Sermon(Acts 2:14-21): The last days and the Holy Spirit

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025222377

 

 

 

Scripture reading:

>> 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. 21 And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (Acts 2:14-21)<<

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What are your thoughts about the last days, or the end (the close) of the world? People usually say, "It's the end of the world!", when they see crimes against humanity. And when people have no hope for the future anymore, they think of the end of the world. In the last days, the order of the world loses its strength and is on the verge of collapse. If the bright sun becomes dark, the world has to close down. If the bright moon suddenly turns red as blood, it produces an eschatological atmosphere. Of course, this is the fear of those who experienced solar and lunar eclipses in the past. Anyway, if such natural phenomena coincide with tragic times, the intensity of the eschatological atmosphere is doubled. War is the typical symbol of the last days (or the last age, the last era). Soldiers of the defeated country die, shedding blood. Their houses are set on fire, the pillars of smoke reaching to heaven. In the past, if a castle was attacked and conquered, the enemy troops broke into the castle, and the soldiers of the castle were killed, their wives were raped, their children cried, their houses were set on fire. It was a chaotic horror itself.

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So the last days or the eschatological age is thought to be an age when there are no hopes any more but only all kinds of utter despair for the people. In the biblical text today, apostle Peter defined his era as the last era of the world. There was a good reason why he defined the time so. Israel, or Judea, was a Roman colony at the time. Several independence movements went into vain. We Koreans who experienced the brute force of Japanese army in the past can well understand how brutal Roman army was to Israelites then. Israel had no political hope then. If political situation was so, religion should have been wholesome. But, seeing the religious leaders put the good Jesus to death on the cross, his disciples including Peter could not but conclude that the existing religion of Israel had died. The religion that kills and buries good people is a typical religion of the last days. It is an extremely corrupt religion for it persecutes the good. The last age is an age in which politics, economics, religion have gone severely bad. To Peter and other disciples at that time, Israel was simply a political and religious anomie.

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However, God says that he will pour out his Holy Spirit upon the people in the last days. Why does God pour out the Holy Spirit upon them then? He does so because he wants to give them the Holy Spirit to help them overcome the (horrible) last days through the Holy Spirit and open a new era in which they multiply, prosper and fill the earth and in which the world recovers its beauty and is full of life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of creation. When God created the world, his Spirit overcame the chaos and the darkness and produced the beautiful world. The last days is an age when the existing world order is so corrupt that the world is in chaos and darkness. In such an age, God gives his Spirit to men and tells them to open a new era.

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God pours his Holy Spirit upon your children to help them prophesy. Prophecy differs from forecast or divination. Prophecy is the declaration of the words of God. How can the children speak of the words of God? The Spirit of truth dwells in them to drive out dirty thought and knowledge of the world from them and to put the words of truth in them. What is in the mind comes out of the mind. Those children have to walk in the right way. They should not keep in mind the dirty sex culture, and the fallen ethics and morals that were established by the older rotten adults, nor talk about them. They can live when the Holy Spirit comes upon them and sows the words of God in them. My brethren, you must pray God that the Holy Spirit may come upon your children and sow the words of truth in them. You must clear their heart of the dirty order that the depraved generation has planted, and must place the words of God there. God hears the prayer of all the parents, who define this generation as the last age and long for a new age, and promises them to give the Holy Spirit to their children so that they can prophesy. "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. (v. 17)" Don't let your children be the authors of the last days. Let your children receive the Holy Spirit and engrave the words of God on their heart and be the leaders of a new age. Let them not fall into the dirty sex culture and the dirty decadent culture, and let them go to church and listen to God and become new men. Let them not be the persons who only develop their tricks and deepen the symptoms of the last days, but let them be the ones who serve God honestly and sincerely and become the pioneers of a new era.

