What does it mean that I’ve been search­ing for this mes­sage for the last hour? 

I first came across it a week ago. It was the very end of Part 4 on the broad­cast. I kid you not, as soon as I hit pow­er on the remote, these are the first words I heard: “If you are think­ing that ‘Pas­tor Prince, what about peo­ple that you men­tioned just now, one or two, or a few that comes to church, they’re not major­i­ty, pas­tor, but I know of peo­ple who left their wives and they go with anoth­er woman. They are liv­ing in sin in fact, for near­ly a year now or a few months or what­ev­er. Pas­tor Prince, it sounds like they’re, you know, they’re hav­ing a time of day and they’re okay. What do you say to that, Pas­tor Prince?’ ”

Jaw dropped.

And then ran­dom­ly, Part 5 was on dur­ing din­ner last night, start­ing with that same excerpt and delv­ing into God’s dis­ci­pline on such peo­ple. This link includes the video of all five parts, as well as a tran­script. What I saw on TV is from 1:20:35 on. 

If you can’t watch the link, here’s the tran­script, with my life in bold.

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I’ll tell you some­thing, okay? If you are think­ing that “Pas­tor Prince, what about peo­ple that you men­tioned just now, one or two, or a few that comes to church, they’re not major­i­ty, pas­tor, but I know of peo­ple who left their wives and they go with anoth­er woman. They are liv­ing in sin in fact, for near­ly a year now or a few months or what­ev­er. Pas­tor Prince, it sounds like they’re, you know, they’re hav­ing a time of day and they’re okay. What do you say to that, Pas­tor Prince?” You see, we don’t back away from the mes­sage because some­body abused it. Let me just say this to you, okay? There are only two rea­sons I will give you about that sce­nario. If there’s a so-called Chris­t­ian who’s now liv­ing in sin, all right, he left his wife, he’s liv­ing in sin, okay, there are only two sce­nar­ios. Num­ber one is that he was nev­er a Chris­t­ian in the first place. “Pas­tor, he was a dea­con in church.” I don’t care dea­con or demon, all right? He was nev­er saved. All right, going to McDon­ald’s don’t make you a Big Mac. All right, going to a garage don’t make you a car, going to church don’t make you a Chris­t­ian. So, I sub­mit to you, most like­ly he’s not a Chris­t­ian. Like the pig that went wal­low­ing in the mire in Peter is still a pig. It was nev­er a sheep in the first place. It was a pro­fess­ing Chris­t­ian, not a pos­sess­ing eter­nal life Chris­t­ian. He was a pro­fes­sor, not col­lege pro­fes­sor, pro­fes­sor, not a pos­ses­sor of life, okay?

So, I sub­mit to you, the first sce­nario is that such a peo­ple might not be saved in the first place. “But Pas­tor Prince, I real­ly think he’s saved.” You and I can­not be the judge. We do not know what he believed. He might know the lin­go of a Chris­t­ian, he might, you know? Okay, that’s the first sce­nario. What if he’s real­ly a Chris­t­ian, okay? Then the sec­ond sce­nario comes in. If he’s real­ly a Chris­t­ian, don’t think he’s hav­ing a great time because the Father’s dis­ci­pline is com­ing. And when the Father dis­ci­plines, I tell you you don’t want that kind of dis­ci­pline. But because he loves, he dis­ci­plines. I dis­ci­plined my son the oth­er day, my four-year-old Justin and he was cry­ing. And I went to him and I said, “I did this because I love you”. He turned to me with eyes glit­ter­ing with tears and he says, lit­er­al­ly these are his words, “You know my feel­ings are hurt”. He knows how to express him­self. I don’t know where he got it from, but I did my very best not to laugh. He says, “Do you know my feel­ings are hurt”? And I told him this, “So are mine, my feel­ings are hurt. It hurts me more to dis­ci­pline you because I love you”. I said, “You’re not like a child in the street that nobody cares about that grew up any way they want. No one dis­ci­plines them because no one loves them. But for me,” I said, “I love you that’s why I dis­ci­pline you”. I don’t think he ful­ly got it at that age, but I tell you this because God loves, God dis­ci­plines.

