Sermon(Ps 1:4-6): The way of the wicked

The original korean text : https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025221620

 

 

 

Sermon(Ps 1:4-6): The way of the wicked

 

Scripture reading: Ps 1:4-6

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4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

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Who is the typical villain of today? Villain is the man who has a good wife but commits adultery with other women. And a women who has a lawful husband working hard and supporting family but commits adultery secretly and acts as if nothing had been done. And today's typical villains are those thieves who take away others' precious money by speculating on real estate under the guise of lawfulness and by manipulating stock prices. Today, there are a lot of tax thieves and wicked men who buy teenage girl's sex. Usually, a mental patient is not evil, but homosexuals are not only a yucky race but also evil psychos. No less evil than that kind of race are those intellects of this age who support homosexuality. They call the good the evil, the evil the good. They, in the plausible name of human rights, carry on campaigns for abolishment of the capital punishment, and for human rights of homosexuals. They are wicked, because the roots of the evil are not rooted out thanks to them and they remove the ground of getting rid of the evil. (Lord, destroy them forever! Have never mercy on them forever!) These are not to be excluded from the band of evil men of this generation: the businessmen of media and internet sites. The mass media are manipulating public opinion, shaking nation's discipline and destroying ethical morals. The staff members of the press and the internet sites are propagating pornographic culture, obscenities. Are they not the destroyers of home, society and nation? Fortunetellers and religious swindlers are also villains. In particular, they are worse than economic offenders, because they make bujuks (bujuk(부적) is a kind of talisman), and sell them at the prices thousands of times or tends of thousands of times higher than the cost price, so overcharge customers. Such men behave as if they were great men, and people respect them as great teachers. It is lamentable indeed!

 

What is the evil prevailing in current church? It is always, past and now, a greatest evil to be a priest as a job without being called by God. Why are there more ministers than necessary if the almighty God is the Lord of the church? The cause is that there are many pastors who, having failed to get a job, and not being called by God, entered upon ministry at their own discretion to make money and live. You pastors, don't rashly let your sons and daughters be the servants of God! The same goes for elders (presbyters). The divine office or the priesthood is begun by God's initiative calling. Therefore do not be a priest as you want after praying long time! You don't have to be a pastor necessarily just because you have learned theology. Those who majored in theology should get a secular job humbly if they were not called specifically by God. A piece of advice for those who studied theology without specific calling experience is this: seek to know God's will as to if you are chosen to priesthood really, in earnest praying for a certain period of time. If there is no answer within the period, God hasn't called you to priesthood. Your pastorship can be confirmed through a third person, a servant of God. Sometimes the Lord lets you know your pastorship through other pastors who are not your parents. When Esau forced his father to bless him, he was cursed. Saul tried obstinately to gain a favor from Samuel and tore his garment accidently, but was cursed by him. If God gives no answer, you have to accept it as no permission. Never forget this: to be a servant of God at your will, that is without God's permission, is a great evil. Especially don't try to be ordained a minister imprudently by the imposition of the hands. I mean that someone is called by God to be a jundosa(전도사) (an unordained servant of God) not to be an ordained pastor. Therefore do not endeavor to become a pastor too hard. To obey God is more important than to become a pastor. These days, there are several pastors who are well off and win general popularity, so they would like to enter politics. Too much greed! You should return to the basics! Nowadays, the worst of all villains are those unfaithful pastors who, infatuated with the useless Buddhist thought that even a dog would shun, say, "as Buddha said, ...," in their sermons. What a great sin it is to set up a Buddha idol in the holy church at the time of sermon! You should admit also that pastors too greedy for the number of believers of their churches are wicked in God's sight. Their greed is subject to criticism. More important is your obeying God than quantitative growth of your church! And those who, pretending to be Christians, cringe to Buddhist monks at election time are all villains. How shameful they will be before their Christian friends when they are defeated in the election despite their unfaithful behavior! These pastors are not good: those who receive the spotlight of the press because they got fake master's degree or fake doctoral degree with a huge amount of money after they had have many church members, and become rich, and wanted (and needed) even academic honor. (Extreme bluff!) There are many other cases on which much money should be spent. Why should they waste money on such unnecessary things?

 

Thus the wicked of the world are those who compel others' sacrifice for their own benefit, and the wicked in the church are those who forsake the will of God for whatever reason. Today's Bible text says that these wicked men will be eventually ruined. The wicked perish because they go the way of the wicked. The way of the righteous is the way of following the word of God, but the way of the wicked is the way that they take themselves, rejecting God's way. However, there is a problem because it is a self-determined way. In order to enter a prestigious university, you have to go through the path designated by that university. If you go your way, you will be 100% defeated. The way of the wicked does not reach the door of the kingdom of heaven but that of the hell. We can go to heaven only in the way God has ordained. The wicked do not become the wicked in other ways: they are wicked because they rejected the way of God. God showed them the way of life, but they denied it, so they regarded the God as a liar. And God mercifully opened the way to heaven, but they rejected it. Therefore they are wicked. Therefore, all religioners of the other religions including Buddhist priests are wicked, because they reject the gracious God and teach others the way of death.

