Joseph Prince - Timeless Bible Truths for Today's Problems
In order for you to really feel love, you must let the person see you as you really are. Then when the person falls in love with you, amen, good, bad, and ugly, then you know you are loved. Can I have a good «Amen»? So the Lord wants you to know that only when you are yourself, if you are a sinner, that’s no problem to him. He came to be the Savior. In a way, sinners have, because they are sinners, they have the title, the fact they are sinners, they have the title to the Savior. Those who act like they are righteous, they have no title to the Savior. So if you are a sinner, just tell the Lord you are a sinner. He says, «I’m a better Savior than you are a sinner. You can’t outsin my grace. My grace is greater than your sin. My grace is greater than your bondage. It’s greater than your addiction». Can I have a good «Amen»?
I want to share with all of you how to study the Bible, okay? Things that the Lord has taught me, and these are things that, you know, if I teach like in a Bible school, you know, you go through the curriculum and all that. I just want to share, not based on that, but based on how God teaches me, down through the years, right? Things that I feel that needs to be focused on, these are the things that are necessities when it comes to study the Word of God. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 8. It says: «For the LORD your God brings you to a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills».
So here, we mentioned last week the parallel between the land of Israel as the possession of the children of Israel and for us, it is the Bible. It is the Word of God, amen? It has mountains, it has valleys, it has: «I bring you to a land of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills». And then when we go through a valley period and we study the Word, we find that there’s a spring that gushed out in our valley, in our times of trial, from the Word, amen. So that is our inheritance. And what do you do with the land? Even for Israel, they have to cultivate the land. Dig deep, amen? Sow the seed. Now you cannot make the rains come. That is God’s prerogative, amen. That’s, you know, you just have to pray and trust God.
So in Israel, when they were in Israel, the Egyptians, they trusted the River Nile. At that time, no one knows where the River Nile comes from, amen? So they looked down. But in Israel, God says when you come to Israel, it’s not like the land of Egypt. You look up. You’ve got to trust God for the rain. If the rains don’t come, there’ll be no harvest. There’ll be no food for you and your family. You’ve got to look up. I think right now we are in the world where everything is coming to a place where you have to trust God.
You know, things that are automatic, things that we take for granted, things that, you know, «Oh yeah, I mean, the harvest is plenteous in the world. If this side here runs short, you know, we have another supply from another country, and if this country, you know…» No, no, friend, it’s almost like there is a shortage that’s happening all over the world. In some places, there’s a drought like they never had the kind of drought, not just in ten years or 20 years, like in 100 years. Another place, there’s a flood, like they never had that kind of flood for 50 years, you know? It’s happening during this time. And all this will affect the harvest. All this will affect food, amen?
Now don’t run out and see whether there’s food available outside, all right? I’m just telling you that we cannot trust the norm. And all these things that we go by sight, that we trust in, is now being removed from us. But you know, the Bible always talks about famine? And every time you study famine, the Bible talks a lot about famine. Whether it’s Abraham’s time, that even his seed, Isaac, went through a famine. But it was during this famine that they prospered. That they prospered in a significant way. Not that they didn’t prosper in the good times, but especially for example, Isaac. He sowed in the land of famine and the Lord blessed him and he reaped a hundredfold. A hundredfold in that year of famine.
Now, Isaac is a picture of Abraham’s seed. And the Bible says: «If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to your promise». So we are types of Isaac, amen. What God did, the reason God put the picture there, Bible teaching is happening right now to teach you how to study the Bible. When you look at stories like Isaac, I mean, he lived many years ago, why am I concerned for it? Because that is you. Whatever he goes through and you’re going through your own famine, right? God knows, I tell you, God knows the year 2030 before it happens, 2050 before it happens. And God knows because God is outside time. So when God designed the Bible, it is very relevant. It speaks to you now. Even from a story that happened last time, it speaks to you now. There is always a now word.
You can read, you say, Pastor Prince, «I memorized by heart Psalms 23». Well, Psalms 23 can still speak to you. Don’t think for one moment you have exhausted it. Don’t think for one moment you have exhausted it, amen? Even if you memorize it, meditate on it and God will give you more. And there will be springs that will gush out from valleys as you meditate, amen? It will be like gusher. You will feel like, «Oh, hallelujah»! You will feel like Jeremiah 15:16. This is what it says: «Thy word was found, and I ate them».
