The first is in the time of Jesus' birth. This is called Immanuel, God with us.
The second is for people who truly go to preach the gospel and "I will be with you forever and ever more." Birth of Jesus Christ, and the commandment of Christ assure God be with us.
We all like the word Immanuel. So many churches named their church is Immanuel.
第一个是耶稣诞生的时候。这被称为以马内利，神与我们同在。
第二个是为那些真正去传福音的人，并且“我将永远与你们同在”。耶稣基督的诞生，以及基督的诫命保证神与我们同在。Dì yī gè shì yēsū dànshēng de shíhòu. Zhè bèi chēng wèi yǐ mǎ nèi lì, shén yǔ wǒmen tóng zài.
Dì èr gè shì wèi nàxiē zhēnzhèng qù chuán fúyīn de rén, bìngqiě “wǒ jiāng yǒngyuǎn yǔ nǐmen tóng zài”. Yēsū jīdū de dànshēng, yǐjí jīdū de jiè mìng bǎozhèng shén yǔ wǒmen tóng zài.
我们都喜欢以马内利这个词。所以很多教会都以以马内利命名他们的教会。Wǒmen dōu xǐhuān yǐ mǎ nèi lì zhège cí. Suǒyǐ hěnduō jiàohuì dōu yǐ yǐ mǎ nèi lì mìngmíng tāmen de jiàohuì.
[French: La première se situe au moment de la naissance de Jésus. C'est ce qu'on appelle Emmanuel, Dieu avec nous.
La seconde est destinée aux personnes qui vont vraiment prêcher l'Évangile et "Je serai avec vous pour toujours et à jamais". La naissance de Jésus-Christ et le commandement du Christ assurent que Dieu soit avec nous.
Nous aimons tous le mot Emmanuel. De nombreuses églises ont nommé leur église Emmanuel.]
Immanuel, Immanuel, but I don't think every church call them church is true church.
I don't think every church call him Immanuel experience the presence of God within them.
There was one church when inauguration, there's one sentence that pop-out piece, called "Jesus, only Jesus." After 10 years, the wind blow and some of the letters come down and finally the 'J ' is no more, 'E' is no more, 'S' is no more, and it can be read as only 'us."
The first only 'Jesus' , finally only 'us.'
Now a day in so many churches, you do not listen to the Word of God, you listen to the sound and the voice of money. In all the churches, you do not listen to the sentences from Bible, you listen to the voice of man, of human being, of millionaire, of people who are so powerful in the church, but no more God reigning in the church. We should repent from that.
When I built this church, I say to the Lord, I'm not going to raise fund.
And now, you see the big church in Indonesia, it's one of the biggest in Asia, one of the biggest Reformed church in the world, and that church can accommodate 6,500 people.
*Indonesian Reformed Evangelical Church
Located in Jakarta, one of the famous cities in Indonesia, Indonesian Reform Evangelical Church, which is also known as Gereja Evangelis Reformasi Indonesia is gigantic and unique.
The building has a roof that is similar to a dome. The area in which the church is built is around 13,000 m2.
In this one of the most largest churches in Indonesia, there are two main halls, which are named Katedral Messiah Hall dan John Calvin Hall.
The first hall is on the fourth floor and it can hold 5,000 people. While the second hall is on the first floor and it can hold 3,000 people.
Other rooms in this church are also used for English and Chinese language learning.
We never borrow one penny from bank. We never go to any millionaire to ask money.
I just share. We need to build a church for people to worship.
Now, we come, commit yourself and write down how much money you have to give.
You pray and you write down. Finally, after month and month and month, building for two years, we finished all the building and after finish, I ask the committee, how much money still we want. They say to me, "No money we want." All had been paid. The big church like that, no fundraising.
In all my life, I have never do fundraising. I have never asked money, I never reached to a real billionaire or rich people, "Please help me." "I have a program like this." No!
My mouth had been committed to preach only the gospel. 我的嘴巴只致力于传播福音。Wǒ de zuǐbā zhǐ zhìlì yú chuánbò fúyīn. [Ma bouche s’était engagée à prêcher uniquement l’Évangile.]
My mouth is not assisting to ask money from any people. 我的嘴巴没有帮助向任何人要钱。Wǒ de zuǐbā méiyǒu bāngzhù xiàng rènhé rén yào qián. [ Ma bouche ne m’aide pas à demander de l’argent à qui que ce soit. ]
Praise the Lord, even this time, I say this is a big opportunity for Asian people to work together with the American people, so I come. I do not want the host to reimburse my air ticket to come here.
