These are notes on the sermon, The Prayer That Repairs Your Body, preached by Pastor Joseph Prince on Sunday, 10 September 2017, at The Star Performing Arts Centre, Singapore. We hope these sermon notes will be an encouragement to you!
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We are living in increasingly dangerous times. For this reason, we need to know the blessings and promises of Psalm 91 because in Christ we can be protected.
Another way that we can keep ourselves safe is through prayer. We should not just focus on what is happening around us but instead, pray for ourselves and for our families.
We do not know what the future holds, but God does. God knows everything from the beginning to the end and He has given us a powerful prayer language called tongues.
“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
— Acts 2:1–4 NKJV
“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come” — This is referring to the day of Pentecost under the new covenant (on Mount Zion) when God gave the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues to the church. Also, on this day, Peter preached and 3,000 people were saved.
In contrast, on the first Pentecost that took place on Mount Sinai, God gave the Ten Commandments and 3,000 people died.
The law kills, but the Spirit gives life. There is nothing wrong with the law. The law is from God and is holy and righteous but the law cannot make anyone righteous. The law cannot bless anyone, sanctify anyone, or make anyone holy.
There are people who believe that they can become holy by trying to keep the law. But the law was designed to show our imperfections and our need for Jesus (see Rom. 5:20). Some of us commit sins outwardly while some do so inwardly, so we cannot compare our sins among ourselves. We can only compare to God’s holy standard, and when we do, we realize we all fall short.
Yet God loves us all.
And because He loves us, He gave us Jesus. Jesus paid for the forgiveness for our sins and make us the righteousness of God in Christ (see 2 Cor. 5:21).
It was a heavy price for the Father to offer His Son, but He did it because He loved us.
We see the extent of how much God loves us from this verse:
“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.”
— Isaiah 53:10 NKJV
“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him” — We know that God loves His Son very much (see Matt. 3:17 and Matt. 17:5), yet it “pleased” Him to crush His Son. Why did it please God to crush His beloved Son?
Some time back, Pastor Prince caught a glimpse of the meaning of this verse when he had to carry his then 3-year-old daughter Jessica plus heavy shopping bags from a mall to his car. Jessica had fallen asleep in his arm and they still had quite a distance before they reached the car. He shared how his arm started to ache and grow numb, but how he endured the discomfort because he did not want to wake her up. In that way, it pleased him to “crush” his arm for his daughter’s sake. It was his love for Jessica that made him bear the pain.
Similarly, God bruised His beloved Son and endured the pain of crushing His Son because of His love for us. We cannot learn this from religion. You learn the magnitude of God’s love for you from the gospels.
The reason God gave the law is that God knew that man can be so proud that we do not even think we are sinners or we are “that bad” because we compare ourselves to others whom we think have committed worse sins.
But all of us are sinners who broke the Ten Commandments. If not in our deeds, then in our hearts and minds. But even though when we have sinned, God loves us. He loves us at our worst and gave us His Son to die for us while we were yet sinners.
Under the new covenant when God gave the Spirit and the gift of tongues, the emphasis is no longer on how bad man is but how good God is.
“Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
— Acts 2:11 NKJV
You are proclaiming how despite your failures and sins, God will run to where you are. You are declaring how God takes great lengths to save you, to love you, to bless you. You are professing all about the loveliness, the beauties, the glories, and the excellencies of our God.
Tongues is a grace gift that God has given you to help you in the areas of stress, anxiety, worry, panic attacks, physical trouble, and even chronic illness and disease.
Tongues is a weapon from God, an instrument made in heaven, that has many benefits.
One of the benefits is that when you pray in tongues, you are praying powerful prayers for your future and your children’s future.
You are not only praying for good things, but you are also praying against all the evil plans of the enemy. This can be much more restful than praying in a known tongue (e.g. English).
If you pray in English and the Holy Spirit gives you a vision that the enemy’s plan is for your child to experience an accident in the coming week, you will pray immediately for your child’s protection. But you will not just pray, you will also probably stop your child from even leaving the house in the days ahead. Why? Because even though you know you prayed for your child’s protection, you are still afraid and worried.
On the other hand, when you pray in tongues, you don’t know what you are praying for and what evil you are praying against. You are simply happily going about your daily activities and praying in tongues, you are covering your child in prayer and praying against the accident unknowingly. And God takes care of it.
When you pray in tongues, you are praying for your future and your children’s future without the added stress of knowing what could have happened.
