The One Who Follows the Covenant (Deuteronomy 10:1-11)
We will share the grace of God’s Word together with Deuteronomy 10. Since Deuteronomy 6, the second generation of the Israelites to imprint this word in their hearts yet again. God is invisible, and the way He comes into our heart is by imprinting, rooting, and making the Word into our nature in our hearts. We must go beyond remembering this with our brains because it doesn’t matter how much your brain remembers; if your heart is imprinted with something else, you’re bound to go into a different direction, then your heart and brain will play in different directions. If you go to the land of Canaan like this, you cannot survive, so He emphasizes imprinting the next generation yet again.
Today, He is talking about the tablets of the Ten Commandments. This was actually the second set of tablets. Moses came down the mountain with the first set of tablets and broke them when he threw them on the ground. So He’s giving His Word, written on the second side of the tablet to the second generation yet again.
Why did the first set of tablets break? While Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days, receiving the Word of God, the Israelites were down below, worshiping idols. If you really believed in God, you would be able to wait for 40 days but first, they were not able to wait. And because they were not able to wait, they took all the gold off their bodies and melted it to form a golden calf idol. It means they were not able to wait. They wanted to quickly do something they could see with their eyes and said, “Let’s worship God.”
From our perspective, this may seem very funny or laughable. When we think about the Bible reasonably, we can say, “Obviously, that’s not God,” but they worshiped that golden calf, thinking that it’s God. Then they really convinced the High Priest Aaron, because they needed a priest in order to worship, and they made him lead their worship. I don’t think these people were rebelling against God with some kind of wicked or evil heart. I don’t think there’s any real Christians who have received God’s grace and, on purpose, want to attack God. Then, why did tens of thousands of Israelites die that day? Or asked another way, “Why do people face distraction and failure even though they believe in God?” Does that not happen today? God is giving us His Word because things like that happen today as well.
Without a doubt, they were giving worship and they thought they were worshiping the Jehovah God. The priest was there giving the Word, they were doing everything, but strangely enough, they kept failing. Even as they did their walk of faith, they kept failing, and tens of thousands of Israelites died by the sword that day, they died after giving all of their worship. Honestly speaking, after they gave worship, they did all sorts of things.
Why do these things happen? Do these things not happen today? I think these same things are happening today as well. What is an idol? Without a doubt, the first commandment God gave us is, “You shall not have any other gods before Me.” If God doesn’t become your “first,” everything else will not work out, either. So, that first commandment, what is an idol? We are not worshiping some kind of image of God. Back then, they created the golden calf and believed that was the Jehovah God and worshiped it. But in the New Testament, it says our idol is one thing, that is, our greed.
If you are worshiping God with some kind of greed for yousrelf in your heart, you think you are worshiping, but God doesn’t accept your worship and your answers will never come. God must work upon us and we must receive His strength, but because we don’t receive that, we keep getting destroyed. As we are destroyed spiritually, more and more, it shows signs in our mental health as well and as time passes it reveals itself in our physical life, visibly. Everybody has to die eventually, and that’s in God’s hands; however, you are going to die, and before you die, you’re going to suffer unnecessarily on earth.
If a person has greed or an ulterior motive in their heart, they cannot discern correctly, to the point where they think they have worshiped well. It wasn’t worship at all, but they thought they were worshiping. They thought, “For sure, I was doing this for God,” but that’s not the case. That’s what the Israelites were like back then.
It’s not that they were throwing God aside and created a new golden god to serve; they thought this golden calf was God Himself. This is a problem that repeats in chruchgoers today as well. They are always coming into worship, but they are holding tightly onto their plans, their greed, and their ambitions. They keep praying with the prayer topics they held onto, whatever they want. From God’s perspective, that’s not right and that’s why worship to God is being blocked. These people are living a religious and idolatrous life, but they don’t recognize it. They keep breaking down more and more, but they don’t know the answer as to why.
The answer God gives us and is bound to happen is Canaan conquest and world evangelization, but that becomes further and further away from me. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai and saw the Israelites worshiping idols in this way he got so mad he threw the tablets on the ground so they broke, so he went up to Mount Sinai to get the tablets again.
Our walk of faith is about believing in the Triune God through Jesus Christ, and when you say you believe, it means you no longer need your own greed, you no longer need your own motives. You no longer need your own plans. No matter how great the things of Egypt were, they were not actually great. No matter what great things that Egypt and the people of the world talk about are, it is irrelevant to God. God gave us one thing, “Go to the land I will show you,” and when you pray holding onto that one thing, you’re bound to receive answers. When you hold onto this one thing and pray, then you will receive the answer of the economy of light in your job. When the future generations hold onto this one thing and study, they will receive the answer of the work God is doing in your studies.
