Destined to Reign (7 page)

Pastor Prince, what man could not do, Jesus did. It was the grace of God that changed me. I did not deserve it, but I thank God for the blood of Jesus. He took me just as I was and now I am a child of God. When I heard you preach the grace of God, I did not go out to start a new gang, smoke, drink or sleep around.
It is a lie that when God’s grace is preached, people will go out and sin more
. In fact, it was His grace that changed a wretch like me. I believe that God has blessed me to be a blessing. I want to spread this good news that only Jesus can make a difference in our lives.

Pastor Prince, your ministry has blessed me. I have been attending New Creation Church for five years now and I am proud to say that this is my church.

Victor King

Singapore

Hallelujah! Isn’t it amazing to see what the grace of God can do in a person’s life? You see, the more revelation you have of the grace of God and His forgiveness, the more you will have the power to reign over all your challenges and addictions.

We Have Been Robbed

Many Christians have been robbed of fellowship and intimacy with God because they believe the
lie
that God is still angry with them because of their sins. They avoid having contact with God, thinking that He gets angry with them whenever they fail. So instead of going to God when they fail, they run in the opposite direction. Instead of running to the solution, they run away from it.

The truth is this: God is no longer angry with you. His wrath toward all your sins has already been exhausted completely on the body of your Savior Jesus Christ. All your sins have been judged and punished in the body of another.

Schizophrenic teaching that tells you that God is sometimes angry and sometimes happy with you based on your performance is unscriptural and will make you a schizophrenic believer. It’s time to get out of confusion and to start seeing your God for who He really is.

God is (present tense) love. Stop being robbed of true intimacy and a relationship with your gracious and forgiving Savior Jesus Christ. Instead of avoiding Him when you fail, know that He is the answer to all your problems. You can go to Him and receive grace for your failures. His grace is greater than all your failures. He loves you perfectly, so go to Him with all your imperfections. In the same way that He restored that precious brother from our church, He will love you into wholeness!

The more revelation you have of the grace of God and His forgiveness, the more you will have the power to reign over all your challenges and addictions.

Chapter 5: Is God Judging America? 

Soon after the tragedy of September 11 had taken place, some believers publicly declared that God was judging America because of its sins. When I heard that, I could just imagine Osama bin Laden in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan agreeing with them and thinking that “god” was indeed using him to judge America. Come on, when Christians attribute such events to God’s judgment, terrorists would be the first to say, “Amen! Preach it!” Can you see that something is amiss when both believers and terrorists agree on the same thing? Thousands of people died, and many families, friends and loved ones were thrown into grief. How can that be the work of our loving Father? Read the Bible for yourself. It says that God is “not willing that any should perish”
1
. Terrorism is the work of the devil. It is not the work of our loving Father.

I have also heard some believers pronouncing, “If God does not judge America for all its sins, God has to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Well, let me say this with honor and respect: If God judges America today, He has to apologize to Jesus for what He has accomplished on the cross! My friend, God is not judging America (or any country in the world today). America and its sins have already been judged! Where? At the cross of Jesus! Sin has been judged at the cross!

What About Evidence Of God’s Fiery Judgment? 

“But Pastor Prince, didn’t God use Elijah to call down the fire of judgment on those who opposed him? And didn’t God rain fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah?”

Let’s look at Elijah’s story. It happened during the reign of King Ahaziah of Israel, whom the Bible describes as someone who “did evil in the sight of the Lord”
2
. Ahaziah deployed a captain with 50 soldiers to confront Elijah, who was sitting on top of a hill. The captain shouted at Elijah, “Man of God, the king has said ‘Come down!’” So Elijah answered and said to the captain of 50, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his men. So Ahaziah sent another captain with 50 men, and again, fire came down from heaven and consumed them. Ahaziah then sent a third captain with 50 of his soldiers, but this time, the captain pleaded with Elijah, and his life and the lives of his men were spared
3
.

As for Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible records that the Lord rained brimstone and fire on the two cities. He “overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground”
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.

Rightly Dividing The Word

“There, Pastor Prince… clear biblical evidence that God rains down judgment to punish His people!”

You need to understand how to
rightly divide the Word of God
. When we read the Bible, we need to follow the advice that Apostle Paul gave to his young apprentice, Timothy. Timothy was a young pastor of the church of Ephesus, and Paul told him to be “diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker
who does not need to be ashamed
,
rightly dividing the word of truth
”
5
.

Many believers today are living as if the cross did not make any difference!

God wants us to be able to rightly divide the Word. He wants us to be astute in rightly dividing and clearly separating what belongs to the old covenant of law and what belongs to the new covenant of grace. He wants us to be able to distinguish what occurred before the cross from what occurred after the cross, and to understand the difference the cross made. Many believers today are living as if the cross did not make any difference!

There’s one crucial fact that you need to recognize about the two incidents of God’s fiery judgment — they both took place in the Old Testament and before Jesus’ crucifixion.

