Destined to Reign (29 page)

Now, this is a very powerful picture for you to have if you want victory over your thought life. You may be struggling with temptations, lustful and angry thoughts, or thoughts of guilt and condemnation, but the Lord wants you to have victory over these battles in your mind. He wants you to picture your head like a pomegranate. The rich red liquid is a picture of the blood of Jesus Christ and the many seeds, your thoughts. The blood of Jesus is constantly washing and cleansing your thoughts. The temptation that you had in your head just now has already been washed away. Your thoughts are under a constant waterfall of cleansing and forgiveness.

When the Bible declares in 1 John 1:7 that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, the tense here in the Greek for the word “cleanses” denotes a present and continuous action. In other words, Jesus’ blood “keeps continually cleansing”
8
. This means that the blood never ceases to cleanse your thoughts. Even right now, your thoughts of guilt and condemnation are being washed away. Angry and lustful thoughts are being washed away. All manner of temptation is being washed away! The moment you think a bad thought, it is being washed away. The problem with believers today is that they think to themselves, “I am a Christian, so how can I have such terrible thoughts?”

My friend, listen carefully to what I am about to say: You cannot stop birds from flying over your head, but you can certainly stop them from building a nest on your head! You cannot stop your flesh and the devil from putting negative thoughts and temptations in your mind. But you can have victory over your thought life by seeing that
all
your thoughts are continually being cleansed by the blood of Jesus. His redemptive work is your victory over your thought life.

Accusations Against Grace

In the book of Romans, Paul said, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”
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Obviously, Paul was misunderstood and accused of telling people to sin more so that grace may abound. This is the same accusation that has been leveled against me.

But Paul
never
said, “Let us sin more so that grace may abound,” and neither have I. I want to make this explicitly clear again: I, Joseph Prince, am vehemently, aggressively and irrevocably against sin! Sin is evil and it leads to destructive consequences.

I am on the same side as everyone who is against sin, only with this difference: Some believe that victory over sin is found in preaching more of the law, but I find that in the Scriptures, victory over sin is found in the preaching of God’s grace.

Let’s read what Paul said in its context:

Romans 5:20

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Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

Have you noticed that the law entered so that sin might abound? It clearly means that the more you preach the law, the more sin will abound. After all, the strength of sin is the law. Therefore, when you see sin and you preach more of the law, you are literally adding wood to fire.

The Superabundance Of God’s Grace

In saying that “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more”, I am preaching the same message that Paul (it is good to be in Paul’s company) preached. What Paul meant, which is also what I mean, is this:
Sin does not stop God’s grace from flowing, but God’s grace will stop sin
. Ask yourself which is greater, your sins or God’s grace? The answer is obvious. God’s grace is always greater! In fact, when you read “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” in the original Greek, it actually says that where sin abounds, grace “
superabounds
”
10
. So where there is sin, God’s grace is in superabundance!

We cannot be afraid to preach grace because it is the only power to stop sin in people’s lives. When you fail, instead of feeling guilty and condemned, receive the super abounding grace of God that tells you that you are still the righteousness of God! It is His super abounding grace that will rescue you from that sin. Those who wallow in guilt and condemnation are the ones who have no ability to overcome their sins. Since they believe that God’s grace has departed, what hope can they have? Victory over sin comes only when people encounter the superabundance of God’s grace. It is His grace that has made sinners righteous!

Victory over sin comes only when people encounter the superabundance of God’s grace.

God’s Justice Is On Your Side Today

“Pastor Prince, how can I be righteous when I have done nothing right, and especially when I have just failed?”

I will answer your question if you can tell me this: How could Jesus be condemned as a sinner when He committed no sin?

Jesus took all your sins upon Himself on the cross. And once your sins have been punished, it would be “unrighteous” of God to demand payment for your sins again. He cannot punish your sins twice! Yes, it is holy, right and just for God to punish sin. But having punished sin on the body of your substitute Jesus Christ, God will not demand punishment for your sins again, precisely because He is holy and just.

So if you understand that God’s justice has already been executed at the cross, you will see that today, as a new covenant believer under grace, God’s holiness, God’s righteousness and God’s justice are ON YOUR SIDE demanding your acquittal, deliverance, healing, prosperity... God’s justice today demands that you have and enjoy
all the benefits of the cross
.

Don’t miss out on this powerful revelation. This is the gospel of Jesus! Because all your sins have been punished in the body of your substitute Jesus Christ, God’s righteousness is on your side, demanding your justification and forgiveness. That is why, even when you fail, God’s grace will superabound and swallow up your failure. It has been paid for at Calvary.

The Bible says that “if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins”
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. Jesus is your Advocate today and He demands your acquittal. His blood has been shed and He became the propitiation (mercy seat) for all your sins. When God looks at you, all He sees is the blood of Jesus that makes you completely righteous. Hallelujah!

Apostle Paul Preached Grace Radically

I am preaching the gospel that Paul preached, and I am preaching it radically like he did, so that God’s people can enjoy true liberty and victory in His grace. But because I preach this good news, my name has been dragged through the mud in some circles. I find that the people who have heard my preaching either hate me or love me. Well, I believe that I am in good company. There is one thing you need to know about Jesus: You cannot sit on the fence when it comes to Him. There is no middle ground. Either you love Him, or like the Pharisees, you hate Him with a passion. For those who hate me, I don’t take it personally because they are actually hating the gospel. They are defending the law, not realizing that it is the ministry of death and condemnation
12
.

Now, whatever I have preached to you in this book, have I pointed you to the Bible? Have I exalted Jesus Christ and His finished work? Or am I one of those who exalts man and his efforts? One thing about the gospel of grace is that it makes nothing of man and points everything back to Jesus. Conversely, the law always points to man. It tells you that unless
you
do this, or unless
you
do that, you will not have this miracle or that breakthrough.

Years ago, there were some really nasty words spoken about me concerning the gospel of grace that I was preaching, and I felt discouraged. This was in the year 2000. During that period, I happened to be in New York with Wendy and as was my custom, I went hunting for a Christian bookstore. I found one, but before I walked into it, I said, “God, can You please encourage me? I know that this gospel is from You, but I just need a bit of encouragement from You.”

When I was in the bookstore, I wandered to a corner where I found a series of books by Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones had been the pastor of the Westminster Chapel in London for some 30 years. He was well respected within both the charismatic and non-charismatic circles, and was considered by many as the Charles Spurgeon of the modern church. However, I wasn’t familiar with his teachings at that time as I had never heard him preach nor read what he taught about grace. But this was about to change.

I remember wondering to myself why I was even drawn to that section, since Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones’ books were also available back home. Nevertheless, I followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and picked up a book randomly. It fell open to Dr Lloyd-Jones’ teaching on Romans 8:1, which says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” He said, “The apostle [Paul] is asserting that if we are Christians, your sins and mine — past sins, present sins and future sins — have already been dealt with once and forever!” Wow, I was excited because this sounded like what I had been preaching, and there had been a dearth of such teachings. You don’t hear much preaching like this these days. And of all the books in the bookstore, I was drawn to this one. I knew that it was the answer to the prayer I had said before I entered the bookstore, so I read on:

The apostle [Paul] is asserting that if we are Christians, your sins and mine — past sins, present sins and future sins — have already been dealt with once and forever! Had you realized that? Most of our troubles are due to our failure to realize the truth of this verse. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’ is so often understood to mean nothing more than that past sins have been dealt with. Of course it means that; but it also means your present sins; even more, it means that any sin you may ever chance to commit has already been dealt with. You will never, you cannot ever, come under condemnation. This is what the apostle is saying — nothing can ever bring the Christian again into a position of condemnation…

The Christian can never be lost, the Christian can never come under condemnation. ‘No condemnation’ is an absolute word, and we must not detract from it. To do so is to contradict and to deny the Scriptures…

But why does the apostle say this, and on what grounds does he say it? Is it not a dangerous thing to say?
Will it not incite people to sin? If we tell Christians that their past sins, their present and their future sins have already been put away by God, are we not more or less telling them that they are free to go out and sin? If you react in that way to my statements I am most happy, for I am obviously a good and true interpreter of the apostle Paul
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.

As I read the passage, I felt really refreshed and nourished. It was so good to hear from a seasoned man of God who had preached this same gospel even before I was born. He was effectively saying that if ministers are not being accused of the same things that Paul was accused of, then it means that they are not being true interpreters of Paul’s message. (Remember that Paul was accused of saying that we should sin more so that grace might abound.) So when I read his writing, I felt that I was in good company, first with Paul, and then with dear Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

When you preach the true gospel, radical grace must be preached. When I was in Switzerland in 1997, the Lord told me, “If you don’t preach grace radically, people’s lives will never be radically blessed and radically transformed.” I have been doing that ever since and with the fresh encouragement from the Lord in that New York bookstore, I knew that I would not stop preaching grace radically because I want to see lives radically transformed and believers living with true victory over every destructive habit and sin. It is the gospel that Paul preached.

It is the gospel that will lead you to effortless victorious living in Christ Jesus!

When grace is preached radically, people’s lives will be radically blessed and transformed.

Chapter 20: The Problem With Mixture

Do you know why many believers today have a confused perspective of God? What would cause believers to think that God is sometimes angry with them, but at other times pleased with them? Why would some believers think that their heavenly Father would actually punish them with sicknesses and diseases when it would be unthinkable for them to inflict such draconian measures on their own children? What accounts for this apparent schizophrenia that exists in the body of Christ today? I submit to you that this confusion stems from what is called “Galatianism”.

Galatianism is essentially a mixture of covenants. It is the intermingling of teachings about God which contain a little bit of the law as well as a little bit of grace. The church in Galatia was struggling with this and from the severity of Apostle Paul’s tone to the Galatians, it is obvious that Paul regarded this issue very seriously.

You will never find Paul saying to the believers in the church of Corinth, “O foolish Corinthians!” Yet, we know that the church in Corinth was in a mess. The people were involved in all kinds of outward sins. They were in strife, envy and jealousy, and some of them were even going to temple prostitutes. There were believers suing one another in court. The people were also misusing the gifts of the Spirit. All in all, there were all kinds of immoral activities going on in the church of Corinth. There was utter chaos! Yet, not once did Paul call them “foolish Corinthians”, or in our modern vernacular, “STUPID Corinthians!” Search your Bible. You won’t find even one instance.