Apollo (Acts 18:24-28)
We’re going to share the grace of God’s Word from Remnant Day. The mistakes you make don’t matter because you have God’s Word and God called you as His remnants. The more you experience, the better, because through that, your eyes will be opened and it will be a good experience for you to learn from. Chris asked my daughter to say sorry and thank you for him, and I was so moved by that. That’s by God’s grace. You have to understand, he’s such a great individual. Most people are not like that when they are young, until the very end, they think they are right, and there are people who are like that since they are young. But if you understand your thoughts are wrong, you have to quickly be able to change and acknowledge that.
Why did I treat him that way? I was like that while I was younger, and I stay like that until God breaks me down, so I saw in him a younger version of me, so I wanted to tell him, “No, stop that.” But what’s important is that he said, “Thank you, and I’m sorry,” and that’s what’s important. I am a pastor, but I’ve told the members of my church that they are wrong three times. The members of the church have never done it to me, but I’ve done it to them three times, I formally apologized to the members of the church because I realized I did something wrong, that I shouldn’t have done that.
I was in Korea, and I was listening to conflicts going on in the church between the pastor and the members, they had a power struggle because they never learned this while they were young. Does it make sense to have a power struggle against the pastor? I told the pastor, “Everything is the pastor’s fault, so you apologize.” He said, “What?” “Do pastors not make mistakes? If you’re a pastor, you should be able to apologize for what you did. If you apologize, do you lose face? No, but if you do something wrong and refuse to apologize, you’re even stranger.”
We need to stand before God and say, “I’m sorry” to God as well, but we stand so shamelessly and we ask for God to give us His grace again, and say, “Thank You,” and “Give us Your grace.” Isn’t that the gospel? Today, we’re looking at this person Apollo, but how did he mature while he was young so that he became a pastor?
1. Abilities
Studies – Basic
Abilities
It doesn’t matter how well two medical doctors studied in college, they have to actually have the skill or ability to heal their patients. Your education is just the basic foundation. It means, you need to have that, but you also need to gain the skills on top of that foundation. Your skills and your abilities are your actual abilities. You need to have the things you’ve learned in class as well as your actual abilities, the power you have in the field, and this is how you are preparing. Apollo did that while he was a young remnant.
2. Spiritual Strength
Without spiritual strength, you will crumble in your life. Without spiritual strength, it doesn’t matter how skilled you become; your spirit has no strength so you’re constantly attacked by the devil and you’ll be sucked into the environment of your friends. I talked about this during the first message, but nowadays, there are drugs that are so strong, you don’t even know they are drugs.
A lot of college kids here don’t go to many parties, right? Already, you can tell the party kids by how they dress. I’ve already gone through that in the world, so I can tell when I look at you. It seems there’s something fascinating, but they turn down the lights and play music and that’s it. It looks like a whole new world, alcohol, drugs, sex, and those things go on behind the scenes later on. That party is where people meet boys and girls.
Then, let’s say there’s a student you’re interested in, and it’s so easy for them to drug your drink. What happens when you drink a spiked drink? When you get a surgery, it hurts, and we get anesthetized to undergo surgery, and the drugs will spike your hormones 1000x more than your pain, that’s why it doesn’t hurt. That means when the drug goes into your blood stream, it changes you.
Even now, when I drink coffee, I get hyper. I just drink whatever people give me, I’m used to doing that when people gave me alcohol so I couldn’t sleep at night. But the drug of today is spiked so you can’t even tell, then what’s going to happen? Later on, imagine what’s going to happen after that. There’s medication given to people undergoing surgery, and if someone does that drug twice, they get addicted. There is a Korean rapper who accidentally took this drug twice, he got a hot flash, then he got extremely cold. He kept going back and forth, it was so miserable for him that he broke everything around him with a hammer. He did it twice and didn’t even know he was taking it. That’s what happens with drugs nowadays.
In the war between Russia and Ukraine, they would drug up the Russian soldiers prior to sending them into the battlefield, because everyone is afraid when they face a gun, so they drug the soldiers, because when you’re drugged, you lose all fear, you go forward into the gunshots. Same with spies going to North Korea, you drug yourself because you can’t go by yourself because of your fear. The drugs allow you to go beyond your human limitations.
Drugs – Addiction
Most people don’t go to the point of addiction. I used to smoke 4 packs of cigarettes every day, and a pastor asked me how I quit, and I just stopped after I believed in Jesus. For me, I didn’t smoke cigarettes because I wanted to, but when you graduated from college, you have to do it to prove you’re an adult, so as I continued to do it, it became extremely hard. Why?
