Sermon(Rev 22:11-15): Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025251308

 

 

 

Sermon(Rev 22:11-15): Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega

 

Scripture reading: Rev 22:11-15

>>"Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy." "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and every one who loves and practices falsehood.<<

 

The Bible says of two kinds of unyielding personalities. one is unyielding in a good sense and the other, in a bad sense. The Bible first condemns those who are stiff-necked, or stubborn. A stiff-necked man is full of pride in his heart, refuses to live a righteous life by repenting sin when he is rebuked and taught with the truth. Such a man is doomed to fall. Those who are stubborn were warned by prophets many times in the Old Testament, but refused to obey the word of God to the end, and were destroyed. The other sense of unyielding is a faithful heart, that is an unmoved mind. A man of faithful heart values the word of God and deviates neither to the left nor to the right one step from the right way of the word of God. This man keeps his faith in God to the end, with the strong will of his heart, no matter what difficulty he may encounter. A man of good strong intent, or a man of upright and unshakable heart, will always be in peace in any circumstances.

 

It's not a boastful thing for sinners to stick to their evil lives perpetually, nor is their hard intent a recommendable thing. The Scripture says that those who do injustice and filthy things will continue to do it. But it says that those who do the righteousness and who are holy will remain holy. Those who are stubborn and those who are faithful to God are in contrast.

 

By the way, our holy righteous Saviour Jesus is the person who has the strongest will in the world. Jesus emphasizes three times that he remains the same from the beginning to the end: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (Rev 22:13" Jesus is the one who will never change his mind. Never, never! What was the regulation that Jesus' unchangeable stern mind determined? It is 'All men will be rewarded as they have done!' Jesus promises those who will keep their faith to the end that he will give them clean robes and give them the right to enter the heaven and to eat the fruit of life. This will of Jesus' shall never be changed. Beloved brethren, the wicked are punished by the will of the government, which is the absolute power that enacted the law of justice, no matter how hard they try to keep themselves from punishment with their own firm will. The decisive factors are power and authority. Sometimes a man who doesn't have objective (substantial) power has to give up his firm intention because of the one who is stronger than he. But our Saviour Jesus received from God the Father all authority in heaven and on earth. >And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." (Mt 28:18)< So only the will of Jesus is finally carried through. Therefore, all righteous believers, without exception, enter into heaven according to the promise of Jesus. This is the final (universal) decision.

 

What about the wicked? They would like to live according to their intent forever, but it will surely be broken halfway. Their thoughts and plans do not have the final validity (and authority), because they are powerless men. They have only authority over their bodies and minds for a while. They must yield to the will of Jesus Christ who has all authority in heaven and on earth. They have to yield even if they do not want to. They subjected others to themselves to satisfy their greed. Now they must subject themselves to the authority of righteous Jesus. They are dogs. ones with human face who lived like beasts. Those who ignored public ethics, family ethics, morals, and humanity and lived like beasts will be cast into hell by Jesus' righteous judgment. (Those who raped their daughters-in-law and those who did homosexual anal intercourse will surely be cast into the hottest hell!) They are soothsayers. All wicked spurious righteous men who divined, said false predictions, and used religion to deceive others will be judged by Jesus and fall into hell. They are fornicators. All humans (rather all human beasts) who commit adultery, rape, sexual harassment, prostitution, homosex will taste eternal death. They do not deserve eternal life in heaven for they used the precious life they had received from God to gratify their filthy desire and insulted the life of the God. They will spend an eternal cursed time in the prisons of the hell. They are murderers. The murderers who refuse to repent of sin should not be in heaven! Do you trample human life down, and want to get eternal life? What a fantastic dream! Those who value life can have a hope for eternal life. They are idolaters. It is their severe sin that they worship not the God who created the world and gave them life but idols of wood and stone and expect some blessings from them. Even animals that are less noble than humans do not bow to lifeless idols. However, humans who are given much more wisdom and knowledge than animals have done foolish things that even animals never did. This is an act of insulting God who made man and of making themselves less valuable than material things. So they do not deserve to enjoy the blessing of eternal life in heaven. A woman who, giving up chastity and fidelity, commits adultery to earn money has a sin of degrading herself. Those who worshiped idols to receive blessings of money and health are grave sinners, because they reduced their value no less than an adulterous woman. These idolaters also will be sent to hell by Jesus' heavy sentence. They are liars. They lie to themselves that there is no God and that there is not the Last Judgment, so they become unbelievers, which is a severe sin. (Why is >to lie to oneself without just ground< not a severe sin?) They lied with glib tongue for their own benefit every day, giving great pain to others. To lie is tantamount to a declaration of war against truthful Jesus, whatever lies or whatever forms of lies. Many of the world's liars have poured out the dark smoke to cover up the bright Jesus Christ. Jesus will surely throw into the hell all the sinners having that cursed mouth and tongue.