So, that sce­nario, let’s say he’s real­ly a born-again Chris­t­ian and you think he’s enjoy­ing his life and all that. Let me tell you, the way of the trans­gres­sor is hard. Your way and my way, His yoke is easy, His bur­den light. Let me tell you this, they’re not enjoy­ing… if they’re tru­ly born again, they’re like a civ­il war. You know what I’m say­ing civ­il war? It’s like hav­ing your feet in two boats. You are split per­son­al­i­ty. And the thing is this, the Father will dis­ci­pline him. And let me tell you this there are peo­ple that teach that God dis­ci­plines only through the Word. Now, I believe the pri­ma­ry way God dis­ci­plines us, the Father dis­ci­plines us, is with his Word. Like right now, do you know that we are being dis­ci­plined, all right, not to even go on law ground, for exam­ple, we are learn­ing that. We’re always under dis­ci­pline, right, to become, you know, greater man­i­fes­ta­tions of and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of our Lord. But watch this, when some­one lives in sin and God dis­ci­plines, it’s not pleas­ant.

Now, I believe God does­n’t give them acci­dents, but I believe it’s not gonna be pleas­ant. A case in point is Jacob. Jacob deceived his father, Isaac, because Isaac was going blind. So, when Isaac was about to give the bless­ing to the first­born Esau who was hairy and Jacob was smoothy, amen, amen? So, he came to his father and remem­ber he wrapped him­self up with the skin of goats, kids, baby goats, all right? And the father touched him, the father says, “You’re hairy like Esau, but your voice sounds like Jacob”. He deceived his father. Now, was that before the Ten Com­mand­ments? Yes. Was Jacob under the bless­ing of Abra­ham? Yes, but was there dis­ci­pline? Oh, yes. How did the father dis­ci­pline — how did God dis­ci­pline him? Fast for­ward many years, his favored son Joseph, the one he loved the most, he gave the coat of many col­ors. One day the broth­ers came back with­out the son and the father says, “Where’s Joseph”? The broth­ers came car­ry­ing the coat smeared with the blood. Of course, the broth­ers sold him and the broth­er took the blood of goats, kids. He deceived his father with a kid and now he’s being deceived with the blood of the kid. And he say that “I think a lion got him, I’m sor­ry, dad. I’m sor­ry, dad”. And he wept and wept.

Dis­ci­pline. He lied to his father, his sons lied to him. He deceived his father, he was deceived by Laban, his boss, his father-in-law. So, there is dis­ci­pline. Thank God when you are being dis­ci­plined, thank God. Now, those who teach God only dis­ci­plines us with the Word, I got­ta prob­lem with that because those who need dis­ci­pline are not in church for the Word. Those who are liv­ing in sin, they’re not read­ing the Word, nei­ther do they want to hear­ing, hear­ing Pas­tor Prince ser­mons, right? That’s what the Bible says about dis­ci­plin­ing, chas­ten­ing. Hebrews, “Now no chas­ten­ing seems to be joy­ful for the present, but painful”. Let’s change that to Bible study, okay? See­ing peo­ple say, it’s only through the Word. Now, no Bible study seems to be joy­ful for the pres­ence but painful. Does­n’t fit. Does­n’t seem to fit, right, right? Does­n’t seem to fit. No, no, no, the pri­ma­ry way God dis­ci­plines us and all of us is through the Word. Let’s hope it just stays at the Word because if we live in sin, we’re not read­ing the Word, nor are we exposed to the preach­ing of the Word, there­fore God dis­ci­plines us with cir­cum­stances. You might meet a boss who is worse. Your busi­ness might go bank­rupt. I’m telling you this, folks, it makes you release all of a sud­den, you’re com­ing against some­thing that is not nat­ur­al.

So, don’t envy the one who’s liv­ing in sin. Now, hav­ing said that, don’t put your­self under that. You’re not under that. But I’m say­ing if some­one is tru­ly born again, the Father will dis­ci­pline him, hmm? Are you with me so far? But friend, we are in pur­suit of bet­ter things of you. Like, you’re not liv­ing in sin, are you? You do fall into sin, but you don’t live in sin. A rub­ber pull, you can pull a rub­ber ball and stretch it, but the moment you let it go, it bounces back. You are the right­eous­ness of God in Christ. The dev­il might pull you some­times and you fall into sin but when you let go, you always go back because that’s real­ly who you are. A pig falling into the mud, as in Peter was say­ing that a pig wal­low in the mud. It was a pig to begin with. It nev­er was a sheep that went into the mud. A sheep goes in the mud, it starts cry­ing, it starts bleat­ing, all right? But a sheep, a pig that goes into the mud he says, “Yo man, this is life, hap­py hour. Chop, chop, chop, pork chop. This is life, oink, oink, oink, baby”.

You might have an excur­sion into sin. I don’t encour­age you to sin. In fact, you don’t have to sin. When you under­stand grace, you don’t have to. But if you do sin, you don’t live in it. You always come back but if some­body’s liv­ing in it, let go his wife, go for a pea­hen some­where. Dis­ci­pline is com­ing, and I don’t want to be in his shoes, but it’s still love that dis­ci­plines him ’cause it says here, “Nev­er­the­less, after­wards he used the peace­able fruit of right­eous­ness to those who’ve been trained by it”. So, God will deal with that okay? Back, for you and I, we come back to this Gala­tians 3 again. “Are you of faith, jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith that you are blessed with believ­ing Abra­ham”? Or are you under the works of the law? You are cursed. And it’s so sub­tle that I want to close by say­ing this before I show you the final verse, vers­es. I want to tell you that this is a place that you and I can­not afford to be in, all right? We got­ta make sure that whoa, we’re on grace ground. How do you know you’re on grace ground? You’re able to address God, not like a dis­tant, but God is so close, clos­er than your hands and feet, than your breath. You are in the Holy of Holies con­stant­ly. God does not see sin on you, amen? He treats you amen, like Jesus, he does. We’re accept­ed in the beloved, amen?

Are you con­scious of that? Do you call God Abba or dad­dy, Father, Father, Abba Father? Amen. Do you have a spir­it of son­ship or a slave? Like the son going down there, going back to the spir­it of slave? No. Do you have a spir­it of son­ship? That’s how you know you’re on grace ground. Are you oper­at­ing by believ­ing or by doing? Don’t wor­ry about doing. When you believe right, good works will flow, not dead works, all right? But believ­ing is your main­stay, that’s how you live. Can I have good amen? And all this because of Jesus. 

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I think the idea of God’s dis­ci­pline speaks to me now, hav­ing reliv­ed the deri­sion of that con­ver­sa­tion and decep­tion of the entire rela­tion­ship. My mind saw the split per­son­al­i­ty again. I saw it the last time we talked about our mar­riage face-to-face, stand­ing out­side the garage of the dream home on the night of 11/9. I could see the con­flict on his face, as he declared “I’m not an adul­ter­er,” as though he had­n’t already admit­ted to one-night stands. As though he weren’t in the thralls of a cur­rent affair, one he did­n’t know I had already discovered.

I think my hus­band falls into Pas­tor Prince’s sec­ond cat­e­go­ry. I remem­ber the tor­rent of tears at the end of his four-hour expla­na­tion on 10/6. How he curled up in the fetal posi­tion on our bed that night and sobbed, when I laid my hands on him and prayed for God’s heal­ing and bless­ing. The weep­ing that caused shud­ders through his body when he found me in the clos­et, cry­ing over notes and cards I had giv­en him ear­ly in our mar­riage of how much I loved him.

A part of him knows what he’s done is so wrong. The part that led wor­ship, taught Bible stud­ies, preached ser­mons, coun­seled cou­ples. The part I fell in love with — that wor­ship­per’s heart of gold. For so long, that part wres­tled with the hid­den man, who cheat­ed, deceived, manip­u­lat­ed, and lied. Now he’s decid­ed to end his civ­il war by deceiv­ing even him­self, lying to all that he’s still a sheep doing God’s will — when all the while, he con­tin­ues to wal­low in the pig­pen like a prodigal.

I remem­bered this mes­sage TDJ had preached, and it fits in with Pas­tor Prince’s point. Which will my hus­band final­ly choose to be before he meets God on the oth­er side of eter­ni­ty? Only he can decide, and I pray he, like the orig­i­nal prodi­gal, will come to his sens­es and run to the Father.