God rebuked the servant of the Church
of Pergamos because he, though a born-again servant whose heart was
dwelt by the Holy Spirit, sought to be recognized by the world and
ministered his church as if he was a secular person. Not only that, he
planted the same mistaken belief among his flock and led them astray.
Such a servant is no better than a worldly pastor who is not born again.
With this passage, God has issued a clear and strict warning to the
kind of the servants of God whose only interest revolves around secular
gains and enriching the church coffers: “Repent, or else I will come to
you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.”
Faith That Leads You to Destruction
What
would happen if man fought against God? You don’t even have to think
for a second—surely this would be the quickest way to destruction. By
“He who has the sharp two-edged sword,” it means that the Word of God is
a double-edged sword. It does not matter who you are; if you are hit by
the Word of God, you will surely die. The Word of God is the sword of
power that can pierce “even to the division of soul and spirit, and of
joints and marrow” (Hebrews 4:12). And it is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart, so that people may be clothed in the
redemption offered by the water and the blood of Christ Jesus.
There
are many who, while believing in Jesus, nevertheless fall into the trap
of legalism, and as a result end up being beaten to death by the Law.
To avoid this sorry outcome, we must fight and overcome such worldly
faith. God’s workers must overcome the false teachings, and they must
also make sure that their flocks are not deceived by such lies. Whoever
loves the world and falls into its traps will see his/her faith
disappear.
Many
of today’s churches are described not as churches but as businesses.
This is a sad but penetrating description. Why have these churches ended
up being treated as businesses? Because today’s churches are too busy
to pursue the world, being the first to follow and worship the worldly
values. I am not saying, of course, that the born-again have absolutely
no desire of the flesh. Even the born-again believers have the lust of
the flesh, but this lust is curtailed by their faith. They do not seek
the things of the flesh as the unbelievers pursue their carnal desires
with all their hearts.
Those
who are not born again set their own standards, and live their lives
enjoying everything they can within the bounds of these standards.
Idolatry and sexual immorality are only natural for them. Even worse,
some of them worship the Devil. Could the born-again do any of these
things? Of course not! They can never do such things, because the
born-again know how filthy and unclean these acts are. Because we who
are born again are fundamentally different from those who pursue the
glory of the world and every carnal desire of theirs, we must not live
our lives obsessing ourselves with the worldly gains, nor can we ever
live so.
Those
who pursue the deeds of the Nicolaitans are those who pursue only the
wealth of this world. There is nothing wrong, of course, in trying to
make a living, and even to become rich. But when the sole purpose of
your life becomes accumulation, and when you fall into idolatry and end
up being driven by your greed, then your faith is sure to be destroyed.
Those who minister for money and those who go to church for the wealth
of the world are all following the deeds of the Nicolaitans. These
people will lose to the world in the end, because although they claim to
believe in God, their hearts are yet to be wholly redeemed of all their
sins.
Four Kinds of the Field of Heart
The
Gospel of Matthew tells us a parable in which Jesus talked about a
sower whose seeds fall on four different grounds. The first ground on
which the seeds fall is the wayside; the second is stony place; the
third is thorny ground; and the fourth is good ground. Let’s take a look
at each of them.
The
wayside symbolizes a hardened heart. This person hears the Word of God,
but because he/she does not quickly take it into the heart, it is
snatched away by birds. In other words, because such a person looks only
intellectually at the Word of salvation that can allow him/her to be
born again by water and the Spirit, the bird (Satan) snatches it away,
and his/her faith does not even begin to grow.
What,
then, is meant by the stony place? This refers to those who, while
receiving the Word with joy, do not endure for long, because they have
no root in the shallow ground. Those who receive the seed among the
thorns, on the other hand, refer to those whose cares for this world and
the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word that they had joyfully
received at the beginning.
Lastly,
those who receive the seeds on the good ground are those who bear
fruits in their hearts by wholly accepting the Word of God and following
it.
Which
of these grounds represents your heart? If your heart is like the
wayside that is completely unprepared to grow the seed of the Word, it
will be swept aside or be snatched away by birds, turning the blessing
of this Word completely irrelevant to you. We must realize that because
we are the seeds of sin, were it not for God’s Word we would have
remained irrelevant to Him. If, on the other hand, our hearts like the
stony ground, then the seed of the Word would not be able to take its
root, and would not survive rainstorms, winds, or draughts. These people
need to turn over their fields. Regardless of how joyfully they might
have received the Word of God at first, if it cannot grow and withers
away at the slightest trouble, then their first acceptance would have no
use at all.
We
must also overcome the hearts of thorny grounds. We must fight against
and cut through the thorns that threaten our lives. If you leave them
alone, the thorns will cover us in no time and block us from the
sunlight. Cut off from the sun and losing the nutrients of the soil to
the thorns, this tree of the Word would then die.
When
we face trials and tribulations in our lives, we must boldly overcome
them. We must fight the thorns that are blocking our way and covering
our faces with all our strength, as if our very lives depended on it.
When the money of this world holds us back or when its fame threatens
us, we must fight them all and overcome them. Because the worries of the
world and its greed are deadly for the soul, we must always conquer
them. When we live such a spiritual life of victory, our bodies and
souls will prosper, for they will receive the sunlight and nourishment
from God.
For
the born-again saints and servants of God, there must always be a
spiritual battle against the world. We thus must not follow the
Nicolaitans. The Nicolaitans were said to have been heavily involved in
providing services for the public. But serving the public in the world
is not the main role of the church. It would be a huge mistake to think
that the main purpose of the church is social service.
Reject Boldly!
God
tells us that we are the salt of this world. What does He mean by that?
When God tells us that we are the salt of the world, it means that we
are needed by the world. The role of the salt is to preach the Word of
the water and blood of Christ to the sinners so that they would be
delivered from their sins, made into the children of God, and allowed
into Heaven. Just as salt is needed to bring out taste, the world needs
the born-again righteous as its salt. The born-again righteous, in other
words, must preach the Word of the water and the Spirit and guide the
people to their redemption. We must fulfill this role of salt and help
the souls to be born again. We must turn the sinners into the righteous.
