A good conscience

Thank God for allowing this precious time. May the grace of God be with you all as you worship online and offline and in the place of life today.

Yonsei University is a special place for my family. It was when my late father Tak Myung-hwan, who started heresy research, was a graduate student at Yonsei University here 50 years ago. And I started studying here in graduate school with him. It is here in Severance that when my father died after being attacked by a heretic's knife, he donated his body according to his will. Since my family didn't have a tomb for my father, this is where we visited whenever we miss him. Therefore, it is a special place for me and my family.

There are many controversies over COVID-19 and Shincheonji. Every time you look at this problem, you see the victim of this problem. There is one thing that my family has come to realize after we lost our father due to a heresy problem. We've come to realize that heresy is not a highbrow doctrinal issue, but a desperate one that will one day take away the person we love. We can see victims who lost a family to Shincheonji on the screen. They take to the streets. The reason is that it is not easy to get help from the police, public power, or the media.

If you report it to the police, your family will lose full legal protection as soon as the spouse or daughter who leaves the house comes and the police officer says they will be in the group when asked if they are at home. Public power intervenes when a problem breaks. The media publicizes when the problem occurs. The prevention function is weak. Like our family, there are many victims of heresy. It is not easy for us to realize the danger and the nature of the heresy unless we look at it here through their eyes.

The heretical problem has been repeated constantly. Ferry Sewol and the Salvationists, Choi Tae-min and Choi Soon-sil, COVID-19 and Shincheonji, such heretical issues are not only doctrines of the church, but can also cause serious social problems at any time. COVID-19 can happen anywhere in a cathedral, temple, or church. The problem is not where the problem occurred, but how did you take action when the problem occurred? The essence of this COVID-19 and the Shincheonji problem is that the Shincheonji has made the measure inappropriate and is closely related to the Shincheonji doctrine behind it. We classify Shincheonji as heresy. The reason is not because of Jesus Christ, but because it deifies people.

The Comforter, Jesus Christ, spoken in the scripture of the Gospel of John today is deified as Man-hee Lee. We believe in Jesus alone as the Savior, but hereticals have the character of deifying people.

Even if Man-hee Lee dies, it is not the end of the Shincheonji problem. Rather, it is the beginning of a new problem. Rather than condemning and criticizing those who have fallen into Shincheonji, we have to heal, restore, and fully establish them with the Word of God. This is the beginning of the problem, and even if the priest dies, the believers can reach a psychological state that can personalize and beautify the death of the teacher in the fear of telling acquaintances and family members that their choices are wrong. So heresy is still going on even if the leader dies or the time-end eschatology fails. In church history, hereticals have constantly repeated creation and destruction. One day, Shincheonji or heresy will be over. We see that the church to which we belong is the eternal and ever-overcoming church.

What has been gained in numerous battles with heresies is a confession of faith that we have gained today, and is it not left alone in faith? Shincheonji is a heresy that deifies people. When we see the song they sing, they deify Man-hee Lee as the Christ and the Son of the living God. The interpretation of the Comforter in the Gospel of John today is interpreted as Manhee Lee. There are so many data on their deification that we find as much as we find. There is a second feature of heresy.

Heretics who depersonalize people rather than believing in Jesus make unscriptural claims. The same is true for Shincheonji. They gather at a playground and have a 144,000 card section. This is a keyword to know Shincheonji. Shincheonji says that when their number reaches 144,000, two amazing things happen. One claims that they are immortal, and the other claims that by 144,000 they will become kingly priests in the world. As such, heretics are unbiblical. Heretics add or subtract what is in the Bible and interpret it artificially and deliberately.

Therefore, it is not easy to distinguish between two groups when we cannot stand directly on the Bible's words. Fighting heresy is the gift of God's grace, which is given as a bonus when we stand right on the word.

The problem is that the number of people has already exceeded 144,000, according to internal data from Shincheonji, which claimed 144000 and propagated people in churches and streets to fill 144000. Even if there are more than 144,000, nothing happens. For heresy, there is only one thing that is not in church. It's the deified leader of the church. We cannot add or change the Bible, which is God's written word, but heresies who have deified doctrines always reverse the contents of the Bible and even their own doctrines.

