What thoughts have you been occupied with? Do you see good in your future? Or are you filled with worrisome and negative thoughts because of all that has been happening in the world? Today, God wants you to be anchored in hope, and you can find this hope in the Word of God.
Let me show you what hope,
Bible hope is like.
Bible hope is not like:
“I hope so…
I hope
it will happen.”
“I really really hope it
will happen.”
No, when you have
Bible hope, it will happen!
And God wants you to
raise your hopes.
Bible hope is the word “elpis”
in Greek for hope.
Just remember Elvis,
remove the “v”,
replace it with “p” and
you get “elpis.”
Alright.
Amen.
And it rocks.
And I tell you this:
you will never roll.
Amen.
Your burdens will roll but
you will never roll.
Amen.
Sometimes you shake.
Shake, rattle, and roll.
You can shake but the rock
you are on—never shakes.
Make sure you are planted on
Christ, the solid Rock.
Amen.
So it says, in the definition of “elpis”,
it is the positive, confident,
joyful expectation of
good in your future.
That’s how we are to live.
We are to live life with a joyful,
confident expectation of good.
Now right now, I wonder what’s your
disposition, your mental disposition?
Are you having thoughts of like:
It is going to be a good future.
I see good in my future.
Or are you filled with what
the media is saying?
And what the world—
and some of it is based on
what is happening—there is negative
news around the world.
Are those thoughts
dominating your mind?
Because this is what it looks
like with the absence of hope.
If there is no “elpis”, amen,
you wake up every day depressed.
Alright, you feel morose.
You don’t look forward to your work.
You feel more tired than usual.
Amen.
You look at your marriage,
you look at your family
and you feel tired,
you feel a sense of despondency.
In other words, depressed.
You are depressed.
Depression has different forms,
but it is the lack of hope.
Maybe if you still have a bit of
hope, you have a bit of depression.
No hope?
Complete depression.
At night, you can’t sleep.
You wake
up in between your sleep and then
you start thinking all kinds of
thoughts.
“What’s going to happen tomorrow?”
“What’s gonna happen to
this and that?”
“My children and this and that…”
“I’m now at this age, you know,
what’s going to happen now?”
You know.
“What happens if something
happens to me?”
Or “why do I have this pain?”
“Why is this pain continuing?”
That kind of thing.
So you see bleakness
in your future.
You see all kinds of
darkness in your future.
That’s not good.
There’s an absence of hope.
Where do I find hope,
Pastor Prince?
Here in Romans 15:4.
“Whatever things were written
before were written for our learning,”
“that we through the
patience and comfort of”
“the Scriptures might have” what?
“Hope.”
Every time I read the Bible,
people, I always
leave the Bible feeling
like life is good.
You see, either sin will
keep you from God’s Word
or God’s Word will
keep you from sin.
The same thing, if you find that
you are more depressed,
you are very morose.
When you think about the future,
you are dejected.
You know, it’s only darkness
you see and all that?
Most likely you’re not
spending time in the Word.
Sunday sermon is good,
but it alone is not enough.
Man does not live by
bread alone.
How often do you eat
bread or rice?
Or ramen?
Alright, or chapati?
Every day.
You don’t just come
once a week, right,
and eat your bread.
So Jesus Himself says:
“There’s no way you can live
just by bread alone,”
“but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God.”
And all the people said?
Amen.
Okay, let’s talk about
the recession.
Whether you know it or
not, the world is
going into a recession.
Okay?
How do you find hope?
You find hope—
wherever you find that the
Bible says there’s famine—
the Bible talks a
lot about famine.
We are blessed with the
blessing of Abraham.
Because you’re blessed
with the blessing of Abraham.
You see, Abraham,
definitely the person,
the original person we get
the blessing of Abraham from
is the story of Abraham.
If you’re Abraham’s seed,
then are you blessed!
You’re blessed with the
blessing of Abraham because
you are Abraham’s seed.
You are Abraham’s seed in the
sense that Christ came
from the lineage of Abraham
and God says:
“In Christ shall all
the nations be blessed.”
And if you are in Christ,
you are Abraham’s seed.
So look at Abraham.
Did he go through famine?
Yes.
Just because he is blessed
did not not mean
he will be exempted from famine.
No, he went through it!
In fact, God wants us
to go through it
to show the world what He is like!
So that the world can see
that we are not exempted,
but we thrive!
We flourish!
So every time you read
about Abraham and his son, Isaac—
Isaac is even more amazing!
The Bible says: “In the year of
famine, he sowed”
“and he reaped a hundredfold.”
So much so that the
Philistines around him,
the unbelievers envied him!
They were jealous of him!
He had a very healthy marriage.
He was in love with his wife.
