Joseph Prince - Live With The Sense Of God's Love

I started preaching on the dangers of thinking that we need the law and grace. Now, we started with Romans 7, and Romans 7 talks about two husbands. It starts off Romans 7 with two husbands. And actually, it's telling us that all of us, primarily the Jews, they are married. We are married to Mr. Law, the first husband, but Mr. Law cannot produce children. Why? Not because he's impotent, but because he is perfect, but we are barren. So, in this union, there is no fruit. In fact, it says, I'm going to quote Romans 7, it says when we were in the flesh, when we were under the law. Notice they're synonymous terms. To be in the flesh is to be under law in Romans 7. When we were in the flesh, the motions or the passions of sin did work in our members to bear fruit, bear children, to bear fruit unto death.

The result of the union between sinful man and the law is death. And then it says this. Wherefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to your first husband, all right, dead to the law, dead to your first husband, that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead. So, you're dead to Mr. Law. You are no longer under law. You are delivered from the law, I'm using all the terms of Scripture, that you might be married to Jesus Christ, who is raised from the dead to the resurrected Christ, that we should bear fruit to God. The amazing thing is that when people, when believers are not under law, they produce fruit.

Now, case in point, Romans 8. Let's look at Romans 8 right now. Are you all with me so far? There is, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". I'm going to use the New American Standard Bible. So, the Bible says because you are in him, God cannot condemn you any more than he can condemn his Son. He condemned his Son at the cross. It's over and done with. And the reason he condemned his Son is not because of his own sin. He had none. He condemned his Son for the sins that his Son's carried, which is your sins and my sins. And having his Son, Christ, finished. Once the judgment is finished, he rose from the dead without our sins, without the judgment of God. Now he's forever in the unclouded favor of God. Where is the believer now? We are also in Christ in the unclouded favor of God forever. Amen.

So, the things that we die to the law to be married to our Lord Jesus, who rose from the dead. How can this union produce licentiousness. How can this union? But the thing is this. Some people have tried to play adultery. They embrace Mr. Law, and they say they try to keep the commandments. When they fail, they run to the Lord Jesus for cleansing. And they feel strong. After a while, they go back to Mr. Law again. They try to keep Mr. Law, only to find that the law is designed to expose your sin. So, the thing is this. How do you get victory over your sins? How do you get victory over your unclean habits? How do you get victory over your addictions?

Remember when Jesus, you know, they brought the woman caught in adultery, and they drag her and threw her in front of the Lord, and the Lord was teaching in the precincts of the temple. And the Bible says, they said, "Lord, you know the story". They said, "And shall we stone her? Moses says we should stone her. What do you say?". If they wanted to stone her, they would've done it earlier. They're not interested in the woman, or they're not interested in God's moral justice. They're interested in catching Jesus. They're trying to catch the Lord saying, "Don't stone her," and they'll say, "You're breaking Moses' law". On the other hand, he says, "Stone her," you know, those followers of his around him, all the multitudes that gathered to hear him teach, they'll be confused.

So, they thought they had him. You all know the story, amen. He bowed himself, wrote on the ground, and then he stood up and says, "Since you pride yourself as custodians of the law, this is the law. He that is without sin, throw the first stone". So, they can't say that he didn't say, "Don't stone her". You can't say that he didn't uphold Moses' law. He upheld, but only the one who is qualified, the one without sin, throw the first stone. There was one there without sin. It was him. And he didn't throw the stone. So, one by one, they slink off, leaving the Lord, and the Lord, I believe, said this to her, held her and said, "Woman, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more".

Now, a lot of people want to separate the two, and they want to teach like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, go and sin no more". But the thing is this: there's no power to go and sin no more until first you say, "Neither do I condemn you". So, the Lord gave her no condemnation, because he would be condemned in her place. So, that's the price that he has to pay. By being condemned in my place and your place, we will not receive condemnation today. When he gave her the gift of no condemnation, it empowered her to go and sin no more. So, there are those who teach that grace is empowerment. Friend, it's only empowerment after you receive the no condemnation. And the moment you do that, the devil knows that he will attack at this very point of no condemnation.