At first, the Shincheonji, which claimed to have 144 million participants, is now arguing that 144000 is not just 144,000, but the number of people in God's heart is 144,000. The problem is that the number of believers in Shincheonji, which reaches 240,000, does not know who belonged to 144,000. Torture of hope is being practiced through the false doctrine of 144,000 in Shincheonji, where many young people are. In the name of devotion, constant exploitation is taking place. Looking at the data revealed in Sincheonji as a result of this COVID-19 issue, there are more than 1,100 known cases across the country. It is said that they have such property and their property has more than 500 billion won in 2019. How did those who do not do business collect all these wealth of assets?

Wouldn't it kill today's youth twice? I think it's the result of seducing young people and forcing them to take over under the guise of devotion. The truth is that nothing is happening to those who deify people and put forward the 144,000 false doctrine.

Shincheonji goes to church and does activities. According to the song sung by Shincheonji, Shincheonji takes out brothers and sisters from the church. What does this mean? Shincheonji calls the church a harvest field and claims that if the church pulls out grains from the church among grains and chaff and fills the Shincheonji with 144,000 people, it will become their own world. That's why we take the believers inside the church, not hesitating to lie. In order to seduce a person, he or she already uses a method of approaching him or her with all the prior information, so there is no place on every church campus in Christianity without the damage caused by Shincheonji.

Everyone, think about it. It's not that I'm scared or anything. We are afraid of division and distrust within us due to Shincheonji. In Galatians 2:4, the early church heresy said that the false brothers come into us quietly and make us their servants. He said he was trying to make it work. As it is, Shincheonji is active in us.

It became synonymous with division and unbelief. It is a pity. Now, the name Shincheonji is being used in Korean society with a negative value judgment. However, Shincheonji New Heaven New Earth is the eschatological hope of our Christians. Heretics are contaminating and damaging the word Shincheonji, the good news, the holy words of all the Bibles, the languages that are copyrighted to God and the Church. It takes more confidence to use the word Shincheonji at church, which was taken away from heresy through the preaching pulpit through Bible study.

Heresy is a movement to restore the holy language of the Bible. I have a dream. The dream is to dream of a new sky and a new land without heresy. Isn't that the wish of our Christians? There is a reason why Sincheonji lies like this.

This is because they have rationalized their doctrine in the name of ploy. We can quickly recognize even a little lie by our spouse or children, but the Hebrew word for the lie of Shincheonji, which carries out religiously rationalized lies, is the word Etsa, which means advice. The sin of Shincheonji that misinterprets this meaning as a lie and tells the believers to lie is not small.

According to the book of Revelation, the liar cannot belong to 144000. It is said that liar cannot enter Jerusalem. How Shincheonji handles this?, their lies never stop. What is this, the sign of God's children in the text of the Apostle today, the good conscience in Peter's book? This is honesty. It is an honest confession and declaration of our faith.

Especially in 1 Peter, today's scripture shows us that good conscience and good conduct are not a preferred relationship, a matter that cannot be chosen, but a simultaneous one. A good conscience is supposed to bear the fruit of good conduct, which is honesty. Are we not Christians? Who are Christians? Isn't that the story of those who believe in Jesus as the Christ and take our crosses and follow Him until death?

We do not conceal our identity as Christians, no matter what age. If the world cannot accept it, we have persecution and martyrdom. For us, the only choice between martyrdom or apostasy is the life of a Christian, a child of God. We are not ashamed of the Gospel!

In the last verse of Acts 28, how did Paul preach the gospel to those who came to visit him while staying in a rented house for two years under the surveillance of Roman soldiers? He was not ashamed to shake. He was bold and delivered without hesitation. Our Christian identity is the Christian who proclaims the Gospel without being ashamed of the Gospel and boldly and without prejudice wherever we live. However, the characteristic of Shincheonji is falsity.

In a multi-religious Korean society, there are no religious people who do not reveal themselves, whether they are Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant. However, Shincheonji hides who he is and what he believes. In this regard, Shincheonji calls themselves religion, but we can say that religious dysfunction is a pseudoreligion in society as well as in the church. Until Shincheonji was revealed as COVID-19, it was with us as if we were wearing sheep's clothes and doing well in community service.

Previous heresies destroyed society and disturbed the family, but these days heresy is characterized by social service and social function. The inside is a roaring wolf who wears sheep's clothing. Why would that be? Heresy knows that it is better for them to gain social credibility for 7-8 non-Christians than to gain doctrinal recognition from 2-3 Christians.

