Joseph Prince - This Is The Truth That Sets You Free

Jesus said in John 10, «The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly». So notice Jesus said, «the thief,» singular. Who is that? That’s the devil. He comes to steal, and then to kill. Notice he cannot kill unless he has first stolen. So what does the devil steal from you? He steals the truth, the truth of God’s Word. He has to remove what you are believing that is right. Now Jesus himself said in John 10:10, we just read, that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. God never steals from you. God never kills. God doesn’t destroy. God is a good God. Is this the kind of world that God brought us into? No, I regret to tell you, we are in a fallen earth.

But this is not the way God made the earth. This is not the way, the Father’s plan for us in the beginning is that we enjoy lavish abundance. We enjoy health, wholeness, that we will never die. So to God, death is but an enemy. The Bible is very clear. The Bible uses the word, the last enemy that should be put under Jesus’s feet is death. So death is foreign to God, amen. God hates death as much as he hates sin. But in the very beginning when God created man and woman, the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, our first parents, God put them in a garden where he surrounded them with abundance, magnificence, extravagance. There was more than enough for one couple. They were the first couple. And God lavished them with more than enough.

So in a world of selfishness and self-centeredness and sin, people have robbed these provisions that God has given to all men to share. And one person can actually enjoy more than enough. But why then do we have poverty? Why was Jesus the Son of God who came to earth to die for us, crucified without any clothes on. Why? He who flung the stars and the suns into space, amen, the galaxies, the planets. He who created the sapphires, diamonds, rubies. He was made poor, the Bible says, that you, through his poverty, might be rich. Because what happened on the cross is a divine exchange of all that we have lost because of our sin. On the cross, Jesus wore the crown of thorns. Why? Because when Adam sinned, God says from now on, the ground will not easily yield to you its harvests. By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread from the ground.

You know, Jesus to redeem us in the passion, He was in the Garden of Gethsemane just a few hours before he was crucified on the cross. Jesus was in the garden praying and the Bible says he sweat so much that his capillaries burst. Now it’s a condition that scientists call only under great duress, under great extreme stress, the capillaries were burst and mix up with your sweat and you are literally sweating blood. It’s a very rare case, but it does happen. And Jesus sweat blood and the blood dropped to the ground. What does that tell us? Well, the Bible says, we are all redeemed by the blood of Jesus. There is no sin in the blood of Jesus. He was born of a virgin. The blood in him all came from his Father. And the blood in him was there to be shed. He came to die for us, amen, because we needed to be redeemed.

All creation has fallen. There is no hope in creation. No matter how organic your diet is, you will die. No matter how much you exercise, you will die, amen? But Jesus came to bring the gift of eternal life through his name, hallelujah! Praise the Lord. And the first area he covered for us was actually in the garden because what happened to our first parents actually happened in a garden. So Jesus, to redeem us, he was in a garden, another garden. But this time, he sweat blood. And later on, they will put a crown of thorns on his head. Why did he sweat blood? Because his blood has redeeming, buying back property, buying you from the slave market, buying you from the curse, buying you out of darkness with a price. And the price was his precious blood. And by his blood, he redeemed all of us from that curse that came on mankind when he sinned, when Adam sinned.

God says, «By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread». In other words, all the good things in life can only come by your sweat, by your hard work, by your painful labor. Well, all that has been redeemed for us by Jesus Christ when he sweat blood, because of the redeeming quality of his blood. When his sweat and the blood mixed, he redeemed all of us from the curse of human sweat. So today, we receive the blessings, the good life, life more abundant, as a gift. Not by our sweat, blood, and tears. Not by our human effort, but by his grace. For God to forgive us our sins is free for us. But it cost God his Son. His Son has to come down. And his Son chose to come down, amen. He chose to go to the cross and gave his life for us on that cross, bearing our sins in his own body. Why? We go back again to the garden, amen?

Not only God says, «By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread». God says, «From now on», in fact, God told Adam, «The day you eat from that tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, dying you shall die». In other words, dying spiritually, you shall die one day, physically. But from that day, when man partook of that fruit, man died inside, spiritually. You see, friends, let me just say this. You are not just a body, all right? You’re not just a mind. You are a spirit. God made you a spirit. The Bible says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. When God made man, God says, «Let us», have you noticed the word «us» in your English Bible, the King James Bible? «Let us,» that is plural, isn’t it? But one God, triunity. One God, three distinct persons, one God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God says, «Let us make man in our image».

God made you a triunity as well because you are made in God’s image. You see, you are a spirit. You dwell inside, amen. All of us, we are spirit beings. That’s why we can sense things that are spiritual long before our mind catches up. We can sense things intuitively long before our understanding can relate to us what is happening. Our spirit is faster than our brain. Sometimes you can sense, that’s why young children, they can sense evil people. They don’t like certain ones, amen, faster than we can. Their spirit is alive, amen. So, for us, we don’t realize that we just think we are our bodies. We are not our bodies. Our bodies is an integral part of God’s creation because God made us tripartite, okay? You are a spirit. You have a soul that is your mind and your emotions.

