Being Centered on God and the Covenant to Save Myself and Others (Numbers 16:1-14)
Korah, son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—became insolent and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”
When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. Then he said to Korah and all his followers: “In the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The man he chooses he will cause to come near him. You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this: Take censers 7 and tomorrow put burning coals and incense in them before the Lord. The man the Lord chooses will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far!”
Moses also said to Korah, “Now listen, you Levites! Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near himself to do the work at the Lord’s tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? He has brought you and all your fellow Levites near himself, but now you are trying to get the priesthood too. It is against the Lord that you and all your followers have banded together. Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?”
Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, “We will not come! Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves? No, we will not come!”
Today I want to have a time where we share the grace of God with Numbers 16. People are all born in this world and go weather to heaven and hell. Then how is the world taking place? This world includes scientific advancement and the 4th and 5rh Industrial Revolution, but in order to know the world properly you have to know the spiritual world. And when people are born, they are born into a state that does not have God. And fundamentally we are living our lives centered on ourselves without God, and that is the beginning of all problems.
The beginning of all problems is being born thinking that I can do things on my own. And life itself is trying to live by yourself and for yourself, but that doesn’t work like that. Why is that the case? Is it because I am lacking? What is the exact reason? And even if we look for some kind of religion or some kind of idols, it takes place even less. Therefore, we cannot escape from our suffering. Because this person called Me cannot escape from myself.
But in my thoughts things can work out. And this world is suffering even now stuck in this snare. All of the things people are thinking now are irrelevant to God, they are just things they think by themselves, they just think by themselves that this is the benefit to me. They just decided in their hearts that if I do this, then my life will work out. And it doesn’t matter how much you choose a religion and beg to it, you’ll fall even deeper.
You fall more and more deep to this thing called yourself. So you’re holding onto a religion and falling deeply into yourself. So you’re completely trapped and you cannot escape, and later on this will be evident to the eyes. But the problem is people are like this after believing in Jesus Christ. They are in this misconception that if I believe in Jesus Christ, He will help me get what I want.
Then they are continuously living a religious life. And we’re always misunderstanding this thing called myself. And that’s how we receive God’s word too. You just put the word of God into your heart according to what you like. Because if I do this, then according to my thoughts God will help me. If we live our walk of faith like this, then we’re living a life worse then a nonbeliever. And you come to a conclusion that things don’t work out even if I live a walk of faith. And the content we read in Numbers 16 is telling the story of people like this. The Israelites are going through the wilderness as soon as they went to spy on the land of Cannan and their inner color began to show.
For two years, as they were concentrating on God and receiving His grace, there was nothing that could show up because nothing was taking place in their lives, but three days after going into the field, their inner colors showed up. In other words, all the things they heard and the grace they received was not aligning with what was going on in their lives, and that’s why after receiving the report of the land of Canaan, most of the Israelites said it was a huge problem, they said essentially that things wouldn’t work out according to God’s Word.
Why do you think they came to that conclusion? Because they were still unable to escape from themselves. “From my perspective, this will not work out because there are people in this land who are stronger than me,” they still could not escape from “me,” and that’s why they kept on suffering. Then, they revolt again with their disbelief. Even Moses’ siblings revolted against Moses.
It’s possible we may make this kind of mistake because when they saw Moses, they saw him as a younger brother. So, every single thing we think began centered on ourselves, but we cannot escape from that center. They saw him as the younger brother, “So what could he know?” These are the things that reveal themselves as revolting against God.
Then, when Moses said, “We are not ready to go into the land of Canaan, so let us return back into the wilderness,” the Israelites did the opposite and went into the land of Canaan, so they interpret the Word of God based on how they feel, according to their own lives. If the Word of God says “no,” you have to accept it as “no,” but instead, they went into the land of Canaan. It’s true that going into and conquering the land of Canaan is the Word God gave them originally, but they rejected the Word God had just given them, that they couldn’t do it, so they rejected the Word and just went in, and they all died.
Why do you think things like this take place? There’s one reason. It’s because they interpreted God’s Word and make all their decisions centered on themselves. The way they apply God’s Word isn’t even aligned with God’s time schedule. It’s true that He wants us to go into Canaan, but God told them not to, in other words, He is saying it’s not the time yet, but they are saying they will go in according to their time schedule.
There were a lot of people killed by the sword of the enemy at that time, and they just lived their walk of faith however they felt like. They just did whatever they felt like, however they think, whatever takes place.
