God is Calling Us Even Now (Exodus 3:1-8)
Today’s title is, God is Calling Us Even Now. God who called Moses is doing this work even now. What is God doing now? He’s doing many works. Among His many works, He is doing the work of calling those He will save. Those who are called by God have to able to pray by themselves. Moses was trained to do this within the wilderness. If you can’t pray by yourself, that means you can’t do the work God called you for. So you might be able to pray together, but you have to be able to pray alone.
1. Anytime – Prayer
Religious living is when you pray for the things you want. So for us, it doesn’t really matter if those prayers are answered or not because if we have the power, then those prayers will be fulfilled, but that isn’t what we are concerned about. When I’m praying by myself, am I able to have this communication and relationship with God?
And so the first very important thing is when you do mediation. So every Saturday I do this meditation prayer with the remnants. This mediation prayer means we are holding onto the Word of God and praying about it. Prayer is the time where we align ourselves and look towards God. God is the Word so we hold onto that and look towards God.
1) Meditation – David
David did this very well. So for those who are able to roay by themselves, they are able to do what Hd has called them for. In Psalms 1, it talks about meditating in the law day and night. So how could we pray while we are working and studying? We have to discover that. If you can’t discover that, it means you’ve lost to the world. When God called you, He had already prepared these blessings for you, and that is why He called you. And David did this very well. David found this prayer while he was shepherding, and doing his work. So, the young remnants can also do this.
2) Scheduled Prayer
Or we must have the time of scheduled prayer, where we set up a specific time to pray. We need to have a specific time when we look towards God. Because we’re spiritual beings, if we don’t have this time of looking towards God, we’re unable to do our work. That’s why those people do meditation and scheduled prayer. Those who can do this can be within God’s works, wherever they are, and whenever. No matter how much of a child of God I am, and I’m holding onto the covenant of world evangelization, if I’m not aligned with God, then there’s no work for me to do.
3) Continuous Worship
You can do continuous worship by yourself. You can do this worship according to the bulletin. Then, you can receive a lot of grace. For those who have a lot of time on their hands, they can do this. Instead of watching TV, you can watch TV but God has given you this time in order to do this. If you don’t do this, you don’t have the strength to do anything. God is doing the work but we need to have the time of receiving strength in order to go in that. So you can do the confession of the Apostle’s creed by yourself, praise by yourself, read the scripture, and also go over your pulpit message notes.
Those who are able to look to God, they also have this time of continuous worship. If you have scheduled worship, it’s different. For those who cannot do scheduled prayer, you must do scheduled worship. If you can’t do scheduled worship, it means you’re distant from God and you’re closer to the world. For worshiping, you can follow the bulletin step by step by yourself.
So, when you meditate, amazing works occur, and all religions have a type of prayer; there’s no religion that has no prayer. All religions are doing prayer very well, but only Christians are unable to pray very well. So, what’s the evidence of being able to pray well or not? Other religions pray really well, and what’s the evidence for that? For religions, even though you don’t teach them, they’re naturally able to pray for the things they want.
So my brother was an extreme trouble maker, and my mom tried to discipline him in many ways, but he wouldn’t listen, so she ended up going to this cult that ended up evangelizing to our house every day. So my mom went somewhere by car and during that time, she would go and hear all these testimonies about people within that cult, and she’d go about two times a week.
So, there was this tiny slip of paper with the name of the cult attached to a string, and she would always hold onto that as she prayed. I asked her, “What does that mean?” She said, “I don’t know,” but she said, “If I continuously touch this, then a work that I can see will occur.” She went two times a week and I think they gathered together every Friday and they would give testimonies about people being healed from all their diseases and all these sorts of things.
Even for me, it was very interesting. So, even in the winter, even though it was super cold, she would wake up early in the morning to do this ritual for her son. And when educating, apparently when she continuously does this, a work will arise. And she believed in this and continuously did it. And once a week there would be testimonies of things that happened, and so a lot of people gather there. So I’m not sure if it’s because my mom was chosen to be saved, but after a couple months she couldn’t do it any more because even in the winter time she had to pray multiple times throughout the day. So for other religions they have a specific ritual for how to pray.
Even Buddhists have beads they hold onto while they pray, and they make all these ways to pray, “If you listen to this, then you can have peace in your heart.” Even Catholic people have this. They even have a rosary where they go through each bead, one for Mary, etc. They put in their physical hopes and dreams within that, and of course, works take place, because they’re physical things, the works arise, so they continuously pray for their business, for their health, for their children, and for their money, and these works take place.
One time, I hiked to a temple and it was a place called Gadbai and these older adults would bow down with their arms outstretched before them. When we gave ancestral worship, we usually had our palms down, but as they bowed down here, they had their palms upward. Shamans pray well because their prayer is to call evil spirits. They pray even more diligently than pastors; they wake up at 4am and even in the winter time, they wash their face with cold water and they hike up to the summit.
