Destined to Reign (10 page)

Beloved, you must eradicate this idea that forgiveness of sins is a basic teaching. Think about it: If it is really basic, why is it that so many believers miss it and are defeated by their lack of understanding?

The power of the gospel is to live each waking moment having the confidence that all your sins have been forgiven. Contrast this with living with a perpetual sense of guilt and condemnation that comes with thinking that when you sin, fellowship with God is broken, He no longer answers your prayers, He is far away from you, and until you repent and confess all your sins, the Holy Spirit will not return. Many Christians still have this impression that the onus is on them to keep God’s forgiveness by their own doing. So how can forgiveness of sins be a
basic
teaching? There are too many believers and even pastors, preachers and leaders, many with wonderful titles and Bible school credentials, who are still confused about the teaching of forgiveness.

The best way to understand the gospel, therefore, is not to base it on what you have heard from various sources, but to go back to what the apostles preached in the early church. Let’s examine what Apostle Paul, the apostle of the new covenant, preached. After all, Paul was the apostle whom God appointed to preach the gospel of grace. He received more revelation on the new covenant of grace than all the other apostles put together, and was responsible for writing more than two-thirds of the New Testament.

Paul’s Preaching Was Full Of Power

Acts 14:8–10

8
And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who had never walked.
9
This man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed,
10
said with a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet!” And he leaped and walked.

Observe how the Holy Spirit describes this man: One, he was without strength in his feet. Two, he was a cripple from his mother’s womb and three, he had never walked. The Holy Spirit used three different descriptions to emphasize how the man
could not walk
and was facing a (seemingly) impossible situation. Yet, when he heard Paul speaking, he was filled with faith to be healed!

How did the man come to be filled with faith?

The Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ
1
. The man at Lystra was filled with faith because he heard the word of
Christ
! I know that in most of your Bible translations, it says that faith comes by hearing “the word of
God
”. But if you study the original Greek word for “God” here, it is not
Theos
for “God”, but rather
Christos
for “Christ”
2
.

You see, faith does not come by simply hearing the word of God because the word of God would encompass everything in the Bible, including the law of Moses. There is no impartation of faith when you hear the Ten Commandments preached. Faith only comes by hearing the word of Christ. This doesn’t mean that you should only listen to preaching from the portions in your Bible that are printed in red which indicate that Jesus spoke those words. (Putting what Jesus said in the Bible in red letters is a human convention anyway.) To hear the word of Christ is to hear preaching and teaching that have been filtered through the new covenant of grace and Jesus’ finished work.

Only when Christ is preached will faith be imparted.

You
can
preach from Genesis to Revelation from the perspective of Jesus and His grace. In my church, I am known to preach and teach extensively from both the Old and the New Testaments. After all, Christ is in the Old Testament
concealed
, and in the New Testament
revealed
. In the Old Testament, you will find shadows of Christ in the five Levitical offerings, the tabernacle of Moses and even in the high priest’s garments, but it takes a new covenant minister to draw Christ out. Only when Christ is preached will faith be imparted. Hallelujah! I love talking about Jesus!

What Did Paul Preach?

Let’s get back to the man at Lystra. What could Paul have been preaching that was so powerful that it imparted such faith to this man so that he could believe for healing in his impossible situation?

“Well, Pastor Prince, I think that Paul was teaching divine healing.”

Let’s look at the passage. The Bible only says that Paul was “preaching the gospel” in Lystra
3
. It doesn’t say that he was teaching divine healing. Don’t misunderstand me. There
is
a place for teaching divine healing. I even have a whole series of teachings on divine healing. But faith for healing doesn’t come only when you hear teaching on healing. Faith for healing can also come when you are simply hearing the gospel! Anyway, I wanted to know what Paul preached at Lystra, so that I could preach the same message and impart faith to people. So I asked the Lord what Paul preached. I mean, how could the Holy Spirit leave out something so important? If only He had recorded it in the Bible!

Then, the Lord told me that He
had
recorded one of Paul’s sermons in the Bible. He told me to go to the previous chapter and showed me that right there, in Acts chapter 13, the Holy Spirit had preserved a sample of the gospel that Paul preached everywhere he went. So there it was, Paul’s sermon recorded for us by the Holy Spirit, word for word! Paul covered quite a lot of ground, but you have to see for yourself what the main thrust of Paul’s sermon was and where it climaxed:

Acts 13:38–39

38
Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man [ Jesus] is preached to you the forgiveness of sins;
39
and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

The power of the gospel that Paul preached is found in the forgiveness of all your sins for “everyone who believes”. There is no other qualification for being forgiven of your sins. The old covenant was based on justification by works (obedience to the Ten Commandments).You had to perform to be forgiven. But the new covenant of grace is based entirely on justification by faith (believing in Jesus Christ). Can you see the radical difference? The demand is no longer on you, but on Christ. This is the good news: All who
believe
in Jesus receive the forgiveness of all their sins and are justified from all things! Good news? Hallelujah! There is no better news than this!

All who believe in Jesus receive the forgiveness of all their sins and are justified from all things!

I can just imagine how the man at Lystra responded when he heard Paul proclaiming that he could be justified from all things if he only believed on Jesus. When he heard Paul preaching about the good news of Christ, faith came and filled his heart. With tears in his eyes, he must have turned away from his lame feet and rejected every thought that he had been lame from birth because he was being punished for his or his parents’ sins. Instead, he must have believed with all his heart that if he believed in Jesus Christ, he would be forgiven of all his sins. Probably choked with tears, he whispered, “I believe.” And at that very moment, he heard a loud voice saying, “Stand up straight on your feet!” It was Paul commanding him and before he had time to hesitate, he found himself leaping to his feet with joy, and for the first time in his life, he walked!

