Authors: Joseph Prince
Chapter 11: Unearthing The Deepest Root
Once, when I was preparing to preach, the Lord showed me an inner vision of a sickly plant with each of its leaves representing a particular condition. But I really sat up and took notice when He showed me the roots of the plant. Some of the roots were just beneath the surface of the ground and could be unearthed easily. The main root, however, was embedded much deeper in the soil.
When dealing with any problem in life, we want to get to its root.
What the Lord shared with me next was most powerful. He showed me that the deepest root represented the fundamental tactic that the devil uses against man. He unveiled this truth to me because He wanted me to expose the devil’s strategy against His people, so that He could equip them to counter the devil’s attacks. You see, when we are dealing with any problem in life, we want to get to its root. If you were growing a plant, and the plant was getting weak and sickly, it would be foolish to attempt to nourish and restore the plant by dealing with superficial elements such as its leaves. To resolve the problem, you would have to go after its root.
In the same way, chronic sicknesses, mental depression, perpetual anxiety, financial lack or marital disharmony are all like the withering leaves of the sick plant. You can cut away one leaf, but it’s just a matter of time before another leaf becomes sickly. So what we want to examine in this chapter is the root of some of these problems that believers face. When you are able to identify and deal with the root, the fruits and the leaves, or the outward manifestations, will take care of themselves. In other words, if the root is healthy, the rest of the plant will naturally be healthy too.
Stress Is One Of The Roots
The world has found out that many sicknesses and diseases are linked to a root called stress. An article on the Mayo Clinic website warns that stress may disrupt almost all of your body’s processes and make you more vulnerable to life-threatening health problems
1
. I am sure you have read articles in the newspapers about how stress can erode health and cause human ailments
2
. Scientific research has linked excessive stress to various conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels, stroke, skin eruptions, migraine, sexual impotence and infertility
3
.
Fear Is A Deeper Root Than Stress
The world has also identified fear as the root cause of stress. They have found that in many cases, stress is preceded by fear. Fear can manifest itself in the form of panic attacks or a perpetual state of anxiety. It can also result in prolonged insomnia, constant unrest and a disturbed state of mind. But while fear sounds like a critical root that needs to be addressed, it is still not the deepest root. The Lord showed me a root that was deeper than stress and fear. He showed me that the biggest and deepest root exists in the spiritual realm, and that it can only be destroyed by the power of Jesus’ finished work.
Are you interested to find out what this root is?
Are you interested to go further to find out what is deeper and more insidious than stress and fear?
Condemnation Is The Deepest Root
The Lord showed me that the deepest root is
condemnation
.
Destructive habits
Sicknesses
Financial lack
Stress
Fear
Condemnation
The Deepest Root
It all began in the garden of Eden when the first man, Adam, partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From that point onwards, man developed a conscience. Your conscience is that which is within you that knows good and evil. Your conscience understands justice. It understands that when there is sin, sin must be punished. This has also led man to punish himself for his sins.
A conscience that typically expects punishment is a conscience that is under condemnation.
There are both believers and unbelievers who are defeated by guilt and condemnation. But the difference is that a believer, who has Jesus Christ and the power of His finished work, can reject any accusation, guilt and condemnation thrown at him by the devil and by his own heart. The Bible says, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having
our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience
”
4
. Beloved, our hearts have been sprinkled with the blood of Jesus from an evil conscience. An evil conscience is one that is perpetually conscious of sin and failure, and typically expects punishment. It is a conscience that is under condemnation.
However, by the grace of God, we can have a good conscience that is sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, and instead of being sin-conscious, we can be forgiveness-conscious. We can always be conscious of our righteousness in Christ Jesus, even when we fail. A good conscience sprinkled by the blood of Jesus does not feed on the knowledge of good and evil. A good conscience feeds on the life of Christ and gives you the confidence to draw near to God with a “true heart in full assurance of faith” that God is not angry with you.
Condemnation robs you of intimacy with God. But the Word of God says, “Worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins.”
5
Unfortunately, many believers do not rely on the power of the cross to eradicate condemnation from their lives. They depend on their own efforts — do right and do more — to be free from guilt and condemnation.
The Accuser Of The Brethren
That is why condemnation is the deepest root. It is a root that man cannot overcome through self-effort. Condemnation demands a payment for all your failures and sins, but without Jesus, there is no payment. For some time now, there has been talk about guilt and how it can cause various adverse symptoms to appear in the human body, but that is just skimming the surface of the matter. While experts may be able to identify guilt and condemnation as the sources, they have no solution to destroy them. They cannot see that people are actually faced with a spiritual problem, for the devil insidiously uses condemnation to afflict people today. In Hebrew, the devil’s name is
ha-satan
, which literally means “the accuser”
6
. He is a prosecutor at law and an expert in condemning you, always pointing out your faults and shortcomings. That is why the Bible calls him “the accuser of our brethren”
7
.
Even when you do something right, the accuser will say, “It’s not good enough.” Like the constant sound of dripping water, he will keep on accusing and spewing condemnation toward you. His crowning achievement would be to bring about accusations in your life and leave them undetected. Many a time, believers under condemnation would even think that it is the Holy Spirit convicting them of their sins and pointing out their faults. They begin to entertain negative thoughts about themselves. They begin to
believe
that they ought to have negative feelings about themselves because of all their sins and unworthiness. Hence, the devil’s crowning achievement is to bring about condemnation in your life, concealing it in a fog of deception, so that you would be the last person to think that you are under condemnation.
