The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Whatever stone that's holding me back, God remove that stone away. I thought of you, you have some stones or things that are holding you back from really giving your heart 100% to the Lord. Come on, this is the day for you to rise up, move out of the tomb that you may be in, the stone of hindrance that's holding—what's holding you back? Come on, it's Jesus, it's Jesus. Let's go to Jesus today.

Guest (Male): Today on a special edition of The Healing Word, Pastor Jack Morris is here. He's going to take us to the book of John and lead us through the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus, including his arrest, trial, death on the cross, and his triumphant resurrection. Be blessed by today's message: Behold the Man.

Pastor Jack Morris: Pain is something that the human race has experienced ever since there's been a human race. Sorrow and pain and it continues on and it will continue on, but underneath her is that blessed joy that comes from the Holy Spirit given to every believer who is trusting the word of God and looking to the Lord, receiving the strength and the help that only he can give.

Friend, there is one place where there is continuous strength and blessing and that is in Christ, looking to Christ, receiving from Christ. And wherever you are in your journey, however old you are, however young you are, spiritually or physically, Jesus Christ is alive and present to bless and to help.

Now this pain that I'm thinking of today, and I pray the Holy Spirit will help me—I thank you for praying for me because I do need your prayers—this pain is in two general categories: mental pain, physical pain. Mental pain can be devastating. Mental pain can cause physical pain. Jesus experienced both because he knew we were experiencing it or going to experience it, so he experienced mental pain.

We think so much of crucifixion and the physical pain, but I want to talk a little while, not a whole lot of time spent, but on that mental pain. And you've known mental pain, I've known it. Memories, scars, we wish we could stop thinking and remembering some of the hurt that came to us in our journey, but it keeps coming back, it keeps coming back and it depresses us, it hurts us, it brings us down.

I want you to know today is resurrection day for you. God's going to lift you, encourage you. Come on, trust the Lord, hear the word of God, absorb the word of God and become the strong believer that you want to be and that the Lord desires you to be.

Mental scientist, when they talk about pain, particularly mental pain, in the various paragraphs that you're reading from their journals, they use words to describe mental pain. They use the word suffering, they use the word agony, the word tormenting. Yes, mental pain can be tormenting. It'll bring you down and keep you in your house and in your bed. Can't go to work, can't go out. You're just so exhausted, even physically, because of what the mental pain is doing.

And then the mental scientists have said that also it is a spiritual soul pain. Even the mental scientists know that you and I have a soul and that pain can reach in and get a hold of us, touching our souls. Mental agony.

Look at the mental agony of Jesus. Why did he experience mental agony? Because you were experiencing it and he wanted to know what you feel so he could go in and in a knowledgeable way touch and bring healing and wholeness to us. The scripture says in John 13:21, "Jesus was troubled in spirit." Mental pain. Weeping over Jerusalem. I can only imagine just a few incidents where he experienced mental pain.

In the upper room when they had the Lord's Supper that we have here every first Sunday and on Good Friday. In the upper room, he said, "One of you shall betray me." I mean, that one was a close friend for three years, saw his miracles, heard his teaching, and now betrays him. What for? Why?

Judas wanted those 30 silver coins. He negotiated. It wasn't a quick thing, a flash in the pan. No, back and forth negotiating with the priest and with the Sanhedrin, the Sanhedrin being the Supreme Court of Israel. He knew exactly what he was doing. And then he goes in and sits down for the Lord's Supper.

Listen, friend, anybody can take the Lord's Supper, but those people who are redeemed, who are reading the word and listening to the word and obeying the word, those people have taken the Lord's Supper. Others have just gone through some kind of an emotion or a ritual. But there was Judas taking the Lord's Supper. Jesus said, "One of you shall betray me." And everyone, "Is it I? Is it I? Is it I?"

Jesus said, "No, the one who dips the sop." See, we've many times, two or three years ago, we had the cup that people would come down, they would dip. It's how they did it in the upper room. Friend, the Largo Community Church is a Bible church. We read the Bible and we not only believe it, but if we do believe it, then we practice it as best as we can.

And then Jesus said, "Whatever you do, do it quickly." And Judas got up and went out into the night and betrayed the Lord. That evening when Jesus went into Gethsemane, here comes the soldiers with their torches and their clubs and Judas was leading them in. Oh, the love of money. Money before Jesus. Putting money and getting money, seeking money, riches, material gain becoming dominant in his life and even in the lives of some Christians, if we're not careful.

