Second Sunday after Easter
May 5, 2019
Old Testament Reading:
Isaiah 61: 1-7
Epistle: Acts
3:1-13
Psalm: 66/67, Alleluia verse: 7 &8
Gospel: John 3: 16-24
Sermon
In our Old Testament reading this morning we hear words that
are most likely familiar to everyone, here are some of those words again: The
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; because of which He anointed me, He sent me to
proclaim good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach liberty to
the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to declare the acceptable year
of the Lord, the day of recompense, and to comfort all who mourn.
Do these words sound familiar? Our lord read these words in
the synagogue in Nazareth from the prophet Isaiah; we see this in Luke 4: 16-21,
and then Jesus said; today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Jesus
made the proclamation that He is the LORD God that Isaiah was speaking about. Jesus,
the God/man is speaking as the Son of Man when He said that the Spirit was upon
Him because as the Son of Man he was anointed and sent out to humanity to
preach the gospel. This prophecy was indeed fulfilled in Jesus the Christ.
This healing and preaching continues through His apostles
doesn’t it? They are in turn sent out by our Lord to heal the sick, raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers, and to preach the gospel, also to baptize in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. So many look for the
healing of the body as a sign that one is sent from God but isn’t this about more
than just a physical healing? When Jesus healed didn’t He say to go and sin no
more? Healing must take place in the soul, in the spirit of a person even more
so than in the body. What good is physical healing if the soul continues to be
separated from God? To be truly healed, man must be re-united to God, Almighty
God created us, He gave us life, we are from Him, even those who deny His
existence are from Him, and there is no life for anyone or anything except from
the Creator. We are also sent are we not? To proclaim the gospel, the good news
to humanity and this good news isn’t about the healing of the physical body but
the healing of the soul, the spirit, this must come first.
Many physical healings
took place in the beginning mainly so that the people could see that sin and
death had been overcome by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and that Jesus
was and is the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior of all mankind, He is the way,
the only way back to the Father. These things were the proof of the message.
Not everyone will be healed physically regardless of the amount of prayer or of
the one praying. Of course this doesn’t mean that there is no physical healing
today because there is but this is not the point of the gospel is it?
We have forgotten one very important part of all things: we
have forgotten God’s will. If God wills, one will be healed. It is God’s will
that is to be done. Our Lord Jesus Himself in His great prayer also prayed:
Father, if there be any other way, however, not My will but Thine be done. So
what is God’s will? Isn’t it that all may be saved? What does Paul tell us in I Timothy 2:3-5,
for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all
men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is One God
and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a
ransom for all, to be testified in due time
In 2 Peter 3:8 and 9 we read; but, beloved, do not forget
this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a
thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as
some count slackness, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any
should perish but that all should come to repentance.
From the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 18 verse 23 we read; do
I ever will the death of a lawless man, says the Lord, since My will is for him
to turn from the evil way and live.
Leaving the scripture for a moment I ask; whose will shall
be done on earth and in heaven? Is it not God’s will that shall be done? Is
God’s will that all should turn from the evil way and live? We know that it is.
God’s will, shall be done. So let us look at our gospel for today in light of
other scripture. Practically all of Christianity knows the opening verse of our
gospel, John 3:16, for God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten
Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through Him might be saved.
Praise God, right? I say it again; praise God. Why? Because
God loves us. He loves you, he loves me, he does not wish that anyone should
perish, that means He loves everyone. God gave us all, life. We are from Him,
whether we like it or not, we are from Him, He gave us life, everlasting life.
We are His, period. But then He gave us freewill, why would Almighty God do
such a thing? Why create us out of love, give us love, but then allow us to do
whatever we choose by either rejecting Him, recreating Him in our own minds to
be whatever we desire Him to be, or to come to Him fully according to His will
and desire. Because of love, God is love, he is all love, without freewill
there can be no love. If we are not allowed to make a decision for love than
how can it be known that the love is real? Love is real when it is given
freely. This is the only way.