The first thing, your first assignment, is not to look at the Word of God and says, «What must I do,» all right? That’s the law mentality. The first thing you do with God’s Word is you eat it. It’s for eating. It’s for eating. If you ask the Lord, all right, why is it that people are rebellious, people are bound by addictions, people are enslaved to certain habits, and they can’t break free? Why are people depressed? Why are so many people depressed today, right? You know what the Lord say? They are hungry. They are hungry. The very first thing the enemy attacks is always the harvests. The Bible says when Gideon was threshing wheat, he was threshing wheat in a place, in the vine press.
Now that’s not the usual place that you thresh wheat. Threshing wheat is like studying the Word of God. The Word of God is wheat, right? Bread of life. So he’s threshing wheat to eat, right? But he was doing it at night to hide from who? The Midianites. The Midianites have come in and every time there’s a harvest, the Jewish people have a harvest, they will come and rob them of their harvest. So they are staying in the mountains and whenever their harvest is there, they come and rob them of their harvest. So Gideon does it quietly so that he has a secret harvest and a secret threshing and a secret reaping, right, that he wants to have secret eating as well but God called him forth. God calls those who are studying the Word, amen, to feed others.
You know, yesterday I was studying the Word and I was preparing for all of you. And I always see all of you as hungry. And you might say, «Pastor Prince, I think I’m hungry for more of the social media. I feel that the more I read, I think I feel better». No, you won’t. You’ll feel empty. You’ll feel more depressed. You are hungry and you are hungry for true bread. You are hungry. The Bible says in Isaiah, «Why labor for that which does not satisfy,» amen? So you are hungry. You’re not depressed. You are hungry. You are not actually a rebellious person, amen. You are fighting something because you are hungry. Have you noticed people who are hungry physically can be very bad tempered? Wives, have you noticed that?
Sometimes your husband is not angry with you. He’s not angry. He is hungry. Look at your husband, smile, and say, «Amen». Have you experienced that? Or it’s just me? It’s just me, come on. I see Pastor Lawrence putting up his hand. He’s one honest man. That’s one honest man. The Lord loves it. The Lord loves honesty, amen? Amen. So many of you need to repent, amen. So a hungry man can be a very angry man, right? But the anger is not actually his problem. His problem is a deeper problem. He’s hungry. So many of you are hungry but you’re not feeding yourself with true bread. So you pass by, you think you need something from the fridge. You open up the fridge, you feel like you need to eat something. You feel hungry. You don’t realize there’s spiritual hunger because you’ve not been feeding on the Word.
So you take out something, you eat. And after for a while, you still feel hungry. So you eat some more. Wrong thing to do, bro! All right? Not good. You will see some results. They will tell you it’s not good, amen. «Oh, I watch TV. I think this is good. I watch this drama. I watch this movie. I watch this, all right. It will feed me». For a while, your mind is stimulated, no doubt, all right. You are stimulated. But after that, you finish everything, you still feel like there’s a emptiness. Like, what is it I really want? I think I need to watch some more, you know? It’s not the answer. The next day, you have raccoon eyes, you know, or panda eyes and things like that, because it doesn’t feed.
So the Bible says in Isaiah, «Why spend your labor for that which does not satisfy»? Now all these things, eating and all that, or watching, you know, I mean it all has its place. I’m not knocking them. They are not sins. It’s not a sin to eat. I’m just saying, realize that you are hungry. The enemy always attacks your food. Some of David’s mighty men became mighty men. They marked themselves as mighty men when they refused to let the enemy take their harvests. They would stand in the middle of a patch of a field of harvests like lentils, all right? And they will stand there with a sword. And they are outnumbered by the enemies.
But the Bible says the sword will clave to their hand. And the sword is a picture of God’s Word. And they will fight. They said, «This is my harvest. You ain’t taking it, all right? There’s no way. I sow it, all right? I grew it, I watered it. And where were you? You want to come and take the food? No way. I’m going to stand here, stand my ground». And the Bible says: «Stand therefore. Stand for your food,» amen. Don’t let anything rob you of that time that you spend in the Word of God, amen. Whether you are in the morning, whether you are sitting on the toilet bowl or, like I told you, it’s a good time. Some of you, «Oh, I feel so irreverent». No, you are just being religious. Because I’d rather you do that than not do that and spend the whole day not in the Word.
So if you have a Bible there, Bible everywhere, amen, commercial time, look at the Bible, spend time in the Word. Even a little piece of it, like a little crumb, can bring healing. Can I have a good «Amen»? So here, God says, there’s food. Not just drink, there is food, all right? By the way, Jeremiah was saying that the first thing you do is eat. And what happens? «Your word was to me the joy. Your words were found, and I ate them». That’s your first response. But eat the Word of God. And number 2, «it becomes a joy and rejoicing of your heart».