What
is the real church of God? The true church of God is where people
gather to worship Him; it is where they praise God; and it is where they
pray to Him. When temptation comes, the servants of God must be able to
resist it. The saints, too, must be able to resist the temptations of
the world coming from Satan. The Devil may tempt you, “Forget your
faith; I will make you rich! You don’t have to attend a born-again
church; come to one of my churches, and I will even make you an elder!”
But because Satan is always trying to make the righteous stumble and
draw them into his traps, we must always be ready to fight and overcome
him so that we can defend our faith until the end.
Those
who have false faith often try to tempt the redeemed with material
things. They tempt with money and fame. Satan shows us the worldly
values and tells us to abandon our faith and God. What we must have in
such times is the faith in the Lord that He will meet all our needs, and
with this faith we can boldly reject and overcome Satan’s temptations.
The
root of blessings is found in God. God is the one who blesses us, both
spiritually and physically. Knowing that the Devil is not the one who
blesses mankind, we can fight against him. There are also times when we
fight against our own desires. When greed and lust begin to surface as
we let our hearts be carried away by the current of this world, we must
fight against ourselves. It goes without saying that we must battle
against the worldly people who seek to sabotage our faith. We are simply
fated to fight spiritual battles against all the worldly forces.
Why?
Because when a Christian is not engaged in a spiritual battle, this can
only mean that his/her faith is dead for all practical purposes. Until
the world ends and the judgment day of the righteous and the sinners is
over, there will continue to be trickeries to destroy our faith. This is
why we must ceaselessly engage in spiritual battles. If we tolerate
those who stand against God and seek to destroy our faith, we will end
up losing everything, including our lives. Without the strong
determination to not permit anything other than our faith to rule us, we
will not only lose all our possessions, but we will also be abandoned
by God. We must be able to clearly discern who stands with us and who
stands against us in order for us to fight and overcome our enemies.
While we should be generous to each other, we must be firm in our
resolve against our foes—to the point where our enemies cannot even dare
to try anything on us.
The
Nicolaitans are enemies for us. They are our foes because they are a
“synagogue of Satan” whom we can neither tolerate nor work with. We who
have been forgiven of our sins must not tolerate the Nicolaitans who
engage in idolatry and only seek after material gains, but we must
instead devote our lives to serving the Lord and His righteous work of
building the Kingdom of God on this earth.
Seek First the Kingdom of God
Jesus
told us to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,”
admonishing us to do the works of God before the works of our flesh. We
who are born again have spiritual desires. These are not the desires of
the flesh, but the desires of the Spirit. This is how we can first serve
the works of God and His Kingdom. We serve God first, but we also do
the works of the flesh. As the Bible tells us, “Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” We
live, in other words, not by our flesh alone, but by both the flesh and
the spirit. We must be able to balance between these two. If we follow
the deeds of the Nicolaitans thinking that all that matters is our
happiness on this earth, we will end up facing our own destruction. This
is why we must first seek our spiritual desires.
Some
people become rather hostile whenever the topic of Heaven and hell is
brought up. They ask, “Have you been to hell? Have you seen it with your
own eyes?” But these questions are coming from Satan’s thoughts. Not
only are the common people like this, but even most of the pastors who
spent years studying theology minister their flocks without having any
assurance of Heaven and the knowledge of how to be born again. This is a
most unfortunate and deplorable condition, for such ministers who do
not have such convictions and are not even born again themselves can
never lead those who know nothing of God to be born again. When so many
souls are confined to the thoughts of Satan and stand against God, what
could they possibly learn from the pastors who neither believe in Heaven
nor are convinced of their own salvation?
By
“where Satan’s throne is,” it is meant that Satan now reigns over the
whole world. This is the kind of age in which we live, the kind of era
when the world is full of the Nicolaitans who light up the night skies
with their neon crosses and run their churches as if they are running a
business. God has told us that these are not His churches, but the
“synagogues of Satan.” Today’s world is now full of countless people
who, trapped by the thoughts of Satan and seeking after the greed of
this world, pretend to minister, attend church, and call upon the name
of the Lord; however, the rebirth of their souls and their hope for
Heaven have disappeared long ago. This is the kind of age in which we
now live and serve the Lord.
Spiritual Battle against Those Who Are Not Born Again
We
are living here on this earth “where Satan’s throne is.” We must defend
our faith by being on guard and bravely facing our enemies when
challenged. Until the day of our Lord’s return, we must carefully guard
and keep our “white stone”—our faith, that is—by believing in the gospel
that has allowed us to be born again by its water and blood.
We
must live by eating manna, the Word of God. To do so, we must fight
against and overcome the deeds of the Nicolaitans. We must reject them.
We must not go near those who seek only money and worldly fame. Though
we can tolerate and forgive their weaknesses, we cannot break bread with
those who stand against the truth and lust after only money, far less
to do the works of God with such people.
Where
are the names of those who have been born again by believing in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit recorded? They are written in the
Book of Life. What, then, is meant by writing in a new name into this
white stone? It means that we have become the children of God. It is
also written that no one knows this new name “except him who receives
it.” This means that no one but those who are born again by believing in
the gospel of the water and the Spirit knows the salvation of Jesus.
Sinners do not know how they can become righteous—that is, only those
who receive their new names from Jesus know how their sins were made to
disappear.
We
must fight against the Nicolaitans; not against someone else, but
against the Nicolaitans. The core essence of the passage is that we must
struggle against and overcome the Nicolaitans who, though they believe
in God and know the Word of truth, still continue to disobey and reject
the Word of God and pursue only money, material gains, wealth, and fame
for their flesh.
We
must also struggle against ourselves. If we cannot follow God because
of our vanity or pride, we must fight against such hearts. And we must
also engage in a spiritual struggle against those who claim to believe
in Jesus without having been born again.
