Pastor Samuel Sharing

Brother William Sharing

Introduction

Today we look at Genesis chapter 5. What is the main point, the author of this part of the Bible, Moses, is trying to deliver to us? I will say: Never despise spiritual things.

Every time I talk about destiny, it is a translation and more elaborate way of saying: what we live for. Some people live for their stomachs, others live to live. It is not biblical at all. In the Bible, they mention two different kinds of people. Two different kinds of nations, two different kinds of kingdoms. One kind of kingdom is under a curse. The other kind is under the blessing because they are spiritual. One kind of people is very spiritual, and another kind is very carnal and of the flesh. So the divide is in this manner, all because of one thing: How you view things, how you view life. Life is better, right?

How do you view it? In the last chapter, we were talking about Rebekah. Rebekah was the daughter-in-law of Abraham and she was an amazing lady. In the last chapter, we were talking about this amazing lady. She dreamt of getting married into the family of Abraham. Why did she dream of marrying into this family? Because God has a covenant with Abraham, and everyone knows that. And the story of Abraham was spread very wide in that age. And Isaac was born in a miracle manner, born into the family of Abraham as the "promised son."

If God has a covenant with Isaac, saying: "I will make your name great and I will bless you, whoever blesses you I will bless, and whoever curses you I will curse, and I will make you into a great nation." Wonderful things. And later on, they talk about this. "You will increase in thousands and thousands in number, and your offspring will possess the gate of the enemy."

You see, this kind of command came from Rebekah's brother. And what does it mean? It means God made a wonderful marriage between Rebekah and Isaac, all because of what we live for. If I have a choice to use an English word called destiny, or in Chinese, "Ming-Ding", I would prefer the Chinese. It is a stronger word than destiny. It means "what you live for." I ask you all a question: What do you live for? "I don't know, I don't bother, just life"; these are typical answers. But living on earth is a very spiritual manner.

Blessings and curses are very spiritual

Lots of people have their eyes on the blessing, but they don't know that blessing is very spiritual. The blessing comes from the Lord, the God who created the whole universe. A lot of people want blessings but they don't understand blessings. If you belong to the world, and you want to get blessings, it is impossible. If you belong to the Lord, and you want to get curses, it's impossible. But the problem is this: a lot of people run between the world and the Lord, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Running back and forth, sometimes belonging to the world, then the Lord, then the world, then the Lord again. Their mind is swinging around.

Sometimes people leave the church; I like to talk about the stories of how they left the church. And they still listen to the sermon I preach. Sometimes, when I mention their story, they call me back and say: "Pastor, can you not curse me?" I say "Yes, I won't curse you, I'll bless you now." They have no idea what blessings and curses are. Sometimes when airplanes crash and people have died, people say: "Let's pray for them, let's pray for the dead." What is prayer? What are blessings? What are curses? What are all these things, and even the birthright? A lot of people have no idea what these things are, and yet they say: "Please do not curse me." The curse comes from the Lord; if God curses you, the God of the universe curses you, you will have no place to run, no place to hide.

But the point is that in the Bible we are talking about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The grandfather and the father and the son, right? And these three are amazing figures in the Bible. We'd better pick it up. What do they think? How do they view life? What do they think about life? Why am I preaching so much about destiny? You'd better understand what destiny is. You'd better understand what you're living for. You'd better understand "what is the matter of life". Be very, very careful.

Everything is spiritual

I will say, never despise the spiritual things. In this chapter, I would say Destiny is a good summary. It's a good summary of a lot of points I'm trying to make. You see in the Bible, in verse 7, Abraham lived 175 years and then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age. An old man and full of years, he was gathered to the dead. Ishmael lived 137 years, and he breathed his last and died. You will live so many years and you will breathe your last and die. Some people do not even have a chance to breathe their last, because there is an accident, there is an airplane crash, an airplane dropped from the sky. There are so many things, and you won't have a chance to breathe your last.

All these people died. Some people were born, and some people passed away. Life and death are very spiritual. There is no such thing as coincidence, there is no such thing called an accident. Accidents are spiritual. The people coming to the world is spiritual, the people passing away is spiritual. People living on the earth are spiritual. And what your view is what you do. If you are a spiritual person, you view things differently. The way you view the whole thing is different.

People are joining our church. "Well, this church has a lot of blessings." Yes, the church has a lot of blessings because there is a small group of people who pursue their destinies. The destiny Abraham pursued. The destiny Isaac pursued, and the destiny Jacob pursued. Why? It is very simple. We have always believed that life is meaningless. Life without eternal life is meaningless. Live, live, live and one day you will pass away. You will become a passerby. So what I'm saying is that you and I will pass away.

What is life?

Let me ask you, let me challenge you a little bit. What is life all about? Forever you hate, forever you are angry, forever you are in love, but none of these make sense, it will all be gone. You see, when people pass away before they pass away, they have one hour to live. Within that one hour, what do people think? Will they think: "What did I do this whole life? I hated this person, and it made no sense. I loved that person, and okay, I loved them." Everything will come to a full stop if you review your life. So can we do something more meaningful? Can we emphasize spiritual things? If you emphasize spiritual things, and your view is of the Lord our God, that is called spiritual. If your view is by man's view, live, live, and that's it, then your view is not a spiritual person, it is a carnal person's view.

And Rebekah got pregnant. After she got pregnant, the two boys in the womb were fighting with each other. And one was carnal, and the other was spiritual. That is interesting. They haven't been born yet, and God said:

The LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:23)

What is He saying? There were twin brothers, one is spiritual and the other is carnal. I will say it like this: when people are born, many times, after they are born, how they view life makes a huge difference. Just because the Lord knew beforehand. And Jacob and Esau were born.

Do you know what happened to Jacob and Esau? When Isaac was 60 years old, Abraham was still alive as he lived until the age of 175. Jacob and Esau at that time were teenagers. I believe when a child was 3 years old, they would start to know a lot of things. Probably grandfather Abraham was holding the two babies, one on his right lap and the other on his left lap telling them the stories of how God made a covenant with him and their father Isaac offered himself to the Lord. And how the Lord saved Isaac and replaced him with the lamb. Most probably, Isaac and Rebekah were around as well, the family was living in good harmony.

All these amazing stories from chapter 12 to chapter 24. Abraham would be continuing the story back to 20 years ago when their father Isaac was only 40 years old, how I chose a wife for him. That wife was your mother, a very spiritual person. Rebekah would have added more details to the stories of her dream about their father being a spiritual person and that was her dream to marry him as she wanted to be a blessing. She wanted to possess the gate of the enemies.

These two children were like all of you, listening to the same sermon but understanding in totally two different ways. One group will be like Jacob’s understanding, “Oh my God, I was born only a minute late and I became a younger brother. My brother was only a minute earlier than me, he became an elder brother and I had to call him elder brother. I want God’s covenant and all the promises of God. It belonged to my brother Esau because he was the firstborn. How was I going to become the firstborn? I wanted to go back to my mother’s womb, to be born again but this time I wanted to be the firstborn. I wanted spiritual things. ” You could see that after years; Jacob and Esau’s dreams were totally the opposite even though they listened to the same story from Abraham. Their responses were completely different.

Esau was not looking highly at his firstborn rights. He must not be bothered with spiritual things, covenants, and possess the gate of the enemies. What bothered him the most was spending a night in the field to get ready to hunt and making a good meal out of it. I had seen many brothers and sisters are a mirror of Esau. They experienced many of God’s miracles but, in their heart, they found it important to live for life. Live for the living. Living was everything for them.

Life is a fine line between life and death

I am going to tell you a story about the younger sister of our church member. She was working in Singapore Airport as a dishwasher, washing dishes. Working as a dishwasher was a low-paying job and considered a low-class job. I am not implying that the job was low class but compared to a CEO of a company, she was not highly paid for this kind of job. Every month, as a dishwasher she could only earn $1000 a month for 12-14 working hours every day. She did a very hard job and was probably only entitled to 2 days off in a month. She came to the church crying so I prayed for her. Do you know what happened? God made a wonderful thing for her; she was given a job with a salary of $2000 a month. That was a huge difference for her from $1000 a month to $2000 a month, there was an extra $1000. I mentioned to her that tithing was important for her to live a blessed life and not live under a curse. She was very upset and answered back rudely that if the tithing was $200, she would give it to me. I told her that I did not want her money and she could keep it herself. After 6 months, she lost her job.

Brothers and sisters, living under the curse is a horrible thing. In the end, she had to pack her bags and return to her hometown without any money. She lost all her savings and contracted a very serious disease, a terminal disease. Do you know what a terminal disease is? An incurable disease that costs your life. She came back to the church and joined our online church services. When she joined the prayer meeting, I was wondering what had changed her mind to come back to church. Changing her mind from a carnal mind to a spiritual mind. She had crossover from the Kingdom of the World to the Kingdom of the Lord. She must have changed.

