The Healing Word

Announcer: 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: I don't know what you're going to have to go through someday. I don't know what you're going through today, but I do know this: you have been redeemed. He has summoned you by name. You belong to the Lord.

Welcome to The Healing Word, a ministry dedicated to offering strength and encouragement through God's word for anyone facing life's challenges. As believers, we want to serve God and walk in His will, though the path isn't always easy. Today's message is here to meet you at your point of need, bringing hope and renewing your faith. Now, here's Pastor Jack Morris.

God's word is important. Every word is important. Every word is infallible, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Every word is perfect. I need to pay attention to the word of God and not treat it lightly or read over it quickly, but to read it with sincerity of heart and apply it to my own life. That is what I'm striving to do and encouraging you to do, and I'm sure you're doing that. But every word.

Words are important, right? When I was a little boy, we used to sing this song: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Remember that one? But words do hurt, and sometimes words will linger on for years to come and we won't forget that sarcastic remark. Just a word that didn't hurt my body in any way, but they hurt my spirit and your spirit. You know what I'm talking about. We need to be careful about our words and our promises and our affirmations.

Today, it seems like there are words everywhere. The libraries are filled with books with words, and hymnals with words, and sermons with words. Words, words, lots of words. This past week we were out in Colorado, and there was a man who had a T-shirt on. I believe he had the biggest belly that I've ever seen on a man. I didn't want to stare, but he had a huge, huge belly. In big letters, it said, "Rub my belly."

Well, I thought he wanted me to rub his belly. He said, "Rub my belly," and I thought, well, maybe I'd better ask. He wants me to do it, but maybe I'd just better ask for permission. We were out on a sidewalk, and just as I started, a person walked between us, and then when that person left, this man turned and he walked away. I don't know whether he meant that or not, but I was ready to rub his belly.

But words. You know, they just have words. I don't know whether people mean what they say. I don't know whether they mean what they write. I don't know when I'm reading if this person is trying to communicate something to me. It's just words. I really didn't rub his belly. I didn't get to him. The Lord may have saved me from something there, I don't know. But he said, "Rub my belly." I wonder if he really meant that.

But I'll tell you something, friends. God means what He says, and He says what He means. If I don't obey the Lord and do His will, then I'm missing a blessing in my life. People, I don't know why they think that obedience is so hard, so difficult. But every time God asks me to do something, He'll bring something sweet into my life.

When we really begin to believe God's word and trust God's word and obey God's word, only good things come. Someone looks at it and says, "Well, I can't do that right now." Well, then right now you can't receive God's sweetness. But if you'll do it right now, whether you think you can or not, God thinks you can. If God thinks you can, then certainly you can do it. By all means, do it, and the sweetness of God will come.

There's not one command that He will not bless us and help us to obey it and bring sweetness into our life. But I know this for a fact: there are many, many people who go to church who feel that there are certain scriptures that they can't obey right now. Maybe someday, but not right now. But God says you can do it right now. Don't put off your sweetness, your blessing from the Lord, or the goodness from God.

Listen to what the Lord says. Let's take our Bibles and look at Isaiah chapter 43. Look at verse one. Read verse one, chapter 43 out loud. Hold your Bible up. Read it: "But now, this is what the Lord says." Okay, stop right there. "This is what the Lord says." Well, I'm going to listen because the Lord is speaking. He has something to say to me, to you. I'm going to listen.

This is what the Lord says. This is not what a philosopher says. This is not what somebody else says. This is not what a good teacher says. This is what Jehovah says. I can't put off what Jehovah says because I'm a follower of Jehovah, at least that's what I say that I am. I follow Jehovah, but there's only certain books and certain scriptures that I look at.

This is what the Lord says. Stay with me for just a moment. You and I, in order to receive the sweetness and to receive the blessing of the Lord, we must know that we are the Lord's people. This must be indelibly stamped with a pencil of iron in my heart, that there's no disputing it. I am fully convinced that I'm a child of God.

So now, as a child of the Lord, I'm going to listen to what the Lord says. Notice it goes on. Verse one says: "He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel." Well, this is what the Lord says to Jacob and to Israel. Does He say it to me? Yes, He does. At the time this was written, you and I were on the outside of the commonwealth of Israel. At the time this was written, this was a promise made only to the house of Jacob and to Israel.

But today, you and I have been grafted in, and we have been made part of the kingdom of God, and now this blessing is our blessing also. Just as the people of Israel were children of Abraham, you and I are now children of Abraham. He's the father of the faithful, and you and I, if we're faithful following the Lord, we're children of Abraham.

I'm going to turn to Romans 11:17. Let me put my Bible down so I can turn a little bit better here. If some of the branches have been broken off—this is the apostle Paul writing to Gentiles, to the non-Jew, to the people who lived in Rome, to the Christian people who lived in Rome, to the non-Jewish people who lived in Rome—Paul is saying in Romans 11:17, if some of the branches have been broken off and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root.

We have been grafted in. We have been made part of, through the blood of Jesus, through our acceptance of Jesus, through the redemption of Jesus. You and I now can read these Old Testament promises and know that they are also for us. So when I read, "This is what the Lord says," He is saying it to me, a non-Jew, a Gentile who has been born again of the Spirit of God. He is saying it to you: "He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel."

But now He's saying the Christian also. This is what the Lord says. Now, what does the Lord say? "Fear not." Do you see it? "Fear not." Telling us that there is blessing, there is assurance, there is keeping for all who are in God and under the covenant and a part of the covenant. Fear not. There is so much fear in the world, and the fear is a growing fear. It's like a virus. The world and people, and even Christians, are afflicted with fear.

There is fear throughout the world. You only have to look at CNN or Fox News to see the elevation of alertness and the colors that are going up because of terror in the country today. There is fear when we send our children out to get on the bus or to take them to the school. We want to see them again that evening, but there's no guarantee. When we go to work, there's no guarantee.

There is fear, and there are people who are experiencing fear who don't know why they're experiencing it and they don't know what they're afraid of. But there's just uncertainty, insecurity. People don't feel secure today. They just don't feel it. They feel insecure. But this is what the Lord says. Read it. Isn't that true? This is what the Lord says. The Lord says, "Fear not." Why?

Ah, you got it. "For I have redeemed you." I have purchased you. You are mine. Look at the scriptures. "I have summoned you by name; you are mine. You are mine." Did you read that? "You are mine." Now, when you and I truly understand that, truly believe that, when that truth truly grips our hearts, when we don't just read the words but we experience the assurance that we are truly the Lord's.

It's so easy to say, "I'm a Christian, I'm a member of a church," but it's altogether different when I have the assurance that I truly belong to the Lord, that I have a relationship with Jesus, that my sins are forgiven under the blood, that He is my Savior, that I'm a citizen of heaven. When that assurance comes, fear goes. Isn't that wonderful? Hallelujah. Fear goes.

But fear will come over and cast like a pall, like a blanket over you, and you'll just feel uneasy, anxiousness. Is everything going to be all right? I'm afraid everything's not going to be all right. I don't know why I feel like things aren't going to be all right, but I just feel that things aren't going to be right and things aren't going to go right. There are people that way, feeling that. That fear is more real to them than the power and presence of Jesus. It is.

But He is telling us: "Fear not, because I have redeemed you." You belong to the Lord, and the Lord's going to take care of His babies, and we're His babies. He's our Father, Abba Father, meaning we have an intimate relationship with Him. "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name." He knows your name, your address, your phone number, your Social Security, your ID. He knows you better than you know yourself.

He knows who's obeying Him and who isn't obeying Him. Now, to disobey God, friend, you can't claim the blessing of security, of hope, of fearlessness. You can't claim it. But everybody who has the assurance that they are redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed through His infinite mercy, His child and forever I am. That's what He's wanting to get across to you and me.

His child. I'm His child, and forever I am. I'm safe, I'm secure, I've been redeemed. My name is written in the book of life. He has summoned me by name. He knows who I am. Oh, what an experience. Believe, believe, and all the promises in the Bible are yours. Hallelujah. Come on, sing verse two.

Congregation singing: Redeemed, and so happy in Jesus.

No language my rapture can tell.

I know that the light of His presence

With me doth continually dwell.

Redeemed, redeemed,

Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

Redeemed, redeemed,

His child, and forever I am.

Pastor Jack Morris: Now, to make this more of an impact upon you and me, I want you to hold your book in one hand and just sing the chorus. Maybe you can just close it and just put up one of your hands and say like the children in school, "That's me, I'm here, present, redeemed." Jack Morris. Come on.

Congregation singing: Redeemed, redeemed,

Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

Redeemed, redeemed,

His child, and forever I am.

Pastor Jack Morris: Now turn to a neighbor and say, "I'm redeemed and you're redeemed." Amen, amen. You may be seated. Now that that fact has been established, and I pray it'll be established more and more in your heart and in mine, that we have been redeemed, that we're children of God, and that as we focus and believe and celebrate our redemption and talk about it, sing about it, pray about it, we will become more and more convinced that we're children of God and there's nothing to fear.

