Joseph Prince - The Prayer That Repairs Your Body
Are you enjoying today's all hymns Sunday, amen? You know, these hymns are especially anointed because every one of them, there's a story behind it. If you can find stories behind the hymns, you'll be very touched by the stories that they tell. And, you know, a hymn that's anointed by the Holy Spirit is timeless. Some of your old songs, even your pop songs and all that, they grow old but hymns can never grow old when they're anointed by the Holy Spirit. There are a few hymns, but only a handful that is embalmed with unbelief, you know, and it's not scriptural but most of them for the most part is anointed, amen? Songs like, "What a friend we have in Jesus". Songs that little children can learn. "Jesus loves me, this I know". Beautiful hymns like you heard just now. If you can, sing them to yourself, amen?
Our world today is increasingly becoming more and more what the Apostle Paul says in Timothy, dangerous times. We are living in increasingly dangerous times but one thing for sure, just the other day, I was listening to my audio on, you know, there's an audio book of my book, "Prayer Of Protection", Psalms 91, just to hear the testimonies and the teachings of it again is so refreshing. We need to know the blessings and promises of Psalms 91 in the world we live in, not just what Jesus said, there'll be wars and rumors of wars before he returns, amen, and we are seeing that happen. We are seeing all the saber-rattling and all the proud, you know, talks and all the world is definitely in a dangerous place, amen?
We live in a world where they want to change God's laws, God's guidance, God's way of doing things, you know? We are calling evil good now and even calling good evil, amen? So, we're definitely living in those days that Paul calls perilous times, dangerous times. But there's a place in Christ we can be protected, amen? We cannot pretend these things don't exist, they exist. So, we need to pray. We don't just have to look at what is happening, we need to pray, amen?
Prayer is something that you need for yourself, your families. You don't know what the future holds, amen, but thank God, God knows everything from the end to the beginning from the beginning to the end, amen? God is in the timeless zone, amen. God knows, that's why God gives us this prayer. And straightaway I want to call your attention to the fact that the very first thing on the birthday of the church 2,000 years ago, the very first thing God gave them was a prayer language. What a beautiful thing, amen?
Look at this, look up here Acts 2, "When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to", what? "Speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance".
Now, notice verse 1 says what? "When think day of Pentecost was fully come". Do you know that the first Pentecost was actually God giving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai? There was the very first Pentecost. Any Jewish person will tell you that who knows their feast days, the very first Pentecost was giving of the Ten Commandments, giving of the law on Mount Sinai. There was also a tempers of wind. There was lightnings, there was fire and here when the day of Pentecost was fully come under the New Covenant, God gave, not the law, but the Spirit and not on Mount Sinai but Mount Zion, amen?
And there's also fire, tongues of fire. Over here when God gave the law 40 days after, 3,000 people died at the foot of Mount Sinai. Over here, when God gave the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up and preached and 3,000 people were saved, 3,000 died, 3,000 were saved. The law kills, but the Spirit gives life. Nothing wrong with the law, the law is holy, the law is from God, the law is righteous, but the law cannot make anyone righteous. The law cannot bless anyone. The law says, "You have to obey my completely before I can bless you".
All right, the law cannot sanctify or make holy anyone. There are people who believe that they can become holy by trying to keep the law. The law was designed in such a way to show your imperfection like the plumb line shows the building or any structure that's deviating from the straight line, likewise, the plumb line of God's law shows how we are perverted, how we have gone astray. We cannot compare each other with one another, amen? We cannot compare among ourself. We must compare with God and all of us are sinners. Some of us commit the sin outwardly and some of us commit the sin inwardly. It's still sin.
So, we're all sinners. I want to tell you how much God loves us, it's amazing how much God loves us. I was just reading the other day, just coming across this passage that says, "It pleased the Lord to crush Jesus", Isaiah 53. It pleased the Lord in your authorized version, to bruise him, all right, the Father. It pleased the Father to bruise Jesus. Now, I understand that the Father loves us, amen, God loves us and God sent his Son who loves us also, and I know that how much the Father loves the Son. Twice the Bible tells us in the Gospels when Jesus came out of the waters of the River Jordan, the waters of baptism, the Father opened the heavens and said, "This is my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased". And then God opened up again the heavens and this is on Mount Transfiguration and God spoke and God says, "This is my beloved Son, hear him", amen?
God loves his Son, and yet I cannot understand this verse in Isaiah that says, "It pleased the Father to crush his Son". So, for the longest time I couldn't understand that, and I know that when Jesus obeyed the Father, I love the way Jesus said to the disciples in the upper room, he says, "As my Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence". And go hence means, go to the cross. He was willing to die in obedience to his Father, not just because he loves us, but because he's obeying the Father. And Jesus says, now there's a new impetus, a new motive for God loving him, "Therefore does my Father love me", he says, "because I lay down my life".
So, the Father always loved the Son, even before we were created, the Father loved the Son. I was daily his delight and yet I cannot understand how it pleased the Father to crush his Son. So, I asked the Lord for this many years ago and then one day I remember, I think it was during the Christmastime and we were going for some, like many of you, last-minute Christmas shopping and at the time, Jessica was about three years old. And he parked our car at a carpark somewhere and then, outdoor carpark somewhere and then we went to the mall quite a distance away.
On the way back, all right, there was a lot to carry. Wendy was carrying in her hands and some bags, and I was carrying both hands and Jessica got tired. So, I, of course, a strong father would want to carry the daughter, right? And she wants to sleep. So, I pick her up with my hands full and almost immediately she fell asleep on my shoulder. I could hear her heavy breathing and then I realized where I parked my car was really far away. It's okay when you come, okay? You come, you're full of energy, right? Nothing to carry and all that, you can park far away. But oh my goodness, every step was a struggle especially with heavy, you know, cherubic, very cute adorable child, but she was heavy.
And then, I could actually relieve my pain by putting her down, amen? I have to wake her up and make her walk, but then I love her too much. And I felt as I carried her on one arm with my hands full of bags and Wendy's hands were full of bags, I felt like my arm was going numb and that's not so bad. The next stage was the worst, pins and needles, you know? And I had to keep it from trembling all the while so that I can hear her heavy breathing and I just love her so much.
Then I realize that Isaiah 53 opens up, Isaiah 53 that says, "It pleased the Lord to crush him". It opens up but saying, "To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed"? In other words, to whom shall God reveal his Son? But here, he calls his Son his arm and I realized God was answering my prayer to understand what he meant. He says, "Do you love your daughter"? I said, "Yeah, so much that I will rather crush my arm than to wake her up". Then I realized that God would crush his Son because of his love for us.
Isn't it amazing how much God loves us? You know, and this is something, you know, that you don't learn from religion. You learn from the gospel, from the good news, a revelation of how good God is and you can receive this, let me tell you this, even what I said to you just now, to understand that God is good, we cannot understand how good God is. To have a glimpse like we did just now is a gift of his goodness to help us understand how good he is. Praise God. That's not my message okay today. I want to share with you something that I think is gonna help you, but there are so many benefits to this.
We talk about the birthday of the church and how God filled them with the Spirit. On the first Pentecost 3,000 people died, on the new Pentecost, 3,000 people were saved. The law kills, but the spirit gives life. The law demands righteousness, grace supplies righteousness. Under the law, God speaks about the pathetic works of man, man's works. "You shall not, you shall not, you shall not, you shall not". The reason God gave the law is because knew we are so proud, we are so proud that we don't even think we are sinners.
In fact, some of us just now, a few off us hopefully thought just now, "Ah, we're not so bad. We're not sinners", you know? But let me tell you this, all of us are sinners, all of us broke the Ten Commandments, if not in deeds, in heart, in mind. We're all sinners, amen? Praise God. Say, "amen". But God loves us, and God loves us when we were at our worst, amen, he gave us his Son to die for us while we were yet sinners, amen? So, here God is talking about under law, God talks about man's work, amen? "You shall not, you shall not, you shall not do this, you shall not do that. You shall not", man's works. But when grace came on the day of Pentecost on Mount Zion and 3,000 people were saved, it is all about the emphasis here.
Drop down, they're all speaking in tongues, "The Cretans and the Arabs, we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God". No more the puny works of man but the wonderful works of God, amen? So, it's not no more about how bad man is. It's about how good God is, amen? It's not about how far short man has come, it's about how God will run to where you are, take great lengths to save you, to love you, to bless you, amen? It's not about all the wickedness and sinfulness of man, it's all about the loveliness, the beauties, the glories, and the excellencies of our God, hallelujah, amen. What should our emphasis be in our preaching, amen?
And many a times I think we stay in this camp for too long, we discourage people to the point they cannot even have a vision of God and they see God as a punitive, judgmental God when all that God is is love, amen, hallelujah. Praise God, thank you, Jesus. And but notice here that the tongues they spoke were the wonderful works of God. When you speak in tongues, you are proclaiming the wonderful works of God, amen? You enlarge your spirit.
Now, I want to share with you something about praying in tongues today that's gonna help you so much, amen, in the area of stress, anxieties, worries, panic attacks, as well as physical troubles in terms of infirmities, chronic illness, or even disease. So, tongues is a gift from God and here there and there you will hear me say weapon from God or a devised instrument from heaven made in heaven, amen? When God gives something like oxygen, it's amazing when God gives something, you know, it has so many, it has myriads of users like oxygen can be used, of course, for you to live, for you to breathe into your lungs, amen?
It can propel machines, and vehicles, pneumatic drills, for example, pneuma, the word pneuma is air, wind, and wind can propel ships and boats, and it can do a lot, myriads of things just from one creation of God, air, right? When man creates, man creates one thing, and then he has to create a few things to maintain the one thing that he created like your smartphone. When you bring your smartphone, you travel wherever you go, you gotta bring along your charger, right? You bring along your...
Man creates computer, they bring everything else that comes with computer. That's why in my travels, my hotel room looked like a small hospital with all kinds of tubes coming out here and there, plus there's a special light. The lightings in hotel rooms are terrible. I think they meant for hotel rooms to be romantic, right?
And me having Pastor Daniel, Pastor Lawrence, and sometimes Pastor Mark down there, definitely is not romantic, okay? But they know that it's hard for me to prepare my messages and all that that I'm speaking at the conference in that kind of lighting. So, they always bring for me a lamp, like a lampstand or something like that that will help brighten up, you know, my reading and all that. Then you gotta have a lot of, you know, those kind of like sockets and all that, all the wires all over the place, and there's so many things to maintain, amen? That's man's creation, man creates something, there's a lot of things to maintain it. God create one thing, has many uses. God is a giver, amen?
So, God give you the gift of tongues. Today I'm gonna focus on one benefit that I think that many of us have been robbed of. You may have that Word in you last time, but has the devil robbed of you of that Word? The first thing the devil comes is to rob you of that Word and that's the area, there are many benefits to praying in tongues. For example, I may touch on this in the weeks to come, but let's say you're praying for your child, amen?
So, the thing is that your child is going to school but supposing you're praying and all of a sudden your prayer changes and you're praying in English, all right, you're praying in English. You understand what you're saying and then the Holy Spirit's inspiring you giving you a vision about an impending accident that may happen to your child. What do you do? Surely you start praying for your child's protection, right? But not only that, knowing the propensity of human nature, you'll want, not only pray for your child. You'll say, "This day you're not going to school", amen? Because why? You're afraid because of what you know now.
Sometimes what you know can cause you to be afraid. But supposing you have a language that you don't even know you are praying this, that the devil has planned in such a way, all right, to harm your child and he's prepared this drunken, all right? The devil has prepared him on the same day at the same time your child is coming out so he's prepared the whole thing and all that, and you're praying this, and you're singing, "I pray for my child, Lord. I pray that the drunken driver will not be there at the right place at the right time for my child, Father, in Jesus's name". And you are singing. You're happy, you're cooking, amen. You're changing diapers or you're working and you're just walking along and you're caring your file, and you're praying for your child who is in danger this coming week and you don't even know it.
Now, which is more stressful, the first prayer in English or the prayer in the Spirit? Of course, the one in English, right? 'Cause you're praying for your future, yet you do not know what's happening, amen. I can't begin to tell you how God gave birth to this message of grace or this rediscovery of the gospel of grace during a season of me praying in tongues, amen? If God had told me much earlier in my secondary school that I'll be addressing literally millions of people all over the world via television and through other means and all that, I would definitely give it up. I would not have want to be in ministry at all, okay, because I'm so afraid of crowds, amen? But I learned to pray in tongues, amen.
I was praying for my future. And one day, as I stood before thousands of people, God says, "This is what you prayed for ten years ago, 20 years ago", amen? So, when we pray in the Spirit, we are praying beyond the boundaries and the limitations of our knowledge, amen. You're praying for the future. You can pray for the future. You can even pray for the past when that fear came in all that, you know do not why you experiencing today. You can't fight, you can't ward off, you can't shake off that fear of timidity and God the Holy Spirit is helping you reach out and healing that part of you, and God is able to reach to the future and touch that because God is timeless or exactly he's outside time because he created time. That's why the cross, as far as God is concerned, happened only yesterday. The freshness must be there when you take the communion. It's not like something 2,000 years ago. That's a language and a comprehension of man's idea of time. God lives outside time.
So friends, listen, when you pray in tongues, today I focus on one benefit, not about intercession. The benefit is how it builds up your body and keep you, all right, in a place where you're built up so that stress, worry, fear, anxiety, panic attacks, will not have anymore leeway or anymore victory over your life. You can be free from addictions and you can even be free from physical infirmities. Are you ready? So, can we just focus on this one area first, amen? And in the days to come, if the Spirit of God sees fit to focus on this, we'll focus on other benefits.
There's myriads of benefits, like I said, one gift, amazing benefits. First, I just want to say real quick that there are certain denominations that say, "Well, don't pray in tongues, it's out of the devil and if you pray in tongues, you're praying to the devil". All you gotta do is just read 1 Corinthians 14, verse 2 and 3 it says very clearly, "He who prays in an unknown tongue speaks not unto man but unto God", not unto the devil, unto God. And these same people will say, "We must go by the Word of God. We must go by the Bible". The Bible says, "He that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not unto man, but unto God".
You have a hotline to God himself, hallelujah. So, put aside man's opinions, put aside all the denominational prejudices and focus on the Word of God, amen. Rest, Jesus himself says, "These signs will follow them that believe. In my name, they will speak with new tongues. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover". Those same people that don't believe in praying in tongues, invariably always it's connected. If they don't believe in praying in tongues, they don't see the gifts of healings operate. They don't see the sick healed under their ministry so they must come up with excuses for that, amen? But it's always together.