 

The wicked are like chaff, and they blow away when the wind blows. The wicked are like chaff that will be gathered together and burned. There is nothing God can use for good purposes in the wicked. Feces are evil for they give us nothing good. The wicked have no fear of God, no love for their neighbors, no humility, and no willingness to benefit others as well. In a word, they are empty shells without contents. Instead, the heart of the wicked is full of hatred, pride, and lies. Though there is no hatred in the heart of Buddhist priests, it is full of pride and lies. So they are evil people! God created human beings good, but they become useless to their good God, therefore, are they not evil? The reason why the wicked are like chaff is that they are armed with lies, so that they can not withstand the weakest breeze of truth and disappear. However much they may boast themselves, Buddhist priests can not even answer this single question: what is the benefit of bowing to a stone? However much they may be concerned about human rights and be trying to save their face, homosexuals freeze at this one question: is anal sex a healthy ethical (beautiful) act? The real estate speculators, though putting on airs, are paralyzed at this question: what is occupation? Thus, the wicked have nothing in them but dress up with all kinds of splendor on the outside, however, they (their causes) vanish without leaving any trace when they face the truth of God, the law of conscience and the criteria of human ethics.

 

But if there is a man who did many good deeds, though not believing in God, and does not want to go to the hell but to the heaven, I'll tell him a parable. A man who lived a rich life and did many good works on earth is standing before the judgment seat of Jesus.

 

A rich man: Jesus, I helped others a lot. I deserve to enter the heaven!

Jesus: As you received much help from others including your parents while you were living on earth, it is natural for you to be good to, and to help, others. It is natural for humans to live good, or to be good humans. Heaven is not a place where a good man who did many good works can go. As you have received, you have done good works to others, so it's all, a fair deal! It's unfair if you would live eternally in the heaven just because you've done many good works on earth. Those who have done evil during their life, needless to say, go to hell, and those who do good do not go to heaven because of their good works.

A rich man: Please let me enter the heaven in consideration of my life since I ran a company and earned a lot of money and did more good than I received from others.

Jesus: Look, is your money the money you earned yourself, or the money your employees (who worked hard) earned for you? Your company workers toiled and moiled, and helped you make much money. And you dispensed charity to people with that money, so that you won honor thereby. Rather, you owe it to the people, don't you? And whose possession is this world? If you ate well, lived well and had fun with the world that God created, you are also in debt. So how many times should I tell you in order that you may understand that the very trivial good works you did on earth has nothing to do with your going to heaven?

A rich man: Then what happens to me?

Jesus: Because you ignored the way of life and the way of truth that God had presented while you were on the earth, you can not enter the kingdom of heaven, so you have to live alone eternally, suffering hunger, in the darkness without sunlight.

 

Ps 1: 1-3 tells of the blessed. Today's verses Ps 1: 4-6 speak of the wicked. Is not it strange? The opposite of the wicked is the good ... Correct! No one in the world can be a good man according to God's standards by his own ability. Man is either evil in action and in mind, or good outwardly but evil inwardly. Of course, there are those who think themselves as good, but they are mistaking themselves. Therefore, there are not the good and the wicked, but only the blessed by God and the wicked. People blessed by God will enter the kingdom of heaven through the path of truth and the path of life which God designated. They are forgiven their sins and are justified, and bear precious fruits in season by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. Then where is the way of truth, the way of life? Jesus says: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. (Jn 14:6)" "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser (Jn 15:1). I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (Jn 15:5)." "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law (Gal 5:22, 23)." "The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true (Eph 5:9)."

 

The wicked are those who reject God's mercy and grace. They can not stand before the law of their own conscience because of their shameful behavior, nor can they stand before human ethics and national law, nor before the truth of God. Their life is like chaff. We must discard this way of the wicked. "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret (Eph 5:11, 12)." It is impossible for the blind to go the right way, furthermore it is reckless for a blind man to lead other blind men. The wicked are blind. Because they refuse the light and reject the way of truth.

 

A righteous man finally appears in verse 6. The good is related to the essence (being), while the righteous is related to the act. As mentioned above, there is no good man among human beings. God created men good, but all of them became evil men in sin. Jesus said, "No one is good but God alone (Mk 10:18)." So none of human beings are good. But man can be righteous. The righteous are ones who go the right way. Even if you are a sinner, you can be a righteous man. Even a sinner can become a righteous man if he goes the right way of forgiveness. He becomes a righteous man, because he goes the right way of forgiveness, so that he is at least a righteous man who goes the right way, if not a good man. Sinner as he may be, he is righteous because he is walking on the right way in obedience to God's expectation. It is the righteous men who go through the path of forgiveness and eternal life that God presented, and each of those steps has been recognized by God as a righteous act. The footsteps pass through the gates of heaven to eternal life. But all who reject this way are neither good nor righteous. They rejected the true God, so they will live in lies wherever they go; they rejected the God of light, so they will go astray in darkness wherever they go; they rejected God, the source of blessing. so they will live in curse wherever they go; they rejected the God, the life, so they will meet the death wherever they go! So the wicked walk on the evil way and will surely perish. It is only a matter of time whether they perish on the earth or will die and perish forever thereafter.

 

Today, this word of God is given you to let you know how vain the way of the wicked is. You must know also how useless the wicked men's righteousness and good deeds are. Give up your poor righteousness and open your heart to receive the Lord Jesus. Please hearken to the word when the right way is presented. No other way! Avoid the way of the wicked and take the blessed way. Those who are already on the right way should keep straight on without swerving to the left or right. >To the left< is subtracting some from God's law, >to the right< is adding some of one's thoughts to God's law. Live just as the Bible says! No more, no less than that! Straight line is the shortest distance (from here to heaven). Swerving from the straight road to the left or the right means a longer distance. The Bible shows you the fastest course.

 

Chong Tack Kim

 

                       - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -