The Healing Word

Guest (Male): God's breath is in His church. You cannot be a Christian and be an absentee church member. It doesn't work. You need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and God is breathing. He's breathing. You can leave the church today with new life, with new freshness. God will just blow the staleness and the boredom out and energize you, and you'll leave with newness of life.

Narrator (Male): Have you ever wondered if God is truly near? Today on The Healing Word, Pastor Jack Morris continues The Names of God with a message called The Abiding Presence of God from the book of Ezekiel. We'll meet Jehovah Shammah, God is there, and discover how His presence remains with us always.

Pastor Jack Morris: Israel was again in the terrible bondage of an enslaved situation, and God spoke to a prophet named Ezekiel. He told him a great story that Ezekiel wrote down and passed on to his people then and to us today. My friends, I pray that you will hear with the ears of your soul this morning. Let the Holy Spirit touch your heart. Let Him empower you. Let His words find a place inside you and begin to grow within you.

Here is Ezekiel. God wrote this down not just for Israel, but for us. It's in the Bible for us. It's for our edification. Ezekiel saw something happening in his mind. He was in prayer. He knelt down to pray, and his mind was lifted. God started showing him things. God said, “I'm going to remove my power and my spirit from Jerusalem and from the temple.” Naturally, the question of the heart was, “Why, God? Why?”

God said to Ezekiel, “Because my people really don't love and appreciate and obey me anymore. They're doing other things. They don't have time for me anymore. They've gone after the world.” God said they had other things where they were paying their homage: other concerns, leisure pursuits. Those became their gods. That was their interest. That's what thrilled them. That's where their devotion was. Church became a duty, and other things became more important.

God said, “I'm going to move my spirit away.” And God did. Ezekiel saw it in his mind's eye. With his eyes closed, he saw something that symbolized the presence of God being taken away. It was gone. Twenty-five years later, Ezekiel was praying. He was praying for the people of God, for the people of Israel. God said, “Because of the prayers of my people, because of my people's repentance, because my people are acknowledging that they have forsaken me, I want you to know this, friends.”

Long before God forsakes His people or leaves His people, we forsake Him and leave Him. God is always there. God is always ready. God is always available. Ezekiel began to pray after 25 years, and he saw the glory of God coming back. Through repentance, through confession, through turning away, it took them 25 years to become wise and realize they needed God. Then God came back, and he saw the glory of God coming back.

He saw the people of God moving closer and closer to the temple of God. Here was the city of Jerusalem, that holy, beautiful city, and the people wanted to get close. When you're close to God spiritually, you want to be close to God's people too. They all wanted to be together, and God gave them parcels of land all around the temple. He saw the glory of God coming back and returning to the temple.

Then God said to Ezekiel, “I'm going to give to Jerusalem, to my temple, to my house, a baptism of a rebirth, and I'm going to rename the city. I'm going to rename it Jehovah Shammah: God is there.” That's where we get the name God is there, Jehovah Shammah. This is what the Lord spoke to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, to Ezekiel. These were all contemporaries of Ezekiel. Daniel was also a contemporary of Ezekiel.

I think of some of the difficulties that life brings to each of us and how necessary it is that I know that I'm walking with God and that God is with me. I thought about my own life. I began to remember and think. I'd never forgotten, but it just brought back good memories, wonderful memories. One of the things I remembered was when I was a little boy and I went to my mother's parents’ home. They had a little farm in West Virginia.

I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and I went to a church where the minister told me that I needed to accept Jesus as my personal savior. I was just a little boy, and I remember how that minister prayed with me and helped me to understand I needed to become a Christian and to serve Jesus. In my teenage years, those were difficult times. Like all teenagers, those can be very precarious years, difficult years for teenagers.

I'm so thankful for those teenage years. Those were difficult times, but when the temptations of those years came, God kept me. My parents separated, they divorced, and there was not a whole lot of guidance in my life at that time. I was like a ship that lost its moorings. But for God, I know today, looking back at my age, looking back at those years, I know that I would have slipped and gone astray even after I became a Christian.

I would have slipped and gone astray but for Jehovah Shammah. God was there with me, keeping me. A grandmother was praying for me. A grandmother was talking to me and sharing the gospel with me, loving me, and God was hearing that grandmother's prayer, and I was kept. God was there. I can look back and see it more plainly now than I could even then. But God was there during those teenage years.

