Is the God of the Old Testament Different from the New Testament?

We've seen and we've heard so many people that question this and say, is the God of the Old Testament the same God of the New Testament? So we're going to be reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter 5 and verses 17 to 19, three verses, Matthew 5 and verses 17 to 19, and the Holy Bible says, Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For assuredly or truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven and all glory be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ forever and ever. Amen.

And today we are trying to answer one question. And the question is, is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? That is the question we will be answering today and next week and maybe the week after. I don't know.

Depends. Depends how we go with it. Okay.

Well, is really the God of the Old Testament different to the God of the New Testament? Some people question that because they say that the God of the Old Testament is or was very bloody. There's a lot of killing and a lot of beheading and a lot of destruction. And God is ordering this to be done.

But when we look at the God of the New Testament, we see him to be the God of peace. He is the peacemaker. So are they two different gods or are they the same? Well, my beloveds, obviously none of this is true.

The God of the Old Testament and the New Testament, there is one God. That we do not believe in gods because that is absolutely idol worshipping. So Christianity believes that God is one.

So therefore, the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament are one God and cannot be any other way. Now, why this is not true that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament? But before I answer this question, I would like to give an example. You see, you've probably heard us say this so many times.

When you come to understand any part of the entire Holy Bible, any topic in the Holy Bible, you need to see the whole Bible from cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation. Genesis is the beginning of the Old Testament and Revelation is the end of the New Testament. So you need to look and search for that particular topic in the entire Holy Bible, both Old and New Testament, before you talk or give a commentary on that particular topic.

Otherwise, you will miss the mark and misinterpret that particular passage or topic. So now, to see, to understand why God is the same God of the Old and the New Testament, I want to give you this example. Every single human being, I'm not talking about Christians, I'm talking about human beings in general.

Every single human being, when we were born, did our parents treat us the same way they did when we were in our childhood level, in our adolescent level, in our youthhood level, and in our manhood level? Did our parents treat us the same way when we were kids and when we were grown-ups? The answer is, of course, not. Arnie, I'm kind of scared you're looking at me. You're just wondering, what is the bishop going to come up with? Obviously not.

Our parents treated us differently according to what level we were at as far as our age was concerned. As a child, they taught me. As a young boy, they warned me.

As a young man, they disciplined me. And as a grown-up man, they advised me. I'll repeat it again.

As a child, they taught me. As a young boy, they warned me. As a young man, they disciplined me.

But as a grown-up man, they advised me. Does this mean that the father changed because now he treated me differently? Of course not. And so as God treats and deals with us in the same manner.

I can't treat my son when they were a child the same way when they are a grown-up man or a woman. The treatment and the dealing is going to be different. That doesn't mean the father changed.

I've changed. I've aged. He can't treat me the same way.

So now, my beloved, we need to believe one thing. God never changes. We need to believe that.

God never changes. God's love will always be love. God's light will always be light.

God never changes. However, He did something. God did something called the seven measures or the seven managements.

God established seven measures or seven managements for the human race. For the entire human race. St. Augustine, a 4th century saint, said, Remember the measures or remember the managements and the explanation will be clear to you.

Remember the measures or the managements of God and the explanation will be very clear to you. Now what does measure mean or management? It basically means a way of dealing. It's a form of dealing.

It's a form of God's dealing with the human race. Now a question. When God deals with us, is He really putting us through a trial? The answer is no.

God begins to deal with humanity in this way. In what way? In the seven measures He established or in the seven managements He established. God has seven measures.

The first measure is the innocence measure which was in the garden of Eden. Second measure is the measure of the conscience. This begins from the moment Adam was sent out of the garden till the great flood of our father Noah.

That is called the measure of the conscience. Third measure is the government's measure. This started from Noah after the great flood.

The fourth measure is the measure of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Job. These are the four patriarchs of the Old Testament church. And these patriarchs were the head of the household who were also the priests to that household.

That head of the household would offer a prayer and a sacrifice to God on behalf of his family or the household. And the fifth measure was the measure of the law. And that was at the time of Moses the prophet.

The sixth measure is the measure of grace. And this was fulfilled when Jesus Christ came in His first coming. When He was born in Bethlehem and lived on the face of this planet, this earth, 33 years and a half.

The grace, the measure of grace was given by Christ. Now this is the measure of the New Testament where the church of Christ was born in the New Testament. And this measure continues until the second coming of the Messiah where it will end.

