Continue to Fight the Spiritual Battle as Spiritual Soldiers with God’s Word (Deut. 2:1-15)
We will share the grace of God today with the Word from Deuteronomy 2. We talked about this last week, but “Deuteronomy” means to give the law a second time. It’s not that there’s a first set of rules and a second set of commands, but it’s the same set of commands that are being repeated for the next generation through Moses’ lectures. We have to know what time schedule the Israelites are in.
When God created mankind, we were created in God’s image. The fact that God created us in the image of God means that we are not God ourselves, it means that we were created as people who will live similarly to God with the image of God with the will of our creator God. Specifically speaking, humans were created to live according to God’s Word, prayer, and evangelism. If we were not created in the image of God, then we could just live like animals. Because we’re spiritual beings, we have to live spiritually connected to God within His will, so we must be within the work of the Triune God.
“Why can’t we just have the Word of God and prayer? Why are you tormenting us by adding evangelism as well?” That person is actually closer to the side of the devil. Even right now, God is carrying out the ministry of salvation, and that’s why people who are living for the will of God are bound to go into evangelism. Even right now, God is giving us His Word and is working according to His Word. Even now, God is working as His Holy Spirit and works upon His children who pray. The “image of God” means we live within the work that the Triune God does.Then, we have the blessings of Gen. 1:28, of ruling, subduing and filling the earth abundantly. The things you see with your eyes are bound to follow, but if we lose hold of the image of God, we will be conquered instead.
Despite the fact that we have been given these blessings, we lost hold of them because of Satan’s temptation that made us sin. Satan told us, “You don’t have to live as the image of God anymore, there’s a way for us to live on our own” and he says, “Our words are the truth” and we live with our strength, we live according to our own plans; why would we live following God’s Word? We were completely seized by these lies of Satan and separated from God.
There’s no other way for us to restore the image of God anymore. It is impossible for us to receive this with our own human strength. That’s why Genesis 3:15, the offspring of the woman would crush the head of Satan. If you listen to these words, they may seem irrelevant to eating and making a living. If you don’t understand these words, it’s hard to become a child of God. You have to believe that God’s method to restore the image of God in humans is this offspring of the woman.
The offspring of the woman means it’s impossible with the human that is born by the efforts of mankind, one who is born of a man and woman. The Savior will be the One Who is born to a virgin woman, because He is God Himself; that’s how this human will not have original sin. That human has to come to this earth to destroy the head of Satan to overcome, and He has to die on behalf of all our sins and curses.
God promised Abraham that the offspring of the woman would be sent through his descendants. God called Abraham and told him to go to the land of Canaan. So, during the age of Abraham, his mission was to go to the land of Canaan. That’s the mission connected to Jesus Christ who would come. If your mission is irrelevant to Jesus Christ, then it is a mission for unbelievers. “I want to help a lot of people on earth,” that may be your mission but it’s irrelevant to Christ. If you’re living with the mission of life, “I want to help mankind with scientific advancements,” that’s irrelevant to Christ.
Without a doubt, age by age, God gives a mission that is related to Christ. The reason God gave Abraham the mission of the land of Canaan is because God would send Jesus Christ to be born there. Then in Genesis 15, God tells Abraham, “Your descendants will be enslaved in Egypt for 400 years.” God says, “The Israelites will be enslaved by 400 years because the sins of the Amorites have not yet reached their full measure.” Then He says, “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky,” and God is currently fulfilling those words.
When they escaped from Egypt after 400 years, they escaped with all of their possessions. When the Israelites left Egypt, the Egyptians sent with them all the jewelry’s that were in their treasury. After the Exodus, all the people of the first generation passed away in the wilderness, and now it’s the second generation of people. Now, they’re repeating the word of God’s promise again before they go into the land of Canaan.
You have to look at Deuteronomy 2 knowing the time schedule and the stream of God; otherwise, you’re going to interpret God’s Word however you want, in a strange way. If you don’t know the background and the time schedule of the Bible, you will forum about God’s Word based on whatever you feel, then you’ll see what happens in Deuteronomy 2.
