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Home » The Cross In My Life (Part 1): Derek Prince Sermon (Transcript)

The Cross In My Life (Part 1): Derek Prince Sermon (Transcript)

Full text of Derek Prince’s sermon titled ‘The Cross In My Life’ (Part 1)…

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TRANSCRIPT:

Derek Prince – Bible Teacher

We’re going to speak tonight about the cross in my life.

First of all, I have been pointing out in previous sessions two very important facts about the cross. First of all, it’s the basis of God’s total provision for every believer. Everything we ever need in time or eternity, in every department of our lives—spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, financial, temporal or eternal—has been provided for us through the cross.

There is no other basis. Either we receive on the basis of the cross or we do not receive. Paul said, ‘He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?’ (Romans 8:32)

Just try to absorb those closing words: God will also, with Jesus, freely give us all things, but without Him nothing. On the basis of the cross we can receive everything, but without that basis we are not entitled to anything.

Secondly, and this is also very important, the cross is the basis of Christ’s total defeat of Satan. Through His death, His substitutionary sacrifice, His victorious resurrection and His triumphant ascension, Jesus has administered to Satan and his kingdom one total, permanent, irrevocable defeat. There is nothing Satan can ever do to change that fact.

And it’s on that basis that we have victory over Satan. If we come in contact with Satan, if we have conflict with Satan on any other basis but the cross, we will be defeated. But on the basis of the cross we can be totally victorious.

SATAN’S USE OF WITCHCRAFT TO OBSCURE THE CROSS (GAL. 3:1)

Now because of these two important facts about the cross, Satan has a strategy against the church. He cannot change what has been accomplished by the cross. That’s eternal. It’s settled by God. What he can do and what he seeks to do is to hide from the church what was accomplished by the cross. So that when the church loses sight of what was accomplished by the cross, then the church no longer enjoys the benefits provided. The church no longer lives in the full provision which was made by the cross and the church is no longer capable of administering Christ’s defeat to Satan.

Now this is brought out very clearly in one particular verse in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 1. And I have meditated on this verse now for at least ten years, probably longer. When I first read the verse, like so many verses in the Bible I just read it and I didn’t think much about it, but gradually it impacted me more and more.

And I see in it myself today a key to understanding the problems of the church. This is what Paul says. Now there are two versions according to different original texts. I’m going to follow the shorter version which is followed in the NIV and the NASB and probably others.

Galatians 3:1: ‘O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified?’

Now that’s an amazing statement. Probably you’ve never been sufficiently amazed by it. But Paul says to these Spirit-filled Christians, and you’ll see in a few moments they’ve been saved, they’ve been baptized in the Spirit, they had witnessed and were witnessing miracles. But he says to them, ‘Who has bewitched you?’

Witchcraft is the primary word for the spiritual forces released from Satan’s kingdom into the earth. So these, ‘Spirit-filled Christians’, and you know when I hear the word Spirit-filled, and I see the lives of some people called Spirit-filled, I say, ‘Yes, but just a thimbleful.’ You can fill a thimble, you can fill a cup or you can fill a bath. All of them are filled but they don’t contain the same amount.

But when I see the lives of Spirit-filled Christians I say to myself, ‘They don’t realize that Satan has a strategy against them of which they’re not aware.’

Actually I found myself in a situation in 1963, I don’t want to go back into the details, I had just immigrated to the United States. I’m one of the few people who immigrated to the United States by accident because I came for a visit. The immigration authorities at the border told me that six months was too long for a visit. Well I said, ‘Maybe you can help me because I’ve dealt with a lot of immigration authorities in different countries and I know you never argue with them, you just put yourself at their mercy.’

So they said, ‘Come on in and we’ll arrange it.’

And so that way I with my first wife and our five-year-old adopted black African daughter made it into the States. Now if we’d ever made application outside with that particular combination we’d never have been accepted. Do you understand? So that was God’s way of sneaking us into the United States.

Anyhow, I found myself a little while later pastoring a Pentecostal church in Seattle, Washington. And I cannot go into the problems of that church, but let me just briefly state what had happened just to give you some kind of idea of what can happen to Spirit-filled people.

The wife of the pastor fell in love with one of the board members. And as a result, the pastor’s wife divorced the pastor, the board member divorced his wife and the pastor’s wife and the board member married and carried on pastoring the church. All this was publicly known, there was no secret about it.

Well you’d say that couldn’t happen in a Pentecostal church. It could and it did.

And when I talked with the people they said to me, ‘There’s something about that woman. When she looks at you, your blood runs cold and you just don’t know what to say.’ And she had actually gained total control over that congregation.

And my first wife Lydia and I — really we’d never been in a situation like that — and I began to seek God.