A Bible Study:

Introduction

Let's revisit Leviticus Chapter 19. This chapter is indeed vast, making it challenging for us to thoroughly organize its content. However, the process of organizing it is, in itself, a process of digestion and understanding. Recently, I've noticed many people who don't know how to take notes, listen, or think effectively. They jot down unimportant details and talk excessively, leading to the feeling that there's just too much to absorb.

A few days ago, a sister who had recently started a job received a customer complaint because she taught something incorrectly. The student pointed out that she had made a mistake. This sister has a bad habit, she hasn't put in the hard work over the years and what she has learnt is superficial. She said to me, with her palms facing upwards above her head in a gesture of helplessness, There's just too much stuff!

What does too much stuff represent? You see, when people feel overwhelmed by too much information, it's because they haven't grasped the essence, they haven't seized the key points. A Chinese person teaching Mandarin to a foreigner – it is really not that complicated. But if he says, Aiyah, there's just too much stuff!, I think we often encounter this situation today, and it's because we haven't grasped the essence, haven't seized the key points. As we read this chapter, we must distill its complex content and see what God is telling us. This chapter is filled with Thou shalt not! - Thou shalt not do this, thou shalt not do that, a whole list of prohibitions.

To be Holy, Unfaithfulness is Adultery

We must begin to understand that Thou shalt not and Thou must are two different things. Therefore, when we read the Bible, we should learn to do the things God tells us to do well, and never do the things God forbids. God's prohibitions are a red line; crossing them brings a curse. We must be holy because the Lord is our God, and the second point is that we must not commit adultery. In what areas can people err? The first is in speech - errors of the mouth, errors in eating. Adam and Eve initially erred in their eating. The second is in sex, in adultery.

With eating, if something looks good and tastes good, the desire to eat it becomes very strong, and that’s when issues easily surface. Errors in sex easily occur why? Because sex can produce very strong sensations. Anything that generates very strong sensations is easy to sin with; both the mouth and the sexual organs create wonderful sensations, and they are all very fleshly.

The essence of adultery is unfaithfulness. Therefore, in both the New and Old Testaments, God is always looking for a faithful priest, always looking for a faithful servant. Faithfulness is a quality that God values greatly, but unfaithfulness is now very common. People often say, Another man's wife is better, one's own children are best. There is more to this saying. Always looking at others as better, that is called adultery.

The Israelites had God; the Lord was their God. But the Israelites had to turn to worthless gods. Why? Not long after the Lord brought them out of the wilderness, they made a golden calf. This is hard for us to understand. The Lord God had brought us out of Egypt, so why worship idols? This is actually unfaithfulness, adultery. Spiritual adultery is more serious than physical adultery. Both physical and spiritual adultery are very serious.

When we think about physical adultery, it's not quite as we imagine. For example, in Genesis 38, Tamar bore sons to Judah - Zerah and Perez. Tamar was Judah's daughter-in-law, and that was out of order. Then there was David who married Bathsheba and had a son named Solomon. Later, God chose Solomon and made him king. This is beyond what we can imagine. What is the issue? We must not deviate from God, nor make idols. Faithfulness is very, very important in God's eyes. Is it that our hearts trust in God on one hand, and trust in money on the other? Is it that we trust in God on one hand, and also trust in other gods?

## To Be Holy, Do Not Worship Idols

We Chinese are fond of worshipping the God of Wealth, and we have all sorts of gods. When people hear about worshipping the God of Wealth, they think it's a good thing. Why? Because people love money! If Jehovah is already our God, can we still have a God of Wealth? No, we cannot! But thinking it over, we must have money. What if we don't have money? Then we see that foreigners who worship the God of Wealth have earned a lot of money, while worshipping Jehovah God is troublesome because our God is holy.

For example, a robber goes to rob a bank and prays for God to protect him so that the robbery will be successful, he won't be discovered by the police, and the surveillance system will fail. It would have been better if he hadn't prayed. After praying, he went and got caught. How could it be so accurate? How could he get caught after going? Because after the prayer, God said, Go ahead, I'll notify the police to arrest you in advance.

Our God does not listen to our prayers according to what we ask. God is holy, but what we ask for is often dirty and filthy. Praying to rob a bank, it would have been better not to pray. Praying and you walk right into trouble. So our God is holy, and we cannot do dirty and filthy things. But when foreigners pray, asking a certain god to protect them so their bank robbery will be successful, it actually succeeds. What people ask for are not holy things, because they are driven by selfish desires and always want to possess these things, but they cannot ask God for them, so they have to worship foreign gods.

