Genesis, the first book in the Bible.
Genesis, chapter 2.
We'll read from verse 21 to 24.
Genesis, chapter 2, verse 21.
And Jehovah Elohim called a deep sleep to
fall upon man, and he slept.
And he took one of his ribs and
closed up flesh in his death.
And Jehovah Elohim filled the rib that he
had taken from man into a woman and
brought him to man.
And man said, This time it is bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
This shall be called woman, because this was
taken out of a man.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and
his mother and cleave to his wife, and
they shall become one flesh.
Shall we have a word of prayer?
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee that
in the first day of the new year
we can come together to remember Thee at
Thy table.
Lord, we know that Thou art here, Thou
art with us, and we just commit our
time into Your hand and pray that Thy
word will come forth from Thee to each
and every one of us.
You open our heart that we may be
able to hear what Thou does desire to
say to us.
Lord, we commit this time into Your hand.
Glorify Your Son, we ask in Thy name.
Amen.
I'm going to speak of marriage this morning,
but it is not a marriage in the
world.
We are going to see the marriage in
the Word of God.
When you open the Bible, and if you
have read through the Bible, you will realize
that the Bible begins with marriage, and it
ends with marriage.
So marriage is a big topic in the
Scripture, but of course it is not a
marriage of this world.
It is the marriage between Christ and His
Church.
Even before time, if we may say there
was a council among the Godhead, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And the Father loved His Son so much.
He wanted to do something special for His
Son.
He wanted to create the universe.
He wanted to create man and to give
man to His beloved Son.
But of course, God being omniscient, He knows
what will happen.
So while He was hesitating, if we may
use the human words, about what He wanted
to do, His Son stepped forward and said,
Father, if this is Your will, go ahead.
I'm willing to come to this world and
to save man so that man can be
united with Me.
And it is on that basis that God
began to create.
Genesis 1, 1 says, In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth.
This was the beginning of creation.
But this is not the world that we
know today.
May we say this is the former world.
Because when God created in the beginning, He
did not create man.
The highest of His creation were angels.
But unfortunately, an archangel, Lucifer, rebelled against God.
He wanted to be equal with God.
Or to put it another way, he wanted
to take the place of the Son of
God.
And because of his sin, he was dismissed
from heaven.
And most likely, at that time, the earth
was under His control.
And that's the reason why the earth entered
into judgment.
It was covered with water.
We do not know how long the former
earth was covered with water.
But we know that in human history, there
was an ice age.
During that ice age, our earth was covered
with water.
In other words, it was under judgment of
God.
But then we do not know after how
long the Spirit of God began to brood
over the earth.
In other words, God was to restore the
earth to be habitable.
So in Genesis chapter 1, that chapter, in
six days, God restored the earth to be
habitable.
It was on the last day, the sixth
day, that God began to create man.
And from the Bible, we know man was
created as a tripod.
God is a tripod.
So He created man as a tripod, spirit,
soul, and body.
God made the red earth a body.
So our body is related to the earth
around us.
He gave us world consciousness.
And into that body, God breathed His breath
of life.
And as this breath of life came into
the nostrils of man, man was given a
spirit.
Because God is spirit.
And He made man with a spirit.
And as the spirit came in touch with
the body, there came forth the soul.
So a man is a tripod, spirit, soul,
and body.
God is spirit.
And God gave man a spirit so that
man can communicate with God.
It is with man's spirit that he can
contact God, give him God consciousness.
And when a spirit enters that body, not
only that body becomes alive, but we so
also see a third element came into being.
That is the human soul.
So with our spirit, we can contact God.
With our body, we can contact the world
around us.
And with the soul, we can contact ourselves.
This is the making of man.
And after God created man, He brought all
the animals of the land and of the
fowl of the air to man.
And the Bible says man gave all these
animals and all these fowls their name.
But he couldn't find his counterpart, his life.
And for this reason, God put man to
sleep.
And God gave an operation.