Deuteronomy 2:1, it says, “Then we turned back and set out towards the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea, as the LORD had directed me. For a long time, we made our way around the hill country of Seir.” On their way to the land of Canaan, they have to go around the hill country of Seir, where the descendants of Esau were living. Because there’s about two million Israelites passing through the hill country of Seir, the people living there would be afraid, so God told the Israelites that they would be afraid of the Israelites.
Deut. 2:5, “But be very careful, do not provoke them to war for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on.” Because God had actually made a promise to Esau that I will give this land to your descendants as an inheritance. Because God had a promise with Esau, God is telling the Israelites not to provoke them to war when they pass by.
Deut. 2:6, “You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.” The reason is in Deut. 2:7, “The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.” Going in to conquer the land of Canaan was God’s unchanging mission for the age, and in order to do God’s work, you have to move, following God’s Word. If we’re not able to receive the very specific and accurate guidance of God’s Word in every work we do, then we are going to make our decisions based on our thoughts and emotions and wage war against the people of Esau because we think we can take them.
But God’s Word is saying, “No matter what you do, do not provoke them into war, and give them money to excuse your way through the place.” Even though they were people who did not have the covenant of God, still treat them with respect. That was God’s Word. Because this is not a land given to the Israelites, they could not get it no matter how hard they tried. God gave us the land of Canaan; He did not give us the hill country of Seir. In other words, there’s a goal I must accomplish. There’s something I must do, but what happens if I keep trying to touch a territory that’s not mine, that isn’t given to us by God?
Deut. 2:8, once they pass by the Esau they will pass by the Moabites. The Moabites are the descendants of Abraham’s nephew, Lot’s daughters, “so do not touch those people, either,” why? Because God had given this promise to Lot. He promised to bless them at least physically. Even though later on they might be spiritually destroyed, at least for now, they are spiritually blessed. God gives us His Word and then He fulfills His Word. Our future will be carried towards the Word. All the decisions I make in my present reality will go towards the Word. If I don’t know God’s Word, then I have to make my decisions based on my own experiences, or I’m bound to make my decisions based on whatever environment I’m currently facing.
Deut. 2:14, He is telling the Israelites about what happened to their ancestors. “Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, the entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them.” This is also mentioned in the second half of Deut. 1, where the Israelites go into the land of Canaan and as a result of their disbelief in God, God makes them wander the wilderness for forty years, one year for every day they were in the land of Canaan.
Why did He bring this up from out of nowhere? Here, He uses the word, “fighting men,” which means these people have a mission. You guys have a mission to fight, but we forget that. The ten spies went into the land of Canaan but forgot what they were there to do. But the two other spies held onto their mission properly. They gave back the report, “This is surely the land God has given to us.”
We’re not just people, but we’re God’s spiritual army who fight the spiritual battle. The spiritual soldiers of God’s army are people who fight the spiritual battle. But if we lose hold of that, we will make decisions that do not align with God. “Oh, how could someone like me do something like that?” That’s just your thought, when God called me, He has called me as a spiritual soldier to fight the spiritual battle. We are not people who fight battles against people, but we’re called spiritual soldiers who fight battles against Satan and sin.
You have to be holding onto this mission in order for God to give this person the result of victory. If you’re not able to hold onto this Word of God, you’re going to live your life so diligently, but it’s not aligned with God. Then, you’re going to wander around the wilderness for 40 years, but it’s just you struggling physically. You have to be able to confess with your heart and mouth, “I am a spiritual soldier, called by God, as an ambassador of Christ and a soldier of Christ, to fight against the enemy Satan and conquer.” The reason He is saying this to the next generation is so that they won’t end up the same way as their ancestors did.
There’s no other law; even if you guys lose hold of God’s covenant, remember what’s going to happen. The next generation is not automatically okay, just because they’re next. You have to relay the covenant of God to them so they can understand it. If the next generation loses hold of the covenant as well, they will end up the same way. Just because they’re the next generation doesn’t mean that everything is forgiven. Just because they’re young doesn’ mean they’re automatically forgiven. Regardless of what generation you’re talking about, God only works according to His covenant.
You guys are going to go into the land of Canaan and make a lot of mistakes, too. Later on, it says that they lived according to their own ways. When we become weak in the covenant, then we live our lives and speak and make our decisions based on what we think is correct. We think it’s right because it’s right from our perspective. That’s how we’re bound to live if the Word of God is weak within us.
