Align Yourself With God’s Direction and Find Hidden Disciples in Your Fields (Deuteronomy 7:12-16)
We started Deuteronomy 7 last week, and we’ll go start from the middle and share the grace of God. God gave us the 66 books of the Bible as His Word, and that Word is being fulfilled, even now. I believe that everything in our lives, including the way and method of our lives, is contained in God’s Word. If we try our best and use all our different strategies and efforts outside of the Word of God, without even realizing it, we are on the opposite side of God.
Today, God is telling the second generation to conquer the land of Canaan. “Go there and do not leave a single person; drive them all out.” Does that mean that God is a murderous God? That isn’t God’s intention, but He is telling us to not be united with unbelievers and Satan and He’s telling us not to marry their children.
But why did God choose us? God says He chose men because of the promise He made to man’s ancestors. God did not choose the Israelites because they were stronger or more numerous than the other lands, if anything, they were the smallest in number. The reason why God called Abraham did not have anything to do with Abraham’s circumstances; God just decided to choose him. God gave him the gospel and made it so he could escape from Satan and disasters.
The promise He gave to Abraham is, “Through you, all people on earth will be blessed,” that, “your offspring will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless on the sands on the seashore.” God has chosen the Israelite people in order to fulfill that promise he gave to Abraham, and God chose us, not considering our circumstances. But among people, it’s easy to think, “Maybe God chose us because there’s something special about us or our circumstance,” and if this is how we receive the gospel, we cannot go into the complete gospel.
Because we keep putting the standard on ourselves, that we did something well or did not do something well enough, we become further from God’s grace and God’s decision. God just chose them, and God does this by His grace. It is unconditional. God loved us and chose us by His grace.
In Deuteronomy 7:9, it says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, he is a faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands,” so God will bless even the future generations of those who keep God’s commands. How do we believe in God? Because all human beings are born separated from God, they cannot find God, nor can they believe in Him. Because of that one human, Adam, all humanity after him was born into the disasters and curses and sin.
We can only escape from that if we believe in Genesis 3, the offspring of the woman who would crush the head of Satan. When we hear “the offspring of woman,” we believe in that, but the only reason we can believe is because God gave us the grace to believe. If you talk about the “offspring of the woman” outside in the world, they cannot understand you, we can’t understand it because we’ve studied it; we can only understand because God gave us the grace to understand. We can read and study the Bible; however, the Bible was written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so we cannot understand God’s word without the Holy Spirit.
We can read the Bible because we know the text, but if the Holy Spirit does not reveal it to us, then we only know the text by knowledge, not spiritually. Especially, the way to meet God, Jesus Christ Who will come, can only be understood by God’s grace. We can only acknowledge and believe that all human beings are sinners that fall short of God’s glory if God gives us the grace to believe.
If God’s grace does not come upon us, we will say, “What do you mean, ‘curses’? I live so diligently and ethically, why do you keep telling me that I’m a sinner?” Then people like me would say, “I don’t need this.” We talk about demons and Satan and demons, and that’s laughable, it seems irrelevant to our lives. It’s impossible for us to understand unless God gives us grace.
In Deuteronomy 7:10, “But those who hate Him, He will repay to their face by destruction, He will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.” So, if you don’t believe in the covenant of Christ, than that will put you in curses and disasters. We are not in curses and disasters because we’re actually facing curses and disasters but not believing in Jesus Christ Himself is the disaster. And in that state we have curses and disasters we can see. That’s just how much God called Abraham and His people by grace.
Deuteronomy 7:11, “Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees, and laws I give you today.” When hear words like this it feels so burdensome, “Why do we keep having to obey? Should our walk of faith be so complicated?” Are there any people like that?” For those people, think again, what is true comfort? Without a doubt, the person thinks that following their own thoughts are more comfortable, they’re so used to it. For people who are too familiar with and have the nature of following their own thoughts, emotions,and what they think is good rather than God’s word, they get angry when they hear words like this.