After 3 months, she said to me that she wanted to give a testimony. She stated three months ago, she suffered from a terminal disease. Now, I knew why she was back at the church. She prayed during the prayer meeting that I led. Two weeks later, she went back to the doctor for her check-up and was told her terminal disease was gone. Wonderful testimony and finally she came into the spiritual world of blessings.

Unfortunately, her view of life has not changed. Yes, she came back to life from her sufferings. When she was suffering from the terminal disease, she was almost dying, everything to her seemed to not make any sense. When she came back to life with no more illness, she could live and start planning for the future. That is what I called a carnal mind. Do you know that I like to use this kind of story? This was a typical example of life and death. It was also a typical issue about the view of life. I am emphasizing the importance of do not despise the spiritual things. If you despise the spiritual things, the Lord will curse you and you become the enemy of the Kingdom of God.

After all her ordeal, she started to look for a boyfriend and got married. After she was married for some time, she came into my office, devastated and crying over her husband’s affair with another woman. She was mentally collapsed. I asked her why she did that as I thought she had gone through life and death. Wake up! I said to her that she had chosen this path and I did point her head with the gun to force her to marry this man. Since she chose this man, she had to understand this man had always been the same even before he was her boyfriend and he had never changed. Km I had to bring her out of her depression. After a while, she was pregnant with a son. When her son was about one to two years old, a very naughty boy who behaved abnormally came to my office one day. I cast out the boy’s demon. Her life was so complicated. Oh my God, please have mercy on her.

Sadly, we have to understand even if God has mercy on us. God could not grant us mercy if we despised spiritual things and our birthrights. We were born on earth to die, and so does everyone else. Everyone has to face death including you and me. Why are we struggling so hard? Sometimes we got so emotional and felt horrible. The crucial element is our view of life and death. Our view of life and death has to be aligned with the clear mark of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We should learn from them and follow their view of life and death according to the same view as our Almighty God.

Esau despised his birthright

Nowadays, it is very popular to view life and death as natural. Natural to live for the living and that will draw a line to separate from the Kingdom of God. You can never crossover to the Kingdom of God. You want in the world of blessings instead you fall into the world of the curse. Though you do not want to fall into the world of curses you are still unable to crossover into the world of blessings. You will be like Esau who kept thinking about filling up his stomach with food.

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. (Genesis 25:29)

All he cared about was food and it was so important to him that he voluntarily sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew and a piece of bread. Birthright to him was of no value compared to his stomach and he swore an oath to Jacob, selling his birthright to him.

This was a dream for Jacob. You know this is the day that Jacob had been dreaming of for years. And he waited every day for an opportunity to come. He asked Esau to swear an oath to sell him the birthright. Swearing an oath is also spiritual, so he sold his birthright to Jacob. In the spiritual world, God made decisions as He saw Esau sell the birthright, the blessing, the covenant, and the presence of God that possesses the gate of the enemy and everything that had to be given to Jacob. For Jacob, they did not need to go back to the worm again, did not need to be born again. The game was over for Jacob, but he turned it around. Amazing story!

The birth sequence changed. I tell you that as a spiritual person, in the dictionary of the spiritual person there is no such word as "impossible". In my dictionary, nothing is impossible because God is with me. I'm a spiritual person! Because I'm a spiritual person, even the birth sequence changes. The birth sequence can be changed. What cannot be changed?

A spiritual person lives in miracles, lives with signs and wonders, and lives in the presence of Almighty God. Do you want that kind of life? If you do, you'd better change your view of life. If you are Esau, you will be despised by the Lord. If you are Jacob, even if you do not have the birthright, you dream about it, and God can change it. You know God can change it. How did God change it? If you look at the story, Jacob became the firstborn. Jacob inherited all the covenants made with God by his father and grandfather, Isaac and Abraham. That's why we call God the God of Abraham; God is the God of Isaac; God is the God of Jacob. The name of Jacob is connected with the name of God.

I also dream of one day my name is connected with God. If you talk about God, the God I have served is the God of this pastor. How amazing! God is with me! God! I need you. I need that spiritual blessing. I know one day I will pass away but I will go into eternal life from today onward. I'm living in the eternal! One day I will be collected away from this world, but I will be with you forever and ever. You are my God! You are my salvation! You are my strength! You are my everything! That's why I'm willing to die for you. I'm willing to give everything to you. I need you in my life because life is meaningless. Do you think life is meaningful? No! Life is to die. I don't want to be the kind of person who lives and then dies.

