Joseph Prince - Turn Your Failures Into Blessings

You've gotta believe that God loves you. Even when things go wrong, God loves you. He cares for every detail of your life. People think that God cares for the big stuff. No, God cares for every stuff. Everything in your life matters to him. If it matters to you, it matters to him. Can I have a good amen? Now, in Luke, sorry, Luke, Leviticus, which is again, you know, we have been studying Leviticus a lot. And isn't it interesting, you know, you come back to your workplace or whatever, your friends ask you, "What did your pastor teach you"? Oh, Leviticus.

All right, those are the ones the pages are still stuck together in many Christian books, amen? But that was our theme for this year from Leviticus. God says if a man sin, this is what he does. There are two types of sin offerings. One is sin offering, one is trespass offering, or rightly interpreted guilt offering, asham in Hebrew, all right? So sin offering is for what you are. You know, the factor itself is bad. How many of you know that Christ, when he hung on the cross, he took our sins, what we do, our sins, but what we are is sin. Our nature is corrupted ever since Adam sinned. Do you know what I'm saying? It's corrupted, all right?

So what God did was that God put our sins on Christ our Lamb, but God crucified us so that the new nature has come into place. It's called a new creation in Christ. That doesn't mean sin is not in your body. The principle and that flesh, the Bible calls it, not your body, but the principle of sin is still there. Right now, you can still sin if you want, right now, amen. I pray you don't, but you still can. So never, never think that you are beyond sin. Can I have a good amen?

All right, but your stature, your standing before God is righteous. Just when you were a sinner, your standing was a sinner, there are times you do right things, but you're still a sinner, right? I mean, you don't do bad things all the time when you're a sinner, but you are a sinner. Even as a sinner, you do good things. How much more now you are righteous, sometimes you do bad things, which I don't encourage you to, but it doesn't change your standing. Can I have a good amen?

So I'm gonna tell you something about how to handle people that come against you, people that are bitter towards you, people who have cheated you, all right, in this law called the law of trespass offering. Now, it's not sin offering. It's now trespass offering. Trespass offering is the things that you do that are wrong. When you do something wrong, you bring the trespass offering, or the guilt offering it's called, in Hebrew asham. And every offering in Leviticus points to that one glorious work of our Lord Jesus Christ, that one great sacrifice, amen?

Leviticus 6, "Then it shall be, because he has sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore". Say restore. The year of restoration, come on, restore. It's not just for the year of restoration, this principle, all right? It's throughout the Christian life. But you need to know what to do when you find yourself in this situation. I'm gonna tell you that right now after I read through this. "That he shall restore what he has stolen".

Now, once you have sinned, you know you have sinned. You have stolen from someone and you are guilty of that. Then he lists some other things that's wrong. "That he shall restore what he has stolen, or the thing which he has extorted". Businessmen, are you listening? "Or what was delivered to him for safekeeping, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he has sworn falsely. He shall restore its full value", say its full value, "add one-fifth more", say one-fifth more, "add one-fifth more to it, and give it to whomever it belongs, on the day of his trespass offering".

So if I have cheated you, if I have robbed from you, if I've lied about something and I shortchange you, and finally I feel bad about it, I am guilty, all right, what do I do? I go to the temple, in those days. I bring the lamb, a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. You see the lamb about to appear, the ram. And what I do is that I must actually restore to you, the wronged party. I must give you the full value of what I've robbed you, amen. If I've stolen from you a cow, now I must give you back the full value of a cow, all right, plus, for a cow you will find another law saying one cow, four cows or five cows. One oxen, five oxen. One sheep stolen, four sheeps must be restored, all right?

So I must give you back the full value, not only the 100% of the money that I've robbed you of, or deprived you of, or cheated you of, or defrauded you of, I have to add one-fifth. In other words, altogether it's 120%. One-fifth is 20%, am I right? So now the wronged party has become a gainer. The wronged party has become richer. The wronged party has become more blessed than before he was robbed. Let me finish first, okay, the entire thing. Verse 6, you must see the ram. "He shall bring his trespass offering to the Lord, a ram".