Okay, your will, your mind, emotions are what’s called soul. Soul is not spirit. Spirit is spirit, the Bible tells us. Spirit is like God. God is a spirit. God made us all spirits. Then we have souls, and we live in a body, amen. So with the body, you contact the physical world. With the mind, the intellectual world. But with the spirit, you contact God. Now that part when man’s sin was cut off from God. That part died. When the Bible says you must be born again, it’s that part the Bible is referring to. The real you. Your spirit and soul is your inner man. But you live in a body. So if I die right now, which I won’t, I’ll try not to by the grace of God. Okay, if I die right now, my body drops, right? But I will step out of my body. That’s the real me. I look down and say, «Wow, what’s that good looking corpse doing down there»?

Oh, you all laugh. Okay, no corpse look good, yeah? So I’m stepping out of my house but I can’t call out to you anymore. Why? My vocal cords by which I communicate with the physical, you communicate with the physical. The corpse is no more with me. It’s down there, right? But I’m still alive. How do you explain? There must be a place to house me. Heaven or hell? We know that death is not natural. That’s why we don’t like to attend funerals. We go because of our love and respect for the people that are there. But we don’t like to be there. We enjoy being at weddings. It’s a celebration of life and new births. But we don’t enjoy death because we know that death is foreign to our nature. You are right, my friend. You sense that in your spirit because death was never meant to be.

And today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why? Because Jesus rose from the dead, not metaphysically, not in an ethereal way. Jesus rose from the dead, bodily, and he says, «Because I live, you shall live also,» amen. So one of the things Jesus conquered on the cross is death itself, hallelujah! When God wanted to make man, God spoke to himself. He didn’t speak to the ground. He didn’t speak to the sea. He spoke to himself. And this is what God said: Let us make man in our image. And in the image of God, man was created. Male and female, he created them, amen. What does that mean? Apart from the ground, the tree is dead. Apart from the waters, the fish is dead. Apart from God, man is dead. And God ordained also that the tree would draw its fruit, its food, nourishment, from the ground.

The fish would draw its nourishment from the sea. Likewise, we would draw our life force, amen, our health, our sustenance from God. But then God didn’t make man totally of himself. God made man out of the dust of the ground like a mannequin. Just a house. There was nothing inside. And then the Bible says God breathed into man. I love the Hebrew word. The word there has a breathing out. Vahipah! God breathed, in the Hebrew. Vahipah! God breathed into man. And man became a living soul. Yo, what’s up? He became a living, animated man, amen? It’s a God-man in a sense. We are not divine. We will never be divine. Understand. Understand this. Jesus is divine, God, fully God, fully man. We are sons of man who are born again and become sons of God but we are not divine. You follow what I’m saying? Partakers of the divine nature but not divine. Okay, only God is divine.

So watch this. Now we have the life from God. So that life from God cannot die. It must be housed somewhere. It cannot be housed in heaven because if it’s full of sin, it cannot enter heaven. So it must be housed somewhere. And hell was not created for man. Jesus himself said hell was created for the devil and his fallen angels, amen. But man will go there if that’s who they want to follow. Man sinned against God, committed high treason, bowed his knee to Satan and gave literally the key of authority over this earth, gave it to Satan. Now who has the key now? Satan. And Satan brought in anything abominable and damnable you can think of, all right, disease, growing old, mental conditions of depression, anxiety, stress, broken relationships, strife, bitterness, wars, even a weather going crazy, you know, earthquakes and all that. All this is not from God. It’s from the devil. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

Now, why didn’t God just come in and say, «Devil, I take back the key». If God did that, God will be powerful, yes, but unjust. God is not just all-powerful. He is a just God. And he does things justly and righteously and judiciously. So God cannot do that. It was through man that God gave the authority. Man gave the authority to the devil by his sin. Now it must be a man, another man, that will take back the authority. Hence, we have the beautiful love story. God loved you and I. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ. And that’s why Jesus is called, what? The last Adam. There was a first Adam, right? Who committed high treason, sold his high inheritance. And then, God sent the last Adam. The last Adam came, amen. Jesus came for what purpose? To take back that authority. But he has to do it legally, righteously, judiciously. So God has to forgive on a righteous foundation.

So how can God do that? God sent his Son, Jesus Christ. And on that cross, by the way, Jesus wasn’t murdered. He laid down his life, amen? When they came to arrest him in the garden, all right, they said, these are soldiers brandishing their staves and their swords, carrying torchlight. I mean, the lamp that was burning, with their spears and all that. And a lot of them, soldiers, came to arrest Jesus, one man. And when they said, «We came to arrest Jesus of Nazareth,» all he said was, «I am». Bang! They all fell, the Bible says. They all fell. Pinned to the ground. Arrested by the power of God, by the one they came to arrest. I am. Many of you watched «The Ten Commandments,» right? Moses asked God for his name when he saw the burning bush. There was burning but not burned, not consumed. He says, «God,» God was in the burning bush. And he asked God, «What is your name? If the people of Israel says, 'What is God’s name? ' What should I tell them»?