David killed Uriah and then committed adultery with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. He thought this was done without anyone knowing, feeling that he had done it beautifully. It's like some people who embezzle, it would have been better if they hadn't prayed to God. As a result, the embezzlement was exposed. Jehovah God is a holy God, so we cannot ask for filthy things. For example, God, help me rob the bank, help me take his house and give it to me, help me take his wife and give her to me. What kind of nonsense is this? God will not give it, but foreign gods will.

In fact, many people worship idols, praying for themselves to be promoted and make a fortune. But when you pray to Jehovah God to bless you with promotion and wealth, you not only don't get promoted, but you get demoted instead. So this leads people to worship idols, feeling that worshipping idols can bring them benefits, while worshipping God brings no benefits. They feel that idols listen to them, so they go to worship idols. This thing is called licentiousness.

## To Be Faithful, Do Not Follow Your Feelings

Some people, when they marry, are madly in love. But one day after the marriage, they suddenly feel something is wrong because they have met someone else. Of course, some girls are like this too. They married someone because he was tall and handsome, but he had less money. But having less money doesn't matter, because he earns more than me. But later, when they went to work, they met a post-90s entrepreneur who was handsome and rich. The way he spoke to the employees in the company was very appropriate and had a special flair. They started to feel restless, thinking, How wonderful it would be if I married him!

As a result, the boss didn't have that intention, but she always thought that way. Then, the boss occasionally came over to ask about the situation, and she would mistakenly think that the boss was interested in her. This is troublesome. Actually, there is no meaning at all, it's just her own imagination, this is licentiousness. People's feelings are always changing, isn't this troublesome? People who follow their feelings are not following faithfulness.

Why did she marry her husband? Because she had feelings at the time. Later, she met a post-90s boss who was rich and very capable, and suddenly she had feelings, what should she do? She wished she could be the one Tang Bohu chose in Tang Bohu Picks Autumn Fragrance, but she couldn't be. Today, many people follow their feelings, but what if the feelings are gone? What if there are feelings today, but no feelings tomorrow?

Actually, I am not a person who follows my feelings. So, what is the strongest feeling? It is sex. When sexual feelings come, they are uncontrollable. Isn't this very difficult? Once, I ministered to a couple. This couple was a pair of... (unpleasant term). The man and the woman were not married, but they asked me to minister to them, which was difficult for me to handle. I asked him, Where is your wife? He said that his wife had once left home to return to her parents' home, and she stayed there for two months. Because he was a man and had physiological needs, he got together with this woman he is with now. In my heart, I felt that they were unfaithful, but I still ministered to them with an attitude of edification.

Faithfulness or unfaithfulness can be reflected in every aspect of a person's life. Unfaithfulness is closely related to feelings. When I talk about this, people's hearts start pounding, because they often have wonderful feelings, but these feelings are closely related to the spiritual realm. Things from the spiritual realm produce feelings. A headache is a feeling, but a hospital scan can't find anything. Sometimes, itchy skin doesn't show any marks, just an occasional scratch, and that's also a feeling. Where does the headache come from? The spirit of headache. Where does the itchy skin come from? The spirit of itchy skin. Pain is a feeling.

Now the question is, is sexual impulse a feeling? It is also a feeling. If everyone follows their feelings, it will be troublesome. There is also a song called Follow Your Feelings. Can you not be corrupted by following your feelings? If you marry a husband who likes to follow his feelings, and when he has feelings for someone else and no feelings for you, how can you live that life? You marry your husband because you have feelings for him, and then you put a green hat on him outside because you don't have feelings for him. This is troubling! Therefore, brothers and sisters, we cannot walk this way. We must learn to be faithful people, not licentious people, especially being faithful to God is extremely important.

## Learn to Be A Faithful Person

Someone asks, How can we be faithful to God? Not following our feelings, but following our responsibilities is faithfulness. Learn to be a faithful person, especially to God. Living in this world, faithfulness is an essential quality. At the beginning of Ephesians: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Everywhere it is emphasized that God wants faithful people.

Whether a person is blessed is greatly related to whether a person is faithful to God. Following feelings is being an unfaithful person. If you have feelings today and no feelings tomorrow, how can you walk? We walk according to the Word of God. We do as God says. Therefore, you must not turn to useless gods. Pursuing useless things is pursuing useless gods. Worshipping this one today and that one tomorrow, and changing when it doesn't work. Some people are very faithful to idols, but it is of no use.

