Subject 13 : The Gospel According to MATTHEW
[Chapter 13-1] The Parable of The Four Kinds of Fields (Matthew 13:1-9)
(Matthew 13:1-9)
“On
the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great
multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and
sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then He spoke many
things to them in parables, saying: ‘Behold, a sower went out to sow.
And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and
devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much
earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of
earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had
no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns
sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a
crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to
hear, let him hear!’”
Today’s
Word of God comes from Jesus’ parable of a sower. I would like to
explain this passage by focusing its message on the believers in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit.
There
comes a series of parables in Matthew 13. The parables that our Lord
told explained the spiritual realm by illustrating it with practical
physical matters, so that it may be easier for people to understand.
With His parables, Our Lord, in other words, mainly explained the
mysteries of His Kingdom in connection with the gospel of the water and
the Spirit.
In
today’s Scripture passage, four kinds of fields are mentioned: the
wayside, the stony places, the thorny field, and the good ground. The
parable says that a sower went out to sow, and that the seeds fell upon
these four kinds of field.
The First Thing to Consider Is the Seed That Fell by the Wayside
What
does it mean when it says here that some seed fell by the wayside? This
means that the Word of God fell on the hearts of the religionists, and
that God’s gospel Word of the water and the Spirit has become utterly
insignificant for all the religionists of the world.
People
worship the gods of their own making. They have made gods, but they
have come to be subjected to such man-made gods later. Countless people
living in this world are worshipping the objects of their idolatry that
they themselves have made. We call this weird realm of human culture
“religion.”
Especially
in ancient Eastern culture, pantheism is the main institutionalized
religious form. Those who hold this belief turn everything into the
objects of their worship on their own, and so every creature can be a
deity under this belief. In fact, such phenomena can be found in almost
all primitive cultures.
Friedrich
Nietzsche insisted that the origin of religion was “the fear of death.”
As far as the realm of religion is concerned, his assertion seems
right. Humans have made whatever they fear as their gods. Whatever is
big, strong, mystical, or long lasting could be made a god by the mortal
human beings. In other words, they just take whatever looks great or
mysterious to them as the object of their worship. Sometimes, animals or
plants are given various significances, and they are frequently
considered to be worthy of worship. So even a large boulder can become
one’s object of worship, not to mention big trees, the sun, the ocean,
or anything else that God ever created.
This
is because humans were created to worship God, their Creator. But after
the fall of Adam, they were separated from God and lost the knowledge
of how to worship Him properly. Because all human beings have been
separated from God, they all have a desire to rely on something
supernatural, and to return to God. This is why when they see the sun,
they believe in it as the object of their worship, and they make their
wishes on it. And some people also believe in the ocean as a divine
object. When tidal waves and storms ravage in the seas, people think
that the god of the ocean is angry, and so they take it as the object of
their adulation and worship it.
All
things in the entire universe are no more than the creation of God’s
making. Yet despite this, people have not ceased to take every creature
as the object of their worship and serve it, regardless of what age they
are living in. We can all realize from this just how feeble and corrupt
man’s thoughts are. It is written in Romans 1:21-23, “Because, although
they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but
became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man--and birds and
four-footed animals and creeping things.”
Because
people’s minds are so confused by religion, they remain unable to draw
any benefit for their souls from the God-sown Word of Truth. The Word of
life that fell by the wayside brought no benefit to them. Before we met
Jesus Christ, we, too, had taken everything as the object of our
idolatry and practiced this idolatry. People are capable of taking
anything as the object of their worship and place their faith in it,
whatever it may be, as long as they think that it would benefit their
flesh. It is because these superstitious people have been steeped deep
in their own religious beliefs that they consider everything as the
object of their worship.
Even
today, there are nations full of such superstitious religions, and one
of them is Mongolia. I actually had a mission trip to this country. In
my travel there, I visited a professor’s home, and there I saw a
portrait of the crucified Jesus on one wall, and on the other wall I saw
another portrait of Buddha meditating. In other words, the same house
had both a portrait of Jesus and a portrait of Buddha hung on its walls.
This man was not an uneducated man; on the contrary, he was an
intellectual who taught at a university as a professor. Yet despite
this, he believed in both Christianity and Buddhism. This episode
illustrates just how deeply so many of today’s people are steeped in the
culture of idolatry.
The Seed That Fell on Stony Places
Continuing
with His parable, our Lord said that the second batch of seeds fell on
stony places. Our Lord said, “Some fell on stony places, where they did
not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no
depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because
they had no root they withered away.”
A
field must have plentiful soil. Seeds fall on stony places cannot take
roots deep in the ground because of the stones, and will ultimately
wither away in no time for the buds cannot be nourished by their roots.
Therefore, what our Lord found problematic with the second field is
stones. The stones that were in this field were great obstacles for the
seeds to grow.
Those
of us who do not recognize that they were the seeds of evildoers will
all end up like this. When the seed of life is sown in the field of our
hearts, we must accept the Word of God, acknowledge the truthfulness of
this Word, and thereby be saved from all our sins. However, that the
seeds fell on stony places means that the gospel of the water and the
Spirit fell on the hearts of those who are filled with their own carnal
thoughts. This passage tells us that what leads our souls to death is
our carnal thought that prevent the Word of God from planting its roots
deep into our hearts. Therefore, as there is no depth of earth, they end
up withering away.
It
is difficult for you and I to reach an understanding of our fundamental
nature. We are prone to be ignorant of who we really are. It is very
hard for us to realize that we are “a brood of evildoers” (Isaiah 1:4).
The Lord said that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually
(Genesis 6:5). Put differently, nothing from our thoughts has any worth
at all. The seeds that fall on stony places show us that those who fail
to admit their true selves cannot be delivered from their sins in the
end, for they cannot accept these seeds deep into their hearts due to
their ignorance of their true selves.
People
are inclined to trust in and rely on their own thoughts (reason) than
in the Word of God, rather than placing their fundamental faith and
trust in God’s Word. They assign more weight to their own religious and
personal experiences than to believing in the gospel Word of the water
and the Spirit. Before God, to rely on our own thoughts constitutes the
sin of standing against Him. If people want the seeds of the gospel of
the water and the Spirit to be sown in the field of their hearts, they
must honestly admit their evil and hideous selves before the Word and
accept the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit into their hearts.
