The Healing Word

Guest (Male): Friend, what you don't see doesn't count. It's what he hears and what he sees. The answer is on the way.

Announcer: Welcome to the Healing Word. Today, Pastor Jack Morris is here. He's going to examine the subject of faith. And while many other things in life may fail us, faith in God never quits and will always overcome. So let's join Pastor Morris now for the introduction of today's message, Faith Never Quits.

Pastor Jack Morris: Today's message is entitled Faith Never Quits. Faith, hope, and love are going to last forever. Faith lasts. There's no quit in faith. Believe Christ. Hold on. Keep praying. Don't give up. Please, don't give up. Don't think because your prayer hasn't been answered right now that God is saying no. He may be just saying, not yet.

So keep praying, hold on. God has heard your prayer and God loves you and is going to answer your prayer. Come with me into the sanctuary and hear this message. I pray that it'll encourage your heart to believe God and to keep on praying. Faith never quits.

Guest (Male): Now, this story today about the fig tree, I'm not going to deal with that part. I'm only going to deal with the part of 22 through 24 through 25. But basically, let me just reference that story. Jesus was hungry one day. It was in the morning, he was leaving Bethany, and he saw this fig tree, and it had promise that would satisfy him. Do you know, friends, you can do something good for Jesus?

Maybe we ought to sing it this way. Something good is going to happen to you today, Lord Jesus, because I'm going to give my life to you. I'm going to give my praise to you. I'm going to give my thanks to you. I'm going to bless you. Wow. Okay, right? Yeah, let's give him something. Well, I'm not going to ask you to sing it again, but you sang it so beautifully the first time.

But Jesus went to the fig tree. The leaves were out, and it was that time of the year when the leaves come out, the fruit come out. And the leaves say, I'm here to give something good to you. I'm here to satisfy you. And Jesus went up, expecting to receive, and there was nothing there but just a show, a sham. And Jesus says, you're cursed. You're cursed.

Now, that's a picture of our lives, whether we possess the Lord and we can give back to God praise, or we're just going to put on a show. Just get up, get dressed, go to church. But am I going to live for the Lord, obey his word, do his will, and let his glory abide in my life?

But now here's what he says in verse 22. Here's where I want to go. Verse 22, Mark 11:22, have faith in God. That's what Jesus says. Now what's he talking about? He goes on to say, I'm telling you the truth, you can say to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea. And if you don't doubt in your heart, it'll go throw itself into the sea. But he said, have faith in God.

What is faith? I'm going to try to answer that today from the word of God and how does it work? Well, it says in Hebrews 11:1. Let's put that on the screen. Come on, I'd like for you to read it in unison. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. So now we know that faith is sure and certain. Don't ever forget that. Sure and certain. That's how faith is. Faith doesn't waver. Faith is sure and certain.

Faith is a necessary prerequisite to the display of divine power. There will be no display of divine power if there isn't faith. And if there isn't obedience, obviously there's no faith. And if there's no faith, there's no display of divine power. And if you're not obedient, you don't have faith. And if you don't have faith, friend, you're a tree of leaves without any fruit.

But God wants us to have fruit today that will bring glory to his holy name. Faith is a necessary prerequisite. Faith will reach out and seize that thing that you're praying for. Now I want you to think about what you're praying for. I don't want this to be just a philosophical treatise today. I want you to get ahold of it. I want this word to get ahold of you.

Faith reaches out and seizes that thing that you're praying for, takes hold of it. Even though you don't see it and you don't have it, but you've got a grip on it. That's how faith is. Now, what are you praying for? Faith will reach out and seize that. Faith claims the answer and begins to rejoice before there's anything to rejoice about.

Faith says, praise the prayer, and then faith starts saying, thank you God for the answer and giving praise to the Lord and worshiping God. Faith does not have to see it before it begins to thank God. We begin to thank God even before we see it. Now, faith in God. I want to ask a question, and I think the answer is very obvious and anybody here is going to answer it perfectly.

Is your problem bigger than God or is God bigger than your problem? I know what your answer is, but is it working for you? Do we have a tongue answer or do we have a heart answer? See, sometimes our circumstances get between us and God. And when God is there and our circumstances come between us, we have to look around our circumstances to see God.

And because the circumstances are close to us, the circumstances are big. They loom, they're gigantic. And God is a distance away, so it reduces him down. So we're looking at circumstances and troubles on an ongoing basis. And somehow we try to get around and peek at God, and God's trying to get around and take a peek at us. But we've got to move God in between us and our circumstances.

How big is God? How big is God? The scripture says God created the heavens and the earth. Light moves, the speed of light, it moves at 186,000 miles per second. Now I want to look at me. I want everybody to go like this. Light has circumnavigated the globe a half dozen times by the time you did that. That's how fast light travels.