No more. The measure of grace. The seventh measure begins with the second return of the Lord Jesus.

And it is called the measure of rain. Revelation 11.15 says, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever. That is the measure of Christ reigning for eternities to come.

Now let's come to the first measure. Like we said, just like that father deals with his child differently according to the age bracket that child reaches. But the father always remains the same father.

The father never changes. Let's come to the first measure, innocence. This is the measure of Adam being in the garden of Eden.

This measure of innocence, all of us went through it. As a child, this is our childhood stage. Adam and Eve were both naked but they did not know they were naked.

Why? Because they were innocent. What is innocence? Innocence means not to know or not knowing. If I bring a six month old baby and they are fully naked and I lift that baby up in front of all of you, you will start laughing but the baby is enjoying it more than you.

The baby is on top of the world laughing and giggling and saying what a great life this is. Not realizing that that baby is fully naked. Why? Because the baby is living at the stage of innocence where they do not know any better.

Are you with me? So the stage of innocence or the measure of innocence was the measure of Adam and Eve being in the garden. They were both naked. Adam saw his wife naked, did not know and Eve saw her husband naked.

None of them realized they were naked. Why? Because they were innocent and innocence means not knowing. The best life we ever lived was the childhood stage.

The best life. Now, what ruined this measure of innocence? Knowledge. You see, innocence is not knowing.

What ruined innocence? Knowledge. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil where God said to Adam, do not eat from it. The day you eat, surely you shall die.

So when Adam ate from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that knowledge that he gained destroyed his innocence, the not knowing. He started to know. The moment he started to know, innocence was gone and good and evil came on board.

One thing I want to draw your attention to. In all the seven measures or the managements of God's humanity failed in all of them. So congratulations to all of us.

We failed in all of them. Miserably, I should add, Adam was sent out of the garden. Innocence was gone forever.

Innocence was gone forever and knowledge entered the human race. Why? Because the human race in Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge. But that knowledge was good and evil.

We asked for trouble. The first measure innocence was gone when the human race gained knowledge. The second measure started.

God was leading the world through. What was the second measure? What did we say? Conscience. Well done.

Come on, come on. Pay attention. The second measure started since the first one was destroyed.

The second one came on board and it is the measure of conscience. God handed the man to his own conscience. God handed the man to his own conscience.

Now, did conscience fix the human's life? No. Cain, where is Abel, your brother? He said, God is asking Cain. Who is Cain? The son of Adam and Eve.

And who is Abel? Also their son. Cain, the older and Abel, the younger one. Now, Cain, God came to Cain.

Cain, where is your brother? Where is Abel, your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? At this moment, Cain had already killed his brother Abel. God is asking him, where is Abel? He denied that he killed his brother.

He said, I don't know. Am I the keeper of my own brother? And we find that in Genesis 4, 9. And in verse 10. And he said, meaning God.

And he said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. You see, when God asks any of us a question, it's a rhetorical question. He's not asking for God to know, but he's asking to give you the chance for you to confess what you've done.

So, Cain insisted on denying that he has killed his brother. He left no choice for God to reprimand him in verse 10 and say, the voice of your brother's blood is crying out from the ground. And then verse 11, look at this.

So now you are cursed, Cain. Wow. So now you are cursed from the earth.

And this curse continued and became worse and worse and worse as time went by till the time came and God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Genesis 6, 13. God brought the great flood and wiped the entire world's population and the earth with it, except eight people.

Except eight people survived the great flood. Why did God bring the great flood? Because the human race killed their conscience. And when any human being kills their conscience, they will kill anyone and everyone and will have absolutely no remorse.

So when you look at the world and you see all the destruction, all the killing, all the deception, all the lies, all the darkness, all the evilness, it is because the human conscience has been shut down. And when the human shuts their conscience down, they will do everything that is evil. God flooded the whole world.

Now a question, God, why don't you create a new creation? Start all over again. God says, no. Because if I were to create a new creation, Satan would have won.

That means Satan stopped God's plan. And God says, I will never let Satan win. I will never let Satan win.

I will keep or leave a yeast from the ancient world. And this was Noah and his family. Eight people survived the great flood.

It was Noah, his wife, that's two. His three sons, that's five. And the three sons were married.

And three daughter-in-laws, that's eight. Eight people only survived out of the entire human race at the time of the great flood. Now, there were eight people, from them God made the present world.