Despite
the fact that we have come far short of His glory, the Lord has saved
us by His water and blood. We must defend our faith by believing in this
Word and live our lives as the servants of God, giving thanks to Him
for the perfect salvation that He has given us. We must first seek the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let us all become those who
overcome by fighting to the end in faith.
Those Who Overcome Shall Be Given Manna
The
biggest case of disappearance in human history will be the rapture that
is to come. At the same time, the second coming of Jesus is the issue
that draws the most interest from all those who believe in Christ. Some
people think, “There will be a massive disappearance of people as the
saints are raptured; as people from all walks of life disappear, from
pilots to train conductors to cab drivers, the world will be inundated
with all kinds of accidents and disasters, with planes crashing down
from the sky, trains derailing, and highways becoming littered with
traffic accidents.” A book that based its story along these lines,
titled Rapture, used to be a bestseller in the past. These people
believed that the saints would disappear into thin air when they are
raptured. Thus, not only did they repent and prepare their faith for the
day of their rapture, but some of them even quit their schools and
jobs, a not-so-laughable phenomenon.
Not
too long ago, a denomination that embraced the doctrine of
pre-tribulation rapture had its congregations give up their possessions
to the church and only wait for the day of rapture that its leaders had
prophesized. Of course, the day that they had prophesized and so eagerly
waited for ended just like every other day—all that wait for nothing!
Everything that they had so sincerely believed in and waited for was
proven to have been just a lie.
But
some of them indomitably declared another day in 1999 as their day of
rapture, and waited and waited. However, as before, they were proven to
have been all deceived by lies. Their leaders, put to shame for their
unfulfilled prophecy, decided to never again set the time of Christ’s
return. We can see from these events how the doctrine of pre-tribulation
rapture simply does not fit into the Word of God at all.
The
most important point in the Book of Revelation is the second coming of
Jesus and the rapture of the saints. For all faithful Christians, when
Christ would return to the world and lift up His believers into the air
is their biggest hope and wait. In fact, it is reasonable for Christians
to eagerly wait for the return of Christ in their faith. Whoever truly
believes in Jesus must wait for the day of the Lord’s return with great
anticipation and eagerness.
It
is better to have the kind of faith that waits for the second coming of
the Lord and the rapture than the one that does not wait at all. The
way which the apocalyptic end-timers veered off from the right path is
that they set a specific day and time for their rapture. As the basis of
their calculation, many of them misinterpreted the seventy-week
prophecy that appears in Daniel 9, as well as Zechariah, and arrived at
their own predicted dates.
Paul
says in 1 Thessalonians 4 that when Christ returns to this earth, the
saints will be lifted up into the air to meet Him. It is therefore only
proper that those who genuinely believe in Jesus would wait for the day
of their rapture. But calculating and setting aside a specific date for
the rapture was something deeply wrong, for it was a reflection of their
pride that ignored the wisdom of God. It was a great mistake to try to
solve and understand the prophesies of the Bible with man-made
mathematical formulas.
When,
then, would the real rapture happen? Revelation 6 speaks of the rapture
of the saints; according to it, during the fourth era of the seven eras
of God—that is, the era of the pale horse—there will be the martyrdom
of the saints, and after this the rapture will happen in the fifth era.
The rapture of the saints is described in detail, and it will indeed
become a reality when the time comes.
God
has planned seven eras for mankind, the first of which is the era of
the white horse. This is the era in which the gospel of the water and
the Spirit begins and continues to triumph. The second era is the era of
the red horse. This era marks the beginning of the age of Satan. The
third era is the era of the black horse, when the world will be struck
by both physical and spiritual famine. The fourth era is that of the
pale horse. This is the era in which the Antichrist will emerge and the
saints will be martyred. The fifth era is when the saints will be
resurrected and raptured following their martyrdom. The sixth era
entails the complete destruction of the first creation—this world, that
is—by God, which will then be followed by the seventh era in which God
will open the Millennial Kingdom and the New Heaven and Earth to live
with His saints forever. God has thus set these seven distinct eras for
all mankind. It is only proper that those who believe in Jesus should
know and believe in these seven eras that God has set for them.
In
Korea alone, it is estimated that over 100,000 people, at the end of
last century, set aside and waited for their own day and time of the
second coming of Christ and their rapture. About 12 million Korean are
said to be Christians. Among them, about 100,000 waited for the return
of Jesus and their rapture. Put differently, these are the hardcore
believers who believed in the Word of God as it was written and waited
for the return of the Lord—only 100,000 out of 12 million, that is, less
than 1 percent.
Their
problem, however, was that they did not have a proper understanding of
the eras that God has set for them. Without properly understanding the
gospel of the water and the Spirit, many of the Early Church Christians
made such mistakes of trying to calculate the date of Christ’s return
based on their erroneous knowledge of the era of Christ’s second coming
and the saints’ rapture. So Paul the Apostle warned them “not to be soon
shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter,
as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come” (2 Thessalonians
2:2).
Historically
speaking, many continued in their ignorance of God’s plan and kept
setting wrong dates one after another in vain. I believe that there is a
need to correct their mistaken faith. But I have no desire to rebuke
them harshly—I only want to correct them. Why? Because their failure was
due to their ignorance of the seven eras that God has set for mankind.
They miscalculated the date of Jesus’ second coming because they
misunderstood and misapplied the numbers that appear in the Bible,
seeing them only in human terms.
This
mistake has not been confined to the Korean Christians, but has been
quite common for the rest of the world. Church leaders from all
different parts of this earth, some of them rather famous, have made the
same kind of mistake. My heart desires to testify the plan of God to
all those who thus have believed in Jesus and waited for the rapture
date of their setting, so that they may have a proper, not mistaken,
understanding of God’s plan for them. I only hope that they, too, will
in fact be given the blessing of being raptured by God.
The
true rapture by God will come after the era of the pale horse and the
martyrdom of the saints come to pass. When the seven-year period of the
Great Tribulation begins in this era of the pale horse, the Antichrist
will emerge as the most powerful leader of the world and reign over it.