Even
among us, the born-again, there are many who don’t deny their own
thoughts that stand against God’s Words. We must acknowledge the reality
of our thoughts. We can then break and cast them aside from our hearts
and come to place our faith more on the Word of God.
This
passage also reminds us what our spiritual condition had been at that
time when we first heard the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. At
that time, most of us had the hearts of stony places. We didn’t know
enough what evil beings we were. And we had our own righteousness and
standards instead. But, once we admitted our sinful nature and confessed
our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we came to know
gradually how evil we were. However, our hearts’ condition can likewise
be stony places even after the Lord gave us the gospel of the water and
the Spirit, if we have not broken our hearts’ righteousness.
Now,
as the way for you and I to live, we must fully acknowledge our true
sinful selves and accept the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit
into our hearts by believing in it. However, if we don’t admit that we
are fundamentally the brood of evildoers, it is useless even if the
gospel of the water and the Spirit comes to us. In other words, we must
realize that we are piles of sin, and that we are sinners bound to hell;
and we must hold onto the gospel of the water and the Spirit by faith
to be saved from all our sins.
We
need to once again reflect upon how our hearts were when we first
believed in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. As I said
before, many of us didn’t know enough what evil beings we were when we
first met the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Among the believers in
the gospel of the water and the Spirit, there are many who consider
themselves to have innocent and good hearts, and yet they come to be
astonished at their evil aspects and fall into despair whenever they
discover this in time. Even so, they would have been safe had they kept
on holding onto the gospel power of the water and the Spirit by faith.
But
because they did not realize their own evilness and did not fully
recognize the gospel power of the water and the Spirit from the very
beginning, they couldn’t receive the remission of sin. Because they
thought that their own righteousness was better than the power of the
gospel of the water and the Spirit given by the Lord, they did not
surrender themselves to the righteousness of this gospel. Those who do
not know their own evilness hold themselves to be more righteous than
the Lord, and so they cannot follow Him. That’s why they became the
nominal Christians whose faith cannot be approved by God.
When
a farmer plows his field deeply, the stones in the soil expose
themselves on earth. Likewise, a gospel preacher must first plow the
field of people’s hearts deeply with God’s Word in order to let them
know how evil they are. Everyone can admit himself as a seed of evildoer
only when he is taught what the Bible says about his fundamental
nature. If preachers fail to let people know their evilness, it is then
of no use to preach them the gospel of the water and the Spirit. If so,
they are unable to admit that the salvation of our Lord is more powerful
than their own wickedness. This is why they are unable to discover
their own evilness and ultimately end up with their dead faith.
Therefore,
a sower must first plow the field of the heart sufficiently, and then
sow the seeds of the gospel of salvation in these plowed hearts. Paul
said, “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Romans 5:20).
What does this passage mean? This means that one comes to realize God’s
grace to the extent that he knows about his evilness. Therefore, if
people acknowledge this gospel without knowing their wickedness nor
admitting it, the true gospel will be turned into nothing in their
hearts.
Therefore,
all of us must admit that we could not avoid but sin from the day of we
were born to the day we die. Is this not the case? From the moment we
were born in this world, we inherited sin and have been sinning ever
since then.
Yet
despite this, thanks to the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can
still say before God that we have no sin by faith. This is because we
have clearly realized our own wickedness first, and along with this
realization, we have recognized that the gospel power of our Lord is far
greater than our own evilness. Even now, those who know their own
wickedness can be clothed in the God-given remission of sin by placing
their faith in the gospel power of the water and the Spirit. As such,
everyone who believes in Jesus as his Savior must first admit that his
true self is fundamentally wicked, insufficient, and unclean, and then
he must always acknowledge the power of the gospel Truth.
We
must never forget that the evilest of all is he who does not admit his
wicked self before God, flaunts his own righteousness, and therefore,
does not believe in the gospel Truth of salvation. Everyone must first
admit all his wickedness and acknowledge himself as a pile of sin and a
seed of evildoer from the moment he believes in Jesus.
Before
we first heard the Truth of atonement that has enabled us to be
remitted from all our wickedness and sins, we had to admit our hideous
selves and all our sins. But, because most people failed do so, and did
not place their faith in the love and salvation of God, they could not
but fail to attain their salvation. In other words, anyone who does not
admit to God that he is a pile of sin eventually come to reject his
salvation, hold onto his own goodness, and ultimately fail to trust in
the righteousness of our Lord and to follow it.
If
we really want to have faith in the gospel Truth of the water and the
Spirit, we must first admit to God that we are piles of sin, and place
our faith in this powerful gospel that declares all our sins have been
blotted out through the baptism and the bloodshed of the Lord.
However,
there are many people who, despite professing to believe in the gospel
of the water and the Spirit, are only too disappointed when they see
their sinful selves being revealed after believing in Jesus. In fact, we
should give our thanks whenever we see our insufficiencies for the
gospel power that has blotted out even such sins.
Those
who do not acknowledge that their wickedness has all been remitted away
by the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by the Lord are unable
to thank God for His righteousness and instead end up drifting away from
Him. This means that they are unable to be freed from their sins, for
they do not admit their evil selves, nor do they truly believe in the
powerful gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. This is why some
people begin to doubt their own salvation, thinking to themselves, “I
can’t possibly be a saint. Sure, I believe in Jesus, but this does not
mean that I have been saved from my sins.” Burdened by the weight of
their sins, they end up suffocating themselves.
Such
people are actually practicing wickedness before God by not believing
in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The evilest deed of all
before God is to fail to admit one’s own wickedness and to refuse to
wholeheartedly believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit
given by the Lord. This is what constitutes the greatest sin before
God.
Such
people place more faith in the uprightness of their own thoughts than
in the gospel power of the water and the Spirit. We must all realize
that all those in this world, who fail to acknowledge this true gospel
until the end and therefore eventually abandon it, are actually standing
against the goodness of God with the goodness of their own hearts.
Consequently, there is no way for them to be freed from all their sins.
This
is why we must always admit the wickedness of our flesh by placing our
faith in the written Word of the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Only then is the righteousness of God revealed in even greater
exaltation, and only then can we reveal His glory.
