When you are admitted to college, you will have to choose a curriculum. There will be major courses for you to choose regarding your major and related classes to your future career. There will be general education classes and classes of major.
If you are a college student, you may have a concern, such as, “What major will benefit me for the future? What major must I choose to help my life?”
There will be courses you may choose from and there will be courses in which you must take in order to graduate. The courses are divided by general education classes and major courses. Depending on what kind of major you choose, you may obtain a career and some kind of professional knowledge accordingly. Through completing the required courses, you will obtain college credits and be able to graduate. This is also how our faith life is like. You must remember that suffering, tests, and trials are required courses for christians to complete.
When we carry out our faith lives, we encounter hardships. When we encounter such situations, God will express to us that he loves us very much. As we go through hardships, we will realize that we will go through certain courses in our lives.
We may have thought, ‘Why am I going through this difficulty? Why is such a test upon me?’
When unexpected events occur, why does it occur? Sometimes, when we encounter certain tests or events, we will not be able to understand the reason but we know that God loves us very much. When we try to transform and struggle against sin to fix ourselves, Satan will not let you easily change.
Satan will say, “Hey! Just live passively!’
We must completely be alert! When your children disobey and give you heartache, you must intensively pray in the Spirit so that your children can live spiritually. If you are children whose parents do not possess a proper relationship with God, you must lead the situation with prayer and faith so that your parents will transform and live a life of faith. When we become more alert and awakened to live lives of faith, something happens.
Let us repeat together, “When we try to live spiritually, we will begin to be disciplined.” Hallelujah! Let me express this differently. We will be in the boot camp training.
You will fervently be trained for period while you are at boot camp, You will be trained in all areas. You will be trained on how to stand in a straight line. How to march forward and backwards? How to salute, and much more. You will be trained one by one. Before you are admitted to the army, you will have lived your life as you had desired. But once you are admitted to the army, control and regulation will begin. The first thing the army will do to you is to shave your hair very short. You will only be allowed to wear a military uniform. You operate in close-order drills. You will be trained in respect to your superior officers and brotherly love for your colleague. When you are more disciplined and placed in proper order, little more advanced training will begin. You will be trained on how to shoot a gun. The army will not train you on how to shoot a gun when you first come arrive. Utilizing a gun is considered extremely dangerous. If you are not properly trained first, you will possibly wound others. When you have mastered on using a gun, the training to kill will begin. In case you run out of bullets, you will be trained in hand to hand combat. You will be trained to obey in all areas. The soldier's life and death depends on their mental strength as well. Therefore, they will be trained to strength their mentality. All the soldiers will have to sleep at the same time, wake up at a same time, eat at a same time, and you will not even be able to go to the bathroom whenever you like. You will be trained to become sharp and carry out things with simplicity and clarity
The Israelis had become degraded slaves of Egypt. Now, the Israelis are about to enter the land of Canaan and to conquer it. But, they have not been properly trained. They have their own imagination and delusion of what could be awaiting for them. With this kind of attitude and thinking, they had come out of Egypt. Of course, the Israelis had came out as they witnessed God’s miracle and power. But their personality, character, and the things in their hearts were not filtered. Therefore, they were not prepared.
Once God gives you some type of His power, you must follow without any condition. Through the discipline of the wilderness, the Israelites were made into God’s army. This process was shown through the particular tribes of Israel. With what type of method do you pass and overcome suffering and hardship? No one voluntarily desires suffering and hardship. We are God’s precious children. You will not fully understand how much our God loves us and how He values us. Even though we are God’s precious and valuable children, if God does not discipline and train us, we will be useless. We must be disciplined and trained. If we are not disciplined and trained, we will become rubble. Like a troublemaker, you will wander around. If your body is excessively entrenched with bad habits, it will be difficult for you to become a proper soldier in any christian group. You have seen some of the people like this. People like this may come to a church but never really become one with the church. This type of people will not be properly restored or healed. These type of people continuously talk about their own idea, thinking, and so on. The church is like an army or a ship. In order for a ship or an army to function properly, it has to become one as it move forward. If you are a person with your own ideas, thinking, and opinion, God will discipline you. You must put all your own things down.