So eat it until there’s a joy and rejoicing springing up. And there is a joy, I’m telling you, it’s like, that joy heals, by the way. That joy heals your body. The joy of the Lord is my strength. It’s not just spiritual strength there. If you read it carefully, it’s strength, spirit, soul, and body. So the joy of the Lord. So how do you get the joy of the Lord? «Thy words were found». And what did I do? «I ate them». When Jesus says, «I’m the bread of life,» what do you do with bread? You eat it. You don’t just admire it. Or else he will stand up, «I’m the portrait of life,» right? But he says «bread». He says he’s the water of life, fountain, amen? He is the bread of life. What do you do with bread? You eat. And because God, «I am the bread of life,» you receive life.
Sometimes we study the Bible, we study the Bible up close, all right? Like a microscope. And sometimes we study the Bible like a telescope. Here we look at Moses when his last stand on Mount Nebo just before he passed on to be with the Lord, right? Jericho, the nearest. The city of Jericho, the area of the Jordan Valley. But he didn’t. He looked far, right? So, this is a picture of the overview of the land. Sometimes you read the Bible, you read the Bible, you don’t feel like reading like macroscopic or meditating on one verse, all right? You want to just general reading. Like, you read the book of Ruth, it can be done in one sitting. It’s a very romantic book, amen. It’s a beautiful story of a young bride.
In fact, not only a young bride, usually a woman who has been married before, is not so much… does not stand so much an opportunity as someone who has not been married before, as she’s been married before. And in those day and age, when your husband dies before you and all that, they could see you as a person who brings a curse, right? But then she followed her mother-in-law to a land that’s foreign to her and end up marrying the most eligible bachelor. And together they became the great-grandfather of David. And from David came our Lord Jesus. Imagine if they didn’t meet. And she doesn’t belong there actually. Like the Syrophoenician woman of Tyre, she’s a Gentile, but she was included in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus. Isn’t that a beautiful story, amen?
You can read it in one sitting. So it’s like a panoramic view, amen? A panoramic view. Something you just feel like reading. And what the panoramic view does is that it washes you, all right? You say, «But Pastor Prince, when I read the Bible, I really don’t understand a lot of things». Keep on reading and enjoying it. You know, I tell you this. A lot of people who start reading novels, even children when they start reading books and all that, there are parts they don’t understand. But just enjoy what you do understand, all right? There was a man who was a devout Christian and he wanted his son to learn about the importance of studying the Bible, reading the Bible. And he was a farmer. He told his son, and they had a stream nearby their farm, he told his son to take a basket and go collect some water.
The son looked at him, kind of strange, right? The son was about 7, 8 years old and he was trying to impress on his son because his son told him, «When I read the Bible, I don’t understand. I don’t understand». So he said, «Tell you what, go get the water». So the son went, scooped the water, came back. Of course, the water dripped out. I mean, it came out, right, of the rattan basket. Then the son said, «Dad, it’s all gone». «Go get some more water». He went and came back again and the water all left, you know, and nothing left. He said, «Dad, it’s useless. You cannot take water in this». «You see, son, how clean that basket is right now, even though it cannot hold water. You don’t understand the Bible? Never mind. Keep on reading because it washes you».
It washes you. It has a washing, purifying effect. It has a healing effect. Same thing, if you’re honest, you say, «I don’t want to read anything I don’t understand». If you’re honest, we talk about reading as eating God’s Word. Apply that to your eating. Do you understand every food and its components that you eat every day? «Oh yes. Over here, we have vitamin E in this little bean here. And this chicken rice here has this…» You know, do you go down all that or you just enjoy? When you approach God’s Word, have the same approach. Don’t try to understand its components and all that. Just enjoy. And many a time, God will speak to you directly from something that happened in the past. Are you with me so far? Is this helping you?
And the first principle to remember, like what I share, I must reiterate this because some people have not heard me share this. The very first thing you want to see is Jesus in the scriptures. That’s why you need to take even the words of the law and make it the Word of Christ. Are you with me? Make the word of the law the Word of Christ. How do you do that? Jesus did that. On the same day he rose from the dead, all right, and I’ll just say it real fast for the sake of those who are hearing for the first time. When Jesus rose from the dead, you would have thought there are other important things to do. But you know what he did? He walked with the two disciples who were discouraged and he kept their eyes from seeing who he was, right?
