The Healing Word

Guest (Male): When his word went forth, things happened in the atmosphere. Galaxies in far-off space were created. Little invisible specks of dust that cannot be even seen with great atomic power created. You see, friends, if you listen to the word of God, if you once begin to believe God loves you, if you listen to that and believe it.

If you begin to listen and believe that he wants to bless you and you really believe God wants to bless me. You've heard his word that tells you all of this and you begin to receive it. God sends forth his word and when he does, cataclysmic changes begin to happen.

Announcer (Male): The God who created the universe also cares deeply about your everyday life. Today on The Healing Word, Pastor Jack Morris presents God our Creator. From the opening chapter of Genesis, we'll see how the Lord brings order out of chaos and why putting God first changes everything.

Pastor Jack Morris: The Genesis account is a great account. It is the story of beginnings. Matter of fact, that's what the word Genesis means. You see the first three words, "In the beginning." Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning." It takes its name from those three words, like most ancient books did written way back in antiquity. Books would take their title from the first word or the first two words. Well, this is true to form. The first two words of Genesis is actually "In beginning." The word "the" has been inserted.

It's the beginning of—it tells us about the beginning of creation, the beginning of the universe, the beginning of sin, the beginning of man, the beginning of woman, the beginning of redemption, the beginning of salvation. It's the book of beginnings. But you know and I know right now reading just this first chapter or the portion of the first chapter, we're dealing with ideas that are too big for our finite thinking. Really, it's too big for us. But may the Holy Spirit help us to gain or garner something that will help us to love God and better relate to God that we might be the people of God.

Notice it says, "In the beginning, God." Last week, we learned his name here is Elohim, the plurality of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity. From the very beginning words, the fourth word of the Old Testament tells us that there is a triune Godhead and this triune Godhead is in covenant relationship with the Trinity, with himself. And not only is he in covenant relationship with himself, but he is in covenant relationship with his creation, particularly man, because he breathed into our nostrils the breath of life. So God is already in us, and he is indissolubly bound to us in a union for all eternity.

Isn't that wonderful? With just the very first four words of the Bible tells us about a God and a wonderful relationship that we can have with him and a relationship that we cannot ever be taken out of because as he is bound to himself, he is bound to us in this indissoluble, wonderful union forever and ever. In the beginning, God. Four great majestic words.

And I want to say, even before I get into the message too far today, that God in the beginning of anything is going to make that thing, person, situation beautiful, wonderful, enjoyable, bountiful, and perfect. You put God in the beginning of your marriage and see what happens. I know some of you will say, well, pastor, we've been married a lot of years. It's too late now. Well, no, it's not too late because God begins things again. But put him there wherever you are in your marriage. Put him there, put him there in the beginning of your family.

Isn't it wonderful, in the beginning, God, on the first day of the week to begin the week in the house of God? No wonder people experience a hard time next week. They didn't begin with God. In the beginning, God, seek first the kingdom of God. Isn't it wonderful to take your newborn baby and bring it to the altar in the beginning of his life or her life, put God in the beginning? In the beginning, God, give that child to the Lord.

No wonder people also are having difficulty with their finances. They don't take a tithe, they don't take a tenth in the beginning. And so they try to spend their money without the blessing of God upon it. No wonder they have more bills and they run out before all the bills are spent. This scripture verse, "In the beginning, God."

Do you know that let's see, I'm trying to think very quickly. Seven times the scripture says, "And God said." Seven times. Seven times and God said. And then I'm trying to think also, I don't have those written in my notes here with me today, but he used the word good. Seven times and God said. Now it's starting to come back to me.

You see, you better pray for this old man. I get forgetful when I get up here and I look at all of you and all these eyes looking at me. And then I know there's a group behind me looking at the back of my head. It's enough to make any preacher nervous and forget where he is. Keep staring, though. Keep looking.

But seven times God and God said, and seven is the Hebrew number of perfection. And then seven times God looked at what the result was after he said. Seven times he looked at his creation and pronounced it good. And in the Hebrew, the word good means beautiful and bountiful and joyful. Seven times, meaning this: that anything that comes from the hand of God is perfect, is good, is beautiful, is bountiful.

If we will trust God and allow God to become involved, and we have that's our choice. I mean, you can keep him outside your life, outside your family, outside your career, and outside your bank account. You can do that. That's your privilege. But you're going to have then to try to make that marriage and bank account and life and career work by your human effort, by your ingenuity, by your intelligence. But if you want the supernatural to get involved and you want God to bless, then put God in the beginning of everything.