God says, «I am that I am». So when they came to arrest Jesus and Jesus says, «I am,» they all fell. They should have known while they are lying down there. Very familiar, I am. He was declaring himself as God. So he allowed them to get up to arrest him, amen. Let me tell you, Jesus is not like, you know, a softy, okay? He didn’t look like a hardcore fisherman, you know, by the Sea of Galilee. He comes to them and spoke only two words. They left everything and followed him. Do you think he spoke like that. «Hello? Want to follow me or not? Come on. Yeah, come on». No, he went to them, spoke two words: «Follow me».

Strong men, all right, spitting down on the ground men, all right, coarse mouth men, you know? Coarse language is really coarse, fishermen. Left everything and followed him. There’s something magnetic, something attractive about Jesus. In the garden, when he stepped up, they said that he asked them, «Whom do you seek to arrest»? «We seek Jesus of Nazareth». He stepped up. «I am». They all fell backwards. So you see, he could have run. He could have left like… But no, he came to die. He allowed them to arrest him. And they were shocked when he laid himself on the cross to die for our sins. Because your sins and my sins must be paid. So on that cross, a divine exchange took place, amen. God took all your sins and God put it into Jesus. And God took all Jesus’s righteousness and credited to your account.

So God treated Jesus like he’s the worst sinner at the cross. And God treats you today like you’re the best person that ever walked on earth with all his blessings and favor shining on you. You say, I don’t deserve it! I say, «Jesus doesn’t deserve to become sin at the cross». But Jesus became sin at the cross. Likewise, you and I don’t deserve, myself included, Pastor Prince himself, I don’t deserve to be righteous, but I am righteous in God’s eyes. You know why? I receive his gift. How did Jesus become sin at the cross? He received your sins and my sin into his very body. How do you and I become righteous today? We receive his righteousness. But herein lies the crux. You must receive. It’s not automatic.

See, when God made man, God made man with a free choice. God does not want a being that he has created in his image to have no free choice. But this is the thing you see, when God made man and woman, God surrounded them with so many, not so many, it’s wrong to say so many. Everything that was good for them, that was beneficial for them, that was abundant for them, that was rich for them. It’s all for them. Everything around them is good. People ask, «Why did God put that tree in the center of the garden and tell them not to eat from that tree»? God has to. Because if he created a man with a free choice and he surround himself with everything good around that man and say, «Remember, my advice is choose good».

You know what I’m saying or not? Everything I choose is good. Why? So in order for God’s judicial side, okay, to be portrayed, to be showed, or else the devil himself will say, «You never give man a choice,» there must be at least one tree that will cause man to choose whether he still wants God or not. Unfortunately, there’s the very one tree. The devil himself came and said, «Is God generous»? By the way, the devil always make God to be more stingy than he really is, okay? God is a good God. He is the one that comes to give and to give and to bless and to bless and to heal and to heal and to build you up and to build you up, amen. He doesn’t come to kill and steal and destroy. The devil does that.

Now once man choose the wrong side, God cannot say, «Aye, aye, never mind,» lah, you know? God cannot do that. God has to win man back righteously, judiciously. Hence the cross of Jesus Christ. There, all the sins of man fell on Jesus. He died in our place. The Bible records Jesus’s youth in just one passage when he was 12 years old. And he told his parents when he was in the temple, «Did you not know I must be about my Father’s business»? And the Father’s business is to seek that which is lost, to heal that which is broken, to raise those who are dead. And on the cross, he cried, «Finished»! The assignment that he came to do was finished. The law, the Ten Commandments, fulfilled in Christ.

So then when you believe on Christ, God gave you an A-plus as far as the Ten Commandments is concerned, as if you kept them all. The devil’s power over you is now broken, finished. He still act, a master deceiver and a great liar is someone who knows to act like he has power when he has no more power. And the Bible says Jesus went down during the three days and three nights. After he paid for our sins, he went down to a place called Sheol which is hell. And there, Jesus proclaimed the news that he was the long-promised Messiah in the Old Testament to all those who were bound there.

This is not purgatory. This is another teaching altogether. To all those who are righteous, who believe on Jesus Christ to come before Jesus came. That includes all the Old Testament saints. They were kept in a place in hell. Not the suffering place, not the tormented place. It’s a place called paradise. Today, it’s vacant. Jesus brought them all out with him when he rose from the dead. And Jesus rose from the dead, bodily. And now he has the keys of hell and death. He has the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Remember the keys I told you? It was a man that gave Satan the key over this earth. Now it is a man that has righteously, righteously got it back. And there’s nothing the devil can say. And do you know who he gave the key to? To all those who follow him, to all those who believe on him. It’s like he says to you, I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you allow on earth, heaven will allow. Whatever you disallow on earth, heaven will disallow. And that’s why we have allowed a lot of things going on, not realizing that we have the authority to pray and to command. No sickness left anyone’s body until there was a command in the name of Jesus because he has given us the authority.