When it comes to doing God’s work, you will need wisdom. When you are disciplined, you must first think, ‘Why am I being disciplined?” You may have realized, “Oh, I still have unfixed personality and my own ideas and thoughts.
You may be the person who always collide with other people. The reason why you are colliding with others is because your own ideas and thoughts are too distinctive. If you do not change your own ways, you will be considered nothing but rubble. A robble is useless stones. You must be trained to become a soldier who is one with an army. Now, closely look at the Israelis, they would not become one. They continuously lived as rubble. After you are completely trained from boot camp training and after they have passed the whole training process, they will be placed in certain branches of the army. The trained soldiers will be asked if they have any skills or expertise. What they are good at? Do they have any kind of special license? Do they have a driver’s license? What kind of religion are they? Depending on all these conditions, you will be placed in certain positions as well. If a person is healthy, tall, smart, and properly well trained in guerrilla training, such a person has possibility of being scouted.
In the last days, God had sent us to this earth. There are types of people in which God will powerfully utilize in the spiritual area. These types of people are always optimistic, alway have faith, always positive, comforts people who are anxious, always ready to help others, approaches people with an open heart, and a people whose faith is alive. These types of people are precisely picked by God to be utilized. At the same time, there are people who always resents, complains, grumbles and are irritated. God will not pay attention to these types of people. These types of people will live and finish their lives like rubble. Therefore, we must pray that we do not become like rubble. There are many rubbles that are on the ground and the streets. There are so many people in the world who live their lives as they desire. They live their lives as they please. But we are a people who believe in Jesus. For us, suffering is not an option but it is essential.
In today’s chapter, you will see God telling Moses to count the people. The first census took place in chapter one before they had entered the wilderness. Before the wilderness, the training had began. After the Israelis had passed the wilderness and finished the wilderness training, the second census took place in chapter twenty six. In today’s scripture, after completing the training in the wilderness, between the two census, the Israelis had received extreme difficult training, suffering, hardship, discipline and judgment. So many events had happened. When the Israelis committed adultery, 23,000 were killed by God. The people had died when the Israelis came against Moses. The Israelis were killed for worshiping idols.
Whenever we witness someone else’s judgment or discipline, we should be strongly touched and think in such a way, ‘Why did that person died?’
We will want to know the reason. “Oh! That person was prideful and did certain things!” Nadab and Abihu offered the wrong kind of fire and were killed by God. When the Issachar tribe committed adultery with the Moabite women, most of them were killed by God. This tribe was strong like a wild donkey and they were good at fighting. They could not severe their lustfulness. When we try to completely transform, and right before some kind of change is about to occur, a great test will come to you. When we are newly determined and attempt to do something good, Satan will attack us.
When the wilderness was almost finished, as discipline and training were almost completed, the Israelis became better in spirit, mental, and physical. Now at this level, they knew better on why the other Israelis were judged and killed by poisonous snakes and why many of the other tribes, brothers, and parents were judged and killed. They had witnessed all these events. As they had witnessed and experienced, they were spiritually trained, mentally strengthened, and physically strengthened. They had become an army. They were at the edge of training in the wilderness. After we are properly disciplined and trained, we will become a complete different people. We will become an army of God. When we finally becoming an army of God, even if God sends us to the land of Canaan, we will enter the land and demolish the enemy to conquer the land.
Before the Israelis had entered Canaan, they had sent the twelve spies. These spies were the leaders of their own tribes. They were suppose to have distinctive faith. They were experts in fighting. They were like the special forces. When they had entered the land to spy, it was not as they had imagined. They wanted to just enter the land without paying any price. The land was flowing with plentiful of good things. But the reality was not what they had expected. After forty days, they had come back from spying out the land. They even brought back some fruit. But their report was not a joke. Even though the land was flowing with honey and milk, the land was also fully occupied by the other great and powerful seven tribes.
The leaders of Israel's tribes reported, “They will devour us! The people there are powerful!”
The ten tribal leaders who had spied out the land had anxious minds and were weak spirituality. They had continuously reported a hard reality adding/mixing their own weakness. There were only two other people reporting in the power of God. God’s power was with these two other leaders.
When the Israelis heard about the bad report, they might have said, “How have we, as God’s people, become like this in this situation? We were severely disciplined and had come this far! But why is this happening? We are the people of God. How are we placed in such a tragic situation!”
The most important thing is that even if we encounter some kind of hard incomprehensive situation, you must remember that there is a huge difference between God’s people and and His thought.
There are things that are in God’s mind and there are things in our minds. The things in our minds are the things of the flesh and the hard reality of our lives. What does God thinks as the most important thing? God does not want us to sin. We must gradually sin less and eventually sin no more. It is not important to God for us to become famous and honored by the world but God desires us to become a holy people on this earth. God desires us to live spiritually. God is with us and we must declare this within our daily lives that God is with us. If God is with us, we will be able to handle all things in all situations. It must not matter even if we are greatly embarrassed before the eyes of our brothers, sisters, parents, neighbors and the people around us. If God is truly with us, He will restore and recover you later on. But the problem is that many people have a hard time enduring as they wait for the time of restoration and blessing. They do not want and they do not expect to have a prolonged time in training.
Please do not go on the internet without caution. Even if someone said that they have received messages, prophetic messages, or revelation about last days, please do not be deceived by their messages. God’s Word is more important than the internet. Please get out of the ambience of rapture and the fear of the last days. Enter deeper into the Word of God and grab unto the Word of God. No matter who has received a revelation of God for the last days, you must think to go long term. Please do not be deceived by the last days messages out there. What God desires from us is to gradually sin less and at last sin no more. The people of the world love to become well known but God desires us to become a holy people. When it comes to church life, if you are a person who has a loud voice, you are probably a person with pride. If you utilize your strength, temper, and loud voice, your many weaknesses will be exposed. Within the church, when we discuss about the will of God, we must associate it with voluntarily serving, thinking about others as better than ourselves, and obeying the word of God, these actions will establish the Will of God. The smallest areas for the will of God will begin to be fulfilled.
When you speak, there will be people who will open their hearts and there will be people who will not open their hearts. When it comes to faith, you can not prove your faith all alone and by keeping it all by yourself. You must learn to mingle with the other people as you may have to experience some type of disagreement, argument, and discord. You will encounter people in which you will have hard time establishing a good relationship. Sometimes, these conditions will come to us as a great test. Even if you encounter such conditions and events, if you are a person who is surrendered to God soaked in His grace, you will learn to obey through the suffering and difficulties. Please live optimistically even if you are encountering difficult situations. Please arm yourselves with the overflowing grace of God.
God had severely disciplined and trained the people of God through the wilderness. I think if we are placed in their wilderness training, we could have had a much more hard time. If you look at us, even when the tap water stops, we become very frustrated and fuss about it. The Israelis had to enter the land of Canaan and completely cast out the seven tribes who were already there. The Israelis had to establish a new country. But in order to carry all this out, they had to possess a deeper understanding. When we look at certain events, we need to possess some kind of perspective. You must posses the perspective of faith. Even if you may have to go through a difficult situation, you must posses the perspective of faith. Christians feel like they continuously fail, no victory and feel like they are withering away.
“Why must I continuously live such a way?”
Still, probably you are in the training process concerning God’s will. Abraham’s faith was very distinctive and he was a man of great wealth but still, God had a continuous plan for him.
One of the event that had occurred in the wilderness was the challenge from the big sister and brother of Moses. What were their reasons? Miriam continuously received the revelation word of God. She was also considered a prophet or a woman prophet. Aaron continuously received the word of God. Moses continuously received the word of God. One day, Moses married an Ethiopian woman. Miriam and Aaron defied Moses as they spoke about this matter. What was the main purpose? They were accusing Moses for committing adultery with the woman of Ethiopia. But this was only the reason from the surface.
In reality, they were speaking to him, “Does God only talk to you? God also talks to us! God talks to brother Aaron as well. Why would you not discuss this matter with us beforehand? Why would you carry out this matter all by yourself and how could you inform us afterwards?”
At the end, God’s wrath came upon Miriam. We may all receive revelation, messages and the word of God. As we observe this story of God’s wrath and summarize it, we come to realize that there is an order even when it comes to personal revelation and the word of God. Even if we all have received same kind of message, there is an order of priority. The prophetic message which Moses received comes first in order. Next in Aaron’s message and then in Miriam’s message. We come to realize there is order even when it comes to His prophetic messages. There is a process. Where does God put more weight? This is a very important matter.
No one can guarantee what will happen to us in the future. We do not know what events we will encounter. When it comes to prophetic messages and revelation, God will place the order of priority. When prophet Jeremiah delivered the message of God, God intensively acknowledged and proved his message. In the days of the prophet Jeremiah, there were many prophets. Those prophets ridiculed the word that was delivered through prophet Jeremiah.
They were like, “You think God only talks to you?! God also talks to us!”
They all said God talks to them. But to whom did God intensively grant His prophetic word too? We must critically think about this. Every word, prophet Jeremiah, said was right. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter twenty nine, prophet Hananiah was cursed and died. Prophet Hananiah also said that God spoke to him. In the book of Jeremiah chapter twenty six, there was an event of a king and the prophets committing adultery with the neighboring women. These people all proclaimed that God spoke to them but yet, in reality they all habitually committed adultery behind the scenes. Those were God’s servants. If you observe all around us, you will witness many pastors and leaders committing such sins. I tell you the truth, many people who receive revelation from God, people who receive prophetic messages from God habitually commit such sin. These types of people usually think about how to use the church members. These people are already corrupted but in spite of this reality, there are many cases God’s prophetic messages continuously come upon them. How could we view this?
Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses and we know that there is the order of priority. As a result, God judged Miriam by striking her with leprosy. When you receive the word of God, and when you look at the people who God really works through, you must learn to discern.
There was a incident with Balaam. Balaam was a gentile prophet and the Moabite king hired Balaam with money to curse Israel. But when the power of God came upon the prophet Balaam, he blessed Israel instead. Balaam struck his donkey but the donkey was looking at the Angel of God. The donkey tried to avoid the Angel of God but prophet Balaam could not see the angel. Later on, God opened the spiritual eyes of prophet Balaam. Even though Balak and Balaam tried to curse the chosen people of God, God turned it into a blessing. We have the power of variable. We can change things. If you only live your lives with proper faith, even if curses come your way, the curses can turn into a blessing. There were incidents of poisonous snakes, plagues, and being prideful. As the people of God go through such incidents, many people will be sorted out and the proper people of God will be trained. These trained people of God becomes the army of God who will be sent to fight. What is the important element here? You must possess purity. How do you keep yourselves from being polluted and to stay pure? Do not lie and do not corrupt yourselves with money and material things.
You must believe what is correct and proper. Are you confident about your faith? Can you say that you have had proper faith up until now? You must possess confident faith. You must believe that God loves you very much. No matter how much (spiritual) Moabite women comes to temp us, lie, delude and give us false love, we must overcome it. At the end, 601,730 entered into the land of Canaan and carried out war to conquer the land. When it comes to our faith lives, we must alway prepare for a prolonged period. We will have to endure and be patience for a long period of time. At the same time, there are choices you must make as soon as possible. There are things that you must be patient for a long period of time as you patiently wait. You must be well balanced as you are determined to make choices for important situations.You have to make things right as soon as possible and also, you must prepare to go long for a long period of time. God will not see how smart you are but God will see your faithful attitude and obedience towards His instructions according to His word and His lead.
Pastor Kim Yong Doo