Brain – Imprint
There’s a reason why people get addicted to drinking. When they are going through such a hard time, they get drunk, then you’re not yourself, it’s a different “you,” so people are sloppy and can have a good time singing, alone. Then, your brain is imprinted with, “Oh, this is fun.”
Soul, Eternity
If this is imprinted in your brain, you cannot quit until it is no longer imprinted in your brain. You will never be able to quit until something more pleasurable is imprinted in your brain. It’s the same for anything, alcohol, cigarettes, gaming. I was talking to one of the remnants and asked, “Is your younger sibling still addicted to gaming?” They said, “I’m still praying about that.” In the past, when doing regional church, the remnant would be in their car, playing computer games, why? That joy has been imprinted in their brain, then no matter where you go, you’ll do it anywhere because it’s imprinted in your brain. If your brain is imprinted with, “Alcohol and drinking is good,” your brain will command you to drink wherever you go.
Not everyone who does drugs gets addicted. There are people who do drugs once in middle school or college, but most people say, “Okay,” and then they stop. Who gets addicted? If someone is suffering from a spiritual problem, it’s difficult for them, and when they do drugs, they feel good. If it’s hard to understand, imagine surgery where they cut open your stomach or head, imagine how painful that is. For people who undergo pain like that, when they do drugs, it’s good, but for someone who is under a spiritual problem, they are always suffering. Then, when they tried the drug, their pain is sedated as they go through surgery, so they feel okay for a moment but then feel addicted.
Some are addicted to vacationing because when they have a hard time and are stressed by life, they are imprinted with, “Vacations are good,” so they travel a lot. Traveling isn’t bad, but addicted to travel? They just go because they tasted that joy. There are things that are actually good for us and things that destroy us.
What about addiction to studying? It seems good, right? I met someone like that at Koryo University in Korea, I did an Upper Room meeting with them, and they asked, “Can you meet in the library basement? I can’t leave the library,” they’re seized by studying. They may be good at it, but they’re seized and can’t escape from it. “Why can’t we go to an empty classroom?” “I can’t leave the library.” It’s like a superstitious person, they won a game by looking at the number seven, so they keep looking for that to get peace.
I met a student at Koryo University who was athletic and smart, but he never went to class because he was afflicted. It takes him an hour to get to campus, and even though he looked perfectly fine, he was afflicted. Whenever he leaves his house, there’s a rocking chair, if he doesn’t look at that rocking chair when he leaves his house, he’s afflicted. Can you understand this? This is the reality.
One time, I got a call, “Assistant pastor, I’m in big trouble.” I said, “Why?” They said, “I finished an internship and I went onto a campus and I’m not wearing a suit.” That’s crazy, but that’s what it means to be afflicted. If he does anything for the first time, he’s afflicted. It was his first day and he never wore a suit so he was having a hard time. “How did you start getting paranoia?” He said, “I have milk cartons, and I never drank one, but when I drank one, I started being afflicted. The first time I sipped a milk carton, I’ve been afflicted.”
When it rains, you use an umbrella, and for the first time, he used an umbrella and it knocked out someone else’s umbrella so he was afflicted. Can you understand these words? Satan holds onto our thoughts and heart and afflicts us with it. He’s so afflicted so he can’t even go to classes in the morning, so he looks at his friend’s notes to pass his classes. I was an Assistant Pastor so he opened his heart to tell me, but he never even told his parents, who are clothing store owners, so they used clothing store money to send their kid to college. This student can’t tell anyone what they’re going through. There are mental and spiritual problems that elites experience that they cannot tell anyone. Because they’ve lived an upright life ever since they’re young, they don’t do drugs. However, as this continues, even though he’s going to be a doctor, he will do drugs, but he won’t even be able to be a good doctor.
As I did Bible study with him, I came to America. Do you think he’s alone? Elites are incredibly afflicted. If you’re just busy making a living and laboring for a wage, you can’t be like that. Your body is so tired, you don’t even have time to be mentally afflicted, but you just eat and sleep, but if you don’t have spiritual strength, it will be hard. If you have the spiritual strength of God being with you, then you can overcome all the things going on in your life. If you have spiritual strength, it doesn’t matter if you go to party or not, you will go to evangelize. But if you don’t have spiritual strength, you think you’ll find a good man if you go to this party? You lack strength. If you had strength, it wouldn’t matter.
For a long time, more than a decade, Ivy league schools had co-ed dorm rooms, and it’s so rightful in their culture, why is that? It’s hard for them and that’s how they relieve their stress. “Now that I’m in an Ivy League school, I’ve succeeded,” and once they get the job they want, that’s it. Until that point, they just have to use whatever motives they need to in order to overcome. They have no strength so they have to do everything, so equip your spiritual strength. Listening to God’s Word, right now, is the beginning of receiving spiritual strength.
