This is Edward Sohn of the truth in the last days. In 2004, I answered to the call of God and since then I’ve been trying to spread the message of repentance, that you have to not only believe Jesus Christ but to repent and live according to God’s will. Only then you can enter the Kingdom of God.
So I make videos and sometimes I meet people to talk about it and whenever I do that, what I find is that no matter what I say to them, it’s like what goes in one ear goes out the other ear. It’s like an immovable rock you can not move. And one of the reasons why is that it’s because the bible says that you’re not saved by your actions or your holiness but by faith in Jesus Christ. So that although you can’t live according to God’s word because of your weakness you will be saved because of your faith in Jesus and by God’s grace you will be saved.
So no matter what I say to them or a lot of people nowadays they proclaim the message of repentance they don’t budge because the bible says so.
So I’ve been contemplating why the bible is written that way, like, you find some verses in some place and in the other places you find the verses seemingly contradicting other verses. And I believe I’ve been led by God to come to this conclusion that I want to share with you, is that the bible was not written to convey the absolute truth only. Yes there is an absolute truth in the bible but the true purpose of the bible is to accomplish God’s purpose and one of God’s purposes is to block all the wicked people who loves wickedness more than the truth from going into the Kingdom of Heaven.
It says here, Book of Mathew 13:11, He answered and said to them, “because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven but to them it has not been given”
and on the verse 15, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them.
So it’s saying here Jesus purposely hid the existence of the Kingdom of Heaven to some people because he was afraid if they knew there was Kingdom of Heaven they would turn and repent. So that’s the reason why God hid the presence of the Kingdom of Heaven to a lot of people.
Likewise, Bible is written such a way that some things are hidden to readers so that, from those who love wickedness and not the truth the Kingdom of Heaven will be protected.
So the bible is written to accomplish that purpose of God and to help you understand that I want to share with you what happened in the Old Testament times. Now, in the old testament times, God hid the fact that there is Kingdom of Heaven. So if you read the old testament bible, God says, ” if you keep my laws you will prosperous on the earth and you will live peacefully” and the bible doesn’t say, “if you keep my laws you will be saved to go to heaven”.
So people at that time believed God and they lived according to God to live peacefully and to be blessed on the earth. So the Kingdom of Heaven was concealed to the people of Israel until when Jesus came to proclaim the gospel of kingdom. He said, “the Kingdom of Heaven is near”
So until that time, there was a mention of resurrection briefly in the Book of Daniel but other than that the Kingdom of Heaven was largely concealed to the people of Israel.
So a lot of people, I would presume, they thought that, ‘uh there is nothing after the life of the earth so they would be careless, ‘I just wanna enjoy this life. I don’t wanna live according to God’s laws or obey him’.
So a lot of people, they didn’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven and instead they went to hell without even knowing there is heaven and hell. Now, can you imagine how unfair they would feel, like, going to hell without even knowing there is hell. But that’s what happened in the old testament times. And that was accomplished partly by the bible.
So I think that’s the main reason why the king Solomon was led astray from God in his latter days. Now, king Solomon was a wise man, so he probably was musing, like, if there is no life after death then whatever you do in this life is meaningless, so I think he felt very vain; everything is in vain. So as he got close to his death, I believe he wanted to enjoy the life more. So he made foreign wives and he was led astray from God.
So if you read the Book of Ecclesiastes, you can really feel the emptiness of his heart. I mean, he said, whatever you do under the sun is meaningless and all these things we do in this life is meaningless. So he said everything is vain.
So that is the main reason why, I believe, he was led astray in the latter days of his life.
So that was one example of how the bible was used to block wicked people from entering the kingdom by concealing the Kingdom of Heaven.
And the second example I wanted to share is how a lot of people rejected Jesus because, in part, how the bible was written.
Now, the people of Israel was yearning for the messiah to come and they believed when messiah comes the nation of Israel will be the beacon of the world. The world will be peaceful and all the humanity will live in harmony. That’s what they believed. But when Jesus came it did not happen. They thought, “Oh! Jesus is not the messiah”.