In Numbers 16, it talks about yet another revolt that took place within the Levite tribe. This is talking about the revolt led by Korah, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi. In Numbers 16:2, it says they rose up against Moses, and with them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community ,leaders who had been appointed as members of the council. Because they were part of the Levite tribe, even if they are not specifically priests, they are still doing the work related to the Tabernacle.
The main figure of this revolt was Korah, and he’s maybe a cousin or distant relative of Moses and Aaron, and he couldn’t stand seeing them flaunting their priestly robes before all the people. He had those thoughts and also brought 250 people together to stage a coup d’etat. There’s always one person who is revolting against God . What is this one person being shaken with? It is their jealousy, their envy. They are saying, “What makes you so different from me?” They always hold onto that and revolt with 250 other people gathered together.
In Numbers 16:3, the whole group came to oppose Moses and Aaron and said, “We are all people of God, so what makes you greater than us that you should tell us what to do?” The reason this came about is because these were the people closest to Moses and Aaron. But the people who were far from Moses and Aaron didn’t know them very well. Simply put, they’re thinking, “We grew up together but now you’re way above us as a priest and as one who communicates with God,” and that seems correct from the perspective of humans, and that’s why they felt so bad.
They were saying, “Are you the only leaders here? We are also holy and also receiving God’s Word, why is it just that you two are standing in front?” That is the reason why Korah put this opposition into the hearts of the 250 people. When Moses heard this, he fell facedown and said, “In the morning, the LORD will reveal who is the holy one and who may come before God, and that is the one God will cause to come closer to Him.
In other words, God will show who is the type of person He desires, and who is the type of person He doesn’t want, and He says to bring 250 censers. In Numbers 16:7, Moses says, “You Levites have gone too far,” in other words, “you have stepped out of line. You are speaking right now but you are way out of line.” In other words, “you have gone to the extent of human thinking.” Why do you think Moses told them to bring 250 censers? Because God will show you whether your words are correct or not.
One thing Moses was really good at was that he didn’t fight back against them. If there are any people like this in the church, and you fight with them, arguing who is right or wrong, you will fail with them. The best thing to do is to completely give it to God to see how He works, but you must not go into the 250 people. But why is it that the 250 people were United with Korah’s words? It means that most people have something like this inside of them. You and I have received salvation however, inside of us we have this opposition where we look at people centered on people. And because of this all 250 of them died. They die immediately because the earth underneath them opens up and swallows them up with fire. And Moses prayed about that. And Moses said, “God you cannot kill everybody.” He is praying to God, “Lord you are the Lord of life.”
So God received his word, and the way he showed his anger is just killing the 250 people. What is this talking about? Does this mean that if we fight with other people, is God going to kill us all? It might be the case and it might not be that’s in God’s hands. But the Holy Spirit is within us and He is always coaching us. And even if we do have this heart within us, we must be sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, by the prayer of Moses, the Lord predatames his anger. The things we are imprinted and rooted in before we received salvation goes for a long time. It is all the things we think centred in ourselves, “Oh I don’t think that’s too bad.” We’re just so used to thinking this way. Isn’t that right? From the perspective of Aaron or Korah, it may seem that this person is not that great, or it might seem like that person is not much better than I am.
From the perspective of people. And you might be right. That’s why people united with Korah. If those words are completely wrong they wouldn’t be on their side. The characteristic of people who are always spreading this disbelief, they are always speaking words that are true from mankind’s perspective. And the Israelites that were constantly in disbelief in the wilderness, were not speaking words that were incorrect from people’s perspective. But all of the words that were so correct were correct outside of Jesus a Christ. If you have been made into children of God by the blood of the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ then now you’re centred on God. Being centred on God means being centred on God’s word.
Your life will change depending on how much you’re imprinted and rooted in this. But without even realizing it, we’re holding onto the thoughts we’ve had before, but God says they’re wrong, but these people died without even realizing why they were right or wrong, because no matter how much they thought about it, Aaron wasn’t that great, that was just from their perspective. Just like from their perspective, the land of Canaan was too difficult . They weren’t destroyed because of their level of education or their money. They didn’t die because of the standard of, “Have you read the Bible 100 times?” They weren’t destroyed because of their past successes and failures.
They were not able to escape from themselves. They could never escape from that frame of “themselves.” How can we escape from that? We’ve already been liberated but we are still stuck. Spiritually we have been saved, but our thoughts and minds can still not escape. Ultimately, that’s the reason for our destruction, and that’s why we must begin with Christ. Beginning with Christ means you have been liberated from yourself. If you have been made a child of God by Jesus Christ, then now the Kingdom of God is your center, and now the Word of God is your center.
