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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
Spirit, soul and body(1) - The 1st lecture on - Spirit, soul and body(1) |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
1 Thessalonians5:23 |
Date |
2003-09-14 |
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[Scripture]
[1Thessalonians 5: 23]
"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."
[Introduction]
Dear congregation,
How about your choosuk festival? It was surely very nice.
I also have enjoyed happy and loving fellowship with God Father in deep prayer.
Choosuk festival was over and autumn has deepened.
In autumn we harvest abundant fruits as we have sowed and sweated. In the same way, you will harvest abundant spiritual fruits of beautiful inner being, evangelization, and prayer in the sight of God as you have sowed.
Dear congregation, have you ever heard the word of "computer blindness"?
Computers are an important part in today's society. But when you do not know how to use them, you are called "computer blindness."
Even though you have escaped from the level of "computer blindness" and have known how to use computers, you do not actually know the structure, systems and parts of computers. There are many people who do not know about computers.
They only use computers by learning programs on computer use.
On the other hand, computer manufacturers not only make the best use of computers at their own will but also can solve computer problems easily because they have a good idea of computers' structure and systems.
In the same way, God our heavenly Father who created men knows about men most perfectly. The sermon about spirit, soul and body will exactly explain who human beings are and how they are made.
This knowledge about men cannot be gained with human wisdom and understanding. Only God the Creator sees through the origin of man and makes us know it.
Psalmist said in [Psalm 139: 13- 16], "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."
I hope you confess through the sermons on spirit soul and body, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."
Dear congregation, the message on spirit soul and body was so broad and deep that I preached it three times according to its depths.
I had the first educating meeting about spirit soul and body during the 5th conference for ministers and servants of the Lord in 1987, and had the second meeting during the 9th conference for ministers and servants of the Lord in 1989 and finally had the third educating meeting during the 10th conference for ministers ad servants of the Lord in 1991. Of course I preached about spirit soul and body for all church members afterwards.
Well, I will again preach about spirit soul and body because there are so many new brothers and sisters who have not heard it yet and because long years have passed since existing members listened to it. Even established members will put the word on spirit soul and body into their memory systematically.
Actually the level of church members' spirituality has been advancing greatly and God our Father has given more many messages on spirit soul and body. So, I will reinforce the message of spirit soul and body that I had preached before.
Then, what kind of benefits does the message on spirit soul and body give us?
Firstly, this message helps us find ourselves in detail and become sanctified more quickly.
In other words, through the message on spirit soul and body we cannot so much live a Christina life in unconditional obedience as understand why we should deny ourselves thoroughly and what we should get rid of in detail to accomplish the image of God and control our heart and mind.
Secondly, we can escape evil schemes of our enemy the devil, and manage and control the darkness when we know ourselves exactly.
A proverb in Sonja's strategic book says that "You never fall into danger even if you wage war 100 times if you know your enemy and then know yourself.'
This is the same case in spiritual life. The message on spirit soul and body will help you find yourself and be very important and necessary for your successful Christian life.
God our Father blesses us to share the message on spirit soul and body this year when you ride on a fast spiritual flow because you should find and remove fleshly things you have not thrown away yet and prepare yourselves as clean vessels deserving to be available for God's use before the beginning of the year of 2004.
First you should find and deny yourselves thoroughly for that purpose.
The Apostle Paul used to stick to his own self-righteousness before he met the Lord.
He was faultless as for legalistic righteousness and very zealous for God in his inner heart. But he stood against God because he did not understand truth spiritually.
However, he could find himself and even confessed, "I am the worst of sinners" and "I am as if I had been abnormally born" after he met the Lord.
In this manner, because he found himself, he could deny himself and die every day, and was preciously used by God as the apostle for the Gentiles.
I hope you will be greatly used as precious vessels and reach the position more honorable and glorious in heaven by restoring the image of God fully.
[Body]
Dear congregation, all church members of the whole country attending this service on satellite TV and Internet TV, all members of branch churches and sanctuaries, members of Salt and Light mission, and Restaurant mission, all members listening to this message with audio tapes, and Sunday school children.
