This excerpt is from: Speak Life Not Death (25 Jul 2021)
One time, Jesus was
passing by a fig tree
and the Bible says this fig tree
gave an appearance like
there were early first fruits,
figs, but there was none.
So Jesus came to it.
It only had leaves and
Jesus cursed the fig tree.
Now, He has a purpose for
cursing the fig tree.
So He went into the temple.
That’s when He cleared the
temple from the money changers
and all the corruption that
was going on and then
when He came back, Peter,
calling to remembrance
what Jesus did, said:
“Hey Master, look!”
“The fig tree that you cursed
is withered away.”
Now that tells us that the
moment Jesus cursed it,
it still looked green.
It was after Jesus spent
a number of hours
in the temple,
when He came back, alright?
Then Peter said: “Look Lord!”
“The fig tree that You cursed
is withered away.”
It became dry.
It’s now like it’s all brown
and it’s dead.
Then Jesus taught them
a lesson on faith.
Jesus says:
“Have the faith of God.”
Literally in the Greek,
it is not: “Have faith in God.”
Like in your King James Bible,
it’s actually: “Have the
God-kind of faith.”
“Have the faith of God.”
See, God is a faith God.
God did not create by seeing
first and then He created.
No, God does not need to see.
God spoke and then He saw.
God saw darkness
and God said: “Light be!’”
“And He saw the light
and it was good.”
We are created in
the image of God.
Faith operates like this:
You speak it and you will see it.
So believe what God says,
in your heart and then
speak it with your mouth.
You must speak it.
Knowing all these things
in your heart is not enough,
you must speak it out!
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord.
If you believe that
healing is your portion,
it belongs to you and
healing has been given to you
through Jesus’ work
at the cross. Amen.
“By His stripe you are healed.”
Say it!
Say it: “By His stripe, I
am healed.” Praise the Lord.
“I have the mind of Christ.”
The mind of Christ has
perfect recall,
of every memory that’s needed.
“I have the mind of Christ!”
Confess it.
Don’t say: “My mind is
getting…”
“I’m getting forgetful.
I’m getting old.”
Now friend,
be careful with that.
Because Jesus taught them
how to have the
faith of God.
By saying this: “Whoever shall say
unto the mountain,”
“‘be thou removed.’”
Now, say to the mountains.
With your mouth.
“Whoever shall say
unto the mountain,”
“‘be thou removed and be
thrown into the sea’”
“and will not doubt.”
Where? “in your heart.”
So we have the mouth
and the heart again.
It’s that simple!
Believe and speak!
“Does not doubt in his heart,
he will have whatever he says.”
Hallelujah!
He’ll have whatever he says.
So believe in your heart
and speak it with your mouth.
Friend, this is crucial because
in Proverbs 18:21, it says:
“Death and life are in the
power of the tongue”
“and those who love it
will eat its fruit.”
Once again, death and life
are in the power of the tongue
so think about it.
God gave man a power
that man is not even aware of.
When He first created him
and God had to bring him
to all the animals and
God brought the animals
rather to him, one by one, to
see what Adam would call them.
One by one.
And whatever Adam called them,
that’s their name but if
you study carefully
in the Hebrew,
whatever Adam called them,
that is their nature,
that is their name,
which means that’s their nature.
That’s what they became.
So God was teaching
Adam the power
is in your mouth. Amen.
Because God told man
to have dominion over the earth
so imagine there were
big dinosaurs in those days.
Huge mammoths and all that.
I don’t think Adam was
controlling them
or having dominion over them
with a small stick.
No, Adam would just
speak to them
and they obeyed.
God made Adam sovereign
over all the creatures of the earth.
Praise the Lord.
Until man fell.
Now, so man ruled by the
words of his mouth.
So the Bible says: “Where the
word of a king is, there is power.”
But how are we using
our words today?
Especially now that we are
born again,
that power is restored
so much more!
We tend to lean more
towards death.
And I think it’s the devil
who has programmed death
into the human language.
Regardless of whether it is
the Chinese language,
whether it’s English,
we say things like: “Si ah, si ah.”
Translated as: “Die, die.”
That’s how we say things.
We will say: “That
tickles me to death.”
Or: “I am dying for
that piece of cake.”
Think about it.
If you’re dying for the
piece of cake,
I was telling Justin, my son,
the other day:
“You think about it.”
I was teaching him not to
say death or dying words.
I said that: “If you’re
dying for the piece of cake,”
“you can’t eat the cake.
You’re dying, okay?”
You should say:
“I’m living!”.
Actually, it makes more sense.
I know it doesn’t sound right
but it makes more sense.
“I’m living for the piece of cake.”
“Pastor Prince, it is just
an expression.”
That’s what the devil
wants you to think.
He has programmed that
into the language,
that man is speaking
more death in their vocabulary,
more than life.
And do you know
what’s happening?
They don’t realize that
they are sabotaging themselves
because the Bible says:
“Death and life are
in the power of the tongue.”
