Joseph Who Transformed the Spiritual Atmosphere to Overcome the Field through Worship (Genesis 39:4-6)

Thank you for your prayers, it’s a life experience that everyone must experience at least once.  I think this is a part of our life that we all must experience once, whether they are close or far, we are all in God’s hands.  We don’t decide when or how we’re born on this earth, even though physically we may want to live forever, it’s in God’s hands and outside of our decision making.  Don’t you think the fact we are breathing and worship God is the grace of God?  Even now, there are enormous numbers of people who are suffering from unknown diseases.

However, there is an enormous difference for us because even through we are afflicted we still know the answer and we know God is alive, but there are others who do not know the answer no matter how hard they look.  We have to properly know who God is; and if we do not properly know God, we have to explain who God is through our knowledge. There are only 2 options to either know God to to live according to the knowledge we have, and if we face an incident, we can face it in God’s plan or if you don’t know God’s plan, you’ll try to solve through your own incident, or the experience of what you had, or the perspective of other people’s words and advice.

I don’t think it’s a matter of whether you go to church or not.  The person who was responsible for a shooting was the son of an assistant pastor at a church.  Imagine as the son of an assistant pastor, how many times did he give worship?  However, you can also interpret that to mean that he had such an unsolvable problem such that he thought he had no choice but to kill people with a gun.  This cannot represent all of America, however, we are able to see the shape of the churches in America and ourselves.  

This kind of problem hasn’t come to us yet, but if we don’t have a sure answer then our life will be entangled in problems, then what is God doing right now, invisible to our eyes?  If you know that, then don’t you think you’d be able to see what God is doing through the problems and incidences in our lives?  But because you don’t know what God is doing, you have no choice but to interpret the situation through your own experience and knowledge so you have no answer.

There are many different types of problems.  However, if you happen to have a spiritual problem that is invisible to the eyes, there’s nothing you can do about it.  I don’t think it’s anything you can solve through your experience, or power, or the knowledge of other people.  Now, the coronavirus pandemic seems to be easing up a little bit, but there are other problems like the three shootings that are happening right now.  When people were dying from the coronavirus pandemic, at least people weren’t dying from shootings, isn’t that right?  But now that people are getting the vaccine and the coronavirus pandemic is quieting down, there have been three shootings that have happened in the past week.  

Even people who have spiritual problems don’t want to die from the coronavirus, and now, people are getting vaccinated and people are getting so comfortable. And in Korea we are standing so close so I question if that is okay, and when I went to the restaurants, it was completely full, but they still asked people to stand six feet apart in the open spaces, and every day, there were an additional 400 people who tested positive.  There were alerts that would come to your phone, when someone tested positive and it would list the places where they were, but I think it’s the same whether this virus is there or not.  Spiritual problems don’t go away whether the coronavirus is here or not, it is simply people were suppressing it now it is exploding and suicides are continuing.  

So, we’re able to see the great, grand scale problems, by watching the news but we are living with invisible, more subtle problems in our daily lives.  If we could see that with our eyes, then it wouldn’t matter what problems we face, but that’s not the case.  Whenever we face a problem or incident, if we could ask God face to face,” What is this problem?”, then there would be no problem.  Even if you’re surrounded on all sides by your enemy, if you could God is next you. You wouldn’t be afraid of your problem, but the problem is that God is with you, invisible to your eyes. After the coronavirus pandemic, we’ll go into the unprecedented fourth industrial revolution, and if we can just ask God, how to survive this, then there would be no problem.  

However, God is alive, unseen to our eyes, so people are frustrated. They want someone to give them the answer face-to-face so they can see it, but he does so they get frustrated and because they don’t see God, they can’t believe in Him.  Even if people acknowledge that God may exist and is alive, invisible to our eyes, they don’t see God working in their problems, so they give up on finding Him.  However, the verses we read in the Old testament today was the story of Joseph who lived before Jesus Christ was born on earth.  

Joseph lived in an age where the gospel had not yet been surely revealed, so the Bible clearly explains to us how he believed, obeyed, and followed a gospel that was not surely revealed at that time.  He simply heard the story of Genesis 3:15, the offspring of the woman who would save the world, through his father and grandfather, it was Joseph heard this news and believed in this God.  It’s possible that because it was unseen to his eyes, he believed even more surely, because you can’t see God with your eyes anyways, so the real difference is in how much you believe.

