Joseph Prince - Change Your Words, Change Your Life

This excerpt is from: Speak Life Not Death (25 Jul 2021)

One time, Jesus was passing by a fig tree and the Bible says this fig tree gave an appearance like there were early first fruits, figs, but there was none. So Jesus came to it. It only had leaves and Jesus cursed the fig tree. Now, He has a purpose for cursing the fig tree. So He went into the temple. That's when He cleared the temple from the money changers and all the corruption that was going on and then when He came back, Peter, calling to remembrance what Jesus did, said: "Hey Master, look! The fig tree that you cursed is withered away". Now that tells us that the moment Jesus cursed it, it still looked green. It was after Jesus spent a number of hours in the temple, when He came back, alright? Then Peter said: "Look Lord! The fig tree that You cursed is withered away". It became dry. It's now like it's all brown and it's dead.

Then Jesus taught them a lesson on faith. Jesus says: "Have the faith of God". Literally in the Greek, it is not: "Have faith in God". Like in your King James Bible, it's actually: "Have the God-kind of faith. Have the faith of God". See, God is a faith God. God did not create by seeing first and then He created. No, God does not need to see. God spoke and then He saw. God saw darkness and God said: "'Light be!' And He saw the light and it was good". We are created in the image of God. Faith operates like this: You speak it and you will see it. So believe what God says, in your heart and then speak it with your mouth. You must speak it. Knowing all these things in your heart is not enough, you must speak it out! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord. If you believe that healing is your portion, it belongs to you and healing has been given to you through Jesus’ work at the cross. Amen. "By His stripe you are healed". Say it! Say it: "By His stripe, I am healed". Praise the Lord. "I have the mind of Christ".

The mind of Christ has perfect recall, of every memory that's needed. "I have the mind of Christ"! Confess it. Don't say: "My mind is getting… I’m getting forgetful. I'm getting old". Now friend, be careful with that. Because Jesus taught them how to have the faith of God. By saying this: "Whoever shall say unto the mountain, ‘be thou removed.’" Now, say to the mountains. With your mouth. "Whoever shall say unto the mountain, ‘be thou removed and be thrown into the sea’ and will not doubt". Where? "in your heart". So we have the mouth and the heart again. It's that simple! Believe and speak! "Does not doubt in his heart, he will have whatever he says". Hallelujah! He'll have whatever he says. So believe in your heart and speak it with your mouth. Friend, this is crucial because in Proverbs 18:21, it says: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit".

Once again, death and life are in the power of the tongue so think about it. God gave man a power that man is not even aware of. When He first created him and God had to bring him to all the animals and God brought the animals rather to him, one by one, to see what Adam would call them. One by one. And whatever Adam called them, that's their name but if you study carefully in the Hebrew, whatever Adam called them, that is their nature, that is their name, which means that's their nature. That's what they became. So God was teaching Adam the power is in your mouth. Amen. Because God told man to have dominion over the earth so imagine there were big dinosaurs in those days. Huge mammoths and all that. I don't think Adam was controlling them or having dominion over them with a small stick. No, Adam would just speak to them and they obeyed. God made Adam sovereign over all the creatures of the earth. Praise the Lord. Until man fell.

Now, so man ruled by the words of his mouth. So the Bible says: "Where the word of a king is, there is power". But how are we using our words today? Especially now that we are born again, that power is restored so much more! We tend to lean more towards death. And I think it's the devil who has programmed death into the human language. Regardless of whether it is the Chinese language, whether it's English, we say things like: "Si ah, si ah". Translated as: "Die, die". That's how we say things. We will say: "That tickles me to death". Or: "I am dying for that piece of cake". Think about it. If you're dying for the piece of cake, I was telling Justin, my son, the other day: "You think about it". I was teaching him not to say death or dying words. I said that: "If you're dying for the piece of cake, you can't eat the cake. You're dying, okay"? You should say: "I’m living"! Actually, it makes more sense.

