Subject 13 : The Gospel According to MATTHEW
[Chapter 7-4] We Can Enter Heaven Only When We Know The Will of the Father And Believe in It (Matthew 7:21-27)
(Matthew 7:21-27)
“Not
everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of
heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say
to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name,
cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And
then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness!’ Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine,
and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the
rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and
beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them,
will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain
descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house;
and it fell. And great was its fall.”
In
the above scriptural passage, our Lord said, “Not everyone who says to
Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the
will of My Father in heaven.” The Lord said here that not just anyone
who claims to believe in Him can enter Heaven where He is, but only
those who do the will of the Father can enter Heaven. On the last day of
judgment, when many who had believed in Jesus protest to Him and say,
“Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in
Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” our Lord cannot but say
to them, “You practiced lawlessness, and so I never knew you. Depart
from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”
Our
Lord said to all of us, “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine,
and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on
the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the
rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do
them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and
the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that
house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Matthew 7:24-27). Like
this, Jesus said here that those who hear the Word of our Lord, and
believe in it and obey it, are like the wise man whose house of faith is
built on the rock, while those who do not do are bound to see their
faith crumble down.
What
our Lord is saying here is that the blessed are none other than those
who hear His Word with their ears and believes in it with their hearts,
thereby being saved from all their sins and doing the will of God the
Father. On the other hand, if one hears the Word of the Lord and yet
does not believe in it with his heart, then his life of faith is all in
vain.
Those
who hear our Lord’s Word and live their lives by faith are like the man
who built his house on the rock. Have you been saved from all your sins
by believing in this Word of God, the gospel Word of the water and the
Spirit? Those who have been remitted from all their sins once and for
all by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit come to live
their lives by doing the will of the Father with this faith rooted in
the Word of God. Such people not only spread the gospel of the water and
the Spirit to everyone throughout the world, but they also come to
truly love their brothers and sisters of faith. In other words, because
they believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit, the Word of
God, they want to show their true faith with their acts.
Our
Lord said to all of us, “Be the ones who believe in the Word and
practice it.” Although there are many Christians in this world who claim
to believe in Jesus, few of them have actually been washed from all
their sins white as snow, and become righteous, by truly believing in
the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Nonetheless, there still
are people who have received the remission of sin by hearing and
believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, who have thus
defended their faith and put their faith into actual practice. And more
and more people who are realizing that the gospel of the water and the
Spirit is the true gospel.
But
if one believes in this gospel of the water and the Spirit with his
heart, then he must preach it to others—those who otherwise do not
actually spread this gospel will see their faith crumble down. Yet there
are quite a few people who say only with their lips that they believe
in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, when in fact they do not
believe in it with their hearts and cannot therefore show their faith
with their acts.
Such
people preach that even false gospels are true. They cannot help but
preach like this because they do not have the faith that truly believes
in the gospel of water and the Spirit. But we cannot preach any other
gospel but the gospel of the water and the Spirit, for this gospel alone
is the true gospel.
We Must Believe in the Power of the Water and the Spirit
Our
Lord said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the
kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” In
other words, those who really believe that the gospel of the water and
the Spirit is the true gospel bear its witness to others. Therefore,
those who do not spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit to others
do not have any righteous deeds with them, nor do they do the will of
God the Father, and hence they will be rejected by our Lord. In the end,
their faith is one that ultimately flounders. Because such people’s
sins remain in their hearts, they all remain as sinners even as they
claim to believe in Jesus. No matter how enthusiastically they have led
their lives of faith, they are all no more than sinners. Because they do
not really believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they
cannot show the true deeds of their faith. Therefore they cannot avoid
being abandoned by our Lord on the last day.
What
causes heartaches for the righteous who have been remitted from all
their sins? Their hearts are hurt when they see some people, even as
they claim to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, do not
actually believe that only this gospel is the truth, nor spread it as
such. Why? Because this raises serious doubts as to whether or not they
wholeheartedly believe in the gospel as they claim. All of us must know
and believe in the true gospel of the water and the Spirit as it is. It
bears to remind you once again what our Lord said here: those who do not
believe in the power of the gospel of the water and the Spirit—that is,
those who do not do the will of His Father—can never enter Heaven.
This
is why our Lord will declare, “Depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness,” to all those who claim to believe in Jesus as the Savior
and yet do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, nor
preach it. Were they to really believe that the whole gospel of the
water and the Spirit is the real gospel of truth, they would have
preached exactly according to the truth. The reason why they neither
believe nor preach like this is because they do not believe in the
gospel of the water and the Spirit as the eternal love of God.
Because
they do not really believe in Jesus according to the Lord’s Word of
salvation and His law of salvation, they have no deed that shows that
they have lived according to the will of the Father. They might say,
“Have we not prophesied in the name of the Lord, cast out demons in His
name, and done many wonders in His name?” But in the end, they have not
believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and they have
performed only false miracles.
Our
Lord will ask such people who practiced lawlessness instead of
believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, “What have you done
for Me? Did you perform miracles and signs? Apart from these, did you
really believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that I had
given you, and did you live your lives by this faith? Did you truly
believe that I bore the sins of the world by being baptized by John the
Baptist, that I shed My blood on the Cross for you, and that none other
than this was the very salvation that blotted out all the sins of the
world? And did you spread this to others? You did none of this, and yet
just how many times did you practice lawlessness by invoking My name? I
know very well that you blasphemously performed false miracles in My
name. So depart from Me!”
We Must Not Be Deceived by Liars
Throughout
the world, there are many who perform miracles and signs in the name of
Jesus. In churches led by such people, the main purpose of their
worship services is only to perform miracles. Why do they seek after
signs so much during this hour when the gospel Word of the water and the
Spirit must be preached to them in detail, and when all that the
congregation has to do is just respond to it with faith? What we must
realize here is that it is the demon-possessed who perform many false
miracles. Those possessed by evil spirits, in other words, deceive their
followers by pretending to perform miracles and signs, thus robbing
them of their senses and extracting even more material offerings from
them. These are precisely the work of Satan’s servants. All such
miracles are no more than an illusionary show. This is why Jesus said
that when such people say to Him, “Have we not cast out demons in Your
name,” He will declare to them that He never knew them. On this last
day, the Lord will cast out all those who have sin, without any
exception.
Demons
cannot be seen by the eyes of the born-again. But those who are not
born again can hear demons and see their images. This is because there
are sins in their hearts. In the hearts of such sinful people, evil
spirits can come in and work in them freely. As such, the
demon-possessed can easily commune with demons. It is in those who still
have their sins intact that demons work and bear their evil fruits.
What
people must really do, instead of seeking after false miracles, is to
believe that Jesus took upon all their sins by being baptized by John
the Baptist, and that He bore the condemnation of their sins with His
own bloodshed. Far from participating in the works of demons, we must
believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and devote all our
strength to its spreading. Because Jesus took upon Himself all the sins
of the world by being baptized by John the Baptist and bore all the
condemnation of sin on the Cross, we have been saved from all our sins
and have become sinless by faith. Since our Lord has washed away all our
sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit, those who believe in
this are all cleansed, and therefore the evil spirits can never dwell in
their hearts. For the believers of the gospel of the water and the
Spirit, there is no work of Satan at all.
This
is why our Lord said, “He who does the will of My Father in heaven
shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” What we must consider here is what
exactly the Father’s will is. The will of the Father is for us to be
saved by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit: Jesus
Christ, our Savior, has blotted out all our sins by being baptized by
John the Baptist and crucified to death on the Cross. Such faith is the
very faith that believes according to the Father’s will. Our God the
Father has washed away all our sins, in other words, by sending us His
Son, making Him accept the sins of the world by having Him be baptized,
and making Him shed His blood on the Cross.
When
we believe in this truth, we can be washed from all our sins and enter
the eternal Kingdom of God to live happily forever. We the righteous
will live there altogether happily and forever. The Lord has saved us
from our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. For us to
believe in Jesus as the Savior through the gospel of the water and the
Spirit is none other than to believe according to the will of God the
Father and to do His will.
Yet
there are many who, from their failure to believe so, cannot escape
from their sins even as they believe in Jesus as the Savior, and are
thus rejected and destroyed for their sins in the end. They are
forsaken, in other words, because they do not believe in the gospel of
the water and the Spirit as the real truth until the very end. Because
they do not believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit and are
thus unable to do the will of the Father by faith, when the last day
comes, their faith, which they had come up with in their own thoughts,
will all crumble down and collapse. It is because people do not believe
in God’s gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that they are rejected
by Him on the last day. The same is true for you as well—if you reject
the gospel of the water and the Spirit now, then you yourselves will be
rejected by God later on.
Our
Lord Jesus said that the angels would come forth at the end of the age,
separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace
of fire (Matthew 13:49-50). Brothers and sisters, who are the wicked
among the righteous? Our Lord has told us clearly and explicitly that it
is with the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has saved us
from our sins. Yet in spite of this, there are still those who do not
believe in this gospel, who not only make compromises with the world,
but even take its side. The wicked are none other than such people.
Brothers
and sisters, there are no two true gospels. Nor is Jesus two, but there
is only one Jesus. There is no other way for us to enter Heaven but
only by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the gospel
with which Jesus has remitted away all our sins. This gospel of the
water and the Spirit has blotted out all your sins.
You
must realize that if you believe in this truth, the way will be opened
for you to live according to the will of God the Father. The gospel of
the water and the Spirit will indeed let you recognize what the will of
God the Father really is.
No comments:
Post a Comment