Have you noticed that
the moment Adam sinned,
when Adam sinned, okay?
He died.
Now it took 930 years for that
to take effect but
at that moment,
his spirit died
so he was in the process
of dying, okay?
But this is what God said
to them when they sinned.
“In the sweat of your face,
you shall eat bread.”
“Till you return to the ground.
For out of it you were taken.”
“Dust you are and
to dust you shall return.”
“For dust you are and
to dust you shall return.”
Look at Adam’s reaction!
The moment God says:
“Dust you are and
to dust you shall return.”
The Bible says: “And Adam
called his wife’s name Eve.”
“Havvah” in Hebrew.
“Because she was the
mother of all living.”
God just said: “Dust you are and
to dust you shall return.”
I believe right after
Adam heard that,
he turned to his wife and said:
“Your name is Life-giver, Living!”
Amen.
Actually the word there
is Life-giver.
“Your name is Life and
not only Life, Life-giver.”
There’s a compounding
of words there.
And what is interesting is
this word “havvah.”
Which is Eve
in English.
In Hebrew, “havvah” comes from
the etymology that literally says:
“Declare life! Proclaim life!”
Adam knew the sentence of death
has been pronounced on
both of them but he
loved his wife.
He turned to her
straight away and said:
“But you’ll be the mother
of all living.”
“You name will be ‘havvah’.
You’ll be living, not dying.”
“And you will be imparting
and proclaiming life.” Amen.
I believe to all the children,
to all the descendants.
Hallelujah!
Adam learned the secret.
That’s why it took a long time
for him to die physically.
The devil cannot program
that just yet.
Adam was too conscious
of the power he had.
God just trained him just now.
I mean I said just now,
but you know,
some time before that.
How to name all the animals.
Amen.
God taught him: “Whatever you
name, that will be the”
“name of the animal
and the nature of the animal.”
So Adam realized his power.
as he named them one by one,
all the species of animals.
He realized the power
is in his mouth.
So when he saw a woman,
he says: “Whoa, man!”
You know why?
Woman is taken from man
so when he saw a woman, he said:
“Woah, man. This is now
bone of my bones”
“and flesh of my flesh.”
He realized that whatever
he called woman,
and that is what she will be.
You see, you might say:
“Pastor Prince, he’s just
naming her that’s all.”
But friend, in the Bible,
names have
significance with God and
if you think about it,
God didn’t call Eve, “Eve.”
God called both Adam
and Eve—“Adam.”
Let me show that to you.
In Genesis 5:2, “Male and
female created he them.”
“and blessed them,
and called their name Adam.”
He called both of them
their name Adam.
“Male and female called
their name Adam.”
“in the day when
they were created.”
So God called both
husband and wife “Adam.”
It was Adam who called
his wife “Living” and “Life-giver.”
Hallelujah!
So both of them learned
to put death at bay
even though they were
sentenced already
and it’s going to happen, okay?
And we know, of course,
a thousand years
with the Lord is like one day.
And we can talk about that
But in essence, what they
were doing was that
they were practicing speaking life
to each other,
speaking life over their
children, speaking life!
And of course, we know that
death has come in so
they will die one day
and it went on but
I believe there’s something
to this,
about the fact that he
named her “havvah.”
Which comes from the
etymology “havah”,
which is to proclaim
or declare life.
Praise the Lord!
So friend, what are you doing
with your words?
What are you doing
with your words?
Are you speaking life
over yourself?
Are you speaking life
over your spouse?
Are you speaking life
over your children?
Are you ministering health
to them?
Are you ministering healing?
Praise the Lord.
Or are you speaking death
all the time over them?
Criticizing them.
It’s also death, you know?
When Jesus talked about the
cursing of the fig tree,
notice that Jesus didn’t go
to the fig tree and say:
“I curse you.”
He didn’t say:
“I curse you, fig tree.”
He said: “No man eat
fruit from you hereafter for ever.”
That’s all. You see,
it’s a negative statement.
“No man eat food from you
hereafter for ever.”
And sometimes we say
to our spouse or our children:
“You are forever careless.
You are forever untidy.”
We say something akin to that.
“You’re forever jumping the gun.
You’re always critical.”
“You are this, you are…”
Saying forever means
you’re always.
“You’re always like this.
You’re always like that.”
And that is tantamount
to a curse.
Because Peter says
it’s a curse.
So friend, instead of that,
let’s reverse that
and speak blessings.
Amen.
Speak positive words!
You can even speak to a tree,
a plant.
If you speak positive words.
We have some plants
in our house
and Justin is learning
to speak blessings
over the plants and
he’s seeing the plants grow.
You can try this experiment.
Amen.
Just have a small potted plant
and start cursing it,
another potted plant,
start blessing it every day.
See what happens
in one month’s time.
Hallelujah!
So you speak words
and words have power
because there’s a power.
The power is from God.
And it’s supposed to be
for life not for death.