Then, if God has raised up Moses, God is the One who raised him up, and God has raised up Moses, but they have escaped from God’s Kingdom. The law of God’s Kingdom is the Word, and the law of America is the laws, but they looked down on God’s laws and took the laws of the world.
Even though Satan’s authority has been destroyed. If you go into the Middle East, there are spies who will report to the environment. Their authority may be broken down but they are still a formidable entity. They may no longer have the authority to control their nation, but they still have incredible influence remaining. But, the devil’s authority has been destroyed, but he is still so formidable.
He has lost his authority, therefore he cannot control anything; however, he burrows into people who revert back into their old selves. The devil is not dead, the devil is only weak before the name of Jesus Christ, but we cannot stand a chance before the devil, so what does it mean for us to remain vigilant, what does it mean for us to be watchmen?
What is a watchman? One who is vigilant, on the watch for 24 hours. You are watching yourself vigilantly with prayer, 24 hours. If you lose hold of this, then everyone without exception will fall into the tethers of themselves. Even if we don’t lose our lives in some kind of earthquake, we will be seized by Satan and we cannot escape. If you’re always so envious and jealous, you will die by yourself. Moreso than dying by falling into the earth, you are living but you are dying.
This is not just within the church but within the field of the world, too. You are dying because of your envy and jealousy. Nobody has said anything to you, but you can’t even see their face. If you see their face, you’ll lose your cool even if no one says anything to you. That’s why it doesn’t matter what unbelievers do in the world, or how much they succeed. They are already destroyed and they will be destroyed further, because the very fact they are nonbelievers means they cannot escape from themselves, they look at everything based on the standard of themselves.
The problem is with the ones who have salvation. If you go into your company, then there’s work you must do. Just like Moses said today, “The task you have been given as Levites is no small task,” it is the work God has given you, but they don’t see it that way. They are saying, “Why is this all I can do? Why can’t I be in front of everyone as the priest, being all flaunty?” So they’re being seized by Satan and they die by themselves.
They cannot express this suffering with words, “I don’t even like looking at this person,” why? Because I have been seized within this, and ultimately, you create conflicts and disputes. Listen to the words that come out during these conflicts and disputes, you will always say the words you’ve always felt, and those words sound correct but they are not. That is why the devil seizes us with lies. A lie is anything that starts from me.
Quickly revert back to being centered on God’s Word, meaning you hold onto God’s Word and go into prayer. That is how the Word of God is alive in me for 24 hours. God’s Word is always alive, of course. God’s Word is alive, but that doesn’t have any impact on me? That’s why holding onto the Word and praying is how I remain in God’s covenant. There’s no method other than that.
It doesn’t matter what you try, there’s no other way, and there’s no other way to heal you other than this. As soon as you come into the church, the way they heal the other person is to teach them this method. Unless you teach them this method, you’ll say these words by yourself and you’ll have to leave the church because of scars, but the problem is with me.
It’s the same in the family. You have no idea how much Satan tramples over our families because people are centered on people. That is why families have no choice but to separate because Satan is completely wielding this. When kids go into a company, they can’t endure especially because of human discrimination, and that’s why remnants aren’t able to endure even moreso in superpower nations.
“This person came to work later than I did, but because of racism, they were promoted before me.” Either you are so oppressed and used to this kind of oppression that you just live, suffering through it, or you pent it up inside and explode, either way it’s a disease. There’s only one way to escape, “Who am I?” You keep thinking of yourself without God. You are the “you” God created.
Who am I? I am a child of God. Then, why did God put me into this field? What is God saying in this organization in this world? But we don’t have that, and we suffer from our own perspectives. We look at people above us and they don’t even have a lot of skill, and it seems they are doing everything to make us fail from my perspective.
One day, you say words you think are correct, but the words you think are correct are incorrect. These are just words you say from your own little world, you’ve never experienced the world above, so you’re going to get kicked out of your company. Then, when you get kicked out, you’re going to get swept up in lies to criticize the world again, “I have the skill, but the people above me without any skill kicked me out.”
What is God saying in this? It may seem like you’re doing your work in the world, but God has given you the roles of Christ. You get so upset because you’re only given small tasks. “Did I study so much just so I could do this in the world?” That’s why even after getting paid, you’re suffering and full of resentment, and that person is not pleased no matter what they’re given. Then, what must you do? I hope you will quickly escape from this thing called “yourself.”
It doesn’t matter how much you research and train within this frame of yourself, If you cannot escape from yourself, you’re going to be stuck in your own thoughts and the deeper you get caught, the more you’ll have mental problems. What happens if you keep taking your jealousy and envy? It begins to kill this person, and even though they don’t go into a mental institution, they are still seized by a mental disease. It makes them so difficult.
Then other people might look at your life and think you’re okay but you’re dying from the inside. “My life would be okay if this person just disappeared,” but one day, this person does disappear, but you think it’s an answer, but that’s actually your ignorance because you haven’t escaped from yourself. Let’s say someone stronger than that person comes in, “Oh, why is my life like this? I have to avoid this person and escape this field.”
Unless you change the thing inside yourself, you cannot escape from yourself even if you go onto an uninhabited island. When the WRC messages tell us to enjoy the background of the throne of heaven, he is telling us to enjoy escaping from ourselves, to enjoy the blessing of the throne of heaven with the Word and prayer. When we say the blessing of the throne of heaven, it’s not some vague word, but He is saying to enjoy the blessings of the Word the Lord has given you on this earth. Only then can you receive healing and go to the seat that saves lives.
If you look at the people in today’s passage, they cannot go to Canaan, they could not receive healing. They lived this way and died, but the people who did escape from that received healing and went into Canaan, why? Because they have gone into the covenant of Canaan, then all people are thankful for everyone, because you can’t do this yourself. When you see Moses, you’re thankful for Moses. When you see Aaron, you’re thankful for him as well, because every single member in the church is moving with a role in the kingdom of God, you’re thankful for everybody.
There’s no big role or small role, because every role is necessary. That is why when we go into the world, there is no big task or small task. You are taking on the roles of Christ for God. Unless you escape from this thing called “myself,” you’ll have a difficult time in the church and in the world. You have to change yourself, but how can you do that? You have to escape from yourself. Christ has already given you this blessing, it’s within God’s Word. You have to see others as precious.
If you have a scar, you hate looking at this other person, “I can’t even look at this person, because as soon as I see them, my blood starts boiling,” but you still package yourself when you talk about them to other people. But you have to put this out before God, every single person has this. This is not talking about any specific person, it is saying that all of God’s people are stuck in this, and all people need God’s grace, not just special people. Moses couldn’t even do this unless he received God’s grace, that is why you must hold onto God’s covenant every single day and go into summit time.
What happens if you don’t? If you don’t, you cannot escape from yourself. Even if you’ve been liberated, you cannot escape. This is the thing called “myself” that has a physical body, and that’s what it means to reject and deny yourself . David said, “I am a sinner since birth,” and he knew he had the fundamental root of a sinner. Paul confessed, “I am the chief of sinners,” this means they knew that fundamentally, they were awful people.
Before they knew the Gospel, they thought that they were great. But now they know Jesus Christ, they realized that this thing called myself is killing me. And people do transcendental meditation for healing, but you cannot escape from the hat still. Instead of escaping from this me centeredness, you’ll be trapped even further. Input doesn’t matter how much you pray like a Buddhist, the more you do it the further you’ll be trapped. You try to empty yourself to escape this, but it doesn’t work because you have to replace yourself and fill it with Christ.
You have to replace yourself with the words of Christ. No matter how much you empty and clean out yourself, you’ll be filled with demons all the more. And that is directly relayed to your children, but you don’t realize it. What do you think will happen to Korah’s kids? Later on in Psalms, they turn into Korah’s descendants that praise God. Just like the Levites were once a very cursed tribe, but because they used their swords to kill all the idol worshippers in the wilderness, they turned into the most blessed tribe, the descendants of Korah turned into the people who praised God the most in Psalms.
But there are some people who see the judgement God gives, and still cannot come to their senses. There are some crowds that come up saying that all these people died because of these two individuals. And from our perspectives we think “I don’t think we would do that.” But as soon as you are seized by this thing called myself, you see everything the same way. You always think, “If we didn’t have the two individuals in the front, we can go with the democratic leadership. But why is it just these two people?”
So there’s another revolt where they said, “All these people died bascule of you, Moses and Aaron.” And at that time Aaron bows before God. And exactly at that moment Aaron kneels before God, the plague that had killed over 10,000 people disappeared. And you should realize that this is the image we all have within us. That is why we need God’s grace. When do we need it? Every single day. The one who kneels before God, the one who prays before God, and acknowledges that I cannot do this myself, you will see God’s sign.
It’s not a matter of “If I receive a little grace,” no, because later on it will come out again. That is why you have to be with God every single day. There’s no method other than that. You think that if you receive a excellent shocking message today, tomorrow you will be back to the same old you. When you receive the message today, you think everything is finished, but tomorrow you will revert back to your old self. That is why everyday. Every single day do not lose hold of your summit time in the early morning. If there was another method, we would choose that method, but there is not.
