9 Powerful Quotes from Derek Prince's War In Heaven

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THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Young Men and Women, Consider the Love of Jesus

“[The] love of Christ… this love that surpasses knowledge”
(Ephesians 3:18-19, NIV)

Love expresses itself in a seemingly contradictory way. Parental love expresses itself in a wholesome and loving discipline, not in the indulgence of a child’s every whim. But not every child appreciates this expression of love. It is the same with the Lord’s children. In the gospels, three expressions of Christ’s love are recorded for our instruction. In each case it is stated that the Lord loved the person involved.

We learn first that Christ’s love corrects the one whom He loves. Speaking of the young ruler, Mark says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him” (10:21). And what did His love move Him to do? Jesus saw that the young man had many attractive qualities, but he lacked the greatest essential. He discerned the fatal flaw in the life of the ruler and dealt faithfully with him about it. The young man clinging to his great possessions, he sacrificed the greatest Possession. So will our divine Lord put His unerring finger on our fatal flaw, the thing that will rob us of His highest blessings? Shall we ask him to show us what that thing is?

Next we see that Christ’s love allows suffering by His loved ones. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister [Mary] and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Jesus spent more time in their home than in any other. Was He soft and indulgent with this favoured family? No, He was not. He did not intervene to prevent Lazarus from dying. He did not spare the sisters the heartbreak of seeing him slowly slip away. Rather, He waited two days before responding to their appeal for help. Did He not care? He cared so much that He permitted their suffering.

And what was His purpose? “So that you may believe” (John 11:15). The cultivation of faith was the object of the discipline. After their trail, they had an immeasurably greater Lord, and their suffering has been used to impart comfort and insight to succeeding generations of believers.

Last, Christ’s love cleanses us. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end… [He] began to wash his disciples’ feet” (John 13:1, 5). At that moment, He was on His way to cleanse their defiled souls with His blood, but He paused to give a matchless demonstration of the humility of love. No task is too menial for love. Jesus washed their feet with water, and then with blood from the basin of the cross.

[Edited, modified and modernized from Consider Him (1976) by J. Oswald Sanders]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Young Men, Consider the Head of Jesus

“On his head are many crowns”
(Revelation 19:12, NIV)

The head is the control tower of the body. From it, impulses and messages are transmitted to the farthest limb. It is the dominant part of the body. Our Lord’s head is mentioned several times in Scriptures, sometimes in its humiliation, sometimes in its exaltation.

He was a homeless head. “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). In these graphic words, Jesus indicated His rejection by His people. There was no bed for Him in the inn. Many were the night His head never touched a pillow. During His ministry, He had no home and was dependent on the hospitality of others.

But it was also an anointed head. In the extravagance of her love, Mary broke the priceless box of the fragrant anointing oil and poured it over His head (see Mark 14:3). Her act of love was to Him a green oasis in the dreary desert of rejection, a refreshing drought on the desolate road to the cross. Not everyone rejected Him.

His head was callously struck by His tormentors. “[They] twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head… They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again” (Matthew 27:29-30). The staff, mock royal scepter, was used to bruise and degrade the head of the Son of God. “He was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). And those who struck Him were representative of us all.

His head was crowned in mockery (see Matthew 27:29). Thorns, a symbol of curse, adorned the brow of the Lord of glory, every thorn a point of fire.

“Is their diadem, as monarch,

That His brow adorns?

Yea, a crown, in very surety,

But of thorns”

(Author unknown)

“He bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). All through the ghastly ordeal of crucifixion, His head had remained erect. The curse broke His heart but did not bow His head. Now His work was finished.

Again we see His head in dazzling majesty. “His head was white like wool, as white as snow” (Revelation 1:14). It is again erect and radiant. Never again will He bow it before His creations. In His hand, there is no longer a mocking staff, but the scepter of universal dominion.

Our final view of His head is crowned with many crowns (Revelation 19:12). He is crowned with glory and honor, the reward of His obedience unto death.

[Edited, modified and modernized from considering Him (1976) by J. Oswald Sanders]

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

God's Wrath Poured Out on Those Who Want to Have It Their Way (Genesis 6:11-18)

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood… I am going to bring floodwater on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark – you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you’”

(Genesis 6:11-14; 17-18, NIV).

