Passage

Deuteronomy 32:10
"He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye."


Introduction

Today is the Feast of the Harvest Sunday.
Exodus 23:16 says, "Also you shall observe the Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field."
The first fruits here refer to wheat.
The sons of Israel were very nervous while waiting for the wheat to ripen.
If God did not give them ample rain, wind, and sunshine, the wheat harvest would not be enough and many people could starve.
They harvested the ripened wheat and gave God the first fruits on the Feast of the Harvest. It was literally a feast.
For the sons of Israel, to harvest wheat meant that God guarded the lives of their families as well as their own lives.
The Feast of the Harvest service that you have today has a similar meaning.
God the Father has kept your life, your family members' lives, your shelter, and workplace. He has also supplied you with the necessities of life.
Above all, He gave you faith and let you bear spiritual fruits in your heart. That is why you are here attending this service, giving thanks to God.
Psalm 116:12 reads, "What shall I render to the LORD For all His benefits toward me?" As said, I believe you have the same question.
So, let me tell you the three things that you should do on the Feast of the Harvest, in order to pay back the grace of God and to continue to bear abundant fruit in the second half of the year, too.
Through this message, I hope you will bear more abundant fruit in the second half of the year and give God a more pleasant aroma of thanksgiving.
I pray in the name of the Lord that this sanctuary will be filled with the aroma of thanks given to God.


