21. Jacob and the spiritual Jacob

From the sermon on Friday evening September 20, 2002, 29th Memorial Worship

There is a big gap between Christians who do not know about the spiritual world and those who exactly know about it. Therefore Paul the apostle said, “How can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15).

Lately, I told you about the spiritual world of the past, the present and the future. My preaching is not just a vague repetition of the words in the Bible. As John the apostle said,

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched” (1John 1:1), I preached to you what God showed and taught me so that you would understand the spiritual world.

Even though the words in the Bible are the same to everyone, just repeating them is not same as revealing their meaning. I have explained the meanings of the prophecies in the Bible that even prophets themselves did not know in their time (Dan. 12:8-9; Zech. 4:5, 13).

Today, we need to understand why God selected and brought up Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob, and why he identified himself as the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob in the Old Testament (Ex. 3:6).

The Old Testament era ended when Jesus came to this world. Although Jesus was the hero prophesied in the Old Testament, he did not know that some things prophesied in the Bible would occur after his death and resurrection. Why did he not know about it? It was not necessary for him to know anything beyond what he had to do in this world. But nowadays, we need to know about it. The stories of