My beloved, from the time of Adam being sent out of the garden to the time of the great flood, that was called the ancient world. That ancient world was destroyed by the great flood. Out of the ancient world, only eight people came.

Then from the time of Noah, after coming out of the ark, till our time and age, that is called the present world. The ancient world is gone, now we are living in the present world. And the present world started from Noah coming out of the ark until the second coming of Christ.

This entire period of time is called the second, the present world. The present world. But there is the future world, and the future world is the second coming of the Messiah, where He will take His beloved church, the bride, perfect as Him, into the Father's house, and we shall live with Him and reign forever and ever and ever.

The third world, or the future world, is the everlasting life in the kingdom of God, the Father's house. Now my beloved, innocence failed, the conscience failed, killed the brother, killed his own brother, but the conscience is still with us till today. But the conscience is still with us till today.

Isn't it? Yes or no? Come on, yes or no? Very good. Thank God you said yes. However, this conscience became evil.

Saint Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 22, says, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Wow. Look at Saint Paul.

He says, let us what? Draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. What was sprinkled on our heart to overcome the evil conscience? The blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. But what was our conscience, Saint Paul is saying, evil.

That evilness came all the way from the time of Cain, when he killed his brother, till today. Still an evil conscience. What is this conscience? It is the voice of the human spirit, not the Holy Spirit.

This evil conscience is the voice of the human spirit, not the Holy Spirit. My beloved, we speak three languages. Please pay attention.

I'm trying to make it as simple as possible. We speak three languages. The first one is called the language of the body.

The language of the body is, this is your instincts, instinct is a language. What is instinct? It talks to you. The body says, I'm hungry.

The body says, I'm thirsty. The body says, I'm cold. The body says, I'm hot.

Just like me, I'm hot. Right? This is the language of the body, your instincts. The instincts and the lusts are the language of the body.

Are the language of the body. Secondly, there is the language of the soul, S-O-U-L. The language of the soul is the language of the conscience.

When the soul is tired, the conscience is tired. When someone revenges, like he says, I'm not gonna rest until I smack that person, until I punch that person, until I destroy that person. And when they do it, they say, now my conscience is at ease, is at peace.

This conscience is evil. Are you with me? Yes? Shall I continue? You're scaring me. You're too quiet.

You're either asleep or very focused. I pray it's the latter, not the former. This kind of a conscience is called evil when you try to revenge for yourself.

An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. You punch me, I punch you. You smack me, I smack you.

Don't do that. This is not the way of the Lord Jesus. My beloved, humanity, humanity learned this and lived this way for an extremely long time.

For thousands of years, they got used to this kind of a conscience, an evil one. The first two measures failed. Innocence in the garden, conscience, Cain killing his brother Abel.

God introduced the third measure, or management. The third measure started from the moment Noah came out of the ark. From the moment Noah came out of the ark, God introduced the third measure, or management, for the human race.

And what is this measure and management? The measure of governments. Governments started on the face of this earth. Governments.

Aren't they wonderful? The good old governments. Don't you love them? Come on. Love them.

Pray for them. They do wonderful, ugly things, don't they? The measurement of governments began from the moment Noah came out of the ark when the flood had receded. The first king to this world was Noah.

God said to him, look what God says after Noah comes out of the ark. He says, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. Genesis 9, 6. I'll read it again.

Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. This verse means, there is a government now, and there is a convicted person as well. When someone kills somebody, the government will bring the murderer, the killer, and they will kill that murderer.

Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. You kill, you will be killed. That is the measure of governments.

Now, this is what we call the judicial system. The judicial system began when God spoke to Noah after coming out of the ark, and in Genesis 9, 6. You shed the man's blood, by the man your blood will also be shed. The judicial system was established by God to manage people's affairs.

God instituted the judicial system. Now, what this means now, that the one who will govern the human being is the human being himself. So the one who is going to rule over you is another human like you.

That's what we call governments. What are governments? People like us, but ruling over us. A nation was established.

A government was established. Laws were established. And, whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.

This was the third measure, the governments. Look what King Solomon says, look what the Holy Bible says about the measure of governments if it succeeded or not. King Solomon, his book called the Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, verse 16.

Ecclesiastes 3, 16, King Solomon is saying, in the place of judgment, judicial system, in the place of judgment, wickedness was there. And in the place of righteousness, inequity was there. What the Holy Bible is saying, in the midst of the judicial system, I found evil.

