24 Hour Prayer (Acts 1:14
The members of the Early Church did 24-hour prayer. 24-hour prayer means giving all things to God, then isn’t it very simple? But some people give everything to God, but they receive very strange answers. The reason is because they weren’t raised with the correct covenant. The members of the Early Church definitely saw the resurrected Jesus. What happens if you pray without seeing that? If you pray without knowing the living God? Then you might have your own diligence but you pray without really knowing what prayer is.
What does the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross and resurrected have to do with me? You must be certain in this covenant. If you pray without being certain of this covenant, you fall into unhealthy mysticism. All religions pray, even people without a religion pray. So, simply praying is not the issue; your problems must be finished. Simply said, the fundamental problem of being separated from God must be finished. You must be liberated from the problem of being seized by Satan, and you must be liberated from the background of hell. You can pray without being liberated from those problems, then the more you pray, the more Satan and demons work. That’s why the members of the Early Church were sure in Christ.
Other religions may pray and they have works as well, they receive their own answers, however, those answers were not given to them by God, so it causes many problems. If the religions did not have their own answers, why would they continue until today? They have their own answers, however, those problems create many problems. What was given to us by God will save, but what was given to us by something else will continue to destroy us.
It must be the people who have the firm covenant, that Jesus is the Christ and He has finished all problems. For people who live for the Kingdom of God, not the kingdoms of this world or the Kingdom of Satan. If you don’t know this, you don’t know the Kingdom of Satan. This world belongs to the Kingdom of Satan. If you don’t know that and you talk about the Kingdom of God, you draw an abstract circle.
When I went to the Philippines, I believed in Jesus Christ for the first time. I was in the Young Adult department, and there were seminary students from Korea there. If you go to seminary, they call you an assistant pastor, and every Saturday, they did Bible study at the church. This was an assistant pastor who taught the young adults from a perspective focused on salvation. I was an unbeliever so I didn’t know the content of the Bible, so there was a debate going on between the Assistant Pastor and the new believer, and what I saw then was they were discussing about the Kingdom of God without any definition.
They should have been able to define the Kingdom of God in a definite way so even an unbeliever would know, but they debated back and forth without a clear definition. Because they were simply trying to use the words of the Bible to define what the Kingdom of God was, they used that, but if you know the Kingdom of Satan, it’s very simple. They didn’t know the Kingdom of Satan, so they imagined whatever they wanted about the Kingdom of God.
Ultimately, even though they knew a lot of the Bible, they didn’t know spiritual things so they kept fighting. From the perspective of a new believer, I didn’t know so much, but I wondered why they were always fighting, making it so complicated. I was an unbeliever for whom Jesus Christ finished all my problems so I liked it, and even though it was a worthwhile discussion, from a perspective of a new believer, I wondered, “Why do they have so much to discuss? Why not go out an evangelize?” They were not interested in evangelism; they were interested in delving deep into the Bible. That’s necessary, but from the perspective of a new believer, I didn’t have much knowledge so I wondered if it was necessary.
From an unbeliever perspective, why do people argue about that? If you listen to the Word of God without a field, you build a house in your brain. You say this or that, it’s not about saying anything, but if you know the field, the Word becomes fulfilled and that was a gathering of the believers in the Early Church. They weren’t people who just listened to and heard the Word of God in their brains, the world is actually being seized and moved by Satan, and they staked their life on their walk of faith.
Do we not face death today? Do you think it’s only life or death if we face persecution? The devil is the same, but because you’re not able to see spiritual things, we say, “I’m sure it would be like that if we face persecution as well,” but it’s a greater crisis today. The future generation is completely seized but the older generation think the kids are receiving a little bit of answers, living their walk of faith, but the future generation will experience a future we cannot even imagine, and we must prepare for it, but we have no urgency.
The old generation cannot imagine anything beyond what they’ve lived. Even with their walk of faith they could barely live and survive; it will be worse for the next generation, and now because of inflation, people are not able to make sales. Everything is so expensive so customers do not come. In the future, when AI replaces many people, many people will become unemployed. At least in our situation, the government is strong enough to support people, but what about countries that are not? We haven’t experienced it but we think vaguely, “Things will work out,” we think with the experiences we have.
There’s no business, all business is used to make money, and they don’t need people anymore, because AI can do the job more certainly than people can. Yes, I’m sure you can hire many people for the gospel in order to save them, but this is the age we are facing. We are going into an age where it gets to the extent where no matter how much we study, we are ineffective.
