Jeremiah 15:16, this is what it says: "Thy words were found and I
did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my
heart." The first thing, your first assignment is not to look at the
Word of God and say: "What must I do?" Alright, that's the law
mentality. The first thing you do with God's Word is you eat it! It
is for eating, it is for eating! If you ask the Lord, alright: "Why is
it that people are rebellious, people are bound by addictions,
people are enslaved to certain habits, and they can't break free?
Why are people depressed? Why are so many people depressed today?"
Right? Do you know what the Lord will say? "They are hungry." So
many of you are hungry, but you're not feeding yourself with true
bread. So you pass by, you think you need something from the fridge.
You open up the fridge. You feel like you need to eat something, you
feel hungry. You don't realise that it is a spiritual hunger because
you've not been feeding on the Word. So you take out something to
eat. Now, after a while, you still feel hungry. So you eat somemore.
Or "I will watch TV. Yes, I think this is good. I will watch this
drama. I will watch this movie, I will watch this...Alright, it will
feed me." For a while, your mind is stimulated, no doubt. Right? You
are stimulated but after you finish everything, you still feel like
there's an emptiness. Like: "What is it I really want? I think I need
to watch somemore." You know, it's not the answer!
The next day, you have raccoon eyes, you know, or panda eyes, and
things like that. Because it doesn't feed. So the Bible says in
Isaiah: "Why spend your labor for that which does not satisfy?" Now,
all these things, eating and all that and watching, you know, I
mean, it all has its' place. I'm not knocking them. They are not
sins. It's not a sin to eat. I'm just saying realise that you are
hungry. And you might say: "Pastor Prince, I think I'm hungry for more
of social media. I feel that the more I read, I think I feel
better." No you won't. You'll feel empty. You'll feel more depressed.
You're hungry, and you're hungry for true bread. You're hungry. The
Bible says in Isaiah: "Why labor for that which does not satisfy?"
Amen, so you're hungry! You're not depressed, you're hungry! You're
not, you're not actually a rebellious person, amen. You are
fighting something because you are hungry. Have you noticed that
people who are hungry physically can be very bad-tempered? Wives,
have you noticed that? Sometimes your husband is not angry with you.
He's not angry. He is hungry. Ah, look at your husband, smile and
say: "Amen." Have you experienced that? Or it's just me? It's just
me. Come on. I see Pastor Lawrence putting up his hand. One honest
man, that's one honest man. The Lord loves it. The Lord loves
honesty. Amen. Amen. So many of you need to repent. Amen.
So a hungry man can be a very angry man. Right? But the anger is not
actually his problem. His problem is a deeper problem. He's hungry.
The enemy always attacks your food. The Bible says when Gideon was
threshing wheat, he was threshing wheat in a place called the vine
press. Now that's not the usual place that you thresh wheat.
Threshing wheat is like studying the Word of God, the Word of God is
wheat, right? Bread of life. So it's threshing wheat to eat. Right?
But he was doing it at night to hide from who? The Midianites, the
Midianites have come in. And everytime there's a harvest, the
Jewish people have a harvest, they will come and rob them of their
harvest. So they're staying in the mountains and whenever the harvest
is there, they come and rob them of the harvest. So Gideon does it
quietly so that he has a secret harvest, and a secret threshing,
and a secret reaping, right? That he wants to have secret eating as
well, but God called him forth. God calls those who are studying the
Word, amen, to feed others.
Some of David's mighty men became mighty men. They marked themselves
as mighty men when they refused to let the enemy take their harvest.
They would stand in the middle of a patch of a field of harvest like
lentils, alright? And they will stand there with a sword and they
are outnumbered by their enemies. But the Bible says: "The sword will
cleave to their hand." And the sword is a picture of God's Word.
And they will fight. They said: "This is my harvest. You ain't
taking it." Alright, there's no way. I sowed it. Alright, I grew
it. I watered it. And where were you? You want to come and take the
food? No way. I'm gonna stand here and stand my ground. And the Bible
says: "Stand therefore. Stand for your food." Amen. Don't let
anything rob you of that time that you spend in the Word of God. Amen.
Whether in the morning, you're sitting on the toilet bowl or—like
I told you, it's a good time. Some of you: "Oh, you know, I feel so
irreverent." No, you're just being religious. Because I'd rather you
do that than not do that and spend the whole day not in the Word. So
if you have a Bible there, Bible everywhere. Amen. Commercial time.