Amen.
And all their wives.
Abraham’s wife—Sarah,
Isaac’s wife— Rebecca,
they were all beautiful!
Amen.
If you say: “Oh, that doesn’t
really matter…”
Then why does the Bible
tell us that?
Amen.
In other words, we got
to see our wives as beautiful,
as part of the blessing of Abraham,
amen, enjoying ourselves in Christ!
Praise the Lord.
“God has given us richly
all things to enjoy.”
Praise God.
Amen.
So you see, you find hope.
In looking at
all these patriarchs
and how they lived during famine.
What they did during famine,
seeing that the Lord blessed them.
And you are the seed of Abraham.
You have hope!
And I’ve shared this with you
that the very first way
of studying the Bible is
to see Jesus.
Right? See who?
Jesus.
Many a times, we look into
the Bible
and I did that, you know,
in my early years, to find myself.
But you can’t find yourself.
Yes, you can find yourself
in the sense that
it’s in a corporate way.
But when you find Jesus,
you find yourself.
Why? Today you are in Him.
Once you are born again,
you are in Him.
And all that He is righteous,
you are righteous.
That’s why it says:
“Christ is made unto us.”
It is in our benefit to know
who Christ is,
what He has,
what He possesses.
Praise the Lord. Amen.
We are joint heirs with Christ.
He is made unto us for our profit, you
can say it that way.
He is made unto us
wisdom, righteousness,
holiness, even holiness.
Christ is our holiness.
Joseph Prince is not his own holiness.
Christ is my holiness.
And when I believe that,
it manifests!
In my actions, in my life,
without me being aware of it.
So once you see this, you want to
see Jesus more and more.
You want to see Jesus
more and more, right?
And He is all throughout the Bible.
Like when God told Abraham:
“Take your son, your only son,
the son that you love.”
But wait a minute.
Abraham has two sons
at that time by then.
The older one was Ishmael
through a slave girl.
Right?
And the other one is
his true wife, Sarah.
Isaac.
Now God is saying:
“Take your son, your only son.”
So one thing is God’s eyes
does not recognise
what is born of the flesh.
Only what is born of the Spirit?
Number two, God was
referring to another son.
Only son sounds like
only begotten Son.
“For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son.”
Amen.
So when you read that, ahh,
and you see Jesus.
Right?
Or you can read that and say:
“Wow, God wants me to
give up my Isaac.”
“What’s my Isaac?”
“Your Isaac is that you spend
too much time watching Netflix.”
“Lay your Netflix on the
altar.”
Amen.
“Your Isaac is golf.”
“You are fixated with golf!”
“You watch everything there is
and you try your best”
“to play all the time.”
Amen.
“You neglect your family.
Put it on the altar!”
Now all these are things
that I’m not saying
it’s not things we can learn from,
but they are not
the primary purpose of
that Scripture.
It is to unveil Christ.
So God said to Abraham:
“Take your son,”
“your only son, the son that
you love, and offer him”
“on one of the mountains
I will show you of.”
And it so happens that the mountain
was where Jesus was crucified.
Jerusalem—Mount Moriah.
Do you know what’s the
highest peak of Mount Moriah?
Calvary.
And that’s why just before
Abraham plunged the knife,
God stopped him.
God didn’t want a human sacrifice anyway!
Isaac’s blood is tainted with sin,
as every man is.
God wanted to see whether
He was obedient.
So God stopped him.
God says: “Now I know
that you fear Me or love Me.”
Now I know that you worship Me.”
How?
“Because you have not withheld your
son, your only son.”
And then God
showed him a ram behind.
I believe
Abraham had a vision.
How do I know?
Because Jesus later on says
to the Pharisees:
“Abraham rejoiced to see my day.”
When was that?
Then the Pharisees said:
“You are not yet”
“50 years old and you saw
Abraham?”
They missed the point.
They said: “You saw Abraham?”
The lesser always sees the greater.
No, He says: “Abraham saw Me.”
“Abraham rejoiced to see My day.”
Then He said this:
“Before Abraham was, I AM.”
“Before Abraham was, I AM.”
Amen.
So I believe Abraham turned
and he saw Jesus on the cross.
Now, I’m gonna tell you something
about the ram caught in the thicket.
Why must the ram be caught
by the horns in a thicket?
Number one—it is a mature ram,
it is not a lamb.
It is a mature ram, male lamb.
It was caught by its’ horns
in a thicket.
Why?
Why is that important?
Because to offer God a
sacrificial lamb,
the lamb must be without blemish.
Are you listening?
If the ram is caught by it’s fur,
it will be lacerated.
It will be blemished.
But that lamb was caught
by his horns.
No ram gets caught by his horns.
They are mature.