Here is Judas walking over to Jesus, walking over to him, pretending, putting on hypocrisy from hell, kissing him and saying, "Master." Friend, you can say anything, but you've got to do something if you're going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "Take up your cross daily and follow me." Come on, some obedient behavior. Jesus first. And Jesus said, "You call me friend." So Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss.

Then Peter betrayed Jesus with an oath. Now these are people who saw him, were with him three years. How can you see Jesus, the visible Jesus? We see the invisible Jesus. They saw the visible Jesus. Friend, we need the Lord, we need the church, we need the word of God. Thank God there's a desire and a hunger in our hearts for that which is spiritual. I'm so thankful for you. I really am. I see the desire that is there within you.

Here is Peter. Jesus told Peter, "You're going to betray me before the rooster crows. You'll deny me three times." And what did Peter say? "Oh, not me. They all can forsake you. The whole Largo Community Church can collapse, but I'll be true." Friend, don't boast in your own strength like Peter did. Jesus knows what he's talking about. We need a closeness to him perhaps in these days more so than any other time.

And so here is Peter denying the Lord, taking an oath. He didn't use profanity, it said he used words like this—let me see if I can do it. When the girls came to him, they saw him warming by the fire, they came and said, "You're one of them." This is what he did. The third time he became so agitated that three times he was accused. So he, so to speak, would raise his hand and say, "In the name of God Almighty, I don't know that man."

That's the kind of oath he took to the Lord. Now I don't know that we would do that. I'm sure we wouldn't. But the enemy would have us to deny the Lord in some small way, just to deny the Lord. I don't know how he's going to come to you or how he has come to you or what is going on right now, but today is your day to live and overcome and be victorious in the Lord.

So Judas betrayed him with a kiss, Peter denied him with an oath. And when he was in Gethsemane, Jesus was in Gethsemane with the disciples, he took three of his very best friends: Peter, James, and John. "I have to pray, brothers. Stay here, pray with me. I need help."

Friend, listen, if Jesus needed your physical presence, how much more we need one another's physical presence. Jesus needed those three fellows. He asked them. Friend, when he asks you to do something, let's do it. He asked them, "Just pray with me." And he went a little bit further and he fell on his face and for an hour he prayed and he came back and they were asleep.

Can you imagine the mental pain that caused him? "I asked you to do something." He knew he was going to the cross and somehow they all forgot it and went to sleep. Just going to sleep on Jesus. He wakes them up. "Come on, fellows, watch and pray with me." He was going in again. God was going to put the cup of sin to his lips and he was to drink that slime.

And he said, "Please watch and pray." It is almost in the original that he was begging them, "I need you." Someone not too long ago told me, said, "Well, you don't have to go to church to be a Christian." I don't know about that one. I just don't know. Because you can go out there and live for the Lord and do God's work and will and obedience? No, none of us can.

Jesus came back again, they were sleeping. He says, "Go ahead and sleep." You talk about mental agony. Judas, Peter, all the disciples, and then the scripture says all of them forsook him and fled. And he was left alone with soldiers and torches and clubs and marched off to be tried in two criminal courts and then crucified. Talk about mental anguish. He had it.

And then Pilate. Pilate said, "I don't find anything wrong with this man that's worthy of death. I'll flog him and let him go." "Crucify him! Crucify him!" His own people, his own nationality. Pilate's wife said to her husband, Pilate, "Don't have anything to do with that just man. I've been tormented all night long because of him. He's a just man."

Pilate said, "I'll have him flogged," and he did. He had him flogged. That means he whipped him, had him whipped with rods and with a whip, 39 lashes. Then he turned Jesus over to the soldiers and they put a crown of thorns on his head and took a reed and pounded it down into his skull until the blood was coming down his face, blood was coming out of his back, had a purple robe on, the blood oozing out through the robe, and then Pilate brings him back and stands him before the people and says, "Behold the man."

That was a heart-rendering sight. The son of God with your sin and my sin coursing through his veins, cleansing us from all that is wrong and unrighteous. And then they led him to Calvary, nailed him to a piece of wood. Dear God, when are they going to let up on that man? Enough is enough, but enough wasn't enough.

People seemingly they can't get enough of sin. They can't get enough of money. They can't get enough of putting other things first before the Lord. But they nailed him to that piece of wood. And then Pilate did put over the cross a placard with these words: Jesus the King of the Jews. In Latin, in Aramaic, and in Greek. The three world languages of that day, meaning this man is dying for the sins of the world.

