Difference between revisions of "What Is the Real Good and What Is the Real Evil?"

Latest revision as of 14:12, 5 October 2011

What Is the Real Good and What Is the Real Evil?

< Genesis 3:10-24 >
“So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?’ Then the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ And the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ So the LORD God said to the serpent:
‘Because you have done this, 
You are cursed more than all cattle, 
And more than every beast of the field; 
On your belly you shall go, 
And you shall eat dust 
All the days of your life. 
And I will put enmity 
Between you and the woman, 
And between your seed and her Seed; 
He shall bruise your head, 
And you shall bruise His heel.’ 
To the woman He said: 
‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; 
In pain you shall bring forth children; 
Your desire shall be for your husband, 
And he shall rule over you.’
Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: 
‘Cursed is the ground for your sake; 
In toil you shall eat of it 
All the days of your life. 
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, 
And you shall eat the herb of the field. 
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread 
Till you return to the ground, br>For out of it you were taken; 
For dust you are, 
And to dust you shall return.’
And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’—therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Satan’s Food
What were the consequences of the fall of Adam and Eve? Today, I would like focus on this question as I share God’s Word with you.
As Adam and Eve fell tempted by Satan, God cursed the Devil and man. Adam, Eve, and Satan were all cursed. To the serpent, God said, “You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.” So from this, we can see that before the serpent was cursed by God, he did not crawl on the ground. It was as a result of tempting Adam and Eve and making them fall that the Devil came to eat dust all the days of his life and crawl on his belly. And because of this event, Satan became God’s enemy completely.
Satan was originally an angel whose pride had led him to fall, but now he was cursed even more because he had tempted man and made him sin. God had created human beings to make them His own people, but to undermine this, the Devil tempted them and made them sin, inciting them to stand against God. As a result, God forbade Satan to receive the spiritual blessings from Heaven. Just as the Devil was cursed to eat dust, he now makes mankind live according to the lust of the flesh.
This is what the angel that fell from Heaven does to people: He makes them follow the pleasures of the flesh, and he goes into their carnal lust and feeds on their sins. Satan works in the sins committed by mankind and relishes them.
The servants of the Devil also incite people’s lust and feed on their sins. For instance, Satan’s servants lie claiming that people would be healed from illnesses or become rich if they believe in Jesus. Satan stirs up carnal lust in people’s hearts to make them sin, and through this he achieves his goal, which is death. Just as God said to Satan, “Serpent, because you tempted Adam and Even and made them fall, you shall now crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life,” the servants of the Devil are doing exactly as God had cursed.
Do snakes really live on dust only? Don’t they actually feed on frogs and the like? Yet God had clearly told the serpent to eat dust. Doe this then mean that God’s Word is wrong?
No, this does not mean that the Word of God is somehow wrong. To Satan who went into the serpent and actually challenged God, God told him to eat dust all the days of his life. “You shall now go into the carnal people and feed on their lust.” This is what God said to Satan, and Satan indeed feeds on the lust of mankind in its flesh.
Before he fell, Satan had fed on spiritual bread at his exalted status. But now he was brought down from such a high and spiritual status and entered into human beings to feed on their carnal pleasures or lusts. The Devil knows all too well that to make his bread abound, people’s greed must swell. That is why he incites people with his deceptive words that seem as if he would fill their lust of the flesh, promising that if they believe in Jesus, they would become rich, their businesses would prosper, they would get into a good school, they would meet good spouses, and so on. In other words, the Devil now came to feed on the sinful hearts of those who follow his lies.
What kind of people does Satan go into and work? The place where the Devil can work is the hearts of those who have not yet received the remission of their sins. Put differently, the Devil feeds on the lust of the flesh pursued by those who have not received the remission of their sins. Once some demons, Satan’s followers, begged Jesus to let them go into pigs (Luke 8:32). The Devil goes into those who follow their own lust and only want to fill their bellies in this world like a pig, and he builds his house in their hearts and lives in there. As such, the pastors who minister just to enrich themselves are typical servants of Satan.
How, then, can we now find out who is the Devil’s servant and who is God’s servant? The Devil’s servants invariably seek after only material gains, just as told by the Devil. What God commanded to Satan is exactly realized in the ministries of his servants. Before being curses, Satan had eaten something else, but because God now commanded him to henceforth just eat dust for the rest of his life, even to this day, Satan and his servants are feeding only on the filthy lusts that arise in people’s hearts.
Christian leaders who still have not been born again only want to increase the number of their congregation and build bigger church buildings. They blindly seek to have as many things of the world as possible. So the church buildings must be bigger for them and the congregation larger.
In contrast, the born-again who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit do not feed only on the lust of the flesh. The righteous feed on the spiritual Word of God, and they eat the bread of life by faith. Of course, even the righteous must eat physical bread to live, but they yearn to eat the spiritual Word of God, that is, the bread of life. This is in sharp contrast to the Devil’s servants who eat only dust.
While the born-again eat both, those who are not born again feed on dust alone. To feed on dust alone means to feed on only worldly things. The servants of Satan—that is, those who are not born again—singularly follow the lust of their flesh alone. And they are in a competition to see who eats more dust.
Now, Satan became God’s enemy completely. And our God said to him, “I will put enmity 
Between you and the woman, 
And between your seed and her Seed; 
He shall bruise your head, 
And you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15)
In other words, God put enmity between Satan and mankind. There was a time when the serpent and mankind were friends. They befriended each other and played together. But after Satan went into the serpent and made mankind eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, enmity came between Satan and mankind.

Our Lord Came as the Woman’s Descendant and Demolished the Power of Satan 
God said, “Jesus will be born as the woman’s descendant and come as the Savior. And you will try to bruise His heel. But, He will bruise your head by demolishing the power of all the sins that you spread. He will eradicate death, the curse that was placed on mankind as you made Adam and Eve sin. He will overcome the world and win over you.” This has all been fulfilled so far.
When the heel is bruised, one cannot set his feet on the ground. Satan went as far as crucifying Jesus to death. But on the Cross, Jesus trampled on Satan’s head. Long before Jesus Christ was crucified to death, He had taken upon all the sins of the world by being baptized by John the Baptist. By doing so, He could bear the condemnation of all the sins that the Devil had blown into Adam and Eve, and make it impossible for Satan to ever accuse us of sin again. So by being crucified, the Lord smashed Satan’s head.
Since Jesus trampled on the serpent’s head, Satan cannot bother those who believe in Jesus Christ wholly. That’s because the condemnation of sin has already all ended, and therefore the Devil cannot attack them. However, for those who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and therefore have not received the remission of their sins, Satan still works in them inciting the lust of their flesh.
God said to Adam, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: ‘Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.’” As the man ate the fruit that the woman gave him and sinned, from then on he was given the burden of tilling the ground and supporting his family with his sweat. In the Garden of Eden, he could live without toiling just by eating what God gave him, but once he fell and was estranged from God, he could not eat without toil. This means that mankind was now indeed accursed and cast out into an inhospitable world.
It is written, “To the woman He said: 
‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; 
In pain you shall bring forth children; 
Your desire shall be for your husband, 
And he shall rule over you’” (Genesis 3:16).
In the days of Adam and Eve prior to their fall, there was no need for the woman’s desire to be for her husband, nor did she have to give birth in pain. But once she fell into Satan’s temptation and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she had to give birth in pain and be ruled by her husband as well. If she had not sinned, she would not have to be ruled; it’s because she sinned that she now came to be ruled by her husband.
That Eve was to be ruled by Adam means that mankind was to be ruled by God. Those who have been born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have to be ruled by God through His Church. Whoever is born again must yearn after the Lord, and he is to be ruled by His Church. Those who are not ruled by God’s Church and have no desire to willingly partake in the work of the Church to serve the Lord cannot be ruled by God nor receive His spiritual blessings. Such people cannot abide in the Church to the end.
We need to realize what the Word of God is saying. God said that women have to be ruled by men and give birth in pain, and He said that men could obtain the fruit of their labor to eat only if they sweat on their foreheads. All these were realized both physically and spiritually as they were written in the Bible. We have been saved thanks to the labor of Jesus Christ. And men must labor to support their families.
It is written, “Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3: 18-19).
The very fact that Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden is itself suffering. To live in this world is to walk through a thorny field. It is very weary to lead a life in this inhospitable world. There is not a single day that is wholly pleasant. This is God’s punishment meted out to fallen mankind. Had human beings not eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they could have lived in the paradise of Eden forever, but now they must return to dust, their original material.
Human beings are nothing more than a handful of dust when they die. When they are buried, they rot away to turn into dirt. In fact, human beings are completely futile as far as their flesh is concerned. Just as a rotten fish is eaten by maggots to disappear in the end, the flesh of man is to rot away and return to dust. There is nothing lasting to mankind’s flesh. The origin of the flesh of mankind is nature, and so it must return to nature without leaving its trace.

There Are Only Thorns and Thistles in This World
In the difficult journey of life, people are being wounded by thorns and thistles, but do they really have to suffer all this wound? No, there is no need for this. If they receive the remission of their sins by believing in the God-given gospel of the water and the Spirit, all their problems will be solved.
However, those who do not receive the remission of their sins must continue to struggle against thorns and thistles throughout their lives. Because countless people still do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit, have not received the remission of their sins, and are living according to the lust of their flesh alone, they cannot avoid but hurt each other, stinging and inflicting pain on one another. Happiness does not come to those who are not born again, no matter how desperately they might search for it. They dodge here and there trying to avoid thorns and thistles, but they still get stung all the time, and they live hurt and bleeding constantly. Unless one is born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, he must live in such a world until the end.
Therefore, placing your faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you must escape from the suffering of the world filled with thorns and thistles. There is now no longer any need to seek after futile happiness in this painful and grueling world. By believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit now, we must receive the salvation of the true remission of sin into our hearts, and live enjoying the true happiness given by the Lord. All those who have now been saved from their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit have indeed been set free from the weary journey of life filled with thorns and thistles.
It is written, “Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them”(Genesis 3:20-21).
Some people claim that there were other human beings apart from Adam and Eve. Satan spread this lie, and many of those who are not born again came to agree with this. God clearly said, “Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” This means that the forbears of mankind are Adam and Eve. And all human beings are born from women. Recent scientific discovery also proves that all human beings are the descendants of a single woman. They discovered that the human mitochondria DNAs are inherited only through the maternal line while the DNAs in a nucleus are inherited by the combined DNAs of both parents. And what is truly amazing is the fact that all human beings’ mitochondria DNAs are absolutely same. This is the positive proof that all human beings, whether they are colored or white, are the offspring of one single woman named Eve.  
However, some people still say that God made some other people before He made Adam and Eve. This claim is espoused even by a famous mission organization. They claim that Adam and Eve were the representatives of the human beings God had created at the beginning of this world. They claim like this on the basis that the Bible is written according to the so-called representative principle.
It’s complete nonsense. Knowing that such claims would be made, the Bible put an indisputable end to this issue. While it makes sense to say that over their lifetime extending over 900 years, Adam and Eve gave birth to many children, having not only Cain and Abel but also many more children, it makes absolutely no sense to claim that mankind had existed before Adam and Eve. Is the Bible fake? If so, then everything Jesus Christ did is also something fabricated, and Adam and Eve are fake as well.
When I was attending seminary long ago, a certain professor claimed that he did not rule out the existence of aliens in the outer space. So I said to him, “If there are aliens, does this then mean that there are human beings living somewhere in the space other than on the planet earth?” He said yes, and so I asked him, “Where is it written in the Bible?” To this, he only repeated his belief without providing any biblical proof. So I asked him again, “The Bible says, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.’ Then what is the reason why Jesus was born on this particular planet earth?” The professor then just fell silent.