You guys haven’t experienced life yet. There’s tremendous situations and traps in the life you will experience. Even as you succeed in your career, you’ll face tremendous traps and barriers. You’re going to be so worried about what people think, and you may want to talk about Jesus but you can’t because you want to succeed. You’ve already calculated that, because you don’t have spiritual strength, “If I talk about Jesus Christ, these people will bully me and I won’t be able to succeed.” We are not failing because of a lack of elites, we fail because of a lack of spiritual elites.
You need to equip both skill as well as spiritual strength. Today there were two or three Mongolian pastors here, and they were so motivated, “There’s a team of 10 Mongolians, we are going to raise up a church in LA,” and they want to be independent, so I said, “Good luck, don’t just get handouts from other people, but become an independent church first.” He pretended like he wasn’t listening but he was still listening.
“Can you give the gospel to one person and raise them up as a disciple? Can you raise up the members of your church in faith?” Of course, I didn’t say it like that, but that’s how the conversation went. There are forces of darkness in the superpower nation. It doesn’t matter how much you evangelize; the devil is waiting for you. It doesn’t matter how much you fly around trying to do that; the darkness is waiting for you. As soon as you say, “Oh, I’ve made it,” then the darkness waits for you. Knowing this vaguely as a theory won’t work; you need to actually have spiritual strength to have the five powers. But if you just know spiritual strength in theory, you’ll be sucked into the culture and environment of the field, because the darkness is real. Of course, you need to have visible skills, but without invisible skill, you will fall.
Word – Sunday
What word did you hold onto on Sunday? You don’t know, that’s natural, but this is the process where you have to be imprinted in the Word of God. Take notes on the Word God gives you. In Deut., it says to write the Word of God on your wrists, foreheads, and doorposts. Look at your message notes every day but you think, “Even if I read these notes every day, it won’t do anything.” But that’s a misconception. You quit doing it because of your own impatience, because you think according to your own theories and what you’ve learned in the world, you quit by yourself.
The Word is God, and if this isn’t your imprint, root, and nature while young, then you’ll live ignoring the spiritual things and you’ll face a big problem in the future. That’s what I’m saying to all college students. I don’t say this to the parents; I already know the parents can’t understand, so I can’t even tell them that. Your friends can’t tell you either, unless your friends are the same level as you, and they open the doors to their heart, They’re just going to endure and endure, and when they face a limitation, they’ll have no choice but to be swept up into the environment.
That’s why elites gather and do these things. If the world sees that doctors and lawyers are doing drugs, the world will see that’s strange. You think if some professional is doing drugs, would you entrust yourself to them? Elites don’t tell anyone else but they do it in hiding, they hide it so you don’t even notice, but they do it amongst themselves.
Lawyers, doctors, and judges gather together in Korea and do drugs and soju bombs, because imagine this, let’s say a judge sentences someone to death, but as a human, they know they are killing someone, and they see all of that person’s family members in the courtroom, then that judge is in the seat of success. Can they endure this kind of pain? No. So, if they don’t take this alcohol in the middle of the day in Gangnam, they can’t endure this.
Even before we go into a company, we learn how to drink first. Before even becoming a military officer, we learn how to drink first. They say, “You have to drink this and that kind of alcohol,” they have to experience these things in the future, and the soldiers don’t know about this at all. Only the officers know this. These groups exist. Then, all the musical performers may perform on the stage, but when no one else is looking, they do something else. Sometimes it’s revealed but most of the time, it’s not. You can’t handle this without strength. That’s why when you guys go out into the world, you need skill and spiritual strength.
Of course, try your best with your studies, that’s basics for living in this world. Nowadays, even old ladies are using smartphones because you have to do that to survive. That’s basic. Everyone needs to know basic math. If you’re not able to speak at a basic level, you’re not able to communicate. You guys are under the misconception that what you’re studying is something great? Some people study biology, that’s just basic. On top of the things you’ve learned in school, you have to learn how to deal with people as well. Then if you learn all of anatomy, can you do surgery? That’s just basic. Even after you’re done with all your studies, you have to keep researching again and again, otherwise you can’t survive.
There are people who’ve graduated after four years, majoring in music, but that’s not enough to make it big. Whatever you’ve studied in music is basic, so on your own, you have to stack up more in your own specialty. But the problem is you stopped before having a worldly skill, and you don’t have the ability and you struggle. “I’ll get spiritual strength later, I’ll go to church later,” some people are like that. Because they are from a nonbeliever background, even their teachers teach like that.
