Joseph Prince - Why Is Faith So Important?
This is an excerpt from: Prosper God's Way During Recession
As in everything in the Christian life, it works by faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. You go to Europe, all right, the means of transaction there is through your Euro currency, amen? You go to UK, all right, it is the British pound. You go to India, it is rupiah, right? Rupee, sorry, rupee. Rupiah is Indonesia, okay? So different parts of the world have different currency. The kingdom of heaven operates by faith, amen. Show God your faith and you receive what you need from Him, amen. So faith, without faith, God has ordained it that way. Faith, without faith, it's impossible to please God, amen. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. And that's where it all starts, amen? So we wanna preach the Word because the Word builds faith. If you do not know what God has for you, you cannot lay claim on it, amen?
So years ago, God says, "Lay claim on the fact that my Son is at the Father's right hand, amen, at My right hand". And whatever He is, you are. As He is righteous, so are you in this world. And I said before, if it said, if the verse says, that word in 1 John says, "As..." If it said, "As Jesus was," past tense, it would be good enough, right? Imagine Jesus in the gospels, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers. That was Jesus was, right? That'd be good enough to be like Him then. But it's not as Jesus was, it is as Jesus is: the ascended, the risen Christ, glorified at the Father's right hand. As Jesus is, so are we in this world. Not when we die, in this world. And I believe God's Word. So God said to me, "Start believing. What is it that you need"?
So I start preaching if you have depression, believe. Is Jesus having depression right now? Of course not. As Jesus is, so are you in this world, free from that depression, amen? Is Jesus righteous? Is Jesus ever concerned that He is gonna be out of fellowship? Don't forget, the same body of Jesus that bore your sins at the cross, no one borne so much sins as Jesus did when you think about it. At the cross, He bore the world's sin upon His body at the cross. In a matter of a few days when He walked into heaven, where are all your sins? It's the same body. Where are your sins? Gone. It's a perfect work. I said it's a perfect work. Where are your sins today? Gone. Why? Because your sins were on His body. Understand that. Your sins were on His body when He was at the cross. Three days after that, He rose from the dead, went back to the Father, amen, sprinkled the blood. And where are your sins? Gone, amen.
The Bible says it like this, "Having purged our sins, He sat down," amen. So we start saying, all right, "As Jesus is". Whatever you need, amen. You feel like you are having problems with your memory, say, "Jesus, does He have a memory problem"? No. He remembers everything perfectly. In fact, there's a phrase called, "The mind of Christ," amen? The mind of Christ. When God first made man, God made man with his mind beautiful and perfect. Adam could name all the animals. And imagine all the species of the different animals in the world. God brought them to him and he named them. And imagine how many species there are in the world, how many varieties of animals there are in the world. And then he can, and different sizes, right? He can go back to the first one that he named after thousands have passed by, and he remembered them once again, amen.
We sometimes look at each other, all right, and we say, "Now, you look familiar. What's your name"? amen? And it happened to be one of your family members, all right? So that's a problem. So if that's a problem, you say, "As Jesus is, with a perfect mind, the mind of Christ, so am I in this world in my mind," amen? Now, everything your flesh will say, because the world in the flesh does not like the way of faith. It will say, "You are talking nonsense," you know, "This cannot be," that kind of thing and all that. And you know what? Forget all that, amen, because that is the way of the world. The world says, "Unless I see it, unless I experience it, I will not say it". God's way is that, "Believe what I say. Declare it, as if it is so," because it is so.
As far as God is concerned, it is so, amen. So you start declaring that. And I remember the first lady in our church broke through when she was diagnosed with breast cancer or breast tumor, right? There was a tumor there that was suspected to be cancerous. And when she received the report, she came up to me. And in those days, I would be hanging around in front. And she would come to me and she showed me her report, all right, and she wrote across it, "Does Jesus have lumps in His breast? As Jesus is, so am I. I am free from it". All right, she went back for the next checkup, completely gone. And that precipitated literally a revolution of healings in the same area among women, in America especially, when they heard this testimony. So it's like the first one broke through and the rest followed.
So, church, our authority is the Word of God, amen? This Word that you hold in your hand, the Bible, is your authority. Not any denomination, not any church. Listen, we can also even look at church history for lessons, okay, for to see how the church was back then, but we cannot use church history as authority. This is our authority, the Word of God. And what I'm gonna share today is something that I feel that has happened to the body of Christ. Now, I will not preach this. In the natural, I would not preach this because it would invite a lot of criticism. It would invite a lot of people who are people who are just out to get me. Anyway, they are always around, wah. You know, God bless them, amen. I take Communion for them also sometimes, right? But I bless them. I bless them.
Sometimes I pray that God would not do anything to them, amen, because you know, you gotta deal with them in love and mercy. Because I really believe they are sincere, all right, but of course sincerely wrong, lah, you know? Anyway, I'm just like you, you know? I don't want to be preaching something that causes people to, you know, criticize, and you know, get canceled. You know, that kind of, today's lingo, all right? The world, they don't like you, they cancel you. Rewrite history, you know? Imagine history can be rewritten. That's funny. What I thought, something happened, something happened already. You know what I'm saying? But you can rewrite history, amen? And people wanna cancel you and all that.