Let’s look at today’s gospel of love in the light of the
other scripture and see what just may be the actual truth of it all. I say that
today you may hear things in a way that you may have never heard them before.
You discern for yourself the truth of it, pray about it, and go to the lord
about it. Meditate on it; I tell you, this will change you into a different
Christian than you may be now at this moment if you regard the words and
understand and believe them. We see in verse 16 of most all bible translations
today, the words; that whoever believes
in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That word; believe, can be rendered in a different
way. The Greek may also be translated and also has been in the past ; so that
everyone trusting in Him should not perish. Does trusting in Him have a somewhat
different understanding than to believe in Him? It does, to trust in Him is to place your whole
being, everything that there is about you is handed over to Him, believing does not have the same
understanding, if you are listening to this or reading this then I believe in
you. I believe that you exist, that you are real but it does not mean that I
trust you with my life. To trust in Him means that He owns every aspect of our
being, nothing is left out. All good things as well as all bad things that come
our way serve a purpose; we bring many bad things on ourselves don’t we? We
also bring many good things to ourselves. God allows these things to come and
go whether we bring them unto ourselves or not. This is a testing of our faith
and love as well as a purging of the things that we need to get rid of.
Let’s take a moment and hear a different rendering of the
Greek writing into English; the Gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 16 to 24. For
thus God loved the world that He gave His Only Born Son so that everyone trusting in Him should not perish but
should have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge
the world but that the world should be delivered by Him. The one trusting in Him is not judged; but the
one not trusting is already judged,
for he trusts not in the name of the
Only Born Son of God. And this is the judgment - that the light has come into
the world, and men loved the darkness more than the light for their works were
evil. For everyone who acts heedlessly detests the light and does not come to
the light so that his works should not be reproved. But the one observing the
truth comes to the light, so that in God his works should be made manifest.
Trusting in Christ
Jesus, giving one’s life entirely over to Him, allowing God’s will to work in
us and not our will , is the re-uniting of ourselves to our Creator, our Father
in heaven. This is salvation, this is the desire of our Creator, those who do
this are not judged but those who do not are already judged. What is this
judgment? Here is one example; Matthew
25:31-46
The Sheep and the Goats
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the
nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will
say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For
I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something
to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to
visit me.’
“Then the righteous
will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and
give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in,
or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go
to visit you?’
“The King will reply,
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and
sisters of mine, you did for me.’
“Then he will say to
those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and
his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and
you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I
needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did
not look after me.’
“
They also will
answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing
clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply,
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you
did not do for me.’
“Then they will go
away to eternal punishment, but the
righteous to eternal life.”
In verse 33 we see that Jesus is separating sheep and goats,
sheep on the right and goats on the left but I see a problem here; sheep and
goats are adult animals, children of these animals are lambs and kids
respectively. From the Greek I see a different understanding; the words say
sheep on the right and the kids on
the left. The word that is translated into goat is actually a word for kid, so you may say, what does it
matter, it is still a goat, I say yes, technically this is correct but why use
the words meaning a fully grown sheep instead of a baby sheep called a lamb but
use the word for a baby goat called a kid rather than an adult goat as done
with the sheep? The English of course rendered this as an adult goat because it
fits into the philosophy of the elect who are saved and the others who are
condemned for all of eternity. Why would the translators not translate the word
as kid when this is what the Greek
says?
Well, a kid is a
child, one who is unlearned, an uneducated one who has not understood. Why
would a loving God who gave life to all that lives, choose to send a kid into the eternal flame, the fire
meant for the devil and those who fell with him, and leave this kid this uneducated one there to burn
for all of eternity if the desire of God is that all shall be saved? Yet the kids
are sent into the eternal fire, but this we know, God is an eternal fire;
in the letter to the Hebrews chapter 12 verses 28 and 29 we read; Therefore,
since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by
which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is
a consuming fire.
We also know that God, the consuming fire is everlasting.
