Satan Hinders the Evangelist (Rev. 2:9-10)
So today’s title is Satan hinders the evangelist. Why does Satan hinder the evangelist? When we evangelize Satan’s kingdom is destroyed so Satan definitely tries to hinder this evangelism. And Satan tries to hinder the church that relays the gospel. But he not only hinders them but also fears them. Satan is afraid of church members who relay the gospel. Who in America is Satan most afraid of? The president? Who Satan fears the most is the one who relays the gospel. And we call that person a summit. And only that person can do things no one else can do. Destroying Satan’s authority, blocking disasters. No one else can do it. Only through the ones who relays the gospel will Satan be destroyed.
Evangelism is something that happens between people but it’s a spiritual battle. If you don’t have that spiritual battle you’ve already lost. Meaning you don’t have a spiritual opponent. There must be an enemy in order to fight. But not having the gospel and having nothing to evangelize to is you’ve already lost to your enemy. That’s why Satan is able to overcome the churches and the disciples who don’t have the gospel and who don’t evangelize.
In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Satan has blinded the minds of the people. He’s hindering these people so that they can’t see the light of the gospel.
In 2 Thessalonians 10:11, “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” And in our main passage we read was that the Jews were actually synagogues of Satan. They hold onto the Bible but they’re completely bound by Satan. Because they’re oopsing Jesus. The work of Satan is so that they can’t relay Jesus. And they look like Jews but they’re actually being used by Satan.
And it’s the same for America. We can’t see Satan, and America grabs onto our children with these ideology. And people claim these ideology to be peaceful and comfortable. Because this ideology is one of “I can do it” and it’s one about respecting others. It’s very good and comfortable. But people need to be in a relationship with God. Being in a relationship with God means that they also have to have a relationship with people. But what’s blocking this is the ideology of individualism.
According to people it looks very good, but according to God it’s a ideology that consolatory blocks the word, meaning it’s a method of Satan. You must know this very well to not be deceived by it. These kind of ideologies are spread all around America. If you don’t like something just a little they cut them off. How happy is Satan because as soon as he touches a little bit of it, you cut it off right away. If you feel the least bit of discomfort you stop doing it right away.
And that can be a defense mechanism in which you’re saying that you won’t accept anything the opposing person is doing to me. But God is working through people. So these people just become beat for Satan. And this ideology of individualism is being aired to so many different people. And this ideologues of America is pressing to other nations.
Satan’s main goal is so that we don’t receive God’s word. The fundamental goal of Satan was the same starting from Genesis 3, to the Egypt era, to the time era, and it ended up as America’s culture. I’m living comfortably and conveniently but things start happening that are not to my comfort. I thought I would be happy and comfortable if I live to my own comfort but things aren’t working out so I’m at my limitations. And so what happens is that things I don’t want to happen, happen.
In Korea, it’s a Little better than in America. And in Korea there’s a little communication but in America there’s no communication at all. And that’s the culture of Korea. And God works through people’s communication. And Satan works with each nation and works accordingly with their cultures. If you look at the 2002 World Cup, for instance in Korea there was a huge communication because they’re affected by each other’s words and felt the same things. But if something wrong enters in, then this wrong thing is dispersed all through the people and that’s the culture of interference in Korea. Satan works in Korea accordingly in a Koran way. If someone says something they are affected by those words and Satan captures them in that way.
We must be able to see that Satan is grabbing onto us and hindering us in this sort of method, and that’s how the remnants and newcomers will arise, when they acknowledge this.
1. Method
1) Busy
And through what way does Satan work? He makes us busy even though we aren’t doing a lot of things, and these people are Satan’s targets. They look like they’re doing a lot of things, but when you get to know them, they haven’t done much. They’re doing a lot of useless things, so they’re very busy.
2) Important things- Prioritize
They stake their lives on things that aren’t very important. They are unable to prioritize. The priority must be the spiritual things, but because it’s set on the physical things, things overlap and get entangled.
3) Acknowledge
Because they keep trying to be acknowledged by people, so they get defeated by Satan. We need to be acknowledged by God, but we keep trying to be acknowledged by people.
4) Vanity
Instead of seeing the actual inner things, they’re deceived by outer appearances. Instead of telling the truth, they write a whole story regarding the truth. They don’t have anything but they pretend to have something. Vanity also becomes a channel through which Satan works.