I asked, “Can you not do this?” and they replied, “I can’t, otherwise the evil spirits will hit me,” so that’s why every winter, every day, they have to bathe in cold water, they have to do this every day. Because they’re praying to evil spirits, there are all sorts of works that occur. Even in Catholicism, they designed this labyrinth where it’s kind of like a journey with a cross at one end, and they walk along it. For the hispanic Catholic people, they actually have an image of Mary that they pass along to each house, and they just pray to that image.
Muslims pray five times a day, and they never miss out on it. When I went to UCI for evangelism school, I was praying and I saw a Muslim student doing his prayer within the parking lot, so I had to park along the side. So, after I did the message and praise and evangelism with the students and I came back to my car, the student was still praying. Even in these certain places, they have prayer places they made, but it’s not for Christians, it’s for Muslims.
So, all religions are praying very well, but only Christians aren’t able to pray; they don’t know how to pray. When you tell them to pray, new believers don’t know and remnants don’t know. They have won everything but they are not able to overcome it because they cannot pray.
Whether it’s new believers or remnants, we must teach them this. Why do we meditate? We have to meditate on the Word. We assign a time and we meditate on the Word. Then, at a specific time, we praise God and listen to the Word and give worship. We need to be able to do this by ourselves. All the churches have their own worships, some have them on Friday where they go late into the night, and when we gather for retreats, the children prays very well, and they do everything very well, but are they able to do it once they go out into the field by themselves?
David, Joseph, Daniel, all the people in the Bible had this mystery of being able to pray by themselves. If you can’t do this, then you’re not able to overcome or be victorious over the world. So, if we don’t do this, then we just become a person who prays when a problem comes. Of course, then we’re not able to overcome the world.
2. With – Forum
So, for those who can pray by themselves, they’re able to do these things with other people and have forum. We pray together by having forum with the pulpit message and praying with the prayer topics from the pulpit message. It’s the same when wpe pray by ourselves, we pray holding onto the pulpit message.
3. Spiritual Conflicts
Who comes to church to give worship? Many people who have spiritual conflicts come to church to worship. You can’t see this, so in other words, they aren’t satisfied. They aren’t satisfied by the things of the world, but inside, they constantly have this conflict. So, they look for an answer here or there, and they finally come to church. These people have the spiritual problem that can be seen or not seen.
There are some people who are mentally oppressed and come to church. If you address these people in a legalistic way, they will depart from the church. If you tell a model student in a legalistic way, they will listen and follow immediately. But for those who are in spiritual conflict, if you address them in a legalistic way, they will go askew. They are looking for the church that gives the gospel, the spiritual message.
Why do these people gather? This is normal and natural for people to just gather in the church because they have no other place to go. The church may be great and the people are at a certain level, but these people aren’t able to find the answer, so they don’t like those churches.
Who else comes to church? Some people who have completely failed come to church. These people go to another religion when they’re very successful, but once they fail, they come to church because they have no other place to go. Other people come because they’re ill and the hospitals aren’t able to help them. If they were able to go to the hospital, then they would go, so they wander around, looking for an answer. The person who says, “These people are weird,” is actually the weird one, because this place is where these people need to gather.
– Deep Prayer
How do we save these people? Because they are spiritually down, that’s why they need deep prayer, so what is deep prayer? There’s prayer, but what is deep prayer? Those with spiritual conflicts and problems cannot pray at all. These people have a deep problem, that’s why they have to have this deep prayer to go to God’s Word, or else they will not be healed. That’s why the church leaders have to deeply pray for them so that they’re able to listen to the deep Word. They have a deep scar and problems, and that’s why they need to listen to the Word deeply. If you just say the correct words to such people, they will slowly go away because we need to give them spiritual influence.
4. God’s Guidance
After doing this, that’s when you can receive God’s guidance. God is calling us even now, but who is He calling? He is calling these people who have gone through these time schedules.
Pulpit Message – Me
What does it mean to receive guidance from God? It means that the pulpit message and I are aligned. If I’m not aligned with the pulpit message, then I cannot receive the guidance of God because God is raising the church in order to do world evangelization.
Field – Me
So, my field and myself need to be aligned with the Word. I am in my field, but if I’m not aligned with God’s Word, that can’t be good.
Work – Me
We are all doing work, so I need to receive God’s guidance, so the pulpit, my field, and my work need to be guided by God. Those who receive the pulpit message in a legalistic way will receive legalistic answers, so they will receive answers according to the Word. If they receive it legalistically, then wherever they go, they will fight, and they will cause conflict wherever they go because that’s how they received the Word.