I know it doesn't sound right but it makes more sense. "I'm living for the piece of cake. Pastor Prince, it is just an expression". That's what the devil wants you to think. He has programmed that into the language, that man is speaking more death in their vocabulary, more than life. And do you know what's happening? They don't realize that they are sabotaging themselves because the Bible says: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue". Have you noticed that the moment Adam sinned, when Adam sinned, okay? He died. Now it took 930 years for that to take effect but at that moment, his spirit died so he was in the process of dying, okay? But this is what God said to them when they sinned. "In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread. Till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken. Dust you are and to dust you shall return. For dust you are and to dust you shall return".

Look at Adam's reaction! The moment God says: "Dust you are and to dust you shall return". The Bible says: "And Adam called his wife's name Eve". "Havvah" in Hebrew. "Because she was the mother of all living". God just said: "Dust you are and to dust you shall return". I believe right after Adam heard that, he turned to his wife and said: "Your name is Life-giver, Living"! Amen. Actually the word there is Life-giver. "Your name is Life and not only Life, Life-giver". There's a compounding of words there. And what is interesting is this word "havvah". Which is Eve in English. In Hebrew, "havvah" comes from the etymology that literally says: "Declare life! Proclaim life"! Adam knew the sentence of death has been pronounced on both of them but he loved his wife. He turned to her straight away and said: "But you'll be the mother of all living. You name will be ‘havvah’. You'll be living, not dying. And you will be imparting and proclaiming life". Amen.

I believe to all the children, to all the descendants. Hallelujah! Adam learned the secret. That's why it took a long time for him to die physically. The devil cannot program that just yet. Adam was too conscious of the power he had. God just trained him just now. I mean I said just now, but you know, some time before that. How to name all the animals. Amen. God taught him: "Whatever you name, that will be the name of the animal and the nature of the animal". So Adam realized his power. as he named them one by one, all the species of animals. He realized the power is in his mouth. So when he saw a woman, he says: "Whoa, man"! You know why? Woman is taken from man so when he saw a woman, he said: "Woah, man. This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh". He realized that whatever he called woman, and that is what she will be. You see, you might say: "Pastor Prince, he's just naming her that's all". But friend, in the Bible, names have significance with God and if you think about it, God didn’t call Eve, "Eve". God called both Adam and Eve "Adam".

Let me show that to you. In Genesis 5:2, "Male and female created he them. and blessed them, and called their name Adam". He called both of them their name Adam. "Male and female called their name Adam in the day when they were created". So God called both husband and wife "Adam". It was Adam who called his wife "Living" and "Life-giver". Hallelujah! So both of them learned to put death at bay even though they were sentenced already and it's going to happen, okay? And we know, of course, a thousand years with the Lord is like one day. And we can talk about that But in essence, what they were doing was that they were practicing speaking life to each other, speaking life over their children, speaking life! And of course, we know that death has come in so they will die one day and it went on but I believe there's something to this, about the fact that he named her "havvah". Which comes from the etymology "havah", which is to proclaim or declare life. Praise the Lord!

So friend, what are you doing with your words? What are you doing with your words? Are you speaking life over yourself? Are you speaking life over your spouse? Are you speaking life over your children? Are you ministering health to them? Are you ministering healing? Praise the Lord. Or are you speaking death all the time over them? Criticizing them. It's also death, you know? When Jesus talked about the cursing of the fig tree, notice that Jesus didn't go to the fig tree and say: "I curse you". He didn't say: "I curse you, fig tree". He said: "No man eat fruit from you hereafter for ever". That's all. You see, it's a negative statement. "No man eat food from you hereafter for ever". And sometimes we say to our spouse or our children: "You are forever careless. You are forever untidy".

We say something akin to that. "You're forever jumping the gun. You're always critical. You are this, you are…" Saying forever means you're always. "You're always like this. You're always like that". And that is tantamount to a curse. Because Peter says it's a curse. So friend, instead of that, let's reverse that and speak blessings. Amen. Speak positive words! You can even speak to a tree, a plant. If you speak positive words. We have some plants in our house and Justin is learning to speak blessings over the plants and he's seeing the plants grow. You can try this experiment. Amen. Just have a small potted plant and start cursing it, another potted plant, start blessing it every day. See what happens in one month's time. Hallelujah! So you speak words and words have power because there's a power. The power is from God. And it's supposed to be for life not for death.