Some people claim that God made mankind even before the existence of Adam and Eve. But the Bible says that Adam named his wife Eve, which means the mother of all living. This means that it is through Eve that all humans came to exist in this world. In the beginning, God made a woman out of one of Adam’s ribs, and her name was Eve. Through Adam and Eve, we are born once in our flesh on this earth, and through Jesus Christ, we are born again from sin by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Who is the mother of all the living on this planet earth? It is Eve.
There was no mankind before Adam and Eve. There might have been angels. While the Bible does not describe how God created angels, angels do appear in it frequently. And it writes that the fallen angel went into the serpent’s body and worked. The righteous have a firm foundation, and this foundation of faith is God’s Word of Truth. Even though Satan tries to undermine the foundation of our faith, God has made it firm with the Word of Truth.

The Tunics of Skin That God Made for Us and Clothed Us 
Genesis 3:21 says, “For Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” For Adam and Eve who fell, God made tunics of skin and clothed them. This means that God clothed people with the remission of sin. To prepare tunics of skin, a lamb must die. The Bible says that without bloodshed, there is no remission of sin (Hebrews 9:22). The wages of sin is death, and as the Lamb died in atonement, He paid off the wages and clothed us in life, salvation, and grace.
While Satan told Adam and Eve to make and put on garments of fig leaves, God clothed them in tunics of skin. While the Devil made religion, God made salvation. And He has actually clothed all of us with salvation. It is through Jesus Christ that we receive the remission of our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Even though people sin, by believing in God’s Word, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they are made sinless, and therefore there is no condemnation of sin.
Let’s compare the garments of fig leaves made by man with the tunics of skin made by God. Skirts made of fig leaves are easily torn, and when exposed to the sun, they dry up and break apart. What about tunics of skin? No matter how the sun might be scorching, they do not break apart.
There is no true life in the religions of this world, but only mankind’s hypocrisy abounds. Religionists are those who try to cover up their sins with their own good deeds. However, mankind’s acts of hypocrisy all fade away in time, and, in the end, only its sins are revealed like a naked body. This is what mankind’s religious life is like.
With the gospel of the water and the Spirit, God has clothed us with the garment of the salvation, of the remission of our sins. He has clothed us with the spiritual garments of skin. So that we may be saved and God may clothe us with the garment of salvation, He sent Jesus Christ and made Him complete the gospel of the water and the Spirit. In doing so, God has made all who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit forever sinless.
My fellow believers, is there sin in your hearts? Although Adam and Eve had sinned, once they put on the God-made tunics of skin, they were not ashamed. Like this, the descendants of Adam and Eve can also receive the remission of their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit completed by Jesus Christ.
Genesis 3:22-23 says, “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’—therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.”
Here it’s written, “The man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.” It was also said in Genesis 3:5, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” This, that mankind came to know good and evil on its own, is a curse.
That humans came to have a standard of good and evil is not wrong by itself. But the correct standard of good and evil is something that’s set by God, and therefore one must discern good and evil properly. No human being should define good and evil all on his own. Only God should define and judge good and evil. But God said here that Adam and Eve, now fallen, came to know good and evil, since God said, “The man has become like one of Us, to good and evil.”
God has the correct knowledge of good and evil, right? We humans also know good and evil, right? But the standard is different. In other words, while God’s goodness is absolute goodness, mankind’s goodness is egoistic, self-centered goodness. We should have the absolute and perfect standard of good set by God, but mankind’s goodness is merely selfish, and therefore it is fallacious. Since this is what the goodness of fallen mankind is, it cannot be anything else but hypocrisy.
