Derek Prince - The Power of Proclamation
Ruth and I, when I'm ministering, we always begin this way. God has taught us this and we've discovered that proclaiming the Word in faith at the beginning of a meeting makes a tremendous difference to the atmosphere in the meeting and to the anointing on the speaker. We're going to proclaim Isaiah 55 verses 10-11 which is one of our favorite proclamations. We use it frequently in connection with our radio ministry and its outreach through the earth. So, here we are: For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven and do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower It shall not return to me void but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Amen.
Now let me say a little bit about the word proclamation or the verb to proclaim. It comes actually from a Latin word which means to shout forth. It's a strong word. There are two related words in the language of the New Testament: confession or to confess and proclamation or to proclaim. Now confess or confession means to say the same as. And for us as believers in the Bible, confession means that we say the same with our mouths as God has already said in His Word. We make the words of our mouth agree with the Word of God. And in that way we line ourselves up to receive the full backing and authority of Jesus. In Hebrews 3:1 the writer says that: Jesus is the high priest of our confession. That's a very important statement.
If you have no confession you have no high priest. whatever the Bible says about us as believers in Jesus then we have Jesus as our high priest in heaven releasing His authority and His blessing. But if we remain silent in a certain sense, we shut off His ministry as high priest. And if we make the wrong confession we do even worse. In a certain sense, we invite negative forces to surround us and move upon us. Now proclamation is, as it were, confession made aggressive. Proclamation is, in a sense, a word of spiritual warfare. It's releasing the authority of God's Word into a situation: Into our own lives, into the life of the church, into a political situation whatever it may be. There are countless different situations that need the power of God released into them, your family, your church, your nation, whatever it may be, than proclamation.
Proclaiming is really the activity of a herald. A herald is a word we don't use very much today but a herald was a person with authority from a king or a duke or some nobleman who went to the particular area concerned In the old days they used to say: Oyez, Oyez, and then make the proclamation. When they said: Oyez, Oyez, everybody sort of stood to attention and knew this is the voice of authority speaking to us. It's a word that means to proclaim. One of our favorite Scriptures is Matthew 24:14: This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached We prefer to say: shall be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all the nations; and then the end shall come. I've been a Bible teacher for just about fifty years and I always felt my duty was to interpret the Bible and explain it and help people to understand it. But about twelve years ago the Lord began to impress upon me the word proclaim.
I felt somehow that He was challenging me to go beyond teaching and do proclaiming. And the result was my radio Bible teaching ministry which started on eight stations in the United States in 1979 and is now in ten languages and really covers most of the globe. And that is really a ministry of proclamation. as a witness to all the nations; and then the end shall come. I came to see that the age cannot close until we have done our job as the church of Jesus Christ, His witnesses on earth. Which is to proclaim this gospel in all the world as a witness to all the nations. And I have learned by experience the tremendous power of the Word of God simply proclaimed in faith. It just accomplishes the most marvelous things. She was a Marxist, she was a lesbian, she was a feminist. And she took it seriously. I mean, she was buying revolvers to shoot men with, and they were going somewhere to do something bad. And it seemed that a storm was coming up and got saved in the hold of the ship! It took no more than fifteen minutes because the program is only that long.
She is now as totally different and radical the other way as she was the bad way. So that's just an example. That was not teaching. I didn't do a lot of explaining. The Word proclaimed did its work. I want to take an example now from Moses when God called him to go back and be the deliverer of Israel out of Egypt. You remember God appeared to him in the burning bush. Then God said to him in Exodus 4, Now I'm sending you back to deliver Israel. And Moses He said, Why me, Lord? I can't do it, I've got nothing. What could I do it with? And the Lord said to him: What have you got in your hand? He didn't think there was anything particularly important about his rod. But the Lord said: Throw it on the ground. And when he did it became a snake. And Moses ran from his own rod. In other words, there was a potential in that rod he had in his hand which he had never anticipated or imagined. Then the Lord said: Pick it up by the tail, and everybody who deals with snakes knows you never pick a snake up by the tail. But Moses did. I think he was trembling as he did it. And, it became a rod in his hand.