A lot of people think we’re okay if we live morally and ethically, but that’s not the case. If that person doesn’t have the covenant of Christ, then their morals and ethics will be used as an instrument of Satan because they think their morals and ethics are the solution to all of their problems. If someone’s personality is really great but they don’t have the covenant inside of them, then their great personality may prevent them from going into God’s covenant.
The standards people talk about and the things that the nation says are good aren’t bad, but it’s not the Word of God. It must be the correct thing that comes from within the covenant. That correct thing means that it must come from within Christ, from within God’s covenant, otherwise you’re bound to be greatly conflicted because, “This is what’s right from my perspective, why is the other person like this?” This is only correct from your perspective but what is God’s word saying? Before you move over to that way of thinking, you’re bound to always be conflicted. All you have to do is stop asking people and start praying because when you pray, God will give you His answer accurately through His Word. If you keep asking people, the person will respond according to what he or she thinks is right.
That was the spousal relationship of Ananias and Sapphira, both of them agreed on what they thought was right, and both of them died. Therefore, it must be the Word of God given to you during worship. There’s no need for you to continue your personal thoughts, because only the words you receive during worship are correct. However, when our personal spiritual state is low, we’re going to influence other people with words we think are correct, then this other person’s spiritual state will die. We have to guide the other people so they can stand before God’s word, because ultimately everyone will stand before God.
This is the way we will not be destroyed without realizing it. The Israelites did not know why they were destroyed for 38 years because they kept saying, “I did everything that I thought was correct and right; why am I living my life like this?” These people were thinking, “From our perspective, the people in the land of Canaan are gigantic warriors, and we have no background or backing to fight against them; why are we forcing ourselves into the land of Canaan?” That’s how they lived according to their own conclusions and opinions. This is actually the channel that will destroy us.
Afterwards in Deut. 2:19, we see the Ammonites. These people are the same, “Do not provoke them to war because I have given them their land as a possession.” That’s why we need to receive a very detailed guidance of God’s Word. It’s not just rashly by our thoughts, “These are all Canaanites so we can just attack all of them, that’s not the case. Especially when you guys do ministry with the Word of God in the name of Jesus Christ, you should not do this based on their personality because God told us to destroy the Genesis 3 inside of them, which is their spiritual problem.
God never told you to fix their personality. Otherwise, it’s possible that we’re going to take the Word of God and the name of Jesus Christ to attack people’s personalities. That person’s personality was given to them by God. We were never told to attack their personality. The thing we must conquer is the sin, Satan, and the me-centeredness that is inside of them, that’s Genesis 3.
We were praying a lot yesterday and I was ministering to someone who was going through a lot of difficulty. It’s a husband and wife who immigrated about 20 years ago, and the husband struggled a lot because of the wife. I think the husband is very rational and realistic. From the perspective of the husband, he’s going crazy because the wife is speaking of things that come out of dreams as if they’re reality. I was talking to them yesterday, and by themselves, they kept talking about stories in the past. That’s God allowing me to hear this person’s words as an evangelist.
The husband said about the wife’s words regarding the past, “This is the first time I’m hearing this,” so the wife never told these stories about her past to her husband, and because I an evangelist who’s going to their house, God revealed this story because I have to know this person’s backstory. So, she started talking about how her younger sibling passed away from a car accident, and they were driving with the family to the funeral home. She herself did not know that her younger sibling had passed away, she just heard there was an accident, but she found out when she went to the location and she was so shocked by that.
Then, all of a sudden, she could feel something from heaven fall down upon her. And it wasn’t from the car, and then she was in the car with three people and she saw them being split in two. The husband continuously explained her story to me, “Oh, this isn’t actually what happened, but after she came to America, this is how her brain started to imagine what happened.” I asked her, “Did this happen before?” She said, “No.”
I asked her, after this point, and apparently there’s an entity that sometimes hits her or sometimes tells her what to do or sometimes paralyzes her so she can’t move, so she has no choice but to be dragged around. If there’s a voice that tells her to deposit thousands of dollars into her bank account, she has no choice but to do that. This is something her husband could never understand and that’s actually how she ended up immigrating as well. Her husband was thinking he was making a decision to immigrate to America for the education of his children, but his wife was making a decision, spiritually driven.