To wage war, a just cause must first be established for it. That’s because war is invariably waged in the name of defeating some sort of evil. However, in mankind’s world this standard of good and evil is all relative, and so while from our perspective the enemy country may be nothing more than an evil nation, but from its perspective, we are the enemy and our nation is the evil nation. When we look at the conflict between Israel and Palestine, both sides can come up with more than enough justification to destroy each other as an evil enemy. Like this, it is impossible for us to find absolute goodness in mankind’s world. What our nation claims cannot be the absolute standard of good, nor can the other nation’s justification be this standard. Human beings’ own standard of virtue cannot be an absolute truth.
However, we must infallibly fight against and overcome Satan, who is our eternal enemy. Because we must wage our spiritual war without fail, the standard of good must first be properly established in us. Since human beings are imperfect, if we define virtue on our own, we would be standing against God. Only God can discern good and evil, and only He can set the absolute standard of virtue. In God’s world, His Word is the standard of all righteousness and virtues. That the Word of God is the absolute goodness is the immutable Truth that defies time and age.
It is evil for you to set the standard of good and evil on your own. That’s because this standard itself is relative. It is fallacious to take something relative as the absolute standard.
For instance, in my country, when parents die, they are buried in the ground. But a certain tribe in an island in Papua New Guinea considers it a virtue to eat the flesh of one’s own dead parents, for it is unthinkable for the tribe members to leave their parents’ flesh to be ravaged by maggots. Which of these two practices, then, is virtuous? Each practice is virtuous to its practitioners, but is it an absolute virtue? Is it right to return the dead back to dust?  Whether maggots or humans eat the dead, is one practice any eviler than the other? For us to set our own standard of virtue is to fall into our own pride and be ensnared in the Devil’s trap.
The same principle applies to our lives of faith. What we may hold to be right in our own thoughts are not necessarily right in God’s eyes. Some people say, “I’m not suggesting that the gospel of the water and the Spirit is fallacious. All that I’m saying is that faith only in Jesus’ blood on the Cross shouldn’t be dismissed as wrong.” As they would see it, they also believe in Jesus, and so they think it would be virtuous to give recognition to each other, but what they recognize as good is actually evil before God. That’s because for us to give credence to those who do not believe according to the Word of God is to tolerate the wickedness of disbelieving in God’s Word.
If we were to approve any false gospels different from the gospel of the water and the Spirit, it would be evil before God. We must know God properly when we believe in Him. As far as human nature itself is concerned, neither the followers of false gospels nor we are any better or worse. But I am only saying that God alone is the Judge, Truth, and standard-bearer of good and evil. In other words, God provides the only measuring rod of truth. We must never try to live our lives of faith based on our own human standard.
God prevented our forebears who failed to believe in His Word from eating the fruit of the tree of life. The tree of life was in the middle of the Garden of Eden, as Genesis 2:9 says, “And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God had wanted Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of life and live forever. But instead, Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why? Because they were tempted by Satan, and they gave into this temptation and ate the forbidden fruit. Deceived by Satan’s temptation, Adam and Eve ended up standing against God without even realizing it themselves.
To stand against God, one must have his own standard. That is why God had told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, lest they would stand against Him; however, for Satan, Adam and Eve would stand against God only if they came to have their own fallacious standard of good and evil, and this is why he made them eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why do people challenge God? It’s because they have their own separate standard of good and evil that they challenge God.
On the Easter Day of this year, a certain Christian leader in Korea argued in a newspaper column as the following: “Even today, some people still talk about rapture. God is good. So how can our good God be so narrow-minded as to lift up only His believers to Heaven?” After the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Catholic Church declared, “There is salvation outside the Church.”
What does this mean? It means that anyone can obtain everlasting life in Heaven regardless of which religion he might believe, as long as he believes diligently. This is a declaration supporting the so-called religious pluralism. Henceforth, many Protestant theologians have also come to agree that salvation can be found in all religions. But what does the Word of God say? It says that salvation can never be reached outside Jesus, for it is written, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Therefore, while in man-made thoughts it may seem virtuous not to denounce other religions but approve each other, this actually is a great evil that directly denies God’s Word and condemns God as an intolerant and selfish God. Such claims have come out of nowhere else but the very standard of good and evil set by the self—that is, from one’s instinctive standard. Since people like this have their own standard of good and evil set by themselves, they live standing against the righteousness of God.