The only thing that blocks you is idols. Yes, there may be visible idols as well, but the true idol is in your heart. God has a plan for you but you say, “God I don’t want that, I want this instead.” We also have an idol of ideologies. Whatever values this person is holding onto so firmly as their ideology, they hold onto that as their idol and serve that. Even if you hold onto nationalism, that can block you from going to God. Because God is not only for one nation he is for all nations but if you hold onto nationalism so intensely, then you are blocking God’s plan.
If you hold onto the ideology of communism or democracy, that is not the truth, either, or there are some people who hold onto Confucianism as their ideology and talk about that. Or, there are some people who make all their decisions based on money. For that person, money is their idol. Ultimately that person cannot exist because they’re bound by their idol of money. They cannot do it because they don’t have the money. Instead of holding onto God’s plan, they hold onto their idol of money so they cannot fulfill God’s plan.
People go to worship in order to try to get whatever idol they’re holding onto. So, they personally don’t even know why they keep falling apart. Not only do they fall apart, but even their kids fall apart because they’re unaware of what’s going on. They just think, “I have to go to church diligently,” but that’s not what it takes. God is with us through the blood covenant that freed us from Egypt, and we only hold onto and follow that blood covenant; we only need the Triune God.
Does that mean we don’t need to eat food and study? No, we live our lives only with the answers that come within the Triune God. Only those people will receive the economy of light that will conquer Canaan and do world evangelization. Everybody else will be separated from God because of their own idols, but they’re not aware of it themselves. They think they believe well because they keep on coming to church, and they listen to the messages online, that’s why God’s grace must be upon us.
God’s grace must be upon us for us to realize what kind of people we are. If God’s grace is not upon us, then we’re not aware of what we’re doing. Humans can never realize on their own. That’s why we need GOd’s grace. That’s why when you come to worship, stake your life on it. Stake your life because the One Who controls your life is the Triune God. Yes, we need to get help from the doctors at the hospitals, but our lives are in God’s hands. But if you say, “Oh, my life is in God’s hands,” but you keep on trying to do things with the hands of people, that’s not right.
In the verses we just read today, God tells them, “make a wooden ark and put the second set of tablets in it” He is saying that the priest will be the one in charge of taking this around and putting it into the holy of Holies and the Tabernacle. There is no one who can touch this Ark of the Covenant other than the priest, and that is the role of the priest. God put this grace upon the priest, and if the priest cannot take charge of that, then he will die. If somebody asks, “Why can’t I do this as well?” God did not entrust it with them “I’m really jealous of the priest’s outfit, can I be the priest as well?” then that person will die. And if the priest is not able to carry out his role well either, then he will die. We only do the work God has entrusted us with before God.
It says the priests will live by the inheritance of the Lord. The reason why we give one tenth of whatever we make as a tithe offering it’s so that the people that work for the church can receive their payment. As evidence that this money doesn’t belong to you, either you lose it whether it’s through offering to the church or to a stranger. If you think I’m lying, try calculating it. See whether you lose that tenth or not, if you get your tithe stolen away by a nonbeliever then first of all you have your money stolen, second of all it feels dirty, however, if you give it to God, you will receive answers. The way you lose all your money is through your business, or you’re conned, or through an accident, or you make a deal with the wrong person.
But there are some people who are really sensitive when I talk about money. When I talk about the covenant, they pretend they are listening well but whenever I talk about money they glare, saying, “What are you saying?” That is someone who is seized by money and God will never entrust big money to them because that person is going to be in big problems if God entrusts them with big money. But that’s not the main point we want to hear from God’s Word today.
In the New Testament, God gives us the second, new covenant, and he says, “I will pour My Holy Spirit into your heart.” Because the people just could not follow the stone tablets, God says, “I will inscribe Hids word directly into your heart through the Holy Spirit.” That means that Jesus Christ Himself will fulfill the Ten Commandments and all of the laws on the cross, he will set us free from the law of sin and death and move us into the law of the spirit of life.
For us, even if we break one small law, we will face all the repercussions. It’s impossible for us to keep all the laws because we don’t even remember them. The Jewish people thought they had to keep the law but that’s not the case. You have to be in the mystery of God being with you through these laws. God gave us the law so that we can enjoy that blessing. He didn’t give us the law to say, “Oh, these people should die and those people should live.”