5) Impatience
Impatience is a characteristic that many Koreans have. Impatience comes before God, so Satan uses that impatience. Many people have the problem of impatience. God works according to His time schedule, but because we’re impatient, we get very frustrated because it’s not going according to our time schedule.
6) Method – Cancer
There are so many other methods like humanism. We keep asking about other methods like, “What are other methods for prayer, of receiving the Word and relaying the Word,” and we get confused. We keep asking about methods, “How can we cure mental illnesses?” The only method is to fix our eyes on God. You must be fixed on God, but you keep looking for other methods.
You get cancer but you keep searching for other methods and you’re impatient. Isn’t getting cancer a blessing for you to come back to God and to fix your eyes on God? God didn’t just give you cancer. God allowed this cancer to take place within His time schedule. This is a result of living only according to your physical needs. Now, it’s not a problem of solving your cancer. If you’re focused on healing the physical cancer, you’ll lose hold of the spiritual things. You must find healing of the fundamental things. If you can’t understand this, you’ll continue to look for methods.
The method of receiving spiritual healing. We didn’t look for it at that time, but God is telling us to look for this spiritual power. The more you don’t look at it, the more God gives you these problems so you can fix your eyes on God. God is guiding us with His plan, so we can talk about medicine or other things, but the fundamental thing is for that person to receive spiritual strength. It’s no use if you look for medicine in other things if you don’t have spiritual strength. But they say, “It’s okay to look for other things,” but that’s not right. God desires for you to receive spiritual strength in Him. That’s God’s method, and the method is where God is.
7) State of Giving Up
Some people are in a state of giving up. The state of giving up and the state of single handedly moving towards a goal are the same thing. Because things don’t take place, you give up. Before the state of giving up, you’re in the state of pushing towards that goal, but it’s the same state. You push towards that goal, but because it doesn’t work out, you give up. So, the shape is good and the outer appearance is good, but you end up giving up. Satan works through this.
8) People-Centered
Being focused on people, this is not very good to be centered on people. The best way to nourish newcomers is that they stake their lives on the pulpit message. There seems to be other methods, but I’m sorry to say this, it’s the wrong method. The priorities must be correct because after a while, the priorities will just be twisted, and just another method, other than the pulpit message, will bring limitations.
You have to know what the pulpit means, and it’s unfortunate if you don’t know. You can see people make mistakes when they become pastors, they will judge pastors according to who gives good or bad sermons. Those people will ultimately fail. Those people listen to God’s Word while focusing on other people and they are bound to fail because people are not perfect. They’re bound to fail. Satan makes it so that they cannot continue.
We have to be focused on God’s pulpit, and this is how newcomers will continue to be nurtured. If the first step is the wrong step, then they will not be able to continue their walk of faith. If you look at exercise, it’s very important to focus on the basics. The start was wrong, where they just started hitting the ball with all their strength, and it seemed to go far, but it won’t work out for this person in the end. In the end, the basics are everything. Being focused on God’s Word, even when it doesn’t work out, just focus on that. When it works out, as long as the church and the pulpit are not destroyed, that person will continue to go forward.
No matter who stands at the pulpit, as long as the pulpit is centered on God’s Word, that person will be able to continue to go forward. But let’s say, on the pulpit, someone gives a legalistic message, it’s very difficult for newcomers to understand. But for a person who has been centered on the gospel, listening to a person who gives a legalistic message, they are able to interpret it from a gospel sense because the Holy Spirit touches them and guides them. So, for those people, it is irrelevant who stands at the pulpit, so this is very important.
It’s not good to just hold onto and teach one person. Once they grab hold of the pulpit to some extent, you must let them go and allow them to be within the church. You must focus on letting them be able to experience the church. There are some exceptional cases where they have strong mental illnesses, but other than that, you can just let them go and experience the church. That’s how we do that work.
2. Ones Who Remain (Faithful ones) Power / Blessing
God waits for this power to pour His blessings and power upon the ones who remain. These are the Old Testament and the faithful ones in the New Testament.
