(6) The righteousness and love of God

The modern churches that speak of『God is love. God loves you』try to reveal the love of God. They think the souls who do not know God will come back to the Lord when they see God's love. Indeed, the world pursues love. So, the topics of novels and movies are always love and only the actors and actresses change. Humans seek for love the entire life. The love the whole world wants is the love oneself wants to receive.

One is not look for a subject whom he can give love, but he is seeking after the love he/she wants to receive. That is not the love of God, Agape, but it is a love that's never been recorded in the bible, Eros. The modern churches try to make people believe in God who do not know God or reject Godby singing 『You are born to be loved.』

But the message of the entire bible that God wants to tell the sinners is not『Believe in me』, but repentance which tells 『Return to me.』So, the gospel, which Paul has preached to the Roman church, records that 『God's righteousness was revealed.』(Romans 1:17) And continues: 『For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.』(Romans 1:18)

The sinners can wake up from sins and repent when God's righteousness is revealed. In fact, repentance and faith cannot be separated. Rebirth and baptism do not get separated either. But the reality is not so. There are a lot of people who believe that Jesus is the son of God and confess that they believe alltheir sins were washed away by the blood of Jesus, but do not live for Jesus; they ask for Jesus's help for their own problems to be solved and security in the world. Repentance is realizing that it is a sin that I lived for my own sake. Therefore, if you could believe Jesus who has forsaken his own life on the cross for me, you cannot live for yourself anymore.

『And that he died for all, that hey which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again』(2 Corinthians 5:15). If you believe that Jesus had died for me, you cannot『live for yourself』again.

But modern churches say to believe in Jesus for yourself. It is good to believe in Jesus. This is a false gospel. Whoever seeks to save life, will lose it.『For whosever will save his life shall lose it; but whosever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it』(Luke 9:24). It is indeed the last days. Deceptions are filled in modern churches that could even make the chosen ones fall. Before saying a faithful prayer such as 『Lord, be with me』, what you need is a confession of repentance such as 『Lord, leave me. I am a sinner.』

It is not a confession of faith that comes first such as I have been called righteous by faith; the confession of repentance comes first as in 『And am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants』(Like 15:19). Repentance is where Jesus becomes our master and we become the servants of Jesus. Then, the Father God who sent Jesus becomes our father. It is illegal to call God the Father if Jesus is not our master.

The parable of the prodigal son has become the universal message in modern sermons of the church that represents the complete love of Father God. The love of father that gives everything when the son asks for his inheritance; the love the son wants; the all-giving love even when relationship has been disconnected with the father. However, no message has been conveyed about how bad the son is, who has rejected and left the father of love. It is said about the good father of love, but not about how bad the son is because people might not come to churches.

Men are utterly corrupted that they reject the love of the Father who gives everything. Men are corrupted to a point where they reject the love of the father that gives everything the son asks. Men are so wicked that they abandon their loved ones no matter how much they are being loved. The parable of the prodigal son gives message that sinners forsake the Father God even if he loves them. You cannot return to the Lord even with love. The first parable that Jesus spoke was a story of a shepherd looking for a lost sheep. There is no mention of the sheep looking for the shepherd. The second parable is a story of a lost coin. The coin represents a dead life that cannot look for the owner on its own.

The third parable is the story of the prodigal son. He forsakes his father. This is in the state of being dead in trespasses and sins. In the first parable, the sheep did not die. It was playing in the world. In the second parable, the coin was dead. It did not move to its owner. The prodigal son in the third parable had forsaken his father and erased his father from inside of himself. This is how much humans are evil. This is the gospel of repentance.

 However, the modern churches only speak of the God's love

who has given everything with his son in order to have the lost souls, like the prodigal son, to return to the Lord. They assume that the sinners will return when they have that love. This is a false gospel that concludes totally opposite of the lesson of the prodigal son parable.

This proves that the modern churches are trying to please people, not God.『For do I now persuade me, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ』 (Galatians1:10). You should not please people first. Ultimately, that is not loving people.  

 Humans, who are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), wanted the father's wealth to pursue the course of the world, but abandoned the father of love to follow after the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2). He loses all that God has given to him in a profligate way according to the world’s custom.

 Everything that has been given by the father will be taken away by Satan without the father, just like when Eve had a conversation with the serpent by her own ability without relying on God. Even lost the Garden of Eden as soon as she forgot the promise of God, just like the prodigal son who lost all of his inheritance from his father.

This is the state of a corrupted human that the gospel says. Adam who had committed a crime soon after creation and the prodigal son in the New Testament are in the same state.
There’s only the water judgement of the wrath outside of the ark. The reason He ordered to make the ark was because of God's will to judge by water.

 In the days when there was no such thing as rain, the ark itself would seem a foolish thing to the human eyes, if there was no judgment. However, because there is God's judgment, the ark is the love of God. In the days of Noah, everyone was evil, from children to adults. In the sight of God, He wanted to kill everyone. But how lovely the children would have been to their mothers.

So humans themselves did not know how furious God was that He would cover the earth with water forty days and nights. God's heart is known only through the ark that has been revealed through Noah. What is needed in the world that God has decided to judgeis not the dreams and revelations of pouring rain and floods, but only the ark that Noah is striving to build.

This is the gospel. Before the preaching of the seemingly foolish gospel, people cannot realize God's judgment at all. The news that's needed to them is not the news that God loves them, but the wrath of the righteous God. I wonder if the gospel of righteousness that is a size of the ark would be visible in this age of love flowing like a flood.