Pastor Prince shares that if he had known many years ago that God was going to give him this international ministry, he would have been very afraid. He also shares that the ministry that he has today is a result of him praying in tongues many years back.
So when we pray in the Spirit, we are praying beyond the boundaries and the limitations of our knowledge. Pray for the future and especially when fear about the future comes.
God is able to reach into the future and touch it because God is timeless and is not restricted by time and space.
Praying in tongues builds up your body and sets you free from stress, worry, fear, anxiety, panic attacks and you will experience victory in your life. You can be freed from addictions, and you can even be freed from physical infirmities.
So don’t allow people to tell you that the gift of tongues is not from God. There are many schools of thought but we need to go back to the Bible and see what God’s Word says about praying in tongues.
“For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.”
— 1 Corinthians 14:2–3 KJV
“he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God” — When you speak in tongues, you are speaking to God directly, in His language.
“And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues;”
— Mark 16:17 NKJV
“they will speak with new tongues” — Jesus Himself said that those who believe (in Him) will speak in tongues.
“He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.”
— 1 Corinthians 14:4 NKJV
The word “edifies” is made of two Latin words, “aedis” and “ficare.” “Aedis” is actually a house or a building. “Ficare” means to build or construct. When you put them together, “edifies” means “to construct or to repair, to build a house.”
The Greek word “edifies” is the word “oikodomeo,” and it also has a similar meaning which is “to build a house, to erect a building.”
Our body is the temple of God.
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”
— 1 Corinthians 6:19 NKJV
The word “temple” is referring to the Holy of Holies. Your body is the Holy of Holies, the holy place of God and God wants His temple beautiful, clean, and holy.
God wants your body healed, made whole, and complete.
“He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.”
— 1 Corinthians 14:4 NKJV
Every time you pray in tongues, you are building every part of your body. This is an important revelation because when you pray in tongues, health is springing forth in your body. So don’t give up on praying in tongues. Keep praying and building your body up with health and wholeness.
Whenever you pray in tongues, your spirit prays but it is your body that is being built, constructed, and repaired. God’s way to restore and repair your body is much much better than what the world has to offer.
In the law it is written:
“With men of other tongues and other lips
I will speak to this people;
And yet, for all that, they will not hear Me,”
says the Lord.”
— 1 Corinthians 14:21 NKJV
Unfortunately, not everyone will see this benefit of health in their lives because they will not “hear” the Lord when it comes to praying in tongues.
In 1 Corinthians 14:21, the Apostle Paul quotes from Isaiah 28:11–12.
“For with stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
To whom He said, “This is the rest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,”
And, “This is the refreshing”;
Yet they would not hear.”
— Isaiah 28:11–12 NKJV
“stammering lips and another tongue” — This line establishes that this verse is about praying in tongues.
“rest” — The word “rest” is “menuwchah” in Hebrew (which is where “manuka” in “manuka honey” comes from). When we pray in tongues we come to a place of rest. We will find a place to rest when we are weary and tired because of all the bad news in the world.
The verb for “menuwchah” is “noach” which is the same Hebrew word for “Noah.” “Noah” or “noach” means “rest.”
The first time grace was mentioned in the Bible, it was in Genesis 6:8 and it says, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” In other words, “rest” finds grace in the eyes of the Lord.
God loves it when you rest. When you rest, you are saying, “God, I am trusting You. God, I am not depending on my self-effort, but I am depending on You.” God loves it. That is why rest finds grace in the eyes of the Lord.
“Menuwchah” is also used to refer to the promised land for the believer today. When the children of Israel did not want to believe God when He promised them a land flowing with milk and honey, it broke God’s heart and so He said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest” (see Ps. 95:11).
“rest” — The word “rest” in Psalm 95:11 is also the word “menuwchah.”
Rest is our promised land, our portion in Christ. The Bible says, “let us labour therefore to enter into that rest” (see Heb. 4:11 KJV). Sometimes when we pray in tongues and we do not see results, praying in tongues can feel like a “labor.”
When you pray and do not see your breakthrough just yet, do not give up. Because before you are delivered from that disease or depression, before you can break free from that addiction, God has to deal with the fears, the anxieties, the stress, and the wrong believing that are causing those things in the first place.
As you pray in tongues, the Lord is dealing with all those destructive things from the inside out.
In the times we are living in, stress is a real problem. People are stressed because of all that is happening around the world, all that we watch on the news.