Those who believe in praying in tongues see a lot of healings happen in their ministry, amen? "Well, it doesn't matter to me, Pastor Prince". It matters when your child is sick one day and medical science has no cure. You come and tell me then it doesn't matter. So, put aside all these denomination prejudices and go with the Word of God. Can I have a good amen, people?
1 Corinthians 14, verse 4, "He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself". Say, "edifies". The word "edifies" is made of the etymology of this word comes from two Latin words, all right, edify, edice is actually a house or a building. Like edify can be a edifice, a tall building, a large building. So, the word "edify" the etymology is from the that Latin, edice, which is house or building, fice, all right, for the world build, construct. Put them together, it is the word to construct or to repair, to build a house.
Today, we say edify in terms of like, "Well, Pastor Prince, your message today was edifying". In other words, morally comforting, morally inspiring or whatever, but we don't think in terms of physical, okay, but the root word actually is physical. It's referring to a building. In fact in the Greek this word here in the Greek edifies is the word oikodomeo. Oikos is a house, a building, domeo is to build the building, amen? Domeo in Italy, see a lot of domeo, all right? A building, dome, domeo. Oikodomeo, to build a house, oikos, a house.
"Pastor Prince, we're not houses". All right, we are. We are temples. You know which part of you is a temple? "Oh, my spirit". That's what we've been told. Your spirit is not a temple, your body is a temple. Look at 1 Corinthians 6, "Or do you not know that your body is the temple"? Your what? Your body, your body is the temple. Now, I know the Holy Spirit dwells in our spirit, but does not say your spirit is the temple. You cannot find in the Bible it says your spirit is the temple. It says your body is the temple, your soma in the Greek, your body, not your psyche, all right, not your pneuma, your soma, psychosomatic conditions, you know from your mind. But soma is body for Greek.
So, it says, "Do you not know that your soma, your body is the temple"? And the word "temple" here is not the outward precincts of the temple. The word "temple" here is the Holy of Holies and the holy place. This is literally the sanctuary. Your body is the Holy of Holies. Your body is the holy place of God. Your body's a temple of God, and God wants his temple beautiful. God wants his temple clean. God wants his temple holy. The word whole, healthy, healthy, come from that old word that says hale, H-A-L-E, which is the word whole, complete, healthy, amen, healed, complete, completeness. God wants your body complete, amen?
So, back then God will say your bodies today, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Are you listening? So, go back to 1 Corinthians 14, verse 4, he who speaks in a tongue, oikodomeo, builds himself. Another thing is that the mistake we make, and I grew up among some great teachers who taught on praying in tongues, but I think where the emphasis was wrong was this they say that when you pray in tongues you charge your spirit. Now, thank God your spirit is charged but not just your spirit. Doesn't say he speaks in a tongue, builds up his spirit but himself. Himself means what? All of you.
Now, which part of you is the temple? Your body, especially your body. Why is this teaching important? Because we preach like this, people will know every time they pray in tongues and the devil says, "You are just making it up, stop it". And they get discouraged, they stop it. They don't realize that they're stopping their health, they're stopping their wholeness, they're stopping their health from springing forth speedily. Are you listening, people, amen?
So, it's important we hear the Word. Somehow people have this idea that when you pray in tongues, only your spirit is being charged and I think they got this idea from same chapter but later on, verse 14 says, "If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays". Which part of you pray? My spirit prays so they think that, oh, that's the part that God charged. No, it's just telling you which part of you is praying when you pray in tongues. When you pray in English, your mind you must know the words, right? Your mind is praying, but when you pray in tongues, which part of you is praying? Your spirit is praying. Are you listening?
Your spirit is praying, doesn't say your spirit is the one that gets edified, but your spirit is praying. But which part of you gets edified? Back to verse 4, edifies himself, and because the word edify, oikodomeo means building, constructing, or repairing a house or building, which part of your person is the temple? Your body, that's means when you pray in tongues, you are preparing, you're building, you're constructing. You are repairing your body. Ladies, why do you put on makeup? Okay, makeup. Why do you put on moisturizer and things like repair, man, repair. It's all about repair, right?
Moisturizer is to moisturize, but I guess when you have something else that can repair, it's even better, right, right? Father, forgive all these liars here in this house here today in Jesus's name. All right, one more time, all right? We apply stuff to repair, right? Now we believe that if we imbibe a pill or a capsule for beauty, it's better that beauty comes from within, right? God has a better way. What if I tell you your body, your face is also the temple of God, huh? And the Bible says you can repair your body by praying in tongues. Are you listening?
All right, let's drop down, the same chapter but let's drop down to verse 21. Then the Apostle Paul quotes from the Old Testament from the prophet Isaiah specifically. "In the law it is written: 'With men of other tongues and other lips I will speak to this people; And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,' says the Lord". Unfortunately, a segment of God's people even will not hear him when it comes to praying in tongues. And the context here is tongues because the next verse says, "Therefore tongues are for a sign".
So, it's very clear it's talking about praying in tongues, okay? He's quoting the Old Testament. Whenever the Holy Spirit quotes the Old Testament, it will do us, it will pay us good. It will benefit us for us to look at the quotation. So, let's go to the quotation in the Old Testament. It's from Isaiah 28. "For with stammering lips and another tongue will God speak to this people". Ever felt like your tongue sometimes is like stammering lips...
You say, "Pastor, my tongue is not like Pastor Lawrence tongue, so smooth, so fluent". Hey, you always get first priority, stammering lips. Pastor Lawrence and Pastor Mark one is another tongue, amen? And who is speaking? God is speaking. God will speak to this people. To whom God said, now watch this, now there's an additional benefit. That's why it pays you well to look up the reference, and the context here says God is saying, "This is the rest", definite article. Hamenuchah, definite article. This is the rest which you may cause the weary to rest and this is the magea, the refreshing, yet they would not hear.
You know, God is offering you R and R, rest and refreshing. Guys, y'all know, right, after your term in exercise in the field and all that overseas, you have an R and R days, right? Rest and refreshing, literally rest and recreation. This is God's rest and refreshing. God is saying this is the rest. The is a definite article and the word "rest" here is actually the word menuchah. It helps you to remember the manuka honey, all right, same pronunciation, menuchah, all right, menuchah. This is the menuchah. In other words, there's a place of rest.
In the midst of a world full of stress, worries, anxieties, with bad news almost every day, amen, some bad news, some fake news and all kinds of news, you know, put in a mix and the threat of war, rumors of war, and all kinds of terror, you know, attacks and things like that, it's very easy for our hearts to be fearful, but God says there's a place called menuchah. This is the rest and the whole context there is referring to stammering lips and another tongue. When you pray in tongues, you literally tranquilize yourself. You bring yourself to a resting place and this word "resting place", God says this is the place you may cause the weary to rest.
A lot of people are weary. They are tired. They are, they're just tired. If you read Daniel, it says that the spirit of Antichrist in the last days will weary the saints of the most high, weary the saints, they will wear out the saints of the most high. The devil, one of the things the devil does is that it just wears you out. He wears you out. You read things in social media, it wears you out. You hear bad news, it wears you out. When they gonna call evil good and good evil, it wears you out. So, the saints of the end times will be worn out, but the Bible says this is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest. To rest here is nuach.
Menuchah is a noun, nuach is a verb. Nuach is the name Noah. And when grace was first mentioned it says, "Noah found grace". In other words, rest finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. God loves it when you rest. When you rest, you are saying, "God, I'm trusting you. God, I'm not working, but you are working. Lord, I'm not doing but you are doing". God loves it that's why rest finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. Rest, menuchah, is also the place of the Promised Land for the believer today. The Old Testament, the Promised Land, is a land where they will enter the land and drink from wells they did not dig, eat from vineyards they did not plant, live in houses they did not build.
In other words, the Promised Land is a literal land of which they did not do the work. That's why God sends the giants in first 'cause the giants build big houses. The giants dig deep wells. The giants are strong enough and God says, "I've prepared for you". It's a land, amen, like a rest. You just enter in. But what is your rest today? Your rest today in Hebrews is actually the rest of God. Watch this, this same word menuchah in Psalms it says God swore in my wrath about the children of Israel that refuse to believe him. All right, God says, "Enter the land".
What I just told you just now, "I've given you a land flowing, not just filled, but flowing". Idea of over superfluous, abundance, superfluous. It's exceeding, flowing with milk and honey and yet they say, "No, God hate us that's why God brought us to this land". And it broke God's heart and God says, "I swore in my wrath they will not enter my rest", Hebrew, menuchah. An interesting thing that Hebrews 4 talks about this same passage and says, "Let us labor therefore to enter the rest".
I wonder if the labor is praying in tongues 'cause praying in tongues sometimes is like a labor. They pray, pray, pray, pray, after one day, people ask you, "Any change"? "Yes, dry mouth, tired tongue". And then you pray, pray, pray, now two more days. "See any change in your body"? "Yes. "What is it"? "Blah, tired", amen. And spiritually, all right, it seems like nothing is happening, and there's a spiritual attack on you. The devil is saying, "Give up, give up, you're just making it up, stop it, stop it".
And then you're still praying in tongues and all of a sudden you realize something is happening but deep down inside first. It's long before God removes your disease, long before God removes your depression, long before God destroys that addiction in your life, all right, by you praying in tongues. First of all, the first few days, I believe, he's dealing with your fears, your panic attacks, your anxieties, your depression, your stress and that's why after you pray in tongues for the first day you don't say, "Pain is still there. The condition is still there". No, God is dealing from the inside out.
Now, I'll show you more of this and I'm telling you, people, listen carefully, stress is becoming a real problem, especially in these last days. Jesus says, man's hearts, and I believe he was referring to the literal heart. It's hard to find whether the Bible was referring to literal heart or spiritual heart because both use the word cardia in the Greek. So Jesus says man's cardia will fail because of the fear of looking at what is coming upon the earth. So, be careful when you look at the news and things like that, all right, we're not saying put our heads in the sand like a, you know, ostrich and all that, pretend things don't exist, no. We have to be aware but make sure that there's strength on the inside, that you don't get depressed from the outside.
Now I'm gonna read to you, I like to read the latest discoveries, in fact, some of the discoveries I shared, shared my past messages down through the years but I like to read the latest. Now, this is the seventh edition of this periodical that was released, all right, called "Brain Facts". It is released by the Society For Neuroscience, all right, a study of the brain and the nervous system. So, this is the seventh edition because they have new discoveries. Do you know that scientists are still studying the brain? You know that?
All right, from "Brain Facts", this is what they said, "What do standing frustrated in a supermarket checkout, in a supermarket checkout line or sitting in a traffic jam have in common with fleeing predators as was done in the early days of human beings"? So, we all understand, right? I mean, queuing up for coming to church or queuing up at the supermarket and all that. What does this got to do with flight or fight response, right? "Clearly these activities are very different yet they provoke the same responses in the body. The release of hormones and these hormones are glucocorticoids and epinephrine, two chemical secretions, all right, two hormones release by your adrenal. To improve memory, boost immune function, enhance muscular activity, and restore physiological balance".
Now, over long period of time for a while it's okay. You know, when you see a snake, right, and the snake has reared its ugly head at you, you don't say, "Hi, how are you? I didn't mean to bum your way". All right, you run, amen?
"Adrenal glands release your corticoids and all that and your epinephrine to make you run, amen, amen? So, you're blood pressure rises, your heart rate increases and you run. It's either fight or flight, but it's talking about over long periods of time. If everything in life, even driving down the road here in Singapore, if driving down the road in Dallas or anywhere that you are at, if everything frustrates you, if everything makes you anxious, my wife just reminded me the other day, if everything, especially on the road, if everything you are frustrated by, you are hostile about, then listen, over long periods of time as these hormones continue to be released, the consequences can be negative. Memory is impaired, immune function is suppressed, and energy is stored as fat. Overexposure to glucocorticoids leads to weakened muscles, elevated glucocorticoids and epinephrine contribute to hypertension, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries", Doing my best here, "And abdominal obesity".
Don't look down. "Epinephrine also increases the release and activity of body chemicals that cause inflammation adding to the body's chronic stress burden. This continual chemical activity can lead to a arthritis and accelerated aging of the brain. These findings have been verified in animal experiments, aging rats showed impair neuron function in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for learning, memory, and emotion as a result of increased glucocorticoids secretion throughout their lives. Overexposure to glucocorticoids also increases the number of neurons damaged by stroke. Moreover, prolonged glucocorticoid exposure before or immediately after birth causes a decrease in the normal number of brain neurons and smaller brain size".
If you are pregnant, if you're about to give birth, don't be stressed. What do you do? Okay, "Once more, scientists have identified a variety of stress related disorders including high blood pressure, clogged arteries, impotency, and loss of sex drive in males, irregular menstrual cycle in female, colitis and adult onset diabetes". Familiar these few days? "Stress also can contribute to sleep loss when people get caught in a vicious cycle, elevated glucocorticoids, delaying the onset of sleep and sleep deprivation, raising glucocorticoid levels". So, this is from "Brain Facts" by the Society on Neuroscience".
Now, many of it, of course, they will not deal with supernatural, they cannot. I'm telling you, the devil's means is always to stress you out. The devil is trying to wear you out, he's trying... you cannot fight against supernatural forces with natural means. You can offset or put down for a while the outward symptoms of stress. You can take medicine, there are also anxiety related pills and medicine, there are sleeping tablets and all that, but this, and I thank God for doctors and all those people who take time to relieve the sufferings of humanity.
I thank God for that but one thing if you're dealing with the devil and his supernatural, you gotta have supernatural means. From heaven comes this weapon. Do you think for one moment God will design us, and God put liver there for a reason. God put kidneys there for a reason. There are people who have no problem with their appendix, they take out their appendix. I think there's a reason why God put appendix there. Try not take it out. Don't try to take out too many things. God says this is the rest and the refreshing. When you pray in tongues, there is a rest. There's a release. There is an untying of the knots on the inside when you go. You need supernatural means.
Now, if the means combat stress and panic attacks and depression and anxiety, must depend on you being on one location where there is running river, and there's greeneries, and there's a mountain, and all that, then you know what? What's gonna happen when you come back to the real world like some of you? Just enjoy a relaxing time. Massage your troubles away. Smell deeply the frankincense in the room. Relax, all right, for one hour and then you pay and you step out of that spa, "Get out of the way"! Sorry. Okay, we all come back to reality, amen? I'm all for this, okay? I'm all for that.
I got this thing about massage, you know, and this is my own personal opinion, all right, I can only feel comfortable massage if my wife is in the room, okay? This is me. "I think it's good, Pastor Prince". Say "I don't trust myself". It's good you don't trust yourself. Okay, you heard any amen? None, right, not a single one. Okay anyway, back to this. If freedom from stress, worry, and care depends on you, depends on you being at the right place at the right time, okay, then we all know that this is impossible. Some people, they have the luxury, they have the money to be able to spend time, to take time, to go somewhere abroad and relax, but even then for a while because wherever you go, there you are, you know?