If
you did not properly understand your own evilness from the very
beginning when you first heard the gospel of the water and the Spirit,
you must reach this understanding even now and believe in the power of
God’s gospel on this recognition. Put differently, you have to plow the
field of your hearts even from now on, and accept the gospel Word of the
water and the Spirit with your humble hearts that recognize your own
evilness to the full extent.
To
know the gospel of the water and the Spirit only superficially and to
understand the real Truth of salvation only theoretically can only mean
that you still have not admitted your hideous selves. But it is not too
late even yet. Now, by truthfully recognizing your evilness and by
believing in the true Word of the water and the Spirit, you must be
delivered from all your sins. Having thus been reached your deliverance,
whenever your evil selves are revealed, by placing your faith in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit, you can give even more thanks and
glory to God.
Whenever
we recognize that we have committed sin, we have to confess our
evilness before God and give thanks to Him by reaffirming the gospel
Truth in our hearts. Just like the confession of David, we must all
confess, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother
conceived me. Against You, You only, have I sinned. But, You have
blotted out even this sin with the gospel of the water and the Spirit.”
Confessing our sins like this, we must come before God with our faith in
the beautiful gospel. If we believe in the gospel power of the water
and the Spirit, we can have the faith that can perfectly save us from
all our sins.
We
must always acknowledge the God’s gospel Word of the water and the
Spirit in our lives. We must all realize that such a life is the kind of
life that glorifies God. We must also know that it is when we admit our
evil selves and accept God’s Word of salvation into our hearts that we
can be saved from all our sins.
How
is everyone saved from all his wickedness? By reaffirming our faith in
the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that we can be saved from
all our sins and wickedness. Everyone must plow the field of his heart
first, know his own evilness by turning it over, and then believe in the
gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. It is because people have no
faith that acknowledges the Word of God, even as they have such
evilness, that they end up standing against God and drifting away from
Him.
Those
who are burdened by their own sins are of those whose hearts have no
faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. All of us must
really examine what the Word of God has told us, and we must all
acknowledge the Truth of this Word of God itself just as it is written.
What
kind of seed did our Lord sow in our hearts? He sowed the seed of His
Word, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which has washed away our
hearts’ wickedness and sins. Through this gospel Truth, the Lord has
taught us how sin came into our hearts, how grave sinners we are, and to
what extent He has blotted out our sins with this gospel.
Whenever
we realize our evilness in our lives, we must first ruminate on the
gospel Word of the water and the Spirit in depth, and we must believe in
it. When we truthfully believe that God has washed away all the sins
that we have committed out of the wickedness of our hearts and with our
acts, we will surely be saved.
Our
Lord is telling us clearly here that when the sower sowed his seeds,
some fell on stony places. “Stony places” here imply the hearts of those
who do not recognize their evilness and sinfulness. All of us are a
brood of evildoers, but not many of us recognize this truth. As the Lord
said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance” (Mark 2:17), it is only those who come to admit their
sinfulness and evilness that can receive the remission of sin. Anyone
who acknowledges his evilness to the full extent and accepts the gospel
of the water and the Spirit as his salvation can receive the remission
of all his sins.
However,
most of you might not have been able to reach your real
self-recognition when you first heard of the gospel of the water and the
Spirit. This is why the power of this true gospel does not work
strongly in your hearts, even though you believe in it somehow. This is
why the powerful gospel ends up as a mere knowledge in your hearts. If
your spiritual state is like this, even now, you must admit your
evilness and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit all over
again. If you realized your own wickedness in your lives even after a
long time went by since the first time you heard the gospel of the water
and the Spirit, then all that you have to do is reaffirm your faith in
the gospel of the water and the Spirit on the basis of your real
self-recognition.
The Third Field of Thorns
The
third field is a field of thorns. What is the spiritual meaning of this
field of thorns? It refers to the evil hearts that lust after this
world. Jesus is telling us that while those who have such hearts
acknowledge that the gospel of the water and the Spirit is right, their
faith is so weak that they may forsake the true gospel if it seems to be
an obstacle to their worldly success. The faith of those who have such
lusts is such that they end up renouncing their effort to follow the
Lord because of their lust to possess the things of this world. They are
the ones who are serving two masters. Their faith is of the unclean
animals that do not have cloven hooves (Leviticus 11:2-8). Such people’s
hearts have more desire to live for their lust than faith in the Word
of God, and as a result, they end up renouncing their faith in the
righteousness of God.
The
seeds that fall among thorns do sprout, at least at the beginning. But
the thorns cover them up, blocking them from the sun and killing them
off. This refers to those who, because of their lust for this world, end
up renouncing their faith in the Word of God and leave Him.
Even
though we have become righteous, how could our hearts not love this
world? This is more than possible for all of us. But still, if we have
this faith that enabled us to be baptized into Jesus Christ, die with
Him and be resurrected with Him, and only if we have this faith, we can
realize that such lusts of the flesh are ultimately futile, and by this
faith, we can dwell and live in the real Truth. In other words, though
we cannot avoid but continue to live in our flesh, we must still live by
our spiritual faith.
However,
those who do not have this true faith that enables them to die with
Jesus Christ and live with Him will end up dying chocked under the
weight of their lust of the flesh. Their hearts that love this world, in
other words, will block their love for the Lord, and will ultimately
let their souls die. This is why you must have the faith that enables
you to die with Jesus Christ and live with Him. And you can sustain such
faith only when you hold onto the gospel of the water and the Spirit
wholeheartedly.
In
the end, the three fields of the four fields that the Lord spoke of
tell us that those whose hearts are like these fields are all bound to
fail, for they all stick only to their own righteousness, thoughts, and
lusts. But still, what we need to realize here is that there is another
field that can yield a crop by a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
The Fourth Field of Good Ground
What
kind of field do you think is the good field that today’s Scripture
passage speaks of? Jesus said that when the seeds of life fell on a good
field, they yielded a crop by a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Does
this then mean that whether one would be a good field or a bad field
was already determined from his birth? No. It is not the case that
someone is born as a good field, while someone else is born as a stony
field or a thorny field.
The
good field that the Bible speaks of refers to the hearts of those who
have faith in His Word. They couldn’t have such faith from their birth.