“Why does He keep telling us this Word? Why can’t I just live taking care of my physical needs and go to church every week? Why do I have to follow?” Such a person is already following their thoughts, and that’s why God’s Word is difficult for them. That person thinks that the path of destruction is comfortable and easy for them, and this cannot change without God’s grace. May God’s grace come upon us.
The Word of God should not be so burdensome and oppressive to us it should be sweet and great. We should love listening to the Word of God and it should make us joyful, but there are some people who get so excited to go out and play. That is the joy that means there’s something wrong with their spirit. Yes, of course, we can enjoy going out to play, I’m not saying you can’t do that, but if you like that more than you like worship, prayer, and the Word, then your spirit has gone astray. You’re already in the midst of being dragged by Satan who lies to tell you that is better.
As that continues, you’ll come to a state where you cannot escape from his grasp. When the devil drags us around, he controls our emotions, making us think this is the greatest and the only way. He deceives us into thinking that if we follow him, we will be able to determine what is good or bad. Already, because we’re separated from God’s Word, our emotions are more used to that.
Later on, as time passes, fear will come into us. Even though nothing may have changed, later on, with time, even changing our clothes becomes difficult. Even though there are no problems at all, everything becomes a problem, work becomes a problem, and everything. That’s the content of Genesis 3. From the beginning, we don’t like following God’s Word; it’s easier and more convenient to follow my own thoughts and what I like. If I follow what is comfortable and what I like, I will face things that I cannot change, so that is why God tells us to follow His Word.
The sheep have to follow the shepherd, but if the sheeps are trying to wander around looking for their own grass and its own water, that sounds right, but the sheep don’t have good vision, they don’t know there’s a cliff, and they don’t know that at night, a wolf can drag them away. We just follow what we enjoy, we just follow what we enjoy and go according to what is right with our thoughts, and if you listen to all the songs, the artists are telling us this is what our life is all about. The culture is so entrenched so that everyone is in this culture that denies God.
There’s multiple generations of songs that tell us about what life is all about, so the entire culture is entrenched in this. They’ll say things like, “life is just a sojourner’s journey, we come and then we go,” of course that’s true, but this culture that doesn’t have God has seized all of our senses. When we believe in Jesus Christ it has finished all problems but we don’t believe and keep following our temptations.
Especially in America, the culture is about individualism and independence. They don’t like doing this in collaboration with others, they mostly like working in independence, and they’re very individualistic, so, transcendental meditation fits so well with American culture because it’s not an organized religion; they can do it independently and we can’t say it’s good, but they like it because they feel like they’re not being interfered with by anyone else. They also like the independent aspect where they don’t have to rely on anyone else. But if this has become our ideology, then it’s hard to follow for us to believe and follow God. Because we are so independent when we are supposed to follow God it doesn’t fit our nature.
Because our culture is so individualistic, it highly regards and respects human ideologies. So, there’s nothing absolute; that person’s opinions are right, and that other person is right. Especially in the age of postmodernism. During the age of modernism, there are rules and standards. Modernism was an age ruled by logic and rationality, but postmodernism has just scattered that. More so than logic, we might put emotions on our forefront. So, it’s good to be in an age where the next generations are opposing the other generations. It’s an age where they naturally oppose the order or authority that’s in place.
This is how the devil has been seizing us more and more through the generations. There’s a frame with which a devil is controlling this age and this ideology and this is the age we are currently living in. If people say things like, “Why do I have to come to church wearing a suit? Why can’t I come just wearing a sweatpants and a t-shirt?” The young people will rally because of postmodernism versus the older generation that has determined that pastors must wear a suit, and nowadays they ask, “Can’t I come in sweats and slippers? Is there any problem with that?”