Down on the beltway and I think there was a guy that tried to go the speed of light when he went by me. But light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Now light travels at 11 million miles per minute. In one minute, 11 million miles. Astrophysicists tell us that they have reached the edge of the universe, and that universe is 11. something billion light years away.

I'm asking you again, how big is God? How big is God? How big and great his vast domain, yet he's small enough to dwell in my heart. Wow. Who are you praying to? How big is this God that we serve? You know, I want to tell you, our biggest problem, do you know what your biggest problem is? Not what you've been praying about.

My biggest problem and your biggest problem is a small view of God. We just wonder if he's going to be able to do it. Can he really pull it off and make it happen? That's our biggest problem. Now the biggest problem you have is not what you're praying about. The biggest problem is how big is God? And God is big. He is the almighty one.

You know, it says in Isaiah 55:9 that it talks of God, that his ways and his thoughts are so far above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth. God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. So far above the heavens then the earth are his thoughts and his ways above our ways.

You know, God is doing something good and something beautiful. And if that hasn't happened to you yet, just wait a little longer. But keep praying and don't stop. Don't quit. Hold on. What I need to do, what you need to do is to dial into God's frequency. We're in our frequency. We're on our timeline.

We want God to move now. We've waited three or two or one days. Maybe one, two, or three weeks and it hasn't happened yet. And so we're about ready to hang up and pray another prayer and let that one go. Friend, hold on. Your answer is out there. It's already on God's doppler radar.

They see it all the way out in Colorado and they say here in Maryland, it's coming in in three days. I don't see anything, but it's on God's doppler radar. It's coming in. Friend, what you don't see doesn't count. It's what he hears and what he sees. The answer is on the way. Oh, somebody ought to say, praise the Lord.

Your answer is on the way. Let me tell you a story. It's coming from the book of Luke. Jesus himself tells this story. It's not an experience that the pastor's had and he's telling you an experience that he's had. I'm going to tell you something that Jesus said. Jesus said there was an unjust judge and a persistent widow.

And that widow, something happened that just absolutely displeased her. It was injustice. Jesus doesn't tell what it was that happened to her, but it was something big. It was something terrible that happened. Maybe her son was put in prison without sufficient evidence and she knew he was innocent. Maybe her daughter was raped and she didn't get justice.

So you know what she did? She went to the judge's house and she started knocking on that judge's door and she started calling. Hey judge, I'm out here. And she kept calling. I suppose she knocked until her knuckles were raw and her voice was gone. But that judge, you know what that judge did?

He was an atheist and he said, I'm an atheist and I don't fear God and I don't regard man, but this woman is driving me crazy. And I've got to get justice to her in order to get some peace for myself. Jesus said that's how you're supposed to pray. That's how you're supposed to pray. Those little puny prayers at nighttime or before we have a meal, those are good prayers, but there comes a time when I have to really seek the Lord.

And God wants to know how serious I am. How serious I am. And I begin to pray with all my heart. And do you know what? That woman got justice. Now, Jesus said we're to ask, we're to knock, we're to seek, and we're to keep on. Faith doesn't quit. Say that with me. Faith doesn't quit. Now you apply it to you and your particular situation.

Faith doesn't quit. Faith holds on. Faith keeps believing. You see, this woman that went to the judge, she didn't have any quit in her. She would have pounded and stomped and stormed the rest of her life. And Jesus said, this is Jesus' story, he said this is how to pray. You know, God honors bold prayers.

Let me ask you a question again. Do you know why God honors bold prayers? Because bold prayers honor God. Pray for those big things. If you can do it, you go ahead and do it. But if it's too big for you, take it to the Lord in prayer. He opens the Red Sea. He opens Jordan River.

He's a God who's almighty and he puts his almighty forces to work for his child when his child prays. This woman held on and held on. Now, Jesus tells another story. You know, it'd be good if we'd read these stories once in a while about Jesus. They'd build us up in the faith. They really would.

Jesus says that he was in a house of a Pharisee one time and this Pharisee invited him to dinner. And he was eating dinner, and the way they would eat dinner, they didn't pull up a chair under a table in that custom then. They would lie on their side with their hand like this, holding their head, and then they would reach out and take the food.

You know, back then people knew how to relax. No McDonald's, no fast food, no drive-thru. And so here was Jesus relaxed with his feet way out that way, and here comes a woman up behind him. And she got to his feet and she began to cry. And the tears fell on his feet. And she took down her hair and she began to wipe his feet with her hair.

And then she began to kiss his feet. Now friend, have you ever worshiped God in any inkling that resembles that, even a tiny little bit? And that Pharisee became disturbed. He said, if this man were a prophet, he'd know this woman is a prostitute. And Jesus looked at him and said, you didn't give me any water for my feet.

You didn't anoint my head. You didn't give me a kiss. But this woman has bathed my feet with her tears. She's wiped my feet with the hair. She's anointed my feet with ointment. She broke the alabaster box on me. To the person who has been forgiven much, that person loves much.

