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 Sermon > Official Service |
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Title |
Thanks to the Faithful One |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
Numbers 23:19 |
Date |
2005-07-03 |
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Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
1. The Origin and Spiritual Meaning of the Feast of Harvest
As Exodus 23:16 says, "Celebrate the Feast of Harvest with the first-fruits of the crops you sow in your field." The Feast of Harvest is a feast to give thanks to God for harvesting the first-fruits of the year. The Feast of Harvest is also called "The Feast of Weeks" because it comes on that day after seven weeks since the first Sabbath after the Passover, and "Pentecost" because it falls on the 50 th day after the Passover (Deuteronomy 16:9-12).
Spiritually, on the Feast of Harvest we give thanks not only for the first-fruits of what we have sown, but also for being born again as holy children of God by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost. We rejoice in being saved from the road to destruction and set on the path to heaven. Today, not many of us actually farm, so we give thanks and glory to God for the spiritual and other fruits that we harvested in our lives.
God says this year is the year of reaping, blessings, and glory. The faithful God has been fulfilling His promises, and those who received this promise of God have been reaping the fruits of blessings.
So then, what kind of people are able to receive this promise of God as their own and reap abundant fruits?
2. How to reap abundant fruits of the promise of blessing
A. We must please God with faith
Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." The kind of faith that can please God is the spiritual faith to believe God's word 100%.
As Jeremiah 32:27 says, "I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?" God is omnipotent and omniscient. Therefore, if you truly believe in God the Almighty, you can certainly believe every word of God.
Since the opening of our church, we never doubted anything when God said something would happen. Even though something seemed absolutely impossible in reality, we were fully confident that it would be fulfilled. When God told us that we were going to accomplish the World Mission and when He said we were to build the Grand Sanctuary, where all peoples would come and give glory to Him, we believed it without any doubt. When we first received these words, we had a small sanctuary and only 13 members including the children. We had no Sunday school teachers, choir, praise teams or volunteers for various necessary services.
When we keep God's word in our mind as the absolute fact, and truly believe it regardless of the reality of the situation, that faith becomes the passage way of blessings and we can experience God's works . Through Manmin Joong-ang Church so many evidences of the almighty God have been manifested, and those who have experienced them ought to be able to believe every single word of God in the 66 books of the Bible.
Also, they should be able to believe that this church will accomplish the world mission with the gospel of holiness and build the Grand Sanctuary as God has promised.
B. We must make out faith perfect with deeds
The spiritual faith accompanied by deeds is evidence before God for receiving the blessings that are promised by God. James 2:22 says, "You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did." Faith without deeds cannot benefit anybody. Even though Moses parted the Red Sea into two, if the people of Israel had not crossed it themselves, they would have been caught by the Egyptian army. Though the flow of the Jordan River was stopped when the priests stepped on it, had the people of Israel not crossed it, they would not have reached the land of Canaan. Even though God has promised to bless us, and even though we confess that we believe, only those who show their faith in deeds will receive the blessings.
In the same way, God opened the way of blessings for us through the Lord Jesus Christ and wrote in the Bible how we can enjoy blessings. They are the words that tell us, "Do this," "Don't do that," "Cast it off," and "Keep it." 1 John 3:21-22 says, "Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him."
But because you do not believe it all 100%, you look at the world saying you love God. Because your faith is not perfect faith, you become upset when something does not suit you. You have ill-feelings against others and compromise truth with untruth for your own benefit. It is a fact, without casting off sins and being faithful, you cannot reap the fruit of blessings that God promised us.
When God gives us vision and promises of blessings, we will not just wait for things to come if we truly believe in the word of God. Ezekiel 36:37 says, "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Once again I will yield to the plea of the house of Israel and do this for them". So, if we received the promise of God with faith, we have to ask Him to accomplish His word. If we pray fervently with all our heart, God will show us the methodology, that is, He will show us, step by step, how to accomplish His word.
We have believed that God does not lie or change His mind, but fulfills His providence without the slightest error. That is why we have been doing many things to accomplish God's promise of world mission. We have been training many ministers in preparation for the days when many people will come to our church. We have raised many praise teams and the Nissi Orchestra. We have also invested heavily in the broadcasting mission by understanding its great effect. As a result, our church has been lifted high above the nations as God has promised.
If we just watched how things were going while saying, "We believe God will make us a world famous church," we would not have become what we are today. It is up to God to stop the flow of the Jordan River, but it is up to us to actually step on it and cross it. That is why we have been showing our deeds because we believe the word of God given to us.
C. We must steadfastly continue to act with faith until we reap
Galatians 6:9 says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." God surely lets us reap what we have done and sown with faith. What is important in reaping is that we should endure and act without changing our mind until the end.
When the Israelites were conquering Canaan, God made them march around the city of Jericho.
God commanded them to march around the city one time for six days, and on the seventh day, seven times, and then shout loudly. The Israelites believed in God and obeyed what He said. On the first day, they marched around and came back. Nothing happened. They marched around the city on the second and third day, but still, there was no sign.
If they had been disappointed after four or five days seeing the city wall still standing or complained, their obedience until then would have amounted to nothing. Only when they obeyed fully, to fulfill all seven days and have finished marching around 7 times on the seventh day, namely 13 times in total then God tore down the city wall.
James 1:6-7 says, "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord." This applies to everything. We can harvest what we have sown with deeds and faith only when we do not change until the end, just like Jacob who did not let go of the angel of God until the socket of his thigh was broken.
But some people, even though they say they are praying with faith, stop praying if they do not receive the answer after some time. In some cases, the reality of the situation seems to be getting worse and going in the opposite direction of what they pray. So they break down what they have built up with their deeds by complaining and speaking negatively. If you change or give up in the middle like this, you cannot reap anything, even if you have been sowing very hard.
In our church too, since the opening, God has been giving us revival and growth every year that we have been acting according to His promise with faith. But sometimes, there were times when we were almost dead in the God-allowed trials. But even in those times, we only thanked God and praised Him with joy. Whenever we passed those trials with truthfulness, we could overcome all those crises most dramatically and received even greater blessings. Then God was exalted more greatly.
You should remember that in order to reap, you have to act with firm faith and without any change of mind in the middle. God receives glory through practice of faith and deeds.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will believe in the faithful God, rely on His promises, and show your deeds according to it so that whatever you have sown with faith will come to you as abundant blessings in your life, and you will bear fruit of eternal reward in heaven. |
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