The Healing Word

Guest (Male): The healing word ministry on one place is brought to you by the generous donations of people like you. At any time during today's message, feel free to send a prayer request or make a donation using the links provided. Now, I pray you will be blessed as Pastor Jack Morris delivers a message from the word of God that will encourage and strengthen your faith in him.

Pastor Jack Morris: Jeremiah chapter 8 verse 22. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there for America? For our churches? For our families? No balm for our youth? Where is God when I need him? Wherever you are right now, God is there.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the healing word, a ministry of the Largo Community Church. On yesterday's program, Pastor Jack Morris looked at one of the many names ascribed to God in the Bible, the name Abba Father. On today's program, he's going to look at another name of God, Jehovah Shammah, that means God is there. Let's join the congregation of the Largo Community Church now for this message, the Lord is there.

Pastor Jack Morris: The Lord is there, Jehovah Shammah, comes from Ezekiel chapter 48 verse 35. It's the last chapter in the book of Ezekiel and it's the very last verse. In the Old Testament, there are 80 80 80 different names of God listed. 80. Why 80? 80 different names of God. Well, the reason is God is trying his very very best to get through to us and to touch our lives and to touch our heart and to reveal himself to us. So he gives us all these names helping us to understand that he cares for us and he loves us and he's going to take care of us.

And he gave that last that's the last name in the Old Testament. The Lord is there. I think perhaps the very last thing God wants you to remember is that he is where you are. He is there. Remember this. In the very beginning of the gospel, we go to the New Testament. The very first chapter and the very last chapter in the very first chapter, his name shall be called Emmanuel. The Lord is there. Emmanuel, God with us. God with us. Friend, you're never going to make it on your own. I don't want to make it on my own because I only have just me and human intervention and human thought and human reasoning.

There are those times that I need more than the human. I need the divine. In the very first part of the gospel, the very first chapter, Emmanuel in the very last chapter, Jesus says, lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. Have you ever heard anything more beautiful than that? He is with us, blessing us, helping us, caring for us. Here's what happened. Let me go back and give you just a little bit of history. How that name came about. Israel was serving God. Everything was beautiful. God was blessing. God was protecting.

God was providing. And you know, you just sort of after a while you sort of just get used to church. You sort of get used to sermons. You hear it and you sing them. How many times we have sung what a friend we have in Jesus, amazing grace, read the 23rd Psalm, you know. And this is what happened to Israel. They just became a little passive. And when you become a little passive, you don't have to go out and commit a great sin. All you need to do is just get a little bit indifferent or a little bit slack or a little bit passive according to the word of God.

And when you do, your life will just imperceptibly begin to slip away. We begin to ignore what we've heard so very very often. We have heard it before. We begin to ignore it. And when we begin to ignore it, we become disobedient. Now, say well, what's wrong with ignoring? Listen, when you tell your son or daughter to do something and they ignore you, don't you call that disobedience? You don't have to commit a great sin or be a mass murderer. All you have to do is just become a little nonchalant about your relationship with Abba, that intimate relationship with God.

That's all it takes. And we begin to drift away imperceptibly. We don't even know we're drifting away. It's like I'm in a sailboat where it was down at the Patuxent River with my friend years ago. Two children in a sailboat, little tiny sailboat. And we were talking, the friend of mine on shore, his two children were in that sailboat. The sailboat was right at the shore. While we were talking, not paying attention and he turned and he looked and that boat had gone way way out there. Way out. It just imperceptibly drifted away. Friend, be careful which direction you're drifting in.

Let's let's march towards Zion. Now, let's move toward toward God. Listen to what the scripture says. Now, when Israel backed away, there wasn't anything for God to do. And they don't want God. They don't want God's blessing. What can God do? And God wasn't there to bless and to protect. And here comes their enemy, the Babylonians, and conquered them. Now, God protected them all these years until they just drifted away. And God wasn't there anymore. Now, I want you to look at the screen just a moment. There's a Put the map up. Okay, there it is.

There there's Jerusalem. That's where they were. They were in that holy city. That's where their church was, the temple. And the Babylonians from way over here come away up around and come came down. Friend, the devil knows how to stalk you and find you and attack Jerusalem. It was too late to call on God now. And they marched those dear people all the way up into Babylon, into Syria, what we call Syria today, and brought them all the way down to Babylon. And the city of Baghdad is just a short distance there from Babylon. Babylon isn't there anymore, but the city of Baghdad is.