And so many people who are in prison are absolutely innocent. There are so many innocent people in prisons. Not all of them were guilty.

But they were misjudged. Whether deliberate or not, I don't know. But there are a lot of innocent people in prison.

We pray the Lord Jesus relieves them all. Amen. You see, instead of the governments trying to fix matters for people, and protecting their freedom, which is a God-given gift, they started twisting the laws, and justice was corrupted.

This led to, instead of the government serving the people, the people started serving the government. Measure number three, failed miserably. Even in the democratic nations, and even in the united nations, this measure failed miserably.

And you've heard me say this before, if there is a place that is ununited, it's the united nations. And today will be the quickest, and the shortest Bible preach ever, preached by this good old looking bishop. Now, just pay attention for a moment please.

When God was by Himself, He had not created anything as yet. No angels, no earth, no plants, no animals, no birds, no fish, no human beings. There was nothing created.

It was God alone. But God was always, and will always be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is our faith in Christianity, and this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

God cannot be just one single unit. Because if it's one single unit, that single unit cannot love itself. Therefore God couldn't have been love, but the Holy Bible tells us that God is love.

Love can only exist where there is two or more. Love cannot exist in just one and one singular unit. So when God is a singular unit, you can kiss love goodbye, and when love is non-existent, definitely life is non-existent.

Because what brings life into existence is love. What brings life into existence is love. Because a life without love is hell, and hell is no life at all.

Hell is no life at all. Even though you're alive, but you're dead, because love is absent. So what is hell? Hell is a place where love is non-existent.

Those who are in hell are still alive, but there's no love. That's why they're all dead, but they're alive. Can you experience hell on earth? Yes, when you live a life that has no love in it, you're living in hell.

So God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, one God in nature, one God in essence was alone. Then He came and decided out of love. The driving force behind all of this creation was love.

If it wasn't for love, God wouldn't have created anything. He would have remained by Himself. But because of this love, this love naturally does one thing, has to give.

It cannot keep things to itself. When you love somebody from the heart, all you're doing is sacrificing your life for the one you love, isn't it? You always give, you always try your hardest to make them happy, to make them pleased, to make them comfortable. You always strive very hard to provide.

Why? Because love in its nature can only give, cannot take initially. It gives then, it expects the return of that love. You see, love when it gives, it doesn't expect or wait for money in return, you know, flowers in return.

It waits for that love to come back again. When parents gave their life up for their children, raising their children, they sacrificed their life. Otherwise, where did these children come out? Finnair? Impossible.

How did they grow? It was the sacrifice of the parents by providing for them clothing, food, nourishment. When they were sick, they ran like crazy to the doctor. Please doctor, my child is sick.

They've got a temperature, they've got this. All these sacrifice for so many long years made life possible for the children to grow and have a healthy and prosperous life and future ahead of them. But that life which the parents gave for their children, no matter what the children do in return, they can never give that life back to the parents.

Mom who is now 50 can't be 21. Dad who is 60 can't be 16 anymore, no matter what I do. But one thing the children can do to alleviate and let the parents forget about all their pains, sorrows, agonies, long nights of restless sleep is when the kids come and say, Dad, I love you.

When the daughter comes and says, Mom, I love you. Here, the parents forget everything they've done for their kids. The sacrifices I'm talking about, they forget about it.

Because love is the only medicine that heals every, every, every wound. God who is love couldn't hold this love for himself. He had to give.

So he decided to give this love from inside of him. Because God is spirit and whatever came out of God came from within, not from without. So he created one thing that called that thing, my image and likeness.

God created many creations, but none of them are his image and likeness. The only creation that God referred to as my image and likeness is the human race. And the word image is internal.

The word picture is external. So that's why when you go into an apostolic church, apostolic, I'm referring to being Catholic or Orthodox. When you walk into an apostolic church and you see pictures hanging on the walls, don't refer to them pictures.

Please, I beg you, they are icons, they are not pictures. Because a picture reflects what the person looks like externally, but the icon reflects what the person looks like internally. So we have icons, not pictures.

That is why it is okay to depict the Lord Jesus being black African, being a blonde and with blue eyes, being Chinese, being Japanese, being Middle Eastern, and he was Middle Eastern. But whatever color, whatever shape we depict the Lord, it's an icon, it's an internal reflection of me imagining my beloved Jesus. Therefore the icon is symbolic.

I'm not worshipping the icon. The icon is only a representation symbolically of my Jesus who sat at the right hand of his Father in His glory. I don't say to the icon, this is Jesus.

I say this is a reminder of my sweetheart who is in heaven conquering and ruling over everything and everyone. The only one who was created to be the image and the likeness of God was the human race, Adam. So since Adam is the image, created to be the image, the image meaning it came from inside of God.

And what comes from the inside? Love. Because where does love come from? The heart. Is the heart inside or outside? Inside.

Inside. And whatever is invisible is the source of life. When you stand in front of a tree, it's a beautiful tree, very lush green leaves and there is beautiful fruits.

When you stand before that tree, you always say look at this tree, how beautiful it is. Look at the leaves, look at the branches, look at the fruits. Has anybody stood before a beautiful fruitful tree and said what a wonderful brilliant roots this is? Poor roots, we don't mention them, we ignore them completely yet they are the very reason for this beautiful tree.

If it wasn't for the good roots, there wouldn't have been a good fruit. But where are the roots? Hidden underground. Whatever is internal hidden is the source of life.

That's why love is hidden, therefore it is the source of life. And everything that is hidden, invisible is eternal. And whatever is visible is temporal.

So anything and everything you see with your naked eye, rest assured it will not last very long. It's only temporary. But whatever you do not see, that's what lasts forever.

The love of God for the human race is everlasting. So now God created, made this man from the inside of him. In other words, God said to Adam, you are my heart, you are my love, you are my image and likeness.

Therefore, you are my son. Therefore, you are the king ruling over the entire world. I created this world like a toy given to my beloved son.

You see, parents buy toys for their children in relation to how much they can afford financially. True? Since God is the father here, then God's wealth is infinite. So he said, okay, I'm going to spoil my son Adam.

I'm going to create the universe and give it as a toy for my Adam. Because I am God and I'm his dad. I can afford to do something like that.

So how about it Adam? I'll give you this all for you to enjoy. When God created or made Adam, God's intention was one thing, for God to rule over Adam. For God to rule over Adam.

So he placed him in this garden. And because he was made on the basis of love, now love cannot exist without freedom co-existent with it. Please pay attention.

Love cannot exist without freedom co-existent with it. Reason being, without freedom love cannot be lived, love cannot be tasted, love cannot be shared with others. It is the very freedom that enables you to live that love and to share that love with others.

Without freedom you can never live love nor share that love with anyone. This is why a slave cannot live love nor share that love. But the son who is free, who is the image and the likeness of his father, can only live that love of the father and share the love of the father with everyone else within his own circle.

And since there is freedom, there has to be choices. Otherwise, how will I know I am free if I don't have options or choices? If God had created me and put me in one path and said, Adam, this is your path, tough luck, I'm not free. Since I'm not free, I can't enjoy love.

Then I'm a slave, not a son. But God created me to be his son. So with freedom choices and with choices, God gave us a tool that is so powerful it can say no even to God.

That tool is called the will. W-I-L-L, the will. The will enabled us to choose to say yes or to say no to people and to God.

So there is the will, there is the choices, there is the freedom, and there is the love. God placed Adam, his son, the image and the likeness of him, in the garden. He gave him three kinds of trees.

To Adam, in the center of the garden, God placed two trees, one called the tree of life and the other tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And there was other trees. The other trees, God said to Adam, you can eat from them as much as you want, whenever you want.

To the tree of life, God said to Adam, you can eat from the tree of life as well. Now, what does this tree of life represent or who does this tree of life represent? It represents Christ. And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents me and you and all humanity.

God said, from the tree of life, Christ, you can eat. From other trees, you can eat for your physical nourishment. But Adam, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the day you eat from it, definitely you will die.

Now, why God gave Adam these options? Because Adam was created to be his son. And since he is the son, he was created on the basis of love. And since he was created on the basis of love, there is freedom.

And since Adam was free, God had to give him choices. That's why he allowed him to choose. That's why he gave him the will to choose.

Now, based on this, we understand now, love is a choice, not a mandate. You are not forced to love. You choose freely to love.

So, when you come to choose your partner in marriage, you do not choose your partner in marriage forcefully. You choose your partner in marriage willingly, freely, based on love. Since you chose your partner freely, willingly, based on love, tough luck what will happen after honeymoon.

Anybody home? Don't come to me and say, I want a divorce. Sorry. I just want to make you laugh a bit.

Even though it's a serious matter. We're going to talk about relationships very soon. Now, God had to give him the choice.

And the choice he had to give him the will to enable him to choose. Adam chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And until this day, we're suffering.

God, please now pay attention. God says to every human being, for as long as I reign over you, I rule over you, I am in control of your life, you will always live. For as long as I am in charge of your life, my child, you will always live.

But the day that comes, you decide to choose for yourself a path contradictive to God, away from God, rest assured, that day when you choose to walk away from God, your beginning will be good, but your end will 100% be evil. This I guarantee you, my child, because you are only good when you are submissive and obedient to the good God. You're only living when you are submissive to the source of life who is God.

You are only in the light when you are adherent to the voice and the word of the true living God who said, in the end of times, I am the light of the world, John 8, 12, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. But the day you choose, and I've given you the choice because you're my son, I created you on the basis of love, and with love there has to be freedom, I'll never strip you from that freedom, I'll never strip you from your choices, I'll never take away the will from you, because I want you to choose me, to love me, my God, freely, willingly, your way, I want you to do it. I don't want to force you to love me, because two cannot live together by force, they have to live together by the freedom of choice, based on love.

The day you walk away from me, you will be in darkness, because I'm the only light. The day you walk away from me, you will be a slave, because I'm the father who made you his son. And opposite to the son is a slave.

The day you walk away from me, you will live in sin, because your father is holiness. The day you walk away from me, you will die, because your father is the source of life. Humanity died, lived in sin, lived in darkness, became a slave to its own pleasures, treasures, lusts, temptations, because they walked away from the true living God.

Very simple. This is the truth. But the question is, who is the true God? Humanity needs to find, needs to search for, needs to have an encounter with.

Me personally, I found him long time ago. His name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. That's why I stopped searching for God long time ago.

Adam, for as long as he was under the rulership of God, he was in the garden, living beautifully, living luxuriously, living with dignity, living with identity. He was the son of God, living as the king in the kingdom, which his heavenly father gave it to him as a gift. The moment he walked away, he said to God, from this moment onward, when he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he said to God, from this moment onward, it is my way, not your way.

And don't we do it? Aren't we all Adam? Parents beg the children not to go out. Parents beg the children not to mix with these people. Parents beg the children not to live in this particular way.

They ignore the warnings, the advices, the love that is emanating from the parents to their children. Ignore all of these warnings. At the end, what will happen to the children? 100% total destruction.

They will destroy themselves. They'll end up in a lot of trouble, they'll end up in prison, end up killed, end up being a drug dealer, a drug addict, a murderer, a thief, you name it. Because God is the living God.

And his word is everlasting. And his promise is everlasting. And his judgment is everlasting.

You disobey him, you are asking for trouble. Adam said, I want to live my way, not your way, dad. Well, if you want to live my way, then it wasn't God who kicked him out of the garden.

Adam kicked himself out of the garden. Since you don't want to live my way, then you can't live in my house. Go and live your way and find your own house.

Isn't it? That's what children do. When they say, I don't want to live your way, mom and dad. Well, what are you doing in my house then? For as long as you live in my house, you do it my way.

The day that comes, you're no longer living in my house, go and do it your way. And let me see your way, where it leads you to. When Adam walked away, what happened? Innocence was lost.

You see, I started backwards now. So you understand the management where they are. I wanted to leave the good stuff at the end.

The good quality wine at the end. So when Adam said, I'm doing it my way, innocence was lost. They realized they are naked all of a sudden.

All this time you were naked and you never realized you were naked. What happened? Because I lost my innocence. Why? Because I ate from the tree of the knowledge.

I gained my own knowledge of good and evil. Now I started realizing I'm naked. I'm embarrassed.

I'm an adult. My wife is an adult. So they hid behind a tree.

And that tree happened to be a fig tree. Why a fig tree? Because a fig tree, the leaves are massive. And a fig tree really covers itself by itself.

If you notice a fig tree, the leaves and the branches go all the way to the ground. You don't see the trunk. The whole tree is just one big bush full of fruits.

And a tasty one too. Yum, yum, yum. You know, fig jam stunning with the cup of tea, the Persian cup of tea.

Now, they covered their nakedness with the leaves of the fig tree. And this is the human dilemma all these centuries. Not realizing the geniuses, the leaf is going to get dry.

You plucked it from the tree. Do you think it's going to survive? It's going to die. The moment you pluck that leaf from the tree, you've killed it.

Now, it's green for a day, a two, a three. After a week, it's going to go dry. It's going to wither and it's going to fall.

And your nakedness will resurface again. This is a band-aid solution. You need to go to the doctor to extract the illness out of your body once and for all and give you eternal healing.

So every time the leaf fell, they brought another leaf. And it fell, another leaf. That's what we do.

I'm trying to fix a problem with a bigger problem. I'm trying to fix a mistake with a bigger mistake. Married Rachel.

I thought she wasn't good. I'll marry Bella. Should have stuck with Rachel.

Who guarantees that Bella is going to be better? What if she's not? What are you going to do? I'm just giving you an example. So stop seeking solutions for your problems your way. Because the moment you continue and be stubborn about doing it your way, your problems will only go one way.

They'll become worse and worse and worse and bigger. They will end up being a humongous mountain. It is impossible for you to do anything about it.

Too late. So God said, Adam, you chose not to live under my love. You didn't want God to be your king.

That's fine, Adam, because you're my son. I allow you to choose freely. Since you chose for God not to be your father anymore, then I'll leave you to your conscience.

I'll leave you to your conscience. And let me see what your conscience is going to do for you. The conscience ended up with a brother killing his own brother.

Is that what you wanted, Adam? You wanted to do it your way, your conscience? Whatever your conscience tells you? And the conscience is the voice of the human spirit, not the Holy Spirit. It's the voice of a human, not the voice of God. So the voice of a human? A human killed a human.

His own flesh, his own brother. I mean, look around you in the world. Let me tell you this.

There was this guy and the genealogy of Cain. See, Cain, you are cursed. Cain, you are cursed because I gave you a chance for you to confess.

I said, where is Abel, your brother? I was giving you a chance. If you had said I killed him, I would have fixed you. But since you insistently denied what you've done, you are cursed.

So from the genealogy of Cain, the seventh generation, one was born called Lamech. Lamech. There are two Lamechs.

One from Seth, who replaced Abel, and one from Cain. I'm talking about Lamech from the genealogy of Cain. This Lamech, the seventh generation of Cain, or the eighth from Adam, decided to marry two wives.

Up until then, everyone had only one wife, because that is the law of God. It was, it is, and it will always be only one. You can't have more than one.

That is the law of God. There is not more than one. So this Lamech decided to do it his way.

So he married two wives. Broke God's law. One wife gave him a son, and the other wife gave him another son.

One son made the sword, and the other son made musical instruments and alcohol. One son made musical instruments and alcohol, the other one made the sword. Sword is for fighting, musical instruments is for singing, dancing, and drinking, baby.

You see, like you can't go and dance and sing without drinking. It just won't feel good. Like, sort of, it's incomplete.

So drinking, singing, dancing, family. I mean, look at the world. And this is the world.

If the world is not singing, dancing, drinking, they're fighting. And if the day comes they are not fighting, they are singing, drinking, dancing. In the world there is either dancing, singing, and drinking, or there is war.

Isn't it? That's the world. You want to define the world? The world is war, or singing, dancing, or drinking. Anything else? No.

What a joke. What are we chasing the world for? It's an absolute vanity. Absolute vanity.

So Adam, I'm going to leave you to your conscience, since you don't want me, God, to be your father, to rule over you. I'll leave you to your conscience. The conscience, I shut it down, and I killed my own brother.

Conscience became evil. Well, since the conscience is not working, you couldn't manage your life. I'm going to get another human like you to manage your life.

Call the government. The government is supposed to protect the human, to preserve the rights, to speak justice, to speak the truth. But unfortunately, in the world, governments are doing the contradictive thing to that.

It's very unfortunate. In the name of democracy, they have enslaved people. In the name of freedom, there is no freedom.

In the name of law and justice, Clesiastes 3.16, in the place of judgment, wickedness was there. And in the place of righteousness, iniquity was there. I'm not saying that there is no justice at all.

Please don't get me wrong. But it's not a perfect justice. And it's not a perfect government.

Why? Because this government is made out of people. And these people came from a lineage that has been scarred by the transgression of God's law. God's law is the perfection of all perfection.

God's justice is the perfect one. When people judge, they misjudge. And when people talk about truth, there is the element of lies in the midst of that truth.

The only one who is all truth is God. The only one who is all justice is God. The only one who is incorruptible is God.

Revealed in the flesh. The governments failed. We're going to continue our topic and see what the other measures are after the governments, the third measure.

The fourth measure, which is going to be for next week, are the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job. And let me see, what did these fathers do? All failed. Then ultimately, we need to come back to this God.

We tried everything under the sun, our way. We failed miserably. We need to come back to God, so that it is done His way, no longer our way, as it was from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, prior to breaking God's law and word.

We need to go back to that innocence. We need the Lord Jesus, my beloved. We need the Lord Jesus.

Be always close to the Lord Jesus. Be always close to His holy church. Be always close to His holy word, the holy Bible.

If you haven't read it, start reading it. I beg of you, every single day, start reading the holy Bible. Be close to the Lord, for there is no other way but Him.

We need the one who is all love, who is all truth, who is all light, who is all kindness, who is all mercy and forgiveness. The one who is all salvation and redemption. We need the one who is the life and the resurrection.

We need the one who is the ever-continuous present in our life. The I AM. God, the ever-present God.

We need Him in our life. Always. Not when we choose to, no.

Always. Because God will never settle for 90%. It is either 100% or nothing.

When you love, you don't say to your partner, I love you when you buy me a Mercedes Benz. I love you when you take me to Istanbul so my nose can be smaller. I love you when you buy me a new dress every time we are sort of invited to a wedding.

Poor guy is going broke. Each dress is worth a thousand bucks. I can't afford a thousand bucks every day.

You say, I love you, my daughter. That's what you say to your husband. Men are easy, trust me.

One nice word from you, he will melt like a candle. You go to him and you say, honey. Back in your heart you say you are the ugliest.

But don't say that. Say, honey, every morning I wake up. Lord have mercy.

Every morning I wake up, I thank the Lord Jesus that he has given you to me. And then play the violin. Right? But seriously, love is the most powerful weapon ever in existence.

Love. Love is the only way to change the human heart. The human heart, what I mean by that is that evil conscience.

It is love. It's not nuclear weapons. It is not superpower countries.

It is love. I guarantee this. If the entire world comes back to Jesus Christ, I guarantee there will be no more war.

I'm not talking about, see some people will say, well look at the Christians, they are all against each other. Yeah, because Christians are people and people are weak. I'm talking about coming back to Jesus Christ, not to Christians.

To Christ. If people come back to Christ from the heart, I can guarantee there will never ever be famine. Never ever be injustice.

Never ever be killing, deception, lying, destruction. Never ever. Because Christ is the source of life.

He is the light of the world. He is love. If all people came back to Christ from the heart, to his sacred heart, heaven will be on earth.

I don't need to go to it anymore. Because it already came down to me. We need to come back to Christ.

What does it benefit me being an Orthodox, a Christian Orthodox, but I don't have Jesus Christ? Orthodoxy is not going to save me. What does it benefit for you to be a Catholic and you don't have Jesus Christ in your heart? If you don't have the Lord Jesus, Catholicism will not save you. It is the Lord who saves.

It is the Lord who changes. It is the Lord who changes you from a sinner to a saint, from a slave to the sun, from darkness to light, from dead to the living one. It is the Lord.

So you need to come to Jesus Christ and then live your faith. But without Jesus, for you just to claim that you are this faction or that faction, this is a waste of time of life. That's why, to put it in a more relevant way, as some saint said it once, he said, I'm not a Christian, I am a follower of Christ.

Because there are Christians, yet they don't follow Christ. What does it benefit that they are Christians, if they don't follow Christ? I'm not a Christian, I'm a follower of Christ. You need to follow Him.

You need to let Him to be your King, so that you may live forever. Forget about your conscience. Forget about governments.

They ain't gonna do you no good. Focus on Christ. Amen.

And at the end of this, I will say, may the Lord always bless you. Always guide you, protect you, deliver you from the snares of the enemy, whether it's visible or invisible. Bless your families, bless your loved ones, and give you the wisdom to discern what is His will in your life, my beloved.

So that His name, His holy name, may be always glorified through you, the children of the Almighty God. Let us stand for the finale prayer, please. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Whether it's hatred, let me sow love. Whether it's injury, pardon.

Whether it's doubt, faith. Whether it's despair, hope. Whether it's darkness, light.

Whether it's sadness, joy. Oh, Divine Master, grant that I may not sow much. Seek to be consoled as to console.

To be understood as to understand. To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born again to eternal life. Amen.

May the Lord Jesus bless you, guide you, and protect you all the days of your life, now and forevermore. Amen. Go in peace.

The peace of Christ be with you always, my beloved. God bless.