The
Antichrist will begin to persecute the saints when the Great
Tribulation begins, accelerating in intensity over the first half of the
Great Tribulation—that is, the first three and a half years—until
reaching its peak at the midpoint of the seven-year period. This is when
the saints will be martyred to defend their faith. And this will be
soon followed by the sixth era, when the martyred saints will be
resurrected and raptured.
Those
who believe in Jesus must know the times well. Depending on whether
they believe in pre-tribulation rapture or in mid-tribulation rapture,
their lives of faith would turn out quite differently. Whether the
believers will wisely wait for their rapture with the proper faith, or
make the mistake of focusing their minds on an absurd date of their own
choosing—this will all depend on whether they base their faith in the
Word of God or not.
If
you approach these teachings on the Word of Revelation with calmness,
you can actually find out what the reasonable propositions are, and thus
be able to correctly resolve all your questions. But if you do not have
the right understanding of the rapture and fail to wait for it
properly, then your faith will be ruined.
The
theory of pre-tribulation rapture was expounded by Scofield, an
American theologian, who was the first to systematically establish its
doctrinal positions in his Scofield Reference Bible. This Reference
Bible was widely translated and used throughout the world. It is because
of the impact of Scofield’s Reference Bible that the theory of
pre-tribulation rapture came to be diffused so widely. Because the
Scofield Reference Bible was written by an influential theologian of a
powerful country, the book was translated into many different languages
and read by a great number of Christians.
Scofield
himself had no idea that his claim of pre-tribulation rapture would
become so widespread through the world. The result was the prevalent
acceptance of the theory of pre-tribulation rapture by virtually all the
Christians of the world. But before Scofield’s theory of
pre-tribulation rapture made its appearance, the dominant belief that
had prevailed in the Christian world had been the theory of
post-tribulation rapture.
The
theory of post-tribulation rapture postulates that Christ would return
after the end of the seven-year period of the Great Tribulation, and
that He would rapture the saints at that time. Many people thus had a
great fear of the Tribulation prior to the rapture and the Lord’s second
coming. When the revivalists preached from their pulpit about the
second coming of Christ, people rushed to repentance, crying and
agonizing over their sins, inundating themselves with constant prayers
of repentance. So who cried the most often was used as the barometer to
measure who was blessed the most. Such people, though they believed in
Jesus, shed far too much tears.
But
this earlier belief in the post-tribulation rapture was slowly replaced
by the pre-tribulation rapture. Why was this case? People found it
infinitely more comforting to switch from post-tribulation rapture to
pre-tribulation rapture, for this switch meant that they would not face
all the trials and tribulations that otherwise they would all have to go
through. It is of little surprise that they would prefer to be lifted
up to the air before the terrifying hardships of the Great Tribulation
descends upon them. In this way, the theory of pre-tribulation rapture
spread like a bush fire, for it offered a comfortable faith, much more
digestible than the terrifying prospect of going through the sufferings
of the Great Tribulation.
Just
as people prefer sweets over the plain or the bitter, people also
prefer to have it easy when it comes to their faith as well. They like
to choose and believe in whatever fits their taste the best among the
different theories that the scholars have produced. This is how so many
people ended up believing in the theory of pre-tribulation rapture so
easily. Those who supported this view of pre-tribulation rapture thought
that they had to keep their bodies and hearts immaculately clean to be
raptured. And so they were quite fervent in their lives of faith. But a
serious fallacy buckled their belief in the pre-tribulation rapture.
While their faith in Jesus and their wait for the Lord’s return were all
commendable, they nevertheless made two serious and grave mistakes.
First,
not having believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they
waited for the Lord while they still had sin in their hearts. They only
held onto and relied on the blood of the Cross, but no amount of
repentance could bring them the absolute remission of their sins that
they commit on a daily basis. Yet for day and night, they waited for the
second coming of Christ. They gathered together in their churches to
repent their sins, to pray and sing praises all night long, united in
their wait for the rapture. There was nothing wrong with the fact that
they thus waited and longed for their rapture. But they made the grave
mistake of waiting without the right faith—that is, they did not believe
in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the only faith that allows
us to stand before God as His children.
The
second mistake was that some of them used to proclaim arbitrarily the
imminent date of Jesus’ return without any proper understanding of God’s
plan. This not only made many believers wait for Him in vain, but it
created all kinds of havoc in the society, leaving only bad impressions
of Christianity and ruining its reputation among the unbelievers.
Because
of these two mistakes, when the rapture that these people so fervently
waited for never actually materialized, it only ended up leading many
people to think badly of the rapture, pushing them even further away
from the truth. Now, when it is actually the right time to talk of the
second coming of Christ and when His return is imminent, hardly anyone
speaks about it anymore—all thanks to the fiasco of the misguided few.
The passage that we are presently discussing was what God wrote to the
angel of the Church of Pergamos through John. God commended the Church’s
servant and saints for defending their faith to the end with their
martyrdom. But God’s commendation for the Church of Pergamos also came
with some rebukes, for the Church had among its members those who
pursued the world. This is why God told the Church to repent, and why He
told it that He would otherwise come quickly and punish it.
We
need to pay attention here to what God said through John to all the
seven churches in Asia in common: “He who has an ear, let him hear what
the Spirit says to the churches.” This means that God makes sure that He
speaks His truth to the saints and the souls through His churches and
His servants. Notably, God told to the Church of Pergamos: “He who has
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who
overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give
him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one
knows except him who receives it.”
Let
me emphasize the phrase, “to him who overcomes I will give some of the
hidden manna to eat.” This means that those who truly wait for the Lord
must overcome the enemies of God. It means that they must fight against
those who follow the world, and that they must set themselves apart from
these lovers of the world. Those who follow Balaam are those who follow
the false prophets. God tells us that these people only seek after the
riches of the world in their sinful greed, calling them the followers of
the doctrine of Balaam.
Not
every church is a church of God. Many of today’s church leaders accept
that Jesus is the Son of God, but they do not believe that He is God.
There are many who do not even believe that Jesus Christ created this
world.
