[The Church That God Loves] God's Love Unfolded on This Earth
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October 21, 2012 |
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 "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising" (Isaiah 60:1-3).
God has been leading the history of this church in the providence of the end time. Not a moment passed without making each moment meaningful. Sometimes, it seemed that we did not have a way out of a situation, and other times it seemed we were going around in a direction that we did not know well. But at any moment we trusted in God and we could feel His presence with us. We followed the guidance of God step by step.
I'd like to talk about how God has been with us for the last 30 years and what He is going to accomplish through us. I hope all of you will become more ardent in fulfilling the God-given vision through this message.
1. To become people who belong to Heaven, not to the earth
The apostle Paul saw Paradise of Heaven and engraved the spiritual realm in his heart. Just by seeing the glory and beauty of Heaven once he realized how meaningless flesh is and he dedicated the rest of his life to gaining what belongs to the eternal Heaven. God wants everyone, and not just Paul, to seek the things of Heaven, namely spiritual things. He is eagerly waiting for His children who cast off all the meaningless and fleshly things and come forth as people who belong to Heaven.
For the last 30 years, God has shown countless things of Heaven in this church. Through the spiritual messages He let us know about spiritual realm that men cannot know. To confirm all the messages preached here, in the name of Jesus Christ, God performed the powerful works that only He can do. Also, through the praise songs that He gave to us, God the Father let us feel His heart more realistically.
All the messages, all the powerful works, and all the lyrics and melodies of the praise songs contain God's earnest love that He wants all the believers to see, hear, and understand in the heart so that they can surely become people who belong to Heaven.
Even though God has unfolded things of Heaven in this church, that in itself cannot automatically change the believers and cause them to become people who belong to Heaven. According to justice, each individual needs the time to go through refinement and needs to take hold of the heavenly kingdom by force. Jesus showed so many miracles, but not everyone who saw them was saved. Even though they saw great and amazing power demonstrated, some people rejected Jesus because they did not understand Him or because they thought He was not beneficial to them.
Some people followed Him seeing signs and wonders at first, but when they heard deep spiritual messages, they stumbled and left Him. Even the disciples who were with Jesus ran and hid themselves when Jesus was arrested and taken away to be crucified, for they felt their lives were also threatened. One of them even denied Jesus. But after going through all the times of refining trials, they witnessed the resurrection of the Lord and changed very quickly in the works of the Holy Spirit. They became men who belonged to Heaven, who could bravely preach the truth in any dangers or threat.
God did not change the disciples, give them power, and make them apostles all at once, just because God is almighty. They saw the power of Jesus and trusted Him, but until they had faith like pure gold, each of them had to undergo the processes of refining by trials.
2. God gave our church members a time of training so they could have firm faith
Today there are so many churches in the world, but we can hardly find any believers who seek the goal of becoming holy. The Bible tells us to be holy so many times (Ref: Leviticus 20:26; 1 Peter 1:15-16; Matthew 5:48), but most believers just think men cannot become holy and they can just try not to commit sins. They do not even understand the concept of spirit and whole spirit, so they just think unbelievers are men of flesh and believers who accepted the Lord are men of spirit.
So, God has chosen His beloved church in an attempt to show an example of holiness to the people of this earth. In fact, in an ordinary setting, even though one tries very hard in his life of faith, it is not easy to stand on the rock of faith. Even in the Bible, it is not easy for one man of whole spirit to come out of an entire generation. Basically a person has to have good inner heart and with special intervention of God he has to realize himself completely and break his ego in the process of trials for refinement.
But God has given special grace to the members of the church that He loves. It means He gave us a time of training to change our inner heart and quickly accomplish spirit. Since the opening of the church, the members have seen continuous works of power, and they were assured of the living God. Seeing the great works of God's power taking place every week, they were filled with the Spirit, and it seemed that their faith was also growing quickly.
But God had turning points to check our faith from time to time. It seems everything we have is of truth in times of peace and tranquility, but it was in the times of trial that the truth and falsehood became discernible.
One of the best examples is the tests that the church went through in 1998 and 1999. Those members who seemed faithful on the outside were separated by the strong wind of great tests, just as in the case of the wheat and the chaff being separated by threshing. People who just appeared faithful on the outside but did not circumcise their hearts and those who had been casting off sins with their love for God were separated. People who feared men and compromised with the world and those who had firm faith to keep their righteousness before God were separated. In the midst of this test, the church members each had a precious opportunity to check and understand their faith.
After the tests were over in 2000's, God let this church go out to the world in full scale. God let the faith of our church members grow even more through the overseas crusades. But from a certain point in time, something strange began to take place. The power of God was being manifested more and more greatly, but in some aspects the growth of the faith of individual church members was slowing down.
Many members said they were trying hard with a longing for spirit, but they felt something was not quite right. In some cases, they thought they repented, but since the wall of sin that had been created in the past had not been completely destroyed their growth of faith was slowed down. In other cases, members were diligent in faith, but from a certain point in time they began to look back at the world again and committed sins leading to death. Others couldn't receive grace and strength from above, so the speed of casting away sins slowed down, and it was not easy for them to break their self-righteousness and frameworks of their thoughts.
Unless these individual problems were resolved, they could not go into the spiritual realm even though they saw and heard about spiritual realm so much. The breakthrough for this problem was the chance of repentance that we had on December 25, 2010. As the fundamental problems that caused spiritual staggering were resolved and the walls of sins were torn down, they could have a leap in the growth of their faith. They realized the love of God in the depths of their hearts, so they did not just repent of their sins but they came forth to stand on the rock of faith and enter into spirit, and whole spirit. This is the love of God that is being unfolded on this earth.
Dear brothers and sisters, soon, most of you will stand on the rock of faith, and furthermore the average of your faith will be close to 'spirit'. Only then will you be able to fulfill the great duty of world evangelism and construction of the Canaan Sanctuary. God the Father has been patient with us for the last 30 years as if it were one day, waiting for this day to come.
I hope all of you will realize this heart of God and come forth as the fruit of holiness quickly, so that you will become precious instruments to fulfill the providence of God at the end time.
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