We need to make sure that we are built up on the inside, that we have strength on the inside so that we do not get depressed on the outside.
Pastor Prince shares a study by the Society for Neuroscience which shows that when we are stressed, our bodies release 2 hormones that have adverse effects on our bodies over a long period of time. Some of the effects are memory impairment, lower immunity, hypertension, high blood pressure, hardening of arteries, sleep loss, etc.
The conclusion of this study is that stress negatively affects our health in many ways.
Today, the devil is trying to wear you out and stress you out. Don’t fight supernatural forces with natural means. There are medications you can take for anxiety and we thank God for that. But when we are dealing with the devil, we need supernatural means.
That’s why God has given us a weapon from heaven: praying in the Spirit (tongues).
It was only after Jesus rose from the dead that the gift of tongues was given.
This is why tongues is a grace gift (not of your own effort).
Pastor Prince shares a study done by Dr. Andrew Newberg from the University of Pennsylvania. He conducted a study of people praying in tongues and found that when they prayed in tongues, the usual language centers of their brains were not utilized.
The Bible says, “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays” (see 1 Corinthians 14:14).
Pastor Prince shares a testimony of a brother from our church who prayed in tongues and found freedom from severe depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and other severe health conditions that medical science could not cure. Today, he is a leader in the church and his life is completely transformed.
Keep praying in tongues and find freedom from stress and worries, and see your body healed and restored.
When you start to pray in tongues, it may begin like a little trickle of water (you can only say a few syllables) but keep praying and it will become a rivulet, then a river, then a torrential flow, and finally a waterfall.
When you first start praying in the Spirit, the Spirit is not battling the problem you have (the panic attack, the depression, the addiction, and your physical disease) because before it battles your problems, it is first battling your fears. It is clearing out the stress, worries, and anxieties from your heart and mind.
Before God does something on the outside (physical and tangible healing), He wants to do something on the inside.
Pastor Prince illustrates this further through the example of the temple of God during Hezekiah’s reign.
“In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the LORD and repaired them.”
— 2 Chronicles 29:3 NASB
The very first thing the young king Hezekiah did was to open the door his father (King Ahaz) had shut. King Ahaz had shut the door because during his reign, he and the people were doing all kinds of abominable things in the holy of holies in the temple of God. They brought all kinds of defilements, filth, and uncleanness into the temple. And King Ahaz shut the door and locked all the filth inside.
Remember we saw earlier that our body is a temple of God. So the temple in Hezekiah’s story is a picture of you and I. We’ve got so much baggage (stress, worry, fear, anxiety, disease, and sickness) on the inside.
In the Bible, sickness and disease are also called “uncleanness.” And this is why when Jesus touched the leper, He didn’t say, “Be healed.” Instead, Jesus said, “Be clean.” And we know that the man was healed from leprosy (Matt. 8:1–3).
And in the Old Testament, the method to cleanse was to use water. When Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit coming, He calls the Holy Spirit, “rivers of living water” (see John 7:38). He is called “living” because wherever He goes, there will be life. When we pray in tongues, we are allowing the Holy Spirit to freely flow in our lives.
King Hezekiah opened the door his father had shut. You can only remove the filth in the temple when you open the door.
If our body is the temple of God, which part of our body is the door? The mouth.
“Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door of my lips.”
— Psalm 141:3 NKJV
“the door of my lips” — The door in the temple refers to our mouths.
To take the first step out of our addictions, fear, worries, and uncleanness (disease), we need to open the door (our mouth).
“They have also shut the doors of the porch and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.”
— 2 Chronicles 29:7 NASB
“shut the doors of the porch and put out the lamps” — The moment you shut the door (close your mouth and stop praying in the Spirit), your lamp goes out. Lamp (light) speaks of revelation, so when your lamp goes out, it means you will not have any revelation.
“have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings” — Incense and offerings speak of praise and worship to God. When you shut the door (close your mouth and stop praying in the Spirit), there is no more worship to God.
“Therefore the wrath of the LORD was against Judah and Jerusalem, and He has made them an object of terror, of horror, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes. For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.”
— 2 Chronicles 29:8–9 NASB
“the wrath of the LORD was against Judah and Jerusalem” — These verses do not apply to us. Today, God is not angry with His people. And He will never be angry with His people because of Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross. We are not under law. We are under grace in Christ Jesus.