In
addition, many people come to church just so that they can be
materially blessed. Too many church leaders tell their congregations
that they will be blessed if they give more money to the church.
Deceived by such false teachings, many believers actually think that how
much offerings they give to the church is a reflection of their faith.
Just by giving offerings and attending the church regularly, too many of
them are approved as the faithful believers. Moreover, some of them are
even given leadership positions within the church, such as deaconship
or eldership, just for their regular attendance and services for the
church, and cutting out big checks for their offerings. These are all
the ways of Balaam, something that we all must break away from.
We
must fight against such faith. If you really want to be fed the hidden
manna, you must first discern whether or not your church is a church
that truly follows the Word of God. If it is not, then you must fight
and overcome it. Only by doing so can you be fed the truth of the water
and the Spirit, the true Word of God.
Only
by eating from the Word of the water and the Spirit, the hidden manna,
can you be born again, and only by being born again can you continue to
feed on the Word of truth given by God. It is in this way that the
born-gain can discuss what the Word of God is, feed on it by hearing,
seeing, and sharing it in fellowship.
If
you sincerely desire to be raptured by God, if you really want to be
truly born again, then it is only a foolish thing to continue to attend a
church that is a church only in name. By attending a church that does
not belong to God, you will never be able to feed on the true Word of
life, no matter how long you might have been going to that church—a
hundred years, a thousand years, or even more, nothing will put you in
the correct path toward your salvation.
Such
people not only cannot be born again by faith, but they end up making
the foolish mistake of waiting for their rapture without having
fulfilled its first requirement—that is, without even having been born
again. This kind of faith is simply wrong. No matter how eagerly you
wait for the return of Christ, no matter if you really love the Lord in
your heart, no matter if you are willing to give up your life for Jesus,
all these would be futile. Such people will not meet the Lord. Their
love for God will end only as an unrequited love.
This
is why God told the seven churches in Asia: “To him who overcomes I
will give some of the hidden manna to eat.” God does not tell us that we
can have His Word of truth without any struggle. If we do not fight
against and overcome the liars, we will never be able to eat His manna,
the Word of life. It does not matter how faithfully you might have
attended your church; if you do not know the truth, it means that what
you have known so far has all been just lies. You must escape from these
lies by fighting and overcoming them in your search for the truth. Only
when you encounter this truth by finding a church that bears witness to
the Word of God and preaches the gospel of the water and the Spirit
will you be able to eat the manna of life.
We
have nothing that prevents us from accepting into our hearts the Word
of the truth of the water and the Spirit. The hearts of those who preach
and hear this Word of the water and the Spirit become united, and the
Holy Spirit dwells in their hearts all alike.
God
has promised us that He will give His hidden manna to those who
overcome; as such, we must overcome Satan in our struggle against him,
and fight against and win over the liars. If you want eternal life, you
must be truly born again; and if you want to be raptured by God, you
must have the right faith. You must struggle against and overcome the
many liars of this world, as well as the liars found within the
Christian world.
Your
faith must not be that of indecision, one that continues to vacillate
from one side to the other and gets dragged by whatever current that
happens to flow at a given time. If your church is not a church that
preaches the Word of God as it is, then you must stop attending such a
church. Only to those whose hearts love and pursue the truth will God
come to meet them through His Word of manna, the Word of the truth of
the water and the Spirit.
I
was a very good student when I was studying at the seminary. I never
missed a class, and my grades were all excellent. I studied diligently
and faithfully. And yet there were too many things that I did not know.
Because I had been, along with all my family, a Buddhist before I
encountered Jesus and believed in Him, my knowledge of Him was very
limited at the time. Even more limited was my understanding of the Word,
and so I was very anxious to learn about the Scripture. Thirsting after
the knowledge of the Word of God, I sought learning from the many
professors at the seminary, asking them many questions and hoping that
their answers would quench my thirst for the Bible.
None
of them, however, ever gave me a clear answer. When I brought my
questions to the professors acclaimed for their Scriptural knowledge,
they only used to commend me on my own knowledge of the Bible instead of
answering my questions. At the seminaries, professors do not preach the
Word, but they teach their own “theories” on the Bible. But all their
theories, from Old Testament Theology to New Testament Theology, from
Systematic Theology to History of Christianity, from Calvinism to
Arminianism, from Christology to Pneumatology and from introductory
studies to detailed expositions, are only the products of man’s
thoughts. They only teach different theories espoused by the scholars,
no different from your own college experience of learning different
theoretical perspectives in your secular field of study.
I
was a person who was ignorant of the Bible. It did not matter how
extensive my scholarly training had been, or how many had commented on
my wide knowledge of the Bible, or even how I myself had based my
sermons on this knowledge—the more I studied the Bible and theology, the
more doubts I had about my path. I eventually came to the
self-realization that I was a completely ignorant person, and that I had
to begin from scratch all over again. So I began to raise what were
then considered to be strange and awkward questions in my classes. One
of them was this: “Why was Jesus baptized?” I never heard a clear answer
for this question. No one was able to give me the correct answer, that
Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist to take upon
all our sins onto His own flesh.
I
also had questions about the miracles that Jesus performed, such as the
one in which Jesus fed more than five thousand men with only five
loaves of bread and two fish. So I asked, “When Jesus blessed the five
loaves of bread and two fish, did they just explode in a heap of bread
and fish all at once, or did they keep multiplying when the food was
distributed to each?” More often than not, I was scolded and reproached
for raising such questions.
This
is how I came to realize, “So this is what theology is all about. We
are just learning what the Frenchman Calvin systematized into a
scholarly theory and expositions. We know nothing of the Bible.” So I
began to engage myself in extensive research by compiling the
publications of the many denominations and comparing them to the Bible.
Still, I gained nothing.
They
all reached the same conclusion, that when people believe in Jesus,
their sins gradually disappear as they are sanctified by their prayers
of repentance, and that they become completely sinless at their death
and then enter Heaven. Denominational differences didn’t matter—the same
bottom line conclusion for all of them was for Christians to pursue
prayers of repentance and incremental sanctification, something that had
nothing to do with the Word. All these claims departed from what the
Word of God had to say. So I knelt before God, and sought and asked for
His truth.