Even in the field, it will be the same, “Are you right or wrong?” they will judge other people. “Am I doing this right or incorrectly?” They will constantly be worried about this and go, and that’s because they received the Word in that way. The Word is the Word, but how am I receiving the Word? That is very important. If I lose hold of the word, then I have no choice but to follow the ways of the world.
As time goes on, according to the word you’ve received on Sunday, the answers will arise. If you don’t receive any word , then as time goes on, you won’t receive anything. So, from my experience, God will give answers according to the Word I received.
5. Future – Mission
And so for these people, they are able to see the future, and they know what they need to do and have their mission. Although God gives us all a mission at the very beginning, this is different. You’re able to see the future and know what you need to do based on the things you’ve experienced.
Moses went through these different time schedules, and at first, Moses had a worldly way of thinking while he was in the palace, “If I live in this way, I will succeed in this way,” but one day, God worked so he no longer yearned for the position of the Pharaoh. Because he can’t stay in Egypt, God called him into the wilderness so he could enjoy this prayer by himself. With his father-in-law Jethro, they exchanged the Word together, and even in the wilderness, he had this deep prayer, and he received God’s guidance.
If he’s not guided, God can’t do His work. I can only be guided when I have the Word of God. If I’m stubborn in my own thoughts, I cannot be guided, so Moses always received the Word of God first. Moses didn’t lose hold of this Word but he brought it into his field because God is guiding us, even within our lives. Then, this Word was dragged into Moses’ ministry as well. One day, he’s able to see the future and the mission of bringing out the Israelites and the Exodus.
As much as you’re able to do the things in the introduction, that is when you’re able to go into the calling for which God has called you. You can’t do this with courage, because God needs to guide you. You can’t be misaligned with God’s Word and do this work. And so if I’m in this spiritual conflict because I’m not able to be within that in God’s guidance, even though God calls me, I can’t be within his work.
So, we need to be able to forum together at church. If you can’t do forum, you can only emphasize your own thoughts, and then you lose hold of the blessings of “with.” What’s most important is, are you able to pray by yourself? If you can’t do this even though God is doing all his works, I’m not able to go into those works.
God is calling me even now, and God is guiding me within this time schedule. There are many places where this gospel is not being proclaimed. There are many people who attend church, but they haven’t heard this gospel, and just live a religious life. So, what is this gospel? You need to be able to enjoy and relay this correct gospel.
You need to know and relay this correct gospel and proclaim it to other people. This gospel shows that we are not able to be good in our own ways by our own actions. We can’t come out of this problem because this original problem is sin, Satan, and hell, and we are not able to come out of it on our own. And all people have fallen within this, that’s why it can only be Christ, and that’s why you need to relay that correct Christ to the other person.
If you relay this gospel in a vague way, it can be changed into legalism. What does that mean? Instead of God being the center, I’m the center. Depending on how the individual receives and listens to the Word, the color of their walk of faith differs. I cannot receive salvation with my own diligence; I can only receive it by God’s grace. The walk of faith is receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and to follow after him.
But within this, there are many misunderstandings, “Am I following the Word or not?” and I become the center. So, in reality, we can only move according to how much the Holy Spirit reveals to us. As we learned from the Wednesday worship, if we’re not able to follow the Word, if we’re not able to follow the law, that’s how much we’re going to be cursed.
Then, what does it mean for Jesus Christ to die on the cross and for God to give us the filling of the holy spirit? You cannot follow the law on your own, and that’s why God has given you the Holy Spirit. Because people don’t know the accurate gospel, they end up boasting, being prideful of their own actions, and judging other people. They end up returning to the law of the Old Testament, but such people will react very quickly whenever you talk about the law. Because we have lived within the unbeliever state of having to follow all these rules and regulations, whenever you talk about the law, that’s when we react the quickest. Because we’re able to see it, these are things we can do, so that’s why we can’t understand the gospel.
We can only change as much as God reveals the Word to us, and this isn’t something we can see. That’s why it becomes really frustrating for legalistic people. “You just have to do this and this and that, why can’t you do it?” It’s because they don’t understand the gospel yet. So, this isn’t the problem, the Holy Spirit has to come in and move our heart, that’s why we need to be in the place of worship and receive grace, and that’s why we have to wait until the Kingdom of God is established, because if I’m my center, I can’t wait so I’ll say, “Why can’t this be done like this?” Then these people come to church a couple of times, but it becomes spiritually hard for them, so they leave.
It’s the same for us, and many people in the field are within this. An assistant pastor told the young adult, “Come to this training for young adults,” and this young adult got offended and said “I’m not coming anymore” this young adult said, “Why are you saying this to me?” But the person who is saying these things is speaking for the other person’s best interest, but the person is responding, “Why are you nagging and meddling in my life?” It’s because they can’t see this [spiritual conflict].