So I asked about her religious background as well, and she said that while she was in middle school, she went to a mission school and her grandfather had a Catholic background. Before I met with them, I asked the husband about the wife, and he said she has gone to many churches in the region. She even writes on the table with water. Every morning, she would do something with water on the table, and every morning, she would do some prayer ritual downstairs, every night, she would tell him to leave the room saying something about the Holy Spirit. These were things that the husband couldn’t understand.
After he would leave she would keep saying, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” it turns out that legalism had gone into her and she said she got her citizenship illegally. She received her citizenship in a non-traditional way by lying, so she’s so sorry and carries around her guilt for that. She’s saying things like, “Everything is happening including the coronavirus pandemic because of this.” Firmly saying, “This is illegal!” Nobody said anything to her, she just said it herself. “I don’t want to do illegal things anymore, I want to go back to Korea quickly.” She’s a quiet person, but the reason she said it so forcefully is because she believes it’s happening because of what she did. Satan is oppressing her with a guilt trip.
So I told her, “The same things happen whether you’re in America or Korea, so it doesn’t matter where you are.” The devil made her go to all these different churches so she’s blinded by legalism and religion so she cannot see. Because she doesn’t have a believer’s background, I told her “I will tell you from the Bible why you’re going through these problems and I will also explain to you how to solve your problems through the Bible, too.”
I told her, “In Genesis 3, we see an entity called Satan.” Satan is a fallen angel who makes people fall away from God and sin against God, and he is also moving the evil spirits. I said, “It might be an opportunity that Satan will go into people like you as well as shamans to drag them around. Even other people who are not physically dragged around are also controlled by Satan; it’s just not at such an extreme level. They’re being dragged around by Satan because of lies and temptation, and their states are the same as you.”
I told her this is a problem that comes as a result of original sin, and the reason Jesus Christ came to earth was to destroy the authority of all of our sin and Satan. I said, “This darkness will flee when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord, your Savior, and your God through faith.” So I said, “Let’s pray together,” and we prayed together, including her husband, and when I asked her, “Where is Jesus now?” She said, “He is within me,” and she was smiling.
That’s not the issue now. I told her again, and she started talking again., “Oh pastor, it’s not that I don’t go to church at all, I listen to broadcast messages, whether it’s Christian or Catholic, I accept both. I believe, too,” so I told her again, “What does it mean to believe? It means that you understand what the real problem is and that Jesus Christ has finished that problem. That’s what it means to believe in God.”
Because she’s gone to church, she received not the gospel but religion, so she thinks that just going to church means faith. She was saying, “I believe too. Just because I go to a catholic church and not a Buddhist temple, so I must believe.” But what does she believe? “I believe. I don’t discriminate between Catholics and Christians, I just believe!” So I told her again, “The real problem you have right now is the sin and Satan inside of you, and Jesus Christ finished that problem once and for all on the cross; do you believe that?”
Even though a person’s spirit may be saved at once, the mind that has been dragged by Satan for 20+ years will not be changed in one go, and ministers are deceived by that. I think a lot of ministers expect people to say, “Jesus Christ is inside of me, I don’t think I believed in Him before, but now I believe.” But if you do that, that’s a misjudgment. This person’s personality and their spirit are different.
This person has a different spiritual state but all their thoughts, words and actions say something else. If we accurately tell them the problem and accurately tell them the solution, and we have them do the acceptance prayer, and they accept Jesus Christ, then it’s finished; salvation is taken care of by God. Whatever they say will come from their long-standing nature and imprints, not whether they’re saved or not. They have to retrain their thoughts every day.
I spoke with her on the phone again today, and even when I called her, she wasn’t sure if she could answer the phone a lot because demons afflicted her with her phone but you must not be deceived; none of that matters. You just keep giving her the message regarding her spirit, but we keep getting deceived looking at this person’s reaction. Even their reactions don’t matter. It’s the same for evangelism. If you look at their reaction, you’re going to be deceived.