Some people whom I’ve counseled for being under condemnation have told me, “Pastor Prince, I don’t have a condemnation problem. I am just under stress.” I don’t deny that stress is a genuine problem. In fact, I have a number of sermons on overcoming stress, one of which is a best-selling series called
Live The Let-Go Life
. But what I am saying is that in many instances, there is a deeper root than stress or fear, and that root is condemnation. The accuser’s most effective tactics are always very subtle. The world has no solution for his tactics, but as believers, we do. We have the power of the finished work of Jesus. His blood was shed and He was condemned on our behalf, so that we will never need to live in condemnation.
Does The Holy Spirit Convict You Of Sin?
“But Pastor Prince, how can I differentiate between the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin and the accuser hurling condemnation at me?”
That is a very good question and the answer is really simple. Now, pay attention to this because it will liberate you. The bottom line is that
the Holy Spirit never convicts you of your sins
. He NEVER comes to point out your faults. I challenge you to find a scripture in the Bible that tells you that the Holy Spirit has come to convict you of your sins. You won’t find any! The body of Christ is living in defeat because many believers don’t understand that the Holy Spirit is actually in them to convict them of their
righteousness in Christ
. Even when you fail, He is ever present in you to remind you that you are continually cleansed by the blood of Jesus. That’s the Holy Spirit.
Wouldn’t you agree that you don’t actually need the Holy Spirit to point out your faults and tell you when you have sinned? Come on, your spouse already does a good job at that! Even non-believers, who clearly do not have the Holy Spirit in them, are fully aware when they have failed because they too have a conscience. You don’t need anyone’s help to point out your sins. You are already aware of them because you have a conscience.
When you’ve failed, the Holy Spirit convicts you of righteousness, not your sin.
It does not take a revelation from the Holy Spirit to see that you have failed. However, when you know that you’ve failed, what you
do
need is for the Holy Spirit to convict you of your righteousness. You need Him to show you that even though you have failed, you are still the righteousness of God in Christ. To know and believe that God still sees you as righteous even when you have sinned certainly takes a revelation from the Holy Spirit. Can you say “Amen” to that? In fact, God’s inexhaustible grace in our lives and the power of the cross can only be understood by revelation. That is why a non-believer can never be convicted of righteousness. That privilege is reserved for you and me, born-again believers who are gloriously washed by the blood of Jesus!
Understanding The Work Of The Holy Spirit
“Pastor Prince, what about John 16:8? Doesn’t it say that the Holy Spirit came to convict the world of sin?”
I am glad that you brought up this verse. Let’s examine it together:
John 16:8–11
8
And when He [the Holy Spirit] has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9
of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
10
of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;
11
of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
It is important to always read Bible verses in their context. Many people end up misinterpreting Bible verses because they fail to do this. One way to read Bible verses in their context (and this is a key Bible interpretation principle) is to identify who the verses are talking about. So who was Jesus talking about in John 16:8? Was He talking about believers or unbelievers?
When He said that the Holy Spirit would come to “convict the world of sin” because they do not believe in Him, it is clear that He was referring to unbelievers because they are of “the world”. And notice that the Holy Spirit does not convict the world of “sins” (plural). It is only one “sin” (singular) that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of, and that is the sin of unbelief, the sin of rejecting Jesus and not believing in His finished work.
Jesus died for the whole world, but that does not mean that the whole world is automatically saved. Each individual must make a personal decision to receive Jesus as his Savior. Being born into a Christian family does not automatically make you a born-again believer, any more than walking into McDonald’s makes you a Big Mac or being in a garage makes you a car! No, every person must make a personal decision to receive Jesus as his Savior. So the Holy Spirit is present to convict unbelievers of that one sin of unbelief. But when people take John 16:8 out of its proper context, they start to believe erroneously that the Holy Spirit is here to convict believers of their sins. Like I said earlier, none of us need help in that department. We all know when we have failed.
If the Holy Spirit never convicts you the believer of your sins, then what does He convict you of? Jesus says that the Holy Spirit convicts you “of righteousness, because I go to My Father and
you
see Me no more”. Now, who was Jesus referring to here? Clearly, with the use of the second person pronoun “you”, Jesus was referring to His believers, as represented by His disciples whom He was talking to. This tells us that the Holy Spirit was sent to convict believers of righteousness.
Now, are you made righteous by your works or by faith in Jesus? By now, you should know that you are made righteous by faith, for righteousness is not
right doing
, but
right standing
before God because of your right believing! So when you miss it, the Holy Spirit comes to convict and remind you that you are the righteousness of God because of Jesus Christ. He is present to remind you of the main clause of the new covenant — that God will be merciful to your unrighteousness, and your sins and your lawless deeds, He will remember no more
8
.
The Holy Spirit is your Helper
9
. He was sent to live in you to help you, not to nag at you and point out all your faults. Nobody can live with a nag. The Holy Spirit is not a nag. No, He was sent to help you by convicting you of your everlasting righteousness.
Awake To Righteousness And Sin Not
I have come across ministers who hold back from teaching believers that they are righteous in Christ because they are afraid that believers will go out and sin once they realize this truth. Once, I met a minister who told me that after hearing my sermons, he checked the Scriptures and confirmed that we are indeed made righteous apart from our works because of Jesus. But he told me that he could not preach this because he was afraid that if believers knew that they were forever righteous, they would go out and sin.