It’s because the bible is written in such a way that it’s hard to distinguish what will happen in the first advent of Jesus and the second advent of Jesus.
Isaiah 11:1, There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth.
And verse 6, the wolf also shall dwell with a lamb and the leopard shall lie down with a young goat, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
So they believed when the messiah comes from the root of Jesse, these things will happen. But these things described here are the things that will happen in the Thousand Year Kingdom.
So when these things didn’t happen, they thought Jesus was not messiah. So they rejected him.
But what they overlooked was other verses that describe the messiah.
Isaiah 53:1, Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
The arm of the Lord is Jesus.
And if you go on, verse 7, he was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before hi shearer is silent, for he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgressions of my people he was stricken.
So this is what happened in the first advent of Jesus. So, I mean, you can understand that they might have thought, when the messiah comes all these things about the messiah will be accomplished.
So they only took hold of the bible verses about the 2nd coming of Jesus and then they just ignored the verses about the 1st advent, what will happen, that the messiah will die for our sins, and those things they ignored. So as a consequence, they rejected Jesus.
So they rejected Jesus because in part how the bible was written.
But now, the same thing is happening in the new testament times.
You saw how they chose the way of wickedness by accepting certain verses in the bible and rejecting other verses. Now a lot of Christians, they are in danger of not repenting, so as a consequence, in danger of not going to heaven because they only accept certain verses but they reject other verses.
You may have heard about the expression like “cherry picking”, right?
They only choose the verses they like and they reject the verses they don’t like.
Now, I’m going to show you some quick examples of such verses.
This is Galatians 2:16, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that you might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
So this is what many Christians believe. They believe, although they are not living holy, the bible says, nobody can be holy and be justified by their actions, and they believe although they are not perfect and they don’t live holy, because they believe Jesus Christ, they will be saved by the grace of God.
Why do they believe it? Because the bible says so.
So they take firm hold of this bible verse and then they reject other verses like this.
Book of Mathew 7:21, Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven but he who does the will of my father in heaven.
It says here, the one who does the will of my father who is God. So, it’s action. So the will of God includes, live according to his word, being holy, live according to the laws of Holy Spirit.
So when a lot of Christians read this, they don’t understand but they just remember other verses and “oh, there are verses like this in the bible so I’m O.K.” So they just leave aside these verses about, “you have to live according to his word to be able to enter the Kingdom of God”
So what that does is although they don’t repent and stay in wickedness, they still live in peace thinking that, “I’m O.K. I’m justified not by my actions but by grace of God.”
So that’s happening because of the bible. But I explained to you that, that’s what happened in the old testament times because of how the bible was written a lot of people stayed in their wickedness so that they could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Why the bible was written that way? It’s because bible was written to accomplish God’s purposes and one of the purposes is to protect the Kingdom of Heaven from all the wicked people who love the lawlessness and wickedness more than the truth and God.
And God led me to, you can say, one of his revelations about these things in a bible verse and I’m going to share it with you.
Thessalonians 2:11,12, And for this reason God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie but they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
And this is exactly what’s happening right now. Because of the bible a lot of Christians are believing something that is not true so they keep having pleasure in unrighteousness. So it says here, “God sends them strong delusion”.
And through the bible one of God’s purposes of protecting the Kingdom of Heaven is being accomplished.
Now the reason why I’m sharing this although it can be a very controversial subject and some Christians might feel that it’s dangerous; the reason why I’m sharing this is, so many people are hesitating to repent because they are being deceived in part because of the way the bible was written so that they are in danger of not entering the Kingdom of Heaven.
So I wish you blessings so that you can see this truth, so that you don’t just hold on to the verses that keep you in false peace and realise the truth that is in the bible that, you have to believe Jesus Christ and live according to his word to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
I really wish you can see this truth and be led by the truth in these last days. I wish you blessing from the Lord.