Then I went into my adulthood and fell in love with a very fine Christian girl coming from a very wonderful Christian family. I'm talking about Corinne. She was there. I was a young minister trying to get my career going, becoming a pastor, having two children, living in a parsonage. Now, some of you may think that there are no problems, no temptations, no difficulties raising a family in a parsonage, but if you do, you're thinking wrong.

We had some difficulties and problems and temptations and trials that were completely different, but they were very real. I know how Satan went on the attack at my family using my son. My son is a very fine Christian man today in the church serving God. I can't speak more highly of him. He's about 32 years old, but it was difficult, really difficult during those times, during those years, with the problem and the friction.

There I was before a congregation Sunday after Sunday trying to serve the church and set the example and point to a very tangible lifestyle and say, “This is how you're to live.” Some of the times I should have said, “This is how you're not to live.” But Jehovah Shammah, I came so close one time. I came so close to just saying, “The ministry isn't for me. I'm going to give it up. I don't think I can do this anymore.”

I came so close, but for the presence of God. Friends, I'm talking about God's presence, His abiding presence, that wonderful presence that He promised when He said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” I went through one of the deepest trials. I remember standing before the congregation and telling the congregation openly, confessing publicly one Sunday morning where I was and the valley I was in. I know the people had to pray for me.

Some of you are here today. I can remember you were there. You heard the story. That was a lot of years ago, but God was there. But for the grace of God, but for the presence of God. I can testify to that, and I thank God for that. One of these days, I'm going to get old. That's a long, long way off. I know that. But when that time comes and when my strength begins to fail and I perhaps will need some others—family or friends or loved ones—to start making decisions for me, I know God's going to be there then.

I know I'm not going to be alone. As some of you elderly people, I want you to know that God is with you and His promises are for you. He will keep you because to you He is Jehovah Shammah. I thank God for the people of this church that go to the nursing homes and senior citizen homes and to the individual homes to call on some of the elderly of the church and serve them communion. I thank God for you. You are missionaries, truly missionaries of the gospel.

But God is there to bless and to keep regardless of whether we're a child or a teenager or an adult or a senior citizen. He is Jehovah Shammah. If you think you're alone today, then you're thinking wrong because you are loved, greatly loved, and God is with you. He's with you to bless you, to keep you, to provide for you, to heal you, to save you, to love you, to comfort you. He's with you. Say, “God is with me.” He is. He will never leave you nor forsake you, and He'll be with you always. You're never alone.

When that time comes to die—and we're all going to die; should Jesus tarry, we're all going to die—I know God's going to be Jehovah Shammah then. See, the God that heard the prayer of that little pre-teenage boy at his grandmother's church in West Virginia, that God carried that young fellow all the way to this present time. You're here today because maybe there was a grandmother or a parent, a mother, a father, an aunt, an uncle, somebody, a spouse in your life, a friend, somebody prayed for you.

You believed and you accepted and you responded to the presence of God that came to you in answer to their prayer. God is with you. He's not going to leave you. He didn't save you to forsake you and for you to fall back into sin and go away from Him. He saved you to keep you. I know today if you pray, if you felt the presence of God has lifted from you and you don't feel the nearness and the closeness that you once felt, I want you to pray and believe because He'll come back and He'll return the glory back to you.

He wants you, and He wants to be near you, and He wants to love you. The Psalmist says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Why? “For thou art with me. Thou art with me.” You see, friends and family and loved ones can walk us to death's door, but there's a shadowy darkness on the other side of the veil. They can't go beyond that veil. They can't step into the shadows with us.

They can hold our hand and they can pray and they can be there. But when we step into the shadows and that shadowy mist darkness begins to envelop us and the potential of great fear is there, we're all alone. No one can go with us. Jesus said, “But I can step across.” Like the song says, “I will not have to cross Jordan alone.” He will be Jehovah Shammah, the God who is with us, the God who is there.

I'm not there yet, you're not there yet, but when you do get there, God will be there to bless, to keep, and to walk with you through that valley and to bring you out into the brightness of that holy celestial city at the other end, that place called Heaven. God's going to be there. It's wonderful to know that every trial, every difficulty, every temptation, every discouragement that we walk through in this life, He's there with us, walking with us.

Everything is changing in this life. Nothing remains the same. Our age changes. We're ever growing older. I once was a boy, I once was a teenager, I once was a young adult and middle-aged adult and approaching an older adult. We're all always changing, forever changing. I go by houses today and take my son and daughter back to Pennsylvania and I'll point: “I used to live there. I used to go to school there.”

