Joseph Prince - Don't Let The Enemy Rob You of God's Word
This is an excerpt from: Healing And Restoration For Your Mind
The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus himself said this in John 10:10. Jesus said, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly". May have it more abundantly, abundant life. Oh, that sounds so good on my mouth, "Life more abundant," say it. Life more abundant. Jesus says, "I come". Why do you come, Lord Jesus? Christmas message, right? He came. "Why do you come"? "I come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly," amen. Doesn't mean people who have plenty of money have abundant life. Many of them are crying on the inside, many of them are full of fears and worries. That's not abundant life.
But notice there's a thief. The thief Jesus mentioned does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. Notice that before he can kill and destroy, anything that steals from you is not God stealing from you, it's the devil. All right, there is a devil, there is a devil, I'll tell you that. Okay, today we have fanciful words for the devil, people don't talk about devil anymore, all right. It is actually, the devil's, victory in a sense to have people think he doesn't exist. I remember praying for a lady who was demon possessed, a lady, and a man's voice spoke out. At first I was talking to her, she spoke to me in a feminine voice, okay, but when I used the name of Jesus, a man's voice spoke out of her throat.
So, after for a while Pastor Henry was there, and I was in the next door praying. Immediately when I heard the man's voice, I ran next door, I told Pastor Henry, "You take care of it, I need to pray". In my younger years I watched a movie called "The Exorcist," and never changed, you know, I didn't want anything to happen to me. What I did not know is that that movie did not show that at the name of Jesus, every knee bows, amen. When Jesus was on earth, even the demons begged him not to cast them out. They begged him not to send them into hell, actually, before the time. "Are you come to torment us before the time"? They know they are going, there's a time coming, they are going into hell, they know that. But they are still on earth, disembodied spirits. That's another message altogether. And they cause depression, they cause oppression, they cause sickness, and, you know, the Chinese have a saying, they say, "Oh, this pain come on the body, hong," the wind, the wind.
It's very interesting that in the Greek and Greek is the New Testament, it's written in Greek, Hebrew is in the Old Testament, written in Hebrew. In Hebrew it is ruach, wind. In, Greek it is pneuma, pneumatic drill, powered by wind. Wind is the word for spirit, all right? Pneuma or ruach, okay, in Hebrew, ruach, all right, spirit. So, evil spirit, evil breath, it's like a wind. Holy Spirit is also like a wind, and many-a-times you'll feel it, even in our church, you can feel the wind, feel it during time of healing. The wind comes and the pain goes, amen. The grove is no more, amen. It is not by might, it is not by power, it's by the Spirit of the Lord. It can happen even during this time when I'm preaching, praise the Lord, 'cause God loves to heal. God loves to restore you, amen. The Bible says when Jesus was on earth, how he, you know, the Bible says how God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit, amen, the breath of God, Holy Spirit, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, amen.
So, sickness is not of God, it is of the devil. Jesus went about healing all that were oppressed of the devil, amen. So, devil come to steal, kill, and destroy, but before he can kill, and before he can destroy, what does he do? He steal. What does he steal? What do you think the devil wants to steal? Now, imagine if you're a thief. Okay, cannot imagine you're a thief, okay. When a thief breaks into a house, what is the thing that he looks for? All right, I know, nowadays you got professional thieves, digital thieves, and when they steal, they can siphon off millions and millions of dollars from one island. And now people are at a loss to know, where are they, right? So, but I'm talking about, naturally speaking, a thief. All thieves, what are they out for? To steal. To steal.
So, imagine a thief, okay, coming to a house, what does he go for? "Hey," two thieves, huh? "Look at that. Stacks and stacks of toilet roll. You remember last time? We all used to fight in the supermarket for toilet roll. Maybe another variant might come in and, you know, we might have to stay at home. Toilet roll. Get it". That's what the thief, toilet roll. Do you think they go for toilet roll? No, they go for small items. Toilet roll is too big. What are the small items? Diamonds, jewelry, mm? And nowadays they're quite sophisticated, you know. "No, this is zirconia. These aren't diamond, isn't diamond. These are only, this bag is fake, fake, fake. This one is the real bag". They go for the valuable items. What do you think the devil wants to steal from you? Well, Jesus answered that.
Look at this in, Matthew 13. "Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word," so before the devil can kill and destroy, he has to steal, he has to steal. He has to steal the Word from you. "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom," Jesus is talking here, "and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside". All right, so Jesus shares a parable of the sower and the seed, about the different kind of response to God's Word. Like right, even right now I'm speaking to, perhaps four different types of soil. There are four different responses to God's Word. But Jesus said how the devil comes and steal is when this happens. "They hear the word, and they do not understand it".
When you don't understand the Word, you hear it. It's not that you don't hear it, it's not that you don't come to church. You do go to church on Sunday, on January the 1st, amen, on Easter, Chinese New Year maybe, and on your birthday. It's not that they don't come to church. They do come to hear the Word, amen. Hey, you know what, any time you go to church, I'm glad, amen. You're in a place where you can hear the Word, that's half the miracle. The devil doesn't want you at all in church. They'll try to make the church a place where people down there are boring, amen, the people... have you seen Pastor Mark? There's no way he's boring, amen. The people down there, you know, it's like, oh, do's and don'ts, lie, you know, that kind of thing.