This is the first recorded operation in the
Bible.
But it was a painless operation.
God put man to sleep.
And then God took something out of man.
Now in the Scripture today, we find God
took a rib out of man.
But actually in the original, it just says
God took something out of man.
And with that something, God built a woman.
Then he led the woman to the man.
As the man saw the woman, he said,
this is bone of my bone and the
flesh of my flesh.
In other words, this is me.
This is I myself.
So man was united to man, to woman
as one.
This is the story of the first couple.
Now our emphasis is not in the making
of man and woman.
Our emphasis is in its typology.
Because here we find man as
a type of Christ.
And a woman is a type of the
church.
So in God's purpose, the church is to
be united to Christ.
It comes out of Christ and it goes
back to Christ.
There is a principle we find in the
Scripture.
And that is only that which comes out
of Christ can return to Christ and join
with him in one.
If it does not come out of Christ,
however good it may be, it cannot be
returned and joined together with Christ.
So brothers and sisters, here we find a
spiritual principle.
God's purpose for us is to be joined
with Christ into one.
But whatever can be joined into Christ as
one has to be one that comes out
of Christ.
Anything that is in us, which is natural,
which is of ourselves, is not fit to
be joined back to Christ.
Only that which God has done has put
Christ in us.
And that has come out of Christ in
our lives can be go back and united
with Christ.
And this is one of the basic principles
we find in the Scripture.
But it is an important principle.
It is a basic principle.
It is a principle that each one of
us must understand.
Only that which comes out of Christ can
return and be united with Christ.
Brothers and sisters, do you see this principle?
To put it in another way, anything, however
good it may be, if it is not
out of Christ, it is not fit to
go back and be united with Christ.
As we look at man, of course, we
can see many sins, many faults in man.
But it doesn't mean that man does not
have any good.
Man does have something good in his life.
But not because he has something good in
himself.
Therefore, that something good can be united with
Christ.
Whether good or bad, whatever does not come
out of Christ in our lives cannot go
back and be returned and joined together with
Christ.
This is a basic principle in the Bible.
I'm afraid that in Christianity today, we do
not see this basic principle.
We think that whatever is good in man
can go back and return and join together
with Christ.
But I think the Bible is very clear
from the very beginning that only that which
comes out of Christ can go back and
be united with Christ.
And this applies to each and every one
of us.
How in Christianity today, we substitute ourselves, thinking
that which is bad, of course, cannot be
joined to Christ.
But that which is good in us should
be preserved and could be united with Christ.
And that is a basic thought.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the first principle
we find in the Scripture is simply this.
Only that which comes of Christ can return
and be united with Christ.
And the application is very broad.
Take yourself.
Only that which is Christ in you can
return and be united with Christ in eternity.
All that which you consider yourself as good
cannot be reunited with Christ.
And I'm afraid that this principle has not
been accepted and believed in and worked out
in the life of Christ.
Brothers and sisters, it is not only sin
that cannot be united with Christ.
It is not only the bad things of
our life cannot be united with Christ.
But everything that does not come out of
Christ in our life cannot be united with
Christ.
You know, oftentimes, and in Christianity today, we
think that only that which is bad has
to be rejected.
But whatever is good can return to God.
But the Scripture from the very beginning tells
us this is not so.
Everything out of ourselves, whether good or bad,
cannot return and be united with Christ.
Only that which we have received from Christ,
only that can go back and rejoin with
Christ.
I think we all know that our sins
cannot rejoin with Christ.
And therefore, we confess our sins before the
Lord and take the redemption that our Lord
Jesus on the cross who bore our sins
in his own body and have our sins
forgiven.
But unfortunately, we do not see clearly the
other basic principle that nothing out of ourselves,
even if it is good in our life,
can be reunited with Christ.
Everything that is of us has to go.
And this is the basic principle in the
Bible.
So dear brothers and sisters, we find that
as we read the Scripture, when we first
believe in the Lord Jesus, what did we
do?
