2014.09.28_Truly Be Born Again

The Lack of Truthfulness Apparent in Man

God speaks truthfully. Whoever does not recognize this truth cannot understand the value of God’s word and would consider it only as man’s words. The earth does not really provide an environment for man to live with ease in heart. Above all else, what makes the heart uneasy is the fact that man cannot be trusted. Everyone probably has some bitter experiences from their relationships with other people. Perhaps the majority of people have a wounded heart which even time cannot heal. When children are far away from home, not a day passes by without the parents being anxiously worried for them. That is because once they leave home, they are going to come across many dishonest people.

In appearance, a deceitful person cannot be discerned from someone who is not, and nobody is selected from the beginning as the one who would harm others. Even if someone appears harmless to others, one cannot rest easy because there is the potential to hurt others in such a person also. One conclusion we can definitely make in this world is that the power of truthfulness is weak. That being so, people who are honest instead suffer losses more often. Some people even determine themselves not to be sincere and honest anymore after going to through such experiences repeatedly. In other words, truthfulness is not being regarded as it should be.

Remarkably, the truthfulness of other creatures can be observed more easily than in man. If we take wild animals in the open habitat for example, they go through a fierce struggle everyday for food and survival just like man, and yet their lives are very simple in comparison. We rarely find them being excessively greedy or pretentious, although it is commonly observed in man’s society. Even the toughest animals do not hunt and store up its prey more than they need. Once their stomachs are filled, they are hardly interested even if small animals are around them. They know how to be satisfied with a day’s worth of food.

The behavior pattern of dogs displays a greater degree of integrity. They do not have any deceit in expressing their emotions and remain loyal to their owners. Since people view them as creatures inferior to man, they may find such characteristic of dogs interesting. However, in terms of integrity, man is not in a position to ridicule them. It is nothing new when we hear the story of a dog that waited many years for its owner in the same place even in the rain and storm. The owner may not be a fine person to others but for the dog he is the most wonderful and precious creature. Human beings are so easily straying from this virtue of integrity when it is found even in the animals of the earth.

Mankind possesses the capability of becoming his master’s enemy. They even murdered their own creator. Creations are supposed to be loved by their Master who created them, and love Him with all of their heart; but man brought on himself the wrath of his master. What is the reason that man have strayed from this order of creation? The most salient cause is his excessive greed. People desire to eat more even when they are already full, and covet that of others while they already have their own. It is human to pretend as if they are wealthy when they are poor, and feel a sense of satisfaction by showing off to others what they have.

Greed (desire) and deceit are closely tied like blood brothers; they are inseparable. One has to give up honesty in order to satisfy his greed, that is, he needs to deceive others. And to deceive others, he has to act as though he believes in his own lies. Eventually, he does actually believe in them.

Fundamental Reason for the Lack of Truthfulness

From where did this lack of truthfulness in man arise? People probably have all sorts of different answers to such a question, but the Bible tells us clearly. Adam and Eve were tempted by the Devil in the Garden of Eden. The Devil said to Eve, ‘you can also become like God’, and aroused her greed (desire). Before they were tempted, Adam and Eve had never even considered such an idea. That idea was from the Devil. But when Eve heard it, she took it in as her own and began to say to herself, ‘it certainly looks good for food and desirable. If I eat that, it would make me wise to become like God.’ In the end, she was deceived by her own monologue and carried out the lie.

This way of deceiving man was also apparent when the Devil tempted Jesus. He told Jesus to make bread out of stones and eat them. There appears to be nothing wrong with telling someone who is hungry to make bread and eat it. Then he told Jesus that He will not die even if He threw Himself down from the temple. This also seems to make sense. After that he said he would give the glory of the kingdoms of the world. No other words would be more enticing to man than that. However, they were lies. The Devil did not have any intention to give the world to anybody. If anyone, even the Son of God, becomes deceived and led astray by the Devil, He will lose His duty as the Son of Man and ultimately fail to discharge His role as Christ.

For the Devil to deceive man in this way, there was something he needed to do in advance. That was to make man believe that he can attain happiness by himself. Once such mind is established in man, whatever kind of greed (desire) the Devil puts in him, it will easily bear the fruit of lies. It is a lie that man can achieve happiness all by himself. Of course, making an effort to reach happiness is a very wholesome approach to life. However, that cannot become the purpose of one’s life, for there is too much to lose if it was. The biggest problem of all would be losing one’s spiritual life.