I'm telling you, the Bible is more advanced than you can know, than you can think, amen. The devil wants you out there because as long as you are watching Netflix and, you know, all those other things, and sports, and things like that, he knows that those things cannot rescue you from the attack and his assaults on you in 2023. He knows that. He knows that, all right, supporting, you know, shopping for the greatest GOAT, all right, the greatest of all time, whatever it is, whatever it is, in the entertainment arena, in golf, or in, sports, soccer or whatever, you know, he knows. And does that mean that we don't enjoy these things? We enjoy these things, but don't prioritize them above the Word, amen. Whatever you do, hold on to God's Word. It is what produces the blessings and the miracles and the breakthroughs and the healings that you and I need.
You'd be amazed how much the Word of God has been robbed from your mind. Maybe you became a believer when you were a young child, but right now it's been robbed. It's not normal. The devil has robbed you. Before he can touch your body, he has to take away the word of healing from your head. He knows as long as the Word is there, even a small seed... have you seen a small, tree growing out of a pavement? Have you seen? It breaks the cement, it breaks the pavement and goes up. A small seed has that power. Someone dropped the seed, maybe he was eating some fruit and he spit it up, went into the cracks, it started germinating, sprouting, and it started growing enough to break open concrete. One little seed, the devil must come quick before it germinates. The devil must come quick before it sprouts. He must come quick before it breaks through his concrete. My advice, don't just come for germination in the beginning of the year. Be here till the end of the year, amen. Keep on hearing the Word, the Word.
See, we're not here to be religious. We are here to be spiritual, okay? We are not here to learn laws, we are here to come under grace where we see him, and we allow him to love us and to do great things for us, amen, and that is the greatest humility, to allow God to provide for you and not say, "No, no, no, I can do this myself, I can do this, I can help myself, I can heal myself, I can sponsor myself, I can provide for myself, I can overcome this bondage by myself". Like, people who are smoking, "I can stop any time I want to, yes". Never see them stop, all right? We are so proud in that we think we can when God is trying to bring us in that lesson to say, "You cannot. You need me". This year, depend on God more than ever. No one is as strong as the one who puts his trust in the Lord. It's people who are weak that try to depend on themselves, amen.
So, the devil comes to steal the Word, but why? Why is he able to steal the Word? Because the person who hears the Word does not understand it. Now, your New Testament is in Greek, all right? All the English versions come from the Greek. It was originally written in Greek. Your Old Testament, like the stories of David and all that, is in Hebrew. Old Testament Hebrew, New Testament, what? Greek. Okay, you got it? This is New Testament, Jesus speaking, and it's in Greek. And in Greek, I want you to remember this word. In Greek, the word understand is the word suniemi. Say "suniemi". Sounds like tsunami, all right? You can remember that, suniemi.
Now, suniemi means, sun means together, niemi means, it's a wisdom that comes from God that other people can see, and they don't see it. But you look at it, you see what they don't see. You put two and two together. Sun means together. You are able to put two and two together and see what God wants you to see. It is from God. You hear the Word, and you meditate on it until you see the suniemi in 2023, and then you have victory. Amen. That's suniemi. Suniemi is putting two and two together, very interesting. Now, look at the four soils. Jesus mentioned four soils, right? Another day I'll teach on it, but look at the good soil that produces a harvest of thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold. Look at this good soil, drop down. Jesus says, "He who receives seed," the Word of God, "on the good ground," in his hut, "is he who hears the word and understands it," and, again, is the word suniemi, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. You see that? Amen.
So, we want to understand God's Word. Make this year a year that you understand the Word of God. Reading a novel, reading a book, reading a journal, all that is good, fanciful, nice, and makes you feel good for a while. Nothing wrong with that, that can also destress you to a certain extent, but they cannot help you the way the Word of God can help you, because the Word of God has God's own substance in it, amen. So, in the same chapter, notice what Jesus said about people that refuse to hear God's Word or see God's Word. "The hearts of these people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed". Note, God didn't close their eyes, they closed their eyes. So, God's Word comes, right now it comes through your ear gate, amen.
Some of you, it also goes through your eye gate. Some of your eyes are closed because you are meditating on the Word of God right now as I am speaking. You've been meditating for quite some time already, and your gate, see, another gate is open as you are meditating, your eyes closed. You see, all those in the front row, right, my pastors, especially Pastor Lawrence. I've seen him before, you know. He's so polite that he'll never yawn when I'm preaching. All right, he does yawn, but he doesn't yawn openly, like, bwah, like Pastor Mark. When Pastor Lawrence yawns, right, he look at me, right, and all of a sudden, right, his eyes become really big. Then his nostrils flare. One time I looked at him and said, "Bro, you just yawned". His eyes began to water. He's too polite to yawn openly, amen, but there are people who yawn just open wide. All are welcome.
So, the Word of God enters through your eye gate, see God's Word, here God's Word, and notice they close their eyes purposely. "Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them". Lest they should understand. The word understand, guess what? Is the word suniemi. Lest they understand. You see, the more you hear God's Word, the more you see God's Word, it will drop into your heart. That's when God gives you the understanding. You say, "I see it". I want you all to be, this year, 2023, to be revelation junkies. You want revelation from God's Word. "I see it, mmm". You know, David says it's more to be desired than gold, than fine gold.