1) Isaiah 26:3
You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. The one who believes in God will receive God’s power, and blessings will be poured out on him. The one who is steadfast is the one whose trust is in God, meaning they are not shaken. Being shaken by people means the foundation is not solidly rooted in God’s Word. When people get frustrated, they usually assume the problem to be the other person’s words and actions. It’s an accurate thing to say but it’s also a wrong thing to say. Appearance-wise, it seems to be the correct thing, but that’s just normal people. But it’s evidence of the fact that there’s nothing strong in this person.
What is strong? The person is affected by other people because their fundamentals are weak in the fact that they are a child of God, and they’ve been sent in a direction to evangelize. When you come to realize this, people should go back to God and confront themselves, but most just end up making an excuse, that it’s the other person’s fault, and it becomes a resentful life and they live life this way. They say, “It’s because of this person,” however, this is irrelevant.
It’s of no relevance to you when you’re firmly rooted in God’s Word. But what happens if you’re not firmly rooted? Then you will be affected by other people. If you’re firmly rooted, then you will not be affected at all. If you have a lot of money, you won’t be shaken by people who do things with money. To a person who is academically well rounded, if someone criticizes them for their outer appearance, they don’t care because they’re well-rounded in academics.
When we’re firmly rooted in only the gospel and we grab hold onto that, we won’t be shaken no matter what. Even if cancer comes, we will not care and we will go according to God’s will. At first, we ask God to heal the cancer, but what happens afterwards? What happens if that’s not God’s plan? God wants to give you a better blessing. He says, “Regardless of this, I will give you a better blessing. Look at only Christ. Stake your life on only evangelism and missions.” So who cares if you have cancer, because you will go according to God’s plan.
But I’m not talking about cancer. It’s the same for all the problems we have, interpersonal problems or other problems, but because this is not relayed accurately, it is passed down from generation to generation. A parent gets mad at their child because the child doesn’t study, but if the parent has this firm assurance that the child has God’s covenant within him, then the parent won’t be shaken. So, if the parent is firm, then this firmness will be relayed to the child.
So on Saturdays, we usually devote a lot of time to our remnants, and it seems like it’s not doing much at first, because appearance-wise, it seems like there’s a lot going on, but these remnants are growing steadfast, and one day, they will become people who do not care about the world, and this is not something that can be solved with money or power. But if you cannot see this, then the child will end up being the same as their parent.
But when we see this, then we discover the know-how, so everyone will stake their lives and devote their time to this. God doesn’t just show us with grand amounts of money. People think, “With a lot of money, we can do anything,” but God works within that. There’s a field, but God has hidden the treasure under the field, and only the person who knows of this can commit their all in. But for a parent who cannot go all in, the child will go astray. But if a parent says, “I cannot do this,” and gives their child to the church, the child will grow up in the stream of the church.
Conversely, let’s say a bunch of Harvard professors came to our church on Saturday, then a bunch of parents would put their children in the church because they want their children to learn and the parents would come in hordes just wanting their children to be taught, but that isn’t the treasure. The treasure is not something that just appears, but God did not allow this treasure to be seen by just anyone. It’s the same right now. People may think, “People who come listen to this message will receive money,” then will they be able to do healing ministry? But I’m a witness, God will make one of us, I am standing here as a witness of this hidden ministry, because I didn’t know anything about healing, but God guided me to this place.
At first, I started doing this because we need to heal America, but it’s not that we just discovered this, butGod has to give us His grace. God gives us His grace and opened my eyes for healing, and this is how this continues. If God is working through me, He will also work through the church members in each of their fields. This is not something money can do. This is a work that doctors cannot do; this is a work that presidents cannot touch, but you can do this with God’s grace; it is something that cannot be changed by money.
But this is being blocked, and you’re blinded right now by other things, but eventually, your eyes will be opened. So, this is what the phrase, “Just hold on,” means.
2) 2 Timothy.2:2-7
“My son be strong in grace” you must be storing in Christ’s grace, meaning you have to be strong in spiritual strength, that’s the key, then everything will be restored because the most important thing is the spiritual thing. When grace becomes strong, everything is restored according to God’s time schedule. Just like how we solve a problem, if we just solve the most important thing, then everything follows after it. It’s the same with human problems. So, let’s say a person is physically and mentally strong, but they’re spiritually weak, then that person is not good. But from a young age, this person has held onto and received the spiritual things, and they get physical and mental knowledge and power, then this person grows up to become a great person.