Look at the Bible. Spend time in the Word, even a little piece of
it, like a little crumb can bring healing. Can I have a good amen?
So, here God says: "There's food, not just drink." There is food.
Right? By the way, Jeremiah was saying that the first thing you do
is to eat and what happens you're what was to me the joy, you always
were found in I ate them. That's your first response for eat the
Word of God. And number two, it becomes a joy and rejoicing of your
heart. So eat it until there's a joy and rejoicing springing up. And
there's a joy! I'm telling you, it is like—that joy heals by the way,
that joy heals your body. The joy of the Lord is my strength. It is
not just spiritual strength there. If you read it carefully, it's
strength, spirit, soul and body. So the joy of the Lord. So how do you
get the joy of the Lord? Thy words were found, and what do I do? I ate
them. When Jesus says: "I'm the bread of life." What do you do with
bread? You eat it. You don't just admire it or else He will say: "I'm
the portrait of life." Right? But He says bread. He says He's the
water of life—a fountain. Amen. He is the bread of life. What do you
do with bread? You eat!
And because it is called: "I am the bread of life." You receive life.
You see, everyday we leak, we leak life. You know the things that we
do, the things that we watch, the things that we hear, causes us to
leak life. You know, I thought our life is intact. Once you get life,
you get life. No, everyday you're losing life. Ask the doctors. They
will tell you, it is shown by—death has set in, that means what?
Where there's no life, that part there is death. So different parts
of your body when you leak life, right? Death comes in. They call it
ageing, they call it whatever which means reduction of life, but you
can receive more life. Jesus says: "I am come that you might have life
and have it more abundantly!" Can I have a good amen? So praise the
Lord, give Him praise! Amen. It's true. He wants you to have this
life more abundant. And if you look, there's also food in the
land.
Remember I shared about the land and the Bible? It is a land of
wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey.
In my last sermon, I broke this down to show you the Word of God
and how rich it is a land wherein you shall eat bread without
scarceness. You shall not lack anything in it. A land whose stones
are iron and out of whose hills you may dig brass or copper here, in
the Hebrew, alright? So it's a rich land. Amen. It's a rich land. It
has different vistas, different facets, and every part of it is a
blessing. So sometimes you go—for the Lord your God brings you. So
it's a land that you go into. So there are times you take a verse,
you meditate on it until it gives you it's iron and it's precious
metals. Amen. Gold, silver is there as well. The Bible says: "More to
be desired is the Word of God than gold." Amen. But as you study God's
Word, you find that there are times you are eating pomegranate, there
are times you're eating figs. God has variety. God is a God of
variety, the many-fold grace of God. Even grace has many folds.
You know, God gave you a tongue. You will never know the different
tastes. If God gives you one tongue with one taste, you won't complain.
You don't know. You don't know! You only have one taste! Imagine rice
is the same. Alright? You eat beef and it is the same. Right? You have
your pickles, it is the same. All the taste is just one taste. But
God gave us a tongue with many tastes.
And recently they discovered there's even one more taste called
"umami" hidden somewhere. Amen. Umami. Right? I'm sure there's
somewhere else. I prophesy to you if they study somemore, there'll be
another one called "Udaddy." Oh that one is—Pastor Prince, you're
so corny. Amen. If there's an Umami, they must be an Udaddy
somewhere, you know? Alright. So there are things that, and they say
that our brains, we only use 10% of our brains. Right? Amen. Have you
met people that you don't even think is 10%. Don't look at your
neighbour now. Amen. Alright. I mean, scientists tell us that we
only use 10% of our brain. So I believe that the other 9, right?
Where is it missing? The Bible promises the gifts of the Holy
Spirit. Exactly 9. Amen. It comes when you are filled with the Holy
Spirit. It can maximize your mind. So it is, it covers every area and
figs is for certain—by the way do you know figs are very sweet right?
Just want to let you know something about figs. Figs are very sweet but
it does not spike your blood sugar.
It does not! In fact, it is said that even people with high blood
sugar and all that, they can actually eat figs! Amen, don't
google it now. Go home and you know, and so it's amazing the land,
whatever God promised down there is good for the taste as well as for
health. Amen. If you're a man, and you want to be fruitful, "He that
has ears to hear..." Alright, the pomegranate is very good for you.
That's why it has a lot of seeds. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself
already. Okay, that's just free. Okay, that's free. Amen. Look at
the pomegranate and ask yourself, why is it full of seeds and all
that. I believe it is going to be helping you. That's all I can say.