He had a covenant that God gave him after the hardship of Joseph’s mother passing away.  Then, Joseph was sold to slavery, to death by his older brothers, in a situation where he couldnt know the reason  and now he’s a slave in Egypt.  His mother passed away; it’s no ordinary incident, especially for younger people.  For me right now, I’m just living alone with my daughter because my wife is still in Korea and it’s so unthinkable what life would be like without my wife, even this is uncomfortable.  

But let’s say at a young age, where you want to see your mother the most but your mother passes away, that is no ordinary incident.  She’s even 40 or 50 years old now, and I can see that  she was crying because of her dad.  If your mother passes away when you’re too young, you might not have a sense of it.  She hasn’t seen her father in a  long time, so she only came back but it seemed like she constantly sees him around. How do you think Joseph felt?

As we live in the world, we might face  incidents like this, but it’s possible that most people are living their walks of faith so they can avoid big, shocking traumatic incidents like this.  But the Bible is very cold; the Holy Spirit just called his mother away around the time he was 15 or 17 years old.  Because we believe in God, we think it would be great if these problems didn’t happen, but God in almost like a cold  way, took away his mother.  The real problem is, how will you interpret the situation, acknowledging the God Who is with you invisibly, through the Word and through the emotions he gives you?

At that time, you hear about Genesis 37, the Word of God that manifested in Joseph’s dream.  If God didn’t give Joseph the Word at that time, it means that God isn’t there.  However, through the dream, God gives Joseph the covenant of world evangelization.  What do you think people without God would do?  They have no choice but to muster up their bravery and live their life, or they have to love their life in resentment.  Even if you go to church without believing in God, you have to live like that. 

If you think that going to church is some kind of insurance, that’s a big problem.  The fact that God is with you, living, unseen to your eyes, that’s your insurance.  “Oh, but I go to this kind of church,” God has no interest in what church you go to, He cares whether you believe in Him or not, but that’s how strong our religiosity is.  If I’ve done this much of my life, I’m sure I won’t have big incidents, but that’s not true.  But it doesn’t matter because God gives you His Word in that situation, too.  

The situation that takes place after Joseph’s mother passes away, is that Joseph’s brothers were jealous so they tried to kill him.  Joseph was already so sad, but his own older brothers tried to kill him, and he either commit suicide or be mentally crazy.  Instead of being killed, he was sold into slavery in Egypt.  If you just look at these incidences, you shouldn’t believe in God, depending on the standard of your faith, of course. 

However, if you look at the physical things that happen in your life, you would wonder if God exists or not, looking at the story.  However, even in this, invisible to Joseph’s eyes, God was constantly with Joseph through the Word and through the Holy Spirit.  That’s what it means in Genesis 37:2, where it says the Lord was with God. Being with God means that God was constantly with Joseph giving him His word, through the Word and through the Holy Spirit.  Even for you and me, God is with you for 24 hours, without any rest and through His Holy Spirit, so no matter what problem or incident you face, it’s okay.  We haven’t lived the future of our lives but it is ok, because God is with us, being with us means he is with us through his word.

How does God work?  Through His Word, why? Because God is His Word, and the Word of God must be relayed into my thoughts and my heart, why? Because God is with me through His Spirit, and that’s worship.  That is why God brought the Israelites out of Egypt through the exodus and told them to worship at the Tabernacle.  So, if you think you can do anything without worship, God would have never created worship.  The method God gives us His Word is through worship.  Satan breaks down worship and breaks down the church.  He is breaking down worship through the coronavirus.  Satan blocks people from receiving the Word of God with the excuse of the Coronavirus pandemic then what happens? We lose our spiritual strength, and when we lose our spiritual strength, we can’t overcome our spiritual problems.  If you get caught in your spiritual problems, you’ll get caught in everything.  

Joseph was young; however, he had the faith of being with God.  He was sold as a slave, and at first, of course it was a shock to him, but what does it mean that he was with God?  It’s not just thinking that, “Oh, the Holy Spirit is inside of me,” but in slavery God is with him through his Word.  In the period of the coronavirus pandemic, the evidence that God is with me is that He is giving me His Word, then that’s it; God is giving you His Word.  Therefore, when you interpret your incidences with the Word of God, that is, in other words, when you find the answer with the word of God, then it doesn’t matter.  