I realized if they grow up with a nonbeliever background, they will suffer a lot in the future. Without telling the kids about the importance of spiritual strength, they won’t get skill. Do this together, do you understand? The reason why adults are having such a hard time is because they weren’t able to get worldly skill, so they’re not able to get spiritual strength as well, so they suffer spiritually and physically. Some people have worldly skill but are spiritually afflicted. Do this together. Your studies and spiritual things must go together.
That’s what David did, shepherding was building his skill, and while he was shepherding, he was praying and praising God.
=> Incident
Solve X
Because David had both worldly skill and spiritual strength, when he faced the situation, it became a springboard for him to be successful.
Success
David had both skill and spiritual strength, so the situation was a springboard for blessings for him. For everyone else, when they face a crisis or problem, it’s a big problem. When you live your lives in the future, of course, you’ll face crises and situations, but people who have skill and spiritual strength can rise to the top without competing. People don’t have spiritual strength to do that. For you guys, it’s okay even if you don’t understand right now, but in your head, you must acknowledge something like this exists for you to follow that path in its time.
But churches make it so people glorify themselves and not God. That’s what you call Gen. 3, 6, and 11, and it completely pushes people into disaster. That’s why members of the church are completely enslaved by America. You can only recognize this when you have God’s grace. Imagine how diligent immigrants are. Because they want to survive and make it in America, imagine how much their eyes light up as they talk about worldly skill, but if you don’t know about spiritual strength, you’ll mess up your kids.
Then what happens later? Your children will be exactly the same as your family line. I told you this earlier, but my uncle passed away from a type of cancer. My cousin was only one or two years older than me, and he died of the same thing. My female cousin saw her father pass away and said she’d become a doctor, but she ended up doing something else because this happened while she was in elementary school. She was the only daughter among three brothers, so imagine how much she was loved. I didn’t even know she existed, but apparently, in her middle school years, she said, “I would be a doctor to heal people like my father,” but you need support to do that. That’s what it’s like.
We have a senior deaconess whose mother in law tried to commit suicide and she herself tried to commit suicide so I told her to watch her daughter. Without this, you’ll be seized by the family line. You can’t block this with skill but you need to have spiritual strength. There was a student who would be studying and reading the textbook during the message, and it seemed like they were pretty good at studying but there are so many people who are smarter than they are. If you don’t have spiritual strength, you have no other choice. This is what God has prepared for you.
Then, what do we have to do to gain spiritual strength?
5 Minutes
Don’t worry about the time but it doesn’t matter how briefly you do this. Today, the message you heard doesn’t matter, but write down the message God gave to you. You might say, “It doesn’t matter what I wrote down, that’s just a piece of paper,” but keep doing it. Take the Word God gives you for the week, and before you go to sleep, think about how the Word applies to the problems and circumstances you face. Then without you realizing, God begins to work upon you and your problems. But the trap you fall into is that you’re impatient, you want something to happen now, so you think this doesn’t do anything.
Prayer – Trinity
When you like someone, you give your whole heart to them, right? But if you put up walls, you cannot date the other person. It’s the same with God. God and Satan have personalities, they’re personal, so ask God to completely rule over and fill your heart, thoughts, and spirit, especially the places where you have spiritual problems, then what happens? God begins to work. Don’t expect this to happen quickly, but God just works.
Studies, Meetings
Pray for this, only when the Holy Spirit works will demons be cast out and the Kingdom of God will be established and you will receive answers. You guys receive answers from the Kingdom of God, not the Kingdom of Satan. It’s easy, right? Just five minutes. Do this every day for a long time, and if you have leisure to do this, do this in your work or school for a minute. Carry around the notes you received from the message. If you have a lot of greed, you can’t do this. It’s okay even if it’s just one word, so as you think about God’s Word, may the Spirit of God rule over me. Then in your incident, God will make an incident no one can resolve other than you.
Can you not do this later on? It doesn’t matter. God called Moses when he was 80. God calls you when He calls you. You also have your prayer journals, keep buying them and you’ll have the page for Sunday. Then you underline the Word God has given to you for Monday. Then you read the Word God gave to you on Sunday for that specific day, and you pray for the spirit of the Lord to reign over you and the field, and that’s it. Do that Monday through Saturday. We have things on Saturday as well.
This seems like nothing, right? But it’s the way to receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Without this, you live according to your thoughts. The sheep must listen to and follow the voice of the Shepherd, they don’t go where they want to go. Even if you follow your own desire, getting bitten and eaten by wolves, it’s okay, but if you have mental or spiritual problems, do this. You think you’re not getting better, but God moves you. May you enjoy this blessing.
Prayer
God, we thank You. Please bless the remnants. May this be the time schedule to equip the skill and spiritual strength to save the 237 nations and the 5000 unreached tribes to save the world. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.