We are also told that God, the consuming fire is everywhere
throughout the universe, that we can go nowhere that He is not. Psalm 138/139
verses 7 -12; where could I go from Your Spirit, or flee from Your face? If I
should ascend into heaven, You would be there; if I should descend into Hades,
You would be there; if I should take up my wings at dawn and pitch camp at the
furthest part of the sea, even Your hand would lead me, and Your right hand
would hold me. And I said, perhaps darkness shall cover me, but the night shall
be light to my delight, for darkness shall not be dark because of you, and the
night shall be bright as day; as it’s darkness, so also shall be its light.
So, when one is banished into the eternal fire, one is still
standing before the Almighty God who is the consuming fire, we shall always be
before Almighty God, there is nowhere we can go, even sent into the eternal
fire is to still be before or in the
presence of Almighty God. Those heading to eternal life as well as those
heading to eternal fire are all standing before the unbegotten, eternal,
Almighty God. The consuming fire will purge us of all sin that we have left in
us; our works shall be tested, 1 Corinthians 3:12-15. "Now if any man
build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because
it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what
sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he has built thereupon, he shall
receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but
he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire”.
Matthew 5: 25, 26 agree with your adversary quickly, while
you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the
judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly I
say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last
penny. God is a loving God. He created so that we could share in this world
with Him. He will forgive but we must be willing to allow Him to operate in us,
we must do this willingly, God will not force us, force is not true love. For
those who deny the Christ will enter into the fire of God and shall be purged,
God is patient as we saw in the beginning, one day is as a thousand years and a
thousand years is as a day. He will wait for us. Going to God completely will
be our decision. I pray that you make yours now while you have life in you
here, pay now rather than later, you will feel the pain of it here but I fear
that the pain of it there will be far worse.
Those who go through Jesus will be in the same eternal fire
with this exception; through Christ the fire will be light, eternal light which
is life for those who have chosen it. One is in the fire and one is in the
light. Some will have a heavy purging and some will have a lighter purging. 1
Corinthians 15:27-28 For he has put everything under
his feet. Now when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear
that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When
he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put
everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
I say that these things have been revealed to me, but this
is not a revelation as in a prophecy regarding some future event that no one
has heard yet. These are revelations in the sense that through the years of
reading Holy Scripture this idea has slowly taken shape, I have not spoken
publicly regarding this until now because it goes against all of mainstream
Christian teaching. The teaching is regarding the suffering in hell for all
eternity for those who did not believe while they were alive. It began to come
into my mind that who in the world would do this? Who would not cry out to God
during this burning? It began to seem to
me that all who claim to not believe would become sudden believers at death and
the separation of the soul from the body and suddenly find themselves standing
in the fire.
I know that God loves all because He has shown this to me
over the years by calling me to rise up from sleep and to pray for someone and
then to discover later that this person was in fact passing from this life at
the time, these souls that I am referring to were not ones that had accepted
Jesus Christ during their lifetime, some had actually rejected him completely
when given the chance many times during his lifetime. I also know that God
loves all that He has given life to because He has shown this love to me in
spite of my previous lifestyle. I am indeed a prodigal son, the events that I
have somewhat just spoken of caused me to begin to read the writings of the
very early church along with what is called the Bible, through these writings I
began to see that I was not in fact beginning to believe something that was not
a reality because from the earliest beliefs of the church this idea of a loving
God that would allow all to eventually be saved was taught.
Hell is real, it is a place of chastisement, it is a
punishment, a correction, one can be rehabilitated there. Whether it is a
moment, a thousand moments or a thousand years I cannot say. It is a time
period, and I believe that each time period or age is different for each one of
us. Now do not confuse this with universalism, universalism I believe also
contains the idea that all paths lead to God. This is not what I am saying,
there is only one path and that path is Jesus the Christ. So what is the
difference if everyone will eventually be given life, and why is Jesus the only
way? The only way out is to finally believe that Jesus is Lord. It is not a
matter of how many good things that we did or did not do. We will give
ourselves to Jesus or we will not get out. Why? Let’s complete the circle and
go back to the beginning of the sermon.