“Our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this” — If you have a loved one that is suffering today, it is not because God is angry and punishing you. We have shut the door of our lips, we are not opening our doors and praying for them and making intercession for them.
We cannot watch over our children and loved ones all the time. We cannot change our children with our own means and ways. But when you pray for them, God will cause His light to come on them and give them the revelation they need to turnaround.
How long did it take for King Hezekiah and the Levites to see victory?
“So the priests went in to the inner part of the house of the LORD to cleanse it, and every unclean thing which they found in the temple of the LORD they brought out to the court of the house of the LORD. Then the Levites received it to carry out to the Kidron valley.
— 2 Chronicles 29:16 NASB
“every unclean thing” — This represents our prejudices, bitterness, wrong believing, fears, panic attacks, and evil imaginations. Evil imaginations are very real for people with depression. They cannot see good in their future and always have negative, pessimistic thoughts. Never make fun or make light of someone who tells you they are suffering from depression. Point them to God’s heavenly weapon.
So the priests brought out everything unclean and the next verse tells us how long that process took:
“Now they began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they entered the porch of the LORD. Then they consecrated the house of the LORD in eight days, and finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.”
— 2 Chronicles 29:17 NASB
They took 16 days to clean out the temple.
Even when you do not see immediate and instant results, persist in praying in the Spirit. You are praying for your future and you will see supernatural results.
Some people find it hard to have the faith to speak to their mountains (challenges). God has given us a special way to attack our mountains.
“Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth;
You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small,
And make the hills like chaff.
You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away,
And the whirlwind shall scatter them;
You shall rejoice in the LORD,
And glory in the Holy One of Israel.”
— Isaiah 41:15–16 NKJV
“Threshing sledge” — A rectangular wooden plank designed to separate the grain from the chaff.
“Teeth” — The Hebrew word for “teeth” is “piyphiyah” and it means “two-edged mouth.” When you pray in tongues, you are using a double-edged sword against your mountain (your problem). This is the new weapon that God gave on the day of Pentecost (2,000 years ago).
“You shall thresh the mountains” — You will defeat your mountain (whatever challenges you are facing right now) by praying in the Spirit.
“You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away” — Another way to separate the grain and the chaff is to throw the grain into the air and allow the strong wind to separate the chaff and wheat.
When you are praying in tongues, it might seem like your problem remains even after some time. But every time you pray in tongues, you are cutting away at your mountain and making it smaller, so small that the wind can blow it away.
—
The porch of the temple is significant.
“Now they began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they entered the porch of the LORD. Then they consecrated the house of the LORD in eight days, and finished on the sixteenth day of the first month.”
— 2 Chronicles 29:17 NASB
The porch here is the same porch that Jesus walked in. During Jesus’ time, the Babylonians had burned down Solomon’s temple and the only part left was the porch. Many of the miracles that Jesus performed happened on Solomon’s porch.
“Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.”
— John 10:22–23 NKJV
In Mark 11:12–24, we see that Jesus cursed a fig tree, went into the temple and cleansed it (chased out the money changers), then came out and saw that the fig tree had withered. Then Jesus taught His disciples about faith. What happened in the space between cursing the fig tree and seeing it withered is that Jesus cleansed the temple.
Jesus cleansing the temple is a picture of praying in tongues. When you don’t see the results you're praying for or declaring in your life, keep on praying in the Spirit. Then you'll come out and see the miracle.
Solomon’s porch is mentioned again in the early church:
“Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed.”
— Acts 3:11 NKJV
This healing miracle of the lame man took place at the Eastern Gate which is where Solomon’s porch is.
Another mention of miracles that take took place in Solomon’s porch is:
“And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s Porch.”
— Acts 5:12 NKJV
After you open the door of the temple (praying in tongues), when you come back out to Solomon’s porch, that is where you will experience your miracles, your breakthroughs.
As we continue to pray in the Spirit, we will come to a place where we will be healed and the church will experience signs and wonders.
Pastor Prince ends by sharing a study done by Oral Roberts University which found that when you pray in tongues, you boost your immune system by 35–40 percent.
God gave us the gift of tongues that not only proclaims the wonderful works of God but causes you to see the wonderful works of God in your life.
The Lord bless you and the Lord keep you this coming week, you and your loved ones. The Lord make His face to shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance on you and grant to you and yours His wonderful shalom wholeness and peace, in Jesus' name. Amen.
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 2017
These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.
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