The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: All healing comes from God. Whether it be supernatural in answer to prayer, whether it be a physician, whether some healing comes through counseling, some healing comes through nature, but healing comes. All how it gets to us, they come from God, and to God be all the honor and glory.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Healing Word broadcast. Today's message is going to focus on the healing miracles of Jesus. Let's go to the message.

Pastor Jack Morris: Now the reason I'm going to the healing miracles of Jesus, number one, is to help us to know that Jesus is someone who does things, not someone who did things. Get that friend. Secondly, that we might come to see and experience the mighty power of God in action. And thirdly, my reason for this series is that we might become first-hand witnesses of the mighty wonder-working power of Jesus Christ.

Now all of us have heard others testify. I've received healing, or I have had an answer to prayer. We have heard them give testimonies. We have read about it in the Bible. We have read Christian literature where people have given these testimonies and we look at it and we say, "Oh, isn't that wonderful." Friend, it's time for us to be experiencing personally first-hand what we have been hearing from others and reading about from others. Wouldn't you like to experience some of those blessings, some of those miracles that others talk about?

I tell you, I sort of envy them. I don't want to keep hearing them tell me what good thing has happened to them. After a while, I get a little bit tired of that and I said, "I want some of those good things to start happening to me." And that's why I'm preaching this series of messages.

Now at the conclusion, not today, but in a few weeks, I may, if the Holy Spirit leads me, to pray individually, take a part of the service to lay on hands and to pray. But we need to be impacted by the word of God that will build us up in the faith. I'm not going to swing into this thing quickly, but I'm going to take week after week and work through this. And as we hear it, week after week like a jackhammer, bang, bang, bang, bang, the word of God, the word of God, the word of God pounded into us, our faith will soar and then we'll be able to stand up and say, "I believe, and then I receive."

That's how it's going to happen. I truly believe it. Now one of the greatest dangers of Christianity is to think of Jesus as somebody to be remembered, not somebody to be met and experienced. Let me say that one again. This is truly one of the greatest dangers of Christianity. And if you're a Christian, it's a danger to you and it's a danger to me because we look at the scripture and we read the scripture and we say, "Oh, wonderful." We remember Jesus, but the greatest danger of Christianity is to think of Jesus as someone to be remembered instead of somebody to be met and experienced.

People are not meeting Jesus today. People are not meeting with answers to prayer. People are not meeting with divine healing. There's a lot of things in the scripture that we read about and that up here we believe and we said it must have been wonderful back then. And it must be wonderful for the persons who are giving testimony today. But God wants it to be wonderful for you and he wants it to be wonderful for me. And that's why we're here today in these scriptures.

Alright, let's look at some of the passages and the miracles. The earliest biblical records tell us that God desired to be healed. We don't have to beg him, plead with him, try to convince him to come back and do it again. No, he's not waiting for that at all. From the very beginning of scripture, the Book of Job, this was the very first book of the Bible that was written. Then there came the Book of Genesis and then the Book of Exodus. These early, early books, thousands and thousands of years ago, these books tell us that God is a healing God and that he desires to heal, that he desires to restore.

This is not something new. This is from the very beginning of time that God wants to restore and heal humankind body, soul, and spirit. Or put it another way: emotional healing, physical healing, and spiritual healing. Now God even links his name with divine healing. He put his name on the line. He said, "I'll put my name out there and if it doesn't work then my name's no good." Let's look at it. Would you put it on the screen for us now? Exodus chapter 15, verse 26.

This is what God says. This is what God says, not the Largo Community Church, not some denomination, and not some faith healer, but God Almighty. "For I am the Lord." The word Lord in Hebrew is Yahweh or pronounced in English Jehovah. In Hebrew pronounced Yahweh. I am the Lord. I am Yahweh who Rapha you. I am the Lord who heals you. That's his promise. "I am the Lord who heals you." He's not retired on that. He's not given up on that. He's not changed his mind on that at all. That is his holy words.