Rather, they came to have strong faith in the true gospel by recognizing
that they had fundamentally been wayside fields, as well as stony
fields and thorny fields. They came to have their hearts washed from all
their wickedness by placing their faith in the gospel of the water and
the Spirit.
What
we need to realize is that everyone is born into this world as a sinner
and dies as a sinner. Of course, there might be marginal differences in
each individual’s behavior patterns, but as far as their fundamental
nature is concerned, humans are all the same, in that everyone could not
avoid but be born as a wayside field, a stony field, and a thorny
field. Therefore, everyone was born as a sinner, and as such, everyone
must be born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit.
It
is absolutely indispensable for you to realize that only those who
believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can become good
fields. Put differently, it is when we place our faith in the gospel
Word of the water and the Spirit that we can become good fields. A good
field is a heart that desires to follow God by trusting in the His
Word.
The
Lord has blotted out all our sins once for all, and we have become
God’s children by believing in the gospel Truth of the water and the
Spirit. However, some people among us sometimes doubt their salvation,
thinking that they have not been saved from all their sins. They can
profess their faith in the true gospel, God’s Church, and their being
His children, but once the waves of doubt beat upon their weak faith,
they come to think that they are not really God’s own people, nor the
righteous.
Among
those who have come into God’s Church, if anyone thinks like this and
doubts his own salvation from sin, even as he heard the gospel Word of
the water and the Spirit preached by God’s Church, then this can only
mean that he still has many problems with his faith. It is no
exaggeration to say that this person is yet to become a good field, and
that he still belongs to either a stony field or a thorny field. This is
because he did not first admitted his evilness before he placed his
faith in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit.
The
salvation from one’s sins depends on whether one acknowledges his
wickedness and then believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
His remission of sin is contingent upon this. But if someone thinks, “I
can’t say to this anyone, but I think there is something wrong with my
salvation,” then this person may very well have still remained as a
stony field. This is why he must first admit his own wickedness to the
full extent.
Do
you know when we can be saved from all our sins? It is when we
acknowledge our wickedness and wholeheartedly hold onto the God-given
gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that we can be delivered from
all our sins. When we believe in the Word of God with our hearts and
confess them with our lips, we can then be righteous and receive our
salvation. If anyone believes in the Word of God with all his heart, he
will admit all his wickedness and stick to the gospel of the water and
the Spirit, and he will therefore be saved from all his sins.
Before,
we had lived only religious lives, and so we had not even realized our
true selves, that we were wicked. We had not realized that we were all
heading straight to hell in accordance to the Law of God. Therefore, we
had to first acknowledge, without fail, this Law of God that declares
the wages of sin to be death, and place our faith in the gospel of the
water and the Spirit to be saved from all our sins.
We all need to confess our weaknesses before God:
“Lord,
I had been truly wicked and indescribably corrupt. Before, I had led
only a religious life, believing in anything as my god. I had so much
lust for this world; my flesh itself was so wicked that I just could not
follow You, and my heart was truly filled with piles of unrevealed
sins. I was so wicked that I could not even tolerate my own evilness.
But despite this, Lord, You came to this earth incarnated in the flesh
to save me from all my sins, and to do so, you took upon all the sins of
mankind by being baptized by John. And not only this, but you also
carried the sins of the world to the Cross, died on it, and rose from
the dead again. By doing all these things for me, You have forever saved
me from all my sins.”
“Lord,
although I am this insufficient before You, I still believe that You
have saved me from all my sins with the gospel of the water and the
Spirit. Dear God, I was no more than these three wayside, stony, and
thorny fields, someone who could not avoid but be accursed. I had
actually thought I wasn’t such a bad person, but now I came to know my
wicked self to the full extent. Now, I admit to You that I am a filthy,
completely worthless worm. But even so, Lord, You still came to this
earth for me, blotted out all my sins, and made me a child of God. I
place all my faith in this, and I give You all my thanks. You have
surely saved me from all my sins with the gospel of the water and the
Spirit. Lord, I believe in this salvation that You have given me.”
Our
faith must be like this. This is how we can become good fields. No one
was born as a good field. We were all born as stony, thorny and wayside
fields, and as the seeds of evildoers. No one among us, not even one,
was born as a good field. It is only because God has turned us into good
fields with the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit after plowing
the field of our hearts with the Word of His Law, that we have become
such good fields by the Lord.
Our
Lord said that when He went out to sow His seeds, there were four
different fields, but He did not say that there were some fields that
were inherently good. For us to become good fields before God, we must
acknowledge that in our hearts, there are all three elements of the bad
fields, and we must accept the gospel of the water and the Spirit into
our hearts. Whoever admits that he himself had been such bad fields will
turn into a good field and bear the fruits of salvation before God.
Such
a good field can simply accept the seed of God’s Word like a child,
saying, “Lord, are You saying that You took away all my sins by being
baptized? Thank You, Lord! Did You shoulder the sins of the world and
die on the Cross for me? Thank You! Did You rise from the dead again for
me? Thanks You, Lord!” When God Himself is telling us that He has saved
us in this way, all that we have to do is thank Him time after time,
and believe in what He is saying to us. This is how we can ultimately
become good fields. Can you now understand this?
As
we have carried on with our religious lives, there were times when we
had been wayside fields, as well as stony and thorny fields. But by
believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we were able to
turn into good fields. When we had still been wayside, stony, and thorny
fields, God sowed the seed of the gospel of the water and the Spirit in
our hearts. This is how the remission of sin came into our hearts. When
we came across the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we came to
experience the remission of sin in our hearts. It was from then on that
we have been able to properly understand and make sense of the Word of
God whenever we heard it. The voice of salvation that washes away our
sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit came to dwell in our
hearts.
The
hearts of stony and thorny fields are like this: “I have too much lust
for this world to keep up with my life of faith!” To have this kind of
faith is to stand against God. Therefore, we should instead make the
following confession of faith: “Lord, even though I am this wicked, You
have still saved me from all my evilness. The gospel Word of the water
and the Spirit that You have given me is all correct and true. Now, I am
a new creation; old things have passed away; and all things have become
new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Even though I am insufficient, all these
blessings have been given to me because You have become my Savior.”