Babylon was rebuilt and renamed Baghdad. Well, for several years, they were there in Babylon. Now, this is where they hung their harps on the willow willow. The people of Babylon enjoyed the singing of Israel. You know, God's people have always been a singing people. But they couldn't sing. They said Babylon said oh, sing us a song. They said we can't sing. We're we're in a land. We're in a position. We're in a difficult situation. We're in a problem. We're in a trouble. We have lost our song. Just like little Charlie. He said the song, the music stopped, the lights went out, the bird stopped singing.

Friend, where is the devil attacking the Largo Community Church right now? Look out. Come on, friend. It's time to wake up. And God knows how to shake us once in a while and to say, hey, it's time to pray. And I'll be there. When we pray, God is there. Whether it be a church, whether it be an individual, whether it be a family, God is there. Well, after a time, Israel said, hey, we have just allowed things to drift by month after month and year after year. We had God. God had us and everything was okay.

Why are we over here? You know, the singing isn't what it used to be. The preaching isn't what it used to be. Fellowship isn't friend, it's not what it used to be because you are not what you used to be. You know how God can conquer a nation? One person at a time. And he brought that nation down one person at a time. He backed away. Well, they began to pray. One thing good about God is that he knows how to restore if we know how to ask him. Come on, somebody say amen.

Guest (Male): Amen.

Pastor Jack Morris: He knows how to restore if we know how to pray and ask him. God's not going to hold a grudge against us. Israel started praying and God started blessing. And when they repented, God restored and God brought them all the way back up around, brought them back to Jerusalem where they had started from. Temple worship started again and they're singing and their worship buddy, they love going to church again. Much better than being over there in that far-off country. They loved God and they worshiped the Lord.

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Pastor Jack Morris: Now, let me read something. Just listen to it. Revelation chapter 21 verse 3. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying you know, sometimes God has to speak pretty loud to see him some of his people. And sometimes the loudness is when they lost their blessing. They heard God loud and clear. But now God is speaking again. And he says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now, now that you're back, now that you've repented, now the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or morning crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.

God knows how to do something new if you need something new. But so many of God's people don't seem to realize that they need something new. But today God comes with joy and blessing to bring something new and beautiful and wonderful into the lives of God's people. And he does this. Now, I want you to look at the compound names of God. Would you put that on the screen? All right. There's where we are today. Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. Now, there's 80 of them and I didn't put all 80 of them up there because I I didn't think I needed to.

But he gives us all these names to give us an insight into who he is and what he wants to do for us. He wants us to know that he's there. That's today's message. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. Well, are you lacking anything? You're lacking peace in your heart, peace in your home, peace in your family, uh finances. You're lacking health. What are you lacking? He's Jehovah Jireh, the Lord provides. There is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord heals. Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is my banner. I'm going to march under his banner. The Lord Shalom, the Lord is my peace.

Jehovah Shammah again, the Lord is there. So God is doing everything within his power. 80 times he gives 80 names for you and me to believe on him and to receive from him his blessing. Hey, which one of these names do you need this morning? Right now, we all need Jehovah Shammah. We definitely need Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is there. That was the last name of God given in the Old Testament. That's the last thing God wants you to remember. And if you remember that, you don't need to remember anything else. Just remember the Lord.

Now, when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and that's what I talked about. Uh was it last week that I talked about the Garden of Gethsemane? Jesus overwhelmed the oil press. See, the Garden of Gethsemane was a beautiful garden. It it was a closed garden, gated. And Jesus would go into that garden often this time with his disciples and he would pray. And this is where he became overwhelmed with our sin. And our sin might nothing be nothing more than just a drifting away, sort of an apathy feeling about spiritual things. And Jesus was so overwhelmed overwhelmed.

It was so heavy upon him that his blood vessels burst. And the blood oozed out of the blood vessels into his sweat glands and he began to sweat as it were drops of blood. Now, that's the sin my sin and your sin and the sin of the world that overwhelmed him and caused that to happen to him. And he was overwhelmed. The Garden of Gethsemane there was a big oil press there and they would take the olives from the olive trees and put them in the oil press and press out the oil. Well, Jesus's life was very pressed out of him because we pressed it out of him.

And he took it and he accepted it. He asked the Father, all things are possible with you. Is there any other way? And God didn't say anything. Jesus had the answer. And he took it, my sin and your sin. And the very life was pressed out of him. So much so the crushing that an angel came and had to minister to him and give him strength or he had died before the cross and our sins would never have been atoned for. God looked out for us every step of the way to get us into his kingdom.