Don't start a day without him. Don't start a week without him. Don't begin a meal without him. Don't pay a bill without him. Make sure God is there and his blessing will be upon you. Try it, you see, it'll work. He is the almighty and he can do for us what we cannot possibly do for ourselves. Put him where he is supposed to be, and that is in the beginning.

The scripture says, "In the beginning, God" did what? Created. Often I'll say to a fellow, to a man, I'll meet a person and I'll say, "Tell me about yourself." And do you know what he starts telling me very quickly? About his job. Now let me tell you about you girls, you ladies. I'll ask a woman, "Well, tell me about yourself." Do you know she hasn't gone into very few sentences and she'll say, "Well, I'm married. I have two children." Immediately she starts talking about her family and her relationship.

It seems as though in our thinking—and it's true—that we are bound, our identity is bound by what we do. What does God do? Let's learn something about him. God creates. How does he create? He creates good things and perfect things and beautiful things and bountiful things. Learn something about God and experience it in your own life. This is what God does. He is a God who creates.

Immediately we begin to learn about the almightiness of God, that God creates. He does the impossible. He is the almighty. In the word Elohim, the word El means when it's attached to ohim, Elohim means power, strength, almightiness. And this is the God that is seeking to introduce himself to us, a God of power who can do great and mighty and wonderful things in our lives.

Theologians have come up with three words—these words are not found in the Bible, but there are three words that describe his almightiness: omnipotence, omniscient, and omnipresent. The definition is found in the Bible, but the word itself, it's convenient words that speaks volumes. The scripture says he is the almighty, meaning he is omnipotent, that he has all power.

Well, think about it. Just think about it. He takes chaos and he makes cosmos. How did he do that? I don't know. He is just the almighty God, meaning he can take that which is in perfect confusion, if you want to put those two words together, perfect confusion, perfect nothingness, and brings order, arrangement, and with his blessing upon it.

He can take nothing, he can make something. He is the almighty. He is the omnipotent. He brings order to life, order to families, order to marriages. When God comes in, great and wonderful, extraordinary things begin to happen. The second word is the word omniscient, meaning that God sees all. The scripture says in Proverbs 15:3, the eyes of Jehovah are in every place. He is omniscient.

Now, what does this tell me about God? This helps me tremendously and I think it will help you too. God knows me and you and all there is about us. There is not one thing in your life or my life that God doesn't know. My past, my future, and my present and yours also is ever before him. There are two things that are destroying people's happiness today: two things, their past and what they think their future is going to be like.

There are things in our past, there are sins that we have done wrong, mistakes that we have made. Thank God they can be forgiven, covered with the blood of Jesus Christ, cleansed and made whole, and we can be made brand new creatures in the Lord and begin again. There are memories back there and those memories are haunting us today. Memories.

There is not a living human being that has not experienced guilt. Even God's people, and some of God's people today, you're experiencing guilt. There are parents today who are guilty because you feel that you didn't raise your children right. If you had it to do over, you would have done differently. You look at their lives today and you blame yourself. There are children today who feel guilty because they had to treat their parent in a certain way.

There are a lot of memories today that are crowding in on our present and affecting us and causing us to think, behave, and feel the way we think and behave and feel today, our past. Then we think of the future. We think of tomorrow. We anticipate what's it going to be like. We're frightened of tomorrow. There are anxieties and insecurities as we consider tomorrow. And so here's the past and all of those memories, and there's the future and we're caught in the middle like in a vice.

And so we're almost paralyzed. We can't move. We sort of tiptoe. We're so guilty about yesterday and we're so afraid of tomorrow that our present happiness is being just squeezed out of us, squashed in between. But God is omniscient, meaning he sees my past. He can deal with my past. There's no one that can deal with my past but God. And if I take my sins and my past experiences to him and confess it and talk it over with him, he has a way of washing it away, covering it, causing me to—I may remember it, but the pain won't be there anymore. It's the only thing in the Bible where we're told where God forgets.

Now, here's where God has a poor memory. The scripture says, Hebrews 10:17, "Their sins I will remember no more." So regardless of what we have done in the past, it can be dealt with through prayer, through confession, through repentance, and through asking God. Our future, what's going to happen tomorrow? Do you know what's going to happen tomorrow? The Bible says no one knows what a day is going to bring forth. We don't know from one moment to the next.