When we preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit to people, they say, “Did all those people from long ago who never heard of this gospel of the water and the Spirit go to hell then?” or, “Does this then mean that all these countless Christians would go to hell as well?” And they flatly reject the true gospel, saying that if this is what the righteousness of God is, they refuse to believe in it. Because mankind already ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, human beings have their own standard according to each. Those who discern good and evil on their own and stubbornly insist on their own way cannot receive the remission of their sins, for they cannot believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit even when it is preached to them.
Even for those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, if they continue to keep their own standard of good and evil, this in itself is a great sin before God, and they will leave God’s Church in the end. We humans do not have the absolute standard of good and evil. It is only God who has the absolute standard of good and evil. It is God who decides what is good and what is evil. Mankind’s own perspective cannot be the standard of good and evil. Even God’s servants, if they leave God’s Word, cannot discern what is absolutely good and what is absolutely evil. It is only when the servants of God reflect on His Word that they can also judge what is good and what is evil.
Our standard of good and evil must be established properly. For instance, is it good or evil to undermine the born-again servants of God, to raise doubts about them, and to thereby prevent others from believing in the Word preached by them? When looked based on the Word of God, this is evil. It is evil to judge the born-again brothers and sisters or God’s servants. God judges based on His Word. Because mankind ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the beginning, human beings have their own standard of good and evil, but this standard discerns neither what is really good nor what is really evil.
We are prone to fall into our own standard of good and evil. However, it is indispensable for us to take the Word of God as the real standard of good and evil. Our standard of virtue must be set according to what God said is good and evil.
While doing God’s work, I, too, often mule over the question, “What is good?” “What does the Word of God say? God is pleased when the gospel of the water and the Spirit is preached, but what should we do to fully proclaim the gospel? Would it be better for each of us to preach the gospel individually, or would it better to spread it united together? Which would serve the gospel better? And God is also pleased by order, but how should we establish God’s order in the Church? How should we serve the Lord?”
These are some of the questions that I’ve pondered often. Through His Word, God made it clear that the born-again must spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit united with God’s Church and His servants, for it is very likely for us to follow our own greed if each of us spreads the gospel individually.
As I follow the Lord, I realize just how often my thoughts have been wrong. Reading the Word of God, I realize, “Oh, my thoughts are indeed evil, and only the Word of God is good.” If you put on a pair of blue glasses, the world looks blue, but if you put on a pair of red glasses, the world looks red. The same situation looks different depending on how you look at it. Nothing looks the same. However, when you put on God’s glasses, good and evil are clearly discerned.
Do you understand what I mean? I have seen time after time from my own experience that what may seem virtuous to mankind may be evil in God’s eyes, and what may seem evil to mankind may be virtuous in God’s eyes. My fellow believers, what is good and evil can be discerned only according to God’s Word. Therefore, it is when we believe in God’s Word that we can embark on the virtuous way and avoid the evil way.
Philosophy, in fact, is nothing more than an intellectual exercise that expresses what is simple in a very complicated way. A simple concept, when defined by philosophers, is turned into an abstruse metaphysical concept comprehended by hardly anyone. In contrast, the Bible, which is God’s Word, is simple and clear.
In other words, good and evil are clearly divided when seen by God’s eyes, but when seen by mankind’s eyes, everything looks different depending on the color of the glasses. When you put on the Word of God, what is white does indeed look white, and what is black does look black. It is when we look with the Word of God that good and evil are clearly divided. We have to look everything with God’s eyes. And we have to perceive everything with God’s heart, by our faith in God, within the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit. Only then can we see clearly.
