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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
New Jerusalem - 31st Anniversary Sunday Morning |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Revelation 21: 10-11 |
Date |
2013-10-13 |
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Passage
[Revelation 21: 10-11]
"And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, [11] having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper."
Hallelujah! Dear brothers and sisters,
Today is a happy, joyous, and meaningful day, for it is the 31st anniversary of Manmin Central Church.
Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father who has been guiding all Manmin members around the globe as well as those in the main church.
I also give thanks to the families and relatives of the church members, and all honored guests including the press members of Korea and other countries.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will be filled with joy and happiness in the Lord and you will receive both spiritual and material blessings.
Brothers and sisters, God the Father came to me 40 years ago.
And He let me establish Manmin church 31 years ago.
The Father God came to meet me in His providence and established me as a shepherd of 'Manmin' which means 'all nations'.
He also let me understand and feel the heart, the will, and the great love of the Father God.
He also let me know about the amazing providence of human cultivation and secret things of the spiritual realm.
This is how I came to realize that we have to cast away all forms of evil and become holy to become God's true children.
I came to understand the earnest heart of the Father God who wants us to take hold of New Jerusalem by force.
I have also come to feel the desperate heart of the Father God who wants to save just one more soul at this end time which is full of sins, and that the Lord's second coming is near.
So, I always thought about the ways to proclaim the living God to numerous souls around the world and to preach the Savior, the Lord Jesus, and I found answers in the power of God.
With the power of God, we can show the living Creator God before the eyes of the people.
I cultivated the heart of whole spirit to make a proper vessel to receive power, and eventually I received it from God through countless prayers and fasting.
I received the power of God even before the opening of this church, and this power has been continually working among the church members and many souls around the world for the last 31 years.
Now, what is the reason that the Father God has chosen and guided me and Manmin church this way at this end time?
It is because He wanted to have a grand finale to human cultivation through His true children who have the qualifications to be with Him in New Jerusalem forever.
To fulfill this plan He chose me, this church, and you members here, for He knew what kind of person He had to choose and what kind of church He had to establish.
Isaiah 45:4 says, "For the sake of Jacob My servant, and Israel My chosen one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor though you have not known Me."
As written, God who knows everything planned and chose us since before the ages.
The sole purpose of Him doing this is to lead as many souls as possible to the glorious city of New Jerusalem as depicted in today's reading passage, and to share His love with them there eternally.
To make this happen, God the Father has been enduring and patiently toiled.
And because I understand this heart of the Father God, I also have been able to endure with any kind of sacrifice, with the desire not to lose even just one soul, and the desire to lead just one more soul to the glory of New Jerusalem.
The fruit of such effort is borne greatly as we see today.
Things unprecedented since the creation of the world have been taking place through this church.
There are many men of spirit and whole spirit coming forth.
The deep things of the spiritual realm that nobody could imagine are now being unfolded in front of our eyes.
Works of God's power that are written in the Bible, and even greater works than those, are being manifested.
It is just as John 14:12 says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father."
The works of God that will be revealed through this church from now will be much greater and more amazing than previous works.
We will be the church that will build the Canaan Sanctuary and the Grand Sanctuary. We are accomplishing world evangelism and there will be so many more men of spirit and whole spirit. Don't you feel overwhelmed just to think about it?
This is not just our wish or imagination. We will certainly fulfill them soon.
Since its opening, our church has received promises of God that we couldn't even imagine or even hope to accomplish with human strength.
But all those promises have been being fulfilled one by one for the last 31 years.
Seeing, hearing about, and experiencing such things for the last 31 years, your measure of faith has been increasing, too.
Now, I believe there are very few among you who doubt the fact that all the promises of God given to this church will be fulfilled.
Did you not witness the layers of clouds above you that was more than 10km thick, splitting and opening in an instant right before your eyes?
Just by seeing this one incident, how could anybody doubt any longer?
All the promises that God the Father has given to us will certainly be fulfilled.