And God said to him in effect: the entire deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was achieved by that rod. the rulership of Egypt out of Pharaoh and had it in his hand in his rod. And the last scene was the passing through the waters of the Red Sea. So, the only instrument he needed for the entire task which God had called him to was that one shepherd's rod which he didn't think had any significance when he first held it in his hand. Now what I want to suggest to you if you're a Bible believing, committed Christian, you have a rod. Do you know what it is? It's your Bible. If you've got a Bible here I'd like you to hold it up. And I'd like you to say: This is my rod. Will you say that? My Bible is my rod. With it I can do everything God tells me to do. All right, you may put your Bible down.
Now, the first thing that we need to realize from the Scriptures Just like Moses' rod, it contains power which isn't obvious when you first look at it. But when you begin to understand it, its power actually is limitless. I'll just give you a few Scriptures revealing the power of the Word of God. Psalm 33 verse 6: By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth. But the Hebrew word translated breath is the normal word for spirit. Ruach. So all creation took place through two agents: the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Everything that exists or has ever existed or will ever exist owes its origin to just two forces: The Word and the Spirit of God working together.
You see, the Word must work with the Spirit. I think that's maybe why the psalmist translated it breath and not spirit. Perhaps you've ever studied this. But I had to learn elementary phonetics when I was teaching English as a second language to African students. I discovered some interesting things about words. If you think of the tremendous power of words and yet how simple they are. How do you speak? You release breath out of your lungs, it passes through your mouth and your nose But the basic truth is you cannot speak without breathing. His breath is His Spirit. So the Word and the Spirit of God always go together. The Word and the Spirit of God brought the universe into being. which tells us three things: That the Word creates, the Word maintains and the Word abolishes.
2 Peter chapter 3, beginning in verse 5: By the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of water and in the water by which word the world that then existed, perished being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which now exist are kept in store by the same word reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. So by the Word of God the heavens, the earth were brought into being. So the Word of God creates, maintains and abolishes. I think sometimes when I look at the mess that man is making of this planet I'm glad that the Word of God can abolish that mess one day. The Word of God brought it into being, the Word of God keeps it in being Now a Scripture that Ruth and I quoted. We might as well quote it again. Isaiah 55:10-11 points this out which I've just explained - that the Word must come out of God's mouth. Otherwise, it's not effective. So there we are, how do we begin? For as the rain. Thank you. And do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Amen.
Now in 2 Corinthians 3:6 Paul says: The letter kills. In other words, the bare word without the breath doesn't bring life. It has to be the Word and the Spirit together. So you can get some dry sermon which is all Scripture but has no breath in it and it doesn't give life, it gives death. See? The two must operate together. The Word and the Spirit. Now I want to parallel with Moses' experience the way that we can make the Word of God effective by proclaiming it. Proclaiming it is releasing it into a situation. It takes confidence. It takes boldness. It's not for the timid. You have to make up your mind, I believe this. when His Spirit says it through me. Can you believe that? Can you believe that? It doesn't have to be God speaking. If the Spirit of God propels the Word of God through your mouth it's as effective as it was when God spoke the universe into being.
Now the first thing that happened to Moses was he got frightened. He threw his rod down on the ground. It became a snake and he ran from it. We have to learn to tremble at the Word of God. Isaiah says this. Or God says it through Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 66, the last chapter of Isaiah. The first two verses of Isaiah 66: Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you will build me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things my hand has made, and all those things exist, says the Lord. In other words, the Lord says, You can't build Me any temple or building that will impress Me because I built the whole universe. But He says: There's one thing that does attract my favor, just one thing. He says: But to this one will I look. Another translation says: will I have respect. Whom will God respect? Whom will He take into account? Him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my Word.