This
is when God taught me the true gospel of the water and the Spirit. This
truth simply marveled me. And when I realized that the truth of the
water and the Spirit is found in the whole of the 66 books of the Bible,
my blinded eyes were opened and I began to see the Word of the Bible
clearly. I was able to find out how the Old Testament and the New
Testament fit together, and the Holy Spirit came to dwell in my heart
when I found this truth. After seeing and realizing this Word of truth,
so many sins that had plagued my heart and had weighed me down so much
disappeared completely, in an amazing and wonderful act of God’s love
and grace.
As
ripples are made when a small stone is thrown into a tranquil lake, a
serene joy and light entered my heart. By the light, I mean that I came
to realize what the truth of the Word was. At this very moment of
recognition, the Holy Spirit entered my heart, and because of the Holy
Spirit I came to see the Word of the Bible clearly. From this moment on,
I have always been preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
To
this very day, the gospel of the water and the Spirit has steadied my
heart, comforted and strengthened me, and kept my heart always clean.
This is how I came to feed on the Word of God. When I dwelt on the Word,
along with my realization of its meaning came the serene blessing that
filled my heart, and my heart, in turn, began to swim in this sea of
grace. Just as my heart was thus filled by this blessing, when you
believe in His Word of born-again salvation, the Word of God will also
bring you into His grace and blessing.
When
I opened the Bible and dwelt on the Word, all my worries and restless
thoughts disappeared, filling my heart with joy and peace instead. I was
enabled to always answer what God really meant in His Word whenever
asked about the Bible. Only by knowing and believing in the gospel of
the water and the Spirit can one feed on the Word of God, and only by
feeding on the Word of God can one be born again. Because the born-again
no longer have sin left in their hearts, regardless of when the Lord
returns to this earth, they are all ready for their rapture when the
Lord finally lifts them up to the air.
The Faith That Can Lead Us to Rapture
Rapture
is what we wait for after we receive our redemption by knowing and
believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And when waiting,
we must wait with a clear understanding of the times set by God. The
times set by God are the seven eras, and the era for martyrdom among
these is the era of the pale horse. The era of the pale horse is the
fourth of the seven eras set by God. The era in which we are now living,
on the other hand, is the third, the era of the black horse.
When
we climb a high mountain, we rely on a map as a guide. But in order to
accurately and safely reach our destination by using this map, we must
first know what our location is. It does not matter how well-versed you
might be in reading the map or how accurate the map itself is—if you do
not know where you are, the map is useless. Only when you know your own
location can you safely reach your destination.
Likewise,
only by being born again through the gospel of the water and the Spirit
can you find out when you will be raptured. The biblically accurate
timing of the rapture is slightly past the midpoint of the seven-year
period of the Great Tribulation—that is, three and a half years into the
Tribulation. This is what God planned in Jesus Christ when He first
created this universe.
God’s
plan of salvation in Jesus Christ, with which He sent His only begotten
Son to this earth, had Him baptized and killed on the Cross, and raised
Him from the dead, is not the only plan, but He has also set the times
for the universe, from its creation to its end, with His seven eras.
Even we draw blueprints before building our houses and plan ahead for
our businesses—better yet, we even schedule into our organizers what we
would do in a day. Would, then, God have created this universe, man, and
you and I in Jesus Christ without any plan? Of course not! He created
us with a plan!
This
plan is clearly revealed in the Word of Revelation. When we open and
dwell in this Word, we can find out exactly what God’s plan is. This
Word is the truth. Though the Word of God is several thousand years old,
it is still the unchanging and unaltered truth, neither added to nor
subtracted from. Those who do not know this and have not been born again
by water and the Spirit still remain ignorant of the truth revealed to
us by the Word of God. But those who dwell in the Word will be able to
find and realize all the truth revealed in the Bible.
The
passage in which God promises to give His manna to those who overcome
means that God will shed light on His Word only to those who can discern
the truth from the false and overcome the liars by knowing His Word of
truth. Those who have escaped from the lies and found the truth must
overcome these lies by preaching this truth. God has promised us that to
those who believe in the gospel He will give the blessing of eating His
manna: “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to
eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name
written which no one knows except him who receives it.”
The
hidden manna here means the Word of God. The white stone, on the other
hand, means that our names will be written in the Book of Life. When
people believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God has
given them, their hearts change. With their hearts filled by the Word of
the Holy Spirit, they come to realize that by believing in the Word,
all the sins in their hearts have disappeared. Having thus been cleansed
by the water and the Spirit, their names are written on the white
stone.
God
tells us that no one knows this new name except him who receives it.
Those who have been forgiven of all their sins must realize that their
hearts no longer have any sin left in them, and that their names have
been written in the Book of Life. They know, in other words, that the
gospel of the water and the Spirit has taken away all the sins of their
hearts. Only those who are born again by thus knowing the true Word of
the water and the Spirit and received their redemption are able to know
the Lord and the truth. Those who are not born again do not realize that
they are yet to be born again. But the born-again can easily discern
these people, that they are yet to eat the manna of God, and that their
names are not written on the white stone.
Do
you really want to be raptured? If you want to be raptured, you must be
qualified to eat manna. By being qualified to eat manna, I mean that
you must be born again by water and the Spirit. To feed on manna, you
must also fight against and overcome the lies with your faith. The false
teachers do not bring redemption to the sinners, but only exploitation
of their souls and material possessions. We must battle against and
overcome such false churches, false prophets, and false servants of
today’s Christianity.
We
must know, based in the Bible, exactly how Jesus has taken away all our
sins, why He was baptized, why He took upon the sins of the world, why
He died on the Cross, and why He rose from the dead again. We must know
accurately why Jesus came to this earth in the flesh and did all these
things, and we must know who exactly Jesus is. But the false churches,
instead of teaching these truths, call anyone who attends them “a saint”
on their own authority. They only ask, “Do you believe in Jesus?” If
the answer is, “Yes, we do,” then these false churches immediately call
them saints, baptize them in about a year’s time, and then proceed to
extract all kinds of offerings from them, from thanks offerings to
special offerings to pledge offerings for that shiny, brand new church
building. Such churches as these, obsessed only by money and their greed
to build a bigger, glittering church building, are all false churches.
