The book of Numbers: the Gospel is Everything (Numbers 1:1-4)
Today we will share the word of God from the book of Numbers. Numbers is one of the 5 books Moses wrote, the Penteteuch. When Moses wrote the 5 books, it wasn’t actually 5 separate books but it is put together. And they were just split up into 5 because they were written in 5 different scrolls. In the Old Testament when the Hebrew people were deciding what the names of these books were called, they titled it based on the first word in the scroll. If you look at the praise hymns in the back of the hymnal, it is the same: the first line they named the praise from. Genesis is talking about the beginning where God created the world and the covenant of mankind, Genesis is talking about where mankind loses hold of the covenant and God made them a covenant again through Abraham. With the beginning of Joseph, the 70 people of the Israelite tribe go into Egypt. That is the entirety of Genesis.
That is not the end of the story because these are all held in one connected story. In Exodus they are talking about the 400 years they spent in Egypt after that. Exodus is also talking about where they left Egypt and they were wandering and God gave them the 10 commandments and the Tabernacle. The book Leviticus is talking about now that we have the tabernacle, how is that we are able to be with God through worship and sacrifices. And now we may have started the new book of Numbers, it is actually the continuation of the same story. It is called the book of Numbers in English, we can think of Numbers as a population of people, but it’s not that the main part of Numbers is numbers.
There are 2 times in the book of Numbers where they talk about taking the census, and now that they left Egypt they have to count how many people there are left. And after the 1st generation passes away, there is another generation, and there is the 2nd census for the 2nd generation. Why do you think they took the census? Do you think they took the census so that they are able to know how to feed all these people? If you read the first chapter of Numbers, it talks about how many people are in each tribe. And furthermore they are counting the male people over the age of 20 who can fight in the army. That’s what’s important.
Why do you think they counted the people over 20 who are able to fight in the army? It means that there is a war ahead of us. So if you look at the rest of the book of Numbers, they are counting the number of people in each tribe who are fit under this qualification and there are some tribes who have 500,000 or over 600,000 people. And the people who can go to war are people who are 17, 18, 19 year olds. So in the book of Numbers, God is telling them to count the number in each tribe, people who can fight. That’s the content of the first chapter.
After they counted up the people, did the first generation fight the war? They were not able to fight in wars. They actually died in the wilderness. Do you think God counted all the numbers knowing that they were going to die? No, God is telling them to count the number of people knowing that there is a blessing of Cannan ahead of them. But why did all the first generation die in the wilderness? Apostle Paul gives us the answer regarding this in 1 Corinthians 10.
Let us look at 1 Corinthians 10:1. Apostle Paul says “I do not want you to be ignorant of this fact brothers and sisters that the ancestors were all under the cloud and that they passed through the sea.” This is talking about splitting the Red Sea. They were all baptized with Moses in the cloud of the sea, This is the cloud that led them through the wilderness. In 1 Corinthians 10:3, “they all ate the same spiritual food and drink for they drank from the same spiritual rock that accompanied them,” and that rock was Jesus Christ. It means that everything they did such as eating and what they wore was standard on Christ. And the rock that gave the water means that everything they did began with Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:5 says, “Nevertheless God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.” The reason why Apostle Paul is writing this was because he is warning us not to be like that. 1 Corinthians 10:6, “Now these things occur as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.” What does it mean that they set their hearts in evil things? It means that they did not enjoy the good things. They did not enjoy the word of God. That is the reason they were destroyed. 1 Corinthians 10:7, “Do not worship idols as some of them did.” It was because of idolatry these people built the golden calf, and thought it was God. As it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to commit revelry and one day 23,000 of them died.
1 Corinthians 10:9-10, “You should not test God, and those who did test God were killed by a snake. Do not grumble as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel.” These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us. On whom has the culmination of the ages come? The reason God is writing down the record of the Old Testament and testifying that through Apostle Paul is because God is warning us not to live like that.
What happens if I do live like that? It means that there are blessings God has prepared but we are losing hold of them and getting destroyed instead. The Bible never tells us anything else, the Bible never told us we will be destroyed by living earnestly. The Bible never tells us we are destroyed because we do not live diligent lives. The Bible never tells us we are living like this because our personality is bad. The Bible never told us he was bringing us into the land of Canaan because we have very renowned personalities. It is because we are living the life of evil. We did not follow the word of God, we just lived according to our thoughts.
