Joseph Prince - God's Provision for Healing in the End Times
This is an excerpt from: Be Healed By The Washing Of The Word
All right, there's something very interesting that the Bible says about people like us living in the end times. Any time, Jesus can come back for us. And it says in 1 Corinthians 10, it says that all these things, and "all these things" refer to what happened in the wilderness journey of Israel, amen. When they came out of Egypt, they went through the wilderness and they spent 40 years there, not because God wanted them to spend 40 years, but because of their sin of unbelief. They didn't believe God was that good. The provision has been made. The land was flowing with milk and honey. And God says, "All you gotta do, just go inside".
In fact, when Joshua brought them in finally, it was only with a shout. That means only your mouth was the only thing that was lacking on their part. They used their mouth to say, "We are not able to. We saw giants there. We are like grasshoppers in their sight. We are like grasshoppers in their sight. In fact, we saw people that can eat us up". Whereas Joshua and Caleb, who also went into the land, saw the same giants, saw the same walls, say that, "They are bread for us because God is with us". And these are the only two that God brought in. God loves faith. God loves the spirit of faith. Can I have a good amen?
The whole world is in unbelief, but you walk in faith. They will mock you, they will make fun of you, amen, but what a small world they live in. And we don't respond with any vindictiveness, but with love, and pray for them that their eyes might be open. But the life of faith is the most exciting life, amen. Like I know there are angels around, you know? There are angels around. In every service, there are angels around. Praise the Lord, amen. And once in awhile, you'll find that someone will take a picture of a video of an angel walking in the clouds and all that kind of thing. "I mean, Pastor Prince, what do you think of that"?
Well, you know something? We don't have to depend on that, amen. The Word of God is enough. We are surrounded by angels and they watch over you. It's a good thing to tell your children that. You got strong angels going with you to school. Yeah, the plane that we take is TWA, Travel With Angels. We gotta think of something for SIA, okay? All right, so they are with us all the time. Are they there to be spectators? No, they are there to watch over us, to deliver us from all evil. I'll tell you this. You know, we give thanks to God for all the deliverances that we know happened.
When we... "Oh man, I just, I nearly crashed into that just now, and at the right time, I don't know why, I delayed and the crash happened to someone else". But we are grateful that we didn't get it. But actually we are not sad for the person. Someone says, "Your house is on fire! Your house is on fire"! The guy run all the way to the end of the street and he says, "Thank God it's not my house". You see, forget about loving one another as you love yourself. So people don't talk about that. They wanna keep the law, not realizing that we cannot. Now, the morality is still there, but how to get there from here, it must be through the new covenant grace. Can I have a good amen?
We thank God for things that we know. How about things that God protected you? Had you been in another marriage today, you wouldn't be doing what you are doing today. You might not even be alive today. She might have killed you a long time ago. Or the reason why you are doing, and you were disappointed many years ago when that happened and that career didn't work out, and you were very disappointed, but right now you are thriving, you are happy, you are fulfilled. You can put your head on the bed, right, on the pillow at night and sleep well, amen, because why? You are in this job. But you wanted to be another job 20 years ago or 30 years ago, and now you look back, you thank God for where you are. Who do you think delivered you from all that? Thank God, God knows more than us. That's why we pray in the Spirit a lot, amen?
We do not know the future. Thank God, had we gone by our own desires, amen, and God didn't stop us, and we were not happy with God when He stopped us, or He didn't open the door, or He didn't give us favor in that area. But we look back and now, had we been in that marriage, had we been in that, put ourselves in that investment, had we got ourself on this career course, you wouldn't be enjoying what you are enjoying today. There have been people who were disappointed when the Lord stopped them from a career course that could cost them dearly, but they're not happy. They're not happy. And many times, it weighs, you know, it bears that waiting period just so that people can see it was a mistake.
There's always a benefit of hindsight, amen? And some people will not come to you and say, "I'm sorry". They won't come to you and say, "I'm sorry". Why? It's pride. It's the flesh. But when they look back, they can thank God that they did not invest as they should. All the money is just down the drain. Preach it, Pastor Prince, hallelujah. Okay, now, I wanna share with you something that's very important because the Bible says that, "All these things happened to them [as] types, and have been written for our admonition". Your New King James says, "As examples," but the word there is "tupos," which is "types". "And have been written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come".
So there is a provision in the Bible, very interesting that I wanna share with you today. There's a provision in the Bible that is seldom preached and it is actually in, you might think it's in the wrong book actually because it's a sin offering. It's a sin offering that was introduced for the very first time in the book of Numbers 19, whereas all the sin offerings, all the burnt offerings, all the offerings for that matter where you bring a sacrificial animal, amen, and lay it on the altar, all the offerings, the five offerings, amen, the burnt offering; the minchah, the meal offering, the flour offering; the peace offering, I mentioned that just now; and then the sin and trespass offering. All that is mentioned where? In what book? Leviticus. Leviticus, right?
But this particular offering appears smack dab right towards the end of the journey, almost towards the end of the wilderness journey. Almost when they finish their wilderness journey, there's a provision there for a new kind of sin offering. It's called the offering of the ashes of the red heifer, or the red heifer. All right, heifer is a female cow. But why did God not put this offering as the sixth one in Leviticus? After all, Leviticus is all about offering, right? The first part of it is all about offerings, amen? Why did God put this here? Some of you, "Pastor, I don't know". And some of you say, "I don't care," you know? But you should care because if you are hungry for God's Word, you know there's no insignificant details in the Bible, amen? It was put right at the end of the wilderness journey because of all the failures of God's people along the way.
So it's for people at the end times, people like us. That's why I read this verse, "Upon whom the end of the ages have come". We're the people of the end times, amen. Amen? And Jesus is coming back for us soon, hallelujah. So there's a provision here that God wants us to focus on, and that's the reason why the church in the wilderness then, amen, God's people are the people of Israel then, they had all kinds of failures, failure after failure. For example, they wanted to take the place of Moses. The son of Korah, they say that, "Does God only speak by Moses? Why does Moses exalt himself above us all, and Aaron also? What's all this with leadership? We don't need leadership. We all are holy". That's what exactly they said, "We are all holy in the eyes of God".
The next day, they all died, all right? God opened the earth and then God closed the earth and they are no more standing on the earth. They were all swallowed alive, amen. And then there was another one where they murmured. God gave them the manna and they're not happy with the manna. You know, man crave for man's food, the Egyptian's food, food of the world. They have more craving for that than food of angels, food of champions, the manna from heaven, amen? And they complained, "Manna, manna, manna. Always manna. Always the Word of God. Always the Word of God, you know? I'm hungry for more"! Amen? And you go through a merry-go-round, you know, in the wilderness until you realize man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
So they went through failure, after failure, after failure until God provided for them, Numbers 19. So let's look at this Numbers 19. Very interesting. It says this, "Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 'This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying: "Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come".'" Now, it's a female cow. Now, that's interesting because the idea of female or male, in the Old Testament it's all types. It's not referring to the physical. It's pointing to a truth. In the Old Testament, there's a lot of types. Things are shadows pointing to a substance, types pointing to the antitype, amen, in the new covenant when Jesus comes.