He doesn’t just plunge
into the thicket.
He did it on purpose.
He wants to be caught.
Jesus laid down His life
voluntarily, without blemish.
The offering was without blemish.
Amen.
So when you read the whole story—
I remember years ago,
when Jessica was about
nearly two years old.
She had a viral infection
many years ago.
When I went back, I cried
because the doctors
gave her an injection, you know,
in the children’s hospital and all that,
and we brought her back
and the doctor said:
“We must bring back
for another test.”
And I say: “I don’t know
what’s the problem.”
I prayed and I did everything
I knew how.
Then God brought me—then
I went to my room,
I needed hope.
And sometimes I would just
open the Bible at random.
So it’s okay to open
your Bible at random,
at certain times.
Just know that, you know,
if you keep on opening it
and it says, you know:
“Judas hung himself.”
And then you open another
one and it says:
“Go and do thou likewise…”
Right, don’t do it.
Okay?
But it’s desperate times.
Desperate times call for
desperate measures.
“God, talk to me.”
And I opened up and it
fell on Genesis 22—
the offering of Abraham.
And I read that.
All of a sudden, I saw how much
God loved His Son.
God was saying:
“I’m going to give up my Son,”
“my only Son, the Son that I
love for you.”
Amen.
And that’s why we can say
to God today:
“Because while there was
a hand that stayed”
“Abraham from killing his son,
there was no hand that”
“stopped God that day.”
“God gave up His Son for you.”
Right?
You will never know
how much God loves you
until you know how much
God loves His Son,
because He gave up
His Son for you.
So I read that, I saw how much
God loves His son
and then all of a sudden,
I was lost in that love story.
In the whole passage and I forgot—
Jessica was still crying next door,
and I forgot about
Jessica’s affliction and all.
I went there to pray and
to search for an answer.
But I got lost in the
story of the Bible.
Now I’m going to show you
how practically seeing Jesus
can bring you practical
results in your life, even healing.
Healing that I’ve been wanting
for my daughter.
So when I saw how much
God loves me and how much
God loves His Son,
He gave up His Son.
Now we can say to God:
“Now I know that you love me,”
“because you have not withheld your
son, your only son from me.”
Amen.
Just like God said to Abraham:
“Now I know that you love Me,”
“you worship Me, because you have not
withheld your son, your only son.”
As far as God is concerned,
it was done.
Amen.
So when I saw that,
I started crying.
The love is so beautiful.
No love drama you watch
can come close.
Amen.
You see, the reason you’re married
is to demonstrate Jesus loving His Church.
“I speak a mystery.”
It’s about Christ and the
Church.
That’s why God gave you
marriage.
“Oh, marriage is like our—Jesus and
the Church is like our marriage.”
No, your marriage is like that.
You came after.
So Abraham’s story is about Father
and Son.
The first love and the word “love”
was first mentioned in the Bible
there in Genesis 22.
It is the Father’s love for the Son.
Second time is two chapters
after Genesis, chapter 22.
It is chapter 24.
It is the story of the bride
and the husband.
The bride and the husband, right,
and the word “love” is used.
That’s Jesus and His bride.
Romance.
That’s man and woman love.
Amen.
So Chapter 24 is about the Holy
Spirit, the unnamed servant
looking for a bride for the Master’s son.
And this has happened for
2000 years already.
The Holy Spirit is still
forming a bride for the Son
who is soon going to come
and take His bride home.
Amen.
It is like the Jewish custom.
The Jewish custom
didn’t come after God.
God instituted the Jewish
custom to demonstrate
His style of doing things.
In those days, once you are
betrothed, you are engaged,
you go build your house
while waiting for the time.
The Father will decide
when you get married.
That means you’re about to
get married but you don’t know when.
If the Father says:
“Today is the day, go get your bride.”
The guy will go and get his bride.
The bride might not be ready
but the bride might roughly know
it is around this time,
but she’s not ready
but she’s ready every night.
Amen.
And that’s what we are
doing right now.
We are waiting for that
to happen.
Very much like a Jewish wedding.
Anytime He will call for us.
Amen.
Whoo!
And it’s just the introduction.
So as I wept, Jessica
stopped crying next door.
And she was completely healed.
She fell asleep the next day,
she was completely well!
Just seeing Jesus.
Instead of being engrossed
in my daughter.
I was very concerned for her.
I was now pleasantly
distracted by the Lord,
to be Christ occupied,
focused on Christ.
And all of a sudden,
she got healed!
The very thing I’m focused on—
praying, demanding, commanding
healing and all that came
supernaturally natural
when I focus on Jesus.
I don’t care how bad it gets.
God will take care of you.
Just because you are His own.
Can I have a good Amen?