Sermon(Is 5:18-25): The wicked people in the world

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025287116

 

>> 18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes, 19 who say: "Let him make haste, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it!" 20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! 22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right! 24 Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and smote them, and the mountains quaked; and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away and his hand is stretched out still. (Is 5:18-25) <<

 

Do you perhaps know 리어카(a rear-car)? It is a two-wheeled cart which one person pulls and steers at the front while other men push the loaded body from the back. I lived in the country, so I know the rear-car very well. Korean farmers grow the rice crop. In the harvest season they cut down the rice plants, dry them, and sheaf them. They move the sheaves by rear-car to one place for threshing. Sometimes they carry the sheaves by a rear-car to the house to thresh them there. When the rear-car ascends the slope, you have to use all your strength to push the rear-car. When the rear-car begins to go downhill, you have to pull the rear-car from behind, or it will run so fast, and get out of control, which leads to the plunging into the roadside ditch.

 

I've told of the rear-car because today's biblical text tells of some people who are like workers drawing cart ropes (v. 18). There are some people in the world who fill their carts with sins and draw them with all their strength. There are ropes of lies between them and the carts. They are wicked people who connect the rope of lies to the cart full of things called sins and drag the rope with all their strength. Here you can imagine many evil people who are eager to do evil by means of falsity.

 

I heard that the British ambassador to Korea besought the British Government to give him one more year to work in Korea. He meant that he would return home after seeing South Korea's presidential election, because Korean presidential candidates are so funny these days. The opposition presidential candidate, who is always the overwhelming No. 1 in opinion polls, is suspected of manipulation BBk stock prices. If it turns out to be true, it is impossible for him to be a president, instead he has to go to prison instead of the Blue House. The ruling party betted its all on revealing the allegations of the involvement because of its low approval ratings. However, the opposition presidential candidate and Mr, Kim, who says that he (the candidate) is the author of the stock price manipulation, are making completely contradictory claims over one historical fact. Obviously, one of them is dragging a cart full of evil with a rope of lies. He is dragging it as strong as he can. Seeing that the opposition presidential candidate and Mr. Kim's sister met at a church in the USA, I feel like Mr. Kim is also a Christian. The opposition presidential candidate is formally an elder of church. Therefore one of the two, puting the label of Christian on himself, is dragging the cart of sin with a rope of lies. These days, a former Samsung legal team employee who exposed Samsung's lobbying of high-ranking officials is playing the Truth or Dare with Samsung. There is one historical fact, but one of the two is pulling the rope of lies with all strength. Now you can understand Is 5: 18, "Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes." There are many such villains these days, including many Christians.

 

Some criminals, when their crimes are exposed, show humble attitude before the law and the justice, saying, "I'm sorry. I committed the crime to feed my wife and children. I'm so sorry!" But some criminals are too imposing and exclaim, "Is there any man without any sins in the world? Haven't you cops, prosecutors, judges all taken bribes secretly? I'm caught thanks to a pure bad luck!" When I try to say something good as a Christian on the Internet, some netizens interfere with my words, saying, "Hey, at least I am better than Christian pastors." Verse 19 of today's text tells of the attitude of the villains who are too impudent. They say, "Let him make haste, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it! (v. 19)" To put this in simple phrase: "Oh, God of Israel (of Christianity), go on! Please do not hesitate to punish us. We want to see how you punish us! That looks like fun." There are many wicked villains in the world who defy and oppose the governmental power, threaten and mock those who condemn them by morals and ethics, disregard the teachings of the Bible, and even disregard the God. They are the wicked filled with pride and arrogance up to the crown of the head.

 

The company of the wicked commits another wicked sin. They say that some sin is not a sin. Once upon a time, the Devil tempted humans to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Eating the fruit of the forbidden fruit was clearly a sin of disobeying God's command, nevertheless the Devil told a lie to humans that humans would be wise like God if they ate the fruit. He called the evil the good. History repeats itself. These days the wicked are doing what the Devil did in the Garden of Eden. "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! (v. 20)" (It seems that there were some humanists at that time in Israel who perhaps said that homosex and idolatry should be tolerated in the name of the human rights and the equality of all humans, as today's humanists do. Maybe they called the religion of Yahweh a bigoted narrow-minded religion, which can be an evil. Maybe they said that to tolerate homosex and to worship other gods were good while to forbid them was evil, which means the orthodox Yahwism is evil. But God has put the Adam's apple on the front necks of all male humans so that male humans may not be deceived or enticed by gays who have long hair and put on makeup like a woman, who use their assholes as sexual organs of a woman, who receive the semen, the seed of human life, into their body through their anus and release it along with their poop in the bathroom, thereby mocking and despising the God, the God of life and of the living (My God, cast the homosexuals into the everlasting flames of the hell, for the sake of your Glory and majesty!); or so that female humans may not be deceived or enticed by lesbians who have short hair like a man. Some gays, with such penises, even beget children. Therefore they must be executed by the government in the name of human rights for they have trampled down the human rights and the human dignity of those women and children. Even before the creation of the world, God abhorred homosexuals.) When we live in God, we are truly free and have great joy. But some wicked people say that Christians are servants of a ghost god. In a word, Christians are pitiful, they think. Some religion says that you can experience true joy through extreme asceticism. I'd rather eat the dung like a piece of cake than believe that! Some serve evil spirits, thinking they live in a bright world. Dissoluteness is evil, but these days, crazy human rights groups maintain that (wicked) freedom is good. Sin Saimdang (신사임당, 申師任堂) was a very good mother, wife, and daughter-in-law. But very absent-minded contemporary feminist activists say as if Sin Saimdang had been a very bad woman. They vehemently oppose the decision that portrait of the 50,000-won bill be Sin Saimdang. They say that she is a good model of a woman only for the patriarchal ages. A woman, who would escape from home and marry another man whenever her family make her a little angry, must be a good model of a good woman for that stupid feminist activists. They are those who call the good the evil, and the evil the good. Humans of that kind are also the foolish staff of the press and the human rights groups who are defending homosexual patients today. If you say the church should receive prostitutes and homosexuals with love, you're a wicked one who calls the evil the good, the evil the good. To execute the condemned criminal is the good, yet, if you oppose the execution, you are one who calls the good the evil. Liars! Hypocrites! (Elijah, even a servant of God, executed 450 prophets of Baal. It is a good attitude indeed!)

 

The wicked live in the illusion that they are somewhat good humans. "Those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! (v. 21)" When you argue with non-Christians on the Internet, you can easily find how they think themselves wise. There are a lot of non-Christians who belittle me, a Th.M. holder, and try to teach me something about the Bible. But their arguments were nothing but laughingstocks. The wicked use their heads, inferior heads, to hurt others. But how foolish it is! How foolish they are, for they use their heads to commit sins! Those who use their bodies as tools for evil are all fools.

 

The wicked bury their good conscience in the ground. "Those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink. (v. 22)" Are there any villains who restrain themselves from drinking? The wicked hate sober mind. They intentionally stop their ears to the voice of the good conscience. They drink strong alcohol, suppress the voice of the conscience by the power of alcohol, and valiantly commit sins. They like defiling their bodies. They destroy their bodies by alcohol (or by drug), and defile themselves by promiscuous sex life (sometimes by homosex). When I was not yet born again, I drank soju, Korean strong alcohol, with friends on Korean festal days. I can recall even now how bitter it tasted! It tasted terrible. But to the wicked the strong alcohol tastes sweet. How disgusting is cigarette smoke? But to some people it smells so good. If you feel sweet about something while it is hurting your body, what an abnormality it is!

 

The wicked in power destroy public order. "Those who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right! (v. 23)" I once wrote something bitter to the president of Daum, on the Netizen Forum of Daum. A homosexual posted articles on the religious forum of Daum, taking '예수(Jesus)' for his nickname, and the cross for his symbol (or his avatar). (He said to all the netizens that Jesus loved homosexuals like him and had given them salvation.) What a heinous sin! I rebuked the homosexual and urged that the president of Daum should not allow the homosexual to mock Christianity any more. But the company disqualified me from writing. Maybe they thought my words were too harsh. Like this, sometimes people, who disregard the justice in high position, support the wicked and suppress those who say the right thing. Some wicked people get to high positions by paying bribes, and produce a topsy-turvy of good and evil. Some judges take bribes and make it a strange unwritten law that he who has money is innocent while he who has no money is guilty. Some high-ranking officials take bribes and take care of the bribers. After all the weak without money can't pay bribes, so they become losers more and more. We must not let the cry of the victims of injustice reach to heaven.

 

Today's text of the Bible warns over and over again those who have the impudence to commit sins like that, saying, "Woe to you!" My brethren, never engage in such sins if you are Christians. Your soul has rotted away already if you keep committing such sins. A tree can look green and healthy even when the root has rotted beyond recovery. Almost all of the root has spoiled, nevertheless the upper part of the tree can manage to survive thanks to the other live part of the root that absorbs water. But as soon as the rest of the root rots, the whole tree will surely wither to death. The above shameless sinners are full of sins in their heart, and their spirits are very rotten, so that they bear such evil fruits. The teaching of the gospel of the New Testament is that trees that do not bear good fruits will be cut down and thrown into the fire. There is no difference at all between the Old and New Testaments in punishing the wicked. When the Israelites boasted of being God's chosen people and committed heinous sins like that, God drew the sword of judgment. "Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust ... Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and smote them ... (v. 24-25)" And the wicked people's corpses will be like refuse in the midst of the streets (v. 25). Their corpses will be eaten by dogs and eagles. Such is the last of those who despise the word of the Holy One of Israel (v. 24) and like to commit sins with arrogance and stubbornness. I proclaimed a curse upon the gay, who, using Jesus as his pen name and the cross as his symbol, posted articles on the Internet site of Daum: "You, a wicked gay, shall get AIDS and die with only skin and bones left. Wild dogs shall eat your body!"

 

The Bible says, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers (Ps 1:1)." In other words, blessed are those who do not associate with the above sinners and imitate them, but have delight in the law of God and meditate it day and night. The roots of them are like the roots of the trees by streams of water, so their leaves remain green even in drought. Not only the leaves! They bear good fruits in due season, which gives themselves and others great joy. My brethren, God's law and word are truly precious. Even today, if we obey the word of God, we can overcome all the forces of sin and live a blessed life of righteous people. Don't be like Eve who listened to the whispers of the Devil. We must bet our all, even our life, on the true faith, like Abraham who obeyed God and attempted to offer his only son to God, like Daniel who was thrown into the lions' den when he would serve God only, and like those who were thrown into the furnace when they refused to worship idols. You should bet your all on God. We should bet our all to achieve a true faith in God like a man who, discovering a precious treasure, sold all his property to buy it. The worldly blessings are false blessings. The worldly peace is a false peace. Your worldly joy can't give you true happiness. We can live in true blessings and happiness when we seek them in God. My brethren, live in God, today and tomorrow as well.

 

I pray that the righteous God may lead you in the path of righteousness and life. May all of you who hate evil and fear God be blessed with true blessings by God.

 

Chong Tack Kim

                                          - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -