Changing Curses into Blessings (Deut. 28:25-35)
I would like it if we held onto the Word of God today through Deut. 28:25-35. There are a lot of young adults here today, and a lot of people think that if I live a good earnest life working hard and diligently, then I will receive the rewards, and those words are correct, for as much as you work hard, you will receive. However, we are not able to maintain that. The Bible isn’t talking about things like that. What the Bible is trying to tell us is that we have the blessings of God. Every person has a different standard of what a blessing is.
However, the blessings God is talking about are mentioned from the beginning of Deut. 28. The standard by which God gives us the blessing is based on whether we keep the word of God’s law or not. Keeping the Word of God is not just about our actions, but it is about the resolution in our heart, and even before that, we listen to the Word of God, then what is the Word that we must listen to?
It is the Word that God gives us within the gospel. The words of God’s law kill people; it must be the words of the gospel in order for them to be advantageous to me and to save people. If we are within this covenant of God, then God will give us blessings. Whether we come in or go out, God will give us blessings. Your children and everything you do will be a blessing. He also says, “Anyone who opposes you, God will oppose and they will flee from you in seven directions.” The reason God promises this is because the Israelites have to fight the war against the land of Canaan and God says He will fight that battle.
Then, God says He will raise you up and make you the head of the world. He says many people will fear you. These are the many things God has promised, but what does the world teach us? The world teaches you that you have to try your very hardest from a very young age in order to gain these things. Ever since you are young, you’re trained so meticulously to manage your time. The world educates us to live with all sorts of methods and means. Moreso than saying those things are bad, because they are living without the power of God, that life in itself is a problem.
Then He says, “Do not turn to the left or to the right,” meaning do not listen or deceive by the words of people but follow after this and God’s commands. Last week as well as this week and next week, we will be talking about how we are cursed. The condition is, “If you do not follow all his commands and decrees.” Everybody is listening to God’s word and trying to follow after it, but what is our obstacle? We are blocked by our thoughts. We listen to God’s Word but we are blocked by our thoughts. My experiences, my knowledge block this. Ultimately, instead of having faith in God’s Word, it is our unbelief and disobedience to God’s word that makes us crumble.
God is a Spirit, so He is invisible; however, God works with His Word. So, we are not just blindly following God, but God gives us His accurate Word, and that is through worship. Worship is made so that we will receive God’s Word of blessing and follow after His Word. If we are separated from God, it means God’s Word is not in our hearts. This is not just talking about the words you remember in your brain, but it is talking about what you remember in your heart, and the very direction of your life. That must be following the word of God always, and if we let go of that, we separate from God. In other words, instead of following the standards of God’s Word, we end up following the standards of the world.
Then, what we must do is to always follow and walk with God’s Word. So then we pray to not be controlled by our own thoughts but for the holy spirit to to completely guide and control my thoughts and my heart. That is how we are able to receive God’s guidance through His Word and through prayer. That’s what we call the spiritual state. The word of God’s law cannot save me. If you listen to today’s Word and you understand it legalistically, “Oh, then I have to go to worship every time and never miss a worship,” not only is it impossible for you to keep it, you don’t understand God’s meaning for giving it.
You have to understand that human beings are created spiritually, originally meant to live with God in this way. The reason this is not taking place is because my spiritual state is outside of God’s Word and prayer, and I think it would be accurate to make that judgment. Then, the very first thing we must restore is our spiritual state within God’s Word in the covenant within the gospel and prayer, then God will give you answers in every work you are doing, and God will give His blessings to your children. That’s what today’s word means. He says, “When your enemies come, He will allow you to overcome.” That’s what it means.
Then, ask yourself how you’re living your walk of faith now. What am I moving in my life that has the greatest value? That’s why we need God’s Word. Heb. 1:2 says that God is controlling and sustaining all of creation with His Word. It means that God works according to His Word, according to His promise. We are healed by God’s Word, it means that your past must absolutely be healed.
All of the things that happened in your family must receive healing. If that is not healed, then instead of holding onto God’s Word, you will hold onto your scars. Scars are used by Satan, and because of this reason, your life will continuously crumble. We can call that a spiritual problem. What exactly is a spiritual problem? Do you think it’s just when we have nothing else to say, we say “Oh this is a spiritual problem?” When somebody acts like that, the devil knows it’s that person’s spiritual state. When somebody just says, “It’s a spiritual problem,” whenever it’s hard to explain, the devil knows that person’s spiritual state. Whenever you don’t know something, you say it’s a spiritual problem. You have to be accurate. Just like God’s Word is accurate, the words you say must be accurate. They say the Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, meaning the word of God must be accurate like a sword. You have the Word of God, but if it is the Word of God without any teeth, it becomes a headache; a very vague or ambiguous word cannot overcome.
What is a spiritual problem? Exactly as those words, it is spirit but it has a problem, then you must be able to say it specifically. The spiritual things must be correctly aligned with God, but it’s not; that is the beginning of the problem. If we have a spiritual problem, it means our spirit is instead held onto by Satan and demons. For our spirit, there are only two options: is my spiritual state connected with God or is it connected with Satan? There’s only two options. Then, a spiritual problem means I’m in a state where I have been separated from God spiritually and my spirit is seized by Satan. If we don’t acknowledge that, then it means we are not acknowledging the spiritual things, then that person will just live in a very vague way. “Vague” meaning the Word of God is very vague for them, and so is my spiritual state.
In Gen. 3, God gave Adam the Word of His covenant, however, Satan began to interfere. He made it so that Adam and Eve rejected God’s Word, and that is how they were dragged by Satan’s authority. There’s only one of two options: will you remain within God’s Word, or will you be seized by Satan? But a lot of Christians are under the misconception that they are okay if they go to church, but going to church does not determine the state of your heart. This is just a church building, and before it was a church, it used to be a bank. You are not saved just because you come to this building. But when you come here, the Word of God is relayed, and when you have faith regarding that Word of God, you are spiritually saved.
So, the spirit only ever has two options: is it from the things of heaven from God, or is it from the demons on earth? If you know this, then it’s no longer a matter of should I hold onto God’s word or not, you will automatically hold onto God’s Word. But because you don’t know the spiritual things, you keep on flowing into the direction of religious activities, holding onto the Word of God physically or as knowledge, and as soon as you leave this place, your spiritual state will be seized by Satan.
Then, you should understand what it means to remain spiritually vigilant. Within the state of this spirit, we are always studying and working, and just like God promised, His blessings will be upon you. Because you’re blessed by God wherever you go, everyone will see it. There’s no reason to make your walk of faith so difficult. Everything follows, determined by your spiritual state. Then, the very first priorities in our life are the Word of God, spiritual prayer, and worship.
As we live our walk of faith, even today, our first priority must be to restore the spiritual state through worship. That’s why we come to worship. You need to know the fact that this is a blessing. When you know the fact that this is a blessing, then you will know the spiritual meaning. So, God is allowing you to know all the blessings of God through worship. When you’re in this spiritual state of being the spiritual summit, everything else follows, like when you become the president, you are at the summit, then everything else follows. If you’re in the seat of the spiritual president, everything is bound to follow; that’s what we call the spiritual summit, and that’s God’s method.
But if you don’t know what the true blessing is, then this person’s spiritual state will be in difficulty. What happens if your spiritual state is in difficulty? That is the content of Deut. 28:25-35 we read today. God says He will make you defeated before your enemies. This means God will not intercede for us. Spiritually speaking, it means we are not spiritually with God, but we are under another spiritual influence, then of course, we have no choice but to fail.
Then in Deut. 28:26, “Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth,” this is talking about death. If you fail in war, then you die, and as you die, your carcass will be food for the animals. That’s so atrocious to think about. In today’s world, it would be as if somebody died, but we don’t know where the body is.
Deut. 28:27 says, “The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured,” which is talking about the physical diseases. These are not problems that come because your personality is bad or because you didn’t do good things; it is starting from the spiritual problem. Doctors exist, but there are certain things the doctor can or cannot do. We diligently maintain our health, but this is not something we can maintain. We need to maintain our spiritual health first.
How can we maintain our spirit? How do you maintain your health? How can we maintain our friendships? How can we maintain our finances? How can you maintain your studies? If you think about that, you’ll get an idea of how. How you will maintain your spirit? Because, everything in your life and destiny is controlled based on that. If I, one person, have the correct spiritual state, then these blessings will go into my whole family line and the future generations.
However, if the parent’s spiritual state is not correct, they cannot give the correct spiritual state to their children. Young adults, if your spiritual state is not correct right now, it will be very hard for you to meet a partner with the correct spiritual state. Your partner seems like it’s someone you select or choose, but that is not the case. I can see that with my own life. It seemed like I was making the decision but it’s not true; it was completely inside of God’s guidance, so it’s different from what we think.
Deut. 28:28, “The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.” These are mental illnesses we have today. Where do these things come from? It comes from spiritual things. These are all things that happen because your spiral state isn’t coming from the Word of God and prayer. If these things come upon us, then our everyday living is difficult. You are blind. Yes, your actual physical eyes might go blind, but there are studies, finances, or the work that we are doing.
Deut. 28:29, “At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day, you will be oppressed and robbed,” He used the word, “oppressed.” That is also a disease. For example, being mentally oppressed, and being oppressed by demons, and if you are being robbed. and it says, “There will be no one to rescue you.”
If you read verses like this, it may be possible to think that God is kind of strange. All you have to do is not look at these verses, but look at the blessings. Why is it that, instead of focusing and choosing the blessings, you focus so much on and rip apart the curses? If you or your children are going down the path of curses, it means to quickly turn away, because you need to have the correct spiritual state in order to see your children accurately.
However, if the parents’ spiritual state is not good, they will see their kids are getting along physically well and think they are okay, but that means the parents’ spiritual state is not good, and that’s why the children just carry on that way. However, if the parents have a good spiritual state, they will not allow their children to continue in that path meaning they will save them through the Word of God and prayer. They are able to give the accurate direction through God’s Word to the children
However, if they do not have a good spiritual state, then instead of giving the accurate direction they’ll just say, “It’s okay if they don’t go to worship because they’re still making a lot of money.” Only when they see some kind of problem visibly will their heart become so urgent. Even when your kids are getting along well, you need to tell them correctly, “You’re not actually doing well; there is another way you must go,” and if they are children of God, they are no doubt, if they haven’t received salvation, they are in the midst of curses, and they are seized and dragged around by Satan.
If they are a saved person of God, you need to quickly allow them to come into the Word of God. If this spiritual line is very definite in you, then it will go into your children definitely. Then, why are your children wandering? It is because that line is not sure in you. God’s Word of Truth is bound to destroy Satan; however, this is very weak in you. If this is weak, then it’s either one of two choices, and when time passes, they will one day fall. Quickly, before they fall, you need to continuously give them the direction through God’s Word.
If that were not true, we would not need God’s Word much in our lives; however, even when I look at my own experiences, it’s true, even after receiving salvation, my thoughts and my stubbornness block God’s Word and we are not able to break ourselves down, and I am more strong, taking the forefront before God’s Word. In that area, we must receive God’s grace.
Deut. 28:30, “You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her,” meaning you’re going to lose your woman. So, even your marriage will not work out correctly. Things don’t work out the way you want. “You will build a house but you will not live in it,” what does that mean? It means it will be stolen away. You work so hard to make money, you buy property, you build a house that you want to live in, but somebody else lives in it instead. You were doing fine, all the way through making money and building the house, and you were supposed to live in it, but before you can, it’s stolen away from you.
“You will plant a vineyard,” meaning you will do all the work to harvest, “But you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit,” and God is giving us this Word so that we turn away from this path. It might seem like we can do everything, like building houses and buying property without God’s Word, but at the very end, everything will be stolen away. God is telling you to escape from that kind of stream and come back into the stream of God’s blessing.
Deut. 28:31, “Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies and no one will rescue them,” it means everything will be stolen from you. You work so diligently but none of that will remain with you, whether you are conned out of it or the economy takes a downturn, it will all be taken.
How do you avoid this? It means simply, go into God’s Word, His covenant, through prayer and evangelism. Why does God give us blessings? Because we need to save other people. We must save other nations, and we can only save them when the blessing to save comes upon us. In the time of these verses, the Israelites were getting ready to go into Canaan, the Promised Land. However, today, the covenant is to save all nations, build the temple, and raise the next generation. Age by age, God has a mission and a plan, and that’s the reason God promises to bless us, and I must be within God’s covenant, that’s what this means.
Deut. 28:32, “Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation.” Back in these biblical times, it meant the sons and daughters would be stolen away by war. In today’s world, there are not so many prisoners of war, but it means that even though you have a biological son or daughter, they are no longer yours. They will all be stolen away by the devil, and they will be wandering around however the devil drags them.
Children of God need to be moved in the way God guides them, but instead, they will be taken away. The parents would not just stay still in that; “You’ll wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand,” it means there is no way to bring your children back. Parents will worry because of their kids, and before this happens, God is telling you to come into God’s covenant through the Word of God, prayer, missions, and evangelism.
Are there any of you who potentially think the Word of God is one thing, but reality is another? Even scientifically speaking, those words don’t make sense. Why don’t you use the Word of God and try placing a bet with God? Instead of saying, “The Word of God is one thing, but the actual way we live our lives is completely different” instead of doing that, make a bet with God using these words.
Watch and see if God blesses you. But you’re not doing this and you’re not doing that, and you’re just saying, “The Word of God is one thing, and my life and reality is another thing,” but it’s not. If the Word of God and our actual life are different, that’s evidence that God doesn’t exist. However,that’s not true. The result will find you because of your disbelief and being outside of God’s Word.
Deut. 28:33, “People that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.” You work so diligently but unbelievers will take it all away. You learned and studied so much but in the end you have everything stolen by non believers, and idolatry in their businesses. These are the things that happened to the Israelites in Egypt. They worked so diligently but they didn’t have much left over to eat, because simply put, the unbelievers stole it all away. If anything their suffering became worse. Why is that? It’s not because they had a bad personality. It’s not because they were poorly educated in the world; it’s not because they didn’t do good deeds. It was a result of not living with God’s Word.
Then, what is the true success that I can have while living in America? We need to have success in the very end, we need to have a success that saves many people through me. The fact that many people are saved by me means there is something they can watch, learn and see in me. You need to have true success. You need to be someone that other people want to amulet, and there are a lot of things that are contained in that. It contains both the spiritual and physical things, and unbelievers will know that.
Because they are living their life with you, they know blessings are not made by man but are given by God. Joseph went into an unbeliever’s house, Potiphar, and they knew it. It says in the Bible That God poured blessings upon Potiphar’s field and household because of Joseph. It wasn’t because Joseph was working so hard; God gave him the blessings, and the unbeliever Potiphar saw that and knew. That’s how Egypt evangelization was possible. God has to give blessings in your jobs and field in order for them to know. They have to see that in order to fear, “I cannot lay this person off, I can’t mess with this person or else my business will be in danger,” that’s what this word means, and God says He will make you into a person like that.
However, if you are outside of God’s covenant, thinking you can live well with your own thoughts and your own diligence, it seems like it will work out but God will shame you in the end. Because you have to be put to shame in order to hold onto God’s covenant. It was exactly according to God’s Word, whenever the Israelites were lost in war, it’s because they were far away from God’s Word and the covenant, but when they were sure in God’s Word, God blessed them so much that the surrounding nations saw it. But when they lost hold of God’s covenant and their spiritual state was suffering, then they were taken as captives so everyone could see.
The Bible says you should be ones to give others money; you will not take money from others. The Bible promises this to us, do you think it’s a lie? No. “Then why am I always having to borrow money? Why am I always trying to get free handouts?” It’s because my spiritual state is elsewhere, it’s because I am not within God’s Word, prayer, and evangelism. It’s because there’s something else inside of me, and I’m following after and moving towards that.
All problems will follow that. Poverty, oppression, disease, suffering, your children, all we have to do is escape from that. When you see these problems encroaching, you quickly go into God’s covenant. That’s why for us, it looks like a curse, but we can change it into a blessing, isn’t that right?
Unbelievers persist in curses, but for us, when we see these things, we just quickly change our spiritual state and return to the covenant. That’s why the Israelites were taken as captives to Babylon, but then they quickly returned. Later on, they were colonized by Rome again, so what do you think we need to do? The people who didn’t return remained there. The Early Church was in Rome but they kept on going. Even while they were colonized by Rome, they changed all of Rome. They were able to do the full-fledged missions, they did their voluntary missions. Before that point, the Israelites were forcibly dragged to do missions. But now, starting from Acts 11, through the Antioch Church, God began the voluntary, full-fledged missions, and they did the voluntary Temple Construction for the missions for the world and the future generations. So, are you going to be forcibly pushed into doing it, or will you voluntarily do it?