So you see like Moses, our first reaction has to be fear and awe at the Word of God. There is far too little fear of the Word of God in the church today. We are too familiar with it, we bandy it about and we quote it but we don't show real reverence for it. And we have to change that attitude. Now let me give you two reasons found in the gospel of John why we should tremble before the Word of God. The first is in John chapter 12:47-48. Jesus is speaking. will judge him in the last day. So Jesus says, I'm not going to be your judge. You're going to be judged by the Word of God. Imagine yourself standing before Almighty God having to give an account of your life which I believe all of us will have to do one day. You would tremble. You would be very concerned. What Jesus says is you should have the same attitude toward the Word of God. For it's the Word of God that will be your judge. No wonder we should tremble at it.
And then further on in John 14:23 Jesus makes another amazing statement. He says: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. It's one of the very few places in the Bible where How will we come? Through what? Through His Word. In other words, when we open up to the Word of God, if we can believe it God Himself, the Father and the Son is coming into our lives willing to make His home with us. If it should ever be that somehow, even in a vision you were to see the Lord Jesus maybe coming into your home you would be overwhelmed. You would have a sense of awe. You'd want to fall at His feet. Through what? Through the Word of God. You see? We need to show a reverence, an awe and a fear. He suddenly realized the power that was in his rod and he ran from it. He was overawed. The second thing that he did was to take hold of the rod. By faith he gripped it and it became a rod again in his hand.
So when we've trembled, then we need to take hold of God's Word. We need to take a firm grasp on the Word of God. Psalm 149 the last few verses. Psalm 149 beginning at verse 5: The word saint, Hebrew word hasid. How many of you have ever heard of Hasidic Judaism? Very ultra Orthodox. Let the saints be joyful in glory; let them sing aloud on their beds, to execute on them the written judgment. This honor have all his saints. It's an amazing series of statements if you can identify yourself as belonging to the saints. It says that we have to have the two-edged sword which is the Word of God, in our hands, the high praises of God in our mouth and with it we can execute vengeance on the nations, punishment on the peoples - are you seeing yourself in this scenario? Do you realize that this is something God has for you? The satanic principalities that rule the nations but not exclusively.
And then it says in the closing verse to execute on the nations the judgment written. And it says this honor or this privilege have all his saints. The prayer life of many would be different if we began to see ourselves in that light. Now it says to execute the judgment written, or the written judgment. We are not the ones to make the judgments. God has made the judgments. But we have the privilege of executing the judgments on the nations, on their rulers. In other words, we have a unique and decisive part to play in history. See how important this is? And I'd have to say how far away many, many Christians are But I want to emphasize we don't make the judgments. We find the judgments in the written Word of God, but we execute them. How do we execute God's judgments? And then we announce the decree of God.
Now I think I'm going to try to be very practical and down to earth. We come to the next stage after he grasped the rod. What did he do next when he got back to Egypt? He stretched it out. He exercised the authority that was in the rod. Now I want to suggest to you that we need to do the same. We need to take the written Word of God and we need to stretch it out in any situation where the authority of God is needed. One of the ways - I'm not saying it's the only way but I think in many ways the most effective way to release the authority of God into a situation is by proclaiming in faith and under the anointing of the Holy Spirit because remember, the word must go with the breath. God didn't step down off the throne, take the rod out of Moses' hand and say, Moses, I'll do it. That's what most of us, I think, expect to happen. God says, You've got the rod. You do it. But it is called the rod of God in the book of Exodus. It was the rod that did the job.
So I'm going to take now a whole number of potential situations beginning with those that are personal are proclamations that we regularly make in our personal devotions. I tell you, our personal devotions are not always quiet times. Sometimes we shout. After all, to proclaim is to shout out. this was our number one weapon. Some of these proclamations we have done thousands of times. Maybe you've got to go on saying it until you think it. Until when any situation arises that's the way you react. I'm British by background, as most of you know. They're pessimists by nature. And I was a pessimist of the pessimists. God has been gradually revolutionizing me; it's taken Him a long while. But one of my strange mental habits, I think it must go back to childhood all the problems that could arise. I get in a car to drive and I think now if there was an accident, et cetera.
Maybe some of you have the same problem. I've been using the weapon of the Word in many different ways and He says: I know the plans that I have for you, plans of good and not of evil. Another translation says: plans of prosperity and not of calamity. To give you a future and a hope. But at the end of that the negative has been dissipated. So I'll say it. It's not one of our repertoires but it probably will be. plans of prosperity and not of calamity to give you a future and a hope. You start to say that every time you step into your car. You're going to have a good journey. You're going to accomplish the things that you set out to do. Your attitude makes a lot of difference, the way people treat you. You walk into a store and you walk in with that attitude and they'll do something for you. That's just by the way, but there's no extra charge for that.
Now we're going to take some pattern proclamations. But first of all remember it must be the breath with the Word. In other words, it has to be the Holy Spirit. And secondly what we do - a very good thing to do - is we personalize it. Now, we're going to start with self-defense. So, suppose that you have a lot of dark negative foreboding. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Would you like to say that? That doesn't take much memorizing, does it? All right. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Now, one thing you can do to make sure you're really bold is to turn and face somebody, look them right in the face and say to them, I shall not die but live. It takes a certain amount of extra what the Jews call chutzpah or nerve. I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Amen.
You feel better now, don't you? Suppose it should happen to you. Preachers are particularly a target for this. They are criticizing you, speaking against you and some are praying against you. So what do you do? Our remedy is Isaiah 54:17. If you want to find it in your Bible we'll just say it. Now, we say it in our own particular way, but it's based on this. No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper and every tongue which rises against us in judgment we do condemn. This is our heritage as servants of the Lord and our righteousness is from you, O Lord of hosts. Everybody is going to know it all around the world sooner or later. We say this every night before we go to sleep. No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper and every tongue which rises against us in judgment we do condemn. This is our heritage as servants of the Lord and our righteousness is from you, O Lord of hosts.
That's why we can condemn the tongues that accuse us because they're accusing God's righteousness. And that's always losing. I'd like to say just to clear the record, after that we say: having forgiven them we bless them in the name of the Lord. We replace the negative with the positive because the Bible says if people curse you don't curse them back, bless them. Paul said don't be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good. The only power strong enough to overcome evil is good. So you have to learn to meet the negative and overcome it with the positive. But it has to be based on this Word. Now suppose, let's say, our ministry is assailed. Or it could be our home or our family.
Deuteronomy 33:25-27: The bolts of our gates will be iron and bronze and our strength will equal our days. There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help us and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out our enemies before us saying, Destroy him! Amen! That really frightens Satan, I'll tell you that. We have learned you have to destroy him. God will drive him out, you have to destroy him. You have to put your foot on the enemy's neck. We won't go into the details of that, they're too bloodthirsty. Let's point out we're not talking about human beings but about spiritual forces when we're talking about our enemies. Our enemies are not flesh and blood. Your pastor is not your enemy; your husband is not your enemy. You might think so at times but that's not the way it is! You have to learn that we're not fighting human beings. These weapons are very powerful but they have to be used in the right context. We've got one proclamation for each. First of all, financial.
2 Corinthians 9:8. And we just change the words a little but basically they're King James. God is able to make all grace abound toward us that we always, having all sufficiency in all things It's important. Then it says what He's able to do. It wouldn't be possible to get more abundance into one verse than Paul got into that, and it's grace. Notice that, how is grace received, by what? By faith. By grace you are saved through faith, that's right. It's not something we earn; it doesn't depend on our salary although that may be related. But we receive it by faith in God's grace. We'll do it once more. This is the financial basis of our ministry. Whenever we are praying for finance we start on this basis. See, then we have a positive attitude. So we'll do it again. may abound to every good work. And then suppose that you're challenged with something that you can't do, it's too much. You're not capable, you don't have the education.