Now in the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—there are 26 healing miracles. Now there are many more miracles. I'm not going into the miracles where he calmed the sea and broke the loaves and the fishes. I'm talking about physical, spiritual, emotional healing. There are 26 of them. Now if we read the four Gospels, there are actually 48 times healing is recorded. But some of those 48 are repeated several times. Like Matthew may repeat it and then John might come and give the same miracle and repeat it again. So we subtract those miracles that are being repeated and we come down to 26 physical, spiritual, emotional healings. Now why would God inundate the Bible with all of that information for us to read it? It's there for us to read and to know.

People in Jesus' day—and I'm going to deal with these miracles from the Book of Mark. Mark is the first book of the New Testament that was written. Then there came Matthew and then the others. But Mark is the very first book. So I'm going to limit my thoughts so I can have a controlled study and I'm going to go to the Book of Mark and choose some of these miracles.

People expected miracles in Jesus' day. I want to say that one again. They expected miracles. We don't expect miracles today. We want them to happen, we hope they're going to happen, we pray that they will happen, but let's be honest now, and I'm right in there with you. I don't expect them anymore than you don't expect them. And I'm going to tell you why we don't expect them.

But in the ancient world, people expected miracles to happen. In the ancient world, that world was sometimes referred to as the Age of Miracles. Miracles seemed to be commonplace. Now call it superstition if you like, but the people of that age believed in miracles. They believed in spirits, they believed in gods, they believed in demons, they believed in the supernatural. It was just commonplace to them. It is not commonplace to you and me who live in a mechanized scientific world.

We live in a world where people go to the moon and they do it by their own ingenuity and scientific maneuvering. People do great things today, but we're doing it because we know how. And so we're thinking, "I can do it. Why do I need to pray to God? I can go to the moon." Soon we're really going to be going to Mars, we're going to be going to other places. My children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the things they're going to see, it is just going to be absolutely phenomenal. But we rely on that. We support that. We're drawn into that and we are absolutely overcome with the thought our children have to get a university degree.

Uppermost in our mind before we think, "How many of us here are thinking, are those children who stand up here, are they born-again Christians? Are they saved? Is their name written in the Book of Life?" Oh no, they've got to get a degree. I want them to get a degree, absolutely. But they can get a degree and still go to hell. Where are my priorities? Where are my values? I'm claiming to be a born-again Christian, but I don't have time to teach them in the Sunday School. I don't have time to visit them at the retreats. I don't have time to talk to them, but they've got to get a degree.

Friend, come on. Are you a born-again Christian? Am I a born-again Christian? Do I value a relationship with the Lord? If I do, then I'm going to value a relationship with the Lord with these children also. Let's be born-again believers. Let's be a spirit-filled church. Let's not be words and a lot of talk. They've got to get A's and A pluses. Friend, they've got to get their name in heaven in the Book of Life.

If they don't, there's a devil out there that is after them as a roaring lion to destroy them, destroy their marriages when they get married, destroy their testimony, destroy their happiness. Oh, they'll get that degree and make a lot of money, but they will not be happy in this life and they will wonder, "Why didn't my people at the Largo Community Church help me to understand the kind of man or the kind of woman that I'm supposed to be?" Where are our priorities and our values being placed?

I thank God for many of you whose children are in Christ. You know it. They've been born again. You have prayed. You have sought God. We have some of the greatest parents that I've ever met anywhere in my life, and I'm an old man now. I've had a long life, thank God. And I've seen God's parents here at the Largo Community Church. But at the same time, we need to be vigilant as wise as serpents and as harmless as a dove. Friend, when I read the other day how many of our young people—young people under 18, under 15, under 12—are in pornography big time. Big time.

Murdering and killing, hating, racism, prejudice. It hasn't changed all these years. It isn't changing now and we're not doing anything to help our young people to change. We have one thing only for them. God help us. God help us. Our young people are lost for lack of a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh my, God help us. I love these children. I know you love them too. You want the best for them. But sometimes we are not choosing the best for them.

We're choosing something that is temporal, that is earthly, that is mundane, that they can't even take to the grave with them. For in the grave there is no knowledge. The scripture says that. Yes, I want them to have a happy life. I want them to buy things and have things, expensive things, enjoy things. I want that. But something else I want more: I want them to walk with Jesus.

Jesus is alive and well, friend. He's not somebody of history to be remembered, but he's somebody to be met and experienced. And if you don't know him today, I pray that you will experience him. For he cares deeply for each person here and he loves us greatly.