3) Matthew 28:18-20
In Matt. 28:18-20, the disciples of Christ had gone back to becoming fishermen, and they had lost all hope. But they had this misconception that without physical hope, they would no longer have any hope. But God promised to give them all authority in heaven and on earth, so pray. Go into the direction of evangelism and missions and pray, and I really want you guys to be witnesses of this. Don’t force yourself to it, but God will guide you towards evangelism and missions, and become a witness of evangelism and missions. I didn’t even pray, but I set my direction towards God and God worked through me. Those who are in this direction will continue to experience this, but people who aren’t in this direction will try to do things, but it won’t work out. At first, they are mentally afflicted, and the things they do just end up somewhat okay, but if they’re set on evangelism and missions, they eventually are able to explain how God worked through them in this kind of way, because this is the method God is working though, and it works out.
3. The Ones With the Mission Must Have Their Eyes Opened
The ones who are commissioned must have their eyes opened, this is very important.
1) Past, Present, Future
The eye to see the past, present, and future. We must simultaneously see the past, present, and future. If we’re skewed to one side, then the balance will be broken. When we look at the church, the people who don’t know will only look at the current state of the church, and the current state of the church is only knowledge. You must know the past and look at the present, and you cannot just look at the present, but look at the present while thinking about the future. It’s the same with the individual, we must look at the present while looking towards the past and the future, but if we cannot see this and we just say things according to what we see at the moment, then it’s a wrong thing.
Gospel is interpreting now, but it took a long time for her to get here, but we have to see what this is. In the past, present and in the future, we have to look at it all at the sametime. It looks like they’re not changing, but they will continue to change. That’s the remnant ministry. Then what will happen to our church in the future? In the past, we didn’t even prepare a temple, but God has guided us to this temple and we continue to reside here. When we came to this place, it was just the thing we were looking for. Just this main hall and the rooms were perfect, and it’s a condition that comes to us, that people cannot just have, but God allowed this to happen, and it’s the same for the future. If it came in the past and the present, then God will also guide you into the future, and that’s how you have to accurately see this.
2) Works on Earth (Physical) and in Heaven (Spiritual)
The works on earth are physical works, and the works of heaven are spiritual work. But we think we only need to do the physical things, but it’s not like that. God is Spirit and He works through the spiritual things through the flesh, so we have to look at it from both sides. God makes it so that He does His spiritual work and the physical work will follow.
God’s spirit is in each of us and there’s a work God is doing. We have this flesh, and we do the physical work of eating and sleeping, and we make money but we must not end with this: there is a spiritual work. What must take priority is spiritual work because God’s spirit is within us and He is encompassing our flesh.
When we move, God is with us; what’s important is the spiritual things. It’s moving with the physical things. When we’re studying, God is with us. When you’re working, God is with you. When you face problems, God is still with you. So, may the works on earth and the works in heaven be with you, but if you just focus on one side, you’ll get mental illnesses. Because God and Satan are both working on the spiritual side, but because you focus on the physical side, you’ll be mentally afflicted.
3) God’s Will / Satan’s Main Job
God’s will is saving lives, and if this confuses you, think about why God came down as Jesus. He didn’t come down to take revenge. He came to give us life and to save lives. Satan makes it so that this doesn’t take place, we must know God’s will in order to break down Satan. If we don’t know God’s will, we don’t know what Satan is doing . There are things we must fight, and things we must yield to.
4) Fight- Disbelief
Yield
We must fight against unbelief but we must yield to people. Because, even though we’re yielding, God will continue to carry out His mission and plan. If God’s will is not from within us, we try to fight instead of dealing with him. Look at Joseph, he just yields to Jacob. Look at Isaac. Just because we’re yielding doesn’t mean we’ll go according to God’s plan. The words of the gospel must be firm within the church in order for there not to be conflicts, and when this goes into the family, there will be no more division. When this goes into the field of business and industries, there will no longer be any fighting, or division. It doesn’t end in business with just buying and selling.
