Title: There is none righteous, not even one.
Contents
Sunday day sermon
Text: Romans 3:9-18
Title: There is none righteous, not even one.
The Bible defines that there is no one righteous in this world. However, among the Israelites who believed in Jehovah God and Christians who believe in Jesus today, the righteous are overflowing. If the Bible is not wrong, what would be wrong?
The dictionary meaning of righteous is literally a righteous person. In Judaism and Christianity, the word righteous is also a word that means salvation. Therefore, both Jews and Christians have different expressions, but the word righteous means that they have become children of God.
There is a proverb in our saying, “I don’t even think about people who give rice cakes, but I drink kimchi soup first.” This proverb says that those who give and those who receive have completely different ideas. The same is true of our relationship with God. God does not consider all those who have just become God's people on earth as His children. However, human beings are mistakenly thinking that they become children even if they become God's people unconditionally.
All human beings are descendants of Adam, that is, born as sinners and all live under Satan's feet. God knows it well. So God is using a step-by-step method to save humans from the feet of Satan. This method applies not only to the Israelites, but also to the Gentiles. The process is all the same, only the method is slightly different.
Let's take a look at the process now. The people of Israel began with one man, Abraham. God sent Jacob's 12 sons to Egypt to be enslaved in Egypt (Satan) for about 430 years. Then, when the number of the people increases and the deadline is fulfilled, Moses allows them to escape from Egypt. At Mount Sinai, through Moses, God gave the laws that God's people were to keep and live. Only then did the Israelites become God's people on earth.
The problem starts wrongly from the fact that the Israelites received the law and became the holy people of God. The law is a law that no one can fully obey. Therefore, the law is the law given to find out your own faults, that is, your sins. Nevertheless, the Israelites who received the Law began to become righteous by keeping some of the Law. Especially the Pharisees are that kind of people.
In addition, they treat strangers living without the law as dogs or pigs and do not engage in trade. Also, even among the same ethnic group, those who are physically ill and those who are labeled as sinners are forced to keep a considerable distance from them. The more people who claim to be righteous, the more prominent this phenomenon is. This is also the case today as well, the more people who have been to church for a long time because they believe in their motherhood, this phenomenon occurs more often.
This was never what God intended. It was God's plan that God would give them the law first, realizing that they could never completely keep the law, and if they lived humbly as sinners, in the end, God would send His Son to save them from their sins. So, in the Old Testament, there are countless references to the coming of the Messiah.
God sent His Son before them, just as He said in the Old Testament. However, since the people of Israel, who should have realized their sins through the law, were rather righteous by the law, they could not easily believe in the Son God had sent. So those who said they were good did not believe in the Son, and eventually only those who were physically ill or who were pointed out as sinners by people at that time believed in the Son and entered eternal life.
Today's Christians who believe in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit and become spiritual Israelites are in the same process as the Jews at the time. Christians today point their fingers at the Jews who did not believe in Jesus at the time. At the same time, everyone shrugged that they became children of God because they believed in Jesus, whom they did not believe in.
Did Christians today really become perfect children of God because they believed in Jesus? Thousands of words. If Christians became children of God at once without a law before them, God would be very unfair. God does not have a rotating shadow. Indeed, if God allowed the people of Israel to live a difficult life for 2,000 years under the law, and Christians did not go through such a process at all and allowed salvation to be accomplished immediately just because they called on the name of Jesus, it would be very unfair. It couldn't have been done.
After allowing the Israelites to live under that tough law for about 2,000 years, He allowed those who came out after realizing their sins to be saved through His Son. However, the Gentiles, who lived like dogs and pigs without any laws, without any laws given by God and without knowing what sin they had committed, unconditionally called on the name of Jesus, who came to the land of Israel, their sins were forgiven at once, and the children of God were born again. If we could, we would never trust God.
God is not inclined to the left or right in the slightest. When the Gentiles suddenly called on the name of Jesus one day and received the Holy Spirit, it is just that they have just become God's people on earth. This is just like the way the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt for 430 years, followed Moses to escape Egypt, and after receiving the Law at Mount Sinai, they became God's people.
As God's people, we naturally have a duty to live by the laws God has given us. The law does not exist for the right, but for the wrong. Therefore, just as Jews must realize their sins through the Law, Christians must also realize the evil in their hearts through the Holy Spirit (Law). This is because Christians can also believe in the spiritual son that God will send them in the future.
Just as the Jews could not become perfect children of God despite going to the temple every Sabbath and offering sacrifices to God according to all the ordinances of the law, Christians today also go to the chapel every week and offer all kinds of worship in the name of Jesus, can never become a perfect child of God. In order for Christians to become perfect children of God, they must believe in the spiritual son that God sends in the future to receive forgiveness of their sins of disobeying the Holy Spirit and become fully God's children.
One of the things that Christians overlook now is that everyone thinks they are saved because they believe in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit. As I have said repeatedly, the Holy Spirit is a law that is given to Christians to find out the sins hidden in their hearts by acting like the law, not the Spirit who sent them to be saved.
And as a people, no one can enter the kingdom of God because they are still under sin. In the Gospel of Matthew, “When the king sees a man wearing no clothes entering the kingdom of God, he tells him to cast him out in the darkness.” . To change clothes from the status of a people to that of a son, you must believe in the Son God has sent.
Therefore, the people of Israel who lived under the law can only be called children of God when they believe in the Son who came in the flesh, and Christians living under the Holy Spirit today can only be recognized as children of God when they believe in the Son of God who comes spiritually. Therefore, since there is only one righteous person, the Son of God, our old self must die and be born again in Christ in order for us to become truly righteous. Christ must be in the heart of those who have been reborn in Christ. (Those who read this should not mistake the Holy Spirit for the Spirit of Christ)
In Genesis 18, when the city of Sodom fell and God tried to destroy it, Abraham realized that his nephew Lot was living there and pleaded with God. “Starting with fifty righteous people, if 45, 40, 30, 20, or 10 people live there, will you still destroy the city?” ’, and God says he will never destroy the city. Perhaps, if only one righteous person lived there, God would not have destroyed the city.
Today, we mistakenly think that if we go to church, we will all become righteous (good people). Therefore, the church is misunderstood as a place where good people go. This is absolutely the wrong idea. The church should become a place where we realize what kind of sinner we are through the law (the Holy Spirit) given by God. Look at the words of the Pharisees.
If you do not realize your sins through the law God has given you, you will not be able to receive salvation because you will not be able to receive forgiveness for your sins because you will not believe in the Son God will send you in the future. Dear saints, As many of you who are reading this, do not become righteous by attending church, but by examining your heart with the Holy Spirit, you must become a sinner. That is the shortcut to trust in the Son God will send you in the future. -He who has ears, let him hear and understand.-