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God promises to pour out the Holy Spirit on the young in the last days so that they may see visions. My brethren, what is vision? Vision shows a realm of religious truth beyond reality. What our physical eyes see is a world of reality while what our spiritual eyes clearly see is a world of mystery. And this world of mystery is a realm of truth in contrast to the current world of falsehood and corruption. Then who sees these visions? Young man! But a young man who defines today as the last age. In other words, the vision of the truth is seen by those who recognize this era of falsehood, disorder, depravity and despair as it is. The generators of the last age are those who do not define the last age as a last age but as a good age to live. They can't see visions. The visions of God are shown to only those who rightly recognize the last age as the last age. Why? They should not immerse themselves in this age and be accomplices of the last days, and they should not be discouraged by the lack of strength to overcome the last days. My brethren, the young people are in the midst of the world of the last days. They can easily be frustrated. They can easily give up. Therefore, God gives them visions of the kingdom of eternal life and the goals of their life in order to encourage them. "This world is not eternal. Take a look at the kingdom of eternal life without falsehood and death. So you must not compromise with this world, keep your faith even at the risk of your life and make sure that you enter that kingdom of eternal life." When the Roman emperor persecuted Christianity and created a terrible atmosphere of a last age, apostle John saw a vision. >Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." (Rev 21:1-5)< Young men of this era, do not yield to sin and evil because life is hard and you are exhausted, but keep your mind on this vision apostle John saw. This conviction and belief in heaven gives you new strength and makes you the hero of a new era. Please long to receive the Holy Spirit who gives you such visions and strength. Apostle Paul, too, says after he experienced visions when the atmosphere of the last days upsurged: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; .... For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Rom 8:18-25)" God, who is merciful, shows us through visions what we can not see with our eyes to hearten us. Brethren, visions are reaffirmation of God's promises. You have seen many visions already if you believed all his promises in the Bible.

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God says that he will pour out the Holy Spirit upon the old people so that they may dream. In general, dreams are escapism. Sometimes a very poor man dreams of making a great fortune. Maybe some of those who ran for president and failed may have dreamed of sitting on a throne decorated with phoenix, the symbol of Korean president. The elderly usually have lived a tough and regretable life. Jacob who had lived more than 100 years confessed, "Evil have been the days of the years of my life. (Gen 47:9)" The old people live the rest of their days that is not so long, with difficulty, sighing for the failures they have made. The actual dream that they would be a great man already has been given up by them since they were a little over middle age. So the dream is awkward for the old people. However, God promises that he will give the Holy Spirit to such old men so that they may dream a good dream. The dream God gives them is not an empty dream. God helps those, who are living in their last days and in the last era, dream of the imminent new heaven and earth. Some dreams are more realistic than reality to us. Got helps the old people taste the new eternal world through dreams in advance. He allows them to live the new era in advance. A man, who learned God's words and obeyed him in his childhood, who saw God's visions and lived a sincere faithful life in his youth, can utter words of unbelief, or a sort of complaint in his old age like Jacob. My brethren, what God is the Lord? He who watches the heart of man gives dream containing truth to old people like Jacob. I don't know what Jacob dreamed about after he had confessed strangely (Gen 47:9), however, the blessings that he declared to his sons on the brink of death were fulfilled as he told so that his descendants prospered and became a great nation in the world. God gives dreams to the old people in the last era, which means that God is appreciating their lives and comforting them. My brethren, have you led a hard life like Jacob? Have a dream that you will live happily in the heaven forever. Now God sees your whole life with a warm heart and comforts you.

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God says that he will give the Holy Spirit even to menservants and maidservants in the last days. This means that anyone without exception who yearns for a new era can join the new kingdom of God. God promises that whoever calls on the name of the Lord in the last days shall be saved. Brethren, look at Peter and other apostles. They received the Holy Spirit in the last era, became the leaders of a new era and opened the gate of new 2,000 years. They received the Holy Spirit, overcame the last era and opened wide the new era of the Holy Spirit, grace and gospel. You children, men and women and old people of this era! Receive the Holy Spirit God promised. Now is the last era. Have the sense of the last days. People without the sense of the last days will become the central figures of the last days and the object of the judgment of God, and will perish in the blood and fire and smoke. Today, the dirty psychotic culture (such as the homosex culture), the debauched and irresponsible liberalism, the abominable syncretism, and the distorted human rights ideas (such as human rights of homosexuals) are the most common factors of the last days. We must reject them. The world that we Christians seek is one where the peace of every one is respected, nevertheless, all the truths of Christianity must be kept without any deterioration or alteration. We can not force Christian truths on others by guns and swords, however, at least we must not undermine the traditional Christian truth by making such stupid ideas the standard of truth. The more we are in such situation, the more we must emphasize and keep the Christian truth. We should be the protagonists of a new age. We can be only when we receive the Holy Spirit.

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May God give the Holy Spirit to you who have the sense of the last age, and make you the leaders of a new age.

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Chong Tack Kim

                                     - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -

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