This is what the Lord says. This is what the Lord says. Now, point B in your outline: the promise of God. Now, why not fear? Because we've been redeemed, because He has summoned us by name, because we're His. And now He says, "I will be with you." He is telling the redeemed—Jesus is speaking to the redeemed—saying, "I will be with you."

Isn't that something? This is what the Lord says. "I will be with you." This is what the Lord says. And now there's nothing to fear when we know and are aware that He is with us. He's with us now. He'll be with us when we leave. He'll be with our children when they go to school tomorrow, with us when we go to work tomorrow. He said, "I will be with you."

There is nothing to fear even when difficulties come, and they will come. That does not mean when I say that God is with us and that we are redeemed and I read that out of the scripture, that does not mean that you're immune to problems and difficulties, because problems and difficulties will come. Out of those problems and difficulties, insecurities and fears will come.

But at that moment, if we will say out loud in our hearts and even with our lips, "I am redeemed. He has summoned me by name. I am His. He said so. He said, 'You are mine.'" Now, when I do that, His presence becomes real to me. See, problems come, and when problems come, they eclipse the presence of Jesus, and we begin to focus on the problem and not the presence of Jesus.

Then after about five minutes or five hours or five days, we think, "Hey, I'm a Christian, I can pray about this thing." We begin now to focus on the presence of the Lord, and that fear, that insecurity, then begins to abate and go away. If we had done that in the beginning, we wouldn't have had to fret and worry and fear for five days, not even five minutes. Can you say amen?

Now, this is what the Lord says. He says, "I will be with you." This is what the Lord says. Now, notice what He says. "I'll be with you" when? Verse two says: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you." Now, this is a reference to the people of Israel coming up to the Red Sea, and it was a hopeless situation humanly speaking.

The people of Egypt who had enslaved them were pursuing them behind them. There were mountains on either side, and they couldn't traverse those mountains with their children. And there was the Red Sea. Listen to me. I'm talking to you who are in a hopeless situation, or a situation that now appears hopeless, where you feel blocked in and there's no way out.

Don't raise your hand, but I wonder if there's anybody here in a situation like that: at your work, in your home, in your relationships. You just feel, "I'm just surrounded." And then here comes a live enemy behind me—that enemy that had one time enslaved me, that enemy that I prayed and Jesus released me from, who had me bound. I'm no longer bound, I'm free, but here comes that enemy to bind me again.

I'm going to lose everything. I'm going to lose my Christianity. I don't even feel like going to church anymore. I don't feel like praying anymore. I don't feel like loving anybody anymore because nobody's lovely anymore. It's a mean world from the inside out. Do you ever feel that way? And here comes the enemy to try to convince you just how mean everybody is to you and how difficult your life is and how inhibited and bound, and you can't get out.

You know what the Lord says? That's the time to listen to what He says, right? "This is what the Lord says." And Moses said, "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord." Not your focus on Egypt, not your focus on the Red Sea, not your focus on the mountains, but we're going to look to the Lord because God has a way. God has a way out.

God is a great deliverer, and He is present to do the miraculous. Do you still believe in miracles? Sure you do. God answers prayer. And when the people of God look to the Lord, He says, "When you pass through the waters"—notice, pass through. You're not going to stay there. You're not going to get stuck there. You're going to pass through. That situation you're in that's confronting you right now, you're going to pass through.

Why? Because you belong to the Lord, because you're redeemed, because He summoned you by name, because you belong to Him. You're going to pass through. Friend, you're going to get out of the mess you're in, in other words. You're going to get out of it because He's going to be with you and take you through.

Now notice what He goes on to say. "I will be with you." That means everything in the world to me, to know that He's with me. That means everything in the world, to know that He's with my children. That means everything, to know that He's in my family and in my marriage because He's with me.

Let me tell you something: He won't be with you if you're contrary and you don't listen to what the Lord says. Notice verse one: "This is what the Lord says." Now, if you want to pass through, obey the Lord. Walk with the Lord. He'll open the Red Sea, and you'll walk across miraculously. And He will kill the enemy that's pursuing you. Hallelujah. This is what the Lord says.

There is nothing that's going to come our way, absolutely nothing. The scripture says 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 do it? Does He promise and not fulfill it? Numbers 23:19. He says, "I will be with you." Amen.

Announcer: You've been listening to Pastor Jack Morris and The Healing Word. To hear this message again or to explore other messages from this ministry, please visit our website. Our link can be found in the show notes. Join us again next time for more strength and encouragement from God's Word. Until then, may God bless you and keep you.