The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Friend, God has promised a blessing to you and the devil himself can't change it. You read it and believe it and you get it. There’s nothing that will stand in your way.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Healing Word, a radio ministry of the Largo Community Church. 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: Today we're going to go to the Old Testament, the book of Numbers, chapter 23. God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should change his mind. Friend, God loves you and he'll never change his mind. His love for you is everlasting to everlasting throughout all eternity.

Give your heart to the Lord or come back to God and refocus on the Lord if you've drifted away in any degree. God cares for you. Hear this message and know that God answers prayer and every promise in the book, the Holy book, the Bible, those promises are for you to believe and receive the blessing that God has prepared.

God has made promises. These promises are real and genuine. They can't be reversed, they can't be undone, and they are never going to be changed. God made them. God made them.

We listen to the politicians and we hear what they say and we agree and we disagree. Some of those pronouncements are to bless us and others we don't think are going to bless us. But everything in God's word is to bless us and to help us, not to bind us up and to restrict us, but to give us great freedom and liberty and blessing.

God is not a man that he should lie. God didn't tell lies that he's going to do this or he's going to do that, he's going to answer prayer, or he's going to supply all of our needs. God, did you tell a lie? God's not a man that he should lie. And notice, it also says, "And what God has said, I can't reverse it."

Today, theologians—I keep getting politicians and theologians mixed up. They're not one and the same, but I'm almost beginning to think that maybe when I read and hear some of the messages from the word of God, they have just changed it and say, "Oh, that doesn't matter today. This isn't sacred." This is sacred. They're changing it.

One minister said to me that preachers sometimes have become cherry pickers. Some scriptures they never refer to because it doesn't agree with their lifestyle or the people in their congregation's lifestyle. So they just bypass that altogether and they just pick out particular ones. But we want to read the word of God because the word of God, the Bible in its entirety.

Minister Hooper gets up here and he said, "Now you read all the announcements in their entirety." They're all there to bless us. The announcements and the word of God is there to bless us. Now a man by the name of Balaam is the one that wrote or spoke Numbers 23 verses 19 and 20. Let me tell you a little bit about him. I have to go back, but I'm not going to make it long. I’m going to get right to the point.

The people of Israel were marching toward the Holy Land and there were nations that tried to stop them and to block them. These nations feared the people of God, for there were about 2,500,000 of them. That's a lot of people and they would cover a big piece of geography. All of those people and these nations would not let them pass through.

That's all Israel wanted to do. Israel did not want to fight. They were peace-loving people. Like the Jewish people say, "Shalom, shalom. Peace, peace." But these nations feared them and provoked them to go to war and Israel had to fight their way all the way to the Holy Land.

I read this and I know this from reading and from living in this world. There are circumstances, problems, and situations that try to preclude you and me from experiencing God's best. There are situations that we're going to have to fight through on our knees in order to get to the place of victory and to overcome.

Yes, there are situations that are going on that you and I are going to have to seek God and his strength and power to overcome in order to pass through and to go on with our Christian life. Friend, don't get hung up on these difficulties that come your way. God's going to give you the victory.

Now, God blessed the people of Israel. They won every battle. Once in a while, they lost a battle, but in the end, they would win the war. When they would lose a battle, it's because they got their focus off of God. God was there with them, a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day.

God wanted those people to keep looking up, keep looking up, keep looking up. If you don't, you will look somewhere else. You will miss the best that God has. There were times that they didn't look up and trust God and they entered into a war. They lost, they repented, they got back to God and they went on and they went forward.

Balaam was a soothsayer. He wasn't a prophet. He was a magician and he was involved in astrology. But somehow, and I'm not sure how and nobody else seems to know, God was able to talk to that man and he heard the voice of God although he didn't follow the Lord as he should. But at any rate, he was a very popular man in that part of the world in that day.

Here comes the children of Israel. They had just won the battle over the Amorites and now they're faced with the Moabites. The king of the Moabite looked out and saw two and a half million people and he knew that those two and a half million people won every war. He was frightened because he felt that Israel was going to attack the Moabites and destroy that nation.