And sometimes we don't have the appreciation for the kingdom maybe that we should have. God forgive us. God forgive me. Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. Jesus on that cross friend, let me put it this way. I can listen to a God who speaks to me from a cross, not a God who speaks to me from heaven, from a throne that is gold and beautiful. But a God who suffers, a God who experiences pain, my pain, a God who experiences my sin. Yes, I can believe in him. I can listen to him. He was overwhelmed for me. I can listen to a God who speaks to me from a cross.

And Jesus went to that cross and he died in our place, my place. Friend, think of our world right now. The mass shootings and killings. Just a few days ago, the elementary schools children are shot to death. We need Jehovah Shammah. The churches, the synagogues, the mosques, the shopping centers. Where do you flee from sin and evil? To the cross. That's your hiding place. Not the Democrats, not the Republicans, not the independents. So we need them all. But we need Jesus. We need Jesus. I don't know that there's a day that goes by and I'm I'm not up here to talk politics because I don't know anything about it.

But there's not a day that goes by that I don't pray. God help our president. God help them. Friend, if we prayed for him as much as we talk about him and criticize him and there's a lot to talk about and a lot to criticize, I can grant you that. But there's a God who hears and answers prayer and God knows how to talk to men's hearts. We need to pray for our church, our music, our youth, our adults, our citizens, senior citizens. God answers prayer and he'll be there wherever the need is. He is Jehovah Shammah.

The Lord is there. Let let me show you something. Put up the second the second uh atlas map, Gilead. Okay. There's Jerusalem. There's the Jordan River. There's the Sea of Galilee. There's the Dead Sea. There's the Jordan River. There is Gilead. Gilead had spices of which medicine was made from. And physicians compounded that medicine and made drugs and medicine for the healing of the people in that day. And the thing situation got so bad that Jeremiah the prophet spoke out and he said, what's happened to Gilead? Is there no medicine coming out of Gilead? Are there no doctors in Gilead?

Can we say that today about our families and our churches? Is there no healing for our families? No healing for our youth? No healing for our people who worship God? Are there no physicians? Yes. The answer is yes. The answer is Jesus. Listen to this. I I heard this song long long time ago and I certainly don't know how to sing it. But that's not the important thing right now. It's the words. Jeremiah said, is there no bomb in Gilead? The song goes, there is a bomb in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a bomb in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.

Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my works in vain. But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. Now, this last verse that I had to smile when I read it, but it it's so good. If you can't sing like angels, if you can't preach like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus and say he died for all. That one that was in Gethsemane that took your place and my place, that one that went to Calvary and took our place, that one is alive from the dead and is present to bless and to bring healing.

Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies. He's the fulfillment of it all. The believer in an Abba relationship with God is the new Jerusalem. 1 Corinthians 3:16, you yourselves are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you. Just as Jerusalem was the habitation of the people of God and they worshiped in the temple, you now are the temple of God. And the enemy and life and problems and difficulties can drive the spirit right out of you if you let it happen. But if you ask God for strength, you don't have the strength to keep the spirit there.

But if you ask God for strength, he'll come for you, your children, your grandchildren, your family, your job, your finances. He'll be there to bless and to help. Now, let me let me read this and I have to close now. Revelation chapter 21 verses 1, 2 and 3. This is you. Friend, I'm talking about you. I'm I'm going to read about you. I'm going to read a prophecy what's going to happen to you. John on the Isle of Patmos. Revelation chapter 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth passed away.

And there was no longer any sea in the book of Revelation when it says sea, it means unrest like the waves of the sea, the tides go in and out. The sea never rests. And there's so much unrest in the world today. So much unrest in our lives, in our churches, in our families. He said, I saw the holy city. That's you. The new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. That's when the spirit of God came into your heart and you would became a born again Christian prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now, the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them. He will be their God. He will wipe away the tears from their eyes. America is crying. We're killing one another. We're acting like heathens. Where is God? He is there where we're asking him to be. He will wipe away the tears from the eyes. There will be no more death or morning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.

Friend, God wants to make everything new for you today. He wants to bless you abundantly. But you and I have to take some initiative and look to him. So wherever you're hurting, wherever your family is hurting, wherever there is lack in your life, I want you to think about it now because God is there. He'll move right over into that situation. And he'll bring you back from your Babylon. Whatever has enslaved you, he'll bring you back to Jerusalem because you are the Jerusalem.

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