Heresies care more about society than they care about the church. The heresy that we're paying attention to these days are all coming to us and seducing us with their positive role. I think this is a different image of our church. As we wrote today, our problem is not lack of knowledge. I wonder if good conscience and lack of good behavior are creating these modern heresies. As a church history major, I can see the problems of heresy of the contemporary heresy when I look at a church in the age of a church.

If you study heresy of an era, you can see what problems the churches of that age have. The church and heresy are two sides of the same coin. Our Korean society has high expectations for the church because it remembers what our church has been doing for the people. If the church goes a little wrong, it can cause sharp criticism, which is a good thing.

The problem is that when we don't hear the criticism well, we become the subject of reform, and when we accept the voice of the criticism well and renew ourselves, we are once again in the process of reform, like in the Reformation 500 years ago. The Korean church stands on the crossroads of whether it can be the subject of reform or the subject of reform. That is a good conscience and a good deed. That is the difference between Shincheonji, which lies and lies, and us.

But it's not easy for us to recognize the lie of the new world. For example, this Kakao Story was sent to girls at a private university in Sinchon. It was an advertisement of a special lecture on how to make a boyfriend. When I went to this classroom, the person waiting was not a love expert, but a missionary expert from Shincheonji. The psychology department of Seoul National University has posters in the name of the department of psychology that recruit short-term part-time jobs, and it turned out that they were made by Shincheonji. What is the end of Shin Chunji's lies?

Even on this campus, the delusion of Shinchonji is being done to our children in blind spots that we do not know. An even bigger problem is that the heresy that approached and distanced from the streets are approaching us through streets and offline as well as through these online apps and podcasts.

COVID-19 brought us into the world of the Internet of things, for good or bad. However, heretics have been educating, directing and controlling believers online with apps that have sophisticated content before COVID-19. Now the story of online heresy is appearing openly. The body belongs to the church, but the body of the school belongs, but by surfing YouTube, people are being deceived. Now we are approaching a situation where we need to keep a spiritual distance as well as a social distance. It is the Corona-era that we are facing. We received a tip from the modern religion.

It is said that the leader of Shincheonji, Man-hee Lee, regularly visits a hospital. The reporter went and took a picture. Is it the appearance of Lee Man-hee, who waits for medical treatment by bringing only one close aide without anyone knowing, or the spirit of the Counselor, the eternal life immortalized in his expression? Or is it the same weak human figure as us? This is the essence of Shincheonji. The negative image of Shincheonji was exposed due to COVID-19, but this is not the end of the issue. Another variant, another variant, will probably come to us, and that delusion can come to me as well as to our beloved family, our acquaintances, and our brothers and sisters, and cause the damage that is shown earier.

The problem with heresy is that the fear that we may fall victims to heresy makes us wary of heresy. You must remember this.

The heresy is a problem that can arise from anyone standing here. It is the prophecy of the Bible that heresy emerges, and the sign of the end of the world when the Lord comes again. So, when a heresy problem arises, don't worry about why this happened to me or my family. Don't worry about why this happened to our Yonsei University classmates. This is a possible problem. Rather, there is a problem that can occur.

It is necessary to approach the heresy problem with a question, how do I solve this problem wisely with the help of a university church office or expert? Otherwise, many victims will appear around us. When you look at the heresy with your own eyes as a victim of this kind of damage, and not only me, but also your family, you can keep your family clean in Christ. I wish you all the saints who enjoy such blessings.

The heresy is a problem that can arise from anyone standing here. It is the prophecy of the Bible that emerges from heresy, and the sign of the end of the world when the Lord comes again. So, when a heresy problem arises, don't worry about why this happened to me or my family. Don't worry about why this happened to me when our Yonsei University classmates also had this heresy. This is a possible problem. Rather, there is a problem that can occur.

Heresy comes and goes. Our church is an eternal church. I don't know if there are people who are afraid of the heretical problem and are worried about the Sincheonji problem. However, the final victory belongs to the Lord. I pray in the name of the Lord that all the brothers and sisters will overcome with the courage of their bold faith and the holy courage to live in this uncertain world of COVID-19.

Let’s us pray.

Thank you for your love and your grace, O abundant God. May the Lord have mercy on us who live in the uncertain world of COVID-19. Please allow me to have the courage to live in an uncertain world and live in good faith. Many heresy, including Shincheonji, are moving in this era. Let us have your spiritual wisdom, your holy courage, and your faithfulness to deal boldly with the heresy. I prayed in the name of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross, but lived a life of victory by resurrection. Amen.