When
we feed on manna, we must fight against such false churches and those
who spread the false teachings. If we lose in our battle, it would mean
not only that we no longer are the saints of God, but also that we will
not be raptured by Him. Not being the saints of God is the same as not
being the children of God; even if Christ were to return for the 100th
time, we will never be raptured.
Matthew
25 tells us the parable of the ten brides, five of them wise and five
of them foolish. It tells us how foolish were the five brides who
carried their lamps but no oil and went out to buy it only after the
arrival of the bridegroom was announced. We must be the wise brides who
had prepared the oil beforehand. By having the faith of preparing the
oil, I mean that we must be qualified to feed on manna before Jesus,
overcome the liars, and be born again by the Word of the water and the
Spirit.
When
we hear a sermon, we must ask ourselves whether or not the pastor is
preaching the Word of God. We also need to ask if the church spends its
money, as God wants it to—that is, on His works, not on itself. We must
find, in other words, the true church of God. Be weary of the churches
that pay only lip service to preaching the Word of God and His
teachings.
No
matter how good they are in their talks and repentance, their deeds
will tell you what they really stand for—whether they are more
interested in building bigger church buildings than anything else;
whether they look after the poor or cater only to the rich; and whether
they show any interest in saving souls at all. God has given you your
eyes and ears so that you could see and judge for yourself. And when you
reach the conclusion that your church is not the right church, then do
not hesitate to come out of it at once, for continuing to attend such a
false church is akin to trying to get into hell. You might as well throw
away your life.
Do
you realize how good the gospel of the water and the Spirit is? When
you know and accept this truth, the gospel of the water and the Spirit,
into your heart, you become a whole new person. Those who had belonged
to the earth before now belong to Heaven, and those who had been
tormented by the demons now become freed.
The
demons can enter and torment the souls of those who have sin in their
hearts and are thus chained by their sins. But the Lord came to this
earth and took away all our sins with the gospel of the water and the
Spirit. Because He has completely taken away our sins, the demons can no
longer torment or steal our souls. This is why when you know and
believe in this gospel, the demons are cast out and your life is
changed.
In
other words, those who had been the servants of the world become freed
from this servitude. God has done the wondrous work of turning the
sinners into the righteous, remaking those who were of the earth into
those of Heaven, and, when the Lord returns, He will lift them up to His
Kingdom.
Our
earthly life is not the end of us. Having made us in His image, God did
not put us on this earth to live only briefly. Life in the flesh is in
fact very short. By the time we are out of school, we already reach our
mid-20s. We spend our 30s trying to establish a base for our lives, and
by the time this foundation is ready for us to build on, we are already
in our 40s or 50s. When we finally reach the stage where we think to
ourselves that we can now slow down a bit and enjoy life, our whole
lifetime has already passed by us, and we are faced with its end. As
flowers blossom in the morning and wither by the afternoon, just when we
think that we finally got a hold of life, we realize that our time has
passed by, and that we are only looking at its nearing end.
This
is how short life is. But what is even more unfortunate is that there
are far too many people who do not even realize this brevity of life.
Yet the end of our lives in the flesh is not the end of us, for it is
only the beginning of our souls’ spiritual lives. Why? Because God, as
if He is compensating us for the shortness of our earth lives, has
prepared for us not only the Millennial Kingdom but also the New Heaven
and Earth, where we are to live eternally. This is God’s blessing of
eternal life that He has bestowed only on those who are born again by
believing in the Word of His water and Spirit.
Only
when you eat the hidden manna and your name is written on the white
stone can you be raptured. God tells us that only those who feed on His
manna will be able to overcome Satan during the Great Tribulation, and
that the names of only those who thus overcome will be written on the
white stone. Those who do not overcome, therefore, should not even dream
of being raptured, nor can they dream of being born again.
It
takes great sacrifices to attain something valuable and precious. A
good example is gold; it takes a great deal of effort, time, and risk to
find and extract gold. Many people have died in gold mines before they
could even find a piece of nugget. Extracting alluvial gold also takes
many toils. Panning a truckload of earth all day long produces only a
minute amount of gold. Moreover, this cannot be done in just any river,
but you must first find a river that has alluvial gold. It takes, in
other words, hard effort to find gold, at times even your life. Why,
then, do people try so hard to find gold? They do so because they think
gold is that valuable, worth risking their own lives.
What
is far more valuable and precious than gold and silver, however, is the
fact that we can become the children of God. Gold may bring you some
transient happiness for your flesh, but becoming the children of God
brings you never-ending, eternal happiness. To be raptured in the end
times, to enjoy the wealth, prosperity, and honor of the Millennial
Kingdom and the New Heaven and Earth, and to live such a life for
eternity, you must now fight all the liars on this earth, believe in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit, and defend your faith and secure
your victory.
There
are so many lies in this world that are always watching for chances to
snatch our hearts, trying to make us lose our faith. Those who believe
in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and have the truth in their
hearts know just how precious their faith is. And because they know the
preciousness of this faith, they fight against all the false teachings
that try to steal it from them. If we realize just how many people yearn
after this faith and yet are unable to attain it, and if we realize
that only this faith will clothe us to be welcomed to the marriage
supper of the Lamb and give us His blessing of eternal life, we must
make it completely ours and never let anyone take it away from us. This
is the kind of faith that fights and overcomes.
I
was convinced of the need to propagate the proper knowledge and
understanding of the Word of Revelation—to make sure that you are able
to defend the precious gospel of the water and the Spirit—because I knew
that many false teachers would try to use the Word of Revelation to
deceive and confuse not only the people but also the born-again saints.
This is why I am preaching the Word of Revelation through my sermons and
books, to ensure that you can live your life of faith with the correct
knowledge of and belief in the end times.
