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 Sermon > Sunday Morning Service |
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Title |
Spirit, soul and body(19) - The 2nd lecture on - Spirit, soul and body(11) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Jn 3:5-7 |
Date |
2004-07-18 |
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[Scripture]
[John 3:5-7]
"Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. "Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'"
[Introduction]
Dear brothers and sisters, sometimes in movies or animated films, people's bodies and spirits change with each other.
Let's say there are two persons called John and Sally, and John's spirit goes into Sally's body, and Sally's spirit goes into John's body.
Of course, it is not possible in reality, but if that happens, who is real John?
When other people see Sally's body where John's spirit went in, they call it Sally, but she says with a distressed voice, "I am not Sally, I am John. I have the body of Sally, but I am actually John."
Also we can see that, when one dies, the spirit that is identical to the person's body comes out from the body and gets surprised looking at his body lying down.
These scenes are made by the imagination of people, but they can be made because even the worldly people acknowledge the existence of spirit, soul, and body to some extent.
They vaguely acknowledge that we do not only have visible body but also invisible spirit and soul in our body, and the spirit and soul can exist even without the body.
But even though they accept this fact, they do not clearly understand what body, spirit, and soul are or how their spirit, soul, and body were made.
Especially, there is hardly anybody who distinguishes the difference between the spirit and soul.
They just think spirit and soul are the same or similar things. However, spirit and soul are completely different things and they have different meaning. Nevertheless, because there isn't anybody who can explain about these clearly, people live without even knowing about themselves.
This message of spirit, soul, and body clearly explains about the spirit, soul, and body of human beings, and through this, we can understand about ourselves. This is the 11th session of spirit, soul, and body, and from today, we are getting into the aspect of spirit.
I bless in the name of the Lord that you will clearly understand about your spirit, soul, and body, and come out as a perfect person of spirit through this message.
[Main]
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]
People call themselves the lord of all creatures making a distinction from animals.
There are other animals that are faster and stronger than human beings, but human beings are more valuable and noble because they alone have spirit.
Both animals and human beings have body and soul. Though not as complicated as human beings, animals do have operations of soul, and can remember, think, and express their feelings.
But spirit is not given to animals but only to human beings. This spirit is the core and the most important part of spirit, soul, and body. I already explained to you about the basic things of spirit in the 1st part of spirit, soul, and body. We learned about spirit, spiritual body, and contents stored in spirit, namely the knowledge of spirit.
Now, in the 2nd part of the spirit, soul, and body, we will get into the deeper part of spirit. Before going into that, I would like to briefly review the things we learned in the 1st spirit, soul, and body.
First of all, what is spirit? Spirit is something that does not die or change but is eternal and never-changing, which is life and truth itself.
Our God is spirit. Genesis 2:7 says, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."
God formed the shape of Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life to make him live.
The breath of life refers to the concentrated crystal of all God's power which became the source of energy for Adam to live.
Adam became a spirit because God gave a portion of His spiritual nature to Adam by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. That is why Adam was a living spirit. By the way, the reason why God made Adam's body from the dust of the ground is because of the characteristics of soil.
The soil itself does not have life, but is a material that brings up life.
When we sow a seed in soil, the life in the seed comes out, so it sprouts and bears fruit.
In the same sense, God made man from soil and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life as if God were sowing a seed. Then the man became a living being.
There needed to be the field from which God could gain the fruit by breathing in the breath of life, namely by sowing the seed, and the field is the material called soil.
When God showed me a vision, the soil from which the man was made was not dry dust but clay mixed with water.
Even this has a spiritual meaning. Spiritually, water, which stands for God's Word, and soil was mixed to make Adam's body. And when the breath of life was put in there, Adam's body changed into bones and flesh and the blood began to circulate.
Dear brothers and sisters, when God breathed into Adam's body the breath of life, Adam's spirit remembered the shape of his body and formed a spiritual body.
Just as Adam's body had the shape of Adam, his spirit also had he same shape of Adam.
Spiritual body is the shape of the spirit and the vessel to contain the spirit.
Even physical bodies have different shapes from one another.
Lions have the shape of lions' body and eagles have the shape of eagles' body so that we can distinguish between lions and eagles. In the same way, even spiritual beings such as angels and heavenly army have their own spiritual body.
Because they have different spiritual bodies, they are distinguished from each other.
Although we cannot see spiritual bodies with our physical eyes, we can see them with spiritual eyes and can distinguish between spirits by the difference in the spiritual bodies.
What, then, was contained in the spiritual body of Adam?
The contents in the spirit can be referred to as knowledge of spirit.
When Adam was first created, he was like a blank sheet of paper without any knowledge of spirit.
It was just as a newborn baby has a shape of a human being but has no knowledge that enables him to live in this world as a human being. The baby begins to learn many kinds of knowledge from other people, in schools, and in the society to live like a true human being.
In the same way, after Adam was created, he gained a lot of knowledge of spirit from God for a long period of time.
He learned about God's heart, truth, spirit, goodness, and about all the creatures that God made.
Adam received these kinds of knowledge of spirit and put it in his soul.
Before, I explained to you that souls of animals get extinguished after their death but souls of human beings do not.
It is because the soul of human beings is connected with the spirit and has its operations.
Therefore, even when the memory device in the brain disappears after one's death, the knowledge, thoughts, and feelings in it still remain in the spiritual body. This combination of spirit and soul is called 'spirit with soul', but we usually just call it 'spirit'.
At that time, in the heart of Adam, his spirit was the master and the soul and body obeyed what the spirit desired.
But it is not the same with today's people.
They want something very much in their heart but cannot accomplish it. For example, even though they make up their mind to wake up early next morning, they cannot do it in reality.
