05/25/2026
THE EVIL CONSPIRACY - Joseph Prince
When I was growing up as a young Christian, I was taught many things about God which robbed me of any desire to build a more intimate relationship with Him. I was told that
the more I knew, the more God would hold me accountable, and my punishment for falling short of His expectations would be more severe than someone who knew less.
When I got hold of this teaching, I knew exactly what not to do. I decided not to touch the Bible, since the more I knew, the more I would be punished by God. Come on, my mama didn’t raise no fool! I would rather be ignorant than to
learn more about the Word and attract greater chastisement should I fail! So I left the Bible alone and refused to turn up for any Bible study classes. I simply stayed away from anything
that could further “incriminate” me.
I was also taught that the closer I drew to God, the more trials and tribulations I would experience. Have you heard this one before? When I got hold of this teaching, again I
thought to myself, “My mama didn’t raise no fool. I’m not about to allow trials to overwhelm me!” From that point on, I didn’t want to draw close to God.
Can you see how wrong teachings about God can rob you of all that He has for you?
As I grew in the Lord, He opened my eyes and Irealized that the teachings that I had received were not true.
Contrary to what I had been taught, I found that the closer I drew to God, the closer I was to the Answer to all my problems.
I was drawing close to the miracle worker. I was drawing close to the healer. I was drawing close to the provider, my Jehovah Jireh!
As long as you continue to have a wrong
perception of God and withdraw from Him,
the devil can keep you bound in a life of defeat.
The more of God’s truth you know, the more the truth will set you free from erroneous beliefs that are not based on His Word. In fact, it is the devil who would love for you to fear God (in an unhealthy way), so that you would stay away from your only source of help. The devil would love for you to stay away from the Bible because it is the book of your inheritance,
and it tells you what belongs to you through the blood of Jesus Christ. The devil would love for you not to find out the truth, so that he can keep you in bo***ge, sickness and poverty. As long as you continue to have a wrong perception of God and withdraw from Him, the devil can keep you bound in a life of defeat.
He loves to pull the wool over the eyes of
God’s sheep, and deprive them of a life of victory and liberty.
There is an evil conspiracy to keep you defeated. The devil is using erroneous teachings about God to blind and confuse
God’s people.
One of the most evil teachings that I have heard is that God will chastise His own with sicknesses, diseases, accidents and tragedies. When I was a teenager, one of the youth leaders in my previous church was involved in a horrible accident that nearly killed him. A church leader gathered some of us youths
to go visit that youth leader in the hospital and we all went in the church leader’s car. As he was driving, he began to lament,
“Why did this happen to him? I don’t understand. Why would God’s chastening be so severe this time? What did he do to cause God to chasten him this way?”
As a young Christian listening to his church leader bemoaning God’s chastening, can you imagine how I felt when I “realized” that God was behind the accident? Honestly, it frightened the living daylights out of me to think that God would chastise a believer using such a severe method! I remember praying, “God, please don’t ever chasten me this
way. Whatever it is, please, just tell me, all right? I will listen. I promise!” I became very afraid of God. I didn’t want to draw near to Him because I was afraid of Him, afraid that if I made a mistake, He would not hesitate to chastise me with accidents that could leave me crippled for life or even dead!
Do you know that this erroneous teaching is actually based on the old covenant and not the new covenant? In the book of Leviticus, God says to those who fail to obey His commandments, “I will chastise you seven times for yoursins.”1 But guess what? You are no longer under the covenant of law. You are under the covenant of GRACE! Jesus has
already borne all your chastisement and punishment on the cross.
Read it for yourself in Isaiah 53:
Isaiah 53:4–5
4Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
The prophet Isaiah saw a prophetic vision of our Lord Jesus on the cross, bearing the punishment for our transgressions. He declared that the “chastisement for our
peace was upon Him”. Jesus has already been chastised on our behalf! When Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ was released, people complained that the movie was too graphic and violent. The truth is that what the movie portrayed is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what our Lord really suffered on our behalf.
During the time of the Roman Empire, the soldiers had various instruments of cruelty and torture at their disposal. The infamous cat-o’-nine-tails was a whip with nine chains. To each chain was attached many metal shards and hooks, so that when a prisoner was beaten with it, the metal shards and hooks would latch onto his flesh and rip it apart when the whip was je**ed back. That is why the prophet Isaiah described Jesus as having “no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him”2.
Jesus’ flesh was torn apart and He was violently scourged beyond human recognition. The chastisement that we deserved came upon Jesus, so that you and I will never have to go through what He endured on our behalf. And by His stripes, we are healed!
So how can anyone have the audacity to say that God will still chastise us with sicknesses, diseases and accidents today? To say this is to negate the finished work of Jesus Christ! Under the new covenant, God will never again chastise the believer for his sins! By His stripes you are healed!
Whatever condition you have today, it is not from the Lord!
Look to Jesus on the cross. See Him beaten and scourged, and receive healing and wholeness from Him. He has paid the price
for your total healing.
Today, He redeems your life from destruction!
- 📕 Destined To Reign
- Spiritual Notes
