These are notes on the sermon, Provision In The Place Of Nearness, preached by Pastor Joseph Prince on Sunday, July 28, 2024, at The Star Performing Arts Centre, Singapore. We hope these sermon notes will be an encouragement to you!
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Pastor Prince begins by sharing that there is a special anointing on all the areas of worship this year. And for believers under his ministry and teachings, there’s a personal direction as well.
When we spend time in the Word, God speaks to us.
Whether it’s a marital situation, a problem with your young children or teenagers, a challenge in your health or finances, you can go to the Word of God and ask Him to speak to you. Now, He might not speak to you directly about what you’re going through, but what He says to you, listen carefully.
We may not know what’s really happening in our situations or what the right solutions or answers are, but the entrance of God’s words gives light. And in God’s light, we see light. It is like when you turn on the light in a room, besides the set of car keys you were looking for, you will also find other things, e.g. that lost pair of glasses or other things you might have misplaced.
This illumination also happens during worship. As you worship God, light shafts from heaven start shining into your mind, reaching into the areas of darkness in your mind. Now, these areas are always there, as long as we are in this world. These are the areas that cause us to worry, be anxious, to wake up in the middle of the night with fearful thoughts.
Even if you attend a good church and are under good pastors and good teaching, you can still experience this darkness that blocks the truths that you’ve been taught from mentally dropping in as a revelation that will set you free. But you don’t have to fight these areas of darkness. Just bring in the light of God. His light will illuminate these areas of darkness!
So every time you come to God’s house, go to God’s Word, or worship the Lord, you want that light from God to come in. As you do so, the Lord will reveal more and more to you. You will see world events in a new light. You will see the signs of the times, God’s plan for men, and the coming of the Lord as it draws near.
Even on a personal level, you will understand human nature more, that we’re not perfect and that we need the Lord, and learn to see people with compassion. And if you’re dealing with an issue at home, a complicated situation, God’s light can shine from a sermon you’re listening to. You may be inspired to do something different and not respond in the same way you did because the old way wasn’t working. The light comes in, and all of a sudden, you are able to implement a new course of action that brings prosperous results!
The Bible tells us to glory, not in our own understanding and knowledge, but in knowing Him (Jer. 9:24). That is the greatest knowledge of all. And it is this knowledge, this light, that will cause you to see everything in a new light and to handle things in a new way. My friend, when light comes in, darkness goes out!
Our God is an awesome God. His love for us is true and pure. He knows everything about you and about me, yet He loves us still. For believers, He forgave us of all our sins and made us righteous through Christ’s perfect, finished, redemptive work at the cross. And He did all this without obliging us to repay Him in any way.
God’s whole purpose of redeeming us and making us righteous is so that we can come to Him, be in His presence and talk to Him freely. Very often, words are not even necessary as we can just sit and wait on Him. When you do that, time is never wasted because you are in the timelessness zone, where God can reach into your past and reverse what’s been stolen, accelerate the manifestation of His blessings in your life, and impart His supernatural strength to you.
As you wait upon the Lord, as you look to Him, admiring and worshiping Him, all of a sudden, you’ll find your strength being renewed and yourself sprouting wings like eagles.
Here, the Hebrew word used for “strength” refers to physical strength as well, while “renew” means “to change, substitute, alter, change for better, renew.” What this all tells us is that as our natural strength grows old, waxes, and wanes, we can exchange our human strength for divine strength! In fact, we have an example in Moses, as the Bible says that when he died at 120, his eyesight was not dim, nor his natural force diminished (Deut. 34:7). He was evergreen, even in old age.
The laws of nature tell us that when we’re at a certain age, it’s natural to have more problems. We sleep lesser, we are more forgetful, we have more problems with our hearts, we run lesser, we walk lesser . . .
But we are not in the realm of nature anymore. When you are in the presence of the Lord, you are in the timeless zone where the laws of nature no longer apply.