As you look at the law of God, as you look at the Word, you enjoy the blessing of God being with you. That’s how all of the people lived in the Old Testament and in Canaan, but the Jewish people in the Old Testament thought they kept the law by themselves so they don’t need Jesus’ forgiveness. They also say their walk of faith is so difficult because they have to keep all of the law with their own strength. But the way God moves is the way of His word, and that’s nothing we can do on our own, because God is the One fulfilling His Word, and the Ten Commandments is our mystery of being with God.
Isn’t that right? If we really believed in the Jehovah God, we wouldn’t be so conflicted with our idols. If you truly believe God is with you, then your idols wouldn’t be such a struggle for you, and keeping the Sabbath would not be a challenge. But because giving us the Ten Commandments wasn’t enough, God is saying, “I will give you my hold spirit directly into you, I will move you from the law of sin and death into the law of the spirit of life entirely,” He has moved us so that try r curses and disasters from our sins can no longer touch us. Now, the Holy Spirit is in our hearts and is guiding us towards the law of the Spirit of Life.
Today is not a day where you look, staring at the laws. The Lord is inside of us and gives us the word and guides us towards that word through the Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus Christ finished everything on the cross, He has moved us from the law of sin and death. There’s no longer a need for us to remain within the sin of curses and disasters or Satan and death. You have to know that for you to no longer have a need for your plans or your greed. Because the Lord is now living in me and he gives us his plan through the word, so there’s nothing for me to hold onto from the side.
If you are dumb, God knows you’re dumb, so that’s why God gives you the Holy Spirit, directly inside of you. If someone’s body is sick then they say, “I can’t go to church because my body is sick” that’s why God promised to give His Holy Spirit directly inside of them. Some people say, ‘It’s easy for me to remember when I’m inside the church but it’s easy to forget when I’m outside the church,” that’s why the Holy Spirit is inside of you. That’s why Jesus Christ finished everything onto the cross, he is within us as the Holy Spirit and is guiding us towards the law of the Spirit of Life.
So what is it that we must do now? Concentration. If it’s something we can simply remember, we wouldn’t have to concentrate because smart people can just memorize it, but he’s inside of our heart so we must concentrate our thoughts and heart on the Holy Spirit within you. That’s why you write down the Word God gives to you, you read it and pray upon it, and as you concentrate on the Word, you receive healing and power.
Then in today’s World Remnant Conference message, it says, “Don’t cut yourself off or trap yourself in.” If you have your own idols or greed, you trap yourself in that. If we can live with those things, then God would have allowed it, but you cannot fight against the devil and disasters with your idols. If anything, those idols become a channel for the devil and you run errands for the devil. Satan comes towards us with idols, telling us, “This will be so sweet and so great,” just as he did with the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but that’s why we need to hold onto God’s covenant.
This priest keeps taking the Ark of the Covenant into the field. Inside the church, the priest does this; however, in the field you take the Christ that is inside of you as the covenant, and you take it into the field. In order to do that, you absolutely need to have a time where you concentrate yourself before God. How do you meditate, holding onto God’s Word?
How do you concentrate? Everyone might be different but what’s important is that you must have God’s Word. You need a time for you to remember and hold onto God’s Word, put it into yourself, apply it and have that time. In that time, you receive healing and restore power. You may need a little bit of the words of people for the physical things but fundamentally cannot help your life because the fundamental help can only come from the Lord. Then, the most important time of your entire life is the time where you hold onto the Word of God and concentrate or meditate.
As you have that time, when time passes, God fulfills it. The least of you will make a mighty nation. How is it possible that the least will make a mighty nation? That’s impossible. But it means, even if you’re few and weak, if you have the covenant then God will fulfill His covenant, so it is a grace to know that this time of concentration is the greatest blessing. If, however, you don’t think that this time of concentration is the greatest blessing and you’d rather do something else instead, that’s obsession.
Obsession is a disease. Concentration is when we are concentrating on God the creator, obsession is when we are concentrated on the creation. If we are continually focused on the creation then the devil works through that as a channel. We do concentrate on God. If you are obsessed with everything you’ve done in your past, you can’t change it. If you’re obsessed with the scars of the past it will not change your life. However if you concentrate on the word God gives you then one day you are changed into a different person. That is this time right now. Depending on what state we are in now, your future will change.
But if your eyes are really glowing for something else or twinkling for something else, that’s how much you’re being deceived, and you are seized. There’s nothing you should be so on-fire for other than God. There are some people who are on-fire for money. When they are listening to God’s Word, they’re dozing off, but when they’re learning about money, their eyes are bright. That person will not get money because they don’t know God; they’re holding onto an idol, then of course they will collapse. But the Israelite people are worshipping giving to church diligently even as they failed, and if someone doesn’t worship, then that’s obvious. However, the beginning of world evangelization is when every person has their personal time of concentration through the Word of God and prayer when they hold onto the accurate Word of God’s covenant, but there will be many environments around you where you cannot hold onto God’s covenant. It means there will be a lot of conditions around you where you cannot hold onto God’s covenant. “How could someone like me, how could someone do this at my age? I don’t even have any power or abilities. I can’t even make good human relationships. “How could I?” Those words may very well be correct, but that is not the reason your life is being destroyed. Your life is being destroyed because those words are preventing you from holding onto God’s covenant, so that’s why I’m saying, do not be trapped by your own thoughts and conditions. We are people that are Roth Hod through Gods covenant, why do you trap yourself into thinking this is impossible because of your thoughts and the word of people?
You shouldn’t look at yourself too accurately. Yes you should know yourself but you need to look at the covenant inside of you more accurately. You have to see yourself as the one who has been called to rely the covenant to the 237 nations of the world, that’s the only way to overcome the darkness.
Today, I hope you will break all of the thoughts that are trapping you. No matter what anyone says, those words may be correct, but they are not the words of God, so I hope you will not listen to them. Those are the words of the devil. It’s always like that, “Pastor, how could those be the words of the devil? Do you think we should live as the enemies of people?” Yes, of course you have to listen to them, it’s not like you can run away from their talking, but don’t put it into your heart. It will never help you your whole life. Only God’s covenant saves you and saves your future.
No matter what anyone says, you can listen to it, but I hope you will listen to only God’s covenant, and that’s what today means. Only that is the beginning of God’s covenant. The Israelites held onto something else, they thought their idol was God, and they worshipped that and that’s how they fell. Even right now, God is giving His covenant and is fulfilling His covenant exactly. That’s the reason God gave us the words of the Bible, the logos. Because God’s Word is eternal, everything will be fulfilled according to God’s Word. Other religions’ words are not fulfilled because those are the words of people. That’s why God created the world with the Word, and that’s why your life changes when you hold onto the Word.
If you listen to the words of people, you’re just going to eat, make a living, get into fights, make mistakes, and then die, but I hope you will hold onto the words of God’s covenant, 24 hours. There’s no way to change that, other than taking every thought that comes into your brain and changing it into prayer. But for us, we’re so used to thinking and reacting based one everything we think, hear, and say. But that’s what’s preventing me from going into the covenant.
So, how will you take everything you hear, say, and feel, and all those different things, and change it into God’s covenant? That’s what this means. There’s nothing else we can do, because as soon as you go out into the world, you’re dragged into what you see and what you hear. You look at your environment and you just follow, and then when you face a problem, you fall into the problem. But if the person changes that into God’s plan, they will see the answer. That’s the content of today’s Word.
God’s unchanging covenant is to save the 237 nations and the 5000 unreached tribes of the world through the church, and He gives that answer to those who hold onto it. The church goes together and if there’s one person who receives this answer in the church, but if one person loses hold of it, the church will still be going, but that person will not receive answers, and that’s the reason we build up the church construction and only those who hold onto that covenant will receive the economy of light. There are some people in the church who hold onto it and others who do not.
If you do not hold onto this, you’re holding onto something else, and the thing you’re holding onto is, “I just want to live a comfortable and easy life and then go,” but if someone is saying, “Why are you talking about such difficult things? I’m doing temple construction. I’ve done it once or twice already,” that person will die according to their thoughts. That’s that person’s standards. God prepares the finances and God works according to what He has prepared. That’s the reason for God to give us strength. I hope you will not get confused or lost. You have no idea how many things around us are trying to deceive us. “How can people like ‘us’?” “It’s not people like ‘us’, it’s about ‘you’ and ‘me’.” You should say, “You can die like that, but I’m holding onto the covenant.” They’re just trying to drag you down into the grave with them.
When you go into gathering with people, these unnecessary words will make you lose hold of God’s covenant. However, if just one person has faith regarding God’s covenant, they will change everybody’s unbelief. One person, Joseph, held onto the covenant at the age of 17, and he influenced all the nations. Why? Because that’s not something Joseph does but it’s something God does with faith in God’s covenant.
