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 Sermon > Theme Words of Life |
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Title |
Spirit, soul and body(34) - The 3rd lecture on - Spirit, soul and body(13) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
1 Jn 2:24-25, Ro 8:14 |
Date |
2005-02-27 |
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[Scripture]
[1 John 2: 24-25]
[Romans 8: 14]
"Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is the promise that He has promised us--eternal life."
"those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."
[Introduction]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, nowadays, there are many people who have navigation systems in their cars.
These systems can show you the routes, current location, and many kinds of roads on a map on a display screen.
You can see not only the map, but also a mechanical system can give you directions and instructions like, "Turn right after 100 meters," or "Slow down! Dangerous area!". A machine can guide you until you reach your destination.
It can tell you where there are traffic jams before you get there. If you go the wrong way, it can get you back in the right direction.
Then, if you had a trustworthy guide not just for your car, but for your life, how convenient could it be? Your guide could warn you beforehand so that you could avoid tests and trials. He could lead you into to the way of only blessings and prosperity.
Our Father God has sent a guide like this for your life, too.
He has sent us the Holy Spirit, who speaks to you and guides you in your heart.
The Holy Spirit searches even the deep things of God. The Holy Spirit knows the heart of each of us and the things to come.
Therefore, if you can just hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and obey it, you can always go in the ways of blessing without falling into the ways of trials.
Especially for those of you who are workers for the kingdom of God, it is very important to hear the voice and receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When one of the sheep of His flock has a problem that cannot be handled by the thoughts of men, it should be given to the Holy Spirit in faith for the solution.
You must comfort those who need comforting with the word of God, and rebuke those who need to be redirected by rebuke with the authority of God's word according to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Then, the physical problems of that sheep can be solved spiritually and, they can be lead in the way of blessings so that their faith will grow.
It is only when you cultivate in spirit in this way that the souls will not go to the world and the church will keep on growing quickly.
But there are many among God's children who have received the Holy Spirit but who cannot hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
If you imprint the messages on spirit, soul, and body that are preached in the Sunday morning services on your heart, throw away flesh, and have operations of soul belonging to spirit then you will be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly.
I bless in the name of the Lord that you will be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly and be guided only to the ways of prosperity and blessings prepared by God.
[Body]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 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] God gives the Holy Spirit to everyone who accepts the Lord with faith.
Today's passage from Romans 8:14 says, "those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."
If you are a child of God, you should be led by the Spirit of God. It means you should be led by the Holy Spirit.
Suppose a man buys a machine. Just because he got the machine does not mean he is able to use the machine well. Similarly, even if you have received the Holy Spirit, you may not be able to hear His voice or receive His guidance immediately. How then, can we hear His voice and receive His guidance? The most important thing is to demolish our fleshly thoughts.
To get rid of your fleshly thoughts, first of all, as I explained in the last session, you have to remove the untruth, namely the spiritual flesh, from your heart.
The voice of the Holy Spirit cannot be heard by ears but is heard in the heart. It can be heard through the truth that is accomplished in our heart.
But if you have untruth, you will have fleshly thoughts in your head before you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in your heart.
You should first hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and obey it to have spiritual thoughts, but because you have fleshly thoughts first, it blocks the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Thus, in order to demolish your fleshly thoughts, you first have to get rid of flesh in your heart, and to that extent you will be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Secondly, to break your fleshly thoughts and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly, you have to obey His voice even when you hear it faintly. I told you that the untruth in your heart will block the voice of the Holy Spirit. But, even if you have untruth in you, as much as you have truth, from that one corner of your heart, you will hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
If you have a lot of truth in you, you will hear the Spirit's voice clearly, and if the truth is little, you will hear the voice faintly.
But even when you hear it faintly, if you keep on obeying it diligently, your heart will be filled with more truth and be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly.
For example, when somebody does something evil to you, you will have two thoughts at the same time unless you are fully sanctified. The voice of the Holy Spirit will tell you to be meek and love even your enemies on the other hand the fleshly thought will tell you that you are hurt and upset.
If you have more untruths, such as anger and hatred in your heart, you will hear the voice of the Holy Spirit faintly. But since you have been learning the truth and praying to become sanctified, you will definitely hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
At that time, if you can bravely obey the voice, you will be able to get rid of that evil in your heart. You will be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly.
Thirdly, to get rid of fleshly thoughts and hear the voice and receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you have to pray fervently. Suppose you have two radios turned on, each one tuned at different channels.
Even though there are two channels, if you turn the volume up for one channel, you can hear it better. In the same way, if you receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit by fervent prayers, you will be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly and loudly just like turning up the volume on one of the radios.
When you visit someone from the church for spiritual purposes, don't discuss things that are personal thoughts and not spiritually beneficial. You should give them the words that God has given to you through your prayer.
When a new-believer fails to keep the Sabbath and does not come to church, if you use your own fleshly kind of thoughts you might automatically think you should go explain to them that they have to keep the Sabbath holy.
But if you just tell him to keep the Sabbath, and that he will go to hell if he does not keep it, this cannot be a truly spiritual message.
To make it a truly spiritual visit, you first have to pray about that soul and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Then, the Holy Spirit will let you know the fundamental reason why this new-believer did not keep the Sabbath. For example, he had a difficult problem in his workplace and so on.
Or, even if you do not know the exact problem, the Holy Spirit will remind you of the proper Bible verses for him.
When you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in this way, you can deliver those words.
Then, the Holy Spirit will open the heart of that person and give him grace so that the problem will be solved. Consequently, he will be able to keep the Sabbath.
When you make spiritual visits, you first have to pray in advance and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, but there are times when you cannot really pray specifically about a certain people. But if you are always full of the Holy Spirit, it will be easy to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit even if you just pray briefly about it.
If you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, you will discern the will of God and stay in truth completely. When there is an obstacle, the voice will let you know and guide you to the way of blessings.
Sometimes, the Holy Spirit might even let you know future things revealing secrets of the spiritual realm.
But when God's children begin to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, they may find it difficult to discern whether it is the voice of the Holy Spirit or their own thoughts.
Of course, if it is clearly either truth or untruth, it is easy to discern.
The truth is the voice of the Holy Spirit while the untruth is the fleshly thoughts.
But sometimes, both of them are not untruth, and you cannot distinguish clearly which one is the voice of the Holy Spirit. To have a clear discernment, you need some training. When you fervently pray about something that you want to discern and receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Holy Spirit will be heard more clearly.
You can also check whether or not something was the voice of the Holy Spirit through not only prayers but also through the results of your obedience to one of the choices. If it is truly the voice of the Holy Spirit, God's work will be manifested when you obey it.
Moreover, if you have joy and thanks in your heart coming from above and fullness of the Holy Spirit, it can be another kind of evidence.
Or, you find out if it is the voice of the Holy Spirit through another person who can discern or by seeing the fruit of blessings that you gain through your obedience.
For me there was nobody who taught me how to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, so God trained me since I was a new-believer. Often, I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit during the Sunday morning services.
One day, I felt a strong urge in my heart to help an evangelist with 30,000 won.
I made up my mind to obey it immediately. But after I got back home after the service, many other thoughts came into me.
30,000 won at that time was a great amount, and it was difficult for me to get that amount.
Thinking this and that, I thought it was my own thought and did not help the evangelist.
But the next day, I heard from the mother-in-law of the evangelist that the evangelist's wife went to a hospital in labor of childbirth, and they needed 30,000 won to pay the hospital.
The whole family had a hard time whole night to get 30,000 won. Even though I did not have the money with me, if I had obeyed the urge of the Holy Spirit, God would have opened a way for me to get the money, and that family would not have had such a hard time.
I would have received great blessings, too. So, I realized that I did not obey the work of the Holy Spirit.
Through this kind of process, I received the training to discern between the voice of the Holy Spirit and my own thoughts.
There was another case. One day, I was going to one of my friend's house, without remembering the location very well. When I actually went to that village, all the roads seemed very similar.
