Our church’s theme for our Spiritual and Evangelical Service going on now is “Out of Zion”, which is part of an Old Testament prophecy. The prophecy is about how God will cause someone to come out of Zion to forgive the sins of mankind. That person is Jesus. The speaker will be introducing to us who Jesus is: Jesus is the Saviour.

As those who live on earth, we understand the problems of life. We know how to reflect. We are unlike most animals. We do not just eat and drink, and just take that as life. How we come and go, we do not even know. Yet we have wisdom because we know how to reflect. We think about the problems we encounter in our lives. But how do we solve these problems? We can categorise the problems of life in two ways. One is the problems of daily life, the other is the problems of life. In the first category, some problems we have include what to eat or drink when we wake up. We actually realise that people spend 90% of their time deciding what to eat or drink. We realise that man has improved in this aspect. Years ago, our elders here may have first come to the UK by boat, and they may have taken months to reach the UK. For the speaker, when he came over to Taiwan, he took a plane that was maybe over 10 hours. In the past, when we missed our hometown, we had to write a letter. If you send the letter, it may take many days to alive. If you want to tell them some news, by the time it reaches to them, it may be old news. But now it is different, because nowadays you can use your phone or computer; you press a button and they can receive the message straightaway. You can even press a button and see someone else on video call. This arises from the changes in our daily lives. Even though the materialistic things in our lives have changed a lot, we are actually much more well-off than people before. But if we reflect, we may realise that we are not living as well as people who have had to labour harder. We have neglected what we think inside our hearts. People today may have many spiritual problems and they may be walking on this journey of life with many burdens. If we can change our spiritual problems in the heart, we can change our problems in our daily lives and we can be blessed.

“The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)

-This was written more than three thousand years ago by Moses. It says that the days of our lives are seventy years, and if by reason of strength they are eighty years. But after seventy or eighty years, if you look back, what is worth looking back at? Labour and sorrow. Do. you notice that when our elders speak to us, they may say, “Back in the day, it was hard work and it was sufferings… When we came from Ap Chau, it was very tiring…” Their days were very labour-filled and hence they recall this clearly. When you are older, the things you look back at, you tend to remember what is sorrowful. After these seventy, eighty years when we have been through much sorrow and we are reaching the end of our lives, there is nothing that we can take with us. The speaker has organized more than 300 funerals. Nobody lies in his coffin with his hands clasped. Even those who have contracted stroke have their muscles relaxed. Children who give their parents more honour may put rings on their parents’ fingers. But this life is empty. We cannot take anything away.

If men are like this, what is the difference between us and animals? What makes our lives so empty? The psalmist here tells us the answer.

“For we have been consumed by Your anger, And by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.” (Psalm 90:8-9)

When we face God, we have sin. We cannot stand in front of God. Our lives are like a breath. That breath carries a lot of sighing. If we quieten ourselves down to think about it, we might sigh and think, “Why is this like this? Why is this happening?” Our lives are filled with sighs. We must solve this problem. Sin has caused us to be separated from God. The eventual outcome of this is death. In this world, there may be people who are wiser than us and they might have observed the truth of life, the purpose of life. They may understand that life is just about birth, illnesses, and death. They hope to find the answer, the solution. But unfortunately, even though they have this, they have only used their own wisdom to think. But man’s wisdom is limited. Man’s solution is not enough to solve man’s problem. It can only give us some kind of temporary numbing. We may think, why is there birth, illness and death? Actually, this is to do with sin. What is the solution to this?

What have men thought as solutions to it? Man tries to make up for what they have done wrong. They may do charitable deeds to try and cover up what they have done wrong. But sin is a problem of life, not a materialistic problem. It is not like writing on the blackboard and when you write something wrong, you can rub it off and do it again. If it were truly a materialistic problem, this would work. But this is impossible. Some people say that if I donate more money, I can use the money to cover up the bad things I have done. You may find that other churches do this, such as the Roman Catholic church. They say that if you buy indulgences, you will suffer less in Purgatory. If money can truly cover up your sins, then this God is not a righteous God, since there are many people in this world who do not have money. If a rich person donates one billion pounds, that is easier for them and their descendants.

“Those who trust in their wealth And boast in the multitude of their riches, None of them can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him— For the redemption of their souls is costly, And it shall cease forever— That he should continue to live eternally, And not see the Pit.” (Psalm 49:6-9)

Here, the Bible says that we cannot trust in our wealth to redeem our sins. Because a man’s life is worth more than the world. Where do we get so much money to redeem the life of a brother? So doing charitable deeds to do so does not work. We cannot use a ransom to redeem our sins either. We see that other churches may use a lamb or something as a sacrifice. It is like a replacement for them to redeem their own sins. It doesn’t work, because the life of these animals is not the same as ours.

“For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:1-3)

Here, the Bible tells us that it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. But then we say that in the Old Testament could we not use lambs as a sacrifice? But actually, this sacrifice in the Old Testament is not enough to redeem the sin. That is actually used more for them to think about their sins every year. In front of God, they can think about the promise of Abram. Using animals as a sacrifice does not work either. So does man have to have this sorrowful life? No—thank God, God is our heavenly Father, because the first person was made according to Him. So He loves us very deeply. When man cannot think of a solution to problems, God already has prepared a plan for us.

Let us think of how we can solve this sin. We need something similar to our own lives, somebody without sin who is in the flesh. Someone from the line of Adam. Someone who can take of the sins of someone else. God is love. Only God has no sin. But God is Spirit. The Spirit cannot replace us. So 2000 years ago, His Spirit through the virgin Mary entered the world and became someone in the flesh.