We did not confess our good to God.
We confess our sins to God.
Because we believe that those sins cannot be
united with Christ.
But as you continue on in your Christian
life, you will begin to see that not
only our sins have to be rejected, but
even ourselves have to be rejected.
So when you come to the experience of
Paul, now he was a good man.
So far as human beings are concerned, he
was once of the best of men.
Because he was brought up in strict Judaism.
He tried his best to keep the law.
He studied law under Gamaliel, the greatest rabbi
during that time.
He was a Pharisee.
Today we have very bad impression of Pharisees.
Because our Lord Jesus said, you hypocrites.
So our concept of Pharisee is, a Pharisee
is a hypocrite.
But not so with Saul.
He was a true Pharisee.
In Philippians he said, I was a Pharisee
of the Pharisees.
He was a true one.
He tried his best to keep the law,
all the letters of the law.
And he was zealous for the law.
And yet, he discovered that this was far
from God.
Thank God, because God knows the heart.
What Saul did was terrible.
Because he persecuted the Christians.
He took men and women, even children from
the synagogue and put them to jail and
judged them.
And when Stephen was martyred, he was there
watching the clothes of those who threw the
stones on Stephen.
In other words, he justified them.
But thank God, on the way to Damascus,
to persecute the Christians there, the law.
We find that he went to the Arabian
desert.
And there he spent three years in loneliness.
He re-read the Bible in the new
light.
Now I wonder if Romans chapter 6 to
7 or to 8 was his experience during
his time in the desert.
He believed in the Lord Jesus as his
Savior.
He has his sins forgiven.
But there, he began to realize his own
self.
So Romans 6 to 7 or 8 is
Paul's own experience.
He knew the law and he wanted to
follow the law.
But he discovered that in him, there is
something there that rebelled against God.
It is his own self.
So here we find Romans chapter 7.
He said, I know the law.
The law is good.
And I wanted to keep the law.
But when I wanted to keep the law,
I found another power within me that drew
me to the other way.
And it is self in him.
So dear brothers and sisters, in our spiritual
experience, we have to go through this thing.
If you read a scripture that our salvation
can be saved in three parts.
When we first repented and believe in the
Lord Jesus, we have our spirit saved.
In other words, our spirit was dead in
sins and transgressions.
But when we believe in the Lord Jesus,
he quickened our spirit into life.
We have a new spirit.
And into that spirit, God's spirit dwells.
Because he is there in our new spirit,
seeing that the life of Christ in our
spirit will grow accordingly.
That is the work of the indwelling Holy
Spirit.
So in a sense, we who have believed
in the Lord Jesus, the salvation of our
spirit is in the past.
We have experienced it.
But there you find in 2 Corinthians, there
is the salvation of the soul.
Our soul also needs to be saved.
And the saving of the soul is in
the present.
That is to say, after we have believed
in the Lord Jesus, until the time when
we shall be raptured to the presence of
God.
It was during that period.
Our present time is the time of the
saving of the soul.
Salvation is going on in our life.
Daily we are experiencing the saving of our
soul.
How?
We discover that in the spirit, Christ dwells.
But in our soul, self dwells.
So there is a constant conflict between our
spirit and our soul.
A constant spirit conflict between Christ in our
spirit and the self in our soul.
And we need to learn how to deny
ourselves.
So the Lord Jesus said, you have to
deny yourself to follow Him.
If we love our self-life and keep
it, we shall lose it.
But if for His sake, we are willing
to lose our self-life, we will gain
it to eternity.
Dear brothers and sisters, salvation is going on.
It is not because you have been saved,
so that's it.
Some people say, if my two legs could
be in heaven, I'm satisfied.
But you may be satisfied.
But will Christ be satisfied?
God is not satisfied, unless you learn to
deny yourself and follow the Lord.
So this is the present salvation.
Dear brothers and sisters, we all are going
through this process today.