Only
when we have this kind of faith can we say that we have been wholly
delivered from all our sins. It is those who have such faith that are
the people of good fields who believe in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit. Only those who truly believe in the gospel Word of the water
and the Spirit in this way can live their consecrated lives from this
world, and only they can overcome their weaknesses by faith and follow
the Lord also. Why? Because they acknowledge that they themselves are
insufficient. By believing that Jesus has saved them from all their
evilness with the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they have now been
perfected by this faith.
Before,
our faith had stood neither on the side of God, nor on the side of the
world, but on the fence. However, when we then came to know our true
selves and recognized just how sinful we were, we could not but thank
the Lord for saving us from all the sins of the world through the gospel
of the water and the Spirit, and our hearts then turned to His side.
Even as we had followed our lust for this world, when we realized that
we were heading for destruction for our sins, we came to believe in the
gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, and we were thereby saved from
all our sins. And we now acknowledge that it is right for us to unite
with God’s Church and to serve the gospel for the rest of our lives.
We Must Turn around from Our Religious Lives and Believe in the Gospel Word of the Water and the Spirit
When
your hearts had been like wayside fields, you became aware of the
gospel of the water and the Spirit, and because this gospel seemed to be
right, you said that you believed in it. But what happened then? With
passing time, haven’t the birds devoured the seeds of this gospel that
were sowed in you? Even though it seems like you have the knowledge of
the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you do not have this faith in
it, nor the Holy Spirit. In other words, even those who do not have the
Holy Spirit have turned into Christians who profess to believe in Jesus
as their Savior, at least outwardly.
This
is why our Lord told us this parable. In the beginning, we had been
wayside fields, thorny and stony fields, and it was only when we turned
into good fields that we were able to yield the crops for a thirty,
sixty, and hundredfold. A good field is a heart that has accepted the
Word of God by first admitting that it had been these three bad fields.
It is when we admit that such was our hearts’ condition, and believe
that God has perfectly saved people like us with the gospel of the water
and the Spirit, that the fields of our hearts can be turned into good
fields. Only these good fields belong to God, and yield the spiritual
crops for Him for a hundredfold, a sixty and a thirty fold, at least.
If
you had believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit as you kept
your heart in the state of a wayside field, you would have turned into a
religionist by now. This is because you would not have had God’s Word
of the water and the Spirit in your heart. What, then, must you do? You
must hear the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit once again, and
must admit to God that you had been a grave sinner.
If
any of us had accepted the true gospel while not renouncing his former
religion, he must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit all
over again. He must first realize that the religious faith that he had
so far had all been wrong. For example, Buddhism teaches its followers
to do virtuous deeds, and this only seems so reasonable. Confucianism,
on the other hand, seems particularly suitable for dealing with human
relationships. So some of you may have believed in either one of them.
But as God tells you that this is not your salvation, you come to
realize that you must believe in Jesus to be saved from all your sins.
If you abandon your former religion, and begin to believe in Jesus, you
then become the one whose heart is turned from a wayside field to a
stony field.
Once
your heart becomes a stony field, you must overturn it with the Law of
God to make it a good field. It is with the Law that God reveals all the
sins of mankind in clarity. However, people do not recognize how sinful
they are even before the Law. They may admit that they are sinners, but
they do not recognize and believe that they are bound to hell for their
sins. Put differently, they only reached a superficial understanding of
their sins and accepted God with only such a cursory understanding.
But
as they carry on with their lives, they come to know that they still
commit hideous sins. And as they are unable to tolerate themselves, they
thus are turning themselves into hypocritical religionists. Such
religionists might say with their lips, “I am someone who believes in
the gospel of the water and the Spirit with the heart. And I want to
follow the Lord. And I do in fact follow Him.”
But
how is the reality? It is because their hearts do not really
acknowledge the Word of God that they just say that they believe and
then stop there. But in the end, they all end up turning into
hypocritical religionists. It is because their hearts actually reject
the guidance of the Word of God and stand against it that they end up
turning into religionists. The religionists pretend to believe in the
Lord and to follow Him only in form, but because their hearts cannot
really agree with His Word, they cannot follow Him by faith. It is
because people fail to believe in the Word of the water and the Spirit
with their hearts that they are not remitted from their sins and
perish.
My
fellow believers, as you carry on with your lives of faith, there are
times when your hearts are hardened. Are your conditions not, by any
chance, that of stony fields? Or are they that of thorny fields? You
couldn’t possibly be wayside fields, are you? Wayside fields are even
worse than stony fields. The stony fields at least accepted the Word of
God, but seeds were not even planted in the wayside fields, but were
instead devoured by the birds.
If
your hearts are still like wayside fields, then you must repent and
believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. At the least, the
stony fields have some earth, and therefore seeds can be sown. In these
stony fields, because there is some earth among the stones, when the
seeds fall there, the rain comes and the sun shines, the seeds come to
sprout. This means that the stony field at least does not fail to
believe. It means that some Christians have believed in the gospel of
the water and the Spirit, although they did not realize their own
wickedness.
Put
differently, because their hearts just could not admit the fact that
they were evil, the gospel of the water and the Spirit could not be
planted deep in their hearts. The stony fields imply the state of hearts
of those who cannot accept the fact that their hearts are piles of sin.
As a result, they just cannot obey the Word of God and His guidance,
and consequently they end up leaving God. But even so, they have evil
thoughts, asking, “Who dare to condemn us for not being God’s people? We
also believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.”
However,
they still have not been saved. My fellow believers, you must admit
your evilness to God as soon as possible. You must clearly admit to Him
that you are filthy seeds, that you are the seeds of evildoer. Only then
will this gospel of the water and the Spirit be planted deep in your
hearts.
On
the thorny field also, the gospel of the water and the Spirit was
planted and the buds of life sprang forth. But the thorns covered up the
buds of life, blocked the sun, and eventually made the buds wither
away.
This
tells us that if we have too much lust for this world, we cannot unite
with God’s Church, nor with our brothers and sisters and the servants of
God. Their lusts for this world, their own desires, covered up their
souls and consequently killed off their young faith. When such people
are spiritually dying, they ask themselves, “I don’t understand why my
faith withered away when I believed in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit.”