In the realm of nature, first you walk, then you run, then you fly. That’s the natural order, but look carefully at Isaiah 40:31: In the supernatural realm, first you fly, then you run, and then you walk. So renewing your strength will cause you to go against the laws of nature!
Pastor Prince shared how meditating on this verse while he was undergoing basic military training in national service helped him to overcome his tiredness during a particularly strenuous training session. In this incident, he and his fellow trainees had to run many rounds around the parade square while the instructor kept yelling at them.
All the trainees, including Pastor Prince, were exhausted and on the verge of collapsing, when all of a sudden, Isaiah 40:31 came to Pastor’s mind and he began to meditate on it. After a while, Pastor seemed to receive a fresh injection of strength and did not feel tired at all. He recalled even feeling a little disappointed when the instructor called an end to the run because he could still continue on!
As we wait on the Lord, we too can receive this same blessing and provision that Moses had and that Pastor Prince experienced. Isaiah 40:31 says, “They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” My friend, the important point is not that we do any running or walking, but that we are not weary when we run, and that we shall not faint when we walk. The preceding verse also tells us that as we continue to wait on the Lord, we can even surpass the young people, for “the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall” (Isa. 40:30)!
Through the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis, we have the clearest picture of our Lord Jesus in the Old Testament and what He is doing in these last days.
Parallels between Joseph and our Lord Jesus:
On their second trip to ask for bread, Joseph’s brothers brought along their youngest, Benjamin. He had not joined them on their first trip to Egypt. When Joseph saw Benjamin, his first words were, “God be gracious to you, my son” (Gen. 43:29).
What this tells us is that God is waiting for a Benjamin generation and he will appear just before our Lord Jesus returns in His second appearance to Israel. And grace marks this Benjamin generation of believers.
Joseph then hosted his brothers to a meal and Benjamin’s serving was five times as much as any of theirs. When it was time for the brothers to leave, Joseph also gave Benjamin five times more clothes.
Doesn’t this remind you of Jesus on the Mount of Beatitudes where He said for us not to worry what we will eat or what we will wear for our heavenly Father knows that we need all these things (Matt. 6:25–32)?
Today, we are the Benjamin Generation who get to receive five times more provision from our heavenly Father! Now, the other brothers still got food, and to their satisfaction, but Benjamin got five times more. That is just the Lord’s way of lavishly providing for us!
When it came time for Joseph’s brothers to return to their father, Israel, Joseph told them to bring their father and their entire family to Egypt, where he would take care of them.
Here in Genesis 45, it was a time of famine. There had been two years of famine, and according to Joseph’s prophecy, there were still five more years to go.
Joseph comforts them and tells them not to be angry with themselves for selling him to Egypt as it was part of God’s plan to preserve their lives in the time of famine. Here, you can also see a picture of God’s redemption plan for mankind. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son who died on the cross to preserve lives, not just in the nation of Israel, but also in the entire world.
In his position as second only to Pharaoh in the land of Egypt, Joseph was able to resettle his entire family in Egypt, in the land of Goshen which in Hebrew means “drawing near” or “nearness,” and to provide for them.
Beloved, God’s heart is always to have you near to Him, just like how we would like to have our loved ones close to us. And there, in that place of nearness, our heavenly Father will provide for us and our households!
When we draw close to our Father, in that place of nearness, He has ample provisions prepared for us, even in times of famine. Through the story of Joseph, we can see that the Benjamin or end-time generation will have five times more food and five times more clothing. And this is not just in the natural. Clothing in the Bible speaks of anointing, so we can look forward to five times more anointing.
In this verse, our Lord says He has come to give “beauty for ashes,” “the oil of joy for mourning,” and “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”
In the old days, people would put ash on their faces when they were in mourning. But God says He will give them beauty instead, making beautiful the things that are unpleasant and ugly.
