In a retreat held in a Jiangsu church, Rev. Chen Dehong, president of Yancheng CC&TSPM, preached a sermon on how Christians should return to the foundation of their faith.
In Xuande Church, Zhenjiang, Chen shared how to returning to the foundation of faith in one of the two sermons on October 17.
He stated that people in the church should turn back to the original foundation of faith, instead of laying a new foundation or establishing a benchmark. What is the original foundation? In 2 Chronicles 3:1, God chose the city of Jerusalem, Mount Moriah, and the threshing ground of Ornan.
On Mount Moriah, which was provided by David, Solomon built the temple of the LORD. According to 1 Chronicles 21:1-31, after David became the king of Israel, the country became stronger and stronger. So he wanted to count the number of people. But this act angered God because everything that David did was bestowed by God, but he wanted to take credit for himself. After David learned of God's dissatisfaction through the sacrifice, he did not change. So God sent a plague and many people died in just one day. Finally, David repented, and built an altar on Mount Moriah where he made sacrifices according to God’s will. Then God stopped the plague.
Pastor Chen said that the first step for us was to return to the altar, confess our sins, repent and be reconciled with God. Then through prayer we could re-establish a relationship with God.
He gave the example of how in the threshing field, the chaff and the grain were separated. We should also live a separate and holy life.
Why did David choose Ornan's threshing ground? It was because of the loving story of Ornan and his elder brother Araona. When they became adults, they separated. But their fields were connected because of their harmonious relationship. Araon was married and had children, but Ornan was single. When harvesting, the younger brother thought that his brother’s life was not easy because he needed to take care of so many people, so late at night, he quietly moved some sheaves to him. The older brother was so worried about his younger brother, that he moved some to his younger brother late at night. The next day, the two found the same number of sheaves as they had started with. Every night, they quietly gave sheaves to each other. Some days later the two finally met while delivering sheaves to each other. When they shared their thoughts, they hugged and cried.
In this story, we could see that the nature of faith was loving each other. We should return to biblical teaching, not only the believers in the church but also the family members and friends.
-Translated by Abigail Wu