 

Those dirty sinners hardened their evil heart and closed their ears to the words of truth and rejected them and stubbornly did dirty things. Jesus also, from the beginning to the end of the world, will not bend his will (his plan) that he will certainly inflict the punishment of hell on those stubborn sinners. Whose obstinacy(!) will be stronger? The will of Jesus Christ, who has secured all the powers of heaven and earth, will be fulfilled. Therefore, those who commit such filthy sins mentioned above must immediately realize how foolish stubborn men they are. For yourselves! You sinners, immediately repent in tears to gain eternal life!

 

Let's take a closer look at the testimony of the Bible about Jesus today. The Bible says that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. The alpha is the first alphabet of the Greek language, the language of the New Testament, and the omega is the last one. Therefore, Alpha and Omega symbolize the whole Greek language, which means that the true word and thought, of all the languages and thoughts of the world, is only the word and thought of Jesus. The saying (statement) "God does not exist" is not a true word for it is not a fact. ('Lie' is '거짓말(false-word)' in Korean!) Jesus' word "I am the resurrection and the life" is a true word because it is a truth. How many vacant words and thoughts are there in the world? But these empty words and thoughts are just empty shells. Is a mannequin having only human appearance a real human being? Not at all! only humans with human content and form are real humans. Likewise, a lie is not a word, nor is an ignorant saying a word, nor is a false thought a thought. By the way, how many people are deceived by sophistries of ignorant philosophers who tell only long lies? I would rather respect a baboon as my teacher than believe the words of philosopher Hegel. only the words and the will of Jesus Christ, who has all the authority over heaven and earth, are truth and true word. Every word of his sayings (his announcements) will be fulfilled. Many of the people in the world are absorbed in the ideas of so-called great philosophers, but are very interested only in the subtle logic of the philosophers. But they don't care about the beginning or the premise of their ideas. It is none other than a house on the sand! In fact, those who, thinking themselves to be wise, issue such useless philosophy in the world are stupid men, and so are those who spend all their life studying the thoughts of them. You may study their thoughts academically, but you are stupid if you believe their useless thoughts as truth. They are ones who do useless things! But Christian truth is not so. The Christian truth begins with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 

The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end. It is telling of the order, or the value of Jesus. This tells us how our interest in Jesus should be. Our first concern is Jesus Christ. Our first concern is the will of Jesus Christ. Our last concern is Jesus Christ, too. Our last concern is the will of Jesus Christ, too. The first and the last in concern and obedience of churches, families and individuals are Jesus. The direction of our life is the word of Jesus Christ, and the purpose of our life is to fulfill his will, and the goal of our life is to imitate him. We must grow up to him. In order to live in such direction and goal of our life, we must not be stiff-necked, but must be led by the Holy Spirit in perfect obedience and humility. The first concern of our life is the glory of Jesus and our final concern is his glory. When we set the direction of life so and walk straight, we will get to the gate of heaven through a reliable highway. Though the road of our real (religious) life looks narrow and hard, this road is the sure broad road to heaven when you see it in faith.

 

The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end. This means that Jesus is the Lord of history. This means that Jesus who created the world and let it progress will stop the world-history full of ups and downs. Also the beginning and the end of our life on earth lie in the hands of Jesus Christ. All the beginnings and endings of the world are fulfilled by the will of Jesus Christ. The rise and fall of a nation is according to the timetable set by Jesus. The last day of an evil man is determined by Jesus Christ, too. So is the day of our rebirth, or our spiritual birthday. So is the day when our tribulation ends and our blessing of prosperity begins. So is the day when the holy blessings of the heaven and the overflowing blessings of the earth begin. All our beginnings and endings will be beneficial and blessed for us when we make Jesus who has immense authority our Lord. When we have this belief, we can get rid of the sickness of impatience and nervousness. Let's commit our beginnings and ends to the Lord wholly, and rather give thanks and praises to him instead of being worried by worldly concerns. In all circumstances, trust the Lord wholeheartedly when a beginning comes on you, and thank him very much when an end comes on you. This is the very faith that acknowledges Jesus as my Lord.

 

My beloved brethren, Jesus wants us to wash our robes. The only way to wear clean white robes is to be free from the sins. only the precious blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for us can wash away all our filthy sins. Sin is sin while good deed is good deed. You can not compensate for sin by virtue of good deeds. Even if you did more good than evil, you can not erase your sins with your good deeds. Do you get exempted from penalties for violating the Road Traffic Act because you have done a lot of charity work? No! Sin and good deed are different dimensions. Sins must be forgiven while good works should be praised. Those who want to offset their sins with their own good deeds are acting like a man with all authority. Scripture says they are haughty men. You must not be so! Didn't Augustine emphasize? He said, "Sin comes from our greed and good works come from the power God has given us." For that reason also, sin is sin, and good works good works. All our human sins are forgiven only by the grace of Jesus' cross. That is the law of God! When we believe in the affliction of Jesus for our sins, our sins are forgiven. Believe in Jesus as your Saviour, and be forgiven, and gain the eternal life.

 

May Jesus the Alpha and the Omega bless all your beginnings and ends!

 

Chong Tack Kim

 

                                  - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -