Title: The Righteous Judge/Psalm 7:1-17
III
Dear Seocho Church members!
Anyone who is drowning must be rescued first. When you see a person drowning, you don't try to get them out right away, so why did that person fall into the water? How long has it been since you fell into the water? But did that person voluntarily drown? Or who pushed it? What is the temperature in that water now? If you leave it like that, how long will you die? If you rescue him now, what is the probability that that person will survive in good health? Are there any precedents in foreign countries where people have been rescued from falling into the water like that? Will that person who is going to rescue him be able to do it properly on his own?
During this long and varied, agonizing, judging, and thinking, the drowning man will soon become invisible. It will either be completely submerged in the water, or it will float away dead somewhere. But when you think that we are the ones who are drowning like that, what should we do first?
Now is the time we must first get out of the cold, chaotic waters and rescue those who are drowning. Whose fault? Who is this for? The problem, if not forgotten, is that we should not be caught up in that thought now.
Humans can be deceived for a moment, and history can be completely distorted. But God is living. God is a righteous judge. God doesn't know anything. All judgments and judgments should be left to God, and we should try to solve the problems that are set before us right away. Even if it is not our fault, we need to repent, and we need to be the first to repent of the sins and their consequences that we are unaware of, and we need to beg God for our sins and ask for forgiveness.
That is the way of Jesus, and that is the way that pleases God. “God, the righteous Judge! We cannot fully understand what happened to us. However, God. There is a lot of iniquity and suffering in this land, so we want to repent first. We hope that this difficulty will be resolved through sacrifice and dedication.
O God, the righteous Judge. We are sinners, not judges. We have no intentions to present. I have only a heart to seek God's mercy and grace."
We will have to open the way for the new year 1998 with such a prayerful attitude.
Not long ago, when I looked at Newsweek, a current affairs weekly, there was an article about the president-elect Kim Dae-jung of Korea. After writing various things about Korea, the article was describing him in this way. "During the military dictatorship, he was assaulted by powerful people and injured his leg, so now he is walking around like a penguin."
Everyone knows that he is lame, but I remember that there was no domestic newspaper or broadcast that said that he walked like a penguin about his gait. It is an expression that seems rather rude in Korean sentiment, but foreigners easily expressed it that way.
In a way, I wonder if the gait of this country, which has to carefully wobble through the cold international economic society that is like a slaughterhouse, might look like that penguin. So the president will have to walk like a penguin in this cold age.
However, Newsweek had this to say. There was such an article that President-elect Kim Dae-jung had to act like a leader who acts wisely in a crisis situation, not like a seasoned politician of the past, if he wants to solve Korea's problems.
That's a normal story. You should not be bound by your own political position, and you should not think of political retaliation. Conversely, it would be difficult to avoid political retaliation even if it was due to political back-and-forth. God is a righteous judge. It is time for us to pray earnestly so that the authorities in this country will walk the right path in the sight of God.
Now, I would like to end today's talk by telling a story that happened when Deng Xiaoping was young. Deng So-ping was a person with no special background and no academic background. He was also very short, so as far as I can remember he was no more than 150 centimeters tall. He was young and had his wife stolen from him by a friend. So a number of shortcomings, including physical ones, made him that way. But how could such a person be able to move great China and become a person who moves world history? Of course, he was not a Christian, nor was he a person who helped Christian missions. But, despite many human weaknesses, how did he emerge at the heart of world history? For that point, we deserve our attention.
Deng Xiaoping was on a ship bound for France as a laborer during a time when China was very turbulent. This is how Southeast Asian workers visit Korea and Japan these days. After traveling more than half the world in a dirty cargo ship with many workers, the ship carrying Deng Xiaoping and many workers left for France.
After sailing for a long time, when the ship reached a port town in southern France, the Chinese workers were filled with emotions. The idea of earning money by working hard in a new world... The thought of living without being treated as a person in this new world... The body and mind exhausted from long voyages... The minds of Chinese workers with various thoughts was exhausted and confused.
However, it was very frustrating for the French officials working in the port. So many Chinese workers who can't speak the language, those people who haven't taken a bath for a long time, are talking among themselves, and it was really painful to know how to control and lead these many workers.
However, just under that circumstance, Deng Xiaoping, a very short stature from Sichuan, China, gathered some of the people he had met on the boat. And with those people as the center, I made people line up. Amidst many workers, Deng So-pyung formed a line around the people of his village in Sichuan Province, and led them to visit a French official. And he said to the French official: "We are a group of workers from a town in Sichuan, China, and I hope you give us directions where to go."
Then, looking at Deng Xiaoping and the workers who had gathered in an orderly manner, the French official was overjoyed. So it is said that they sent them to the best jobs in the first place. And seeing that, the rest of the workers who were wandering around also gathered among themselves and started lining up.
It was through that event that Deng Xiaoping began to become known to the Chinese in France. Through that incident, I met a man named Zhou Enlai, and with the help of Zhou Enlai, Deng Soping emerged as a central figure in Chinese politics.
I am by no means telling you guys to become politicians. I'm not talking about becoming a communist or revisionist like Deng Xiaoping.
In difficult times and chaotic times, do not be led by the chaos and disorder, complain when others complain, and become frustrated when others are frustrated. Because I want you to become such believers who reveal it.
Today is the first Sunday of the year 1998. Now more than ever, we need your bold faith, wisdom and patience. In the name of Jesus, I pray that all judgments and judgments will be left to God, and that you will open the new year wisely while doing your best in the task in front of you.