[Scripture]
Galatians 5:19-21
"Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, [21] envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
[Introduction]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the 6th session of the 3rd lectures on spirit, soul, and body, and I will continue with the works of the flesh.
Today's scripture tells us that those who commit works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God, namely, they cannot be saved.
It is only through faith in Jesus Christ that we can receive salvation.
So, if we commit works of the flesh professing that we believe in God and the Lord, it is the proof that we do not have faith to receive salvation.
If you truly believe that Jesus died miserably on the cross because of your sins, you cannot stay in sins any more. Although we cannot throw away all sins at once, if we truly have faith and love the Lord, we will definitely try to get rid of sins as soon as possible.
I hope that you will throw away all kinds of works of the flesh and even the root of your evil that is deep inside you through this message.
May all of you become holy and pure children of light who can receive blessings and answers for everything you ask from the Father God, in the name of the Lord I bless!
[Body]
Dear brothers and sisters, members who are attending the service through the satellite all over the country, members of branch churches, local sanctuaries, Light and Salt mission, Restaurant Mission, members who are attending the service on the Internet all over the world, [children of Sunday school]
Today, I will explain about heresies, envy, drunkenness, and revelries.
First, heresy is a group that looks like Christianity but actually is completely different.
Major heretic divisions today are Unification Church, Heavenly Father's Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other than these, there are many heresies all over the world.
It is very important to know about heretic groups.
They claim to believe in God and have a similar form of church, so believers might get deceived by them.
But no matter how similar doctrines they have, they actually have wrong doctrines that have nothing to do with salvation.
Galatians 1:8 says, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed."
Heretic doctrines are some other gospel than our gospel, and those who preach or accept them will surely fall into destruction.
That is why Titus 3:10 says, "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition." It is telling us that we should not even stay close to him so that we will not be deceived. By the way, in another sense, if we condemn a church as a heresy, although it is not actually heretic, it is also a great sin.
Furthermore, if we condemn as heresy a church filled with the powerful works of the Holy Spirit or a pastor who manifests God's power, it is standing against God. It is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and it cannot be forgiven.
Today, so many people condemn others only because they have different opinion without knowing the correct meaning of heresy.
I hope you will clearly understand the meaning of heresy so that you will not either be deceived or condemn others wrongly and stand against God.
Now, let us look into what heresy is. 2 Peter 2:1 says, "But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction." Therefore, heresy is to deny Jesus Christ the Savior.
Some heretic groups claim that Jesus is not the Son of God.
Some others say Jesus failed to become the Savior because He died on the cross, or because He did not fulfill the ministry of salvation completely, there needs to be another Savior.
Then, they claim the founder of their group or sect is the Savior or God Himself.
If you just properly understand the "Message of the Cross," there is no reason you will be deceived.
For example, do you all know the four qualifications as the Savior and why only Jesus meets all four qualifications?
First, the Savior must be a man. Only mankind has the right to redeem other men from their sins. That is why Jesus, who is God Himself, had to come to this earth in physical body.
Therefore, you will not be deceived when heretic people say Jesus is not God because He came as a man.
Rather, you can let them realize that Jesus had to come as a man although He is the Son of God.
Second, He must not have original sin.
All men have inherited original sin from their parents and ancestors, but Jesus had no original sin because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, He had the qualification to forgive the sinners of their sins.
Third, He has to have the spiritual power.
Only Jesus has the power to save all mankind because He neither had original sin nor committed any other sin. If you know these facts, you don't have to be deceived when others say somebody else than Jesus is the Savior.
Fourth, He must have love.
Only then will He be able to take the suffering of the cross and die for sinners.
According to the spiritual law that dictates, 'wages of sin is death,' we, who are sinners, had to fall into death.
But Jesus died on the cross with love to pay the price and purchase our lives.
He became our Savior in that way. Therefore, it is not that He failed to save mankind because He died as some heretic groups say, but He fulfilled the providence of salvation by dying.
Those who say they believe in God but deny Jesus Christ the Savior are all false prophets and liars. 1 John 2:22-23 says, "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. [23] Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also."
Also, 1 John 4:2-3 says, "By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, [3] and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world."
If you keep these words in mind deeply, you can break down any kind of deception with the Word.
I hope you will clearly understand the truth and be awake by the Holy Spirit so that you will be able to discern everything with truth.
Then, you will not be deceived by heresies, and you will not turn to the right or left by any kind of deceiving words.
You will be able to run to the straight shortcut to New Jerusalem.
Next, let us look into envy.
Envy is to act evil to others due to excessive jealousy.
When I explained about uncleanness, I said unclean things may be caused by too much envy.
There were many incidents of like this in Korean history.
The women in the palace were jealous of the queen and concubines, harmed the princes born of other women, and made schemes and so on. They even used sorceries, slandered, and tried to entrap other women they hated. This kind of things happened through the history. If an excellent minister was loved by the king, he soon became an object of jealousy.
Other ministers made plots to make him resign or to kill him.
This kind of things happens everywhere in the world.
In Chinese history, there was a horrible incident caused by envy. When the Emperor loved his concubine and her son more than the queen and the crown prince, the queen was so jealous and had a very evil mind.
She waited for the Emperor to die to take the revenge against the concubine and her son.
When the Emperor finally died and her son became the Emperor, the queen caught that concubine, cut off all her limbs and even the tongue.