If there’s a member of the church or a remnant like this, what would happen?  Simply put, they become a witness and nothing is a problem to them; they are able to relay the Word that God has given to them.  The day before I was supposed to come back to America, I had to take another coronavirus test  and I passed two of the three tests, but one of the tests was inconclusive.  I asked, “Okay, then where can I get this test completed?” They directed me to another region, and I’m someone who actually already had the coronavirus, and I had the antibodies, too.  I thought something like this would never happen, so I didnt even assume anything, but I had to stay another week.  I had to quickly come back to give the Saturday message but things were not going according to my plan.  I wondered why.

God doesn’t make any mistakes, why is this happening?  I was communicating with my daughter through messenger, praying for her in the evening.  I was always communicating with her, and requesting her for her to give me her forum, as if I were still with her.  I told her, “I’m going to be back on Saturday and I’ll take you back home,” but she said, “No!” I said, “I was gone for about a week, and now you should be back with me” but she said she loves the place she’s at right now because there are children, and she has some kind of level of authority, and in her house she doesn’t have any, and she also had older sisters who were taking care of her.

I think one of the elders announced in the church that my stay was delayed and I got a text from my daughter and it seemed so bright, just through the text, I could tell her expression.  “Yes, my flight was delayed,” and she responded, “I prayed so much that you wouldn’t come back,” because once she came back to America, she would have to live with my suffering. Then I realized God’s intention here, that God is giving Fanny a sort of internship while she lives with the remnants.  Then while I’m in Korea, what is God doing with me?  Because of the quarantine, I couldn’t leave the house.  I wasn’t someone who was to be restricted so I kept exercise.  And I wasn’t someone who would get the virus, and I wasn’t someone who could transmit the virus so I would leave my phone at home and I would go on a hike every day.  Then I would get contacted by my friends and I would meet with them, too, and through that, God was allowing me to go on evangelism camps.  Through the incident of my wife he allowed us to  become one, and I was also able to sort out a lot of activities. And I received God’s guidance. Because God is doing this, there are some reason He needs me to stay in Korea like this, and one thing that’s more important is that they moved into a new apartment,about two or three months and there was no spiritual atmosphere pray, but as soon as I got into that apartment, the spiritual atmosphere was revived.  That’s how much we are influenced and how much we influence the region and spiritual atmosphere we are living in.

I even had nightmares.  I realized the region had terrible spiritual influences, there were temples, Catholic Churches, and the Unification Church was nearby as well.  So, for one week, God allowed me to stay there to lay out the spiritual atmosphere there.  If there’s a family that constantly worships together, when you go to that family, it’s very peaceful there. It is not because of my in-laws, they worship.  However, they just recently moved into the apartment, and I was feeling the spiritual atmosphere of the region.

If your children aren’t able to worship, and you are not able to maintain your spiritual state, it is because you don’t have the spiritual atmosphere in your home.  It’s the same in your business field and your job as well. If you have worship there and you establish a spiritual atmosphere, then people can feel peace.  It’s the same with our church as well.  When we were in our previous building, I heard a lot of people say they can feel spiritual peace, whenever they came to our church.  When we first came into this building, all the assistant pastors tried to make excuses to not come here.  They gave different excuses, however, they just felt it spiritually, because right next to our church, there was a building for homo-sexual night club and they were partying every night.  That was the spiritual state, but after a few months, they actually closed down.

It’s a matter of spiritual state.  It’s a matter of whether you will conquer or whether you will be conquered, spiritually.  It’s a push and pull situation, so if you’re able to have the spiritual state and the spiritual state of your family, then you’ll see the works that God is doing in your life, and that spiritual state plows into the field.  If there’s one church located here, it means the entire region is being conquered spiritually, and Satan, who is invisible to our eyes, cannot move.  Whenever you’re with your family or at your job, that is the church.

In other words, the spiritual post of the church must be raised in those fields.  You must first raise up the spiritual posts, then the works can take place.  If that doesn’t take place, then first of all you’ll be pushed aside spiritually, you won’t be able to see whether God is alive or not in your personal life.  If you cannot see that God is alive in your personal life, you have to try to do something with your physical self; in other words, you’ll be taken in by the spiritual atmosphere of that field or that family.  

Then, what is the great spiritual atmosphere of America?  It’s completely materialism.  People pour into America and devote themselves for America for the sake of money, and that is the spiritual environment that is completely controlling. It contains our content of success, education, and even our scientific advancements are going into that too.  Everyone knows you America can make it if you have money and they open up opportunities for everyone to make money.  But it actually turns out that the Three Organizations that is influencing the atmosphere holding onto money, success, and advancement.  