Despite the fact that there are incredible blessings God prepared for the saved people of Israel, they all died in the wilderness. Because of their resentment. They resented God saying “Why did you save us from Egypt?” They we’re always grumbling to Moses. These are things that left them no choice to destroy their lives. And their idolatry, It’s not the idols that you see with your eyes, it is the idol that you live for in your life And because of sexual immorality, because of sexual immorality your lives are destroyed. And this is why we are dying repeatedly today. God is telling us not to live this way. How can we do that? There is no other way than to believe and follow the word. There is no other method.
There is no great method in the walk of faith. The worldly people look for miraculous methods but there is no other way than the Bible. He is simply telling us to believe in God’s word. That’s what you call “good,” and not believing is what you call “evil,” and Satan works upon evil. He is telling us not to receive God’s word. There are some times you are shocked by the word of God as you listen, some people get very tested, what do you need to do at that time? You have to break down yourself and hold onto God’s word. What happens the more you are stubborn? That’s the reason why your life will be destroyed.
God is giving you this word to change you but you take it as a test. Isn’t that right? Because you are bumping against the word with all your imprints, root and nature, you are fighting against the word. You have to change it. I am not correct, the word of God is correct, this is the walk of faith. And this is the method of all methods to not be destroyed by Satan in the wilderness. That is why we need to prepare to worship when we come to worship. There are people who say they listen to the word of God on Sunday but I don’t know what word came into me.
This is why we have to prepare for worship. What does it mean to prepare for worship? It means that you have to put yourself into a state where you can receive the word of God. That is why we start on Saturday and we prepare ourselves 30 minute before the worship. That’s the reason we have times of quietness and times of praise. But if you’re not doing that and you sit down and you go straight into listening to the word of God, you might be able to hear it with your ears however your heart is not ready to receive the word. Even for students, when you’re trying to study if you’re paying outside and you come down to sit down, you cannot concentrate. You can’t go back to studying right away, you need a transition period. So you might sit down on your desk but you might not be able to focus.
In worship, there is even more, so you must come early. Lately, it’s been great because on the church kakao talk, I’ve been sending the message outline. We need to be reading the scripture passage early. God is giving you His word so you have to read through the scripture passage and think what content God is going to tell you today. When you’re singing praises, you shouldn’t be calculating your offering at that time; when you guys are singing praises you shouldn’t be thinking about other things and looking left and right. That’s not worship; worship is the time of battle. That time of worship is the time of battle. Do you think going to a battle is going to a shaman house?
Satan disturbs you so you cannot worship, that’s spiritual battle. We don’t need to see demons, that’s a low level thought. Satan digs into the church in a very subtle way and destroys our worship, just like in Matthew chapter 4, so you have no choice but to choose evil. Then Satan is pushing us into destruction; he is saying, “Fine give worship, but don’t give proper worship. Do not worship in spirit and in truth, just worship with your brain and your behaviors,” that’s why you’re failing worship. Due to not receiving grace from worship, you have to live according to your emotions, and the life of losing hold of worship is the life of destruction that the Israelites lived for 40 years in the wilderness.
We need to be thankful. The Israelites are always complaining and grumbling but if you have thankfulness and happiness then this goes away. If you don’t have joy and thanksgiving you have no choice but to be resentful and grumbling all the time. That is why Apostle Paul was looking at the Israelites in the Old Testament and the Israelites of the New Testament were exactly the same and he told you to rejoice always, and be thankful always because you’re going to be destroyed in your grumbling and resentment again.
Thankfulness. Thankfulness regarding what? The content of our thankfulness is that He has saved us from Egypt, but instead of being thankful for being freed from slavery, you think, “I used to do so well in the past; do you know what kind of person I am? Who are you? You’re a slave; what do you mean, ‘Who am I?’ You’re in a problem, what do you mean, ‘Who am I?’” In reality, your identity is very embarrassing. When you didn’t know, you’d brag about who you were, but actually you were a child of the devil, but if you knew that properly, you would be too humiliated to say it.