Well, in that world of the ancients, in that world that Jesus lived in, people expected spiritual things, supernatural things to happen. And they did happen. Their mind was open to it. Their mind was conditioned from youth to it. You know, most people who are saved are saved before the age of 18. If you don't get them by 18, you may never get them. By far 70 percent, only about 30 percent get saved after 18. So if we're going to get them, we've got to get them now. Do you understand how my heart is filled with urgency today?

Well, in that ancient world, everybody's mind was just open to the supernatural. Every tree, every river, every hill, every grove had its resident god or demon. They believed it. It seemed like it was so. Even the Roman emperors were credited with healing miracles. There was the Greek god of healing, there was the Egyptian cult of healing. People were expecting things to happen. And when Jesus came on the scene, he came into a world of expectancy.

And that's one of the reasons all of these miracles began to happen. And it's so difficult today in our mechanistic and scientific world to expect miracles to happen. But many years ago, my very first trip to the Philippines, I was up in that particular part of the world up in the Igorot country. And the missionary and myself early, early in the morning, we were driving through this village and we saw this little clinic. And it hadn't been opened but there was a man there and his daughter who looked to be about six or seven years old. And so we stopped the car and we thought surely there's sick, they're trying to get in the clinic, they're waiting for the clinic to open.

So we walked over and the man could hardly speak any English at all, but we were able to communicate what is the problem. And he mentioned my daughter has these severe stomach problems. And so we asked, "May we pray for her?" We believe in miracles. We believe in God. He too believed in miracles, but he didn't believe that they were coming from the God that we knew. But our God, his god, any god—and there's lots of gods that he believed in—yes, if our God can work then let's do it.

And so that missionary and myself laid our hands on that little girl. We said a very short prayer, a brief prayer in Jesus' name asking God to heal her. That quick the pain went away. The man told us she's well, she's okay. She was very ill. He didn't act surprised. Now you and I, if that had been my daughter, I would have been jumping up and down. But he expected it to happen. It was no ordinary extraordinary thing to him. He had been brought up believing that some god is there available and miracles happen. And he was very grateful and they left and went on their way with no great celebration. They just believed.

But you and I are having difficulty in believing. We want to read books, encyclopedias, histories, mathematics. We want to get in there. And our mind is so conditioned to this where their mind was conditioned to that. And I remember how it was when I was there. Now I need to go on, the means of miracles. Let me talk to you about the means of miracles. Where does miracles come from? Well, they come from God.

All healing comes from God. Whether it be supernatural in answer to prayer, whether it be a physician, whether some healing comes through counseling, some healing comes through nature, but healings come. However they get to us, they come from God, and to God be all the honor and glory. Now Jesus—I want you to get this—he was not in competition with doctors. He was not in competition with physicians. He never expressed displeasure or censured anybody for going to a doctor. Now I've heard people, "If you go to a doctor you don't have faith." That's not true.

Jesus in the supernatural, he healed the sick in his day that the physicians of the first century could not cure. He healed those sick, diseased, and crippled where there was no human cure. Notice this: Jesus never healed somebody who had a cold, who had the flu, or who had the sniffles. When he healed somebody, it was somebody that doctors couldn't cure. They had no cure. Jesus is the one who specializes in the impossible. He specializes in the impossible. That's our savior, that's our God.

Now, Jesus and miracles. John the Baptist was in prison. He was going to be executed. He had to know, he just had to know that Jesus was the Christ. He sent several of his disciples to Jesus and asked, "Are you the one who should come or should we look for another?" Jesus said, "You just go back and report what you've seen and heard. Tell John that the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." Now notice, every one of those sick people, those situations were absolutely impossible to cure in that day and impossible to cure in our day. No cure for any of those things that Jesus just mentioned. There's where Jesus works, in the realm of the impossible.

Guest (Male): Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The healing miracles he performed while on this earth are available to you today. Simply go to him in prayer and present your needs and watch your miracle begin to happen.

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Thank you for standing with Pastor Jack Morris and The Healing Word ministry. Together, we're spreading the message of hope, faith and transforming power of God's love. Join us tomorrow for another healing message. Until then, blessings on you.