I observed that we tend to treat Noah’s flood as a children’s story. The ark floats steadily atop the rising waters, a smiling giraffe poking its head through the window, and Noah smiled as if everything was fun to watch. But the story of the Flood is a story of God’s wrath.

God’s wrath is not an easy or pleasant thing to contemplate. But it expresses itself throughout the Bible in the Old Testament as well as the New. God’s wrath is another aspect of God’s love. To use the lesser example: If you love anyone deeply, you already know how your anger burns against anything that would harm that person. God’s wrath – His righteous-anger (not like ours’) – aims for that which seeks to destroy the people He loves. Sin destroys lives, relationships, and happiness. The anger of God is like the anger of surgeon who cut away cancers rather than seek to harm their victims.

God pours out His wrath by finally giving people what they want. The people of Noah’s time wanted to live without God. So God removed His loving hand from their lives and floodwaters poured out. In the end, the people got exactly what they wanted – and it was the end of them.

What’s hope for us today? Jesus Christ, the Son of God. “[God] demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (Romans 5:8-9). Don’t have it your way; wants God’s way - enter the ark of God. 

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Jesus Is the Son of God: Three Witnesses, Come Forth! (1 John 5:6-8)

“[Jesus] Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross – not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony. So we have these three witnesses – the Spirit, the water, and the blood – and all three agree”

(1 John 5:6-8, NLT)

Not only we can “achieve victory through our faith” (1 John 5:4), but we can know for sure that our faith is correct and based on facts! The Apostle John has mentioned that we need to believe that Jesus “is the Son of God” (5:5), God became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). But how can we know for sure that this is true? You know how important it is to have more than one witness when there has been an accident or a crime. This has been true in courts for many centuries. As in Deuteronomy 19:15, “…The facts of the case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses”. Well, John realizes that we would be surer about our faith if there was more than one witness to verify these faith-beliefs. So he mentions three key witnesses to our beliefs about Jesus:

Witness #1: The (Holy) Spirit. Again and again, in the New Testament, we read that “the Spirit” opens our eyes to the truth, that the Spirit will help us realize that Jesus is “God’s Son”. The Spirit is an inner witness to what we hear and see. For example, in John 15:26, Lord Jesus says that the Spirit “will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me”; the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit” (see also John 16:13-14; Romans 8:14-16). In other words, we do not just come to the conclusion in our heads that Jesus is God’s Son; we also have an inner witness, a divine Person that helps us know that this is true.

Witness #2: The water. There is some disagreement over what John meant here. Since John says that Jesus came “not by water only,” some people, in fact I think that he is referring to the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist (read Matthew 3:13-17). A voice came from heaven as Jesus was being baptized by water at the Jordan River and said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy” (Matthew 3:17). That experience certainly would have been a witness to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. Soon after this event Jesus began His ministry. Others suggest that the reference to “water” is really to Christians being baptized, which is also a witness to the work of Jesus in our lives. This again would be a witness that we make as we are baptized. Some others suggest that “water” refers to Jesus’ birth, but I doubt it.

Note: You could probably build a case for either position. But it seems to me that the first interpretation – that the baptism of Jesus was a witness to His being God’s Son – makes the most sense, for this was an outward, obvious witness to all who saw Jesus being baptized. They saw Him baptized; they saw the Spirit come in the form of a dove; and they heard God’s voice announcing that Jesus was truly “God’s Son.” This idea, in the context of this passage, makes the most sense to me.

Witness #3: The blood. This witness was the death of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for our sins [In theological terms this is called substitutionary atonement]. Jesus not only told us that He loved us; He showed that He meant what He said by giving His very life for us (see His love actions in Matthew 27:50-54). A phony or liar would stop short of that action, saying, “Uhhh… I really love you, but dying is just too much…” No, Jesus went to His death, and later even came back to life – resurrection – so that we would know that what He had said and promised was really true!

We have these three witnesses:

The Spirit, the water, and the blood – and all three agree.

Agree about what? That Jesus is really the Son of God. Amen!

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.