Well, we resort to Philippians 4:13. But this is the Prince version. I happen to know Greek But let me say it's not in print. I've got people coming up to me and saying, Where can we buy it? You can't. I can do all things through the one who empowers me within. I'll say that again. which is normally translated 'power'. So there's a source of power within you that is released by your proclamation. when it's a task assigned by God, there's one in me who empowers me from within. And then suppose the problem is sickness. One of our favorites is 1 Peter 2:24: Jesus himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we, having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose wounds we were healed. See, it puts it in the past tense. If you notice when it speaks about healing in the atonement it never uses the future. 700 years before Jesus came Isaiah said through his stripes we are healed. After the atonement, looking back Peter said: By whose wounds you were healed.
That gives you a totally new perspective. It doesn't mean you automatically cease to be sick Sometimes you have to keep saying it a long while. You just have to decide which is more reliable, God's word or your symptoms. Now we're coming into a more aggressive area. We're going to talk about intervention in national and international affairs. Ruth and I spend a lot of time praying outside our own needs praying for various situations, the destiny of nations. Here are some Scriptures that will encourage you and help you. One of our favorites we almost always end up with is Daniel 2:20-22 and 4:34-35. Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever for wisdom and might are his. And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him: What have you done?
Consider that those words came from an unbelieving emperor Nebuchadnezzar. I think he was a believer by that time. But just think of the tremendous work of God in Nebuchadnezzar's life. That should encourage us that God can change ungodly and evil rulers if we learn how to pray. And they are both prayers. So, if we're going to pray for the situation in the Middle East or whatever it might be, before we pray the particular prayer we tend to pray these prayers because they get us going. All right, where are we? 2 Chronicles 14:11: Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you and in your name we have come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God. That's right. That's okay.
Now, we've done that. Do not let man prevail against you. I didn't do that. Sorry, I missed the last part out. That was my boo-boo. And in your name we have come against this vast army. O Lord, you are our God do not let man prevail against you. And then 2 Chronicles 20:6; 20, verse 6: Power and might are in your hand I'm just doing the Prince version. You got the message. Now we'll do Psalm 33 verses 8-12. We've got to go quickly now. This is a tremendously powerful affirmation when you're dealing with the world situation. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The plans of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord The nation whose God is the Lord. All the plans of nations and United Nations and governments are just nonsense if they're contrary to the plan of God to penetrate with the gospel.
And there's a very important reason and it's a reason that brings out the power of proclamation. You probably know that from every Moslem mosque there goes forth a proclamation five times every 24 hours which says, There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. And, of course, Allah is not the god of the Bible. Now, the Moslem calendar started about 627 AD so it's been going for more than 1300 years. And that proclamation has been made five times every day from every mosque for more than 1300 years. Let me give you a little calculation. If it was made daily for 1300 or plus years And you take the number of mosques You've got billions of times. Why is there such a tremendously powerful anti-Christian power.
You see, the power of proclamation - negative or positive. How can we overcome the power of all those negative proclamations? What do we have to do? Make the positive proclamation. So we're going to give you an example. Remember, just in case you say, Well, it's a hopeless task Moses' snake ate up the snakes of the Egyptians. So, in other words, our proclamation overcomes every negative proclamation if we know how to make it. The first is from Psalm 25:3 from the New International Version. The scepter of the wicked shall not remain over the land allotted to the righteous. What's the scepter of the wicked in this context? Islam. What's the land allotted to the righteous? The land allotted to God's people.
The Bible says, no matter what politicians may say and your snake is going to eat up the snakes of the magicians. And then Psalm 129:5-6 which withers before it grows up. That's the Word of God and it's going to come to pass. And finally, let me give you just one more passage about the restoration of Israel in Jeremiah chapter 31. And we're going to act on this. If we have time we're going to go through with it. At least we'll do our best. Jeremiah 31. Proclaim is one of them. And then it says in verse 10: Hear the word of the Lord, O nations; and declare it in the isles afar off and that's Florida. That's what we say to the Middle East at this present situation. some proclaiming and some shouting.