The Healing Word

Guest (Male): We have a lethargic, lukewarm, watered-down faith. It doesn't drive us anymore, it doesn't propel us, it doesn't energize us, it doesn't motivate us. Our kids see the lack of enthusiasm and joy. We're too tired to do anything for God because we're so busy doing everything for ourselves and everybody else.

Every person faces choices that shape both this life and eternity. Today on The Healing Word, Pastor Morris concludes Foundations of Faith with the message, "The Tree of Life." From the Garden of Eden to the cross of Calvary, and finally to eternity itself, we'll see God's invitation to choose life through Jesus Christ.

Pastor Jack Morris: Life as we know it today is not the life that God created in the beginning, nor is it the life that God intends for people to be living today. Life today is one long struggle from the cradle to the grave, with brief intervals of peace, little oases. But you only go from one trouble to another trouble, to another challenge, to another problem. On and on it goes.

Yet during these times, we can develop and grow in our faith in Christ and be drawn closer to Him and know Him in ways that we would not have otherwise known Him. But life was to be a Garden of Eden all the way, all the time, without ever ending. Physical life, it was not intended that we become sick and fight germs and diseases and feel pain and suffer the growing old process and Alzheimer's disease and ultimately death.

God never designed it that way. God never meant it to be that way. So never say, "God did this." God didn't do that. I'll tell you what God did. God created a paradise, a Garden of Eden. Look at the social problems that we're facing today. Conflict, separation, divorce, interpersonal conflict, injustice, inequality. God never did that. Don't ever say God allowed this to happen or God caused this to happen.

God didn't do that because God never created it to be like that at all. Think of the emotional world: the sadness, the depression, the anxiety, the fear. God created peace, love, harmony. God didn't create these emotional problems. Look at the spiritual problems. Men and women, young people today, running away from God, ignoring God, ignoring the law of God, ignoring the church.

Almost every one of these physical, social, and emotional problems can be directly traced back to a spiritual problem. In the garden, the scripture says in Genesis chapter two, verse nine, God created two trees symbolic of two choices. And He said to the first couple, our parents, "Eat of the one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and you will die. You will surely die. You will die a spiritual death. Eat of the other, the tree of life, and you'll live forever. There'll never be any death."

Why did God put that there? Simply because He didn't want you nor myself to be robots. He wanted us to love Him from the freedom of our heart, by our own choice. That's the only way love is really love. And so He puts the two trees there and He gave a choice. And men and women and young people ever since have had a choice.

We can choose to serve God and obey His word or go against God's word. When we go against God's word, we have created a terrible life for ourselves that's going to be a hard path to walk. But the choice is there, and you have a choice. I think of these teenagers here today and the choices that they're making and that they will be making. Many of those choices are behind us, teenager.

But they're there, and you're going to have to make choices, hard choices. You're going to be under great peer pressure. Parents are going to put pressure on you. The church is even going to put pressure on you. You're going to make choices, some of them good and some of them bad. But you will make choices. God made you with that capability.

Friend, some of you here today are suffering because of wrong choices that you have made. I want you to make a good choice today. I want you to choose God, choose the word, and begin to follow Him. Let me read something to you from Deuteronomy chapter 30. Here are the people of Israel and Moses speaking to them. They had just come from terrible bondage.

"This day, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to His voice, and hold fast to Him, for the Lord is your life." Young people, choose life. Choose the Lord. Choose His word. You'll know blessing and happiness.

You're going to know problems, of course you will, and life's going to be very difficult at times. But you're not going to be alone. You're going to have God and He's going to give you special wisdom to make hard choices, but the right choices. Choose life. I want you to spell that little four-letter word. Spell "life" with me: L-I-F-E.

Now right in the middle of L-I-F-E is another word, a two-letter word. What is that word? If. There's a big if. If you choose life, you will live. But if you choose to disobey God and go against these holy principles, you're going to pay. And you'll pay dear. Some of us here this morning are paying and will continue to pay, and there is no light even at the end of the tunnel for that.

But we have a God that is setting before us today life and death, blessing and cursing. May the Holy Spirit help us today to choose life, to choose the blessing of God and live the abundant life that He has for us today, and then that life everlasting beyond today. But choices... you can't be neutral. You can't be neutral in this life. You have to make choices.