You’re a dude in disaster, what do you mean, “Who am I?” but the Israelites were saying, “This is who I am, I used to do so well in Egypt. I used to always eat meat in Egypt; now, what is this? Back in the day, I used to wear the greatest clothes and drive the greatest cars, but what is this?” That’s why they had no choice but to resent and grumble. They were doomed to be killed in Egypt as slaves, but God changed them into the saved children of God, but they are not thankful for that because they don’t know who they are. We are the saved people of God, and the covenant we have with God is that He is our God and we are His people. Even though we are people who could never fail, we fail as we make ourselves fail. Even if you’re able to properly restore worship, you can enjoy Canaan conquest.
The book of Numbers is generally split into three sections. If you read through the Bible, it says that in the second month of the second year, they began this time in the wilderness, and this is the first part where they begin the census. The second part of numbers covers the time they were wandering around and around the wilderness. The third part is five months before they go into the Promised Land of Canaan and took a census at Kadesh Barnea. In this part, I’m sorry to say this, but there was nobody from the first generation; all of them died in the wilderness because of their disbelief, and now, they are counting up the people in the second generation to go into Canaan.
If you look at the content, why did the members of the first generation die a futile death? Then, will the next generation be able to conquer the Promised Land properly? This is the content of Numbers. The first generation all died away in the wilderness; will the second generation be able to conquer the Promised Land? I hope you will surely imprint your heart that the blessing and victory of life is within God’s covenant and grace. I hope you will believe that God saves you, already having prepared the blessings. If you do not fall into your disbelief and you simply walk forward, holding onto God’s covenant firmly, then you will conquer Canaan.
Let’s read Numbers 1:1-8. The saved people of God have a spiritual battle ahead of them, and if you don’t have victory in that spiritual battle, you will not have peace or joy. The reason why the churches are losing and suffering spiritually is because they are losing the spiritual battle. In Numbers 1:3, God speaks to Moses and Aaron. Moses is a leader, receiving God’s Word, and Aaron is the priest. Why was Aaron included here? It means it’s a spiritual battle. God is telling us that there’s a spiritual battle ahead of us that God will control and we must sacrifice for it.
Numbers 1:4 means each family must have a leader, and from Numbers 1:5, the twelve tribes are listed: Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and these are the tribes from Jacob’s children through Leah. Starting from Numbers 1:10, we see the sons of Joseph, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and from Joseph’s younger brother, there was Benjamin, so these are the tribes that came through Rachel. Then the four remaining tribes: Dan, Asher, Gad, and Napthali, are the sons who came through Jacob’s servants. The tribe of Levi was excluded because they are priests, designated for worship. This is recorded in Numbers 1.
Numbers 1:46 says the total number was 603,550. Among these tribes, the tribe of Judah was the greatest with about 70,000 people. If you have 600,000 people, that’s just the men, but you have to add their wives and children as well, so this could be easily over 2 million people, and this population of 2 million people traversed the wilderness. Each of those tribes developed strategies with which they could fight in the war, preparing for Canaan. You can only restore the blessings if you win this battle.
The blessings of God are prepared for us in this world, and we need to win this spiritual battle in order to enjoy them, but without preparing for this, you will lose like an unbeliever. What is the spiritual battle? The world is controlled by Satan, and the saved people of God enjoy the blessing of changing the kingdom of Satan into the Kingdom of God. Because this ideology wasn’t deeply rooted in the Israelites, they all died in the wilderness, worried about physical things.
Each tribe represents each family line. You need to prepare the influence of your family line to do world evangelization. Thinking on a smaller scale, it’s your family. If you received salvation, then there is a time to prepare for the spiritual battle with your family for the sake of world evangelization. The people who listened to and followed these words surely enjoyed the blessing of conquering Canaan and world evangelization, but every single person who did not want to follow God’s Word but wanted to go back to the land of Egypt, died.
Then what does God say about our lives today? He is telling us to conquer Canaan, you must spiritually conquer the land in which you are living. But what did the Israelites do? They lived a life, eating and drinking in Egypt, and because they lacked those things, they were always complaining and grumbling, and they all just died away; He is telling you to not live like that.