He Hickman had no idea when he went downtown he was never going to come across that district line into Maryland again. A healthy, strong 40-year-old man with two children, a great career. He didn't know when he got up that morning that he was going to die before the day was out. Neither do you, either. You don't know. You only know that you're here right now and you don't know what's going to be tomorrow.

The Bible says life is but a vapor that appears for a little time and then it's gone. We act as though we're here forever. We act—we have the feeling sometimes, I know that I have to fight it, like I'm going to pastor the Largo Community Church forever. I don't have forever, neither do you. Your children are growing up. They're passing that time of life. And if you and I don't get involved now and pray and work, your years are going so very, very quickly.

Your life, your marriage, your children, your family, your spiritual life needs attention now. We are the biggest procrastinators. May God help us. God knows where we are this very moment. He knows our pains, our hurts, our anxieties, our insecurities. He's the almighty, but he wants to create something good in you, in your home, in your family. And when he does it, when it comes from his hand, the scripture says, "And God said."

Are you concerned or do you really want to know what God says? If you do and if you listen and his word enters into you—and may he give us open hearts to hear and receive his words—when his word went forth, things happened in the atmosphere. Galaxies in far-off space were created. Little invisible specks of dust that cannot be even seen with great atomic power created. You see, friends, if you listen to the word of God, if you once begin to believe God loves you, if you listen to that and believe it.

If you begin to listen and believe that he wants to bless you and you really believe God wants to bless me. You've heard his word that tells you all of this and you begin to receive it. God sends forth his word and when he does, cataclysmic changes begin to happen. Do you think God can straighten out my life or my marriage or my family? Do I think it? He created the heavens and the earth! He's God. He's the omnipotent, the omniscient one.

And then the other word that is used, he is omnipresent, meaning God is everywhere. He's here with us this morning. He's going to be with us when we leave here today. We're never going to be out of his presence. We can pray anytime, anywhere: at home, at work, at school, at play. But God is everywhere, isn't he? You can pray to him and often I do when I'm walking, when I'm driving. In my office, I kneel sometimes. Sometimes I'm walking when I'm praying.

But God is omnipresent. He is the almighty and whatever the need at that moment, take it to him. But all I think maybe we need to know is that God's great power is for us, caring for us, loving us. He has no other place to place that power that I know of but on you and your family to bless you and to do you good. And so you can pray to him in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He'll deal with your past, he'll deal with your future, he'll deal with your present. He's a God that is present always. He's a God that sees everything and he sees you. And some of us right now, we really need to pray about some things in our lives. We really need to pray about a few things. And that's what we need to do because God is with us now. Let's pray. Let's bow before him.

Dear God, I'm so thankful that you are our God and that we know you through Jesus Christ. That you're not a God in a distant place, but you're a God that is in covenant relationship, ever near us, bound to our hearts. We give you praise and we give you thanks. And I pray for your people today. Some of your people, Lord, are really struggling with feelings of guilt and past memories and past sins.

Help us, Lord, to turn all of that over to you in confession, to tell you about it, to acknowledge it, and you will deal with it, eradicate it, and forget it. With our heads bowed in this moment of prayer, I'm going to take a silent moment for you to tell the Lord about those guilt feelings, about those memories, about any wrongdoing that comes to your mind. The Holy Spirit's bringing some of this to your mind right now. Take a moment and tell him about it.

Thank you for hearing our prayer, Lord, and for ministering. You spoke the word and in a fraction of time, great and marvelous things take place. Thank you for your word that promises us your presence and your power now. Bless us, Lord, and help us to ever know that you're with us, blessing us, caring for us. You're with us always. In Jesus' name, amen.

The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen.

Announcer (Male): Pastor Morris reminds us today that when God is placed first, his blessing follows. The Creator who formed the heavens and the earth is able to bring hope, peace, and restoration into our lives today. Visit thehealingword.online where you can hear this message again, explore free eBooks, and watch additional teaching from Pastor Morris. And if this ministry is encouraging your heart, your financial support helps us continue bringing biblical truth to listeners everywhere.

Thank you for joining us today on The Healing Word. Next time, Pastor Morris continues with fellowship with God, revealing God's desire to walk closely with his people through Jesus Christ.