All of the religions of the world have come into America through the New Age movement, to make the religions confused.  What am I talking about right now?  I was talking about small-scale, personal examples, but now I’m talking about the spiritual state of America.  It’s a fight about whether you’ll be pulled into the spiritual environment of the field, or if you will pull them forward of God’s spiritual influence.  What I am saying is the place we are living is only thinking about money, books, movies, people we meet; there is no God there, but they talk about something else, but behind the scenes, it’s just money.  Everyone is talking about things and their own knowledge, but it’s all about money.  People are seized by that.

The Three Organizations have the most money in the world. The New Age, Freemasons, and the Jewish people have control of everything with money. All the religions in the world have gathered in America and are spiritually confused and mixed up.  Joseph went into Egypt alone. He went into Egypt, which was materialistically the most powerful nation where they worshiped idols like the god of the sun, and he was able to overcome, not with his own power, but the strength that came from God being with him. In every situation, he saw how God was with him, and he was holding onto the covenant of Egypt evangelization that God had given him and he was able to confirm that, moment by moment, with God’s Word.  Was Joseph able to do that himself? Was Joseph handsome? The Bible does say that he was good looking but does that mean ugly people can’t do this?  How old do you have to be?  It’s not about that, you just have to believe in God.

Do you have faith in God?  If you just say, “God,” will anything happen?  If anybody says God,can they meet God? God sent Jesus to us, and anyone who has seen Jesus has seen God. Jesus said, “I never speak My own words, but I speak the Word the Father has given Me.” Joseph believed in Jesus even though He wasn’t even born on earth yet, and that is how he met God.  As evidence of that, God constantly followed Joseph around with the Word and the Spirit.  

America is the most religiously confused place.  If we are in the place that is physically the best of, then it is the spiritually most barren place. How are you going to survive?  Will you live based on your experiences and with the power of your alumni network?  Will you live off the inheritance from your family?  That itself means you’ve been seized by the culture of America. You have to conquer spiritually with the fact that God is with you.

As I flew back on the plane, I thought again from the perspective of the world, “This is the age where we are going back and forth on planes.” I’m speaking from the perspective of an unbeliever. God sent me to this place with the covenant of world evangelization, sent me here to fulfill my duty  then there’s no need for me to be going back and forth on an airplane like this.  There weren’t customers flying on planes anymore; I had a whole row to myself, and behind me and in front of me, there were no people, and because of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s actually more comfortable to fly not I was always so cramped because I am tall but now I have the whole row I was laying down, and because there are no people, you can go through security checks so quickly.  The airports are so quiet as if everything and everyone was dead, so I thought, “How could they stay in business?”

“Why do I have to live here?  Why do I have to go back and forth on planes like this? What kind of life is like this” If God weren’t alive and didn’t have a mission for me, how dry would life be?  In the past, in Korean songs, there were many songs about airports.  Especially in the 1970s and 1980s, there were a lot of songs at airports of lovers who would have to separate when one would go off to war.  But now, people travel on airplanes just like they’re trains, going back and forth.  

If I don’t have a God-given mission, what kind of life is that?  You have to live a life you don’t want to live, and don’t you think that’s stressful? It’s a life you don’t want; you have to live a life you want. Is it okay to live a life you want?  You stress out because things don’t go the way you want.  Even if you don’t live the life that you want, you get stressed because you’re living a life you don’t want.  Whether you do this or that, that’s the burden of life, so how must you live?  God is with us, and God gives us His word through His word “I AM the Jehovah God,” and the method, of God’s love is loving God and loving people and all our imprint, root, and nature are only  solved and healed only through the Word of God.

Joseph held onto the covenant and truly believed in God.  He didn’t believe in God very powerfully nor vaguely, but he just believed in God, unseen to his eyes, and in that faith God was working on him.Then, why was God with Joseph and in what direction did God lead Joseph’s life?  He testified that the LORD God is alive through all people of Egypt of his experiences.  As you live in America, you must be aligned with God’s direction.  If you don’t have this, then not only are you not able to overcome the field, but you’ll be enslaved completely.

Everyone has a goal in life; what do you think that goal is?  If you live in America, it’s money.  Even if you don’t think that to begin with, once you live in America you will think that way. It’s about success, about my own entity.  However, if the Word that God gives you is no longer the goal of your life, you’ll wander, and that in itself is being taken in.  The LORD gave Joseph the Word that the moon, sun, and 11 stars would bow down to him.  Age by age, God didn’t just have the interest of the Israelites in mind, however, he was thinking about the gentile nations who must receive the gospel through the Israelites, so he wants to evangelize through people.

