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4-23-2023 Sunday Sermon Message

Meditations of the Week: Psalm 91:1-16

Text: Psalm 30:1-12

Speech title: The bride of Christ and creation  weeping all their lives, waiting for the morning of joy

          King David prayed to God with tears when he dedicated the palace, recalling the past days when he shed tears due to discipline and refinement for his sins throughout his life:

Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalm 30:4-5 KJV)

       Apostle Paul also testified about the discipline God’s children receive when he wrote unto the Hebrews:

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. ¶ Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. (Hebrews 12:3-8 KJV) Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Hebrews 12:11 KJV)

        Living in a sinful world, God’s chosen people, or God’s children who belong to the church of God who became the bride of Christ, shed tears without cease. First, they must shed tears of repentance for the sins they have committed, and also live a tearful life of prayers  for their unsaved children, many relatives and family members including friends who are unrepentant because they do not realize their sins.

         After Jesus, who was the light of the world, ascended to heaven, this world became a spiritually dark night, and for the past 2,000 years, the evil enemy the devil has become the god of the world, preventing people from believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of life. Apostle Paul testified of how the devil, the god of the world, deceives the world:

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3-6 KJV)

        Apostle Paul testified of a life of suffering of Christians who became children of light and all creation until the morning when the sun of righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ, rises again into the world:

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: ¶ And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. ¶ Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (Romans 8:16-26 KJV)

     The apostle Paul testified to the Christians in Rome that the night was long past:

The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. (Romans 13:12-14 KJV)

       The psalmist previewed and testified of the rejoicing of the creatures in the morning when the Lord Jesus Christ appears to the world like the Sun of Righteousness:

 Give unto the LORD, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength. Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come into his courts. O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth. ¶ Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice Before the LORD: for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth. (Psalm 96:7-13 KJV)

          As the god of this world, the devil has been ruling this sinful world like a dark night for the past 2,000 years. Nighttime in Scripture is divided into four three-hour periods called “watches.” According to our way of reckoning time, “even,” or the evening watch, is from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.; the midnight watch, from 9 p.m. to midnight; cockcrowing, from 12 M to 3 a.m., and morning watch, from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. It is darkest just before the sunrise. Right now, the nations of this world, from the United States, Korea to China, Japan, Russia, France and even Israel, are tainted with sins and are in darkness beyond recovery. We have reached a point where it seems the deep state forces have taken over the nations of the world, and there is no hope unless the Antichrist appears and takes over the world and rules as a dictator. It’s getting to the point where they’re unstoppable. We’ve come to a point where all the churches have apostatized, and now all that remains is for the Antichrist, the son of perdition, the man of sin to appear,and that the day of rapture, the Day of Christ, where the Sun of Righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ comes to take us Christians away is imminent. Once again, we must bear in mind the prophecy about the day of the rapture that was prophesied through the apostle Paul:

¶ Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 KJV)

           After feeding the 5,000, Jesus alluded to His return at the end of the watch:

¶ And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. (Matthew 14:22-27 KJV)

            Previously, Jesus had shown his disciples that he would return to the world in glory and establish His kingdom after 2,000 years of the Age of Grace, that is, 6,000 years from the beginning of the world:

¶ And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. (Matthew 17:1-3 KJV)  Amen! Hallelujah!