God told you to fight the spiritual battle for their spirit, but if you look at just their personality based on how they react saying this and this, their going to be deceived. If you know this, then you have no choice but to continue. Regardless of this person’s reaction, you’re giving the spiritual message to save this person’s spirit. But if we don’t know that then we as minister will get confused, “We tried it with this person and it’s not going to work. That’s just what we say when we look at their reactions that are revealed. That’s not right, because we’re giving the Word to this person’s spirit.
So, we’re continuously fighting the spiritual battle by giving the Word to this person’s spirit, it’s not based on their actions or behaviors,then one day, according to God’s time schedule, one day, the darkness will break. But if you don’t know the field, you’ll say, “oh, but when i look at other ministers they have the acceptance movement take place once and for all, but it’s not taking place like that for me.” That’s why the Bible scripture today says, “Yes, we should pay attention to people’s personalities but the focus is the spiritual battle.” Giving the words of Christ to this person’s spirit.
Why do you pray for this person? For the Holy Spirit to work on this person’s spirit. If you don’t know this then you cannot take on the mission of conquering the land of Canaan, because you’re looking at the physical things. What’s more important is that this person’s husband says, “You should go to this pastor’s church from now on,” and I told them, “I’m not coming to your house so that you can come to my church, but you do have to listen to the Word of God so I’ll come again next week.” In reality, in order for God’s word to take place, God has to move this husband’s heart, too. The proper image is, through the wife, the husband receives salvation and they’re able to do the Word movement together.
So we’ll conclude the word. We have been called as spiritual soldiers to fight the spiritual battle. The battle of Canaan is the spiritual fight against Satan that makes us centered on me, physical things, and success. That’s why it’s only possible with prayer that transcends time and space. Then whenever you meet someone, you shine the spiritual light upon them to save them. But if you don’t know that, then you’re only going to be looking at their actions and behaviors, and their spirit will never change.
It’s the same for worship. If the kids are sitting here, the spiritual things are going into them. For adults, they’re sitting here and not listening; they’re thinking about something else. They only know it with knowledge. Once you say, “I already know this,” Satan blocks you. The Holy Spirit has to go and work in you, but Satan blocks you so subtly, so you cannot. The Word of God doesn’t save your knowledge; it saves your spirit. The Word of God has to save your spirit but Satan will block you from receiving it. THen that person is bound to struggle in the wilderness for 40 years until they know. Then they keep spinning around in circles and nothing is working out for them.
True worship is a blessing. This is not a place that relays knowledge, but it is a place that relays the spiritual covenant of God’s Word, the covenant, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, even today, if you receive spiritual strength in the covenant, then everything else will take place, including everything tomorrow. All of your businesses and studies are also moved for spiritual things, so it’s important to have spiritual strength. I hope you will use your faith for the mission of this age, which is healing, the next generation, and disciples.
Prayer
Let us pray together at this time. Whenever we pray, I believe that the power and the blessings of the throne of heaven are upon us. We will do our intercessory prayer, and whenever we pray in intercession, God will work transcending time and space in all our fields.
In the region where you live, unseen to your eyes, Satan controls everyone with idolatry as well as their me centeredness as if they are their own god. Even believers are living their lives under the misconception that they can live their lives on their own even though they have salvation. Let us break down the forces of darkness in the region and pray together to establish God’s Kingdom first.
Let us pray for the next generations and the remnants. These are the kids who need more prayers than anyone else because they need spiritual support. I believe that when you pray, God works transcending time and space, especially for people of all nations. Let us pray for them right now.
Let us pray for the businesses of our church officers in their fields. We need to receive the answers in our businesses that are aligned with God’s word and the power of the Holy Spirit. You shouldn’t go wherever you want because God did not give you the territories of the Ammonites and the hill country of Seir, so the key isn’t to just work hard at what you’ve been given, but it must be an answer given to you within God’s plan and the things God has allowed for you. May the Holy Spirit work upon our businesses and studies so they may be used to save the 237 nations and the church.
Let us finally pray for our missions fields. Let us pray for Utah as well as South and Latin America, Mongolia, Navajo, the Karen people, and the 5000 unreached people groups.
Benediction
May you live the rest of the three days of the week in faith, holding onto the covenant, healing, raising disciples, and saving people.
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the heads of all the people of God and the people of all nations who desire to take n the mission of the age, of 237 and the summit, be upon all their businesses studies and ministries, from now until forevermore always, amen