So not only must you pay back, 'cause money alone cannot atone for sins. "Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins". So you must find a ram without blemish. You know, when the Lord Jesus appeared, he was without blemish. And when he came as a man, he demonstrated to us... why did he come, to show off his power? No, he came to take our place. So there's a beautiful psalm that Jesus himself quoted. You know, there are many psalms called messianic psalms and you find them being quoted in the New Testament.

Now, there's one in John 15:25. These are the word of Jesus, but Jesus said, "This happened". Why the Jews hate him? Why the Pharisees and all these people that came, he came bringing blessings from heaven, so to speak, and they rejected the Lord. And Jesus says, "This happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.'" They hated me without a cause. So it's quoting from the Psalms.

Now, let's go to the Psalms, shall we? All right, Psalm 69, "They that hate me without a cause". That's exactly what Jesus quoted. This is where it's taken from. "They hate me without a cause". Can you see that? But drop down to this part. "Then I restored that which I took not away. I restored that which I took not away". In other words, Jesus did not defraud anyone. Jesus did not steal from anyone. Jesus did not do anyone wrong. He never lied about anyone. But he took our place of doing someone wrong. Not only that, Jesus would be the one liable and responsible. In other words, he took the place of the perpetrator. "I restored that which I took not away". So with that in mind, let's go back to Leviticus 6, okay?

Now, we are the one that wronged. Go back to the earlier verses. Who is gonna be the one to restore the full value and add one-fifth more? You think you can repay the full value? Come on, back in those days, can you imagine? The cow is dead, and the guy is poor. How in the world, even if he pay monetary terms to compensate in terms of monetary, how can he do it? So God wants to show man, man cannot. The whole idea of the law, even in Leviticus, is to point to Jesus Christ. And I have proof to tell you that even in Emmaus Road after Jesus rose from the dead, the way Jesus taught the Bible is to expound things in the law, in the prophets, things concerning himself.

So what you need to do, let's say you have sinned, is to come to the Father. I'm gonna illustrate right now. You come to the Father, and you say, "Father, you know, I just messed up". Now, how many of you know that we don't want to mess up? I said we don't want to mess up, but we messed up. Okay, I've messed up, Father, and there's this constant feeling of that something bad will happen to my family, something bad will happen to me, something bad will happen to my business, something bad will happen, And it's just part and parcel of the nature, the conscience that man has, a fearful expectation of evil.

So he prays, "Father". This is what you do, "Father, I present Christ to you as my trespass offering". And because Christ is my trespass offering, Christ has restored to you more glory, more honor, more praise than what I've robbed you of through my sins. And not only that, Christ has restored to me because he restored that which he took not away. He took the place of me, I sinned, but he took the place of the perpetrator, which means now he restores to me. Remember, he was made my sin, and I was made his righteousness. So it's like he is the one who did wrong, when we all know he didn't, but because of the way God has designed it, I'm now his righteousness. He restores to me 120% more whatever I've lost.

If you feel the devil is shouting at you, "Now you've lost your healing in that area of your body. You've been asking God for that healing. It's gone because of your sin", say, "Father, I thank you Christ has restored to me 120% more healing for my leg". Now you got 120% more, wow, amen. It turns the whole thing around and glorifies the one who redeemed you. Come on. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing, church? Now, can you understand? I wanna bring you into my world. And I was telling Asti, who prepares the verses, I said that it's nice for them once in a while, like I did the last time, for you all to see my Bible. I told you I study from the Old King James, right?

All right, I'm gonna show you my Bible, okay? And sometimes it's easier to let the Bible, we are so modern and everything we see is up there, and sometimes you don't value your own Bible, and you're wondering that I have another Bible than your Bible. My Bible is like your Bible. By the way, I just showed you the first part just now. If you are the one sinning, Christ took your place and you take his place of righteousness, so now Christ restores. But how 'bout the person who was done wrong?