Many years ago, the Lord gave me a word. The Lord said to me, "Son", this was many years ago in the '90s. The Lord said to me, "Condemnation kills". And so I said to the Lord, you know, being a stickler for God's Word, I said, "God, you have to prove to me from the Bible. You have to show me a Scripture that I can understand". So, the Lord brought me to Genesis. Okay, by the way, go back to Romans 8. Let me just finish this. There is therefore now, so is and now are both, class? What is, is and now? Present tense. That's right. In the words of my son, that's right. Is and now. I'll finish it. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free," past tense, "from the law of sin and of death".

So, you are set free from the law, that you are married to the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't say try to get married. It says you are married. Once you are married, you are married. Sometime you wake up, you don't feel married; but trust me, you are married. Amen? Sometimes you feel like you want to be unmarried, but you are married. So, don't worry about feelings. We don't live by feelings. We live by faith. Then the next verse says, "For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh". Always remember that Jesus, our Lord Jesus Christ came in the likeness. He didn't come in sinful flesh. There was no sin in his flesh. He came in the likeness. It looks like, but it's not, "and as an offering for sin, God condemned sin in the flesh".

You know that part in you, you know what's in the flesh? That part of you that sometimes, you know, you are sleeping at night, and then you are very crazy thoughts, sinful thoughts that come up? When you wake up, what do you do? Do you confess it? No, you just tell the Lord, thank you. All right? It's condemned. God foresaw that already. The Lord Jesus was not just there to be a sin bearer of all your sins. Through the cross, God condemned sin, singular. Sin in the flesh produces sins. So, sins, the action, sins are forgiven, but sin is not forgiven. It is condemned at the cross. So, that God condemned sin in the flesh, you must know that what God condemns cease to exist in his eyes. That doesn't mean that we cease to experience it, but you must know that what God condemns on the radar is no more. Aren't you glad?

That means when you see that sin, that sin in you manifests, aren't you glad to know that on God's radar it does not exist? So, it says God did this "so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit". Now, this is correct. All right? No condemnation is not dependent upon our walk. It's dependent upon us in Christ, but the requirement of the law being fulfilled in us, all right, depends on us walking in grace. To be under the flesh is to be under law. When you are feeling condemned, you receive the condemnation, I want to announce to you, you are under the flesh. At that moment, you are walking after the flesh. But when you're under grace, in the sense of his love, oh, I would to God that you write that down somewhere, under a sense of his grace, to live every day under a sense of his grace and a sense of his love for you.

When you live under a sense of his love for you, his favor for you, his favor for you, you're under grace. That is walking after the Spirit. Are you listening, people? When that happens, when you are walking after grace, guess what? The requirement of the law is fulfilled in us. Now, this phrase, let me tell you the error that so many people are preaching today, based on this verse. They'll take this verse, say, "See, see, we still have to keep the requirement of the law". Or King James says the righteousness of the law. "You see, we still have to keep it". Read slowly and carefully. It says, "so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us," not by us.

When you're walking in grace, bang, you are fulfilling the law without even realizing it. It is fulfilled in you, not fulfilled by you. You know what's in you? Let me give you in the Greek. You want to argue from the Greek? Let me give you the Greek. The word "fulfilled in us" in the Greek, there's a voice, there's a voice. The voice is either active voice or passive voice. Guess what? In the Greek here, it's passive voice. You know it's passive voice, active voice, "The boy hit the ball". Active, active. The boy actively, the boy hit the ball. The boy hit the ball, active. Passive, "The ball hit the boy". Passive. The boy is not doing, he is passive. It's fulfilled in us, not by us. Who does it? Who fulfills it in us? The Holy Spirit. As we walk in grace, after the Spirit, it's in grace. Are you with me so far?

So, the thing is this. I asked the Lord, "Lord, you've gotta give me Scripture why condemnation kills". The Lord says, "Yes, son". In fact, I thought I detected that he was pleased that I said, "Give me Bible verse". How many now that God loves it when you ask a Bible verse? Amen. So, the Lord said, "How did sickness come in? How did old age come in? How did death come in, into the world? How did poverty come in?". Did God make paradise and put Adam and Eve there, a place where they've gotta slough? All right? No, God put them in paradise. God made it perfect. God made it prosperous. It's a beautiful place. They had everything they wanted. How did poverty come in? How did disease come in? God asked me. I said man's sin. Said, man's sin. God says, "Yes, but how did man sin?". I said, "He partook from the tree of knowledge of good and evil". And God says, "What's the tree called?". "The tree of knowledge of good and evil". What tree? Knowledge of good and evil. And God said, "That's the law".