God has given each of us the ability within, the capability of making choices. He says the choice is yours. Here's the tree of life and here's the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Satan is making the tree of knowledge of good and evil look pretty. You see, most of us today are incentive-driven. We're not rule-driven. We don't like rules. We don't like ten commandments.

We don't like people telling us what to do. We don't like to obey rules. None of us do, particularly Americans. We are not rule-driven people. We are incentive-driven. And the devil will give you big incentives. "Follow me and you'll be rich. Follow me and you'll be popular. Follow me and you'll be happy." He'll hold it all out in a glittering way.

You have a choice. But God says, and you need to listen to it, to follow that route is the way to destruction. There's a better way. God wants you to have life and abundant life. This is what He has set before us today. Now the tree of knowledge of good and evil, this is what happened. God created man and woman and put them in a beautiful garden of paradise.

Listen, you don't ever blame it on your environment. Your environment has nothing to do with whether you choose to serve God or not. Adam and Eve had a beautiful, perfect paradise environment. They lived in church. God walked with them. And still they listened to Satan's voice and they sinned. You have a choice.

The serpent, the shining one, comes and speaks. The woman listens. The incentive was: you'll be like God, you'll be divine, you'll have wisdom. The incentive was too much for her. The devil just laid it out so clear and it appeared so great. She thought she was doing something for her family, for her household. This is how it started. It all started with a question mark.

"Why do I have to go to church? Why do I have to believe that book? Why can't we do something else?" Sin began when Eve and Adam began to question the plain, written word of God. You'll notice there are periods, there are commas, and there are semicolons. Comma, semicolon, period, comma, boom! The first question mark: "Did God really say?" It even looks like a serpent, doesn't it?

Yes, He really did say it. God help you young people to believe what He says and all of the rest of us to really believe it. It all began when we began questioning the word of God. And so she ate it and she gave it to her husband and he ate it and they both sinned. Their eyes were opened and they lost paradise. Now that tree of life, that's the one I want you to look at today.

I want you to concentrate on it. I want you to see it. I want you to behold what the Lord is extending and what He's offering. That tree of life first appeared in paradise, but it was ignored. They just walked away from it. They had nothing to do with it. They had no time for it. But there it was. And when they scorned it, when they ignored it, God says, "All right, you didn't want it. I wanted you to eat, I wanted you to make the right choice, I wanted you to live forever. But you chose to ignore my best."

Somehow you thought in your little mind that you knew what was best. Now you can't touch it. I'll put an angel, a cherubim there, with a flaming sword. I believe it was lightning flashing from heaven. Listen, when we have a choice, an opportunity for a choice, we better take it and take it now. Parents are saying, "Someday I'll get my kids in church." Someday it'll be too late.

Today is the day of salvation. And I want you to know not only did Adam and Eve lose paradise, but they lost it not only for themselves, but they lost it for their children and for posterity and for you and myself. They lost paradise for all that would come after them. Parents, you're making some tough choices today and your kids know exactly what you value most in life.

They know if church is fifth, sixth, or way down the list. You put outings and vacations and recreation and pretty soon, church is fourth, and there may be a whole lot of other things that you're putting. Your kids are reading you like a book. You parents are losing salvation not only for yourself but for your children. They know that we speak big things, but any kind of little interruption that comes along will take precedence.

When we don't have anyplace else to go or anything else to do and no money to take us anywhere else, you can always go to church free. You better pay your tithes, too. You have a choice in that, too. We have choices and we're making choices all the time. That tree was in paradise, but that tree was lost to them. But once again, we see that tree coming back to the fore.

We see God putting it up again at Calvary, on Golgotha: the tree of life. It says in Acts chapter five, verse 30, "The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead, whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree." You hung Him on a tree. And then it says in first Peter chapter two, verse 24 what He did on that tree. He didn't just hang there and die.

The scripture says He Himself bore our sins on that tree. He purchased salvation on that tree. He did something. It wasn't a passive thing. There was something produced on that tree. Now it's interesting, the tree of life in the Garden of Eden and the tree of Calvary, the tree of the cross on Golgotha, both those trees were in a garden.

It says in John chapter 19, verse 41, "Now in this place where He was crucified, there was a garden." God has been from the beginning of human history trying to make a paradise of happiness for us and we have continually, perpetually said, "No, no, I won't have it. I'd rather do it my way." There that tree is in a garden.

There were two thieves, one on either side of our Lord being crucified. Now in the garden of paradise, Adam rejected the word of God and was turned out of paradise. But on the cross of Calvary, the tree of the cross, one of the thieves accepted what Christ was doing and paradise was opened. That's the only time in all of the New Testament that Jesus used the word paradise.

He said to that thief, "Today you'll go with me, you'll be with me in paradise." He's always trying to create a paradise for us. We don't see that tree again for many, many years, and then finally, Revelation chapter 22, the very last book in the Bible. Matter of fact, chapter 22 is the last chapter in the Bible. There the tree of paradise is seen again.

It was seen in the Garden of Eden, it was seen on Golgotha, and here it is. Revelation chapter 22: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal." Now what we're reading is what we're going to see when we get to heaven. The Bible uses metaphors, similes, symbols, and analogies. That's how the Bible was written and I'm going to try very briefly and quickly to interpret some of this to us.

A river of the water of life means that life comes from Christ to us not only then but now and not only now but then, in abundance. God's not trying to keep you from living and enjoying life, though that's what so many young people think. They think, "I have to go to church and obey those rules. I want to go out and have fun."

Why do we think that out there is fun and in here is boredom? That's how we somehow have our thinking twisted. But God is telling us that there is a river of life. In the hot sands of the desert, the people of the East will tell you that the word water and the word life are synonymous because without water there is no life.

God is saying, "I'm not going to just wet your tongue and give you a little bit of joy, but my joy is going to flow like a mighty river. You're going to know life." Only those people that really get involved in Christ really know this life. Many of us are living on the shoreline and we're afraid to exercise any faith to step out on the promises, to believe the promises, to act upon the promises. We're too cautious and too caught up with playing it safe. Just lunge in.

Jesus said in John 10:10, "I came that you might have life and have it abundant." And the scripture says there is a river of life that is flowing, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God, meaning that that river will never know any end because there will never be an end to the throne of God. God's throne, the scripture says, is from everlasting to everlasting.

There's a source of joy and peace that will continue to flow from everlasting. The scripture says in Genesis chapter two that there was a river in the Garden of Eden. A great river flowed through that garden and then it divided into four heads. But this river will never divide. There is one river and one joy and one life and all of us may drink of that same fountain.

In Ezekiel, Ezekiel saw that river by faith. He looked ahead into the ages to come and he saw a river in Ezekiel chapter 47. It's this river, and he said, "I saw it by faith, I saw it," and it came from the temple of God. Then the psalmist saw it also. He caught a vision of it. The psalmist in Psalm chapter 46 sings about the river whose streams make glad the city of God.

We have a lethargic, lukewarm, watered-down faith. It doesn't drive us anymore, it doesn't propel us, it doesn't energize us, it doesn't motivate us. We're going to heaven, but I'll tell you it is like a low, sick, moaning escalator that can just barely make it. Our kids see the lack of enthusiasm and joy. We're too tired to do anything for God because we're so busy doing everything for ourselves and everybody else.

We have just spent ourselves, our time, our energy, our mentality, our money on things. God help us to see the river flowing from the throne of God. The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. But look at it. I promised I wasn't going to get excited today. I keep telling myself. But I'll tell you friends, I have seen the river.

I have felt the flow. The joy of the Lord is your strength and I'm energized by it. And this is what God is offering. Look at verse two. "Down the middle of the great street of the city." You're going to see it someday and you're going to wonder why on earth did I go through life and I never stopped by the river?

I never drank from the river. I never allowed it to flow. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. What Christ did at Calvary on that tree produced salvation. The produce of that tree produced such vitality and strength that the healing goes out not only to touch individuals, but it goes out to heal nations.

The scripture says we're all to be one in Christ. Heaven is one place. There is one God, there is one river, there is the tree of life, and there is the salvation that He has promised and that we're called every one of us to eat and to feast. How do you eat of the tree of life? How did the thief on the cross eat? You believe. The word of God is spoken of as bread, meat, food, drink, milk, water. You take it in. You believe.

Guest (Male): From Genesis to Revelation, God continually offers life, hope, and restoration through His son Jesus Christ. The invitation remains open today. Choose life and walk with Him. To hear more teaching from Pastor Morris, access free eBooks, and use the "Pray Now" feature, visit The Healing Word online today. And if you would like to help this ministry continue sharing God's word through radio, online outreach, and digital resources, your financial support is greatly appreciated. Thank you for joining us for this special Foundations of Faith series on The Healing Word. May God richly bless you and keep you in His care.