If
your hearts begin to doubt your salvation, you must overcome all such
doubts by reaffirming and holding onto the gospel Word of the water and
the Spirit. Those who are truly saved from their sins are the people of
faith who believe that the Lord accepted all our sins by being baptized
by John the Baptist. Such faith can be completed by our confession of
faith that professes, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”
(Matthew 16:16). When the Apostle Peter confessed this, he meant to say,
“Lord, even though I am such a hideous pile of sin, I believe that You
have saved me from all my sins with the gospel of the water and the
Spirit. From now on, You are my Master. You are the God who made me, the
Savior who has saved me from sin, and my God.”
Those
who have been saved from sin completely and wholeheartedly acknowledge
both their wickedness and the goodness of the gospel of the water and
the Spirit. As well as admitting their evil selves, they believe that
God has saved all human beings like them from their sins and given them
new life. When we acknowledge that the Lord has truly saved us from our
sins by taking upon our sins with His baptism and by bearing
condemnation for us on the Cross, we come to receive the remission of
sin by faith. It is when we recognize that the Lord has become the true
Savior for people like us and saved us from all our sins that we can
accept this Lord as our own Lord and become one with Him. As our Lord
has given us the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we have become one
with the Lord. Although our flesh is still weak, the Lord has still
delivered us from all our sins. This faith enables us to serve Him, to
follow Him, to live with Him and to die with Him.
In
Luke 15 appear three parables that are of the lost sheep, of the lost
coin, and of the lost son. What these parables imply is that we had lost
our Master. But you and I have now found our Master after losing Him.
What is more, this Master is a truly good Master. He is the Lord who
made us; who came to us when we had fallen into sin deceived by the
Devil and become such worthless and useless beings; and who washed away
all our sins on His own, gave us salvation, embraced us in His arms, and
blessed us to live with Him forever. It is such a Master whom you and I
have encountered.
My
fellow believers, as we carry on with our lives of faith, there are
times when we find it difficult to unite with the Lord and His Church
even though our hearts yearn to do so. In times like this also, we must
truthfully acknowledge the gospel of the water and the Spirit and all
the Word of God: We must admit all our sins whenever the Law points them
as sins; we must admit that we are piles of sin who were born with such
sins; we must consent to the statement of the Law that says, “The wages
of sin is death”; we must recognize that Jesus Christ took upon our
sins once for all by being baptized; we must accept that He carried the
sins of the world to the Cross, died on it, and rose from the dead
again; and we must acknowledge that Jesus Christ is our Savior. If we
admit all these things, then we have been saved.
However,
what is important is what was the state of your heart when you heard
the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, whether it was a wayside
field, a stony field, or a thorny field. Your faith would not last long
if you didn’t plow up such a bad field with God’s Word before you
believed in the true gospel. Even if some of us heard the gospel of the
water and the Spirit in such conditions, there still are, of course,
innumerable cases where people are perfected later on while hearing the
Word again and again. This is why most people are saved after a
considerable period of time since they first heard the gospel. If this
is your case, then you are still fortunate.
If
someone accepted the gospel of the water and the Spirit while not
plowing up the bad condition of his heart, his salvation could not be
completed in reality, but it was realized only in the realm of his
thoughts. Put differently, if one did not accept the gospel Truth
properly into the center of his heart, but only understood it on an
intellectual and theoretical level, he has not been saved yet in fact,
no matter how strongly he professes his faith in the gospel with his
lips. If, as a result, this person has kept this spiritual condition,
then it is by examining his fruits that we can realize the fallacious
condition of his faith.
Those
who have not yet been saved completely cannot yield good fruit. Apart
from the good field, all the other three fields cannot unite with the
Lord, nor obey Him. Such people hate to obey the will of God and of His
Church, and they also find it difficult to do so.
If
this happens to you, you may be astonished at your disobedience, and
say, “Oh, my God! Doesn’t this mean that I have not yet been saved?”
But, I admonish you that you need not make a fuss over yourself. Every
time we are like this, you and I must reaffirm and admit God’s Word one
by one: We must admit that it is our fundamental nature not to
acknowledge the Word of God, but to disobey Him, to be wicked, and to be
no more than piles of sin. We have to admit to the Lord that we have
sinned, but at the same time, we have to remind ourselves that the Lord
has still saved us from all our sins through the gospel of the water and
the Spirit.
We
should not just understand this Truth, that our Lord has saved us from
sin with the gospel power of the water and the Spirit, only on a
theoretical level, but we must accept it and believe in it with all our
hearts. It is useful for us to visit by faith the place where the Lord
was baptized by John the Baptist. It might be more useful for you to
open your Bible and to read the passage of Matthew 3:13-17 word for
word. By doing so, you can definitely reaffirm the Truth that it is
because Jesus was baptized that all our sins were passed onto Him.
You
should also confirm the fact that Jesus indeed shouldered our sins, by
reaffirming John’s testimony that says, “Behold! The Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). And you also confirm the
truth that Jesus carried the sins of the world to the Cross and was
crucified to death there, just as He said at that time, “It is finished”
(John 19:30). By reaffirming the Truth in detail again and again like
this, you can have a stronger faith in the Truth that He has fulfilled
all righteousness.
If
we reaffirm the Truth in detail as far as we can, we can become God’s
children by faith. This is the heart that unites with Jesus Christ.
Like
this, when we examine our hearts to see whether or not we really
believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can then realize
what kind of fields our hearts are. If we find ourselves unable to bear
spiritually good fruits even as we want to, then we must once again
place our faith in the Word of God. We must hold onto God’s Word in our
hearts, believe in it and acknowledge it: We must first admit our
hearts’ sins and our personal sins, and we must acknowledge as well that
we are the seeds of sin bound to hell for our sins. In addition, we
must also recognize that the Lord came to us and has saved us from all
our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. When we thus
acknowledge all the Word of God, our faith will come to have healthy
roots, and we will come to have the faith that actually saves us from
our sins.
Is
there anyone among you who has led his life of faith for a long time,
and increasingly doubts his own faith with the passing time? If you are
like this, then you must acknowledge all the Word of God as soon as
possible, saying, “I accepted the gospel while I kept my heart as a
wayside field, a stony field, and a thorny field, but even so, the Lord
has still saved me.” If you admit wholeheartedly before God that you are
a grave sinner who deserves to go to hell, and place your faith in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit again, then the Lord will receive you
as God’s child.