You can be in a beautiful setting and yet you are worried inside. So you cannot depend on that. It must be something more portable that you can bring this weapon, you can bring this gift wherever you go and you can operate with loud sounds, blaring horns, children crying out for your attention in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, all right, the frantic pace, you can still pray in tongues and experience the menuchah, the rest.
The word, "You may cause the weary to rest", I said just now, rest, same word as nuach, Noah, and the first mention is nuach. The noun is Noah, all right? Nuach was first mentioned when the ark rested on Mount Ararat, and the date is given. It's exactly the date Jesus rose from the dead. In other words, rest is not possible until Jesus rose from the dead.
Have you noticed that, in the Old Testament, David never pray in tongues, Elijah never spoke in tongues, Hezekiah never spoke in tongues? None of the prophets, not even Daniel, spoke in tongues. Only after Jesus rose from the dead, for the first time, the gift of tongues was given. Could it be, people, all right, it's something very unique? Because it's tied up with grace. It is a gift of grace. It's a grace gift that will help you in all the affairs of life. Can I have a good amen?
Not long ago, there was a... in fact, quite long ago because this was 2006. I always think of 2006 as just not long ago. It's amazing at how time flies. In 2006, and, by the way, this is also on YouTube. You can find it. The fact I'm gonna share it with you, it's not from YouTube, all right? It's from another study, but it's the same study they did, but YouTube will give you the summarized version. It's done by ABC. By the way, they did this study of the people who are speaking in tongues at the University of Pennsylvania. A doctor there, by all my studies on him, he doesn't seem to be a Christian. He's not a Christian, all right? And he's Dr. Andrew Newberg, all right?
Now, Dr. Andrew is also the adjunct professor there, all right, nuclear medicine. He's the professor there in University of Pennsylvania, and he decided to make this study of people who have this activity he calls praying in tongues. So he had five subjects to put all the electrodes on to study the blood flow of the brain, okay? I don't tell you the title of the YouTube in case you wanna look at it because I know you are. You're looking now. You'll start looking up now. So maybe later on. So, anyway, let me tell you what they discovered. They chose five subjects who pray in tongues, okay?
One, you can say, "Well, maybe, you know, it was a fake thing after all", right? "Just faking it". But five, not knowing each other, they operate in tongues. So he made a study to study the blood flow. Now, Dr. Andrew Newberg said to the people of ABC, actually, the study showed this: Now, when you pray, when we speak, your speech center is in the frontal lobe, the frontal lobe of your head, okay? So when you're talking actually, when you're thinking about words to sing, and all that, your frontal lobe lights up. All the blood flow there. You can see the blood flow. They can have this imaging on screen. They can see the blood flow, okay?
But they say this: Every other religious practice, whether it's meditation or singing hymns, you can see the blood flow there in the front. Let me use his own words. I'm not gonna put words in his mouth, so I'm gonna read his quote: "Our brain imaging research shows us", these are his own words, this doctor, who's not a believer. He says, "Our brain imaging research shows us that these subjects are not in control of the usual language centers during this activity of praying in tongues".
Do you hear that? The Bible says, when I pray in an unknown tongue, who prays? My spirit, by the Holy Spirit, prays. So he says their frontal lobe, it's not light up. In other words, they are not controlling, and yet there is a self-awareness, which means they didn't lose control of their body. Then he says this. These are his words: "These findings could be interpreted as the subject's sense of self being taken over by something else". If he's a Christian, he would say, "someone else". Can you see that? "We scientifically assume it's being taken over by another part of the brain, but we couldn't see where this took place. The fact that this occurred in all five candidates is very significant".
So this is very interesting: "We scientifically assume it's been taken over by another part of the brain, but we couldn't see where this took place". So who do you think is the one giving the words? The Holy Spirit. And they can't find any part of the brain that's producing it. Isn't this interesting? And all five showed the same result. Mmm, isn't this great? Isn't this amazing?
Many years ago, I was preaching on praying in tongues in our church. In fact, it was during the season that God gave me the gospel of grace in a powerful way, and I did the first series on wisdom in the '90s, and then, after that, in the early 2003, I began to pray in tongues and teach that to our church. In fact, we had months of a series or teaching on praying in tongues. Somewhere during that time, I met this brother who is now a leader in my church, a leader of good standing.
At that time, he shared this testimony. I was well aware of his circumstances and all that, and he shared about how, for a number of years, he was not able to sleep properly, so much so, that he only can sleep one or, at the most, two hours at night, so the doctors gave him sleeping tablets. He came to a place where he took three sleeping tablets and still slept one to two hours. Then he increased it to six sleeping tablets, and, again, only slept, at the most, two hours. Then he said, after some time, he developed sinusitis. The right side of his facial cavity, cheekbone cavity, had a lot of mucus, and he had to go, in fact, he had two operations over that condition, and he had to go to the hospital to have it drained, all this while his job was being affected. His money was also being drained, amen?
And then the doctors gave him something, some antibiotics and some painkillers in order to combat sinusitis, and he took those stuff, and then those stuff caused him to have gastric. So, you know, I thank God for science, and I thank for medicine, amen. They do help us keep down the symptoms. It really helps a lot, praise God, but sometimes, like I said, you know, you take this, and then now you gotta take this. They say, "You take this, okay? But you must take this also because you have gastric when you take this, and this will combat the gastric".
Then what happened was this thing, that they have side effect that's going on. We all don't read the fine print usually. There's always side effects to anything of man's creation, right? And yet, I affirm and I commend the people in medicine because they are helping mankind alleviate their suffering, but we are talking about the kingdom of God. We're talking about things that when God's ways have no side effect. So, nonetheless, he had to take medicine for his gastritis.
After, for a while, all of a sudden, he felt he was besieged by panic attacks, so much so, that he cannot go to work. He can't even step out of the house, he told me. He can't even take a bus. He started worrying and started, the amazing thing is that his appetite fell, but he put on 10kgs. Almost after days, he put on 10kgs. He didn't understand. He was not eating well, and, you know, it's like panic attacks, gastritis, sinusitis, can't sleep at night, and the panic attacks. And he got worse and worse, the panic attacks, so much so, the wife had to stay home with the kids, here and there, helping him to cope with the problem.
And then he came to a place where he went to the doctor again. The doctor gave him some tablets for anti-anxiety. He says, all in all, he took about 30 medicine in one day. You can verify with him. I'll tell you his name in a while's time. And he said that it was terrible. In one day, as he was showering, he told me, he heard God speaking to him, and God said to him, "Son, pray in tongues. Pray in tongues". And he said, "I only managed to get a few syllables out in tongues, and a few syllables brought rest immediately. Just a few syllables... It brought rest immediately. Then I loved it. I began to pray more, and as I prayed more, I found that, one by one, all my symptoms start to dissipate, not immediately, but slowly. Now I found that gastritis was gone, and after a while, the sinus problem was taken care of".
And all of a sudden, he found himself free from depression, anxiety, and from the panic attacks, and he told me, "Pastor Prince, every day I did two things only: pray in tongues and listen to your message. Pray in tongues, listen to your message. Pray in tongues, listen to your message, and every one of those problems are no more. Today I sleep peacefully". He got a good job. In fact, the Lord told him, "What do you like to do"? "Oh, I like to repair computers", he says. Then he goes, he says, "Do a job repairing computers", and he did that.