**If a man sleeps with a female slave who is designated for another man but has not yet been redeemed or given her freedom, there shall be an investigation, but they shall not be put to death, because she was not free. And he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin that he has committed, and he shall be forgiven for his sin. (Leviticus 19:20-22)**

**Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into whoredom and the land be full of wickedness. (Leviticus 19:29)**

Unfaithfulness is reflected in many areas, such as sexual licentiousness. God hates licentiousness very much. People themselves easily go into licentiousness. When the land is full of licentiousness, the land will be full of wickedness, and behind it are evil spirits. Jehovah is our God, so we must be holy, and holiness is what I call faithfulness. People must learn to be faithful. How can they be blessed if they are not faithful?

God says we cannot be licentious, but we must be licentious. God says we cannot worship idols, but people must worship idols. People have selfish desires. To achieve selfish desires, they will think and move forward according to their selfish desires, and that becomes licentiousness. Spiritual licentiousness includes all aspects. Why do people worship idols? Because people have selfish desires. They demand things from idols according to their own requirements. If the idols don't give them what they want, they will say that the idols are not effective. In the end, we must obey all of God's statutes and ordinances, because He is God, and we live entirely on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Some people go to several churches. When I just started building the church, I didn't know that licentiousness was so serious. A couple came to our church. At that time, I was very happy to see people coming, because at that time I thought the church needed people. This couple shared with me their licentious affairs with people in their previous church. I just listened, and I don't like to believe rumors. Later, I found that they seemed to love God very much. They went to six different churches in a week, three churches on Saturday and three churches on Sunday. Our church was one of them.

Spiritual licentiousness is very serious, because they are not faithful to anyone. At that time, I thought they loved God very much and wanted to reuse them. They went to six churches a week. If you are married and go to six husbands a week, will that not kill you? Later, I understood that this is called licentiousness. Brothers and sisters, think about it, what can an unfaithful person do? They can't do anything. For example, if I get into Peking University, but I don't attend classes at Peking University and go to classes at Tsinghua University instead, after the exam, the teacher at Peking University will ask me, Why didn't you take the exam? Then the person would say, I took the exam at Tsinghua University. What is this? It's a mess. It's putting the saddle on the back of the cow, it's all mixed up. Does taking a test at Tsinghua University count as credit? No.

We are Christians today, and today you belong to this church and tomorrow you belong to that church, what should we do? During a war, which army do you belong to? During a war, you are originally an officer in the navy, and you are assigned to work on a warship. As a result, when the horn sounds, you should report to the warship, but you don't go to your own warship, you run to someone else's warship. I tell you that it doesn't count. You are not in this division. What are you doing here if you are not in my division? You say, I am a navy. People say, It's useless if you are in the navy. If you belong to the Chinese warship team, but you run to the Japanese warship, it will be troublesome. Which camp do you belong to?

Therefore, I say that everyone can understand this. You are a small soldier, you are not the commander-in-chief, you cannot go everywhere. You have to go to your division, the position you are assigned to, and you should faithfully stay in your position. If you just want to run around, it will be troublesome, like that couple I mentioned. What happened later? Whichever church they went to, that church would be ruined by them, because they were unfaithful.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we must all examine ourselves for problems of unfaithfulness. Problems of unfaithfulness are everywhere. For example, when I work in a company, I don't do my job well and always feel that it is better to go to another company. In fact, this is also unfaithfulness. I am not saying that you cannot change jobs and switch to another company, but today when you are working in this company, you must be responsible to this company. Later, when you resign and go to work in another company, you should do your job well in the new company.

## Be A Faithful Servant of God

Being a faithful servant of God is a very important thing. Being faithful to God is extremely important. I will give you an example, they call it kingdom-minded service. If you have been a Christian long enough, you should be familiar with this. If you have been following me since the beginning, you may not be clear about this. Many pastors do not preach in their own churches, but preach in other people's churches. Don't you think this is strange? Their own churches find other pastors to preach. Have you noticed that we don't have this in our church? You may be surprised, why doesn't our church invite other pastors to preach?

In fact, to be honest, I really don't like what they preach, because what they preach is not in my system. If what they preach is in my system, there is no problem for them to come and preach. But, I don't quite agree with what they preach. Second, this is my position, this is my job, this is what God has entrusted to me. Thank God, everyone likes to listen to my sermons. Every time I preach to you, I put in effort. I don't compromise. I am faithful to God. I do what God has entrusted to me well, and if He has not entrusted it to me, then forget it. Not taking care of your own vineyard and running to take care of someone else's vineyard, is this love? This is not love, this is licentiousness.

I will tell you something more important in the church. There is something in the church called love offerings. For example, when I go to another church to preach, people will give me an envelope privately, with love offerings written on it. If I invite a pastor from another church to preach here, I have to give him a love offering. This sounds a little strange. This job is originally what I should do. But if I find someone to do this job and then give him the church's money, and if I go to their church to preach, they will also give me love offerings. I don't do side jobs. I think this is corruption, but many churches do this.

Do churches like to exchange pastors to minister? Is this called faithfulness? This is not called faithfulness, this is called a licentious heart. Isn't there a crosstalk, Licentiousness and the Human Heart Are Completely Different. If a doctor has a licentious heart, it will be a big trouble. For example, I have written 60 or 70 books. Do you think I work hard? Very hard. But now many pastors take the church's salary and then write books. The copyright fees go to themselves. Is this a side job or a public job? I am filled with emotion, it is difficult to find a faithful servant! I encourage our brothers and sisters to learn to be a faithful servant before God. Minister well what God has entrusted to you; what God has not entrusted to you is not our business. I also don't put a label on it: the so-called Kingdom Ministry.

I don't know what this is. Is it really the kingdom? That's called licentiousness, unfaithfulness. Among us, you may wonder, why doesn't our church do this and that like other churches? Not inviting other pastors to preach, and I am just occupying the pulpit here? That's really not it, because I feel that this is my position, and I should guard my position before God! You say, what if others are tired of listening to me preach? Then I must admit that this is my problem. I will try my best not to let everyone get tired of listening, so I am also constantly growing. I am also very grateful that everyone treats me so kindly today and has not gotten tired of listening to my sermons.

The whole problem lies in the word faithfulness. Faithfulness should be deeply engraved in our hearts. What God wants is faithful people. Looking around today, there are not many blessed people, because there are not many faithful people; on the contrary, there are more people who are cursed. Why? Because there are many licentious people! I am really filled with emotion, but what is it worth for me to be filled with emotion? But you see, even I, who am not worth anything, am so filled with emotion, then when our God who sits on the throne looks around, wouldn't He be even more filled with emotion? This world is really licentious, and people are running to worship Mammon! Just change everyone's last name to Ma!

This is the spiritual situation of this generation. I hope everyone knows about the things concerning our peace. I hope everyone knows that our future is in God's hands. I hope everyone is as faithful as our God. So sometimes I say something impolite to you: You should imitate me, because I imitate Jesus, I imitate the Apostle Paul. **Although I have many problems, I am determined to be a faithful person before God. I will never compromise, and I will never compromise.** This is me, opening my heart before everyone, and telling you the determination I have made before God. But God really treats me with kindness, and everyone can see in me how God clearly treats me with kindness!**

I said before that money drills into my pocket. If God wants to bless me, who can resist? No one. Before, some other churches invited me to preach, but I was not very willing. I had actually been there a few times before. I have no problem getting along with anyone. In their places, we all get along well on the surface, but what is the problem? In their places, I can't open my mouth to preach. Once they pushed me to go on the pulpit to preach. My arms couldn't twist my thighs, so I went up.

At that time, there were many pastors and the sheep they pastored. The topic I usually like to talk about the most is to love the Lord our God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, because I really love our God! As a result, when I preached, some pastors on the stage could not sit still. The stories I told one after another, they all matched each other. When their congregations heard me preach, they were all dumbfounded and looked at their pastors questioningly. Is my pastor doing side jobs? In the end, I became annoying.

## Summary

Of course, these are not the most important. **The most important thing is that I do not please people, I just want to please God, this is called faithfulness!** Even if we see some situations that we cannot understand, don't be surprised. Know that ghosts will not mistake people, and our God will not mistake people. People's thoughts and intentions are all transparent before God and ghosts. Everyone knows, don't try to deceive God.

We should guard our faithfulness before God. If a person is faithful to God, God knows. What our God has prepared for those who love Him is things that eyes have not seen, what hearts have not imagined, and what ears have not heard. Simply be a faithful servant of God, be a Christian who keeps and follows God's statutes and ordinances before God, because He is God, so we must be holy. There are two conditions to achieve holiness: 1. Do not be selfish; 2. Do not be licentious.

May God bless everyone!