She did not kill her because she wanted to be crueler in taking her revenge. She let the concubine live and put her in a pigpen. She treated the concubine just like a pig giving her food only enough for her to survive.
Then, she showed it to her son, the new Emperor, very proudly.
But the new Emperor was so surprised and sad, and he tried to save his brother born of the concubine.
He put his brother next to him all the time even when dining or sleeping.
But the queen was always watching for an opportunity, and when the Emperor was absent just for a while, she killed the son of the concubine.
For those who have good conscience, these things are too miserable even to talk about.
But if people are possessed with envy, they can do such things that are no better than animals, having the form of human being.
But the problem is that this kind of horrible envy comes from the same root as jealousy.
If you have even a little bit of jealousy and envy in you, which is not to rejoice with truth, I urge you to get rid of it completely right now.
Next, let us look into drunkenness.
If a person gets drunk, he cannot control himself, and he cannot see what is right and what is wrong. He would not follow holiness with self-control, but act according to the sinful nature.
They do some strange things, keep on shouting, or have fights without feeling shameful.
They sometimes say words and commit actions which they must not have done and cause some irreversible things.
The Talmud says, "If the Satan is too busy to come to men, they send alcohol instead." Actually in Israel, water is very scarce, but there are many fruits.
That is why they drink wine which they fermented without putting any alcohol. It was not to get drunk but to drink as some beverage.
People of Israel drank wine like this, but it does not mean that God allowed them to get drunk.
Proverbs 23:31 says, "Do not look on the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it swirls around smoothly."
God is telling us to cut it off from the beginning so that we will not even get tempted. In Leviticus 10:9, God tells the descendants of Aaron, "Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations,"
Also, in Numbers chapter 6 or in Proverbs 31:4, God strictly prohibits kings or those who are sanctified from alcohol.
If people have good conscience, they can realize by themselves it is not right to get drunk in the sight of God.
Even the worldly people will not be drunk when they have to show respect to somebody or when they have to meet with senior people.
So, how much more do we have to be careful before God?
Today, we live as God's children before Him. Also, the Holy Spirit is dwelling in our body taking it as His sanctuary.
Therefore, if we accept the Lord and receive the works of the Holy Spirit, we can feel that it is not right to get drunk.
Before I came to know God, I spent my days drinking. I could not endure the pains of diseases and despair and sorrow of my heart without alcohol.
But after I accepted the Lord, I did not either drink or smoke when I went to church, even though nobody taught me the truth.
Even when nobody said anything, I already felt in my conscience that I could not go to church after drinking.
Ephesians 5:18 says, "And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit."
As said, I hope you will always be filled with the new wine of the Holy Spirit and lead your life in faith.
The last work of the flesh we will consider is revelries.
According to Webster's dictionary, revelry is noisy partying or merrymaking. In this world, there are people who completely indulge themselves in lustful things and drinking, not being able to come out of it.
They cannot take any responsibility or perform a job. They cannot do the duty of men.
For example, if the father of a family is addicted to gambling not caring for his family, how much would his family members suffer?
When I was a child, I saw something like the following.
In the countryside, after they harvest a year's crops, or after they receive the wage for that year, people would gather and gamble.
But some of them do not play for fun but get into it too much that they lose their whole year's wage.
They sometimes lose their house and all their asset. Some of them even sell their own family members to gamble. But today, I hear some people give themselves up to revelries due to expensive and luxurious goods.
They purchase thousands or tens of thousands of dollars' worth of bags, clothes, and accessories. They buy them with credit card without being careful, and later become unable to pay back.
There are some married couples who get divorced because the wife spent too much with credit card.
Because they cannot pay the card bills, some of them become robbers, or some others commit suicide.
How foolish are these things? Only because they cannot control their desire and act in dissipation, they fall into the way of disaster and death.
1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification."
God's children should never dirty themselves in dissipation. If we keep on living in revelries even after accepting the Lord, we can neither give our heart to God nor receive the strength to throw away sins and become sanctified.
Even though we attend church, it is just coming to church, and we cannot have true faith with which we can be saved.
Of course, I believe that our members who are longing for New Jerusalem are not going after lustful things of this world and falling into revelries.
But I want you to check this to become more perfect.
"Am I being faithful in all God's house?" "Am I not neglecting one aspect concentrating on only one thing?"
Namely, I want you to check whether you are doing all your duties in all aspects.
Also, I want you to check how you are using your time in your daily lives. If you are saving your time and are being faithful in all God's house, God's grace and strength will pour down upon you when you pray in the Daniel prayer meeting.
You can feel in your heart that God is pleased with you.
I urge you to be faithful in all God's house, in your church, home, workplace, and every place you belong to.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters, so far, we have looked at the works of the flesh in 5 sessions.
Of course, there are many other works of the flesh as said in verse 21, "and the like."
If you have thrown away what I explained to you so far, you must have become a man who follows the desire of the Holy Spirit, and naturally you will not commit other works of the flesh either. You will not commit any sin with action, and you will throw away sinful nature in you, too. We should become holier day after day as God's holy children.
2 Corinthians 7:1 says, "Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
You gained the promise of salvation and glory in the Lord.
But that promise can come true only to those who obey God's Word with true faith.
I urge you to get rid of all the dirty things of spirit and flesh until that promise is made true perfectly.
I bless in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you will finish your preparation to meet the Lord as children of light who obey God fully.
2005-01-19 Posted
2015-09-02 Updated