That is nowadays the age that has become the devil is controlling, age by age, with the ideologies, the culture, and the philosophies, and we live in this age. But what is the goal the devil is going for? Satan has changed all the philosophies and ideologies of the age so that the younger children can not accept God’s Word. It becomes harder for the word of God to go into them because they ask, “Why do I have to do it like this? Do I have to interpret the word this way specifically? This is how I feel about it.” That’s good.
But they are essentially refusing to acknowledge the absolute truth, because they say “this is another option, why does it only talk about men here, isn’t this too patriarchal? I don’t see it that way, I think the female should be included too.” It’s because this age where there’s no problems with this, and these are just some examples, but these are the ideologies that have gone into the young people. That has become their ideology little by little, through the education system and culture. God told us to conquer the world but they ask “Can’t we just hold hands and just live peacefully together?” They’re saying things like, “Why do we always have to force our religion? Can’t we just go along with other religions and acknowledge all?” That’s what they’ve learned, and that’s what they think is good. God says when you go into the land of Canaan to never get tied up on those words.
6000 years ago, these words may have seemed so simple, but look at it, in the past Satan used to work through these idols and demons but now, the outer appearance has changed, and they are working through ideologies. Satan says “Can you reject these ideologies? Can you say , ‘only Christ Jesus’?” If you cannot, then you will get caught in the snare and will fall. This is what God is telling us to do in the present reality in the world.
Deuteronomy 7:12-13 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. This is what God promised He would do if you just follow the words of the covenant.
These words seem so simple but it’s really not. It seemed so clear and we agreed since we are listening to it just theoretically or logically, but there’s so many hidden things inside of us that are just deeply imbedded. we have a value system that is so deeply imbedded within us that it prevents us from following God’s covenant. And if you want to clump that into one categories, it’s “Me”. More so than the Word of God, the things I’ve learned and experienced and the ideologies that I have come out of me that’s why we know the Word of God, but we cannot hold onto the word and we follow something else. Because Satan is moving the entire culture of the world, and we’re bound to follow something else.
That’s why ultimately we know the Word but we misperceive ourselves that we believe the Word. In reality, we follow something else and that’s why we need to go into the Word, prayer and evangelism every single day. Why? Because that’s the triune God. We hold onto God’s Word because God fulfills his word today, and he fulfills it tomorrow. We hold onto the prayer topic because the Holy Spirit is working within us with power every day. And we go in the direction of evangelism because Jesus Christ is fulfilling salvation now. And when you go into the land of Canaan, you need to begin everyday with the Word, prayer, and evangelism.We know this with our brains, but as soon as it becomes monday, we don’t hold onto the word so we live with what we already have then I will automatically move in the direction that is beneficial to me, money, and success.
It’s a state where we know the word of God and we cannot actually follow it, that’s what we have to fight against, we have to fight against that first. Before you fight your next If you don’t fight against this, your spiritual state is somewhere else, even though you think you know it with your brain, so you’re going to follow other directions. The Holy Spirit is working upon our prayers even now, but I have no desire to follow it. Even now, He is carrying out the ministry of salvation, but I want to live the way I`ve been living until now. Then what happens? Then your life becomes irrelevant to the works of the Triune God. Even though you may have escaped from the authority of Satan, you are still within the nature he’s given you. God says that he’s already prepared all physical needs, but you don’t believe that. We think, no matter what, “I have to work hard and I need to do this.” This is the trap of Satan.
God has already put everything in Christ and God has prepared everything in proclaiming Christ. That is why we must live by the gospel, the evangelist will live by the gospel, because God has prepared everything already for the gospel. People ask, “how can I do well in my business?” but that’s what people of the world ask. We do our business for the gospel, we study for the gospel, and ultimately, these are the ones who will win because no one can overcome the gospel. Satan, the devil, is only trembling before the gospel. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, you cannot budge before the devil. That’s the reason why people have done everything and still collapse.