They have been being fulfilled until today, and soon the remaining things will also come true.
All these things have been and will be made possible because we have paid the price.
Of course, it was possible because we have the grace that God has given to us for free.
But, we also had to pay the price according to justice.
And to pay this price of justice, God appointed me as the shepherd of this church.
It's because the Father knew that I would fulfill His desires, through any kind of sacrifice and with dedication.
It is just as Jesus revealed the love on the cross in the providence of God the Father by obeying the will of God completely.
On this 31st anniversary day, let us look back on the kinds of grace of God we have received to make this church what it has become today.
I will talk in three aspects about the love and grace given by God the Father and about the grace of God given to this church and members through the sacrifice and dedication of the shepherd.
Through this message, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will realize the great grace of God and pay back His grace by coming forth as beautiful fruits of New Jerusalem.
[Main]
Dear brothers and sisters, and the guests, the grace God has given to us, firstly, is the grace of repentance.
Just try to remember the time when you first met the Lord.
I believe you repented with weeping for the grace of the Lord who saved such sinners as us.
You know very well that it was not done with our own will, but only by the grace of the Father God and the Lord and by the help of the Holy Spirit.
When you built up walls of sins of various kinds while leading your life in Christ, you were able to repent of them and demolish those walls of sins, and this was not done by your own strength either.
You received the grace of repentance through the grace and love of the Father and the endless mercy and help of the Holy Spirit from moment to moment.
Even though we have been forgiven of our sins once by the blood of the Lord, we would have become slaves of sin and fallen into the mire of sins again, that is, if this grace of repentance had not been given.
Because He knows this very well, God the Father sent the Helper the Holy Spirit to this earth.
In the works of the Holy Spirit, He wanted us to repent and turn from sins and reach complete salvation.
We can reach complete salvation through the blood of the Lord and the mercy and help of the Holy Spirit, the Helper.
However, the Bible also mentions that there are sins for which we cannot even ask forgiveness.
They are the sins leading to death.
There are sins for which the grace of repentance cannot be given in justice, no matter how much you toil to repent and turn.
The Bible also tells us of how painful the pain of such sins is.
Judas Iscariot, after selling out His master Jesus, realized his fault and tried to repent.
But because he was not able to repent, he finally killed himself being unable to bear the pain of sins.
Now, if anyone is in this situation, should we just give up on him?
I could not do that.
When I saw some members of our church who were in that kind of situation, I could not give up on them.
So I clung to God and shed tears of mourning on their behalf.
And also I took the pain of their sins, too.
I even gave up my life.
It's not because I thought somehow it would work out, but it was the only way for me to take as their shepherd. So, I could not even think about my own body or the fact that my life could even come to an end.
As a result of such toils God the Father gave us many chances of repentance in this church.
You are the beneficiaries of such grace.
And yet, I am still asking for the grace of repentance.
It is for those people who have not received such grace yet.
Also, it is because, even though you turned back from your old ways of life and are riding on the flow of spirit, until you stand on the rock of faith and go into spirit, you need the grace of repentance time after time.
I hope none of you will ever lose such grace of repentance.
The second kind of grace given by God the Father to this church is the grace of understanding.
Brothers and sisters, even though you had repented, how many times have you repeatedly committed the sins and repenting again?
You confess that you shouldn't do a certain thing any longer, but as time passes, you do it again just as in the past.
It's because you say you repented, but you did not really understand from heart.
That is, you did not really understand from the depth of your heart how filthy sins are, and how much those sins cause God pains and mourning.
So, you repeatedly committed sins.
I've seen such cases many times during my ministry for the last 31 years.
They said they were repenting, so I forgave them and encouraged them to do better, but later they came to me again for repentance.
And yet, I just kept on forgiving them and bore with them.
I endured looking at them with the eyes of faith, thinking they would really understand from heart, repent and turn from sins truly, and cast off sins and evil from their heart.
And I kept on teaching in my sermons again and again.