It is within this covenant that you do world evangelization through faith. You have to do your job with this covenant, otherwise you’ll kill everyone with your disease. Your business is not aligned with God but you think you can do it, you think it will take place. These people who died thought they could do it, but it was not aligned with God. Until the end ,they did not let go of themselves.
For you and me, we really must ask the question, “Why must we go within God’s Word and prayer within the direction of world evangelization and the covenant?” May you understand this fundamentally and go into prayer tonight. If you don’t understand this foundationally, then even after going to the second or third floor, you have to go back down to the basement.
But the ones who are always, every day, holding onto the Word of God and praying, this is like medicine for them, because this is not any other word, but it is the Word God is giving me according to the time schedule I need. People who do not hold onto the covenant and pray every day, it’s not bad, because as you receive grace moment by moment, you have to go from the Tabernacle to the Tent of Meeting and take it back to your tents, in other words, these words have to be taken to your field.
You have to remain within the covenant of God and the power of prayer within your field, and that’s why our motive is the land of Canaan. Saving the 237 nations and 5000 unreached people groups must become my covenant. Christ, the Kingdom of God, only the Holy Spirit. Then, within this, you have the talent of your “only,” the uniqueness of your speciality, and the re-creation of being established in your field. That’s how you enjoy God being with me, with us, and with all things.
Even if you just enjoy these blessings, you’ll look at Moses and ask, “Why did God raise him up?” but instead, they could not enjoy Immanuel. “Why did God give me this task?” Within all things, God has His plans and His work. Even in the world, do not think, “Why do I always have these small, dinky tasks?” But instead, take the small things and take them to the highest place because God gave it to you. That’s how you will save the summit, that’s how world evangelization will take place.
I hope you will restore these blessings. May you escape from all your misconceptions and confess, “I can’t do it,” because tomorrow I will revert to Genesis 3 again. That is why I need God’s grace tomorrow. Our walk of faith is living a walk of faith with the Lord every single day for eternity. I hope you will escape from your thoughts of, “If I live my walk of faith for a good chunk of time, maybe He will let me play,” there’s no such thing as that.
This will enable you to live a life for eternity, so break your own dream and discard all your other thoughts. For the rest of eternity, you are living this life with God. If this is not happening for you, living this way is very uncomfortable.
Prayer
Father God, we thank You. We pray that through Your Word, we will have the blessing of being within the covenant of the Word, Prayer, and world evangelization. May we reign within God’s grace every single day. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray, amen.
It is possible that some of you may think that the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd World Remnant Conference lectures were very “up in the air,” because he is speaking very spiritual words and if you try to understand it from a physical foundation, it’s impossible. I hope you will digest these messages while praying.
I’m sure that for the remnants, your future as well as the work you’re doing now are all contained within these words. You may not think of it that way, but from my perspective, it’s all within these messages. It’s simply that all my thoughts are incorrect, all the answers are within God’s Word.
Let us pray right now that all the remnants around the world will be able to stand as the summits to save the 237 nations and heal them, enjoying the blessing of the throne of heaven in the covenant and prayer.
Because you yourselves are not that great, God has come into you so you can let go of all the rubbish you’ve built your life holding onto, and you may live with God on the throne of heaven. “God, please use me so that I may do world evangelization holding onto the background and the blessings of the throne of heaven.”
Let us pray for missions fields. We are not just praying for our missions field, but because God has given them to us, we are praying for them holding onto God’s covenant. To go and make disciples of all nations. And because we cannot go ourselves, we are praying for God to shine the light in advance.
And let us pray for the missionaries that are already there. Let us pray for all the nations we prayed for, in the Latin and Central America, as well as Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, the Indian Navajo people, Karen, Mongolia, and the Jewish people.
We will sing one praise and have the benediction, then we will have the personal prayers, church prayers, and then we will return home.
We have to put some kind of application of this, saying that your business or kids will be successful for you to really enjoy the messages, but it’s actually not the point, like MSG flavoring that would suit your taste, but you’ve been so used to MSG that actually the message itself is not flavorful. You have to first enjoy it like this in order for you to change. We have no choice but to be like this, but may we go before the grace of God and the throne of heaven every day.
There’s not a single exception, I myself am even worse. I am telling you guys as a witness because I’m even worse than you are. I can’t stay in one place for a long time because I’m not that great, but I think that I am. So, I am the worst case, but everyone is like this, so may we all hold onto the grace of God together.
Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. The unending love of God, the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon the heads of all the people of God who desire to fulfill God’s will through the covenant prayer and evangelism every day, from now until forevermore always, amen.