So let's say you have been done wrong. You've been done wrong, right? You've been accused of. You've been charged falsely or you have been cheated. Money has gone, all right? You've been deceived. The normal person, the average person, the person of the world will feel bitter, angry, feel passed by, feel poisonous. But a child of God should do this... Same thing, now it's not you sinning. It's not you, all right? Now it is you who have been sinned against. The trespass offering still applies. Father, I've been cheated, Father, but I'm not gonna fight with my own effort. I'm gonna trust you because Christ is my trespass offering. Christ said he will restore that which he took not away. I lost one cow. Thank you, Father, Christ will restore to me 120% more cows.

All right, the 120% is just an expression, because I'm using Bible language. In other words, you get more, you know? In Exodus 22, "If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox, four sheep for a sheep". It's better to lose, you know? And now you stand in a different place than before you lost anything. Do you understand that, people? Ooh! Go back to my Bible. Romans 5, okay, look at the backdrop. The last few verses, I'm gonna show you the context. Sometimes it doesn't come across, you know, when you put it on the screen, but like this is does. "Moreover the law entered". The Bible says the law entered, that the offense might abound. Chew on that. "But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound".

Can you understand that is the thing that the people accused Paul of in Romans 6, verse 1? "Shall we continue to sin that grace may abound"? It's in reference to the context, "Where sin abounded". Paul did say by the Spirit, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more". I say again, and by the way, in the Greek there are two different words for abound, okay? Where sin increased. Increased you can count. Grace superabounded, you can't count. There's more grace than sin if you believe in grace. That's why the devil attacks grace so much. It's the only antidote to sin, amen? Okay, one more passage from my Bible, okay? Matthew 1, four women mentioned. Two Gentiles. Who is it? Rahab and Ruth in verse 5. Both are Gentiles, non-Jews. Two Jews, Tamar and Bathsheba, though her name is not mentioned, okay?

Now, how come these women, they have dark backgrounds? Or for example, even though there's one of them virtuous, she's the only one the Bible calls virtuous. That's Ruth. But Ruth is under the ban, under the curse in Deuteronomy 23 where it says, "No Moabite or Ammonite will enter the congregation of the Lord until the tenth generation".

So there's a curse on her race, because that race pursued God's people when they came out of Egypt. So there was a curse on her line, but she was a virtuous woman. Nonetheless, the curse would have kept her out if God went strictly by the law, okay? Tamar, who is she? Tamar was a woman who married the son of Judah. Judah is one of the 12 sons of Jacob, all right? By the way, Jesus came out from the tribe of Judah, all right? So Judah had a son. He's called Er, E-R. Tamar married Er. Judah's son is called Er, E-R, Er, all right? And Er was a wicked man, the Bible says. The Bible says he's a wicked man, God slew him, he died.

So now she is a widow. And then the other son is Onan, all right? Onan did something evil and tried to destroy the seed of the Messiah. He died. Now she's a widow again. And Judah probably thought this woman is jinxed or something like that. Both my sons died. So he kept his younger son, Shelah, from Tamar. Tamar devised a plan. She knew that her father-in-law, and she was growing on in years and she realized that, hey, not old yet. She still was able to conceive. And she said that, "I have no one, all right, and I want a child. I was a seed". But she did something bad, okay? She knew her father-in-law would go to a place with an Adullamite friend of his, a certain area, so she dressed like a prostitute. She went there, all right, act as a prostitute, and seduced him.

So he says, "I don't have much money with me now, but I'll come back and I'll bring a kid. All right, I'll give you a kid". And she says, "No, that's no guarantee, all right? If you want my services now, you must give me now. What cash can I have from you"? He said, "I'll give you my bracelet and my staff". And those things, by the way, the bracelet, the staff, and the signet ring are those things that are actually very precious to a man in those days. So she says, "I'll keep these like a collateral, okay? I'll keep these first and then you bring back the kid".