So, why did God allow you to live in this region and come to this church? It’s so that every family and region can come together to do regional evangelization. For those who have these words come into them by grace through faith, they will enjoy these blessings. However, the people who are always lost in physical thoughts, “What will God give me to eat?” They will die in their unbelief.
It doesn’t matter how righteous your thoughts are; if you’re not thinking about God’s Word, you will fall into physical things. Until you hold onto the covenant that the reason why God allowed you to live in this region is to do America evangelization and world evangelization, you will live a life of slavery in Egypt. While you live in Egypt, you’re a slave, so if you lose hold of God’s covenant, you’re a slave. There’s no such thing as a good or bad walk of faith; all you must do is follow after God’s Word.
But because you keep trying to do something well by the standards of the world, your ulterior motives are revealed as you complain and grumble. For example, you try to do well in your job, and everyone thinks that’s a good thing, but that’s evil in God’s eyes. Why? Well, why are you doing well? Fulfilling God’s Word means that God is using your work as an instrument to do world evangelization and to spread the Kingdom of God. It’s not just your work, but every aspect of your life, and God will bless those who hold onto this covenant. For those who say, “Hey, let’s see what we can do,” they will do what they can, and then they will die. People die based on what they eat and drink, because of money.
Specifically, what does it mean to live for the Kingdom of God and world evangelization? I’ve received the gospel by grace; now, conquering the land of Canaan must be my mission. I’ve received the grace of God’s gospel when I didn’t even know it, and when I hold onto this mission and go forward, someone else will receive God’s gospel by God’s grace as well. Then, in every single thing I’m doing, the covenant must be there to save people, then God will work according to His Word.
Not many people in the church are like this. They’ve just heard it so many times, they think, “My denomination talks about world evangelization a lot,” but they haven’t taken it as their personal covenant. You must hold onto this realistic covenant for God to move. In other words, first, seek His Kingdom and His righteousness. “First,” it’s important.
Then, what is the first reason why you breathe, live, and work? It is to spiritually conquer the land. My goal and covenant is for God’s Kingdom to be established on this earth, then even my physical body is used as an instrument to fulfill this. Without that mission, you are simply trying to keep up your health, so people brag about their health and fitness; their goal is to elevate their skill and they boast. This becomes their idol, and to summarize it in one word, it is the idol of “me,” and that is why this individual is dying and suffering. Then, what do you think will happen?
If you move and do everything in your life to save people, that’s holding onto the covenant. The reason to eat is to keep up your health, of course, but if that is your goal, you become like an animal. When your body becomes a weapon for good, that’s when it turns into the covenant. This is what it means to study holding onto the covenant. It’s not a matter of studying well or not, but when your studies are used as an instrument to save people, those studies will give blessings. People fail because they try to study well; people study because they fail well, and they fail because they are bad at studying as well.
The problem is, the first thing is not the covenant. We go and make money, but if you are just trying to make money, you will die. Money is an instrument to save people’s lives. You need to first see that money is an instrument for saving people’s lives. That is the covenantal life that God is giving us. But the Israelites lost hold of the covenant of saving lives; they only cared about making money, focused on trying to be healthy; that’s death. You’ll be healthy and then you’ll die. It’s not about me, but it’s the covenant.
That’s what God is telling you to do, but it hasn’t gone into you. You know with your brain, but you have other things in your heart, so you suffer without knowing why. God is giving you the Word so that this won’t happen to you. I’m sorry to talk about offering as well, but there’s no such thing as a “waste” of offering. Money is used to save people. Before talking about whether you give a lot or a little, but for those who have the covenant, their “first” is different.
The word about offering is coming out every week, and I know some people will be afflicted by this. People who have a lot of pride will be tested, but for people who fear God, it is a blessed opportunity to save yourself. I want to tell you something realistic, so I’m saying this, “Why do you make money? To do what? Is it aligned with the covenant?” That’s what I’m saying. Everything you do in the world is to make money, but why do you make money? Is that money used for conquering Canaan and world evangelization? If that’s correct, then God will do it. That’s what I’m saying. If you understand the whole Word without understanding this, then simply put, you don’t understand this because this is realistic. I hope you understand.