Even though I yield, there will be something that takes place. Look at Abraham. Let’s just look at Abraham who won a war, but there was much compensation to pay. It’s the same with other nations and their wars, there is much compensation to pay, but Abraham said, “I will not take that.” It’s not just talking about money, it’s about receiving it, because sending an army of 318 men is a lot of money. The cost barely included what they eat, and this is because Abram held onto something he had. Abram believed that God will fulfill His covenant. God will do the work of making us igo conquering the land of canaan and blessing his future disciples.
Omnipotent
God is at the top, God is omnipotent. Just because I yield doesn’t mean God will be blocked, because I yield, God gives us power. God has no choice but to pour more power upon me because I yielded. God can continue to do the work of creation, we must know this while doing business, because business is not just a regular thing, isn’t that right? In the business, it’s very hard to yield, and we say, “I will forgive you up to three times, but I will not yield on the fourth time,” because usually, it ends up that they get caught on the fourth time, and they just explode. It just doesn’t work out very well.
Even if a person has an interesting personality, even if they have to yield the fourth time, they will yield while cursing. If you have the covenant, the gospel, then you can just yield. Without the gospel, even though you have a great personality, it can be hard to yield. We have to hold onto God and God’s covenant to relay it to the 237 nations and have a bunch of people. But people might ask, “what are the 70 regions?” I’m speaking about this specifically, “Go and make disciples of all nations,” meaning, “I have prepared all things inside of this. You can yield; I can do the work even though you are weak. Even if your personality isn’t so good, I can do it.”
But Satan makes it so that we cannot carry out the words that exist. “I can’t speak very well,” and if it doesn’t work out very well, they can just assign you someone. Senior Deaconess Song, cannot do Spanish well but during high school God led her to Ecuador just for today. That person has given up Korean life to go study in Ecuador, and this is the work she does every day.
That’s because it’s God’s will and God grants Him strength to do this. Wouldn’t he question himself, “why do I continue do Spanish?” but this is god working upon them. God is working through him to go to 70 disciples and 70 nations. They can do work later in the afternoon, it doesn’t matter. They just ask God to come upon them, and then one day, healing will come upon them. These are the three kinds of blessings.
4. Power
The eyes to be opened are very important. The ones whose eyes are opened must be supplied with God’s power.
Philippians 4:13
Especially Philippians 4:13, “I can do everything through Christ Who gives me strength,” I can do nothing but I can do everything when I’m inside of God’s plan. If it’s not within God’s will, it should not take place, but if it’s God’s will, then we have no choice but to work upon you. We are ones to go save the 237 nations. It’s God’s will to save the mentally afflicted in America. God’s will is to raise up the remnants to save the summits and the entire nations.
To raise up the church who does this, that is God’s will. To those who pray, God will grant them his power. We aren’t living diligently but God has to work upon us. And God will grant strength to these people, and when we receive the power, we can go forward. What are you doing if you just work diligently if it’s not God’s will? We must carefully listen to God’s word. It is not only God’s word but it is the important and specific word God has relays to the church.
Word
And always the word, I hope you will hold onto this Word and go into prayer. Shamans may pray without the word, but we always pray, holding onto the Word. Those who do meditation can focus without anything, but those who do Holy meditation must hold onto God’s Word and at that time, everything will be restored; There was someone who focused on retreats for many years and became a great leader, he received spiritual strength. And that’s why people followed after him. When you do scheduled prayer, God’s power that is spiritual strength will come upon you and everything else will follow like wisdom, and people. Once God works on you, everything must follow. That time is scheduled prayer.
People question whether this will take place or not, but they don’t know what this is. For people who are good at studying, they don’t appear to be very good. But you don’t know when they start studying. They have this sort of characteristic. It’s the same thing for people of this world. For people who are good, they do something before doing their work, they receive the strength that comes from the heavens unbeknownst to other people. God gives us strength so we can save everyone with the Word. The ones with this mission must be supplied with this power.
Satan hinders the evangelist. He leaves everything else alone because it’s no use to him, but he hinders everything else. It’s the same thing with dogs, they leave alone anything that is of no concern to them, but if something is threatening them, they become defensive and growl. Satan will hinder you, but you must become a building in which you would not be hindered. Even when you don’t want this family problem to go away, it will go away.
Prayer
Father God, we thank You. Bless the evangelists, and allow us to go all in with the 70 disciples, 70 people groups, and 70 nations. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.