And then there's a song that I love. I sang it here one time, but I tried to sing it the other day. My voice just isn't what it used to be, so I'm going to spare you. Here it is. I'll read it, part of it. "There was no crown for him of silver or of gold. There was no diadem for him to hold, but blood adorned his brow and proud its stains he bore, and sinners gave to him the crown he wore. He did not reign upon a throne of ivory. A rugged cross became his throne. Listen, his kingdom was in hearts alone. He wrote his love in crimson red and wore the thorns upon his head."

A rugged cross, that was his throne. He surveyed the world from a cross, elevated. Looking out over society, people on the subway, people at the shopping centers, people everywhere. But there's one that's in the kingdom. There's another one that's in the kingdom. There's another one that's in the kingdom. Jesus knows those who are his. He knows. We look, everybody looks about the same to us, but he knows.

Then he cried out, "It is finished." Now when he said, "It is finished," sin did its worst. Sin could not do any more to him than what it did. But now it's God's turn. Now it's God's turn. Put him in that tomb. Three days later, the Holy Spirit came upon him, that corpse.

Oh, what a morning that was. Oh, what a resurrection day that was. In Revelation chapter 1:18, Jesus cries out, "I am he that liveth and was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of death, hell and the grave."

Now remember this, only he has the keys. Your bank account doesn't have the keys. Your insurance plan doesn't have the keys. Your retirement plan doesn't have the keys. He has the keys. Give your heart to him and you have gained everything, all eternity. That's the gift that he has for you. That's how much he loves you.

There was a violent earthquake, an angel of God came down whiter than the lightning from the heavens. The soldiers fell like dead men. The stone was rolled away. Oh, I was putting that together and I thought, God, whatever hindrance I have in my life, whatever stone that's holding me back, God remove that stone away.

I thought of you. You have some stones or things that are holding you back from really giving your heart 100% to the Lord. Come on, this is the day for you to rise up, move out of the tomb that you may be in, the stone of hindrance that's holding—what's holding you back? Come on, it's Jesus, it's Jesus. Let's go to Jesus today. He's present to do something beautiful to you, to move you beyond where you are. Some of you are just stuck, you can't move beyond.

But now's the time. We're moving beyond the viruses and the sicknesses and the pains and even death itself. Friend, I want you to know something. We're all going to die, but I want to tell you something about me. I am not going in the grave. I just refuse to go under the ground. I'm not going under the ground. I'm going to see Jesus. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I know in whom I have believed. Friend, do you know who you are?

Hallelujah. Oh, I'm preaching myself happy today. I'm rejoicing in Jesus. Jesus is here to bless, to do great and mighty things. He's the savior, how much he cares. I'm going to look at the scripture where Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," meaning I am the Messiah. I am the one that is anointed to hear your prayer, to move the stones, to resurrect you, to make you a blessed person.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. He has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor." Now the poor, that's you and me. We're too poor. We do not have the strength. We are poverty stricken in helping ourselves into the kingdom of God. We can't do it. We're too poor. So he preaches the good news of the gospel to the poor. That's you and me. We are poor lost sinners until Jesus comes and we give our heart to him.

And then it says Jesus is saying this: "He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners." There are people who are bound up today, they're just bound with sadness, depression, heartbreak, unclean habits, thoughts, mental images. Friend, if there's anything holding you back, he'll move the stone. He'll release you. You don't have to be a prisoner anymore. Today's the day, today's the day, today's the day. Don't put it off.

Next Sunday isn't going to be, if we live that long, isn't going to be any better than now. Today's the day of salvation. And then he goes on and he says, "And the recovering of sight to the blind." The world has a way of just putting scales over our eyes that we don't see the spiritual, we don't see the value in it. We don't see the value in going to church. We don't see the value in it at all. And so we're blinded to the spiritual, but your eyes are being opened and are open. Now you're beginning to see.

And then he says to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Oppressed, pressed, oppressed. How I pray you look so pretty today, you look so nice. I'm so thankful for you and I'm so thankful I'm part of your family and you're part of my family. But some of you are oppressed. The oppression has come. But today God's going to move the stone and you're going to come out a free man, a free woman in the Lord.

Guest (Male): The price Jesus paid for our salvation was personal, mental, and physical suffering and death. On the third day, he arose from the dead and is alive and with us, answering prayer and performing miracles today.

Start your week with encouragement from God's Word. Sign up today for the Healing Word weekly devotional delivered every Monday morning right to your inbox. It's a powerful way to begin your week with hope, Scripture, and inspiration for your daily walk. Go to thehealingword.com. That's thehealingword.com and sign up today. Let God's truth speak to your heart every Monday morning. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.