It
is written in the Bible, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave
the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name”
(John 1:12). If you believe in the Word of God, your soul will be saved
from all your sins. Even if you are insufficient in your acts, if you
admit your wickedness and believe in the gospel Word of the water and
the Spirit, God will give you the ability to live by faith.
Fundamentally
speaking, we had been worthless beings just like the three bad fields,
but the Lord has given us the spiritual Word of Heaven, new power, and
holy faith. By giving us such thoughts and hearts that enable us to do
His holy work, the Lord has enabled us to live according to the will of
God. Every time we hear the Word of God, He gives us faith to obey it,
and as the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts and works in our lives, He
leads us to the way of righteousness. This is how our God blesses us and
works in us.
My
fellow believers, who is our sower? It is the Lord. When our Lord came
to this earth to save us from our sins with the water and the Spirit,
didn’t He fulfill everything? He indeed achieved everything.
When
our Lord has thus completed all our salvation, did you and I believe in
this from when we first believed in Him? Our hearts were that of the
religionists at that time. I myself had switched several times from one
religion to another. Everyone has had more than one religion during his
lifetime.
Every
ethnic group has its own particular religions. Furthermore, in today’s
cultural tendency of becoming a multi-ethnic society, many people are
used to identifying themselves with two or three religions at the same
time. For example, in my country Korea, not a few Christians still visit
shamans or the Buddhist temples to have their fortune told whenever
they come to face crises of their lives. People ordinarily saddle
another religion on top of another. Some people might end up having more
than 10 religions.
You
and I have to admit that although we had all been like these people,
the Lord has still saved us with the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Unfortunately, however, there are people who claim to be believers,
even as they have the vestiges of some other secular religions in their
hearts. In other words, there are a certain type of people who think
that they believe in God, even as there is no Word of God in them, for
they did not hold onto this Word and believed in it with their hearts.
This is such a tragedy. It is because they try to follow the Lord even
as they remain like this that they find it so difficult to achieve.
However,
actually everyone goes through this process, until he comes to be
wholly saved by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It is because
the good fields also admitted themselves as wayside fields, stony
fields, and thorny fields that when the sower came and planted seeds,
they accepted the seeds, and it is because of this, and by the Word of
God, that they became good fields and God’s children. Unless we admit
our evilness and accept the seeds, it is completely useless. No matter
how good a field may be, if there is no seed, there is no work of life.
We
must all admit as often as we can, “I had been evil like this, but the
Lord has saved me from all my sins.” At this hour, whoever admits his
evil nature as it is and accepts the seed of life into his heart can
become a good field and God’s child. No matter how good the fields of
our hearts may be, if we do not accept the seed of life, all our faith
is in vain. We must accept the Word of God as the Truth. We must also
accept the Word on the Law, on the condemnation of sin, and on the
righteousness of God as well. If we thus accept into our hearts the
gospel of the water and the Spirit that the Lord has given us, we will
become sinless before Him. It is by faith that we become God’s children,
the people of His Kingdom, and the workers of His righteousness who
bear the fruits of righteousness.
Before
I came to know this gospel of the water and the Spirit, I had continued
to live only a religious life. Even after I was born again by believing
in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, I was worried over my future
and my religious identity, that is, whether I had to leave the worldly
Christianity or not. Put differently, there were times when I, too, had
foolish thoughts, thinking that I would have been quite successful in
this world, had I remained in the denomination that I had been in.
Wasn’t this heart of mine a thorny field?
But,
the Lord has sustained me with the powerful gospel of the water and the
Spirit, lest I should lose His righteous way and die on it. I have
confirmed my faith again and again: “Lord, You are God Himself and my
Master. To save me, my Lord came to this earth, took upon all my sins by
being baptized, died for me, and rose from the dead again. You, my Lord
who has saved me, is truthfully my Master. You are my Savior.” As I
believed in this way, my heart grew in faith and became whole, and the
Word of God held me so that I would neither be shaken nor stumble even
if someone came to me and preached a similar but false gospel to me.
My
fellow believers, as we have continued on with our lives of faith,
there were times when we did not have good fields, but only fields that
were unworthy of approval. That we are still called as the children of
God despite this is because of the Word of God that was given to us. It
is because we have accepted the gospel Word of God as well as His Word
on our sins and on the Law. Because we have acknowledged all His Word
like this, God could work in our lives, make us His children and use us
as His instruments of righteousness, and build His everlasting Kingdom
through us.
As
I carry on with my life of faith, when I see our fellow ministers or
brothers and sisters who think they stand firm, the following thoughts
come across my mind: “Why do they think that they know all about the
Word of God? Why do they think that the Word of God has all been
fulfilled in them? I can’t understand why they think like that, when
there is so much that they do not even know about themselves. When it
comes to my own case, I have come to see many shortcomings that I myself
still cannot admit from the depth of my heart. Of course, they were
saved all at once by believing in the true gospel. That much is clear,
but still, why don’t they know that it takes time for them to really
yield abundant spiritual fruits by faith?”
For
our hearts to give birth to new life as fruits, we must grow, bear
fruits, and these fruits must ripen. This is who we must be, and yet for
some reason many of our fellow believers think to themselves that they
have all matured and, therefore, are living their lives of faith only on
a theoretical level. That is heartbreaking for me to see.
My
fellow believers, your salvation is attained once for all when you hear
and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, but nurturing
your souls is not achieved all at once. This is why I have started to
write books of nourishment, that is, the spiritual growth series, just
after I finished publishing 10 titles of my gospel series. I just
finished writing the second volume on the Tabernacle, and I said to
myself, “I have finally laid down the basic foundation of the gospel
Word of the water and the Spirit, even though it is not sufficient
enough.” I admonish you, the newly born-again saints, that you must
humble your hearts and be nourished incessantly by the Word of God, lest
you should perish as time passes by.
However,
there are people who dare to claim that the Word of God has been
perfectly fulfilled in them. They even dare to say that they have no
shortcoming whatsoever before others. Is this possibly the case?
Absolutely not!
After
receiving the remission of sin, we actually come to have more shame
before others. We thought that we would not commit shameful acts, but
since we are only too human, we ended up committing many shameful acts.
Before we were born again, we didn’t know how wicked and insufficient we
had been, but now, when our true selves are revealed, we realize just
how wicked we are, and so there are more things for us to be ashamed of.
We hope that our true selves would not be revealed, but all that we
experience is the sorrow of disillusion. Is this not the case? Of course
it is.
When
we get together with our fellow ministers once in a while, we sometimes
sing songs together or play soccer to relieve ourselves of all the
stress that we have been undergoing. When we do these, we get so excited
that we cannot control ourselves. Sometimes, we even quarreled with
each other over little things while we are playing soccer. We, too, have
carnal sides to us, as well as sinful selves, our failure to fully
acknowledge the Word of God, our pursuit of the world, and everything
else. Even so, through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, our Lord
took upon our sins, was condemned for them, rose from the dead again,
and has thereby saved us. By uniting our hearts with the gospel Truth,
we have been saved by faith.
My
fellow believers, whenever you hear the Word of God, acknowledge your
own wickedness and sins, and that there surely will be the judgment of
God for your sins. When the ministers preach the Word of God to you,
what percentage of it do you acknowledge and accept by faith? You may
understand it just fine, but my question is not about intellectual
grasp, but how much you acknowledge with your hearts.
By
and large, most people cannot even acknowledge 5 percent of what they
hear. For those who have matured spiritually through their faithful
lives of faith, the depth of their faith has deepened, and so they
acknowledge 10 percent, or sometimes even 20 percent. But I think it is
difficult for them to exceed 50 percent. If anyone can reach beyond 50
percent, he needs no teacher. It is a feat of achievement for ordinary
people to acknowledge God’s Word even just 5 percent. They acknowledge
this much when the sermon is very long. If it is short, then they admit
less than 1 percent of themselves, or even as little as 0.00001 percent.
When the sermon is long, they may find it hard to keep their
concentration, but they still hear the Word, and they still come to
admit themselves, even if it is only a small amount. When these small
amounts accumulate, they turn into fruits, and there arises the work of
life in the hearts of the saints.
This
is why you shouldn’t miss church gatherings, and why we should get
together and have fellowship with one another. Do not think, “I don’t
want to have fellowship with these lowly people. I am different from
them.” It is the ordinary people who hold rather good human qualities.
If each of us is all alone, we cannot realize our true selves, but if we
are together, it is easier for us to discover ourselves. And so it is
such a joy for us to hear each other’s testimony in our fellowship.
Through
the parable of the sower, our Lord is telling us that He has saved such
wicked people like us from all our sins. Can you grasp this now?
Instead of indulging ourselves in overconfidence, we should examine
ourselves. Do not fall into complacency, but take this opportunity to
examine yourselves.
If
I say to you, “You need to hear the gospel in detail again,” then, some
of you will probably be offended, thinking, “What does he think of me?
I’ve led my life of faith for over 10 years, and yet he thinks so little
of me.” If you are like this, your heart is still of the bad fields.
When a gospel preacher preaches the gospel, he first teaches the
listeners about the wickedness and sinfulness of their hearts through
the Bible. So you can see yourselves better while you listen to the
gospel Truth. For your souls to be benefited, you need to see your true
selves as fully as you can, and you need to hear the gospel of the water
and the Spirit as often as you can. Has your self-respect been wounded
often in God’s Church? Do you think you are a man of great self-respect
and are you tormented when your pride is wounded? If so, your heart is
not yet of a good field, and you have to plow up your heart deeply to
acknowledge your real existence.
When
I preach, it is when I talk about the gospel of the water and the
Spirit that I am both most excited and most tired. It is easier to
preach about the other subjects in the Bible than to preach the gospel. I
can do that pretending to be spiritual in a gentle voice. But when I
preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, I have to reveal all my
insufficiencies. If I say that only you are wicked, you would not accept
it, but if I say that I am also wicked, you would find it easier to
accept my teachings. This is why ministers are exposing themselves in
every detail when they preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Some people might say to me, “Reverend, I would really appreciate it if
you wouldn’t be like this,” but there is a purpose for me to be exposed
like this. Even if there were no purpose, this is who I really am. Our
God who sows seeds is true, and so if He sows, then we must accept His
seeds. If the Word of God says, “This is who you are,” then all we have
to do is just acknowledge and accept it.
Our
Lord told us, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he
fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). There are many people who have been
perfectly saved from their sins, but at the same time, there are also
many people who don’t recognize their insufficiencies in the Church.
They are astonished at themselves whenever their insufficiencies are
revealed, and try to defend themselves for the mistakes. If you are like
this, do not try to hide your insufficiencies before God’s Church, nor
try to regard them as just your mistakes that you should have not made.
Whenever your insufficiencies are revealed, you should believe that God
permitted them so that you would acknowledge the goodness of His Word.
He could have perfected you as soon as you were born again, but He left
you with your insufficiencies, so that you would come to recognize the
Word of God through your concrete experiences, for otherwise you would
not recognize it.
I
may look pious and spiritual while I am preaching the Word of God. But
when I step down from the pulpit, I am just like you. In some ways, I am
worse than you. Lately I have not been strong enough, and what is
worse, I have been struggling with various health problems. As I said
before, this has made me rather oversensitive. But, strictly speaking,
my short temper is of my own temperament, and is not entirely due to my
conditions.
My
fellow believers, please have faith in the Word of God. Admit
yourselves, and when the seed of the Word of God falls on you,
acknowledge it and accept it. Though we have been saved from all our
sins, there is still much in the Word of God that we need to
acknowledge. This applies to all of us, to myself, to you, to our
mothers and to our young students as well. Isn’t there much that all of
us need to admit about our insufficiencies. Of course there is. Though
we are so insufficient, the Lord has still saved us with the gospel of
the water and the Spirit. Therefore, all we have to do is acknowledge
our real selves, that is, our insufficiencies and reaffirm the gospel
Truth everyday.
I
give thanks to our Lord. He said that the seeds that fell on good
ground yielded a crop by a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He told
us that he who has ears to hear should hear.
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