From today, I will preach about the spirit the soul and the body largely in three categories: First spirit soul and body belonging to the flesh, secondly spirit soul and body belonging to the soul and finally spirit soul and body belonging to the spirit.
From this tome on, I will preach about spirit soul and body belonging to the flesh for a few weeks.
I will briefly introduce the basic conception of spirit soul and body and explain how our body is conceived, born and grows up.
Afterwards I will preach about spirit soul and body belonging to the soul. Namely, I will explain in detail what the procedure of soul is like, where our selves come from, and how our selves are formed.
Finally I will preach about spirit soul and body belonging to the spirit. In other words, I will preach what do spirit and flesh mean spiritually and what the spiritual knowledge is.
Dear congregation, man consists of three factors: spirit, soul and body.
The Book of Genesis says that God made man the lord of all things and had him basically different from all other animals. So to speak, man has spirit differently from other animals that consist of only two factors: soul and body.
Worldly people think man has evolved from a certain living organism for a long time because they do not have this kind of spiritual knowledge.
But the Bible says otherwise. In [Genesis 1: 26] it is said, "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
And it is said in [Genesis 2: 7], "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
In this way, man was created in the image of God and became a living spirit.
So, man and animals have absolutely different results after death of body life because they are fundamentally different each other.
It is said in [Ecclesiastes 3: 21], "Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"
It says that the spirit of animals goes down into the earth, namely the soul of animals becomes extinct after death. But man's spirit must go either to heaven or to hell because man's spirit is immortal.
Therefore, man has to fear God the Creator and obey His Word realizing his original duty. Only when will man be able to go to kingdom of heaven.
Dear congregation,
Let's look into spirit soul and body belonging to the flesh. What does flesh mean spiritually?
You may mistake if you have no idea of spiritual meaning of the word "flesh".
Suppose you heard, "Flesh is meaningless, so please throw it away! Flesh leads to death.' If you have no idea of its spiritual meaning, you may say, "Why? How can I throw away my flesh?"
Webster English dictionary defines flesh as the soft parts of the body of an animal and especially of a vertebrate.
But the word "flesh," described in the Bible indicates everything that is perishable and mortal.
The Book of Genesis says that the first man Adam was created in the image of God and became a living spirit. But when he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, his spirit died and he corrupted as a man of flesh the way God said, "You will surely die when you eat of it."
In other words, he used to be a living spirit but became a dead spirit when he sinned. In this way, man made from the dust of the ground became a man of perishable flesh.
Meanwhile, all things on earth were cursed together with Adam and became perishable. Everything that is that perishable and mortal is referred as flesh.
Now, let's examine a few aspects of flesh.
First, creation and seeds of life
God made the body of man from the dust of the ground in His image and in His likeness on the sixth day, and then breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils. The man became a living spirit.
The Bible clearly describes the procedure of God's creation of man. However, many of believers unfortunately doubt God's creation.
They think, "How can dust become a movable man although God breathed the breath of life in its nostrils?"
Why do they doubt it? They do because the word of God does not agree with their own knowledge and thought.
God created something out of nothing. But man cannot believe God's creation because he has learned that something can be made out of something – man can make anything out of some materials.
But it's not reasonable. Today life science has continually developed and men produced surprising scientific results with DNA containing genes' information.
Scientists have made new species of plants and produced food caused by genes' transformation by modulating genes.
And they have invented medical medicines with genes and substituted genes for new energy. In addition, they have made artificial internal organs and life organism like replicated lamb "Doli." Some scientists study on human replication through cells and genes of dead persons.
God's mere creature men can do these things. Still more, isn't it difficult for God the Almighty Creator to make the man from the dust of the ground and him move by6 breathing the breath of life in his nostrils?
Everything is possible with the power of God although it is beyond human knowledge.
So, anyone must demolish the framework of his own limited thought and receive every word of the Bible, saying, "Amen" so that he can believe the word of the Bible including God's creation.
Dear congregation,
God created a man and a woman and then blessed them. It is said in [Genesis 1: 28], "God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."" In this way God gave them the strength to reproduce themselves.
God did not want only Adam and Eve but innumerable children.
How lonely God would have been if He had placed Adam and Eve in the boundless and vast universe and in the limitless and endless kingdom of heaven!