Satan gives you all the good things you want in the world, but he makes it so that you fail without being able to worship. Worship doesn’t simply mean that you’re sitting here in church or not, but the word of God doesn’t go into you because that’s how you worship, you give all the glory to God, and you give all of yourself to God. Every time you come to worship you give all yourself to God and receive God’s things. All God’s things. That’s what the devil prevents you from doing, the devil promises to give you all the glory of the world, it doesn’t mean you just attended service, we are talking about the worship given in spirit and truth. The spirit meaning the Holy Spirit, the truth meaning the words of Christ, that has to be related to me.
Then every time you worship, you should receive spiritual strength and the strength of the Word. The absolute condition for that is that you can only absolutely accept it when you let go of your things. If you come full of your own motives and ambitions of success, the word cannot go into me. I must die on the cross and Christ must live within Me. I live within this covenant. Every time you come to worship, God will give you strength and the Word.
People who cannot lack spiritual strength. Nobody dies because they can’t work all the time. If you become a child of God, He takes care of you. People are working so hard, they cannot hear the Word of God and they’re always yawning at church. You have to change that. Most people live that way and they think that is’ right, but that person is already spiritually dead. They’re spiritual beggars. We have to be spiritually abundant, then, you’re bound to follow the stream of God’s Word in the world.
Deuteronomy 7:14 You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. God is promising the blessing of abundance and fruitfulness. Because these people have to go to a new land, the land of Canaan, to live, and they cannot survive unless God does this for them.
You are not the people that live being tied up with the Canaanites. You are people who live because of God, because of the gospel. It is only possible by that faith. If you don’t believe that, then you have to make alliances. You have no choice but to make alliances with unbelievers. Then it seems like you’re doing well but later on, your spirit collapses. That’s why their future generation has to be taken as captives of war to Babylon. As you succeed and make money you will get seized by the devil, then you cannot escape. That’s the reason the future generations were taken captive by Babylon.
That’s why you must remember this. Every day going into the world, you must go in with the 3 todays: the word, prayer, and evangelism. That’s the way to succeed. First thing to do in the morning is to receive God’s word. And today, I must receive God’s power. That show you guys can conquer. You need to go towards the direction of evangelism for today. That’s how you can flow with this word, “Today.”
Deuteronomy 7:15 “The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.” It means that ultimately everything is within God’s hands. People say things like, “It’s difficult,” or, “It’s dangerous,” but God says he will protect you. Therefore, for people who are within the covenant of God’s gospel, we do not ward off diseases with our efforts; God protects us from them.
Yes, at the most basic level, we do have to be careful and exercise, but that’s not enough; God has to protect us. God promises to protect us if we remain in the covenant we can do well in our business but God has to block the disaster for us. We always think that things will work out, but why do things not work out? If God doesn’t block it for you, you will fail, but people’s logic always thinks they can do it, God has to protect you. God is talking about animals and livestock, those are food, and God talks about things like that. And if you live in the life of an evangelist proclaiming the gospel He will even block diseases. Because if you’re inflicted with a disease, you cannot conquer Canaan.
Deuteronomy 7:16, “You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.” Don’t even believe your thoughts because that will be your snare. Other people’s words are not so important, but what goes into my brain is important. People say they failed or were swindled by people’s words, but it was already inside of them.
That’s why God told you to hold onto God’s Word, but if you take away God’s Word, you’ll say, “oh, I was tempted by this person,” or, “my life became like this because I met this person” those words may be correct but they are wrong. God told us to hold onto His word. Why do you keep on wanting to borrow the strength of humans? That’s why you have no choice but to hold hands with non-believers and go into the trap of Satan.
We need to make a living and we need to survive, so if we don’t believe in God’s covenant, we have no choice but to hold hands with the devil. Most people say, “Yes, I understand the word of God, but pastor, you don’t understand; this doesn’t fit with the world, and it’s so frustrating. Do you think it’s because I didn’t live in the world? I didn’t grow up in a pastor’s family so easily. I grew up in a non-believer family, worshiping idols, I went into college, graduated, and succeeded. That’s not the issue here. The problems that come up within us with no reason cannot be filled with money. The inner problem is insatiable. You cannot fill it with alcohol, books, or anything in the world, The void has to be filled with God; it cannot be satisfied with anything else.