Concerning this state of condition, Ephesians 2:3 says, “Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” This is the reality we already experienced before we came into Christ. James 1:15 writes, “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” This is the most central principle which gets applied in the spiritual world.

For man, the most urgent matter at hand is saving his own soul, which has become subject to eternal curse. Yet, the Devil does not give him a chance to think about it and tells him, ‘the world can satisfy you. What you need to do now is to create your own happiness.’ And under such temptation, man devotes all of his time, money and everything he has in order to attain happiness. The Devil makes him believe that no such thing as the afterlife exists. Yet God asks man, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” (Luke 12:20).

When people think about the Devil they usually picture him with horns and a vicious look on his face. Contrary to such preconception however, the Devil manifests himself in a beautiful form (2 Cor 11:14). If he enticed people to give them something desirable but in a sly and savage-looking form, who would fall for his lie? The Devil presents himself in beautiful form and entices people with words that seem right when heard. The problem is that his beauty is devoid of any truth.

The Devil always speaks lies for he is without truth. Thus, anyone who accepts what he gives will forfeit their truthfulness. To those who accepted the Devil’s lies, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44). Just as people lavish everything they have to their children, the Devil does likewise to man. Ananias and Sapphira fell into such temptation of the Devil and lost the truth; they deceived others, the Holy Spirit and themselves.

God’s Truthfulness

People in the past would have been very pure and sincere and good-hearted compared to modern day people. If we go to economically underdeveloped countries, we can see that the people there are pure and good-hearted like the people of our country thirty or forty years ago. In that sense, how pure and sincere would the people have been two thousand years ago? How about if they were constantly trained over a thousand years to be good and honest? They had had to pay back four times the amount if they had stolen anything; they even had to surrender their lives if they had harmed anyone. Being trained under such strict regulations, their truthfulness was probably of a degree that modern day people cannot possibly match. So how honest and pure would the Jews have been at the time of Jesus?

Despite this Jesus said, “Truly, truly” and emphasized how His words were truer than the existing standard of truth the people had at the time. To Him, their truthfulness was of unacceptable standard. If the people were truthful enough to understand Jesus when He preached the words of truth, there would have been no need for Him to put an emphasis by saying, “Truly, truly.”

We must understand how truthful God is. God made a covenant with Abraham. But Abraham died. So God swore an oath to Isaac, Abraham’s son, concerning the promise He made. Yet Isaac died also. Thus God came to Isaac’s son, Jacob and confirmed the covenant He made to his forefathers. He actually set that covenant as a statute in case Jacob forgets (Psa 105:8-10).

Man’s attitude towards promises is completely different to that of God. When it comes to matters of serious importance, man is not someone to be trusted with a promise. For instance, there was a person who died soon after lending someone money. The person who borrowed the money still has to pay it back even to the deceased’s son. However, the debtor wants to believe that his liabilities have disappeared together with the death of the lender. In such cases, the debtor tries his hardest to avoid any chance of meeting the lender’s son, and even if he does, he is careful not to bring up any talk about money. In this way the solemn promise between the lender and debtor evaporates to nothing.

God however came to the descendants of Abraham to keep the covenant He made with him even if he was dead. Among his descendants, God chose those who had the Hebrew temperament, namely those who lived as strangers and pilgrims and relied solely on God’s promise, and confirmed the promise with them. Out of the twelve tribes, Judah and Benjamin who kept their faith with great perseverance were chosen. Even though they were in despair from the ruination of their nation and becoming captives, God called them again seventy years later and kept His promise.

Every promise in this world becomes nullified over time. But not with God. God says He will keep His promises to a thousand generations. If one generation is taken as thirty years, a thousand generations equals thirty thousand years. Yet, it has not even been ten thousand years since God made the covenant with Abraham. Thus to man, a thousand generations is equivalent to eternity. God never nullifies His promises. Psalm 105:8 says, “He remembers His covenant forever,

The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations,” and 1 Peter 1:24-25 says, “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” Likewise, God does not change because He is truthful.

Just because Abraham died, God did not say to his descendants, “You have nothing to do with the covenant I made with since it was not made with you but with your forefather.” God delivered the Israelites when they were suffering in Egypt because He remembered the covenant He made with their forefather. In regard to this Exodus 2:24 says, “So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.”

When God was about to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, they did not even know God’s name. If we were to describe the situation between God and Israel at the time in the form of a dialogue, it would go as so.