That's why we're sort of laid back and sort of indifferent. We don't get all excited about getting into the house of God or getting into our prayer time or getting to that small group or getting our bible and reading. We don't get all that excited because we don't think we've been all that bad. He hadn't done a whole lot for us.

Now, we wouldn't say that, but just look at yourself and your actions. This woman loved much. You see, she wouldn't quit. She broke up a party to get to Jesus. There was some holy desperation there. It was her time to worship, and she had an opportunity and she wouldn't let that opportunity pass.

There were four friends who had a friend who was helpless and needed help. And they had to get to Jesus. You know, sometimes that feeling, I just have to get to Jesus. I just have to pray. I just have to talk to the Lord about it. And when they got to where Jesus was, they couldn't get near the door.

But there's no quit in a person who has faith. These guys went up on the roof, dug a hole in the roof, and put Jesus... we paid a lot for this building. But you know when you really get excited and get determined, and the joy of the Lord is in your heart and it's coming forth out of your life and you really are in touch with Jesus and Jesus is in touch with you, and Jesus always rewards.

He rewarded the woman with the alabaster box. He rewarded Zacchaeus. He rewarded these four fellows. He rewarded the widow. He rewards. He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Diligently seek him. He's a rewarder. This is what our Savior did.

Now, in these four illustrations, there's one thing that all of them had in common, and that was holy desperation. Holy desperation. When you get desperate. Let me tell you one more, then I'm going to quit. All right? Just one more. The scripture tells us about a man named Elijah. Israel was in a great drought. Three and a half years, not a drop of water fell.

And God was trying to get their attention. But you know, God knows how to get your attention. He knows how. And he was trying to get their attention. And then the day came that God spoke to Elijah and told Elijah, gave him a promise. And we've got some promises here that have never ever yet been acted upon.

He promised Elijah that there's going to be rain after three and a half years. Do you know, after three and a half days in the summertime, my lawn begins to turn brown. But three and a half years, can you imagine? Not a drop of water. But he had the promise of God. And he went to King Hezekiah, and he told Hezekiah there's going to be rain.

He seized it, he grasped it, he believed that promise as though it had already poured down buckets of rain. And he went and told the man, I've got the answer. Where's the rain? All I see is the hot sun and the dust of the earth and a lot of fleas and we're all miserable. No, he said there's going to be rain. Why do you say that? God told me there's going to be rain.

Has God told you anything yet? Right here it is. You get ahold of it, it gets ahold of you. You know what Elijah did? He climbed Mount Carmel, and he put his head and face toward the earth. Actually, it says he put his head between his knees and he started praying. He prayed and he said to his servant, go look toward the sea.

They were on a mountain. Servant went, looked, said, you see anything? Nothing. Went back, put his head down again. Prayed again. Same thing happened. Third time, fourth time, fifth time. Go look toward the sea, servant do you see anything? Elijah, I don't see anything. See, that's where most of us start to hang up.

We've prayed and prayed and prayed, and it's not going to happen. Elijah prayed again. The sixth time he prayed. Between the sixth time he prayed and the seventh prayer, something happened in the atmospheric pressure. There was a change. Now, if Elijah had stopped after prayer six, only one more prayer, Elijah, and God's going to open the windows of heaven and it's going to rain.

But Elijah didn't know that. He only knew he had a promise and he acted on that promise. And the seventh time, the servant went and looked toward the sea. Servant, uh oh, uh oh, I see a cloud out there about the size of a man's hand. It is so small, but something is happening in the atmosphere.

Elijah jumped to his feet and he said, let's get out of here fast. He said, there's going to be a gully washer. Tell Ahab to get off this mountain because if he doesn't, he's going to be washed out. The wind started blowing, the scripture says the sky clouds turned black. Elijah ran to get off that mountain and the rains came down.

You see, Elijah had a promise, right here it is, but he still had to pray. And you have to take that promise. God, this is your promise. Now this is a faith building church. We have set up everything that we possibly can that I know of right now, and we're looking for other ways to do it.

But we have Sunday morning service, that's faith building, the word of God. We have small groups, that's faith building, that's the word of God. We have Sunday school classes. We have men's fellowship, women's fellowship. We have private devotions, I hope, to build faith. Faith comes in this manner through the word of God.

And when you find that scripture and you take that verse to Jesus and you hold it before him. You said. You said. You said. Hold it there. When he knows you're really serious, that you really truly believe in him, you know, faith doesn't quit. Faith holds on.

Announcer: It's our hope and prayer that you've been blessed and encouraged today through the hearing of God's word, which is why The Healing Word ministry exists. We'd like to invite you to join Pastor Jack Morris and The Healing Word family in both prayer and support of this ministry.

Your prayer strengthens us and your gift, large or small, helps us extend the reach of God's word to more people who need his hope. Every gift is deeply appreciated. To stand with us today, simply visit thehealingword.com and click on the donate tab. Together we can share the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.