Everything in the world is obvious, people just get in line to see who can get more powerful, why do you follow people? Believe in God. If you believe in God, then you can be like the Jews among the Jews and give them the gospel, but you don’t have to try to fit in with people, because you think you’ll miss out or need their help. You become so cowardly. you have to adjust yourself to this person. You have to give up everything that you think is right just to get the things you think you need.
Parents have thoughts like this too, there’s an image of what they want their child to be like, and in order to do that, they have to form everything to the child. That’s the parent, trying to control their child but who’s doing that? That’s the devil. The devil is using this person to control this child. Not with the word of God, but this parent is trying to satisfy all of their ambitions and motives in the world, what they failed at.
None of that is the gospel so of course it’s not going to make the child happy, and that’s why they fight. If it’s not the gospel, you’ll have things that are not the gospel for four generations. But if the gospel does go in, then the gospel will also go in for generations. It doesn’t mean if you go to church that you will be blessed for thousands of generations but if you truly believe in the gospel, you have no choice but to relay the gospel. Instead of believing in the gospel, if you believe in the diligence of humans and the ways of the world, then this is what you will give to your children for multiple generations, then I become the snare.
Only the words of Christ’s Gospel within me will liberate me. The Christ who is living me. We follow that, there’s no need to listen to other things. Because it’s not the truth. The LORD is living within me, it doesn’t matter. I don’t need that , and I don’t need to listen to anything else because everything fits in with the words of the gospel, then what happens? We’re not supposed to live that way, only Christ. Because He’s living me and He’s my master, guiding me towards world evangelization even now.
That’s why we must draw an image, when someone receives God’s grace, they will dream dreams and see vision. Try foruming with people, see if they have a dream or a God-given vision. All the visions of the world are getting a house or changing your car, so we live our lives for things that’ll disappear. God wants us to live for eternal things, for the gospel, for saving lives. He has prepared everything in the land of Canaan so that we can live for that.
Everything is prepared for you in the field. You just have to align yourself with God’s direction, and I hope you will find disciples there. All the other things you do are useless, you just eat, survive,and live with nothing else. You need to find the hidden disciples in the field God gave you, how do I find disciples? I have to proclaim the gospel for them to come, that has to go deep into your heart, embedded. If you just hear this as the word someone says, but my life is irrelevant to that, then your gap is big.
The word of God doesn’t change even 0.1%. The words of Samuel did not fall to the ground. What does that mean? It means he only held onto the covenant so of course he spoke of the covenant if you hear unnecessary things and say unnecessary things, these will not be fulfilled. Don’t you think that’s simple? But we cannot even control our mouths. We control our mouths today, “only Christ,” but even if we say those words the content is different and unnecessary words that aren’t fulfilled. Only the gospel of Christ, the covenant God gave you, every week is fulfilled then this person has no choice but to be used and made as a main figure in their field. That was Joseph, Daniel, and the remnants, and you and I have that blessing.
I hope you will pray for the 70 regions and the 70 disciples. Stop holding onto these vague or abstract things, but just follow the Word. It makes sense that it doesn’t fit because if it fits then the work would have taken already but this is part of the process we go through. Even if we had the answer, life would be so boring. We follow, we fall, and it just keeps going like this. That’s why we need this time today if you were perfect for the rest of your life, why we need it. This is the way God guides us. We will conclude the Word.
Conclusion
Do not listen to anything else, even if you listen, do not listen to anything else, even if you listen, don’t listen. Even if you listen with your ears, do not accept it with your heart. That means there’s something you must receive in your heart. There’s nothing that needs to come in your heart other than God’s word. If you place anything in your heart that’s not God’s word, it’ll become a channel. Even your scars, throw them away. Because that will destroy you. Just hold onto God’s Word. That’s the truth, and that’s when the devil will flee and you can proclaim God’s word, and that’s where God’s works take place. We shouldn’t be diseased so God will take it away.