I do not want to accept any honorarium. I come here for the Lord, not for anything else.
Praise God. And you know -- may I ask, Dr. Jia Len to write a check of $5,000 dollars as a contribution from our church in Jakarta to contribute to this conference which is so great and so lovely.
I only make this decision in this morning. I love the conference.
I love all the speakers. I love every message spoken from this pulpit.
In all the Word of God being lifted up, the glory of Jesus Christ and His gospel being glorified. We praise God. May God bless us, so I continue the third motivation is by the constraint of Holy Spirit.
Constrained by the Holy Spirit. Constrained by the love of Christ, so we cannot stop there. We cannot stop and do not preach the gospel. To preach gospel is not to preach to our children. To preach gospel, to preach to the unreached people, that is the reason I was located by God in Asia, in the continent which is so proud. Asia produce the highest degree of the civilization.
Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, all this complete and very, very, very perfect system of the civilization cause people there to be so arrogant, so proud, and they are not easy to submit themselves to the crucified Christ, and that is the reason I was put there in Asia. I think my challenge is more than Martin Luther. Martin Luther only face Catholicism. I have to face -- I'm not joking. I have to face communism. I have to face atheism, I have to face existentialism, I have to face all the ideology after the so-called 'enlightenment' before Reformation, there was Renaissance. After Reformation, there was Enlightenment. And Reformation, is just like the most important part in the sandwich, and Reformation is only several decades of years, and face the radicalism and face also the protest of the Catholicism, but that is 500 years ago. Now, in Asia, we are facing the monsters of Mohammadism, monsters of communism, monsters of secularism, monsters of American consumerism. You are invading us. Consumerism, that is terrible. People, they have their church. Where is your church located? Shopping mall. They have their god; that is money. They have their entertainment, that is Hollywood. They have every kind of thing now invading in Asia. In Asia, I'm living in the most populous Mohammad religion in the world. In Indonesia alone, there are more than 210 million of Muslims.
* Published by Statista Research Department, March 21, 2024
In 2023, over 87.1 percent of Indonesians declared themselves to be Muslim, followed by 7.4 percent who were Christians. Indonesia has the largest Islamic population in the world and for this reason is often recognized as a Muslim nation. However, Indonesia is not a Muslim nation according to its constitution. The archipelago is a multifaith country and officially recognizes six religions – Islam 87.1%, Protestantism 7.4%, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism.
Not all provinces in Indonesia are Muslim majority
The spread of Islam in Indonesia began on the west side of the archipelago, where the main maritime trade routes were located. Until today, most of the Indonesian Muslim population are residing in Western and Central Indonesia, while the majority religion of several provinces in Eastern Indonesia, such as East Nusa Tenggara and Bali, is Christian and Hindu, respectively.
Discrimination towards other beliefs in Indonesia
The Indonesian constitution provides for freedom of religion. However, the Government Restrictions Index Score on religion in Indonesia is relatively high. Indonesians who practice unrecognized religions, including Indonesia’s indigenous or traditional belief systems, such as animism, dynamism, and totemism, face legal restrictions and discrimination. Indonesian law requires its citizens to put one of the recognized religions on their national identity cards, with some exceptions for indigenous religions. Although legally citizens may leave the section blank, atheism or agnosticism is considered uncommon in Indonesia.
Islam is the second-largest religion globally. Despite this fact, Muslims are not evenly distributed and instead concentrated in several countries. Citing worldpopulationreview.com, below are the top ten countries with the largest population of Muslims in 2024:
1. Pakistan (240,800,000 people)
2. Indonesia (236,000,000 people)
3. India (200,000,000 people)
Here , only eight percent, and Catholics together about twelve percent of the total population in the biggest country of Muslim inhabitants, I build the bigger church in Asia. Praise God. When I lift up the cross ✝️ on top of the church, it is 66 meters high.
Why? Because Bible is 66 volume. And I put sola Scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus, and soli deo gloria ( Latin for "Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, and glory to God alone" ) on top of the building. Everybody who go there they can see, they can read the five slogans of the Reformation.
We are not commemorating 500 years, but we put all the principles of the Reformed theology on top of our building, and in the middle, there's Christ, the highest point of the whole church. Besides Christ, six and six twelve pillars indicates twelve apostles, and besides twelve 40:56 apostles, four fortress tower, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to indicate we preached four gospels content to the world. By 12 pillars as Christ built His church through His disciples, and then the other side of the church we have another 12 pillars indicates the twelve most important prophets in Old Testament and another four fortress tower that is Calvin, Martin Luther, and also Abraham and Moses. Now we give this building to this world, to this generation that people understand whom are we believing. What are we believing? We believe the Apostles Creed.
We believe the whole Bible. We believe the teaching of Jesus Christ. On the middle gothic's ship of the tower, there is a first point, I call it as the creation point, and the cross, the center point, is the redemption point, and alpha and omega, there is one point called the consummation point, from the creation, redemption, until the consummation that is only done by only One True God, praise the Lord. God is the one who create. Jesus is the one who redeem us and Holy Spirit is the one who reveal all this to us, and we know all the truth only through the revelations of God in the Bible.
When the Holy Spirit motivate us, we preach the gospel. They will preach the gospel only by money. I am felling so strange to see the mission in the western world. If you don't have money, you never send your missionary outward, but Jesus never give one penny to buy American ticket -- American airline's ticket.
John, you go to this place. Peter, you go to that place. Andrew, you go to Egypt, and Thomas, you go to India.
No ticket, no money, no anything to support their mission, that is Jesus.
Nowaday very different. A man who want to join to be the missionary of one church in America, I do not tell you what church. I ask him how much money you should raise every month in order to be qualified to be sent as a missionary. He said I should raise up $11,000 every month. $11,000 to the church, and church give me privilege to be missionary to go to China.
I say "How much money they pay you?" He answer me, "They pay me $3,000."
And you raise up $11,000 for the American church and American church give you $3,000 to go to China. May I ask you, who is feeding who? Are you feeding the church or the church feeding you?
He said "I'm confused." If he is confused, I am almost confused by him. I don't understand. What are we doing now? In the day of Jesus Christ, no money, no support, no military power, no more political status, nothing in backing them. The only thing is the power of Holy Spirit, the fire of Holy Spirit, it will change the world. Not by might , not by power , but by my Spirit , says THE LORD. (*Zechariah 4:6 So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to ...Therefore he told me, "These signify the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by strength and not by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD who rules over all.") ... but by the power of Holy Spirit.
Since my 17 years old, when I was 17, at that time, it was two years after I pray to God, "If you are true God, please save me. Deliver me out from the ideology of communism, of atheism, of evolutionism, of dialecticalb materialism." When I was young, I suppose to be one of the most intelligent young man in my age at that time. And I tried to get away from the Bible, get away from the church even though I know my mother is one of the most godly person in the world. She becomes a widow when I was a three years old.
With eight children, she raise us up by work very hard from early morning 6 o'clock until 8 o'clock afternoon. No husband, no support, no social welfare. Do everything to raise up her eight children in the time of Shinto Japanese war.
Who can understand? No insurance, no money, no support, no relative can help us, only depend on God.
She cry and say "God, you are the Father of the orphanage, and you are the defender of a widow. Now, I come to you, I commit all my children to you. They are yours. You entrust them to me. I am going to grow them up by only depending on your power." Praise God. When my mother was old and she see for her eyes truly the kindness of God, among seven brothers of my family, five become preachers. I am only one among five siblings to serve the Lord full time and I serve God since age 17 years old, first time preaching until now, 77 years old. I have been preaching for 60 years and more. Praise the Lord. My God is true God. My God is a living God. My God is faithful God. I am not talking only the God of American, God of the universe, God of Asian people, God of the people in China, in Indonesia. So many people never know God, but I know God. I experience God. My God is truly honest and truly providing everything for those who believe in Him.
I am not ashamed of the gospel. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because that is the dynamic from God, the dynamo from God, in gospel is the power to save for those who believe in God. We should believe this with all our hearts, with all our mind, all our strength, all our nature, and to say to God, let the living gospel become living again in our generation. Let the fire of the Spirit burn again in our hearts. One of the most important sentence spoken by Martin Luther who inflame me and who burn in my heart is the center. It says like this. Martin Luther say, " I never work better than when I was inspired by the holy anger of God." Well, I was so amazed. I was so amazed by this sentence.
[* • I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; for when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. More here ] Finally, I think it over and over, and I should say yes, that is truly absolutely right.
I am also never work better than when I was inspired by the holy anger of God.
In Psalm 90, " who knows Your anger. Who knows the Lord, that You are anger.
You are the God of righteousness. Who knows about your holiness, that one would really understand the holiness of God, understand
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