And then there is the oil of joy for mourning. Notice that the joy is in oil. This is because mourning is based on dryness. Proverbs 17:22 says: “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” The medical term for bones being brittle or dry is osteoporosis, but the Bible tells us that it’s because of a “broken spirit.”
What is natural is temporal, but what is supernatural is eternal. So, we need to dig a bit deeper to find out what causes the spirit to be broken, which then causes the bones to be dry. In Proverbs 15:13, we learn that “a merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.”
The enemy wants to bring sorrow to break people’s spirits. In Pastor Prince’s previous sermon, he shared how our Lord Jesus became a Man of sorrows for us when He took all our griefs and pains at the cross, and how He was actually someone whom God the Father had anointed with the oil of gladness, above His fellows (to find out more, please read Freedom From The Spirit Of Depression).
Our Lord wants us filled with His joy. He told His disciples in the upper room, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). It’s an anointing to desire when you feel oppressed or just downcast.
The third thing in Isaiah 61:3 is “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” The spirit of heaviness is what came on King Saul in 1 Samuel 16:23, and it is this same spirit that makes people want to end their lives. Suicidal thoughts and depression, much of these are caused by spirits.
So, what’s the spiritual answer to this problem?
The garment of praise. Being in an atmosphere of worship and praise drives out evil spirits. So start being joyful. If you feel a heaviness coming on, start praising the Lord. You cannot have both a garment of praise and a spirit of heaviness on you. This means that when you put on the garment of praise and give thanks to the Lord, it lifts the spirit of heaviness off you.
The Bible also tells us, “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:18–19). By singing and praising, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and no other spirit can enter.
We all want to be happy, but on this side of heaven, happiness can be elusive. And it is often dependent on our outward circumstances: we are happy when things happen the way we want them to. The upside is, even though we cannot always be happy, we can still have joy regardless of what we go through, because joy is a gift our Lord Jesus has paid for us to receive. And the Bible tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10)!
So, the whole purpose of being the righteousness of God in Christ is to be near to the Father. But do you know that you are already very near, at His right hand?
So it is important that you don’t try or work to be near. When you attempt to try to be near to God, it is an act of unbelief because you are denying the truth that you are already near to Him, and it will cause you to be frustrated and to fall from grace.
Wherever you are, at home, in your car, on the way to work, when you feel like talking to God, just talk to Him and see yourself close to Him. You are in Christ, right at the Father’s right hand.
Understanding this will revolutionize your prayer life and your worship.
Going back to the story of Joseph, we see Joseph telling his brothers to tell their father “of all [his] glory in Egypt.” So, in essence, worship is telling the Father all about His Son’s beauties and excellencies. This is also what lies behind the peace offering, the bringing of a lamb without blemish to be sacrificed, as well as the fragrance and spices in the Old Testament offerings. These are all pictures of His Son, our Lord Jesus. Our heavenly Father is pleased when you present His Son to Him. He loves it when He is reminded of Jesus.
Worship is different from praise. Praise is when we thank the Lord for His blessings or a breakthrough He has given us, for example, praising and thanking the Lord for healing you or doing something nice for your family. The Bible tells us that we “enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” (Ps. 100:4).
Worship is a deeper experience that God wants us all to enjoy. It brings us right into the Holy of Holies where God’s presence is, and where it is perfectly quiet. It is not about the singing or the words we speak. Sometimes, this time spent in the Lord’s presence can even be wordless.
Worship is about being occupied with Christ, about beholding how wonderful, how lovely He is, seeing His attributes, seeing Him in His grace, love, and mercy, seeing Him in His righteousness, His awesome glory, and having your heart overflow as you behold Him.
The more you spend time in worship, in His presence, the more you will experience His love for you afresh, and receive His blessings and provisions for your life!
We hope these sermon notes blessed you! If they did, we encourage you to get the sermon and allow the Lord to speak to you personally as you watch or listen to it.
© Copyright JosephPrince.com 2024
These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.
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