We needed money so God has to give us the grace to listen tolistento this and to obey exactly. I believe God has prepared these blessings for us and called us here today. I am a missionary, I am a missionary who will save this region, you shouldn’t compromise in that. If I’m weak, then I’m a weak missionary. Even so, God will work. If I’m young, then I’m a young missionary, but the devil will just plow into your thoughts.
Of course the words may sound correct but that isn’t the truth. You must not be deceived, those words are correct but they are not the truth. The truth is only the Word of God. Only the truth remains for eternity and only that will destroy Satan, only with the words of truth may you conquer the field. These blessings and missions have been given to us. Let us hold onto these words and become a life of an evangelist and a missionary that follows the stream of the Word.
Prayer
There’s a stream God has given to each person and when you change that into prayer, God is working in power, then I believe the light of missions and evangelism will take place.
Earlier today I was talking about the disciples in Navajo, the Native Americans, and in the last week of June, I believe there’s a vacation that starts in the third week of June. In terms of weather, the third week of June is best, after it gets to the fourth week, it gets hot. After June 20, it’s too hot, and they said they received the internet, hallelujah. Do you know why it’s hallelujah? It’s not hallelujah because the kids couldn’t join on the internet before but now they can, it’s hallelujah because now they can join in and participate in zoom through all the evangelism schools even though they are far. Each month we send about $500 to them, and it’s not a lot, but I think God did that so that the Word can easily go into them.
So, they said it would be good if we can come from Wednesday- Saturday and I said Saturday would be hard because we have so many programs, but maybe we will go for a shorter duration. So, we haven’t gone on a missions trip for about two years, but they said there’s a lot of new remnants there, so there is a need to go and train them to really give them the gospel.
Then, our mission trip for July 11-15 is determined for El Salvador. That’s the D-Day we’ve determined, and we’ve been giving the Word to them every day, even now. The goal of meeting them and giving them the word every day is to raise up the disciples and the people around the disciples, and the goal for the missions camp is to evangelize and train the people there in the gospel, and give them the projector and way so they can participate with our Sunday message including simultaneous interpretation with Senor Deaconess Song. And when Paul went on his camps, he raised up the disciples who can stand and he gave them the message so they can have continuation. He raised up the disciples centered on the important committed workers, and also did the healing movement with demon-possessed and sick people around, and we are going with this mission.
I believe South America is a place that requires a lot of prayer because they have a lot of demon-possessed and sick people. Especially in El Salvador, the illegal crime organizations are more powerful than the government, so there are a lot of homicides, and that’s why they need our prayers. That’s the reason why we keep talking about the prayer transcending time and space. I don’t know much about the Karen people, we’re just waiting and praying until Tiffany is connected and if they aren’t connected to our church then they become disconnected, so we need to first raise up the disciples in the church and they have to spread in order for us to connect.
God is opening up the doors to El Salvador and the continuation because we have a messenger and an interpreter that has been prepared. It’s the same thing in your regional fields. We talk about the land of Canaan, but there is a team that God has prepared to conquer your fields so it’s the camp that finds those teams. It is not me alone, but there is a disciple who is prepared for that region. That must be your prayer topic and you must find that if you find it then your business will be led, because everything is led by the Word; it is not led by your things. So, the reason we talk about the 70 regions is that we pray for those regions to find the disciples. If I’m not ready, then I receive training, because if I’m not ready, God will not attach people to me. God has prepared these training systems in our church. Worship is also training, and it’s together.
Let us pray for these three things, Navajo, El Salvador, and the Korean missions conference in May.
Benediction
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, filling, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the heads of the people of God who desire to save lives and find the disciples in their fields, upon all their work, ministries, and education, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.