So he called Balaam the soothsayer and he says, "Come up here and curse those people." Friend, the devil doesn't like you. Did you know that? I drove across a parking lot Friday and on a bumper sticker mounted on the trunk of a car in big letters it said, "I got a tattoo and I love Satan."

I pulled up alongside in my little car and I didn't have pencil and paper, but I so wanted to write down, "You might love Satan, but Satan doesn't love you." If he has his way, he'll drag you to hell. There's one that loves you and me, and that's God. God so loved the world that he gave his only son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his life on the cross and shed his precious blood.

Friend, God cares for you. He loves you dearly and he loves you deeply. He wrote this whole Bible for you to read it, particularly these wonderful promises to bless you and help you, minister to you and bring great happiness and joy into your life. Balaam was afraid, but he went with the king.

The king sent a delegation and promised Balaam a handsome reward if he'd come and curse the people. God told Balaam, "Don't go. Don't go up there. Don't go with him. Those people are blessed and you cannot reverse it." Remember singing it? You cannot reverse this. The delegation went back to the king and said, "Balaam's not coming."

The king is still very frightened and more frightened now than ever. So he sends a higher-ranking delegation with a greater, more handsome reward. God saw Balaam's heart that Balaam wanted to go because he wanted that reward. So God said, "Okay, you go." Friend, let me tell you something. God will let you do exactly what you want to do with your life.

He really will. You have free choice and I've said that so often from the pulpit. If you want the world and if that man who had that bumper sticker wants to love Satan, God will allow him to love Satan and then someday he will go to his lover, the devil. Friend, you're going to go where you decide you want to go.

You're going to be blessed to the degree you want to be blessed. You want a little blessing, you'll get a little blessing. If you want the fullness of God, read it, claim it, and it'll be yours. It's in the word. It's in the Bible. It's the promise of the Lord. Balaam went to the king of the Moabites and the Moabite said, "Look over these people. Two and a half million people."

He took him to a big pinnacle high mountain because you couldn't see them all from one mountain. He said, "Look over them." And so Balaam blessed the people. He said, "Don't bless them. I said curse them." So he took him to another mountain and he said, "Now look over the people from this angle because the people you first saw, you won't see them now, but you'll see a group of people you didn't see the first time. Curse them."

Balaam blessed them. And the king Balak said, "What are you doing? I'm ready to reward you handsomely." Three times that happened. He took him to three different mountains and showed him. And that's when Balaam uttered his oracle, the oracle of Balaam.

He says, "Arise, Balak, king of the Moabites. Arise and listen. Hear me, son of Zippor. God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? I have received a command to bless and he has blessed and I can't change it."

Friend, God has promised a blessing to you and the devil himself can't change it. You read it and believe it and you get it. There's nothing that will stand in your way. God has commanded a blessing on you. The scripture says you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

I believe in memorizing scripture, but I believe in experiencing what I'm memorizing. I believe in reading the Bible, but experiencing what I'm reading in the Bible. They shall know the truth, meaning they shall experience the truth. It's not knowing up here. It's knowing it through our life's living. Knowing the truth and the truth liberating and setting us free from doubt and fear and everything else that would bring sadness and darkness into our lives.

On one occasion at the time when Jesus was being tried, it was time for the crucifixion. The fullness of time had come and the Jews delivered Jesus to Pilate. Jesus talked to Pilate about truth. Pilate asked him, "Are you the son of God? Are you a king? What have you done that these Jews brought you to me?"

Then Pilate asked when Jesus talked to him about truth, Pilate said in exasperation, "What is truth?" He turned and walked away. Now, this is the thing. Jesus didn't answer. It's like standing before a mountain with my friend, a huge mountain. I would say to my friend, and my friend said, "Look there. Look at the snowcap." And I'd ask him, I'd say, "Well, what is a mountain?"

You're looking at a mountain. What is a river? All that water you call that river? That's what was going on when Pilate asked Jesus what is truth. He looked him in the eye and the eye looks into the soul and Jesus's and Pilate's eyes came together, staring at each other.

Pilate was looking at the way, the truth, and the life. He was looking at it and he didn't even know what he was looking at. I don't need to explain what I'm looking at. Jesus said, "I am the truth. The truth that liberates, the truth that frees, the truth that brings life." If you know the truth and truly experience the truth.

Truth is power. Philosophers say that truth is that which conforms to reality. Truth is that which conforms to reality. Creation is real, is it not? I can look at that snow-capped mountain. I can look up into the sky on a clear night and I can see the Milky Way. The Milky Way is true, the stars are true, the mountain is true. I'm looking at it and I see it. It's there before me. It's part of creation. It is true.

How did it all come about? By the breath of God. The first chapter of Genesis repeatedly says, "And God said." When you say something, you have to breathe in and get breath in your lungs. When you say something, you form your lips and your tongue and then you breathe out and the sound comes out.

By the breath of his mouth, God spoke the Milky Way into existence. God spoke that snow-capped mountain into existence. The rivers, everything that you see and touch, the Chesapeake Bay, the Atlantic Ocean. He spoke it all into existence by the breath of his mouth.

The scripture says repeatedly over and over in the first chapter, "And God said, and God said, and God said, and God said." Every time God said something, something happened. Something happened. Are not the promises of God coming forth also by the breath of God? The scripture says in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is God-breathed."

God took a breath, formed his lips, fixed his tongue, and he said, "Be forgiven, be saved, be healed, be made happy, be blessed, prosper." God is speaking. God is speaking. God is speaking. But we're not receiving it to the degree that it's taking root and bringing about new life within us. When we do, that new life comes about.

Who is speaking these promises? The same one that spoke that mountain into existence. The same one that spoke the Milky Way into existence. Did he have power to speak the mountain into existence? Did he have power to speak the Milky Way? Friend, the same one that spoke creation into existence is speaking promises to you and me.

Only as we believe them and receive them will they become existent within us. Hear the word of God. Be blessed by the Lord. He is the one that Jesus taught us to call Father when we pray. God is not a man that he should lie. Has he said? Has he or has he not said? Has he said and will he not do it? Come on.

If he said it, the Milky Way came. He said it, the mountain came. He said the promise and the reality of that promise came about. Believe, the scripture says, and you will see the glory of God. Listen to this. By the breath of his mouth, he promises forgiveness. Ephesians 1, "In Jesus we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin."

By the breath of his mouth, he promises eternal life. John 6, "Everyone who looks to the son and believes in him shall have eternal life." He promises freedom from anxiety and fear. 1 Peter 5, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." He promises joy to those who need joy. Isaiah chapter 12, "With joy you shall draw water from the wells of salvation."

I could go on and on naming these promises, but there's one that covers them all. It says in Philippians 4, "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory." The riches in glory put the mountain in place. The riches in glory put the Milky Way in place. The riches in glory is going to put a promise in place in your life, in your family, in your circumstances, and you will rejoice.

God is not a man that he should lie. But the thing is, friend, if you don't claim it and believe it, you will do the reversing of that promise. It'll be a promise written on pages in ink, black and white ink. It'll remain in the book, but it'll never come out of the book until you read it, believe it, claim it, and rejoice over it.

God's not a man that he should lie. If you need forgiveness today because you said something you shouldn't have said, you did something you shouldn't have done, you had an attitude, or you behaved in a way you shouldn't have behaved, God will forgive. He says he will forgive. I just read those scriptures to you.

If you're down and discouraged and need joy, God will come and give you joy. Claim it, it's yours. God's blessing is here for you. Nobody can reverse that. It'll happen. If it doesn't happen, then God will have to come back and apologize to you and say, "I promised it and you believed and I didn't give it to you."

Is God going to do that? God's not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man. No, not at all. God is here to bless. He'll never change his mind. He loves you with an everlasting love. That man that had the bumper sticker says, "And I love Satan." Well, God loves him.

God will forever love him. He may never love God. He may be lost and go to Hades. If he goes there, God's still loving him. But friend, you hear and you know. I've told you and the scripture tells you. God wants to bring his love to bear and for you to truly experience the result of that love. I'm talking about the blessing. Wherever you need a blessing.

Guest (Male): 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.