Think about this, if we have a college degree, a masters, and a doctorate, even though most people get a bachelors, then from the perspective of a business, why would I hire this person? Why would I hire this person when I can upload all the data to the AI and they would do much better than a person? In the future, there’s not going to be a need for bank tellers. Robots can do all of that, then even the banks will only hire a few people.
Yes, of course in the future there will be more and different jobs created, but all the jobs we know now are going to disappear and people will be unhappy in unemployment. There will be a tremendous rise in anxiety and mental problems and shootings. People do not shoot people because they feel good. It’s an explosive reaction that comes from anger and resentment. I think that America will continue to not restrict guns, then you can understand that shootings will continuously happen around us.
Then what must we do, knowing the age, that our future generations will have to face full-force? The members of the Early Church knew that future and began their walk of faith in Mark’s Upper Room. They were facing the persecution in their present day while knowing what would happen in the future, so they lived their walk of faith that way.
Right now, if you guys are just making monthly salary to eat food and make a living, you cannot raise the future generation. Now, homosexual marriages are legal so people can do it comfortably. One time I went to a Long Beach school and there were no gendered bathrooms; they were all all-gender bathrooms so I had no other choice but to use that bathroom. In the large bathroom, there was a Caucasian girl washing her hands, and she felt awkward because I was a male, but I had no other choice. Already, sexual predators are looking for their opportunity, and this is their prey. Sexual predators think about offenses, 24 hours, and in the schools, they have quiet bathrooms, so what will happen in the future?
I was thinking, “Equality and freedom are good, and human rights are important, but a physical fight between a woman and a man will end up with the man winning.” Non-gendered bathrooms are to say everyone is equal, but when an accident takes place, the man is stronger than the woman, and the women are victims, but for children who grow up in this kind of bathroom, they think this is normal. This is just a small example of something everyone knows is going on in our society.
Then in the future, we’re going into an age where there is no sense or idea of gender. There’s no gender involved, “This is unisex or non-gendered,” so anyone can go in. They have no sense. There’s homosexual marriages legalized so kids think there’s no problem, because we have to acknowledge the human rights of the minority. Because of that, the children grow up confused about what is right according to God’s Word, but when we are growing up, that didn’t exist. But the kids are growing up in that now.
What do you think is going to happen in the future? Then, what must we do with the kids today? But if we have no sense of this, we think our children are okay because we’re okay, then we have no sense. The wise person knows the future as they live today. Why do we study history? History repeats, so you’re studying history to know the future, and that’s why you must know the Bible. The pattern of the history of mankind is the same. If humans do not have faith in God, they are destroyed, and when they suffer, they look to God again, but they enjoy those blessings and fall again.
How many years do you think the Israelites truly lived in peace? Most of the times, the history of Israelites was them being beaten to death by superpower nations like Assyria, Babylon, and Philistia, and they were beaten for 40 years in the wilderness. Once they got into the land of Canaan, they lived according to their own thoughts, and it was a repetition of that. I think they went maybe 100 years well into the Early Church. After the age of the Apostles, they continued to be destroyed.
Today, we don’t even have the basic faith, then what will happen to the kids in the future? They don’t have the complete gospel; they have a mixed gospel, they grow up under parents who say, “It’s good if you don’t have the gospel and are successful,” but if it’s not completely the gospel, the kids will have a more difficult future.
Today, we read Acts 1:14 and they said they devoted themselves to prayer. They were people who knew Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, so we know unless the Kingdom of God is established to break the Kingdom of Satan, … and the Kingdom of God is established by the working of the Holy Spirit and the owner is the Triune God, so they devoted to prayer because when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we will receive power to do world evangelization. We do world evangelization and America evangelization.
It doesn’t matter what problems we face, we devote to 24 hour prayer, and we find God’s plan. Because we’re not able to find God’s plan, we’re afflicted because of our thoughts, we’re arrogant or discouraged because of our thoughts. God is alive right now and is controlling all problems, crises, and circumstances, but we’re dragged into our thoughts, so we have no choice but to pray 24, we turn everything to prayer. Only when that takes place is God’s power revealed.
That is how not only will the future generations survive in the next age, but they will change the age. How can you see the future? You can see the future if you look at yourself. If you look at the state of your kids, you can see the state of the future kids. Parents always live under a misconception, they think if their kid is good at math, their kids will be a math genius, a math prodigy. If they speak well, they say, “My kid will be an announcer in the future.” If they’re good at sports, “My kid will play in the World Cup,” but they see incorrectly. They can’t see their kids objectively perhaps because they love them.
If a child goes to prison because of murder, the parent says, “No way my child would do that. Something else happened, my kid wouldn’t do that.” See your kids correctly and objectively listen to what other people are saying. You must hear what the teachers and your kids’ friends say at school, objectively. Your kids are outcast by all their friends, but the parent doesn’t know that and thinks their kid is nice.
There was one time I did ministry at Seoul National University and one person was from Cheolla and they were the top student. They were number one of their school in their small town, so even though they were a first year, it was like they were getting a Master’s degree. One day I was invited to do ministry at Seoul University and this person invited me to dinner with his friend, a child of a professor. They asked if I was also a graduate of Seoul National University, and would look down on me if I didn’t.
This guy thought he was at the top because his father is a professor, but this person grew up in a small town. Then I saw that this person was being bullied or outcasted by his friend. From our church, we looked at this guy, “He’s so great, he’s number one from his small town, and he’s in Seoul National University,” but the friend thought, “He’s a country bumpkin, stuck in his ways,” so you must see how the friends treat your kids. We thought he was smart and nice and getting along well, but he was bullied and outcasted by his friends.
What am I talking about? Is my faith 100% being relayed to my children? It’s not. Even my faith is iffy, so if it’s not being relayed 100%, what will happen? Don’t judge your children extravagantly because they’re your kid. Why do I say this? The future is approaching, and God’s will is for us to change the future. While you’re alive, you need to train your children on how to change the future; otherwise, when you’re gone, they will have no hope. If they’re not mature in knowing what the gospel is and why they live in America, they won’t know later.
They have no idea what the church is, then how can they survive? Everything is happening so apparently, but they don’t know what is happening so they just stay. The evangelist continues to tell us to devote our Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, but our leaders don’t know this because they live with their standards.
I told my daughter not to do the transcription anymore because it doesn’t help her faith. She only did it because the older sisters weren’t doing it, but someone has to do it. Some people are asked to do it but they do not continue. After I found out what happened at the retreat, I told her to concentrate on worship. Transcription is not important, you really should only do it on Sundays, but you’re not focused on work. The standard is, are lives being saved? Isn’t that the field? You need to come here to receive grace.
You need to fully stand before God and receive His grace fully but you’re busy transcribing, so you’re not receiving grace. It will be hard to live in the future, you have no standard because the school doesn’t teach this. They’ve heard it so much that they have a vague idea but it is not accurate, so we need to teach them. You have to teach them very discreetly, this is this, that is that, and you need to do that in faith.
But if they say, “My grades are still good,” it doesn’t matter. You can still get 100% on everything, your grades may be good, but that has nothing to do with living in the world. Right now, you need to know what the Kingdom of Satan in the world is. But if you don’t know what prayer is, you can get 100% all you want, but you’ll be seized by Satan because of your worries and unbelief. The reason I said that is because they have this belief that, if I do well in my studies, that’s everything. In the society in school, all they know is, “If I get good grades, my teacher elevates me,” however, the outside society is different.
Your studies do not make a difference. If your spiritual studies are not prepared and you only focus on your studies at school, that’s a big problem. Teach them at home, because we talk about this in the lifestyle at our home. It’s normal that they come to worship and receive God’s grace. It’s not something special, this is normal, if we think this is special, then that’s what’s weird. If you’re really good at studying, you can come to worship and still get good grades. You need to be able to do what you do well for your business to run well, that’s evidence God is giving you answers. Because you’re not able to learn the standard properly, your walk of faith goes up and down.
As you remain within God’s grace, everything else takes place naturally including your business and studies. Everything else is just something you do naturally. I’m not telling you so you’ll be oppressed if you miss worship; you must know what the correct standards are. In the future, when the kids grow up, if they’ve never seen the adults come to worship, what will they think? If they’ve never once seen the adults come on Friday night worship, what do you think the kids will do? If the kids have never experienced Early Morning prayer, what do you think will happen in the future? It would be fine if they had the strength to overcome without that, but they don’t. You and I are so important.
If you and I set the standard, the kids will follow. But if you guys break or change the standard, the kids will be led astray 100/100 times. The children who need to lead the church in 2030-2080 need to have something to be able to do that. If these kids are getting afflicted and tested because of something they heard in the church, how would they lead the church? They become food for the devil. Overcome at least that much, that’s how you save the world.
What I’m saying is you need to lay your roots down firmly in the faith. There’s no more time. You think it’ll work out, and maybe I’m an unbeliever, but it won’t just work out. You’ll be beaten and shaken as you seek success. This is the seat we’re preparing, where even though you want to play, you can’t. In that kind of state of trembling in fear, you cannot become normal in your mind. Others think, “You’re so successful,” but the person is dying, they cannot rest thinking about success. The only time schedule left is for spiritual problems inside of them to explode.
See them accurately through God’s Word and the covenant because we’re not just living today, we live today while seeing the future. If you live today without seeing the future, that’s stupid, so we call that prayer. Connect everything to prayer. Then even if we face the age of AI, God opens the way because we pray. What happens if we cannot pray? You’re bound to make another decision, but the people who don’t pray will say, “Even if I don’t pray, God will make a way,” then why do you think God devoted their life to pray? If you don’t pray, how will you overcome the devil? Teach them to change everything to prayer. Even if nobody helps them, God helps them. Even if they don’t have everything, God has everything. Unless you teach them this and make this their nature, they will have more problems in the future.
That’s why the Early Church devoted to prayer, and inside of this, there is the answer of 25 hours. Without this, there is no 25. If the members of the Early Church did not devote themselves to prayer, how would they get the answer of the Pentecost in Acts 2? It’s impossible to receive because the members of the Early Church thought they did something to deserve it, so God did not give it to them. Unbelievers think, “It’s because I did something well,” but the Bible and church say, “Pray, otherwise you think you did something well.”
The Lord moves all creation, so pray. Even if you face a circumstance or if you’re afflicted or conflicted, pray. Even if you’re not able to pray, then when you face a problem or conflict, you say it’s difficult because you don’t pray. But if you are able to pray within the covenant, whatever happens, you receive answers to save. These kids must see prayer. Whatever problems the family face, the kids must see you resolve everything in prayer, and the parents must confess in faith, “All you have to do is pray.”
What will take place? Not what we want, but it will work according to God’s greater plan. Give this to your children in faith. Whatever you’ve heard is given to you by the Holy Spirit so one day they will understand. But instead of teaching this to them, you teach your kids how to worry and use humanism when they face problems, then the kids will worry 2-3 times even more because that is the future they face.
The future is today. Your prayer of faith today becomes the prayer to save the future. It is not simply today but it is the “today” within the future, the “today” within eternity. It is not only today, but it is today that is connected. May you and I go into this prayer today. Let us pray together holding onto the Word we have received.
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It is either the Kingdom of Satan or the Kingdom of God. We do world evangelization only by the Holy Spirit and we connect everything to God by prayer. Let us pray together.
Let us pray for one more thing. Tonight is Do Yeon’s last day and he’s going to be leaving tomorrow early morning but he’ll be attending young adult on Thursdays online so pray for him. And please pray for the 3 remnants who are doing RU so that they can finish their finish and projects. I am the teacher… one of the 3 problems. Either way, just submit. Please. Usually, we would normally had to have failed them but what’s important is not their grade but that they stay in the flow of the gospel. So let us pray for the remnants who are here and the ones who are about to leave.
If I want to apply today’s word to Camren, Naysay and Hei Chri, it’s that studying is hard so we pray. IT’s difficult to me so we pray and we overcome that with answers. That is training. You have no money? Pray about that. You receive God’s answers and overcome. … so pray.
If you pray within the covenant of Christ, then God will answer. Whether large or small, God moves it all. Let us pray especially for our family and family lines. The future generation can only live in the coming age, if they have the correct mission, correct gospel, and correct power.
Let us pray. Let us pray for tomorrow’s evangelism schools, the business message, and the Sunday message so that that the word God desires will be relayed well by the speakers. And that will be determined by your prayers because God has to give it to you.
Let us pray for the temple construction. In the new years eve messages we received the word to overcome the ___ and limitations because the time schedule is such. And they said that all churches should no longer rely on borrowing property from someone else but challenge to buy. The reason is because the other religions are buying their own temples and… now that it is the time schedule, I hope you overcome the economy of darkness that is from.. and receive the economy of light that overcomes poverty… darkness of poverty. There are people who are doctors but can’t be doctors because they can’t overcome their mental problems. And there are people who work so hard to get into companies but cannot work. This is not far away… they are right next to us. The reason why we need the temple construction is because we need ..
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon the people of God who want to go all into prayer and go into the covenant of the Triune God be with you now and forever more. Amen.