They might not be able to wake up due to tiredness, or even though they wake up, they go back to sleep because their bodies obey the operations of soul such as, "I don't want to get out of comfortable bed," or "I will sleep just a little more."
Even though they want it in their heart, their bodies and souls do not obey. Also, people make up their minds not to spread certain news to anybody. But they just tell that to somebody unknowingly. Then later, they regret saying, "Why did I do it?" It is also because their bodies and souls do not obey even though their hearts want something.
It was not the case with Adam when he was a living spirit. Whatever his spirit wished, his soul and body obeyed and acted everything without any difficulty.
However, after he had committed the sin of disobedience before God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the situation changed.
As God said, "You will surely die," his spirit died, and him soul became the master and began to control him. Spirit is eternal and never-changing.
So, dying of Adam's spirit does not mean that it was extinguished. It means the communication with God was disconnected, and all its activities stopped like it was dead.
Since the communication with God was disconnected, Satan began to infuse knowledge of untruth through the soul of men.
Then, the contents of spirit that was supplied by God began to disappear. In the mean time, the contents of flesh, which is knowledge of untruth supplied by Satan, began to fill up that empty area.
For example, God planted in us things like, 'Serve others,' 'Be humble,' 'Be truthful,' 'Rejoice with the truth,' and so on, whereas Satan plants in us things like 'Be arrogant,' 'Get angry,' 'Seek your own,' 'Tell a lie,' 'Be jealous,' and so on.
As time goes, the contents of spirit planted by God disappear gradually whereas the contents of flesh, which is untruth given by Satan, increase. As the truth in heart disappears and untruth increases in this way, the spirit begins to lose its strength, and finally, it cannot function at all.
When a spider catches a prey, it wraps the prey around with its web very tightly. Like the spider web, the untruth and contents of flesh wrap up the spirit disabling it from functioning at all.
Then, the spirit stops all its functions completely like it's dead, and only the life itself, which was given by God originally, remains.
For example, when a person's brain is damaged by an accident and becomes a human vegetable with dead brain, he can still live for sometime. But he cannot continue his life as a human being. Although his life still remains, it is no different from being dead.
So, in some countries, if one's brain is dead, although the heart is beating, he is declared dead by law. In the same way, although the original spirit did not disappear, we say the spirit is dead when the knowledge and functions of spirit disappear.
Now, as Adam's spirit was dead, he became a man of soul being controlled by soul.
Because he began to accept untruth and perishable flesh through his soul, he eventually became a man of flesh.
Since Adam, people give birth to flesh more and more as time goes by.
Today's passage says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." We cannot give birth to spirit with flesh.
The worldly people learn the ethics, morality, and law. But it does not mean they gain more goodness in their heart.
When children grow up and become adults, they become more and more evil. As time passes, evil upon evil is added in this world, and more sins prevail.
Flesh can give birth only to flesh. And if we stay in flesh, we cannot be saved.
People of soul who changed into flesh continue to be under the control of Satan, keep on committing sins, and finally go to hell.
In order for us not to go to hell but to receive salvation and go to heaven, first of all, our dead spirit must be revived.
How, then, can our spirit revive and can we receive salvation? Since the knowledge of spirit disappeared and the functions of spirit stopped to make it dead, we now have to enable the spirit to function and fill up knowledge of spirit.
In order to do that, first of all, we have to believe and accept Jesus Christ as personal Savior. In John 14:6, "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
Jesus redeemed us from our sins by taking the cross and shedding His blood. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, God sends the Holy Spirit into us.
The Holy Spirit revives the dead spirit in us, enables it to function again, and supplies us with knowledge of spirit.
He makes us realize about sin, righteousness, and judgment, lets us believe the Word of God in the Bible, and helps us to obey and put into practice the Word of God.
Once we accept the Lord and receive the Holy Spirit, we are born again.
But being born again once is not the end but we have to keep on progressing in our Christian life. Once the dead spirit is revived by receiving the Holy Spirit, we have to fill it with the knowledge of spirit again. It is the process of giving birth to spirit through the Holy Spirit.
As we keep on giving birth to spirit after receiving the Holy Spirit, our hearts will be filled with truth and knowledge of spirit. At the same time, untruth in us will be removed.
It is exactly the opposite process of people getting stained with flesh after the Fall of Adam. This is the process of spirits' well-being and changing into men of spirit.
3 John 1:2 says, "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers."
If our spirit is well, God can always be with us.
God can bless us in everything and protect us from diseases and disasters so that we can have spiritual and physical health.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters, today, we briefly reviewed what we learned in the 1st part of spirit, soul, and body.
Man was created as living spirit, but since his spirit died and he lost knowledge of spirit, he became a man of soul and flesh.
God's children now have to give birth to spirit through the Holy Spirit and recover the knowledge of spirit to become men of spirit who resemble God.
John 10:35 says, "If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken)."
If Word of God comes to a man completely, he can be like a god. It means he will be a man of spirit resembling the image of God the Almighty like when Adam was first created.
Then, God will secure him in all things so that he will be prosperous in everything. He will also be able to show things with faith that cannot be done with human ability.
Exodus 4:16 says, "and you shall be to him (namely Moses shall be to Aaron) as God." Also, Exodus 7:1 says, "So the LORD said to Moses: "See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet."
When Moses who received God's Word performed God's powerful works, he looked as god before Aaron and Pharaoh.
It is not only the case with Moses. It is the same with you too, only that you become a complete man of spirit.
Then, you will be prosperous in everything and be healthy as your spirit and soul prosper. You will be able to accomplish everything with faith and give glory to God.
Finally, you will live in the honor of the eternal heaven as God's sons.
I bless in the name of the Lord that your spirit and soul will prosper and you have proper qualifications as God's children so that you can enjoy blessings as God's children both on this earth and in heaven. |
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