The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: The Bible says all scripture is God-breathed. Now, the word of God is the very breath of God, and as God breathes His breath into you and me, you and I will come alive also. God breathed into Adam. The word of God is being breathed on you today and on me. Let's by faith inhale it and live.

Guest (Male): Psalm 107 verse 20. He sent his word and healed them. Welcome to the Healing Word. Here's Pastor Jack Morris with today's message that will grow your faith in God and lead you to a closer walk with Jesus.

Pastor Jack Morris: Now, friends, whatever I say today, I want you to please understand this: I'm only the messenger. I didn't write it. It would be like a person going to the doctor. The doctor examines this person and says, "Oh, I'm so sorry. You have cancer." Does the person get angry with the doctor that just brought the news? The doctor didn't make the cancer. The doctor was just the messenger. I'm only the messenger today.

Hear the word of God, not my word. I would like on the screen the words of Second Timothy 3:16, and I'd like all of us to read it together in unison. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Notice how it begins. "All scripture." Not some of the scripture. Not the ones that joy my heart and I look over the other ones, I pass over them. Notice it says all scripture.

The scripture starts in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God." And then it goes all the way through to the back of the Bible where we read in Revelation 22:21, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen." All scripture. Can you say those words? All scripture. Not part of the scripture. All scripture. The Bible does not contain the word of God. The Bible is the word of God.

Not some of it that I like, and then I cut out parts that I don't like, or I just don't mention it, just sort of look the other way because some of those scriptures will do spiritual surgery on you. The Bible is sharper than a two-edged sword. But when that Bible comes and the Holy Spirit who breathed it begins to do the pruning, it's so that you can produce more fruit for the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible is for you, not against you. It is God's word.

It is all God-breathed. Now, God-breathed simply meaning that every word was breathed out by God. Every word. I think of all the way back in the Old Testament, how God made Adam out of the dust of the ground. I believe it happened that way. I don't believe he came from a monkey. I believe God designed him. God was the architect. God created the heavens and the earth, and God created man. And then the scripture says God breathed into him and he became alive.

The Bible says all scripture is God-breathed. Now, the word of God is the very breath of God. And as God breathes his breath into you and me, you and I will come alive also. God breathed into Adam. The word of God is being breathed on you today and on me. Let's by faith inhale it and live. The word of God is not here to shut you down or to cramp your lifestyle. Well, maybe it is a little bit. But if it cramps you in one area, it'll loosen you up and free you in another area and make you abundantly blessed of God.

It says in First Peter 1:20 and 21, "No prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever prophesied by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." I was taught even in elementary school that I'm to respect books, and I'm to respect authors, and I'm not to tamper with an author of a book. If I do, it's tantamount to plagiarism. I'm not to add to that author, I'm not to take away from that author, I'm not to misquote that author. I've been taught that since elementary school.

Now, friend, God authored the Bible. I'm not to add to this or take away from it or tamper with it in any way. I'm to give God the same respect that I give every author of a book in my library and your library. I want to give God the same respect. I'm not going to tamper with it at all. I believe in what God has said. I can't alter it. I can't change it. It's not my words. I don't have the authority. I don't have the right to do anything like that at all.

Now, here's what sometimes happens. Not all of the time, but it sometimes happens this way. There is what I'm calling personal interest adaptation. Normally, people don't have any problem with the Bible until it comes against or comes in conflict with their lifestyle. That's when they bristle just a little bit. Now, the Bible has cut me down all my life long, but in cutting me down, I have lived more wonderfully than I could have ever possibly lived before.

The Bible is for me, not against me. Normally, people don't have a problem until the Bible comes into conflict with their lifestyle, the lifestyle of somebody in their family, or the lifestyle of a good friend of theirs. Now, I've pastored a lot of years. For well over 40 years, I have preached and taught the same thing that I'm teaching and preaching this morning. I'm not teaching and preaching anything new. Actually, a long time ago we had a couple come to the church.

They told me, "Pastor, this is a wonderful church. I love this church. Pastor Morris, do you know that God sent me to this church?" I said, "I'm so glad. I believe so too. I believe he did." And they were here, very active, even teaching Sunday school. And they were good. And then one day, I preached something. I don't know what I said from the pulpit, some scripture. They called me into my office. They sat down and they said, "Do you believe that's still true today, that we're still to do it that way?"