For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten
Son, that whosoever believes or trusts in Him, will not perish but have
everlasting life. If we go to the beginning of the Gospel of John and start in
chapter one we see; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God
and the Word was God, He was in the beginning with God, all things were made
through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life,
and the life was the light of men….He was in the world, and the world was made
through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own and His own did
not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to
become children of God, to those who believe in His name. Who were born not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
So we see that Jesus is the very Word of God, born in the
flesh. What does this mean? The Word of God is God, the word of God, or God,
was born in the flesh, or became flesh through birth as a child, suddenly as all
of heaven and all of the angelic host stood and watched in awe, God and
humanity were re-joined in the God/man Jesus the Christ. This is salvation, the
joining of humanity and God. It is only through Jesus that we may be re-united
to our Creator, our Father who gave us life. Jesus unites us. When we realize
this, when we participate in this, we then learn of salvation. God Himself
sacrificed for His creation, this is love, to sacrifice oneself for others. How
is it that we can make any other claim when we have a God who made this
incredible sacrifice of Himself not in just coming down from the throne of
heaven and becoming flesh, then to sacrifice His flesh willingly in such a
horrific way as the cross, not even in a swift painless death, how can we say
anything other than that Jesus is the way. There is nothing else that we can do
other than to unite ourselves to our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ. There is
no other way, whether that happens in this lifetime in the flesh or in the ages
to come, we will not escape until we are united to Christ and then have been
purged of the sins in which we died with.
May you not simply just blow this off, may you begin to
search your heart for it is there that you will find the light that was given
to you at birth. There you will begin to find the truth. Amen.
We must live our faith in spite of those who make
the statement that they do not need God in their life to do good. We who
believe still need our Savior because we sin everyday whether in thought, word
or deed. There is no amount of good that we can do that will erase our sin once
we have committed it. There is only our faith in Christ Jesus, our recognition
of our sin, our confession, and repentance. This is our faith.
God can do all things; there is no situation that we get
ourselves into that God cannot help us out of. Don’t think though that if there
is some earthly penalty that we must pay, that we will escape this because we
suddenly come to God for help. We simply must have the faith and believe that
all things are known by God and that He in truth loves all of His creation.
Keep in mind however; God's plan is far above ours. We suffer and we have
plenty coming based on what God Himself has in store for us whether it is for
purging, for testing, or for reward or necessity for our life. God is in
control.
We do not know when this will
end and the new beginning will be, in spite of the many modern prophets who
make a living selling Jesus and the destruction of the world; we have no clue
when it will be. In the meantime, it rains on us all, haters and lovers of
Jesus. The sun shines on us all, haters and lovers of Jesus. We remain together
in this world until that day. So take a lesson from the readings. Continue to
praise and worship the Lord God, the Father and Creator of all that is seen and
unseen, in the name of Jesus the Christ and through the Holy Spirit. Never
cease to pray and live according to the gospel. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide
you. Love God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your
mind, and with all of your strength; love your neighbor as yourself. You may never
know whose life you will change because of this love of God in you.
The light has entered the world and the times; they are changing.
If one does not have love for the soul of mankind and the
desire that all come to the truth than one does not have Christ in them fully.
Little children, love one another; because this is our
Lord’s command and if you fulfill this, nothing else is needed. Through love
and because of love we will follow all of the commandments that we have been
given. They are written on our hearts by the hand of Almighty God. We simply
need to see them within us and follow.
Remember; if we confess our sins and repent, he is faithful
and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity.
May the peace of our Lord Jesus the Christ be with you
throughout this day and the rest of your life. May the Holy Spirit fill us all
to overflowing so that everyone in whose path we cross may receive a blessing
from our Lord Jesus the Christ.
In Christ.
Many Blessings!
+William