“I will deliver you.” “Who are you?” “I am the God of your fathers. You probably don’t know since it happened a long time ago, but there was a promise I made with your forefather.” “Oh, I see.”

God made a covenant with Abraham but since man is easy to forget, for over thousands of years He willingly reminded them to remember that covenant. What was the reason for that? As it was His work to later die on the cross, He wanted to ensure His promises would not fail to be kept by that work failing. Though Abraham died after God promised him, ‘I will die for you,’ God reminded his descendants of the promise to ensure it was not lost. The people who do not believe in the promise could be left the way they are, but anyone that does believe needed to be saved.

The Son of God came to the earth as man, suffered all kinds of affliction and finally gave His life on Golgotha and kept His promise all on His own. He came to the world to shed His blood on the cross. That blood was the blood of the covenant. God’s covenant with Abraham matches up with the covenant Jesus Christ spoke of to His disciples at the Last supper. God had continued the blood covenant with Abraham’s household for generations in order to give His blood to man. The reason God made the covenant with Abraham and confirmed it with his descendants is to give that blood of the covenant to man.

God indeed kept His promise but He did not stop there; He sent the Holy Spirit to guarantee the fulfilment of the promise forever. The Holy Spirit is not an optional extra for us. He came as the official guarantor to guarantee the fact that we have the blood of the covenant within us, from the moment we receive the blood of Jesus until we enter Heaven. In other words, the Holy Spirit is He who puts the power of Jesus’ blood into effect even today and reflects the works of Jesus like a mirror. He is the culmination of the work Jesus has accomplished and the Spirit of truth who reveals God’s supreme truth.

The Church in Response to God’s Truthful Words

One evening, Nicodemus came to Jesus and Jesus spoke to him with emphasis saying, ‘truly truly.’ The Lord, our Saviour who keeps His promise to a thousand generations was saying, ‘what I am telling you now is the truth.’ He said, ‘truly truly’ and emphasised it before He continued speaking. The word ‘truly’ corresponds to ‘Amen’ in the original text. Hence, Jesus was accentuating ‘Amen. Amen’ before He began speaking.

It says in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” No one can enter the kingdom of God if people are as careless about it as they are with promises they make on the earth. One must be born again in order to enter it. From man’s flesh is born man, and from animals are born animals. Likewise, to enter God’s kingdom one must become a child who is born of God. This is what God has told us with His truth.

John 3:5-6 says, “Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (ESV). Whoever seeks to enter God’s kingdom must be born again of God’s spirit and become His child. This means that the customs we had before coming to know Jesus are of no benefit to us in entering the kingdom of God. We have been baptised in the name of Jesus, received the forgiveness of sins and have been born through the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have come out of darkness. The old has passed, and what is left for us now is to go up towards eternal life. We must be led by the Holy Spirit and be confirmed as ones who will enter Heaven. Unless one is led by the Holy Spirit, one will never enter it. This is the truth.

It is written in John 3:11, “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.” The Lord said these words out of grief and disappointment that the people would not accept His truthful testimony. Then in verse 13, “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” Since Jesus came out of God, only He has ever seen God and heard from God. If He spoke of what He had seen and heard, those words are the truth. Yet people did not listen to Him. So Jesus said, ‘you do not receive our testimony’ as if He was disappointed.

We ought to bow our knees and welcome in the words of Jesus. When the Lord speaks with emphasis, ‘truly, truly’, we should say ‘Amen! Amen!’ and joyfully accept them. We need to realize that whatever words He said with ‘truly, truly’ is God’s plea to us in His patience and mercy, and be moved by His voice. We must not judge those words but be moved by them and take action.

In the past, we were dashing in the midst of lies and darkness. Even so, we must now be born again of the Holy Spirit and be led by Him to live by the word of God. We have to overcome the sweet temptations of the enemy that tries to snatch away our hearts through the modern-day urban way of life and thinking. We need to say, ‘Amen! Amen!’ and hold onto the truly truthful words of the Lord.

The church is where God’s will is realized, God’s word operates, God’s desires are fulfilled and God’s ministry happens. God should feel at ease in His heart through the church and His will should freely unfold. It must be where the living God is at work and His love is rooted. For this, the whole congregation needs to unite as one in the Holy Spirit, not seeking their individual desires but discharging the duties of saints. Every saint should be in active response to the Lord’s sincere voice. For such people, God will prepare the way to eternal life perfectly, and look after their families with love and care.