Sunday Service - verses

Verses in Sunday Service by Pastor Prince

1. Ephesians 1:3
2. Deuteronomy 28:1-3
3. Deuteronomy 28:4-13
4. Galatians 3:13-14
5. Galatians 3:8-13
6. Genesis 6:13-14
7. Genesis 8:3-4, 6-9
8. Matthew 3:16-17

The sermon preached today was about "The Holy Spirit is unable to rest on condemnation grounds". The title is not what it is but it's the main message preached today. It was awesome that in Genesis 6:13-14, Genesis 8:3-4, 6-9, the bible talks about Noah's ark. The ark is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. And all of us being in Christ, regardless of how bad we feel, how hard we fall, we are still in the ark. i.e. we are still in Christ. When we fall, we fall in the ark. We will never fall out of the ark (meaning we can never lose our salvation once we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Saviour).

Back to the message is that after the rain fell on the earth for 150 days, Noah sent out a raven to check out for the land. Unfortunately, the raven being the unclean bird, it found its fill on the carcasses that floated everywhere on the water surface. Btw, water here is typified as judgement. Coz during then, it was the judgement of God that will wipe out all creatures that had been perverted by the fallen angels and leaving Noah and his family, who is the pure human kind left on earth then.

Knowing that the raven does not return, Noah sent the dove but the dove came back coz she can't find a resting place. Dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit (refer to Matt 3:16-17). Actually, the dove can rest on the carcasses but the bible said, it did not find rest for the sole of her feet. What does that tell us? The carcasses are actually a picture of condemnation. After 7 days, Noah sent the dove out again to check out for the land. This time, the dove came back in the evening with an olive leaf in her mouth. What does that symbolise? Peace..

The geez of this part of message is that the Holy Spirit in us cannot find His resting place whenever we placed ourselves in condemnation. Praise the Lord. That answers my question why I haven't been able to hear the still voice. Most of the time, I'm in my condemnation mode and unknowingly, I had switched to that mode.

Ok, what about the dove with the olive branch means? The olive branch is actually the message - God's message. Olive tree is highly significant in the bible and Jesus used the olive tree in most of His parables and preaching. In this case, the Holy Spirit is carrying a message to us all the time and He wants to rest the message into us. But many times, we didn't hear the message coz we are always in our condemnation grounds. When we remove the condemnation barrier, the Holy Spirit will find rest and sends us His message to us in His still small voice.

Hallelujah! Another thing that Pastor Prince expounded on was the rainbow. After the flood had receded, God promised Noah that He will never again flood the earth and to show His covenant, He set a rainbow. Same thing, before Jesus gave up His ruach (Spirit) at 3pm on Calvary, there was darkness and rain. After He gave up His Spirit, the darkness began to clear and during that period, it was some time in April where it was the hottest part of the year in Israel and there'll be no instances of any eclipse. So when the water (from the rain) and the light meets, a rainbow was set and it was above the cross. That was another covenant from God that He will never be angry with us anymore (Isaiah 54) coz Jesus had drained all of God's wrath on Himself.

Now, we are no more in condemnation (Romans 8:1) coz we are now in Christ and Jesus had purchased our freedom, our health, our wealth with His own blood. What we deserved is punishment and God's wrath but Jesus took them all upon Himself, so that we deserve what Jesus deserved. And on that cross, Jesus deserved what we deserved (which was the punishment from God for all our sins - past, present and future).

Praise the Lord. Thank you Jesus..