As a matter of fact, I thought last night I counted out at least eight houses, eight places that we used to call home. Everything is changing. Nothing remains the same. Everything. But through all of those changes, and that's the only thing that we can actually predict and we know for certain that's going to take place in life, and that is change. But through all of the changes and all of the homes and all of the schools and all of whatever, God has been there and He'll continue to be there.

He's not going to be with you; He's not a half-time God, and He's not on a part-time schedule, and He's not a 20-hour a week God. He's with you never to leave you, never to forsake you, but to be with you always. The scripture says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Jesus.” Yes in Jesus. Say those words: “Yes in Jesus.” That means every promise He has made, Jesus says, “Yes,” and He activates it.

Jesus is in the process of activating certain promises, energizing them, lifting them right out of the pages of Holy Writ and putting them right into your house, right into your home, and right into your heart. Every promise, every one of them, Jesus says yes to them, and these promises are to you. Now, He's with us always. He is omnipresent. Always God is with us. But for you to actually feel Him and come into contact with Him and begin to experience Him, here's where you can go.

First, the Word of God. Write the word Bible or the Word of God. You see, this is His breath. You're pretty near a person when they can breathe on you. This is His breath. The Word of God is the energy of His mind. These are the neurotransmitters, those little sparks that fly through your mind that connect the cells that make the mind become active and the thought processes become active. You're very close to God. You're right at His mind. You're right into His thoughts, His thoughts concerning you.

What does God think of me? He wants to tell you what He thinks of me. He wants to tell you how much He loves you. He wants to tell you how Jesus wants to activate these promises. He wants to talk to you not on a long-distance call, but right there with you. Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. Where is the Lord? Right there He is. Right there, the Lord is there. And when you get there, you'll meet Him.

The Word of God. The second place, write down number two: the Church. The Church. You see, Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” The very breath of God. The Word is His breath, the refreshing of God, the energy of God. And then He told them, “You go to the upper room.” And they went to the upper room, and there they prayed. And then there was a sound from heaven, and then there was a mighty rushing wind.

It was the very breath of God breathing on that 120, and a church was born. A church was born because the church was energized with the very breath of God, just as God formed Adam of the dust of the earth and then breathed into his nostrils. He was a corpse until He breathed into his nostrils. God's breath is in His church. You cannot be a Christian and be an absentee church member. It doesn't work. You need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and God is breathing.

He's breathing. You can leave the church today with new life, with new freshness. God will just blow the staleness and the boredom out and energize you, and you'll leave with newness of life. This is what God wants to do. Your brothers and sisters, they impart life to you and you impart life to them because you're both energized by the very power and presence of God. You need the church.

Some say, “I can get along without the church.” No, not spiritually. Not in Christianity. Not in a relationship with God. Jesus said, “I will build my church.” He's building it. It belongs to Him. It's the creation of His hands. And then I can say, “Well, I can take it or leave it.” I mean, something that He has designed, I can take it or leave it? What don't you say that about Heaven? He said, “In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.”

He's building it. We're lost without Him. We're saved with Him, and all can have Him. So the church, energized and filled with the very breath of God. And number three, write down number three: prayer. That's when you talk to God in prayer. How many times I've gone into that very secret chamber, and there I have told God my secrets. I have unburdened my heart. I have told God things that I would not tell you, that I would not at that moment tell my wife or my children or anyone else.

But I could tell Him. I could tell Him, and I know He would keep my secrets. And I know He would hear my prayer. And I know He would come to me. I mean, years have passed, and God and I have become pretty close, pretty good friends. I've gotten so that I know Him and I have great confidence in Him, and I can talk to Him and I can share. You see, in that holy place, in that secret place, in that quiet chamber, Jehovah Shammah, God is there, and I can talk to Him.

God is here today. Wherever you go with the Word, with the church in your heart, and knowing that you can close yourself off in a place of prayer, He's Jehovah Shammah. God is there. God is here. Two wonderful things, wonderful wonders that have come into my life and into your life. Number one, He saved me. When He saved me, when He saved you, He made you a Christian. And the second thing is He came never to leave me. He's with me always.

Narrator (Male): God is here, and He is with you. If you're longing for a deeper awareness of His presence, the e-book from Asking Why God to Trusting Him offers gentle encouragement for the journey. Explore more messages anytime at thehealingword.com. If today's message strengthened your faith, we invite you to stand with The Healing Word through your prayers and your generous support. Every gift helps us take the gospel to more people who desperately need to hear that Jesus still saves. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.