Through sermons, seminars, and group meetings, and even personally, I kept on teaching you again and again.
Even though I had to think like, 'Is there any possibility with this soul?' I still prayed for them with tears and waited for them to change.
As a result, even those souls began to understand from heart one by one.
Watching the tears and sacrifice of the shepherd, they came to understand the heart of the Father, the Lord, and the desperate heart of the shepherd.
And they came to understand why they had to cast off sins and how filthy such sins are.
They also understood how to cast off sins and how to go into deeper level of spirit step by step.
Until then, they did not understand what circumcision of heart is and how they could circumcise their heart even though they heard about these things many times.
But now, they came to understand from the depth of their heart what word of life these messages are, and how precious this church and the shepherd are.
They also came to have hope for New Jerusalem.
The grace of God the Father given to this church is thirdly the enabling grace.
He enabled us to cast off sin and change through His grace.
Even though we receive the grace of repentance and understanding, and gain the hope for New Jerusalem, we cannot change in an instant.
We need the strength to cast off sins after receiving the grace of understanding.
From this moment on is crucial in going into spirit.
In order for you not to stumble again, namely not to go back to your past again, you need the strength and power to cast off sins and change.
But you cannot just have this strength and power by yourself.
As Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me," we must receive the grace of the One who strengthens us.
And this enabling grace, the grace that strengthens you to cast off sins and change yourself, has been given to you.
Now you say you can do the things that you thought you couldn't ever achieve in the past, and you are casting off the sins that seemed you could never cast off.
Even those souls who had had no strength to stand, stood up again and they are running towards spirit and whole spirit vigorously now.
And this grace is not just given to some special individuals.
When I preach the word of God in every conference, group meeting, and sermon, I expend all my energy so that you can be supplied with the strength and power to cast sins away.
I try to give strength and courage so that the tired souls will not fall behind and not look back at the world again, or become disheartened and give up thinking they cannot do it.
Even when I pray alone in the mountains, I watch you on the TV screen and harbor and pray for each of you with an earnest heart.
If I feel you are tired, I pray for you ardently, and if I feel you are disheartened, I pray for you with a desperate heart.
All these efforts have caused each of you to stand on the rock of faith and go into spirit.
God is pouring down His grace so you are enabled to run your race of sanctifying yourselves.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters, and guests, on this 31st anniversary we have looked into the grace of God given in this church in three aspects.
Is there anyone among you who has not received any one of these kinds of grace?
As a matter of fact, all of you have received some of each kind of grace.
And it is only natural for a person to want to repay the grace he has received.
The reason why God has given you such grace is to give you additional blessings when you actually pay back the grace you received.
It is to give you New Jerusalem.
You know very well how beautiful and glorious New Jerusalem is.
You will also feel a little portion of its beauty through the celebration performance in the evening service.
God has given us grace to give us such glory and blessing.
It is something natural for us to pay back the grace we received, but God is giving us greater blessings when we do pay back the grace.
It is the glory of New Jerusalem in heavenly kingdom.
Today's reading passage says New Jerusalem is a holy city.
Since it is a holy city, only those who are holy can enter there.
Only those who have the qualifications of holiness will dwell in the glory of New Jerusalem forever.
It is as said, "...having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper."
New Jerusalem is full of God's glory, and it shines with brilliant lights of precious gemstones that cannot be described with words.
We cannot even begin to imagine its beauty.
He is giving you grace that cannot be explained with words to let you come into this place, and He is eagerly waiting for you.
Just how full of love and grace our Father God is!
We should know this love and grace of God the Father and become His delightful fruits.
You have been trying hard for the last 31 years.
But compared to the grace, toil and effort of the Father God, how can we say we have toiled a lot?
During the remainder of our days, until the Lord comes back, we have to keep marching on without ceasing.
We have to keep on going until God's will and providence are fulfilled on this earth.
I pray in the name of the Lord that, when that day comes, you will be able to stand before the Lord our bridegroom and give Him joy, thanksgiving, and praise. |
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