The last I know is that he's doing well. I do not know what he's in different sector now, but he's today a brother of good standing, a leader, a care group leader in our church, and blessing many people, and ministering to people of addictions, amen. And it all started with a little trickle of water, rivers of living water. A few syllables. They became a rivulet. They became a river and a torrential river, waterfall, right into the ocean, praise God. Start praying in the Spirit. I believe, I believe, the first few days, when you pray in the Spirit, the Spirit is not battling the problem you have, not the panic attack, not the depression, not the addiction, not your physical disease.
I believe that it's battling your fears. It is clearing out your stress, worries, anxieties. I believe God wants to do something inside before he touches your body. Are you listening? And for that, I'm gonna show you a template, and then we're gonna close. Are y'all blessed so far? Do you feel like going... If you don't pray in the Spirit, you don't pray in tongues, don't worry. At the end of the service, you will, amen? It's a gift, it's a grace gift.
Ladies, every time you put that expensive cosmetic, go ahead, put it on. Put it on, you know? Even in old house, you put the painting, also looks good, all right? Put it on, all right? But how about God's way? Pray in the Spirit. Repair, repair your temple. Your temple, amen, the temple of God. Glorify God in your body, praise God. Now, why is it that God filled the Old Testament with so many stories of the temple? Is it that God wants us to build a temple? Is that a physical temple? We know the church is not a building. The church is a collection of God's people. This is the greatest organization in the whole universe, and it's eternal, will be forever, will be forever, I said.
XYZ Company, if there is one, I just happen to illustrate. So, XYZ Company will not last forever, but the church will be forever. That's in the Bible, amen. Everything that was prophesied about the end times has already happened. The Bible says Russia will come down against Israel. Ezekiel 38. Russia will be a superpower. When it was written, Russia didn't even exist. It was villages. When Prophet Ezekiel prophesied that, Russia didn't even exist. There were just villages. The Bible talks about millions, millions of army coming from the east. The kings of the east, who are they? Today is possible, all right?
I'm telling you, church, the Bible, all the prophecies of the first coming of Jesus have all come to pass, especially, as a Jew out of tribe of Judah, born in Bethlehem, Ephrata, 'cause there were two Bethlehems in Israel, one Bethlehem in Galilee, one Bethlehem, Ephrata. Special mention Ephrata, Bethlehem. Baby born, all right, from the lineage of David. Mary came from the line of David, Joseph came from the line of David. So the lineage of David, very specifically he mentions that. There'll be a star coming out. Balaam prophesied that. Long before Jesus came, a star is there.
When Jesus was crucified, he says, "They pierced my hands and feet". When? David said those words. The psalmist David said those words, "They pierced my hands and feet", in Psalms 22. Crucifixion was not even an idea. The Romans haven't invented it. Actually, the Romans didn't invent it. It came from the Phoenicians, who invented it later, but at the time of David, 3,000 years ago, it wasn't even a device. "They pierced my hands and feet". And it opens up with, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" the cry of Jesus at the cross.
So every prophesy of the first coming has come to pass, all right? I'll close with this. Why is it that the Bible has so many stories about the temple? Why? Because it's telling you not just a temple, physical. Back then it's a real temple of Solomon. But he's telling you about your body, right? So can we learn something from here? Yes.
There's a story there in the book of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, where it talks about King Ahaz. King Ahaz was a wicked king of Judah. He didn't walk in the ways of his father David. What he did was that he worshiped idols and he worshiped all kinds of deities except for the true God, and God came against this man, and the first thing he did against God, the first thing King Ahaz did, he shut the doors of the temple. All right, you'll find that in 2 Chronicles 28.
Now we look at 2 Chronicles 29. As a result, Israel was plunged into darkness. The women and the children had all kinds of bondage coming on them. Bad things happened, but Ahaz died. Sometimes it's the mercy of God when someone just shoo! Ahaz died, and he has a son called Hezekiah, which became, one of godliest kings of Judah, amen? He brought revival to Israel. And when he ascended the throne, he was only 25 years old. Young people, listen. Look up here. You can be young and be used of God. He was only 25 years old, and the first year of his reign, in the very first month of his reign, this is what he did: "In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them".
The very first thing he did, he opened the door that his father shut. You know why his father shut the doors? Because they were doing all kinds of abominable things in the holy of holies in the holy place. They brought all kinds of defilements, all kinds of filth, all kinds of uncleanness into the temple, amen, and the filth is still there, and he shut the door with all the filth inside. Here's a picture of you and I. We got so much baggage on the inside, emotional baggage, stress, worry, fear, anxiety. These are uncleanness as well as disease, sickness.
You know, in the Old Testament, they don't really say, they do, here and there. They use the word "disease" and "sickness", they do, but most of the times, ceremoniously in the temple, and all that, or in the precincts of Jerusalem, they use the word, if somebody has leprosy, they don't say, "disease". They say, "uncleanness". And that's why Jesus touched the leper. He didn't say, "Be healed". Jesus says, "Be clean". But the man was healed of leprosy. And the way they cleansed was water. Jesus says, "When the Holy Spirit comes, he's like the rivers of living water". "Living", because, wherever it touches, there'll be life, hmm? And that's what happened on the day of Pentecost.
Now, watch this: The very first thing evil King Ahaz did was shut the doors. The very first thing his son Hezekiah did was to open the doors. When you open the door, then you can bring out all the filth, right? Question: Our bodies are the temple of God, right? What is the door? What is the open door? What is shutting the door, and what is opening the door? If our body is the temple, which part is the door? No, your hair is not the door. If your hair is the door, some of us have no more doors left. Try again. Mouth? Mouth? Very good, but you're talking to Pastor Prince, and Pastor Prince always asks for Bible. Do you have a Bible verse for that, that the door is the mouth, and the mouth is a door? Yes, let me save you the time. Psalms 141. David says, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips". "Keep watch over the door of my lips".
When King Ahaz shut the door, he kept all the disease, all the uncleanness inside, all right? Back then, it was literal uncleanness, but today, all right, when Hezekiah opened the door, so your first step out of your addictions and out of your panic attacks and your depression and your anxieties and your worries, and cares, open the door. Hey, I'm not referring to some of, you what are doing when I'm preaching, okay? Opening the door means... That's not opening the door. I know, I see your Grand Canyon. I'm not referring to that. I'm referring to speaking, amen. First, by the way, the following chapters say revival after revival after revival, revivals like not since the days of the early years, it says.
Hezekiah brought revival. All began with opening the door. Do you see that? Amen, so the door of my lips. Okay, watch what he did. Go back to the story again. "He brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them into the square on the east". And this is what he told them. "Then he said to them, 'Listen to me, O Levites'", 25 years old, "consecrate yourself now, and concentrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry the uncleanness out from the holy place. For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done evil in the sight of the Lord, and have forsaken him and turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and have turned their backs. They have also shut the doors of the porch". He mentioned that specifically, "shut the doors of the porch".
Keep the porch in mind. I'm coming back to the porch, okay? Just keep that in mind somewhere, back here somewhere, okay? "They have shut the doors of the porch and put out the lamps". The moment you shut the door, you stop praying in the Spirit, amen? Your lamp goes out. There's no more revelation.