Trying to remember, I knocked on the doors that seemed familiar to me, but I could not find his house for more than an hour.
Then, I began to pray, and I felt an urge to go to the road on which I came, and I went retraced my way. When I got to the dead-end of the road and prayed, one gate came into my sight. But it was different from the gate I had in my memory.
But in my heart, I felt a strong urge and knocked on the gate, and my friend came out.
At that time also, I could distinguish how my thoughts and the voice of the Holy Spirit differed. Through such training, I could discern more and more clearly what the voice of the Holy Spirit was and what my thoughts were.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when you first hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, it is very likely that you will hear it when you are full of the Holy Spirit, especially during your prayers.
But as you learn to discern through training and to the extent that your heart is sanctified and filled with truth, you will be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit at regular times too.
You can always communicate with God since you are always full of the Holy Spirit. But you should remember a couple of things when you try to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. First, when you discern the voice, you must have the attitude to discern the will of God truthfully to hear the voice clearly.
You should not have your own will and thought or think of your situations and conditions first.
If you have a selfish motive and prefer one thing over another, if you have prejudice and think something is difficult in reality, it will become your fleshly thought, and it will be hard to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
You must be willing to obey unconditionally if something is God's will and have the faith that God will accomplish it only if you obey, although it seems impossible in reality.
Secondly, you should be careful of the cases where you mistake the thoughts coming from your own mental framework, your own theories, and your self-righteousness as the voice of the Holy Spirit.
For example, a person who is very firm in his righteousness learns that it is truth not to compromise listening to the message about the firmness of Daniel.
But in doing God's work, you should not insist on one thing only. If it is not untruth, you should control things according to each one's faith and circumstances.
But one with strong self-righteousness will insist on his own truth and break the peace. This kind of person will not be able go into spirit but stay at the same place for a long time. They will not be able to break through a certain limit, even though they seem to be making sincere efforts in their faith.
Therefore, even when you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, you always have to check whether it is truly the voice of the Holy Spirit and whether you are really following the will of God in holiness and peace.
Thirdly, even if you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit very well, when you do not obey, you will not be able to receive His guidance.
Furthermore, if you keep on disobeying the voice, you will not experience God's works and not hear the voice that you were able to hear before.
When you get to the point where you cannot hear any voice by continual disobedience, this will be related to salvation also.
For example, when a person commits an act of sinful nature, he will hear the Holy Spirit lamenting in him, so he will have fear and trembling in his heart.
But if he ignores this and keeps on deliberately sinning, his heart will be hardened and later on have no fear. If this goes on, he will finally reach the death.
Also, even though you actually hear the voice and receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit, if you do not obey, you cannot be said to receive His guidance. It is just as if somebody tells you that there is treasure to the east, you cannot get any treasure if you just stay in the west.
During my seminary years, I once offered a 200-day all-night prayer. I prayed until 4 o'clock in the morning and went to sleep at 5. Then I had to get up at least by 7. So it was not easy for me to wake up by myself.
So God began to wake me up. At 7, I heard some sound outside the door.
Surely there was nobody, but I heard somebody outside or heard the voice of my daughter calling me "Dad!" God worked in various ways to wake me up.
But when I went back to sleep again many times even after God's waking me up in this way, God did not wake me up any more.
When I realized it, I mourned and repented. You might think that God no longer waking me up in the morning is a trivial thing.
But, my heart was broken and I was very sorry before God that He could not work for me any more because I did not obey.
It is similar to the process where you lose your ability to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
[Conclusion]
1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
If you accomplish the whole spirit, your soul and spirit will change into the ones belonging to spirit, and you will be blameless at the coming of our Lord. The soul belonging to spirit has only spiritual thoughts and follows the truth by throwing away all fleshly thoughts.
To the extent that we do not have fleshly thoughts, we can understand God's will by hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit and obey it to experience God's works.
I hope you will cast off all untruths quickly, have only spiritual thoughts, and hear the voice of the Holy Spirit clearly.
I bless in the name of the Lord that, in this way, you will be always guided to the way of blessings. |
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