The appearance and the inner state are very different, so that’s why you need to be led by the Holy Spirit. There’s only 1% of people whom you can command to do something and they will just follow, because you don’t know what kind of spiritual state that person is in. If church members don’t know this and do their ministry and interact with new believers, they will lose hold of many things. That’s why even while going to church, there are many instances where the gospel doesn’t go into this person. There are many people who receive salvation but they’re still suffering because of their legalism. That’s why one by one, we need to save them.
1. Evangelism – Promise
Number 1, evangelism is Christ’s greatest command, so it seems like we can’t. We have to follow it, but it’s actually a promise. This is God’s covenantal promise, and that’s what it means to hold to the covenant. It’s not something to be frustrated about or burdened by. This isn’t something we have to try to make happen with our own thoughts and methods and strategies. This is the ministry that takes place by the One Who has all authority in heaven and on earth.
1) Matthew 28:19
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
2) Luke 24:47
And repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Just as God prepared the conquering of Canaan, God has already prepared world evangelization and has called us within this. Legalistic people have to do it themselves, and that’s why it’s so difficult. It’s not something we can do; this is God’s promise that He would do it, and God is calling us within this promise. We go with joy within this because God has promised it, and He has no choice but to fulfill it.
But why aren’t we able to follow this promise? It’s because the things in the introduction have not yet taken place. Wecan’t even receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so how could we go with God? I’m still deeply within my spiritual problems and Satan attacks me with that, so how am I supposed to carry out this promise? I can’t communicate with others and forum with them about the Word; instead, I boast about my own thoughts, then how would I be able to evangelize within that?
Christ and the Word must be the standard, but instead, I emphasize saying, “You can’t do this, you can’t do that,” and that’s why you’re not able to go with, so you end up cutting out other people because of the law. I just need to forum based on the Word I received, I can forum for a long or short time; it just depends on the individual. “You have to forum in this way,” that’s actually very weird. Some people may do forum very long because they’re in a state where they have to forum for very long, and that’s why you need to be able to have forum with other people, and you need to pray by yourself.
3) John 20:21
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” God gives us peace and sends us. “Oh, the field and the world are so scary,” that’s not right. We’re not pushing ourselves within this fear, God is giving us peace because Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace and He said He would eternally be with us.
4) Acts 1:8
God gives us the method which is, only when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be witnesses until the ends of the earth. You are not doing it with your own strength, the work can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit, and this is the promise, so that’s why we pray.
5) Matthew 24:14
This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. The person who knows the end. America is not the end; the gospel must be proclaimed. Satan’s kingdom must be broken down and God’s kingdom established in order for it to work, but for those who know this as the end will be able to do this work.
The kingdom of the world is captured by Satan, so ultimately it will be destroyed. But people who don’t know this will be tempted by the things of the world,and they will follow after success, after the Tower of Babel. So they can’t do this, they end up going down the wrong path. We succeed in order to save the elites; success isn’t our end goal. We talk about money in order to do world evangelization; money is not our end goal.
6) 1 Corinthians 9:16
Yet, when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I don’t rpeach the gospel, that means I’m holding onto something else, and that’s why it’s a woe to me. God Who has all authority in heaven and on earth is with me, in order to preach the gospel, if I’m not within this, of course I fall into Genesis 3:6-11 and that’s why it is woe to me.
2. Mankind – Wandering
In reality, mankind is wandering.
1) Matthew 9;36
We are orphans. Christ is the Shepherd but we are helpless like a sheep without a shepherd, we are orphans.
2) Matthew 11:18
All people are burdened with heavy burdens, oppressed by Satan. Acts 10:38, all people are oppressed by Satan. God has given us our studies and work in order for us to do evangelism, but instead, we’re oppressed by it.
3) Ephesians 2:2
We are all spiritual slaves, salves to games, to drugs; we have no freedom. Slaves to sexual immorality and other things; we don’t have freedom. Even students are slaves, they’re slaves to games, so it seems like they’re slaves to games, but they’re actually oppressed and they cannot come out of it on their own because they’re caught in it as slaves. But the world is saying, “This is how you must live,” but in reality, they are slaves.
3. Worship
Only God should be the recipient of our worship.
1) Matthew 4:1-7
Satan comes to deceive Jesus with physical things, success, and fame.
2) Exodus 20:4-5
God told us not to make images and idols for ourselves, but peopel disobeyed. What is idolatry? Idolatry is when we worship and praise something that is other than GOd.
3) Matthew 11:28-29
Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Conclusion
God Who has called Moses is calling us even now. Those who are within these five time schedules are able to be within the promise God gave, and the works He will do. Why do we say these works will be fulfilled? It’s because God will do them, so if I try to do them, they won’t be done, but I would just have to do them. God is my background, fulfilling His promise. If I believe in this, then these works will naturally take place. America, regional, and 237 evangelism is bound to take place.
Prayer
God, we thank You. Through this healing evangelism school, may we be the people You have called. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.