You know, when I pray in the Spirit a lot during that time I was telling you in the '90s, and all that, it gave birth to the gospel of grace revelation. It's not a new revelation. It is like the light shine on an old Gospel that Paul preach. Likewise, even for your own daily needs, you need light. You need wisdom. I'm just saying focus right now on the fact that, when the door is shut, the lamp is put out, and not only that, there's no more praise and worship. There's no more worship to God, "no burned incense or offered burnt offerings". "Therefore the wrath of the Lord was against Judah and Jerusalem. He made them an object of terror, of horror, and hissing, as you see with your own eyes".
I wanna tell you that today, God is not angry with his people, and he would never be angry with his people. Look at me, never. We are not under law. We are under grace. We are not in our flesh. We are in Christ. For God to be angry with us is to be angry with Christ. The seven years of tribulation is the days of God's wroth. We are not appointed to wroth, we are appointed to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. God has sworn he will never be wroth with us, Isaiah 54 that comes after Isaiah 53, the work of Jesus. So, when you read all this, keep things in context. I'm talking about the uncleanness of our bodies. We call it disease, sickness, and all that. Okay, how to remove it. I want you to see the pattern. Okay, verse 9, "For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this".
So, if you find, you know, you can be the wealthiest, one of the wealthiest guys in the nation and all that, but your son is addicted to drugs. That's not wealthy. That's not really been rich, isn't it? Your son is in captivity, the son of your loins, the son of your love. I don't call that prosperity. But why is it our family suffer, our loved ones suffer? Not because God is angry with us today, but because we have shut the door of our lips. There's not intercession for them.
You know, you cannot watch over your children 24/7. I repeat, you cannot watch over your children all the time. But the Lord can. Do you know that you're trying to get them to do something outwardly that they are not inclined to inwardly? And even when they obey you outwardly, it is not real because it's not inwardly. But when you pray, God can create a revelation on the inside, amen. You can pray and light will come on them. The menorah, the lamp will be turned on, and they will see. Can I have a good amen?
So, let's follow the story. We'll close with this, coming to this now. Are y'all being helped? That's why Jude says building up, I love the word "up". Have you noticed that when you pray in tongues, you are building yourself up. For building yourselves up, praying in the Holy Spirit, building yourself. It didn't say build your pneuma, your spirit, but build yourself, your entire self up praying in the Holy Spirit. You can build yourself up above stress, above worry, above anxiety. Pray in the Spirit.
"Pastor Prince, I tried before, leh". Oh, yeah? "Yeah, I tried the whole afternoon praying in tongues". Wah, you persevered, huh? The door open for a while, you go inside, you look in, nothing happening, you go outside. You close the door again. Let's see how many days it took for them to clean out the uncleanness, shall we? I'm not saying the exact days. I'm not saying you must do the exact this, although I did try it when God first gave me this revelation, I tried exactly the same days, okay, but that's me.
Okay, look at this. So, the priest went in. Based on the instruction of the King Hezekiah, the priest went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, the Holy of Holies, to cleanse it, and every unclean thing which they found in the temple of the Lord, they brought out to the court of the house of the Lord. Then the Levites received it to carry out to the Kidron Valley. So, they took it. They went in all the Holy of Holies, took all the filth out, amen.
For us, we have a lot of prejudices, bitterness, wrong believing and not only that, panic attacks, and fears, and worries, and evil imaginations. Evil imagination is so real for people with depression. All they can see in their future is like, you know, a bad prognosis, you know, you won't live to see your future. They might even see their own funeral. They might see their husband marrying another woman. They might see their wife marry another man. They might see their, you know a lot of, a person who's depressed, see all kinds of wrong, you know, wrong channel. It's real.
Never make fun or take light someone who tells you, take lightly someone who tells you they are suffering from depression. Point them to God's heavenly weapon, hmm? They brought it up, all the filth, all the panic attacks. For us, it's all these things, okay? Plus the cause of the disease, all the things that the brain facts, you know, talk about, all those things being brought out. Then they reached the Holy Place. It took a few days, isn't it? How many days it took? They brought it out.
Okay, verse 17. "Now they began the consecration on the first day of the first month and on the", what day? Eighth day of the month they came, or they entered the porch, again the porch. Put that somewhere, the porch of the Lord. Then they consecrated the house of the Lord in eight days, and finished on the sixteenth day of the first month. After they cleaned out all the debris and uncleanness, in eight days, they came back to the door, to the porch, right, and then they consecrate another eight days, the entire temple, 16 days all together.
So, when God showed me this, when he first showed me this many years ago in the early 2000, I actually prayed for eight days. And on the eighth day, I asked myself, any changes? Nothing. Dry mouth, heavy tongue, but something happened. That was the year that we faced SARS. And we went through it in our church by the grace of God because one of the things that people don't do is to congregate where there are a lot of people in an aircon closed environment, remember that?
After that, next thing I know, next few years, bang, the ministry opened, bang, the doors opened to international ministry, bang, I was doing books, bang, you know, I was on television. Like I said before, you can be on television doesn't mean that it will take. Only God. But I was praying for the future without even knowing it, and I was preparing myself. I was being built up from a person who is nervous about studying in front of my class, to someone who could, God could use. Thank you for the one amen. I appreciate. Came in there. Okay, praise the Lord. Lord, bless this sister, Lord. Thank you, Lord. At least somebody love me, amen.
So, in eight days, something happened. So, it's not the feeling, it's not the feeling, okay people? But all of a sudden, you feel that the first thing God deals with is your stress, worry, fear, and anxiety long before he deals with your condition. All I can say is that when I look back, my goodness, I couldn't have gone through all that and did all that without it stressing me out. But today, thank God literally I don't feel though the weight, and the burden, and the responsibility of raising money for this building and other things because I've learned to pray in the Spirit and let go, all right? I'm not perfect, you can ask my wife, amen? But I need to be reminded as much as you that this is a weapon from God. Can I have a good amen?
Okay, let me help you again one more time. Okay, perhaps God is using my words to bless many. Okay, one amen down there somewhere, okay. praise God. I'll give you third time, third time, all right? Third time, okay? Do you love me, Peter? Okay, never mind, all right. So, sixty days, so please don't get hung up with eight days, okay? Eight is the number of new beginning. In other words, they started with a door. They came, they went in, it takes time to clear out the debris. First day, second day, third day, if they check their bodies, it's the same. They check their circumstance, still the same, all right? It takes a few days.
Now, you know, we all want instant thing. Many of us say, "Speak to the mountain with a God kind of faith and don't doubt and it will happen". Yes, but there are people who find it's hard for them to speak to the mountain. God is so loving that God actually gave us another way to attack the mountain. Would you like to know, how would you like to know? Cut down the mountain bit by bit. Serious, and it's a new weapon. What do you think it is? Isaiah 41, "Behold", God says, "I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth".
Now, sledge in those days in Israel is like your snow sledge. Literally, it's flat, but underneath, right, they put stones, okay, they're like four planks and underneath, they embed the stones. And what they do is that during the harvest time, they'll put the stalks of grain on the ground, and they will draw, make the cow draw the sledge over the grains, and the grains will separate the husk, the chaff, and the kernel, and separate the grain, the wheat, right, from the, from the chaff. You understand? That's how they do it. God says, "I'm gonna make you a new", say, "new" sharp threshing sledge with sharp teeth.