Why through the virgin? There are two reasons. The first one is to proclaim to the people of the world that this child isn’t conceived through man and woman, because a virgin would not be able to bear a child. Rather, through God’s promise and God’s word, she became pregnant. The child was born through the Spirit who enabled the virgin to bear the child. This shows that it is God who came into the flesh. Apart from the first man Adam who was made, and Eve who was made from the bone of Adam, every person afterwards came from the line of Adam. Adam sinned, and sin entered the world through Adam. This is why we say that when we are born, we are born into sin and not one person is born without sin. When Jesus was born, we know that this child was not born through a relationship of a man and woman, although everybody else was born this way. Mary’s fiancé wanted to cancel the marriage because Mary was pregnant. But the unborn child was from the Spirit. They did not marry till after the child was born, so that the world would know that this child was not conceived by man and woman. When the child was born, He was in the image of man. Through this child, God solves the problem of sin: Jesus uses this body free from sin to be crucified on the cross and to be judged, and to testify that this person has no sin. So if this person has no sin, why does He have to be crucified on the cross? Jesus used this sinless body to take on our sin, and then He died on the cross for us. If Jesus died and did not resurrect, then He is no different from the gods of the other churches. If we look at other churches, which of their gods have resurrected? They have not. Only Jesus. According to the prophecy of the Bible, Jesus resurrected and lived with the disciples for 40 days. This was to show to people of the world that He did indeed resurrect. This is why Jesus is the Saviour. Only through the cross can our problem of sin be solved. Not only does Jesus want to solve the problems of our lives, He also wants to save us so we can enter the heavenly kingdom.

“And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!” (2 Timothy 4:18)

We will go through many difficulties in our physical lives. Jesus not only wants to save us from these problems of our fleshly lives, to enable those who follow Him, He wants to save us for His heavenly kingdom so that we can enjoy eternal lives. Jesus also gave us His Holy Spirit for this. This is why Jesus is the Saviour.

About 20 years ago, the speaker was responsible for a church in Taipei. There was once a typhoon that was very serious. There was a specific district in Taipei near the mountains. When the typhoon caused a lot of rain, there was a mudslide near the mountain. Because of the mudslide, 38 people died. Some of the houses fell. There was one who was saved, and she was a truth-seeker who came to our church and believed. In that morning before 6am, her husband was speaking to the person in the opposite flat. Sometimes when the typhoon comes the wind is very strong and you may not be able to sleep, especially in the countryside where there may be a lot of water. So they were talking, waiting for the typhoon to pass. She had just finished cooking breakfast, so she called her husband in for breakfast. He walked in and so did she. All of a sudden, there was a loud noise. They lost all feeling. She was unsure of how long after, but she woke up and everything was black. She realized that on top of her stomach, there was a wooden plank, and the bottom half of her body she could not feel anything. After 7-8 hours, on the TV it was about sunrise, and they heard some people make a noise, raising planks to save others. She shouted, “Save me!” They asked her what her unit number was, and she told them. Not long after, they saved her, and they sent her to the hospital. The hospital said that because her lower half of her body had been trapped for too long, her legs had swelled. After a few days, the doctors suggested to her that they amputate her legs for her to live. However, she did not want this. At that time, she was quite well-known. So she managed to request for the government to transfer her to another hospital. They sent many doctors to check on her but in the end their conclusion was the same, to amputate her legs. But she refused to do this.

At that time, there were people at church who would take leaflets to church to preach. They passed a leaflet to her room and they saw her. A church sister said to her, “We’ll ask a church preacher to come and pray for you.” And she said okay. The sister brought the speaker to the hospital. The speaker asked her what happened, but he was told not to ask, because the woman kept crying. The speaker did not know that she was 35. He thought she was older because she had cried so much that week. Her husband and her three sons had been crushed to death. Only she was left alive. When she had heard this news, she kept crying. If she heard the sound of children in the hospital, she would be crying. When the doctor asked her to see a psychologist, she refused. The doctors told her that if she kept crying, she would go blind. And so, when the speaker asked her what had happened, her sister got angry for it made her cry even more. The church members pulled the speaker to the side to explain what happened. The speaker then said to her, “Your situation I have not been through. I cannot use any words to comfort you. But I believe that the God I believe in has a solution to comfort you. If you are willing, believe and pray to Him.” So the speaker laid hands on her to pray. After the prayer, she said to the speaker, “Preacher, I feel a tingling sensation in my legs.” This was strange! The doctors had told her beforehand that the nerves in her legs are dead. The speaker said to her, “Thank God, He listened to her prayer. Originally there were no feeling in your legs, but now you feel this. You need to sincerely pray.” After a week, the speaker laid his hands on her in prayer again. And he saw her legs move! He told her what he saw, and she said, “Yes, I know!” The speaker told her, “You do not need to have your legs amputated. You need to rely on God.”

Just after a month, he prayed for her again. After, she said, “After you prayed for me, I felt a stone lifted from my heart.” From that moment, she was able to share what happened with everyone. The speaker told her, “Jesus healed your sorrowful heart.” The speaker wheeled her to the church in a wheelchair. After a while, she was able to use a frame to go into the frame. Gradually, she only needed to use a walking stick. And eventually, she no longer needed a walking stick. Even miraculously, she received her youth again. Not only did God heal her flesh, God also healed her sorrowful heart. She received the Holy Spirit and later she received baptism. God’s grace can be seen on her.

After this, God arranged for her to be married to someone else and she moved to another place. Since three of her family members died, she also had a lot of life insurance paid out. Jesus had arranged everything for her. Jesus is our only Saviour.

Dear friends, we really hope that you can take time to come to the True Jesus Church.