Living for life makes no sense

One day, I had a get-together with my classmates, and we were having a meal. One of my classmates said that there was another one supposed to be with us, but he was in the hospital, in the ICU. What happened? He got stomach cancer. After surgery, the wound never closed and fluid went into the stomach. We were all going to the ICU but were not allowed to go in. I talked to his wife there. The next day, we saw him in a cemetery, where he was lying in a coffin. He died.

I counted how many of us were still around, about 10% of us were already gone. Are you with me, my brother and sister? One day you will be the same. I do not know what is lying ahead of you. And if you do not have the fear of the Lord, you live for your stomach, you live for your family, you can live for anything. If it is not spiritual stuff, you despise the spiritual things. Because you only lock your eyes on the real gold and silver, and real property, either leasehold or freehold. Unfortunately, the property will still be there even after you have gone.

I want to wake you up to follow in the footsteps of Abraham, Jacob, and even Rebecca. They called it destiny. What I'm telling you is outside the destiny, no blessing! Outside the Kingdom of God, no blessing! A lot of people live for a living. Why? It's nonsense to me. It really makes no sense.

It's just like a street cat or a wild dog running around. Is this what human beings are supposed to live? Live and die. Sometimes they suffer from all kinds of things. Sometimes people board an airplane and go straight to West Haven. Life is like an animal. Am I going to be like that? No, I need God. I have the image of Almighty God. I want to be a blessing to many others. Do you want to follow in my footsteps? I tell you a good thing as a spiritual person is that they know nothing is called impossible.

I'm now ministering to a cancer patient and praying for them. Let me tell you why I declare. I declare and surely he will be healed. They know something. No one who comes to Jesus Christ would not be healed. Whoever came to Jesus Christ was healed. But what happened after healing? Do you want to be blessed? Do you want to be a spiritual person? Do you want to change your view of life and death? Do you want to live eternal? And do you want to erase "impossible'' in your dictionary? Do you want to change the carnal view or the flesh view to a spiritual view, and never despite the spiritual things?

Can I change my life? Yes. Can I change my fate? Yes. Nothing is impossible. Jacob changed his birth sequence. He was the younger son and then became the elder. Previously, he had nothing to do with the covenant with God, but now he got it!

What an amazing story! Jacob was an amazing person that he managed to change the impossible into reality. Changing the impossible into reality is called a spiritual person. Do you want to be that kind of person? Do you want to live that kind of life? A lot of signs and wonders, a lot of impossible things happening in our life. Wonderful things will happen. Good things will come true in our life and that is called a spiritual person. Do you want to be a spiritual person from now on?

Be Jacob inheriting covenant with God

If you are a spiritual person, don't live for a living! Don't live for living anymore. Live for the spiritual things! Live for the life of God. They call it destiny. That's why our church is called the Church of Destiny, in Chinese it is called Ming-Ding. It's a wonderful name and no other church is called this. And we have the first that wants to restore the destiny of every church member. The destiny is to live for God.

One day, if almighty God asks if you want to die for Him? Follow in my footsteps and say yes! Never say "let me think about it". Yes, Lord, I have been dreaming of this day for many years. Finally, you want to take me. I want to go back to you. You are my Lord, living for a living makes no sense. I am not bluffing you. I live for this.

I know spiritual things are very real. I know a lot and sometimes God opens my eyes and sees a lot of spiritual stuff. It's beyond my imagination. I know my name has been made great in the spiritual realm. I confront the devil and the devil salutes me. "You are a man of God, I'd better flee". I won't back down until the devil backs down. I will set people free from bondage. I will preach the gospel, cast out the demon, heal the sick and I will do what Jesus Christ had been doing on earth until the day I go back to the Lord. And the Lord says good and faithful servant! Come in and enjoy the glory I have prepared for you. Yes, Lord! This is the day I dream about. When did God ask if I wanted to die for Him? I said yes, Lord. I live my life for you, nothing will be kept from you. I will give everything to you. You are my life. You are my everything and I live for you.

Learn from Jacob. Following in his footsteps, he legally got the blessing, the spiritual birthright, and he emphasized the spiritual things. No paper, no lawyer needed to sign, only an oath from his brother Esau. He was not eyeing properties or the money, gold or silver from his father. He was eyeing the covenant with Almighty God. I wish every one of us today signs a covenant with God! Live our life for almighty God.

May the Lord bless you in Jesus' name!

Amen!