Now, the word "teeth" here is very interesting. It is the word, "peh phiyyoth", peh phiyyoth is literally in the Hebrew, you can check it out, it's literally two-edged mouth, two mouth literally. It's used only one other time in Psalms where it says, "Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged peh phiyyoth, two-edged sword in their hand". So, when you pray in tongues, all right, it's literally a double-edged sword, and God says it's a new instrument that came on the day of Pentecost, right, right?
Watch this. Back to Isaiah 41, now you will thresh the mountains, that's your disease, your debt, mountain of debt. Hopefully it's not your mother-in-law but, you know, challenges in relationship, whatever. "You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills like chaff. You shall winnow them". You know, winnow in those days, they go up to a higher elevation, a mountain whatever, and they have this winnowing fork. What they do is that they take the stalks of grain and they throw it in the air and the strong wind will separate again the chaff from the wheat because the chaff is very light, the wheat will fall, amen? They will fall down, and the chaff will be blown away.
So, God says at the end you're praying in tongues, your problem is still there the first day, second day, a few weeks even, it's still there, but you're cutting it down. And one day you look at it and it's gone. All you gotta do... it's gone. That's what it says. "You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them. You shall rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One of Israel". Amazing. I've never heard anyone preach this as praying in tongues. This came to me many years ago and the Lord says to me, it's praying in tongues. I never really pay attention but one day when I studied that in the Hebrew, the word "teeth" is actually double mouth, then I saw it. There's another way to attack the mountain, pray in the Spirit every day, amen.
Okay, go back to Hezekiah, we're gonna close Hezekiah's story. They entered the porch of the Lord, they finished it on the 16th day of the first month. Remember I told you about focus on the porch. Now see the porch. The porch, the Solomon's temple, show them a picture of Solomon's temple. Okay, this model in the Holy Land model is a small model. You can still see it in Israel today at the time of Jesus. Now, where Solomon's porch? There it is, first of all, Eastern Gate. Can you see the Eastern Gate? That's the Eastern Gate, Solomon porch is all around.
Okay, Solomon's porch all around. Can you see that? It's a colonnade. Can see the pillars, that's where the rabbi's would teach. That's where Jesus would teach and all that. Okay, so it's all around, but watch this. Listen carefully. When the Babylonians came in later, and they destroyed the temple, they burned down, they raised the temple down, okay. What happened was that the only part of the temple that was left is the front part, Solomon's porch. That's the only part that's left, Eastern Gate. And during the time of Jesus, which is after the Babylonians Jesus came, Jesus walked on this porch in John 10.
Now it was the Feast of Hanukkah Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, where? In Solomon's porch. The only place that he's standing. Why Solomon's porch? All miracles happen in Solomon's porch. I wish I can share more on this, but because of time, I'm gonna let you go. I won't be expanding on John 10. John 10 is where you'll find the thief comes not but to steal, kill, and destroy.
By the way, listen, Jesus cursed the fig tree, remember? Then he taught on the God kind of faith speaking to the mountain to be removed. Remember that? What did Jesus do after that, right after he cursed the fig tree? He went into Jerusalem. What did he do there? He cleansed the temple. Remember the thieves and the robbers, he called them thieves? He drove them out of the precincts of the temple, and he says that, "My house is a house of prayer". And then, don't forget, he cursed the fig tree. After he cleansed the temple, he came out and guess what happened. Peter calling to remembrance says, "Look at the fig tree, it's dried up". Then Jesus taught them about the God kind of faith.
I submit to you, when you speak to your disease, when you speak to your condition, right, you might not see immediate result. Keep on praying in the Spirit, amen? And then you come back to this again, you find we don't know how long, it's up to God, but the manifestation will be there, amen? "You have made my house a den of thieves. My house is a house of prayer". Are you with me so far? Once you clean everything and you pray in the Spirit, and all a sudden you come it will affect your mental realm, your soulish realm, your emotional realm, your body will be the last part to touch, right? Am I right? And yet, the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, right? Are you listening? You look for your disease, your mountain, and all sudden, the symptom might be smaller already. It gets lesser, then one day you look for it, it's gone. You didn't realize it was so light.
Last two verses, we close. Solomon's porch, go to Acts. Remember the guy who was lame at the Gate Beautiful? There are scholars who believe that the Gate Beautiful is the Eastern Gate, the one that's sealed. Okay, look at this. "Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John. All the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon's". Greatly amazed. So, I submit to you that the Eastern Gate, show them the Eastern Gate again. The Eastern Gate is sealed, and that's Solomon's porch.
So, I submit to you that the Gate Beautiful, some scholars believe is the Eastern Gate. So, the lame man was, and it stands to reason that the only part that's standing is this part here. And last verse Acts 5, the place of miracles. "And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people, and they were all with one accord", where? In Solomon's porch. It seems like God is saying, right, when you pray in the Spirit and you come back out, you will come to the porch and that's when miracles happen. The door is open, remember the doors of the porch where they first opened, right, for King Hezekiah?
"Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them. Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people, and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all", let's all say it together. "And they were all healed". How many? And they were all healed.
I believe as we pray in the Spirit, we'll come to the place where all will be healed, not only that, signs and wonders will happen in Solomon's porch. Not only that, amen, respect will come back to the ministry and multitudes of souls will be saved.
I close with this little story, true story. All right, I mentioned to you just now about the experiment. I'll close with this experiment, another experiment. This was done in ORU, Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma many years ago. Dr. Carl Peterson, by the way, the earliest study if you're looking it up later on, just put up "speaking in tongues medical study", okay? You see 3.5 million hits on that story. You see pictures of the doctor and all that, and some of the experiments they used. But this one is another experiment, and I'll close with this.
Dr. Carl Peterson of ORU is a brain specialist in Oral Roberts University. And he studied people with, who are praying in tongues, but this time it's not the blood flow. He studied the effects of what is released in the brain. In other words, the chemical secretions like epinephrine and all that, right? But you know what he found when people are praying in tongues? Dr. Carl Peterson found that two chemical secretions were released in the brain, and these two chemical secretions, listen, comes from a part of the brain that has no other apparent use.
I told you people are still discovering about the brain, right? Guess what. These two chemical secretions give the immune system a boost, and I memorize this statistic because for years I memorized it, 35% to 40%, a boost for your immune system of 35% to 40%. Who can give you a boost for your immune system of 35% to 40%? They say that even you have tumor in your body or cancer or whatever, that someone who has the same disease as you and they're alive today after 20 years, after ten years and all that, why? Immune system stronger, right? Other people had SARS. They didn't die, immune system, amen.
I believe that God did not give you a gift that is useless like some of these denominational preachers would say. God didn't give you a gift that is that you can have it, you don't have to have it. If it came on the day of Pentecost and it's a gift that proclaimed the wonderful works of God, trust me, you will see the wonderful works of God. Give him praise, hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus.
Now stand to your feet. Those of you who are here, you have never received Jesus as your Savior and Lord, I want to pray for you right now, okay? So, put your trust in Jesus. Christ bore our sins, and believe on him and you shall be saved and your house. Say this after me if that is you.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for the gift of your Son who was crucified for my sins, who was raised from the dead for my justification. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. Christ came to save sinners. I am a sinner. And today, I'm saved. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. Thank you, Father. I'm no longer a sinner. I'm a new creation. I'm a child of God, greatly blessed, deeply loved. In Jesus's name.
God bless you, lift your hands all across this place. The Lord bless you and the Lord keep you this coming week, you and your loved ones. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and grant to you and yours his wonderful shalom wholeness and peace. In Jesus's name, amen. Don't ever let it stop. Don't ever let it stop. Amen, God bless you.