Don’t just take it from me that God will
not
call down the fires of judgment on you today. See for yourself what Jesus Himself said about what Elijah did. Do you remember the time when Jesus wanted to enter a certain village in Samaria, but the people there refused to receive Him? When Jesus’ disciples saw that the people rejected Jesus, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?” Now, how did Jesus respond to them? Did He say, “That’s a great idea! You are truly disciples who carry My heart”? No, of course not! Read your Bible. He turned to His disciples and rebuked them firmly, saying, “
You do not know what manner of spirit you are of
. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”
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My friend, the spirit of Jesus in the new covenant of grace is not the spirit of the old covenant of law during Elijah’s time. Jesus wants you to have full assurance in your heart today that He did not come to condemn or destroy you. He came to save you
7
! The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came that you may have life, and have it more abundantly
8
. Hallelujah!

Bear in mind also that God almost spared Sodom because of Abraham’s plea. He promised Abraham that if there were only 10 righteous men in Sodom, he would not destroy the city for their sake
9
. Later, when the angels rescued Lot, Abraham’s nephew, we see that God would not have destroyed the city even if just one righteous man — Lot — remained! Notice what the angel said to Lot, “Hurry, escape there.
For I cannot do anything
until you arrive there.” They had to wait until Lot was out of the city and in the safety of another city called Zoar. The Bible records that the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah only after Lot had entered Zoar
10
.

Are the people who claim that September 11 was God’s judgment upon America saying that there is not even one righteous person in America today? If God would have spared Sodom for the sake of 10 righteous men, don’t you think that the terms He would give today, after Jesus’ finished work on the cross, would be even better? Even if God still demands the presence of at least 10 righteous people, you would easily find millions of righteous men and women of God in America today because righteousness is a gift of grace from the Lord, and believers all over America are clothed with Jesus’ perfect righteousness! Folks, what happened on September 11 was not an act of judgment from God. God is certainly not a terrorist and the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them!

Filter All Prophecies Through The Cross

All prophecies that you receive today must be filtered through the cross. If you receive a “word” from someone which brings your sins to remembrance or instills an expectation of punishment for sins in your life, don’t fear it, just throw it out the window. Don’t allow anyone to tell you that something negative has happened to you or will happen to you because of your sins. Reject such bad news in the name of Jesus. Instead, start receiving the good news of Jesus. When you are faced with difficult circumstances, keep on believing in His love for you that was demonstrated on the cross and He will cause whatever the devil meant for evil to be turned around for good, and to His glory! When the devil throws lemons at you, God will turn them into lemonade for your enjoyment!

There was a young couple in my church who had lost their baby due to some complications. And I was furious when I learned that a so-called “prophet” had told them that they had lost their baby because there was sin in their lives. That was really cruel! The couple was grieving, and instead of being a source of encouragement and edification, this “prophet” took advantage of the situation to appear prophetic at the expense of God’s precious people.

We may not have all the answers, but we can have full assurance that the negative circumstances that we may sometimes experience are not the works of God, neither are they punishments for our sins. When we have this confidence that
God is for us
and not against us, we can believe for restoration, breakthroughs and good things to happen to us.

Our church leaders told the young couple that it was not the Lord punishing them for their sins. They reminded them that all their sins have been punished at the cross of Jesus. This helped them to remove all the guilt and condemnation that they were carrying in their hearts. Since then, the Lord has blessed them with a beautiful baby.

When we have this confidence that God is for us and not against us, we can believe for restoration, breakthroughs and good things to happen to us.

I have also received testimonies from other couples who received God’s restoration in this area. I noticed that these couples had one thing in common: After they heard the good news of the gospel of grace, it liberated them from all guilt and condemnation. Instead of believing that God was against them or punishing them, they started believing that He was for them. They started trusting aggressively in His grace and goodness. And without fail, restoration always came. Now, that’s God! When He restores, His restoration is always greater in quantity or quality. But think about it: If those couples continued to believe erroneously that God was punishing them because of their sins, they would never be able to muster the courage and hope to trust God for restoration, for a new child. My friend, your sins have been punished on the cross. God is on your side. And if God is for you, who can be against you?

Let me share with you a testimony of how believing in God’s love, grace and goodness brought healing to one precious lady:

Pastor Prince, early last year, I was diagnosed with a tumor on the pituitary gland in my brain. The MRI scan showed that the tumor was a macro-growth of about 1.5cm. The neurosurgeon at the Singapore General Hospital said that if I had seen him any later, the tumor would have affected my eyesight as it was pressing on my optic nerves.

I was presented with two options: Immediate surgery to remove the tumor (the risk of surgery was that besides a 20 per cent failure rate, I could become blind in one eye) or medication (I was told that medication would take a long time to work and most patients only experience a shrinkage in the tumor after a year or so).

What the doctors had found out and said about the tumor was devastating news to me and my family. I remember telling myself that if I were to lose my eyesight, I would not want to live anymore.