Once you lose all your material possessions, will you then think, “I should have used it for Temple Construction,” or will you use it from the beginning? Why? Because Temple Construction is God’s will. For people who disagree with that you can hold onto another will of God, but for people who agree, may you hold onto this as God’s will, and you will know the truth as time passes, “This was God’s will,” but by that point, it’ll be too late. Even materially speaking, it will be too late.
Why do we need Temple Construction? Because our future generations must evangelize to the world. These unbelievers and idol worshipers are creating gigantic and tremendous temples to give influence, then do you think God is telling us to do world evangelization without preparing any of these blessings for us? Never. God already prepared blessings for us and then tells us to do world evangelization. God isn’t telling us to do this because He lacks something. If you have this correct faith, God says He will bless your generations for 1000 generations.
We need to continuously hold onto this. This isn’t something where we should let go and get beaten half to death and repeat the process. This is the greatest seat of blessings, it is the seat where God is with us, it is the seat where God can bless us fully. Where else would that be? The very first priority is worship, then second, may you take this strength and go into the field with God. In your field, by God’s blessings, many people will see that evidence.
I will tell you again, you must not hear this legalistically. If you understand this to think, “I have to go to worship to receive blessings,” then you will be deceived by Satan. My spiritual state itself must be changed into a blessing, and the only way to do that is by worshiping God. You need to understand this Word of God spiritually, centered on the gospel like this; your willpower can only go so far.
Deut. 28:35, “The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head,” so this is just talking about the physical sufferings. You just have to not go in this direction; you need to go towards the seat of blessings. He tells you the definite path. All religions tell you, “You need to do this and you need to do that,” but God simply says, “If you remain within God’s covenant, within prayer and evangelism, then God will bless you.”
Once a law has been set in America, we cannot change it. Yes, we can change other laws, but we cannot change God’s Word. God is bound to work according to His Word. The stream of God’s Word is going into the stream of the Word of God, prayer, and evangelism. That’s the stream of blessings. The stream that God moves is the stream of blessings. Going outside of that stream is curses. The reason we are okay even in the midst of curses, is because when we are cursed then we come back to the blessings, but the curses do exist. You can know this when you think of the people who live a good walk of faith in their mind. They just have to quickly turn back, and you have to give the word to make them quickly turn back. Don’t make it so difficult. That’s what it means for you to enjoy the blessings and to relay the blessings.
Prayer
These blessings are already upon us. May you enjoy them and relay them. Let us hold onto the Word of God’s blessings, not the Word of God’s curses. The curses make you pass out, but the blessings must be upon us. Let us pray holding onto the Word God gave us.
On Dec. 24, we have our Christmas Eve event and yes we are putting on the event but the first priority is God’s Word. This means that God has to be revealed in order for it to be an event that God desires. If it is just an event with us, God doesn’t need that. We need to also allow people to come to know what a blessing is. It is the same thing for Christmas. People don’t say “Merry Christmas” much anymore, they say, “Happy Holidays.” Trump changed it back to “Merry Christmas,” but it isn’t that easy, that’s culture. Let us pray for those two events as well as the Winter Retreat.
We need about 1-2 people to volunteer cars to drive to the Winter Retreat. My wife says it’s solved but I don’t really know. We would like these people to volunteer to drive so that … so I hope 1-2 people can drive to the Winter Retreat and also receive grace there. No matter how much you pray for the remnants, it will never be a waste. The answer is that these remnants must come to life because we are in a generation where, after a few decades, we will all be gone. If you leave this earth, before you raise up the next generations, we have lived an incorrect life on earth.
Then, who are the VIPs? It is the remnants, why? Because we must take charge of the future generations. That is how much responsibility they have, and how much responsibility we have as the first generation, so I hope you will whole-heartedly … and it will all be given back to you as fruits. Let us pray for the remnants, especially the remnants who are receiving training here.
Benediction
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the people of God, the people of all nations, and the remnants who desire to remain within the stream of God’s covenant, within God’s Word, prayer, and evangelism, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.