"He that has ears to hear, let him hear." Amen.
Okay, so that's a promise. Now that is microscopic. Sometimes we study
the Bible, we study the Bible up close. Alright, like a microscope.
And sometimes we study the Bible like a telescope.
Here we look at Moses. His last stand on Mount Nebo, just before he
passed on to be with the Lord. Right? He's standing at Mount Nebo
and he looks into the promised land. In Deuteronomy 34. Then Moses
went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah.
Many of you had been there. Let me see your hands up if you have been
there. In Jordan, where Moses last stand was, let me see your hands.
Yeah, you bless you, man. You saw that the view? You are seeing the
same view where Moses was. Somewhere there he stood at Pisgah,
Mount Nebo. And then he looked into Israel. So today, of course, it is
on the side of Jordan. Okay, the country of Jordan. But at one time,
it is all one. Right? And they looked down, he looked down into
the promised land. And here, it says that: "And the Lord showed him
all the land of Gilead, as far as Dan." So he looked far, he looked
like this, okay? I'm looking at the promised land. This is Jordan. I'm
looking at the promised land. So he started like this. He looked at
Dan. As far as Dan, then he looked at Neftali, which is the area of
Galilee, the Sea of Galilee. Right? Now he could have looked straight
away, upfront. Do you know what is upfront? Jericho, the nearest. The
city of Jericho, the area of the Jordan Valley. But he didn't. He
looked far. Alright? So this is a picture of the overview of the
land. Sometimes when you read the Bible, you read the Bible. You
don't feel like reading like microscopic or meditating on one
verse, alright? You want to just do general reading.
Like you read the book of Ruth, it can be done in one sitting. It is a
very romantic book. Amen. It is a beautiful story of a young bride.
In fact, not only a young bride, usually a woman who has been
married before, it's not so much, it does not stand as much an
opportunity as someone who has not been married before. She's been
married before. And in that day and age, when your husband dies before
you and all that, they could have seen you as a person who brings a
curse. Right? But then she followed her mother-in-law, to a land that
is foreign to her, and ended up marrying the most eligible
bachelor.
And together they became the great grandfather of David. And from
David came our Lord Jesus. Imagine if they didn't meet. And she
doesn't belong there actually, like the Syrophoenician woman of Tyre.
She's a Gentile. But she was included in the genealogy of our
Lord Jesus. Isn't that a beautiful story? Amen. You can read in one
sitting. So it's like a panoramic view, amen, a panoramic view.
Sometimes you just feel like reading. And what the panoramic
view does is that it washes you. Alright you say: "Well, Pastor
Prince, when I read the Bible, I really don't understand a lot of
things." Keep on reading and enjoying it. And I tell you this—a
lot of people who start reading novels, even children, when they
start reading books and all that, there are parts they don't
understand. But just enjoy what you do understand. Alright?
There was a man who was a devout Christian, and he wanted his son to
learn about the importance of studying the Bible, reading the
Bible. He was a farmer. He told his son, and they had a stream nearby
their farm. He told his son to take a basket, alright a basket, and go
collect some water. The son looked at him kind of strange, right? He
was about, the son was about seven, eight years old. And he was trying
to impress on his son because his son told him: "When I read the
Bible, I don't understand. I don't understand." So he said: "Tell you
what, go get the water." So the son went, scooped the water, came
back..." Of course, the water dripped out. I mean, it came out of
the ratten basket. Then the son said: "Dad, it's all gone." "Go get
some more water." He went and came back again and the water all left,
you know and there was nothing left. He said: "Dad, it is
useless!" You cannot take water in this. "You see, son, how clean that
basket is right now. Even though it cannot hold water, you don't
understand the Bible, nevermind. Keep on reading because it washes
you."
It washes you. It has a washing, purifying effect. It has a healing
effect. Same thing. If you're honest. You say: "I don't want to
read anything I don't understand." If you're honest, because we talked
about reading as eating God's Word? Apply that to your eating. Do you
understand every food in its' components that you eat every day?
Oh yes, over here we have Vitamin E in this little bean here. And this
chicken rice here, alright, has this—you know, do you go down all
that or do you just enjoy? When you approach God's Word, have the same
approach. Don't try to understand its' components and all that. Just
enjoy. And many a times, God will speak to you directly from
something that happened in the past. Are you with me so far? Is
this helping you?