And that part is very intriguing. Number 2, you’re not having the cleansing effect even, amen, and he will try to convince you why it’s only for people like Pastor Mark and Pastor Lawrence. It’s not for people like you. No, even a child. Timothy was a child. In fact, the word there is actually an infant. The Bible says you have known the Holy Scriptures. 2 Timothy 3, drop down all the way to that part. Drop down. Drop down. Yep, it says: «That from childhood,» Paul is writing to Timothy, «you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise».
In an earlier chapter, it tells you where he got this teaching from. From his mother and grandmother, Lois and Eunice, all right? So a mother’s part. One of the best things you can do is, like Wendy does that, okay, before Justin sleeps, she will read a Bible story. And sometimes he sleeps before the Bible story is over. It’s the best way to sleep. You sleep, the last word is God’s Word. Now I’m not saying that’s how you should do it. You can do it in the daytime, but it’s the best time for us, for Wendy, to share the Word with Justin before he sleeps. He loves his mom’s teaching. And I always tell him this is the most important part of the day, amen. Do we share with him here and there? Of course, during the daytime and all that, here and there. As the Lord leads me, I share, amen? But the Bible part is the part at night. We read something to him from the Word, amen?
So Timothy had the same blessing. He learned the Scriptures from his mother and his grandmother. His father is a Gentile by the way. So we are not told whether he is saved or not, right? So he learned the Scriptures from the mother and grandmother. And notice that these Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation. When you say salvation, don’t always think of it as being saved from hell. Salvation is a very rich, all-inclusive word. It is the word for healing. It will make you wise for healing. It will make you wise for deliverance. It will make you wise for protection. It will make you wise for wholeness, amen? Wholeness. No part of you, broken, no part that needs fixing. You’re coming to a place where shalom means wholeness. Can I have a good «Amen»? Okay, so the first thing you want to see is Jesus. Back to Emmaus Road.
So, the cure for ignorance and the cure for slow to believe, all right? We all have this problem. Either foolishness or slow to believe. Or even both, all right. The answer is, «Beginning at Moses,» the five books, «and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself». So, Moses is the first five books, all right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. So, from those five books, Jesus is there. He’s there in the tabernacle in Exodus. He’s there in the blood on the Passover door, right, the Passover night on that door, he’s there. He’s there in the story of Genesis when God told Abraham, yes, God told Abraham, «Take your son, your only son,» amen? But Abraham has two sons, right? The other one is Ishmael by then. But God says, «Take your son, your only son, the son that you love,» wow! And God says, «Offer him».
Of course, God didn’t want Isaac as an offering. God was actually talking about whom? His own Son. «Take your son,» like talking to himself. «Your only son». «God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son». «Your only son and the son that you loved». You see, you must know that he loves you because the Son that he gave up on that cross is the Son that he loves. You must really be greatly loved by him for him to give the Son that he love for you, right? So when you read that, wow, you know? «Then, Pastor, why did the Lord blind their eyes? Not blind their eyes, but restrain their eyes from seeing who he was»? Because the Lord said this to me. Never heard anyone share this. The Lord said this to me many years ago. I asked the Lord, «Why not just show yourself in your resurrected form»?
The Lord says, «It’s more important for them to see me in the Scriptures than to see me in person. Because if they see me in person and they believe, then today, y’all will say,» he said to me, «y’all will say, 'We never got a chance to see you in person, '» but once he made them see him in the Scriptures, he gives all of us equal opportunity today to see him in the Scriptures. Can I have a good «Amen»? All right, so that’s the cure for ignorance and for slow to believe. Your faith will grow, amen. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. The next thing, when you read the Old Testament especially, you all know that Pastor Prince love to teach from the Old Testament, right? You all know that, right?
So, when you read from the Old Testament, the governing principle is this: Number 1, see Jesus. Why see Jesus? Because when you see Jesus, you become like him. Show them verse 18. Or is it 2 Corinthians 3:18: «We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just by the Spirit of the Lord». Can you see that, right? We are transformed by beholding him. Where do we behold him? In the Scriptures. «Pastor, can you prove that from this verse»?
Yes, can you wait? I’ll show you. I will show you. It’s from the Scriptures. Seeing Jesus in the Scriptures, just like the two on the road of Emmaus did, and their hearts were warmed. There’s a joy and rejoicing of my heart, amen? By the way, Emmaus means hot baths, amen? That’s where back in those days, people, the Romans, have hot baths. The Romans would go there and people would go there. Especially the Romans, but they would do it, they would dip themself, those with a skin condition and all that. That tells us it was a healing process. How to be healed? Seeing Jesus in the Scriptures. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you, richly in all wisdom.