11-13-2016 Weekly Message

Meditations of the Week: Psalms 42:1-11

Text: Isaiah 55: 1-13

The title of the Word: What are you thirsty for?

        God speaks to the chosen people Israel through the prophet Isaiah. It is also the word that God gives to the children of God who will appear in the future.

         Anyone who is thirsty is told to come out in the water. If your throat does not dry, there is no way to go to the water even if there is a lot of water overflowing. If anyone comes out, he will give it you even if we have no money to pay. God says that it is wine and milk to give. Wine is a pleasing thing to a man’s heart, and milk strengthens the bones of man, that is, it makes man healthy spiritually and physically.

          God is saying that they are not a decaying form of food. He says that the bread they buy and eat will not satisfy their belly even if they eat. In other words, the physical food they buying and eating with the money they have saved from labor is not enough to satisfy them.

          God says that they can eat when they listen diligently to what their Lord God is saying. God also says, when they eat the food given by God, their soul shall be  rejoice in abundance.

     God tells them what they need first. He says that when they hear the word of God that is spirit and life, their soul shall be revived. In other words, they say that if they make the flesh fertile, they will be pleased and contented, but in their bodies there is no life and they are already dead, so the soul in them must be raised first. In other words, they must first be saved. The apostle Peter, who realized this, testified that ” Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1: 9).

             The word of God that they ought to hear is of the eternal covenant God made with King David. In other words, when he comes as a descendant of David and establishes his kingdom on earth, he is speaking of an eternal covenant that will make them an eternal priesthood nation and a leader over all nations. After more than 700 years, the Lord God appeared to them in the name of Jesus and said to them, ” Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” I will.

        God said unto them:” For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than  your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.“(Isa. 55:8-13)

            God, who spoke through the prophet Isaiah, came in the name of Jesus unto the Jews, and once again said the same thing to them:

” Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5: 6)

In other words, blessed the man who is thirsty to hear all the words of righteousness that God gives. Because only the Word of God is  righteousness without any false, only those who are hungry to hear the word of the Spirit and the life that God shall be filled in his soul. But unfortunately most of the Jews had gone away except the apostles, thinking that the words giving life to their souls were difficult to understand.

         Apart from the apostles, the disciples who followed Jesus also left. The apostle John who saw this testified:

” Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?  What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life “(John 6: 60-63).

         That’s right! Even those who say that Jews, Gentiles, or even Christians in this age, like the old Jewish disciples, are refusing to listen to the words of God’s promises thinking difficult to understand.

         Most of the ancient Jews did not like to hear the words of God of  righteousness, but Jesus knew about a woman living in Samaria. She was a woman who realized that she was not filled with the food not real one that she buy with money. The woman tried to seek satisfaction to fill her lust of flesh through her husbands, but she realized that it was vanity even through the six men. Just as the old Jews were trying to feed their bodies by eating and eating what was not food, the woman was disappointed to find that her soul could not be satisfied, and she was thirsty for something that she not know. At this time, Jesus walked to the place where it was tens of  miles away to meet the woman.

         Even now, the Lord finds those who are thirsty for righteousness, sending those who have received the Spirit of Christ to them to preach the gospel. Thus, when they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ through their gospel, and their soul is saved and the spirit regenerated, the thirsty souls will eat as much as they can, and their spirits will be filled with the Holy Spirit.

          As to Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman, the Apostle John testified:

” Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. “(John 4: 13-14)

         When Jesus went up to Jerusalem on the Feast of Tabernacles, he cried out, saying: ” If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7: 37-38).

             The ancient prophet Amos prophesied beforehand that a very sad day would come:

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.“(Amos 8: 11-13)

            One who has realized that the words God spoken through the prophet Amos are now being made in this age as we see. Today, the Israelites and most of their apostate churches do not teach the words of God’s future doctrine that is the words of God’s plan. It is the time for the Lord to appear in the air sooner or later and take the born again of church  to the house of heaven. The time shall be coming when there shall be no way to hear the words of God even though people want to hear sincerely in the Great Tribulation.

           Just before Jesus died on the cross, he said, “Thirst” (John 19:28). He also carried the  thirst for us to fill  the thirst of all who believe in Him.

             When we hear the words that we have given at this hour today, we all need to be honest confessions to God about what we are thirsty for, that is, what is the most desperately need for us. We have to examine ourselves whether our soul has been revived unto salvation through the words of righteousness/   If so, how much are we thirsty for the words of God? And how much of the word of righteousness did we eat, and how did the Spirit become filled with the Holy Spirit? Also, is the river of living water flowing out of the filling of the Holy Spirit? We should not miss today’s most precious moment. If we do not understand what we are given today, it may be the chance that cannot come back to us to hear it forever.

 Amen! Hallelujah!