Title: Thanksgiving for Salvation/John 3:14-16
Contents Thanksgiving for salvation (John 3:14-16)
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man come in, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).
There are three great feasts for the people of Israel: the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
Among them, today I will talk about the Feast of Tabernacles. This Feast of Tabernacles will be the Thanksgiving Day of the nation of Israel. This Feast of Tabernacles is sometimes called the Feast of Firstfruits or the Feast of Ingathering. This is a reminiscence of the original Exodus, and they came out in the wilderness to meet God for 40 years and gave thanks to God for providing them with quails and springs of rock. They built a hut with a hut, ate, slept, and stayed there for 7 days, and the ancestors of the past commemorate the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
This feast begins on Tisri, or October 15, and lasts for eight days, with a solemn assembly on the first and last days. At this time, they lived in booths, sacrificed bulls, rams, and lambs daily, the Law was recited, and they gathered grain, olives, and olive oil and wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, remembering their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, exchanging offerings and having great joy. and kept it as a national holiday. At least during this feast, all Israeli men within 24 km are required to gather in Jerusalem. According to the historian Josephs, at this time two million people gathered.
In this way, they gathered around the altar every day, and on the last day, they circled the altar 7 times and there was a procession of fire and fire symbolizing the pillar of fire.
Seeing this, Jesus said in the Gospel of John, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." Seeing the great pillars of fire and pillars of cloud, he exclaimed, "I am the light."
In this way, the people of Israel lived in tents for eight days to remember God's blessings and God's grace, to give thanks and praise, and not to forget the grace.
The angel of God stood in front of the camp of Israel, quails flew into the camp of Israel, manna fell on the camp of Israel at dawn, and in front of the camp of Israel, a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud went ahead and behind to protect Israel.
As God promised Abram in the old days, Genesis 15:13, "You must know that your descendants will be strangers to the Gentiles, and will serve them, and after 400 years they will come out with riches." As Jacob had promised, Genesis 46:27 Because of the famine, he went down to Egypt with his family of 70 and lived there for 400 years.
As He said, the people of Israel went down to Egypt and their descendants multiplied and became as numerous as the grains of sand in the sea and the stars in the sky. Egypt, feeling threatened by this, abused Israel, and a new king who did not know Joseph's grace appeared, harassing and enslaving Israel. At that time, Moses was born and liberated Israel from Egypt at the Exodus (Exodus 1:1-9). At this time, there were 600,000 men and women, children and women, so the people were like dust and grains of sand on the beach.
The Feast of Tabernacles or First Fruits was when the people of Israel looked back on their sufferings and gave thanks to God.
Beneath it lies the grace of redemption, and there is the hand of God who guides us to happiness. With this in mind, I kept this feast.
II. Second, the Thanksgiving Day we are currently observing.
The origin of Thanksgiving comes from the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt through Moses, as I said before. Although Moses said to the Israelites, "When you eat of your produce, praise the God who gave it to you," but the present thanksgiving is probably from those who immigrated to the United States.
In search of freedom of faith, on September 6, 1620, 76 men and 24 women, 102 people in England wandered aimlessly on the sea for two months (67 days) and landed in a place called Primer. . They died of motion sickness on a distant sea, winds and waves, starvation, and fever and Indians on landing. Those who survived sowed seeds and farmed, and harvested the following year, but they complained and blamed God because the crops were so poor.
1) We came here in search of freedom of faith to worship God and only to serve and believe in God.
2) Why? took many lives
3) Why? Are you short on food?
When he was evacuated and ignorant, an old farmer stood up and said, "Let us not only complain, but give thanks and praise to God who has prolonged our lives and has given us even a small amount of grain."
Thank you for the little things. And after proclaiming a fast, praying and giving thanks, God gave them many things.
Our history boasts half a million years, but they are still less than 250 years old. Nevertheless, they have become a world-class country, a blessed economic power. According to the Bible, God fulfills the word that if we are faithful with little things and give thanks for little things, we will be filled with many things.
When these Puritans came to the Primer, they established three principles.
1) Let's worship God first.
2) Second, I build a church before my house.
3) And third, it is said that they built a school, a hospital, and a house for them to pass through for their children's education.
Dear saints, this year's severe drought makes all economics difficult and life difficult. Let's give thanks to God for giving us little, even if we don't have enough, and give thanks for living like this. Although the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive tree produces no crops, but there are no sheep in the pen, though the fields do not have enough food, and there are no cattle in the stalls, let us serve the Lord God and live by faith. Those who live by faith will receive up to heaven and will prosper in whatever they encounter. Those who live by faith will eventually win.
