(016) – THE TWO CUPS

 

God, the only God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, offered to all men to drink of a cup. What was this cup? Jesus explains it to us: “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never stain eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And having taken a cup, when He had given thanks, He said, ‘Take this and share it among yourselves, for I say unto you, I will not drink the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:15-18). This is the cup of the love of God. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

And this love is universal and total, including all humanity, from both the Old Testament, and the New Testament, up until the end. This is why Jesus said: I am… the beginning and the end” Rev. 22:13). Paul describes the universality of this love divine with these following words: “…namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself through Christ, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Cor. 5:19). This is the cup of salvation prophesied in (Ps. 116:13). Peter the Apostle declares that, Christ Himself gave the prophecies concerning Christ and salvation (1 Pet. 1:9-11).

In the Old Testament, there was another cup which did not reveal an equal love: “For a cup is in the hands of the Lord, and the wine foams; AND HE POURS OUT OF THIS; Surely all the wicked of the earth must drain and drink down its dregs” (Ps. 75:8). Certainly a God of love does not walk about the world picking up refuse. This would be an appropriate task for demons.

God gave this cup of dregs to Jerusalem: “Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem, You who have drunk from the Lord’s hand the cup of His anger; the chalice of reeling you have drained to the dregs” (Is. 51:17). This method of Jehovah goes against all the rules of Psychology, because man is the result of his environment. A child that lives in the midst of garbage looses their idea of cleanness. For a long time I preached to the youngsters in FEBEM (a governmental organization that takes delinquent teenagers from the streets), and one of them told me one day: “You are wasting your time. This here is a school of crime and corruption. No one escapes.”

In the book of Judges we read of the seven times Israel went into captivity. The inhabitants of Canaan were all corrupted and depraved people. When Jehovah delivered Israel captive, the people were forced to submit to the evil ways of the nation (Lev. 18:19-27). Jehovah sold Israel unto the king of Mesopotamia for the space of eight years, to eat refuse (Judges 3:7,8). Delivered by Othniel, they went again to eat refuse for eighteen years in the hands of Eglon, king of Moab, by the will of Jehovah (Judges 3:12-14). Delivered by Ehud, they were sold again to Jabin, king in Canaan, for twenty years of this eating refuse (Judges 4:1-3). Deborah and Barak afterwards freed them. In the book of Judges, even captivities happened consecutively, and seven deliveries. People got so used and adapted to eating dregs, that when Samuel judged, the last judge, the priests Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, lay with groups of women at the doorway of the tent of meeting (1 Sam. 2:22).

We can make a comparison between the Garden of Eden and Canaan. In the Garden there were two trees. One was the tree of life, the other, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was forbidden for them to touch or eat, but Jehovah put in the Garden the serpent that lured Eve into eating the refuse of corruption (Gen. 3:1-6). The Tabernacle in Canaan was to the tree of life in the Garden, as the wicked people were to the tree of knowledge of good and evil–of good, because through sexual intercourse the species may be multiplied; and of evil, because sex is also the source of all the degeneration of the species.

Jehovah left in Canaan the peoples who would infect his chosen people. “Now these are the nations that the Lord left, to test Israel by them” (Judges 3:1). “the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidoneans and Hivites who lived in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath” (Judges 3:2).

The same way that Jehovah delivered his people in the hands of the wicked peoples placed in Canaan by Jehovah himself, to be corrupted, we can say that the serpent was placed in the Garden, and Adam and Eve, innocent victims, delivered into the hands of Satan to lose their innocence; and that was what happened.

When Jehovah plotted to spread his people throughout the heathen nations in order for them to eat the dregs of moral corruption, as he had said in Deut. 28:36,37, he tried to force Ezequiel to eat cakes baked over human dung. This did not happen only because Ezekiel cried and pleaded. Jehovah, being merciful, then said to him: “See, I shall give you cow’s dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread” (Ezek. 4:9-15).

The majority of Christendom delights themselves drinking from cups filled with dregs, with pornographic movies, immoral novels, pornographic magazines; and I can assure you that it is not Jesus who is serving them these cups.

The servants of Christ are of another race. “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are His,” and ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness” (2 Tim. 2:19). “…because as He is, so also we are in this world” (1 John 4:17).

Let us take the cup from the Hands of Jesus, the cup of the New Testament, the cup of blessing, of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and of the eternal grace.

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira

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