Just that I think that you must be powerful enough to cancel someone. Because in the first place, you didn't give birth to him, and then you didn't give him the ministry, you didn't give him the anointing, and you didn't give him the blessings and all that, how can you cancel him when God gave him all those things? I think there's a saying that says, "When God opens a door, no one can shut". I think in today's vernacular, it will be, "What God has written, no one can cancel," amen? So, but I'm gonna preach it anyway, all right? And it's something to do with my concern when I look at the young people today especially, a whole new generation, that have not heard the teachings that I grew up with that has blessed me so, you know?
In fact, right now you are living in a miracle. If you look at this amazing Star Performing Arts Centre, right, this whole centre here was nothing. This place was just vacant, amen. I forgot what buildings, small buildings there were here, right, but definitely not the Star that we have today, and you take it for granted. And you say, like, "Pastor, the reason I cannot believe in faith and all that is because I'm something I must see it, then I believe it". You know something? This started with faith. Now you say you experience it. Now you can see it. Now you sit in it. But it was actually nothing except for faith, amen? It wasn't easy because at that time, if you look at all the odds against us in the natural, amen, in Singapore, land-scarce Singapore, amen, every voice is saying it's impossible to find a place that seats like this.
But somewhere in my heart, I said that my eye is on the Lord, amen? When the Lord created Singapore, He knows what it's gonna be like, amen? We have a need for our people to have a bigger place, amen? Not just building a place for the sake of building it, amen, but we need the place. And I tell you something, we didn't have the money for it, hey, but God raised the money for us, amen. God provided for us, amen, supernaturally. Now, if you think about it, it's not easy. As Pastor back then, I remember that the ones that were appointed, the leaders in my church and some of the businesspeople that were appointed, you know, to look into all these place and all that when it was just an idea, they have a very easy job, though it appears very hard for them, right? Because they say this, "Pastor, we only want to know one thing from you, all right, before we pursue this".
Every juncture they come to me, "Shall we go for this? Shall we go for that? We just want to know one thing from you. Is this God"? You know? Even my wife asked me, "You sure? Is this God"? amen. The lawyers would ask questions from our leaders, "Is this God"? all right? So every... and they all bring back the question to me, "Is this God"? Now, that is one wonderful way to be stress-free, to hear this question every month, all right. Is this God? Are you sure this is God? If this is God, we go for it. All right, very easy, right? If this is God, we go for it. Why don't you find if it's God? So everything converge on me, all right? For the first time, I felt the pyramid was inverted. Usually it's, you know, the pastor, and the leaders, and all that, and all the way down, filtered down.
This was inverted and I'm right below, pshhhhh. I felt the weight. Good thing I survived through it, by the grace of God. No, God was faithful, amen? And so I told myself, "I really have to hear God. I really have to hear God," 'cause the amount of money that I'm gonna trust God to provide for us and our people will believe and provide for cannot be a failure, cannot fail, all right? We cannot, you know, start something halfway and give up. Like Jesus mentioned, someone built and building and he's not able to finish it. So it's gotta be God. It's gotta be God. There's a lot of naysayers at that time, amen. There were people who didn't believe we will do it, that we can do it. Some people believed that we should not do it. The whole thing for the place is just functional, so people can come together, amen, to worship the Lord in a place where they can be not forsaking the assembling.
So it wasn't meant for you to watch from home actually. It's meant for you to come here, huh? Amen. It's meant for you to come here, be together. You know, the Bible talks about, "And they came together in one place". So the idea of not forsaking actually is a physical gathering, coming together, "All the more," the Bible says, "as you see the day approaching". There's something about us. You know, the Bible says, "The devil comes like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour". You know what a roaring lion does? You know what, the Bible says, "The devil is like a roaring lion". He comes. If you look at all, I love to watch, you know, those NatGeo kind of documentaries and all that. You watch a lot of those animal stories, I mean, like predators and all that, you will find that the way, from what a notice, the lions, they go really slow and they are very patient.
And when they see a group of gazelles or zebras and all that, they mark someone that is weak, all right? And then they take their time. They follow the herd. They don't attack. They never attack, right, they never attack when the herd are really strong and together. They attack when the herd is confused or they leave behind a straggler who is injured or whatever. They wait. They wait until you are out of fellowship, you are isolated, when you are alone. So when you think about it, the analogy that the Holy Spirit used, "Satan like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour," there's safety in being together physically. There's something, I can't explain it, something spiritual, something, there's a divine protection. Have you noticed the Gadarene demoniac, the most demonized man in the Bible, the Bible used this phrase of him, "He was alone". He was alone.
You know, I can't begin to tell you that there are forces that's beyond the physical. When people are alone, they think crazy thoughts. When they are alone, they have a lot of depression. That's when depression reigns in their minds. But when they're together, maybe depression is trying to come in, you said something that just broke it, amen. Sometimes you don't even have to say something. I'm just in the presence of God's people and something about their spirit, they got the Holy Spirit in them, lifts me up. I'm not sure I heard God, but someone says something and I say, "There's no way he knew what I'm going through". And what he said confirmed what God said. There's, the Bible says, "There I command..." God says, "The place of unity, the place of gathering, there I command My blessing forevermore".