Ⅲ. Korean Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving has been in our Korean church since 1904.
At the 4th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the Jesuits of Korea, it was decided and kept as the Korean Church Thanksgiving Day at the suggestion of Elder Gyeongjo Seo. For the first time, only the Presbyterian Church alone set and kept the day on November 10. After that, it was held on the third Wednesday of November every year to commemorate the first day an American missionary entered Korea in 1914. From then on, the third Sunday in November was observed as Thanksgiving Day. This has come to this day, and this Thanksgiving is not ours, and it is not the time of harvest to suit our rural situation in Korea. After the harvest is over, the barley has already been sown in the ground for next year's crop. That is why our church sets and keeps it on the second or third Sunday of October, when the harvest is in full swing. But the root is the same. We thank God for blessing and guiding us through this year of health and personal, family, church, national, and business.
Ⅳ.Fourth, going back to the main text, I will talk about thanksgiving for salvation.
The background of the text is as follows. The people of Israel were trying to follow the road from Mount Hor and go around the land of Edom, but they got tired of living in the wilderness for 40 years. Therefore, they were offended by the way. So they blamed Moses. They complained to Moses, saying, "There is no food to eat and no water to drink here. We hate this stinky food." (Numbers 21:4-6) The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people to bite them, so that the dead among the people of Israel There were many.
At this time, the people repented and confessed to Moses, "We are referring to the Lord God and to you Moses. We have sinned because we grumbled against the Lord and you." And when we asked Moses to pray and ask for the serpents to depart from us, Moses prayed for the people. The Lord heard Moses' prayer and said, "Make a fiery serpent and put it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten will live when he sees it." So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the pole. The snake venom came up, and soon the dying person was also healed. The moment the man who had collapsed from being puffy looked at the bronze snake, the poison drained out of his body and he was healed. I was afraid of snake venom, so even if I heard it through blood vessels, I was healed the moment I looked at it.
Today's text says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man come in, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."
If the venom of a serpent rises up, and he is fat and is dying, looking at the brass serpent at the end of a pole and being alive and clean, we must commit a certain sin and die of the poison of sin. If you look, believe, you will become clean. I believe in salvation. I believe that all the poison of sin will be removed, and you will be cleansed and given new life.
My wife, whose husband passed away due to an illness, got a job in a shoe factory along the railroad tracks while doing this and that to raise a five-year-old son and a three-year-old son. Every morning when I went to work, there was nowhere to put my two sons, so sometimes there was no one child, holding one, sometimes walking, the other lying down, going to the factory, letting them play in a small room inside the factory, and then the wife worked. On a warm spring day, the two children went to the railroad tracks without their mother knowing that the room was stuffy. We play pebbles on the railroad tracks, play rock-paper-scissors, and play in the air while a train comes running. When someone heard that there were no children, the mother ran and saw the two sons playing on the railroad track, and ran to them and threw the two sons off the railroad track. The moment the train ran and hit the mother. Neighbors sent the two brothers to an orphanage after the shattered body of their mother was buried. So, after they grew up there and became adults, they realized the gratitude of their mother and set up a small tombstone in front of the tomb and carved the following words.
"Mother, my mother, my dear mother"
The climax of the mother's love was not that she worked for tens of thousands of won a day to raise her two sons. It wasn't that he starved himself and put food in their mouths to raise two sons. It's not like you're taking your clothes off just because it's freezing cold.
It is in the incident where he saved the lives of his two sons who were playing on the railroad track and then threw their own lives away.
Likewise, what is the climax of the love of Jesus Christ?
Not water to drink, food to eat, and prosperity in business for us. It makes us healthy and heals us from disease, but it is not there.
The climax of Jesus Christ is “to die on the cross for us.” Jesus died for us ungodly while we were still weak. It is not easy for anyone to dare to die for the righteous, and there are some who dare to die for a good man, but while we were still sinners, Christ died on the cross for us.
Even if the people of the world call me a sinner and the people of the world say I am useless, the Lord died for me. You died on the cross to save us.
Why should we say we love the Lord?
It is because the Lord loved me and still loves me, and because he died for me to save me.
Above all, I pray that the year 94 will be a year of thanksgiving for salvation.
Dear saints, if I gain the world and lose my life, what will be the benefit?
We are saved through the death of Jesus Christ.
1994. 10. 9. Sunday noon worship service.