For that reason, God gave them the seeds of life – sperms and eggs so that they can reproduce themselves.
In this way God gave the first man Adam and Eve the seeds of life and enabled men to be cultivated continually just as a farmer scatters seeds on the field and harvests crops repeatedly every year.
In this respect, God is both The Father of our spirits and The Father of our bodies because the seeds of life came from Him.
That's because our parents' life seeds came from God our Father.
Dear congregation,
There is one thing we should not misunderstand as for the conception of a baby.
Some people may think a baby's inborn nature like gender, temper, intellectuality and so on is at the mercy of God's mind.
But God does not interfere in the conception of a sperm and an egg although He gave the seeds of life.
In other words, God does not decide whether this person would be born as a boy or a girl or whether that person would be born with strong temper.
In the same way, He does not decide whether a person would be born with poor intellectuality or excellent one or whether he would be born meek or hot-tempered.
A farmer harvests both the wheat and the chaff although he harvests them in one field. Similarly, a baby's gender, temper, characteristics or intellectuality are decided according to the kind of a combined sperm and an egg.
It is the same case to born disabled babies. God does not let some babies be born with disability, but they are born in a poor condition because of hereditary weakness or human mistake.
But sometimes God manages the conception of some babies.
He does so when some parents are very eager for their baby and pray earnestly with God-pleasing faith.
This kind of God's work often happens at the Manmin Joong-ang Church.
For example, a woman did not have a baby for a long time because of habitual abortion. But she became pregnant after she received the prayer from me with faith.
Nonetheless, her body was too weak to have a baby. So she asked me to visit her and I gave her the word of God.
God promised her, "Keep the day of the Lord holy and pray with faith. Then, I will strengthen weak parts of your body and make it easy for you to give birth to a baby." She was faithful for the kingdom of God prayerfully recalling this promise all the time, and finally gave birth to a healthy baby.
In addition to this story, there are so many testimonial stories about miraculous conception. Many women had not been pregnant for years, but came to have a baby by faith or they changed the genders of unborn babies by praying with faith.
Unborn babies deformed because of genes' problem like Down syndrome were born normally after their parents received the prayer with faith. Some parents had infertile problems caused by the weakness of parents' seeds or poor body structure, but received the blessing of having children with faith.
How mysterious! In this manner, everything is possible with the power of God.
Dear congregation, some parents want a son or others want a daughter when they give birth to children.
Sometimes some parents knew that a mother conceived a daughter, but gave birth to a son after they received the prayer from me.
Then, which does God like better a man or a woman?
Our God does not discriminate between men and women.
Seemingly, men appear to be loved and used more than women in the Bible.
And it shows in Genesis 25 that God selected and loved Jacob when he was in the womb with his brother Esau.
It was not because God discriminated the former from the latter but because God foreknew everything and loved the inner heart of Jacob more than that of Esau.
In the same way, the Bible seems to say that God is more pleased with men than with women because God loves upright and unchanging heart like men's.
However, the Bible also adds that women like Deborah or Esther were loved and used greatly by God.
That was because God approved that they had strong and upright heart that stands firm in all circumstances and took as much courage as men did.
So, it is said in [Proverbs 8: 17], "I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me." It matters little in God's eyes whether you give birth to a son or a daughter. It depends on what kind of heart and attitude you have accomplished and how much you have loved God with true heart whether you are loved and used greatly by God.
[Conclusion]
Dear congregation,
You are studying spiritual knowledge in order to enter the kingdom of heaven just as students study hard. Students don't only listen and learn but also memorize, do exercises and make what they learn theirs.
In the same way, you must make God's word you listen and learn yours. In other words, you should learn the word by heart and put it into practice. Then, you can make God's word your spiritual food.
Today we have learned how men were created and what the seeds of life are like.
I hope you remember again what kind of benefits the message on spirit soul and body will give you, how men were created as a man of spirit souls and body, and how men should resemble the image of God as the lord of all things.
And I hope you sing praises to God for His great creation feeling the mystery of life hidden in a very tiny seed of life that is invisible to human eyes.
I pray in the name of the Lord that through this message on spirit soul and body you all understand the origin of all human beings is from God, love, fear God more and more, and please God all the time. |
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