You can find in your own life experience
that there has been constant conflict between yourself
and Christ.
Unless we learn to deny ourselves and take
up the cross and follow the Lord, we
will not be able to save our soul.
Brothers and sisters, when the Lord shall come,
we shall all appear before Him at His
judgment seat.
And those who are willing to lose their
own soul, they will be rewarded with
kingdom in a thousand years with Christ.
But if we love our soul today and
do our own way, instead of following the
way of the cross, we will lose our
soul.
That is to say, during the millennium kingdom,
we will be outside of that kingdom.
The Bible says there will be weeping of
gnashing of teeth.
And that is an expression of repentance.
We will repent because we have not listened.
But thank God, eventually we all will be
saved, spirit, soul, and body.
Brothers and sisters, today we are still in
our mortal body.
We have weakness.
But one day, this mortal body will take
up immortality.
There will be no sickness, no weakness of
any kind.
Our body will be transformed into a spiritual
body.
And it is with a spiritual body, we
are able to enjoy eternity.
But the Bible tells us, as we find
in the 10 verses, you know, as you
read Matthew 24, you find that at the
coming of the Lord, two women were working
in the mill.
That is the morning.
Two men will be working in the field.
That is daytime.
And two will be in bed.
That is nighttime.
It is because the earth is round.
So at the coming of the Lord, some
people are sleeping, some people are working, some
people are grinding.
I often tell people, don't be afraid to
go to sleep, because the Lord knows who
is to be taken and who is to
be left.
If you don't go to sleep, it doesn't
guarantee that you will be taken.
So go to bed and have a good
night's sleep.
The Lord knows who is ready for Him.
He will take one and leave the other.
The one that is taken is the one
that has pleased Him, that has satisfied His
heart, that has been waiting for Him.
And the one who is left is those
who still live for themselves.
The Lord is coming, brothers and sisters.
He may come at any time.
There is no precaution anymore.
You know, when you study prophecies, you try
to figure out which prophecy will be fulfilled
first, and then other prophecies will follow.
But let me tell you, all the prophecies
before the coming of the Lord have been
fulfilled.
There are still other prophecies to be fulfilled,
but they will be fulfilled at the time
of the coming of the Lord and afterwards,
not before.
Anytime now, dear brothers and sisters, the Lord
can come.
All will be ready.
Who will be taken?
All will be left.
Those that will be taken, they will reign
with Christ during the Millennium Kingdom.
But those who will be left, they will
be outside the Kingdom.
Weeping and gnashing of teeth, that is to
say, repenting.
But thank God, whatever He has begun, He
will never undone.
He will always finish His work.
So in other words, eventually, in eternity, every
believer will be completed, and we will reign
with Him in eternity.
But brothers and sisters, a thousand years is
a long time.
For the sake of a few hours, few
days, few years of living
by yourself cannot be compared to the thousand
years at the coming of the Lord.
So brothers and sisters, let us be ready.
The Lord will come at any moment.
Don't expect any prophecy to be fulfilled before
His coming.
He is coming at any moment.
That is the problem.
So may the Lord have mercy for each
and every one of us.
Oftentimes, in a conference, I told the people,
I said, should the Lord come at this
moment, I hope this place will be empty,
that none will be left behind.
And this is the same thing of my
hope for our today.
Should the Lord be coming now, brothers and
sisters, this place, hopefully, will be empty.
This is our blessing.
So may the Lord, and do not allow
us to be complacent, press on towards the
goal until we see Him face to face.
Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for
Thy coming, and our coming for Thy own.
Oh dear Lord, by Thy grace, we hope
that each and every one of us will
be daily, hourly prepared, that when Thou shalt
come, Thou will take us to Thyself.
Do not allow any of us to be
so self-centered and live for ourselves, that
when Thou shalt come, we will be left
behind.
Oh brothers and sisters, may the Lord have
mercy upon every one of us, and to
Thee be the glory in Thy name.