It’s God; it’s not our strength. It’s what God has prepared. But people within the covenant will naturally have thanksgiving and joy. If it’s a burden to evangelize, that person isn’t within the covenant; that person has something else within them. It feels as if they’re being forced so they have no choice but to be like that. This is the covenant.
Going into Canaan is the covenant of world evangelization that God has given us, and you have to remain inside of that to conquer Canaan. You must be inside of that for the life of church and the Tabernacle to be joyful. Otherwise, you’ll still give your sacrifices and worship, but your heart will be enslaved in Egypt. God gives us the Word so those things change within us.
Everybody has a goal in their family that they’ve been taught from life. God gave you your family to do world evangelization. If you haven’t received salvation, it doesn’t matter, but if you have received salvation, you have to go to Canaan because that is saving 237. God set up the plan and said He would do it. For business people, if you stay within the covenant, you will go into the place where the blessings are used to save, but because we’re constantly trapped in the thoughts of Egypt, we are doomed for destruction and slavery, going in the opposite direction of God’s blessings.
A wise person knows we must not live that way. If we tell you all these words and you say you’ll live that way, not only are you cursed, but your future generations are cursed as well. Instead, hold onto this and realize, “Wow, the gospel and being with God is everything. The only thing left for me to do is to use my life as a weapon for world evangelization, and to go all in.” Within that, you have your church life, “How can I raise people? How can I go into the places that do not have the Word, to help them receive the Word? How can I raise the people of the church with intercessory prayer?” This is the life within the conquest of Canaan and world evangelization.
When you go into your fields, how will you establish God’s Kingdom there? Hold to the covenant and stay there, then God will move according to His covenant. This is the battle, it’s another dimension of the spiritual battle. The spiritual battle is whether you will remain holding to the covenant of Canaan conquest and world evangelization or not. I believe God has called us to enjoy these blessings.
There’s nothing to think so deeply about. If the gospel is truly everything, then evangelism is truly everything, and my life is within that. From that point on, the disasters and darkness are bound to break. Before that point, I’m sorry to tell you, but it will never break. If you do not reach the conclusion of going into the gospel and evangelization, Satan will never be broken. If you don’t reach the conclusion of going into Canaan, then you will end up going back to Egypt; that is the strategy of Satan. God is continuously giving you the Word so you can understand this.
I hope you will have the blessing of understanding this. Our lives must be used as a weapon to save people, enjoying the covenantal blessing, and then we go to the Kingdom of God. There’s nothing difficult about this message; the gospel is everything. It’s only difficult for you because you don’t think the gospel is everything. There’s a blessing within the covenant of missions and evangelism, but you refuse that. It’s easy to hold to the covenant, if you just put your entire life into it. But if this isn’t taking place, from that point on, it’s difficult.
Such people will resent, “I’ve given so much offering, I’ve served so much, and I’ve gone to this church so long,” but the Lord says, “I don’t know you, you were always doing things for yourself. Stop saying, ‘Lord, Lord,’ I don’t know you. Do it for the Lord, do it for the covenant.” I pray we will hold onto the covenant and the greatest blessing of explaining this very specifically and in a detailed way to the next generation.
At this time, let us hold onto the Word God has given us and stake our resolution and confirm it as our covenant. The fact that we have Exodus means that everything is restored. Now, the fact that we are walking through the wilderness is for the conquest of Canaan, so this gospel may be proclaimed to the rest of the world. I hope you will not have a life of wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, but you may have a life that conquers Canaan. Let us pray.
Prayer
God, we thank You. Thank You for giving us the tremendous blessing of world evangelization and Canaan conquest. Please let us live lives where we are not seized in the slavery of Egypt and of physical things. God, we believe You will work with grace so that every single member of our church will be within the covenant and make every decision that will spread the Kingdom of God. We believe You will allow only the covenant to remain within our heart and our spirit. We pray that You will break down all the forces of darkness that make us fall into physical things and disbelief, moment by moment. If we have crumbled, we believe You will give us the blessing of restoration for the sake of the covenant, and we believe You will raise us up as the witnesses of the resurrection. Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unlimited love of God, the indwelling, guidance, working, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon the heads of all the people of God who hold onto the covenant of Canaan conquest and the 237 nations, be upon all the people of the church, the remnants, their studies and their businesses, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.