If you’re within this covenant, even if God doesn’t work upon you, God will work upon your children. The covenant is not about us doing something; it is God’s promise that He will do it. But people who are so used to and love doing things will lose hold of this. “God is doing this, all we have to do is pray, holding onto this, and wait.” The Israelites couldn’t wait for 40 days. If they could just wait for 40 days, Moses would’ve come down with the tablets, but they were so used to doing things on their own. So, we make all our decisions on our own, we set the time schedule on our own, too, and that just results in destruction through idol worship.
The Holy Spirit of God worked on the the Pentecost, the 10th day, when they went into Mark’s Upper Room; that took 10 days. It’s the same thing as someone in marks upper room praying for for 5 days and saying, “Why haven’t it come yet?” and leaving. That’s why we hold onto the covenant, we enjoy that, and we wait until God gives us the answer. You don’t just wait doing nothing, you wait while you pray, and you don’t just stay still, you are doing everything you need, you are not just staying still; you are working and doing everything you have to.
Some people ask, “Can I just hold onto the covenant and not work?” that person needs to receive healing from their extreme laziness. If you don’t do anything physically, there’s no reason for you to be alive. While you do everything you need to do, you hold onto God’s covenant and wait. What are you waiting for? You wait until God works through the covenant aitht the answer. Just do the physical things, you just have to go to your job and work. Students who are studying, just go to school and study. It doesn’t matter if you do a good or bad job, but hold onto the covenant until you receive the answers, and once that answer comes, everything changes.
So, whether you’re good or bad at something isn’t the standard; the standard is the covenant, then it’s possible for everyone, why? Because God is working. If you remain within this covenant, then the answer will absolutely come where you save the region m, future generation and the world. God will give you all the power you need to do this on your own. That’s why God gives you the five powers. That’s what this means, that is how we conquer Canaan. So, it’s a new day and I hope we will go into God’s covenant of being with God, to save thee future generations, and the people of all nations. Do not listen to any other words. You can listen to them, but you shouldn’t listen to them to the point where you lose hold of God’s covenant. You can listen to it but you mustn’t listen to it to the point of losing hold onto God’s covenant. That is how you will not lose hold of God’s covenant, then one day, the answers will come. And when the answers come, all of the people who say those words around you are bound to close their mouths.
People talk so much because they’re not receiving answers. May you receive this blessing.
Prayer
Let us pray together holding onto the Word God has given to us today. Allow us to go into God’s covenant, into the covenant of Christ, into the covenant of word evangelism, saving the future generation, saving all nations and Temple Construction. Let us pray together.
Second prayer topic, we watched the first lecture of the World Remnant Conference today. And in the early morning will be the second message, and in the middle of the day, it will be the third message. This Saturday at ICSC in Whittier, there’s going to be all three WRC lectures being shown together in concentration. That’s a gathering of concentration from 1-6pm. It’s the same thing for remnants and church officers, when you gather together and concentrate, then take place. Let us pray together for the WRC messages and watch them together on Saturday in concentration together.
Third prayer topic, we have our young adult Nasay training with us so let’s pray for him specially with us. We have our young adult retreat as well as the college retreat and the WRC messages coming up and you have to digest these words. And what I do is before any kind of conference like this, I would download all of the lectures and listen to them on my own at the beach. And I would have my own personal time of concentration using the two things we heard about in the message as well, concentrating on the word and deep breathing. And I don’t only listen to it once, I listen to it again when I go home and again and again. And the reason is because this isn’t some lecture taught by a professor but it changes with God’s time schedule, so I listen to it again and again. And that’s what happens because this is a message that comes out once a year. Same thing with the Sunday message, you listen to it again, again and again and without a doubt it will be different every time. And for the people that tasted it experienced this, they know what it means to concentrate. Especially for the church officers, there’s no one who can help you so you must be able to do this by yourself. And if you’re so busy then you can do it through the online access we have, there’s no excuses. That’s how we do world evangelism, no matter what time and where we can worship through online. Then wherever you are the forces of darkness will be broken down and the kingdom of God will be established. So I hope you will utilize the online word well and give glory to God.
Let us pray together for the college retreat, young adult retreat as well as God’s prepared disciples, and for all of the mission fields our church is serving.
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 heads of all of the people of God, the people of all nations, and especially the future generation who hold onto the covenant and want to spread and enjoy that covenant, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.