Main

Brothers and sisters,
On the Feast of the Harvest, first of all, you should check whether you kept the Sunday holy and gave God proper tithes.
Keeping Lord's Day is to acknowledge God's spiritual authority and the giving tithes acknowledges His material authority.
In other words, keeping these two commandments is the symbol that you are God's children who believe in the Lord.
Therefore, God protects us and blesses us when we keep the Lord's Day holy and give proper tithes.
You are living witnesses to this fact. With your lives you prove God protects you and blesses you when you keep these two commandments.
It is not easy to find a church where a vast majority of church members give their tithes like our church.
Of course, all believers are supposed to give their tithes.
But in most of churches today, giving the tithe is not a common practice, and I feel sorry about this.
The amount of tithe for the church and for individual church members has been continually increasing.
Let me tell you how God blessed us when we kept the commandments of God.
I delivered messages on proper tithes and offerings from December 2008 to January 2009.
Then I delivered messages on how to keep the Lord's Day holy.
What do you think happened after that?
In 2009, the total amount of tithes in the church increased by 10% over the previous year.
Last year, in 2010, within just two years, the amount increased by 25% compared to 2008.
Of course, this is the result of God giving us amazing blessings as He promised.
God moved my heart to deliver the messages on the two commandments at the right time, so that the church members could prepare their vessels to receive blessings.
As a result we had an amazing harvest.
This kind of thing cannot be done by men's power.
While our tithes increased greatly, the world was suffering from a global financial crisis and a worldwide economic downturn.
The aftermath is still affecting the economy.
Our church members' tithes have increased like this in a difficult time.
When these two commandments were kept, God not only gave us blessings but also He also guarded our health and all possessions.
He kept you from diseases, accidents, disasters and calamities.
But, I don't think that many of you kept the commandments of God from the beginning because you completely believed the word of God saying that He would give you blessings if you kept the word of God.
God has given us abundant words on God's justice and love. You were able to understand and believe His word because He has shown you powerful works that confirm the words.
You know very well how disasters come upon you and how you can receive protection and blessings.
You also practice what you have learned because God has continuously confirmed that His words are true through the powerful works.
You do not just keep the Lord's Day holy and give tithes, but you also keep various commandments.
For this reason you live a life that is easily distinguished from worldly people. In the spiritual space it is set apart like Goshen.
1 John 5:18 says, "We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him."
As it is said, many of you are protected and live a healthy life for your faith has grown up and you have come into the dimension of spirit.
If you watch the documentaries of the testimonies and read the testimonies in the Manmin Newsletters, you can feel how God has protected you.
Many of you have never been to a hospital since you came to this church.
Even contagious diseases do not affect you who are Manmin members.
Many of you have also been completely healed of cancers, AIDS, leukemia, and other medically incurable diseases.
Through the recent special healing meetings in particular, many of you received better eyesight.
How can such a thing happen in this world?
Within the boundary of our common sense, it cannot happen.
This is an amazing blessing that God has given to us with His love.
God has protected you not just from diseases but also from various accidents.
Our church members' houses and shops were protected from fires in the neighboring house to forest fires surrounding the house.
Even when the cars were demolished like crushed aluminum cans, your bodies were protected completely.
When something heavy fell on one of you at a construction site, or when a bomb in battle dropped in your yard, you did not have any damage.
Volcano eruptions, earthquakes, or tsunamis all passed by our members.
All of the branch church members in Japan were protected from the earthquake and tsunami that took place this past March.
We have a branch church in Yamagata prefecture, which is neighboring the most damaged prefecture, and they testified how they were protected in amazing ways.
Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will all practice the word and you will stay protected under the wings of the Lord.
Dear brothers and sisters, on the Feast of the Harvest, secondly, you should check whether or not you have forgotten to give thanks to God without ceasing.
In 1 Corinthians 15:10, the apostle Paul said, "By the grace of God I am what I am."
You too, make the same profession.
It is true.
Everything – the entire material harvest, all the good things you get, and all spiritual fruits you bear – they are all given by God through His grace.
All the fruits of light, truth, and goodness that you bear such as good heart, good words, and good deeds are all borne by God's grace.
If you acknowledge this fact, you can see there are so many things to thank God for.
God the Father is very pleased when His children realize and feel this and offer the aroma of thanks.
The thanks that you offer with your heart in prayers and praises will ascend to God as a pleasing aroma.
Read Deuteronomy 16:16-17 carefully.
It says, "Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you."
God says He searches the heart and accepts the aroma of heart. Why does He say this?
Let me give you two reasons.
First, it is because your thanks will become more perfect and the aroma will be thicker when you express it with deeds.
James 2:22 says, "Faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected." The same goes with thanksgiving.
By giving offerings, you truly acknowledge that God has given you many good things.
As said in Matthew 6:21, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also," you show to the Father God that your thanksgiving comes from a true heart by giving offerings to God.
Also, the aroma will be thicker when you give from your heart what is precious to you, rather than just saying thanks with your lips.
Your true heart will be contained in your words when you give God something precious to you by sacrificing and dedicating yourself.
In John chapter 12, we see Mary the sister of Lazarus pouring perfume on the feet of Jesus.
John 12:3 says, "Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume."
Mary wanted to express her thanks and love towards Jesus.
Jesus revived her dead brother and taught her with spiritual words. Mary was eager to listen to His words.
Jesus also gave them faith and hope of Heaven by performing amazing things.
He gave them love that nobody could give.
Mary expressed her thanks and love towards Jesus by giving Him the thing that was most precious to her.
That fragrance was so beautiful that Jesus said in Matthew 26:13, "Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her."
Have you offered such a beautiful aroma as that of Mary?
You would agree that the grace you received is not less than the grace Mary received.
For example, are you not being supplied abundantly with words of spirit?
The messages you hear such as things about Heaven and Hell, the messages to let you realize and change yourself, the messages that teach you the ways to be protected from the enemy devil and Satan are so precious that you can't buy them with all the money in the world.
Haven't you become healthy sheep to the same extent that you've feasted on the words of spirit and obeyed the voice of the shepherd?
You were protected from ferocious animals, namely from the enemy devil and Satan, and were supplied with the necessities of life.
Those who are truly thankful for all this will give to God the things that are precious to them and sow for the kingdom of God.
But isn't it the case that you always receive from God, but you give back to God only a little?
Or, have you not changed your attitude of giving a lot?
With your lips have you not just said, "Thank-you" when you received grace but soon forgot about it?
Or have you given your heart-felt thanks in offerings for everything, whether it is big or small?
Brothers and sisters, another reason why God says we have to give our heart along with our offerings is that He wants to give us more things.
2 Corinthians 9:7 says, "Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
God will surely bless those whom He loves.
To joyfully give thanks-offerings is like sowing the seeds again after harvesting abundantly from the field.
You sow the seeds on the field again, so you will bear the fruits again.
As in 2 Corinthians 9:6, you will reap more if you sow more.
Those who always show their thanks to God in all matters will experience these blessings all the time.
Our God is such good God.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will joyfully express your thanks in your lives so that you will be loved by our good God.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
On the Feast of the Harvest, thirdly, you should give thanks for God's grace for keeping your heart and spirit in this dark world.
Aren't you also sensing just how dark this world is spiritually?
How sin-filled it is!
In this world, it is very difficult to find anything of light or goodness from what we see and hear.
In these times, our God has kept our eyes and ears from turning towards this dark world.
Like the sunflowers turn only toward the sun, we are being guided to look up only to God, the Lord, and Heaven.
We can feel this love especially when we see our students.
Most parents would certainly worry about your children thinking they might see, hear, and learn something evil from this world.
But what is the case with students of Manmin?
Rather than taking worldly entertainment, they focus on worship services and prayer.
They sing holy praises and not worldly songs.
They enjoy coming to the sanctuary of God and listening to His Word.
As you see in mini-crusades, the students fill the whole sanctuary and receive all the word of God as though they were little birds getting their food from the mother bird.
When we listened to the testimony of Angelica, the students were thankful and rather happy to hear about Hell, and not just about Heaven.
They cast away their love for the world and evil; they try to be faithful in their Christian life and study hard.
I am so thankful that God is protecting our students like this at a time when they have great curiosity.
It's the same with grown-up adults.
From elders to young adults, they cut off the TV and worldly pleasures to learn the word of God watching GCN.
Their number in attendance in Daniel Prayer Meeting has increased.
And when they were praising God in the Special Healing Meetings, they were as passionate as the younger students.
How emotional it was to see the whole congregation look up to God and the Lord only and passionately praise God in unison.
Many of you said that you were waiting for the Lord's coming again and you really want to go to New Jerusalem.
These past three special healing meetings were a crystalloid of God's love.
You are also so happy these days seeing the original light, which are the beautiful aurora lights around us.
You feel the almighty and beautiful God and yearn for Him seeing these lights.
When you rely on this original light with faith, your desires are answered. How thankful it is!
God the Father has kept our heart so that we will not put our hearts into this world belonging to the enemy devil and Satan, but we will only look up to Heaven and New Jerusalem.
He has given us spiritual power and fullness of Spirit.
He keeps us with the blazing eyes of the Holy Spirit and covers us under the wings of the Lord so that no single soul will fall into Hell.
I hope you will offer up to our good God, the Lord, and the Holy Spirit the best aroma of thanks with your heart-felt offerings and praises.


Conclusion

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Deuteronomy 32:10 says, "He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye."
Have you applied this verse to yourself and have you been thankful for it?
Let us give all thanks and glory to God the Father who has kept our life, health, and possessions until we changed into lovely children of God and came to offer a sacrifice of thanks stemming from the heart.
I pray in the name of the Lord that in the coming feasts, you will bear more abundant fruits both in body and spirit.