The Gospel Imparts Faith

Notice that Paul did not lay his hands on the man to heal him. There wasn’t an altar call for those who wanted healing. The faith to be healed came from just listening to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have experienced this time and again in our services. As people are sitting in the service, and hearing the gospel of grace and Jesus’ finished work being preached, healing miracles break forth! 

The more revelation you get of His finished work, the more you will receive an impartation of faith for any situation, even the seemingly impossible ones!

One of my dear friends, Marcel Gaasenbeek, shared with me about a wonderful healing miracle which took place in his car as he was driving to Romania with a few friends. Marcel is a pastor of a dynamic grace church in Holland, and on this particular day, he was on his way to Romania for a preaching engagement. He was listening to one of my sermons in his car, something that he did often.

Lulled by the monotony of the long drive, one of Marcel’s friends dozed off in the back seat. This friend had been involved in a jet-ski accident some years ago and since then, he often suffered sharp pains in his back. Somehow, through the fog of sleep, he heard me preach this: “Jesus has already healed you and the devil is the one giving you lying symptoms in your body.” He said “Amen!” in his heart, agreeing that Jesus
had already
healed him by taking his sin and bearing his curse. At that moment, he felt the power of God go through him, and today, he is completely healed! All the pain in his back is gone!

That’s the power of hearing and hearing the gospel of Jesus. That’s how faith comes! The more of Jesus you hear, the more of His grace you receive. And the more revelation you get of His finished work, the more you will receive an impartation of faith for any situation, even the seemingly impossible ones!

A Supernatural Encounter With The Chimes

In the year 2000, I preached a sermon titled,
‘Aleph-Tav’ — Jesus’ Signature In The Bible
, during one of our regular midweek Bible study meetings.
Aleph
is the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet and
tav
is the last. The message was all about the person of Jesus, and how He revealed Himself to be the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. As I was preaching, I came to the two verses in Paul’s sermon that we have just covered and I read them out loud:

Acts 13:38–39

38
Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man [ Jesus] is preached to you the
forgiveness of sins
;
39
and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

The moment I finished quoting the verses, the chimes that were on the stage behind me started to play by themselves! There was nobody near the chimes. My musicians do not sit on the stage behind me when I preach. Everyone was seated in front of me as usual.

It wasn’t just a soft tinkle. The chimes played beautifully by themselves, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, from the first to the last of the chimes. This was witnessed by more than a thousand people who were at the service. Everyone in the service could hear the crystal clear notes coming from the chimes. The anointing of God swept through the auditorium. Some people started crying, while others glorified the Lord and started clapping. It was beautiful.

It was the Lord.

Exactly at the point when I had finished reading the two verses on the forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit fell upon our congregation and hugged us. It was as if the Holy Spirit was saying a resounding “Amen” to the two verses.

Anyone who has heard the sounds can vouch that there was no way the waves of music from the chimes could have been caused by a gust of wind or some other natural cause. It was a supernatural event. God was confirming His Word with a sign. The chimes were played very deliberately. I can just imagine an angel of God running his fingers down the length of the chimes softly, before allowing His fingers to sweep through the chimes again… and again. It’s impossible for me to describe completely what had happened to you in this book. You have to hear it for yourself!

By the way, this service, like all our regular services, was captured on both audio and video recordings. If you do get hold of the recordings, you will be able to hear the chimes playing distinctly. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to see the chimes in the DVD recording, even though you will see a shot of me

turning to the chimes and asking the congregation to look at them. The cameraman was caught off-guard. He was completely stunned by this supernatural occurrence and just kept the camera focused on me.

Now, let me share with you why that night was particularly significant to me. During that time, there were some vindictive emails being circulated about our church and me. There were several false accusations by people who called me all sorts of nasty things. Unbeknown to me, many of our church members had read those poison emails and were very affected. That evening, after the service, many of them came to me and said, “You know, Pastor Prince, I came here tonight praying and asking God to show me if the accusations about you in the emails were true. I didn’t want to hear from the people who wrote the emails, or even from you. I wanted God to speak to me.”

Many of them came and shared with me what they had prayed for, and their accounts were almost identical. They had read the emails and wanted to hear from God. I was stunned! So many of my church members were asking God to speak to them, and when the chimes played so supernaturally, it was a confirmation from the Lord about the accuracy of what I had been preaching and they decided to disregard the poison emails.

Without me even knowing about the venom that was being circulated about me, the Lord had vindicated me. He is my defense. Hallelujah! Through the years, many people have written and said all kinds of horrible things about me. I have been called all kinds of names, but I have never retaliated in any way. My trust and confidence is in the Lord. I have never lifted a pen or spoken one negative word against any of my accusers. I don’t come against those who oppose me. In every situation, I just pray that it redounds to the greatest glory for Jesus and to the greatest good for the body of Christ.

Persecution Against The Gospel Of Grace

In any case, I was not unprepared for the persecution. The Lord had warned me a long time ago that there was a price for preaching the gospel that Paul preached. He told me that people would call me names and persecute me. And the persecution has indeed come. But the persecution has come mainly from people who believe in justification through the law and man’s self-efforts.