The Love of God (2)
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July 29, 2018 |
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"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16).
Dr. Jaerock Lee,
Senior Pastor of Manmin Central Church
Chairman, The United Holiness Church of Jesus Christ
Permanent President, The World Christianity Revival Mission Association
Founder & Board Chairman, Global Christian Network
Founder & Board Chairman, World Christian Doctors Network
Founder & Board Chairman, Manmin International Seminary
Founder & Board Chairman, The Alliance Holiness Theological Seminary
Doctorate of Ministry, and Honorary Doctorate of Divinity
His sermons were broadcast by the Far East Broadcasting Company and the Asia Broadcast Station.
He conducted crusades in New York City, Washington D. C., Baltimore, Maryland, Los Angeles, and in Hawaii of the USA; Japan; India; Pakistan; the Philippines; Argentina; Honduras; Peru; Russia; Germany; Kenya; Tanzania; Uganda; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Jerusalem of Israel; and Estonia.
"Whole spirit is the level of faith that pleases God (1 Thessalonians 5:23). To reach the level of the 'completion of whole spirit,' you must understand both the love of God and His justice clearly and combine them properly. Only then can you achieve perfect love." - Excerpt from Leadership Conference "Love"
To complete the faith of whole spirit, we should understand the dimension of God's love and His justice. We, then, should harmonize them without any partiality to either of them. It does not mean that we should show the exact same amount of love and justice that God has but it means that we should combine them appropriately depending on situations and people according to the will of God.
Even if you have cast off evil and come into spirit, it is likely that you lack goodness, love, and the knowledge of the truth. It may cause you to have difficulty understanding the love and justice of God well and combine them appropriately. Even if you have entered whole spirit, you may not be able to understand the love and justice of God perfectly. Thus, we are going to look into good examples of how God's love and justice are harmonized.
1. God's love and justice in perfect harmony
What if God judged you only according to His justice? If no second chance were given to those who sinned and no mercy were allowed for them, they would have to pay the price of sin according to the law of the spiritual realm.
But the justice of God contains perfect love. He judges people according to the justice, but He still gives the maximum level of love within the boundary of the justice. It is because He desires to save one more single soul.
1) The Judgment of Flood
Genesis 6:5-7 reads, "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.'"
God must have endured over and over again until their evil went beyond the justice of the judgment. He could not but decide to judge them, but He still had Noah, who was the righteous man of the time, shout out about the imminent judgment. He let people know through Noah that anyone could be saved if they entered the prepared ark of Noah.
However, no one listened to Noah. In the end, the judgment was around the corner with only Noah's family in the ark. Even at the moment, God gave the people the grace period for seven days before the ark closed.
God waited for people again so that they could be saved by knocking on the ark. He judged the people but wanted to give opportunities whatever it took again and again. It was the earnest heart of God.
2) The Judgment of Fire in Sodom and Gomorrah
God said to Abraham in Genesis 18:20-21, "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know."
God is almighty, and He knows everything. He already knew that it would be necessary to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Nevertheless, He talked about the judgment to Abraham and said He would see if it was necessary. Why did He do so? It was because He had love for the people and wanted to save more people. He wanted to give them more opportunities to be saved through the righteous man Abraham's intercession.
Abraham made pleas for the people in Sodom and Gomorrah to God several times. It was because he felt the heart of God who wanted to save more people and offered up the prayer with the heart of God. He finally received God's answer. God said He would not destroy the cities if there were ten righteous men. Now God sent His archangel to examine the city of Sodom.
There were not ten righteous men in the big city, and they could not avoid the judgment of fire. In the meantime, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot and his daughters out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived. Through the justice Abraham piled up, his nephew Lot and his daughters were saved. This is how God completed the justice with love until the end.
Ezekiel 18:23 says, "'Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,' declares the Lord GOD, 'rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?'" In the justice, evil doers and sinners cannot but receive judgment because of evil and sin they have committed. But the God of love wants even such people to turn away from the way of death by all means. If they fill the minimum of justice for salvation, God earnestly wants to save them.
3) The Judgment of Nineveh
God manifested the justice in His boundless love even to the Gentiles as well as the Israelites. The good example was God's warning on Nineveh.
God said to Jonah, "Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me" (Jonah 1:2). In fact, it would not have violated the justice if He had immediately destroyed the city because their wickedness had come up even before God. But God had his prophet go to the city and cry out about the impending judgment. Why? It was because He wanted to give the people another chance to repent, turn away, and receive salvation.
His warning led to amazing consequence: the people in Nineveh including the king and his servants cried out in prayer with fasting. They even made their livestock fast together. They turned away from their wicked way and from the violence which was in their hands. They tried hard to bear the fruit that was proper for repentance. When He saw their repentance, God withdrew His anger and did not give them the disaster that He had declared (Jonah 3:10). It was what happened 760 BC.
Around 100 years later, God declared the destruction of the city Nineveh again through Nahum. The Book of Nahum describes the miserable judgement that would come upon Nineveh. It was a harsh judgment that there were many slain, a mass of corpses, and countless dead bodies and they stumble over the dead bodies. This time, the people of Nineveh did not repent after the warning. They ended up in destruction in 612 BC.
In fact, God had given the people in Nineveh an opportunity to be saved from the judgment that was necessary. But after only 100 years, their wickedness was so rampant again that it had gone beyond the justice for destruction.
God could have said, "I gave an opportunity to them and forgave them of their sins when their sins were unforgivable. Now I can't help." But He did not. He wanted to give another chance to them through Nahum. He gave His hand to save them until the last moment, but the people did not hold the chance this time and went the way of destruction.
4) Seven-year Great Tribulation
When the Lord comes to the air, people with faith to be saved will put on the resurrected body and be taken up to the air in a moment. It is the end of human cultivation, and people who are left on the earth will suffer in the miserable Seven-year Tribulation. Among them, however, are people who had never heard about the gospel. God will not say to them, "Human cultivation has ended. You have no chance anymore." But He will also show the way of salvation to them. That is, He will let them hear about the gospel through one hundred and forty-four thousand preachers that are written in Revelation.
When they preach about the Lord, some people will come to realize that Jesus is the only Savior for them. Those who accept the Lord through the 144,000 preachers will face relatively comfortable death in natural disasters or wars during the Tribulation and reach salvation. They could not be taken up to the air because they did not know the gospel, but God gave the last chance of salvation to those people who have the minimum level of goodness.
Unlike them, there will be people who can receive salvation only through miserable martyrdom. They are chaff-like believers who knew the gospel and said they believed but did not have true faith before the Rapture. They can hold the last chance of salvation only if they keep their faith without receiving the mark of the beast even in the harsh tortures. It will be fortunate if they receive salvation even by doing so, but very few will receive salvation that way. Thus, God wants all believers in the Lord not to be left in the Seven-year Tribulation but to be taken up to the air with true faith.
He has shown and will show the Holy Spirit's explosive works in this last chapter of human cultivation until the Lord's coming lest chaff-like believers come out. Even if chaff-like believers are left behind on the earth, God still opens the way for them to keep their faith through martyrdom.
The way will be presented in this church, and that is the reason we should construct the Grand Sanctuary. We will leave various materials in the Grand Sanctuary so that people on the earth will be able to keep their faith and martyr. Even during the dreary judgment of justice, God will place His love on the earth.
2. The Lord's love and justice in perfect harmony
1) The ministry of the cross
According to the spiritual law, "The wages of sin is death," sinners should receive eternal punishment. But God wanted to open the way of salvation even for them, so He looked for the way within His justice. The way was that Jesus received the curse of the law, "The wages of sin is death."
According to the justice, "he who is hanged is accursed of God," Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law by dying on the cross. As the justice says, "Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness," He redeemed us from sin by shedding His precious blood. Since He paid the price to save sinners according to the justice, the way of salvation was open wide for those who accept Jesus Christ. He fulfilled the law with love without violating any law.
2) Love and justice for the woman caught in adultery
Jesus also performed His ministry in perfect harmony of love and justice. For instance, the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery.
They said to Jesus in John 8:5, "Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?" The woman should be stoned to death in accordance with the law. But the reason why they asked the question was to test Him. They also heard about His teaching. They heard that He had taught people to love even enemies and forgive brothers in faith up to seventy times seven.
If Jesus said the woman should be stoned to death, it could be inconsistent with His own teaching. If He told them to forgive her, He would be considered to teach against the Law of Moses. He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill. That is, He came to fulfill the Law with love.
If He suggested she be forgiven and saved though she was caught in adultery, it would violate the Law. But if He said she should be stoned according to the justice, it would be justice with no love. Thus, Jesus had to find a way to save the woman without violating the Law. If you love someone, you will see the way.
Jesus wrote the sins on the ground that the scribes and the Pharisees had committed and said, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." When the people there saw their own sins being written on the ground, they had qualm of conscience and left one by one. There were no one who judged and stoned her. Jesus saved the woman in love without violating the justice. Jesus said to the woman, "I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more."
If people who received such great grace of salvation commit sin again, it will be harder to receive forgiveness than before. It is because there is limit in extending the boundary of the justice through love. That is why He did not forcefully stop betrayal of Judas Iscariot although He kept giving him chances to turn back.
The choice was in Judas' hand, and it was his free will. But Jesus tried to hold him so that he could use his free will for goodness. Although He embraced him until the end, he ended up choosing the way of destruction in his evil. God could not stop him against his will because it goes against the law of human cultivation if He stopped him.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if you have love of God, you won't hate sinners though you hate their sins. You may pray for them and try to find ways for them to receive God's forgiveness and have hope again. I pray in the name of the Lord that you won't judge or condemn others but will plant perfect love for them as Jesus did and thereby become God's true children.
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