I said, "Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. I do." "Well, we're going to leave this church." I said, "Ma'am, you said God sent you here. I didn't change my belief when you heard me say what I said. I've believed that for the 40 years I've been here, or I've believed that all my life long. And God knew that he was sending you to a church where a pastor preaches the Bible." "Well, I'm going to leave." Did God send you or didn't he? Well, I wiggled out of that one as quickly as I could, and they wiggled right out of the church.

But friends, nothing has changed. Absolutely nothing. But when the Bible comes into conflict with a lifestyle of maybe one of our children, while our children are young, growing up, and then when they get into their teens or they become an adult, and they adopt a lifestyle that is in a gray area or completely in an area that the Bible disapproves of, well, sometimes, not all the time, sometimes parental love overrides the Bible.

They say, "Well, I don't approve of that, but he's a good boy. She's a good girl. They do other things that are right." But friend, listen to me. I say this so sincerely. God's not going to give your son or daughter a pass. The same word is for you, the same word is for me, the same word is for them. God is no respecter of persons. God wants your child to have a wonderful life. And if your child chooses a life contrary to the Bible, God can't bless that life.

And if you bless that life that God doesn't bless, parent, you're not being a good parent. My son is one of the finest young men I know. He has a beautiful Christian wife, he has two beautiful Christian daughters. One daughter now says she feels called someday to be a youth pastor. And the other daughter is going to college. They go to church. He's a wonderful father. He teaches them, they have prayer in the home.

But when my son started experimenting with marijuana and was sick to death with that experiment physically, I didn't say, "You're a nice boy." Well, I should have said that because he is a nice boy. He can be a nice boy, but he's harming himself. He's harming himself physically. I couldn't condone it. What could I do? I could love him and I could pray for him. But I couldn't say, "Son, it's okay." Now, I understand marijuana has been legalized. What are we doing to our families?

The family is the enemy's battleground. But God's for the family. God's going to take care of the family that looks to him. My son has grown up to be a fine young man. He experimented with alcohol, and kids are going to do that. We're not going to write them off. That's maybe part of growing up. They're going to do some things that they shouldn't do. But we're going to pray for them. But we're not going to condone that lifestyle. We're not going to say, "Come on, bring it in the house. Take that girl or that fellow to the bedroom."

No, we're not going to do that. We're going to say, "This is holy ground. We pray in this house. This house has been dedicated to the Lord. We love you with all of our heart. We're always going to be your parents. But we cannot condone and bless what God curses." Friend, God's not going to give us a pass. God's going to bless us and God's going to help us. God meant business when he wrote this book. He wasn't toying around. And the person or the people that have said to me, "Pastor, you're teaching things that shouldn't be taught today because the Bible is not relevant today. This is a contemporary society and you need to adjust."

People have actually told me that and emailed me that. I get those kinds of messages. Friend, I didn't write this book. I'm not the author of this book. I'm going to give this author at least the same respect as I'm going to give the author of any book, any of my textbooks in college and seminary and university. I respect those authors. Even though I may disagree with them, I'm not going to tamper with what they have to say. I can't do anything otherwise than believe the word of God and hold to it.

Let me talk to you just a little bit about the sacredness of marriage. Someone says, "Pastor, is this sermon for our young people? Maybe our young people shouldn't be hearing it." If anybody should be hearing it, it should be our young people. I'm glad you're here to hear it today. We have great young people at the Largo Community Church. We have great parents at the Largo Community Church. Marriage is a divine institution. It's ordained of God. It means it is uniquely set apart by God between a consenting man and a consenting woman.

It's a relationship that is comparable or compared or likened to the relationship between Christ and the church. The scripture says Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. A man and his wife loving each other and giving themselves to each other. And then we say, what God hath joined together, let no one put asunder. Don't let society put it asunder, not the state put it asunder, not the federal government put it asunder, not the courts of the land put it asunder.

Listen, God did this. God did it the way he wanted it done. He did it in the beginning. He blessed this great union. And when this union between a husband and a wife is followed biblically, that union is blessed of God. Now, look what happened. God brought Adam to Eve. Listen to this. Genesis 2:18, "The Lord God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helpmate suitable for him.'" Now, here's what I want you to get. A helpmate suitable for him.

Can you say those words? A helpmate suitable for him. Now, the only suitable helpmate for Adam was a woman, not another man. God didn't bring another man to Adam. God said in the very beginning, this is how I'm going to bless the earth, and this is how I'm going to bless families. I'm going to bring a man and a woman together. Now, the word helper in Hebrew is ezer, one who supplies strength in the area that is lacking. Another man cannot supply strength in the area that is lacking in another man. Neither can it be done woman to woman.

God wanted the couple to be fruitful and multiply. And without female companionship and a partner in the reproduction, the man could not fully realize his humanity and obey God. The woman was essential. A man and a woman. Jesus then comes into the New Testament and he says this: "He who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast or cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one. What therefore God hath joined together...'"

Friend, God joins together. Not what the state says we're going to join together, not what the government's going to join together, not what the courts are going to join together, but what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Let no man separate. Now, here's where the rubber meets the road. There came sexual impurity into the land, into the human race. I'm going to, I'm not asking you to turn, I just want you to listen to Romans chapter 1 verses 18 through 28.

It begins talking about the wrath of God, the anger of God. I read that. God's angry? The wrath of God. Why is God angry? Well, read on. Go to verse 24. He's angry at sexual immature. Well, what is sexual immature? Okay, let me just turn over. I'm going to read it now from Romans chapter 1. Here it is. "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lust. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women. In the same way, men abandoned..."

Friend, you can abandon anything you want to abandon. You can believe and adopt anything you want to believe. That's how God made you as a free moral agent. But let me go back here. "In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." God says it's perversion. "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God..."

It's not worthwhile believing the Bible or living by the Bible. "He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done." A depraved mind? Friend, simply meaning this: God says I'm going to let you do what you want to do. You can vote in anything you want to vote in, you can vote out anything you want to vote out, but it doesn't make it right unless it's according to the word of God. God gave them over. Here's the good news. God forgives. God is a forgiving God.

And there is no sin, I don't think, greater than any other sin. The sins that I committed and I needed to confess and repent of are sins that God has forgiven. Now, there are degrees of sin. I'm sure society judges it differently. But I want you to know I'm not the message, I'm just the messenger. In First Corinthians 6:9 through 11, it lists those sins that God has forgiven. Here they are: fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals.

Now, we've all sinned and we all need to repent. We all need to confess. we all need to be forgiven. Our sin may not be listed in that list of sins. That is a list of sins, but there are other lists of sins in other places in the Bible. But the good news is, whatever our sin, once it is confessed and repented of, God forgives. God forgives. He is a forgiving, cleansing God. Now, listen to this. I go on now to First Corinthians 6:11. I'm still in that same chapter.

"And that is what some of you were." Did you hear that? He's talking to Christians. He said some of you Christians were fornicators, some of you were idolaters, some of you were adulterers, and some of you were homosexuals. "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified and made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of God." Regardless of what we have done anytime in our life, we can go back and address it to God, and God will take it away.

God will cleanse us, God will make us new in Him. This is the word of God. And I pray today that your heart will be open to hear, to believe, to follow the word of God. And when you do, your life will be blessed. Your life, your marriage, your children, your household will come under the blessing of God. Friend, God cares. God loves. Jesus came. Last Sunday, I said Jesus looked into the cup. Do you remember, those of you who were here? He looked into the cup, and every sin that I mentioned and those sins that are mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus saw all those sins.

He did not want to drink homosexuality into his being. He didn't want to drink lying and cheating into his being. But he took all of that sin, your sin, my sin. We have all sinned. And he took that sin, and he carried it to the cross, and he atoned. And today, we can go to him. I'll tell you, he'll take care of the past. He'll bring blessing into the present, and he'll give you a wonderful, wonderful future in him. All you need to do, turn to him.

Pastor Jack Morris: Hi friend. I just want to take a moment to thank you and thank God for your partnership in this ministry of The Healing Word. You've been such a blessing. You've been praying and sending in your offerings and you've kept The Healing Word on the air. People need the Lord. That's the reason, that's the very purpose of The Healing Word. There are people who are sick and afflicted and experiencing mental and emotional anguish, marital and family discord and a host of other struggles and troubles. But the word of God that lifts up Jesus is reaching them, and I'm so thankful for you. Continue to pray and continue to send in offerings because I certainly need both. I cannot get along with one without the other. I need you. God bless you is my prayer.

Guest (Male): Will you consider partnering with Pastor Morris and supporting The Healing Word ministry with your prayers and donating to keep the gospel of Jesus Christ reaching thousands? Go to thehealingword.com and click the donate button to pledge your support. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.