People are too narrow-minded. The Presbyterian Church criticizes the Pentecostal Church, and in turn, the Pentecostal Church criticizes the Presbyterian Church. But all this is because each denomination looks through its own lenses. However, when looked with the Word of God, mankind’s every thought is always fallacious, and only God is the most virtuous. And whatever God says is evil is indeed evil. It’s all clearly discerned. God’s standard of good and evil is absolute and unchanging.
Any standard of good and evil that is different from God’s standard has all come from the religions of the world. God does not allow anyone who has his own standard of good and evil to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is those who abandon their own standard of good and evil and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit according to God’s Word whom God allows to enter His Kingdom. And He tells them to eat from the tree of life.
Through today’s Scripture Word, you have come to realize how you have been beholden to your own standard of good and evil. In our lives, all too often we have seen with our own jaundiced eyes or judged based on our own standard. However, God said, “The just shall live by faith.” The born-again righteous who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit only have to cast aside their own standard and live by their faith in the Lord.
It is written, “Therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:23-24).
It says here that God drove out Adam and Eve because they came to have their own standard of good and evil. And then, God placed cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. God has opened the way only to those who have no standard of good and evil that is different from God’s standard, and who obey the Word of God with yes, so that they alone would eat from the tree of life. And with the fiery sword ready, God condemns when those with their own standard of good and evil try to enter.
In other words, God has set that those who have their own standard of good and evil, not the Word of God, would be cast into hell. Thus, those who do not eat each and every Word of God can never eat from the tree of life. On the contrary, they will be condemned by God.
When we say while preaching the gospel that anyone with sin will be cast into hell, people tell us how we could say such a nasty thing. They say, “God does not send people because of their sins, for God is love. I don’t believe that the God of love will ever do that.” They say so because they have sin and they are actually afraid of their sinfulness.
Those, who have sin but do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit despite hearing it, are the ones who have their own standard of good and evil. They don’t accept the true gospel obstinately. On the contrary, to the righteous who proclaim to have no sin as they believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they say, “How can you have no sin when you still commit sin?” So they argue that it’s only natural for everyone to have sin, and to beg God to forgive their personal sins everyday through prayers of repentance is a virtuous act.
However, that anyone with sin should be cast into hell unconditionally is God’s righteous law. If one has sin, he will be inevitably thrown into hell. Having made a fiery sword, God will judge him. He will condemn him with this flaming sword.
When we preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we say to people, “If you have sin, you will go to hell,” but this is actually what God said. It’s not something that we came up with on our own to preach, but it’s what God Himself said.
Yet despite this, most Christians say that it’s okay to have sin in their hearts as long as they believe in Jesus, and they claim that because they believe in Jesus, they can still go to the Kingdom of Heaven even if they have sin. They get extremely agitated at us, offended by the fact that we told them, “You are sinners, and if you have sin, you will go to hell.”
We then ask them: “How can someone who believes in Jesus say that he has sin in his heart? When Jesus was baptized, He accepted all the sins of the world, and to pay the wages of these sins, He went to the Cross and died on it. So how can you say that there is sin in your hearts, even as you claim to believe in Jesus?”
Anyone who has a standard of good and evil distinct from God’s standard can never eat from the tree of life. Who, then, can eat from this tree? Only those without their own standard of good and evil can eat from the tree of life. Those who deny their thoughts, those who acknowledge God, and those who have received the remission of their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit—it is these people who can take and eat the fruit of the tree of life. It’s because you, too, threw away your own standard of good and evil that you could hear and accept the Word of God with amen, and that is how you received life.
Those who cast aside their own standard and deny their own thoughts believe in all the Word of God no matter what it says. They are able to believe like this: “As far as the sins of the world are concerned, Jesus took them all away, from the creation of the heavens and the earth to the end of the world, and so where is sin? My past sins have all disappeared, just as Jesus took away all my future sins as well. When the sins of the world are put together, they are only one lump in the sight of God.
What is important is not how we look at everything now, but how God looks at it, and it is God’s judgment that is most accurate. Those who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit do not look at the Word of God from His perspective, but with their own eyes.
We must have the same standard of good and evil that God has.