You have to know about this God. Do you think you’ll be able to survive just by thinking, “Oh yeah, God exists.”  Then why are you living in America? “Oh, God is alive.”  Are you crazy?  That level of faith isn’t faith.  Because God is alive, how is God alive and working through your life and incidences right now? What is God telling you is your goal of living in America.  Moment by moment, what emotions does God move you with?  This is how we can say God is alive.

But if you don’t acknowledge any of that and just say that God is alive while holding onto your thoughts and plans, that is a religious life.  Those people were conquered by Babylon, because as long as you don’t see how God Who is alive, will be with you through his word; you will be taken captive.  Joseph went in as a slave, but he saved Egypt.  Matthew 12:28-29 says that first, you must bind the strong man, and first, seek God’s Kingdom. Do not emphasize and prioritize your thoughts, but first pray for the kingdom of god to be established.  How are you going to overcome the spiritual world of the demons when you are holding onto your own thoughts?  That’s why you have to make the place where you are at the church.

Do I have to worship with family or in my job? If asking this you have already lost and you cannot win. That is someone who has misread the state of America, they have been completely taken in by Satan, the Father of lies, in John 8:44.  What does it mean to first tie up the strong man?  How are we going to be able to take down Satan with our own strength? First, seek God’s Kingdom.  Only then can you plunder the treasures, meaning only then can you save people.  

That’s what it means in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the Kingdom,” why does he say seek? Because it is not something we can do we can’t do that by thinking well; God must realistically be established there.  God’s heavenly angels must be established there, and the forces of demons and Satan must be broken down; only then will all things follow you.  He is talking of the order of your life, first you must establish GOd’s Kingdom spiritually, then everything else will follow. That’s what happens.  Then, as another parable, if someone is trying to rob a house but the owner of that house is stronger than you, how will you rob the house? First bind the strongman then the robber can get the treasure. That’s us, that’s Joseph, and the only condition is if you believe in Jesus Christ Who is God. 

It doesn’t matter how tall, handsome, smart or old you are, but there’s only one condition of God.  Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ?  If you believe in that, you believe in God.  There’s only one condition. It’s okay if you don’t have anything. It doesn’t matter if you’ve learned a lot or a little or even if you have cancer, it doesn’t matter.  People say that if you get cancer and die from it, but there are those who have had cancer for years and still live with it.  You have to overcome cancer, look down at the cancer you shouldn’t keep respecting the cancer.  “Because of cancer, my life turned out like this.” You must look down on cancer because living and dying is in God’s hands and those are the people who live.  When people are diagnosed with cancer, more so the cancer solves itself, they are more spiritually seized by their mental state, and they live their lives thinking they’re already dead.  

God who is invisible to our eyes, works with His Word, and the most accurate way for that is worship.  God gives us spiritual strength through the Holy Spirit and answers our prayers.  This very moment, when you receive the Word of God and say, “This is it,” God opens these doors, and sends you His angels. It seems you have to do something but that’s not true.  Sure, you have to do your work but in the time of worship, God opens those doors.  The blessings and power of the Throne of heaven come upon you.  The key of worship is the Word and prayer.

Satan blocks that from happening. “Work diligently,” but what happens if you don’t?  Nobody is telling you not too but if you just open your eyes, you’ll realize that’s not enough. The answer of the throne of heaven, the answer of 25 hours, must be established in you. It’s not something you can open with your strength.  When does it take place?  The moment Daniel resolved and prayed, that is when God sent his angels and it took three weeks to receive his answer.

Why did it take three weeks?  It is because the spirits of the idols of Persia were waging war, 

 people were being seized and conquered by the world because we lack the blessings and the throne of heaven. Even if you just worship properly, worship is a time when God comes upon you. You keep thinking of worship from our self-centered perspective, “I am attending worship; I’m worshiping,” but that’s why we lose hold of worship.  It’s not that at all. Worship is a time where God opens the heavenly gates and pours down His answers regarding our future and our lives.  The blessings and the power of the throne of heaven.  May you enjoy that spiritual blessing and truth like Joseph did.

Joseph is our witness today.  I hope you will hold onto the Word you received today so that you can confirm the victor that has already won in your field.

There is a Word that God has given to each individual, and when you pray, hold onto that Word, then God’s answers have already begun, but Satan blocks you from praying that prayer, and Satan makes you confused about the Word you receive, so at this time, let us pray holding onto the Word we have received.