The
Book of Revelation offers something tremendously important. But the
Word of Revelation reveals nothing to those who cannot eat God’s hidden
manna and who have no Holy Spirit in their hearts. From the signs of the
end times to the rapture, the hope of every Christian, to the New
Heaven and Earth, an extraordinary plan is written in the Word of
Revelation. But because of the wisdom of God that does not reveal His
secrets to just anyone, Revelation remains a difficult text that not
everyone can understand. No one but those who have fed on God’s manna
and whose names are written on the white stone by being born again by
the water and the Spirit and overcoming the lies can understand the Word
of Revelation.
This
is why, in their ignorance, those who are not born again speak of
pre-tribulation rapture or post-tribulation rapture, and why we now even
have some people who claim that the Millennial Kingdom is only
symbolic. The Word of God is the truth, and it clearly states that the
rapture will not happen without the Great Tribulation. It tells us that
the rapture will happen slightly past the midpoint of the seven year
period of the Great Tribulation—after the martyrdom of the saints, and
simultaneous with their resurrection.
Being
raptured while going about the usual everyday life—pilots disappearing
all of a sudden and mothers disappearing from the dinner tables around
the world—will, I am sorry to inform, simply not happen. Rather, the
rapture will happen when great disasters fall upon the world,
earthquakes ravage through it, stars fall from the sky, and the earth
splits open. The rapture, in other words, will not happen on a peaceful
day in broad daylight.
Stars
have not fallen yet, one-third of the world is yet to be burnt down,
and the sea still has not turned into blood. What do I mean by this? I
mean that now is not the time for the rapture yet. God tells us that He
will give us the signs that we can all recognize before the rapture
comes. These signs are the disasters that will fall on this
world—one-third of the sea and rivers turning into blood, one-third of
the forests burnt down, falling stars, undrinkable water, and so forth.
When
the world is thus engulfed in great calamities, the Antichrist will
emerge to bring order. First emerging as a remarkable world leader, he
will eventually turn into a tyrant who will reign the world with his
absolute power. The Bible tells us that it is at this time, when the
Antichrist’s tyrannical reign over the world is established, that the
Lord will return to the earth to take away His saints. The rapture will
not happen when the great natural disasters are yet to happen and the
Antichrist is still to emerge.
It
is wrong, in other words, for anyone to quit their work, stop going to
school, and all around come to a complete stop in their lives, thinking
that they are about to be raptured, when in fact these signs that God
has promised us have not materialized yet. You must not be deceived in
this way, for it is to fall into Satan’s traps of lies.
We
must battle against and overcome everything that such false teachings
have set up to trap us. The only faith that can triumph over the false
teachings is the faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Only
those who believe in the baptism of Jesus that has taken away all their
sins are completely freed from the chains of these sins. Because Jesus
took upon our sins onto Himself with His baptism, and because He has
bought us with His own blood that has cleansed away our sins, we
received His perfect salvation by believing in all these things that the
Lord has done for us—by faith and faith alone. Those who believe in
this Word have now become the children of God, and they will triumph in
all the plans that God has set for them.
On
the other hand, the only thing that awaits the liars who claim to
believe in Jesus and yet have sin in their hearts, and who seek after
only their own greed in serving the Lord, is the punishment that they
will face together with Satan. This is why our gospel of the water and
the Spirit is so precious. Only those who know it and who can discern
between the true and false gospels can eat God’s hidden manna, overcome
all the lies in the end, and enter the Millennial Kingdom and the New
Heaven and Earth. Read the Word and see for yourself what is the real
truth that can save you, give you hope, and bless you with eternal life.
Realize it, and believe in it. This is the faith of victory.
Victory
in our spiritual battle is exceedingly important for us because losing
this battle does not just mean a simple loss, but it means to be bound
to hell. In other fights we may recover from a loss, but in this battle
of faith there is no chance of recovery. You must thus be able to
discern between what is the truth and what are your own thoughts, the
lust of your flesh, and the lies of the false teachers, and you must
prepare your faith for the end by coming to grasp the correct knowledge
on its times with the light of the Word.
God
has prepared the plagues of the seven trumpets and the seven bowls, and
He has permitted the Great Tribulation to us. When the world is struck
by enormous natural disasters—great fires ravaging, stars falling, seas,
rivers, and springs turning into blood—the Antichrist will emerge, and
you should realize that this marks the beginning of the seven-year
period of the Great Tribulation. The martyrdom, resurrection, and
rapture of the saints will happen at the end of the plagues of the seven
trumpets, when the last trumpet sounds, but before the plagues of the
seven bowls are unleashed.
When
the fourth seal of God is removed, the Antichrist will demand apostasy
from the saints. At this time, those whose names are written in the Book
of Life—that is, the born-again saints who have eaten manna and whose
names are written on the white stone—will be bravely martyred. This is
the last and the greatest faith that gives all the glory to the Lord.
This is the courageous faith of those who believe in and live according
to the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This, in short, is the faith
with which we can become the victors in our spiritual battle.
We
must overcome our adversaries at all costs. After being born again, we
must continue to fight against and overcome the liars. To do so, we must
live the kind of life that feeds on God’s manna and preaches the Word
of our Lord until the end. To those who overcome, God has promised to
give His glory and blessings. The faith that deserves to be lifted to
the air by God, the greatest hope for believers, and the conviction for
the Millennial Kingdom and the New Heaven and Earth—all these things
will be permitted to only those who have received God’s hidden manna by
overcoming all the lies with the faith in the Word of God.
Those
who know what is truly precious sell everything to get it and withstand
great sacrifices to keep it. Because such sacrifices will come not as a
pain but as a great joy for us, and because this is the truly priceless
treasure that will give us everything in the end, it is worth every
while for us to give up everything we have to defend it.
It
is my hope and prayer that you will continue to hope for the Millennial
Kingdom and the New Heaven and Earth, overcome all the adversaries with
this hope, and emerge as the winner of great joy and happiness in the
end.
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