He had a choice: the tree of life or the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He chose the law. Then long before sickness came, long before Adam fell sick, long before Adam died... by the way, Adam lived very old, 900 plus. Long before he died physically, long before he grew old, right after his sin, and the sinning is actually trying to keep the law, when actually God wants you to live by the tree of life, which is by the Spirit. The tree of life is Christ himself. Long before that happened, you go backwards long before he died, the pronouncement of the curse. God says, "Thorns the ground will bring forth". And that's why Christ bore the crown of thorns for us. And God said to man and woman, "By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread".

In other words, from now on, you know, a matter of plucking fruits, all right, and you drop a seed, it just grows immediately in paradise. Everything was there. From now on, you've gotta toil the ground, because the ground is now cursed. Back then, you put a seed, it comes up immediately. But now the ground is cursed, God says, and you'll be sorrowed with labor, painful toil, you will cultivate the land and eat your bread. God is not telling him, "I curse you with this". No, God is saying the result of what you did. Like if I tell you, you see boy, your finger is burned. You know why? "You burned me". No, I didn't burn you. "You burned me". No. Daddy says don't put your finger in the fire. Fire burns. Right? That's what God is saying. This is the result now, God says. Woman, you bring forth children in pain. By the way, Christ redeemed us from death. All right. And God pronounced all the curses as a result of Adam's sin.

So, by the sweat of your face is stress. So, I found the answer. Stress is the reason why, you know, that God says, "No, the world is preaching that. There's a deeper root than stress". No, first of all, God said all these things happened, all right, because of stress. Then God said to me, "Before stress came by the sweat of your face, you eat bread, before stress came, what was it?". What did Adam say to God? Adam said to God, "I heard your voice". God says, "Adam, where are you"? Now, God knew where he was. God wanted him to say where he was. So, the first question from God to man was, "Where are you?". Man's response to God came, in the first question in the New Testament is, "Where is he born, the King of the Jews?". The answer to God is always not about me. It's about him. If I can find him, all right, and he's come so near.

Okay. So, Adam answered, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid". Fear came in. The first mention of fear in the Bible is there. Genesis 3, verse 10, "I heard your voice, and I was afraid. I heard your voice, and I was afraid because I was naked". Look up here, Genesis. "I heard your voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked", see that? "and I hid myself". "'Who told you, you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?'" Now, isn't it a funny thing when eating the tree means someone told you, you are naked? Someone tell you means verbal, isn't it? God said, "Who told you, you were naked? Did you eat the tree?". In other words, when you partake of, you try to focus on the law, you will have a voice come to you. You are naked. You are exposed. So, God knew straightaway. God says, "Who told you?".

Now, men wasn't naked, naked. If you read carefully, man had a covering called the glory of God, which is greater than your clothes today. I can't begin to tell you, because we are on this side of heaven. You know, when God made man, God made man with the glory. Only when he sinned, he forfeited the glory, and his nakedness was seen. So fear came in. So, in other words, now I see it. Fear produces stress. Stress produces sickness and all kinds of problem. Then the Lord said to me, "But there's a deeper root". There's a deeper root. And what was it? Condemnation. God says, "Long before there was fear, man was hiding from God because of condemnation".

Now, has he done something wrong? Yes. He was afraid, but then why was he hiding? Condemnation. He sewed fig leaves. Condemnation will do that to you. So, God gave me this picture, which we have shown you before, many years ago. The sickly plant, you can see there are holes in the leaves and all that. Okay? So, these are what the world sees. The world sees you. Your colleagues see this. Your friend sees this. I mean, your friends, your friends will see all this. But the world will judge you based on your fruit or the lack of it, whatever. But the thing is that God goes for the root. So, when you see this sickly plant, maybe it is destructive habits. Maybe it is sickness. Maybe it is financial lack. All right? Marital breakdown. All this, destructive habits, financial lack, sickness, the Lord said this from garden of Eden, and we are doing it chronologically. You go backwards, you'll find it's caused by stress. Stress and fear.

So, in other words, we are going backwards, just now. What produces all these bad results in our lives? Stress. What produces stress? Fear. And then the deepest root you face: condemnation. So, I tell you what. The devil is not stupid. All right? He knows to produce stress in your life, he's going to bring condemnation. To bring condemnation, he'll bring messages to you that say, "Keep the law. Do your best to keep the law". He knows full well that no one can keep the law. And you cannot say, "I try my best to keep the law. If I fail, God understands". No, no. The Lord doesn't understand. The moment you are under law, you don't keep it, it curses you. it condemns you. Always remember that.

So, Ha Satan in Hebrew, the name of Satan literally means a prosecutor at law. What does he do? He does not call forth your good points. He calls forth your bad points. If caught, your prosecutor will call forth your bad points. Why? To accuse you, to condemn you. Because the result is what? He's looking for condemnation. Are you listening? Now, your defense lawyer will bring up your good points. So, the thing is this people: condemnation is the deepest root. So, the devil, you know, to produce stress, fear, what is he after? He's going to produce all the bad results that that fruit's in your life, so that people will look at you and say, "Is this what Christianity is all about?".

In fact, unfortunately, people see Christianity as a religion of condemnation. The devil is trying to make it so, but it's not so. It's the greatest freedom of all. It's freedom from religion. Not freedom to do whatever you want, because if you do whatever you want, you live a hedonistic lifestyle of just doing whatever you want. It's still a bondage. You are in bondage to yourself. So, God doesn't want you in bondage in any way. He wants you free. If the Son therefore makes you free, you shall be free indeed. Imagine the train can speak. The trains that you see, MRT and all that, let's say, just say I want to go anywhere, everywhere, is that freedom? No, it will end up in destruction. True freedom is found, the energy and the power must be on the track. But the track, my friend, is not the Ten Commandments. The track is grace. The track is Christ himself. And the leading of the Holy Spirit, that's the track.

So, we're not saying that, you know, you can do whatever you want, because you're not delivered from this bondage to another bondage of self. Church, I've got to bring this to a close, and I just realized that I'm at intro. Keep on coming. I'm not going to rush through this. I'm gonna show you in the weeks to come how being freed from condemnation will cause your body to spring forth with health. Life and wholeness. And many of you, when you listen to this, you'll be set free from addictions effortlessly.

Many of you listening to this in the weeks to come, you'll find your body getting healthier. You'll find the doctors saying, "Hey, what happened to you?". Your blood pressure is now normal. You'll hear testimonies of people coming to you and say, "You know, you did something to your face. It's as if your face is shining". You look younger than you did before. Stress is gone, fear is gone, and it's not I've gotta stop fearing. I've gotta... no, no. It'll be effortless, from glory to glory, transformed by beholding. Amen, amen, amen, amen. Praise the Lord.

Stand to your feet. As we face this week, there is one who knows what's going to happen this year, even before it happen. You remember when I first preached my first sermon this year, the first Sunday of January, I prayed that God will protect us from the virus that will come this year. And now we know it's ebola. But the Lord, the Spirit of God, you know, a good prayer is always a prayer that you're praying by the Spirit, who knows the future. So, we have a church in Dallas, and that church heard this message, and they received all the advancements. They also heard about Psalms 91 that I preached a few Sundays ago.

And all of them are saying when the case happened in Dallas, they said, "You know, we are at rest, because God showed Pastor Prince what's gonna happen before it happened. So, we know we are walking, and our children are going to school, we are walking in the promises of Psalms 91". Amen. Isn't it wonderful when, you know... and again, I challenge the naysayers. Say it before it happens, that we may know you're a man anointed of God. And don't come saying things after it happens. Say it before it happens. You can check my sermon this year. I talk about look at Israel this year, long before the Gaza thing happened. All right? I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm not. I'm a pastor, and I love to be a pastor, but challenge credibility with whether God speaks through you, whether you are speaking as the oracles of God. Okay? Enough of that. Be blessed this week. Lift your hands.

The Lord bless you for this coming week with the blessings of Father Abraham, the blessings of Deuteronomy 28. The Lord keep you, preserve you and your loved ones throughout this week, from every disaster, from every accident, from every danger, from evil people, from all the powers of darkness, from every disease. And every disease that's festering in your body dies now, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we curse it. It will not manifest. The Lord keep you, the Lord make his face shine on you and your families, impart supernatural favor to you wherever you go. May you be at the right place at the right time. And the Lord grant you and your loved ones his shalom peace, in the name of the Lord Jesus. And all the people said amen. God bless you. we'll see you again, love you.