Joseph Prince - True Holiness Is Unconscious
This is an excerpt from: Hear Your Way Out Of Every Weakness
The moment they said, "All that God says, we can do it," read Exodus 19. Exodus 20 was when God gave the Ten Commandments. Exodus 19, the moment they say, "Kol asher diber," that's found in Exodus 19, "We will keep everything God says," God told Moses, "Tell them don't come near". In other words, God never had that tone with them. The tone changed.
God says, "If you want me to treat you based on your goodness, on your faithfulness, on your, you know, law-keeping," which they have promised just now that they will keep, God says, "Then this is the deal. I am holy". Just like sun and the mud cannot come together, all right? Mud ceases to be mud. It becomes clay when the sun comes into connection with the mud. Am I right? God is holy. Man is sinful. Who will be destroyed when the two encounter each other? You understand? Now, God didn't make man sinful. Man made himself sinful. That goes back to the Garden, all right? So God says, "Don't come near, for your own good. Don't come near. Tell them, Moses, don't come near".
God never had that tone when God brought them out of Egypt. God led them in a pillar of cloud, in a pillar of fire, like a shepherd with the flock following behind. He was so close to them. He was so near to them. He never had that tone with them. But the moment man presumed on his self-righteousness, on his strength, I'll tell you this, this is the worst kind of sin. The Pharisees, they know their Bible through and through. You can't tell, you can't say for sure that the Pharisees are guilty of adultery, all right? Outwardly, we can't tell, right? Outwardly, they look moral. They look clean and all that compared to the people that Jesus spent time with, tax-collectors, prostitutes, and all that, and He forgave them, healed them, and all that.
In fact, there's no healing account of Jesus healing the Pharisee, but we have many of Jesus healing the so-called social outcasts. Why? Because they know they are sinners. But the Pharisees cannot receive. They are self-righteous, and that's the worst kind of sin. In fact, when you're self-righteous, it produces all kinds of sin. See what happened when they said, "All that God says, we can do"? What do you see next? What do you see next? No, you see the Ten Commandments being given first, right? And then what's the first commandment? "You shall have no other gods before Me". So the moment they say, "All that God says, we can keep," did they keep it? The moment you come under the law, what happened? The very first commandment, they broke. They built the golden calf, okay? Do you see that?
So those who advocate, "Yes, we must try our best to keep the law," it's actually bringing people right into sin. Let that sink in for awhile. Those who advocate for people to be conscious of the law, to memorize the law, the commandments and all that. You know, it's amazing that children can't even, like, memorize the Ten Commandments easily. But you tell them, "John 3:16," "For God so loved the world that He gave", The Holy Spirit never help you to memorize the law. What is the third commandment? Even those who fight for the law, you ask them, "What's the third commandment"? They look at you, they look here, look there, look here. So much for fighting for the law. What's the sixth commandment? They'll try their best. "Thou shall not steal? No, thou shall not lie".
I don't know also, but don't lie, okay? But right now, by the grace of God, is my life a sinful life? Now, I'll tell you right now, okay, God sees like no man sees of course, but I tell you right now, I love falling in love with Jesus. I love the idea of seeing him more and more every day. There is no woman that is behind me other than my wife. Okay, like, another lady, lah, I'm in love with her is my daughter, amen? Yeah, she's the only one I say, "I love you," she says she loves me back, that kind of thing, you know?
So I'm gonna enjoy these few years before she gets stolen. And whoever steals, okay, all right, just remember, can you imagine me for the rest of your life as father-in-law? Okay, amen? Yeah, so I can tell you right now, and okay, this is not to throw a stone against anyone, you know, who has been divorced or remarried and all that. Okay, listen, we all know that grace is there, praise the Lord, but some people think I preach grace because there's some, you know, maybe Wendy is not his first wife. No, she is my first love, wife, okay? The first love, that's my wife. My first love right now and the only last love is my wife, Wendy, okay? Okay?
Morality, don't just look at people and say, "Oh, you know, this church tells people about grace. All kind of sinful things going on". Hey, you look close enough, you will find people living in sin. They come. They come to every church. Your church also have, all right? So, but the thing is that I have people come to our church and they find our people are amazing. You know, they say that, "Even your ushers, the light, the glow". You know, one of the hotels that we stayed also, and we have these testimonies many times, like Lawrence. We always have people saying, "What are you all"?
You know, sometimes they say celebrities because Lawrence is there. "Are you all celebrities? What are you all"? Because they... and this is what he said, "You all seem to shine. You're always so happy. There's a joy," you know, compared to other people. Even we're not conscious. We're just laughing at Pastor Mark's jokes and all that, right, and we are just having time, but the light is shining. Your light is shining without you realizing, and there are people observing. So true holiness is unconscious. As you are occupied with Christ and not with the law, you become holy. True kind of holiness, amen.