So after that, he went, got his kid, and went to find her. He couldn't find her anymore. He can't get back his ring and all that, so he's concerned. Three months pass, someone told him, "Your daughter-in-law, Tamar, is pregnant. How come? Her husband has died, so she's playing the harlot". So he got angry. "Bring her out here. I'm gonna burn her alive", he said. When she came out, she says, "First of all, before you do anything to me", she said, "who does this belong to"? The signet, the staff, and the bracelet. And he was stunned, it was his. Then he says that, "You did this, you are more righteous than I thought because you realized that I will not give you Shelah". And the Bible says he never had relations with her anymore, and she brought forth twins.

So it's a very dark background, isn't it? So that's Tamar. Her name is there. Wow, what is God saying? "Where sin increase, grace superabounds". And by the way, Tamar's twins from Phares... You see from Phares? Phares and Zara came from Tamar. Phares begat Esrom. So we're talking about genealogy of Jesus Christ. One of the twins, Phares, would bring forth the line that Jesus would come through. Can you see it? You see, I don't care how messed up your past is, I don't care what happened, if you turn to God as your Redeemer, you turn to God as your Savior, you turn to the Lord Jesus, he can turn all your background into a tapestry of a beautiful future. The next person is Rahab. Y'all know Rahab, right? The Bible says that she was a prostitute. She's a Gentile, a prostitute in Jericho, amen. And when the spies came in, she told the spies, "Promise me that when you come and destroy the city, you will spare me and my family".

It's an amazing thing. When they shouted, when the people of God shouted, all the walls collapsed except hers. Because her house was on the wall, so that part did not collapse. And by the way, that non-collapsed wall is still there in Jericho, which is now under the Palestinian, it's not easy to visit, but it is there. Let me bring this to a close. Ruth, I told you all the story of Ruth. I've got a whole teaching on Ruth. Ruth is a virtuous woman but under the curse, amen. So under law, Ruth will never be a great-grandmother of Jesus Christ. She will never find herself, I know she's not great-grandmother, don't think so, because it's a long ways, all right, but I'm referring to the genealogy. She will never be found in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ, okay? Are you all with me so far?

And then the last one is Bathsheba. Bathsheba was bathing under the house of David. You can argue that David was supposed to go out for the, you know, to battle the kings, but nonetheless, you know, why bathe in public? Anyway, her name is Bathsheba, so the thing is this. David had 8 wives and 20 sons. Of all the sons, God chose Bathsheba's son, Solomon. Now, someone can actually accuse God, "God, don't you think you're actually making light of sin? Don't you think you are making light of why they are accused"? But no, friend, he's magnifying his grace. God hates sin. Pastor Prince hates sin. It destroys. It destroys relationships. It destroys your health.

So God and I, we are both against sin, not to the same measure. God's measure is amazing, all right? He hates sin to the measure he loves you. I'm not there yet, but I'll tell you this. God is magnifying his grace. Of all the sons of David, of all the wives of David, God chose Solomon from Bathsheba. Now you say, "What's the big deal, Pastor Prince? They are part of the genealogy". The big deal is this. Abraham begat Isaac.

How did Abraham beget Isaac? Through Sarah. Sarah's name is not mentioned. Sarah is virtuous. Sarah is a wonderful lady. Her name is not mentioned. Isaac begat Jacob. How did Isaac beget Jacob? Rebecca. Rebecca's name is not mentioned. And Jacob begat Judah and his brethren, and he has a beautiful wife, Rachel, and Leah. Their names are not mentioned. All these virtuous women, they're names not mentioned. Only four names mentioned and all have a dark background, but for their faith. They all had aggressive faith. And by the way, God doesn't end on a four. God ends on a five, with grace. And the fifth name at the end of the genealogy is Mary, because grace came through Mary, amen? Have you been blessed? Give praise to God, hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus.