The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: How has it been in your life? Has God been telling you things and not fulfilling them? Have you been praying prayers that he promised to answer and then he didn't answer them? What do you say about that? That's a question. Can you answer it? God is not a man that he should lie.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Healing Word. 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: With a mighty hand. In just a moment I'm going to show you the slide with the map again and help us to understand where the people of Israel, the Hebrews, came from and where they went back to when God released them with a mighty hand.

Joseph was a key player in all of this. Joseph was the one who had the coat of many colors, you may remember that story. He was Jacob's favorite son. There was Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jacob's name was changed to Israel. Today the land of Israel is still being called Israel, and the people are called Israelites, which means the prince of God has prevailed.

When we trust the Lord, God will allow us to pray to him, bring our requests to him, and prevail before him, and he will answer our prayers. Joseph was the envy of his brothers because he was the later son in his father's old age. His father favored him, his father made him a coat of many colors, the brothers became jealous of him and were going to kill him, and then they had a change of mind and decided to sell him down into Egypt.

A caravan came by that part of the country, and they sold Joseph, and he was carried down into Egypt. You know, sometimes things happen in our lives that disturb us. We wonder why, and it looks like it could be something wrong, it could be evil, but even the negative things or the bad things that happen, God has a way of turning them around and bringing good out of it.

So if there's something bad going on right now that you don't understand, trust the Lord, believe God, put it in his hands, knowing this: that God has the power to do things beautiful. He can make beauty out of ashes, he can turn things around. God can, can't he? Say that, "God can turn things around."

Now you believe that, you've never said a more positive statement than what you said right now. God can do it and we're going to see just about how he did it for the Hebrews, for Joseph, and how he's going to come and enter into our lives and do it for us also. After Joseph got down into Egypt, there were really some real difficult times, some trials beyond words to describe.

But God was with him. You say, "God with me in trials?" Oh yes, God was there and God brought him through, and he then became elevated in the eyes of the Egyptians. Pharaoh looked upon him with favor, the Pharaoh of that time, and made him the prime minister. That wasn't the technical term then, but that was tantamount to being what we would call a prime minister today over all of Egypt.

The reason Joseph got to that place of high honor was because he interpreted a dream for Pharaoh. Pharaoh had a dream and the interpretation was there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Since you know the dream, you know the voice of God, you have heard from the Lord and interpreted it to me, you now take over in storing the food in the silos and gathering all the food for the seven years so that when the famine comes we will have bread and food in our land."

The famine indeed came after the seven years, but Joseph followed the Lord, he learned of his family up in Canaan and brought them down so that they would have food. They were shepherds, he put them in the land of Goshen, and there they stayed for some 400 years. During that time, several different Pharaohs came to the throne, and there was a Pharaoh that came to the throne who did not believe in Joseph, didn't believe in the vision of God that God gave to Joseph, and was instrumental in enslaving the people of Israel for many of those years, several hundred of those years.

Look at the screen, the 70 of Joseph's family came down from Canaan all the way down, just follow the Mediterranean Sea through Gaza all the way over to Ramesses. You see Egypt and then you see the Goshen Valley where all the tributaries coming into the Nile. That's where they came, and that's where they stayed for 400 years and during that time they were enslaved in that land.

But this is what Joseph said. Canaan, Gaza, Ramesses, Egypt, and the Goshen, and they really weren't that far from Canaan. But it took them 40 years to get back home because they kept doubting the word of God. We're going to talk about that later in the series that will build faith in our hearts so that we won't doubt the word of God and we won't have to wait quite so long to get our prayers answered, because we're going to obey the Lord and walk by faith in obedience to him.

Joseph knew that God was going to come to their rescue and not leave them in slavery indefinitely. He had this faith and he had this confidence, and when he became an old man and it was time for him to die, this is what he said to his brothers and sisters of Israel: "God will surely visit you and you shall carry my bones from here." He was saying, "I don't know when God's going to answer prayer, God has his own timetable, but I'm sure of this: I know God's hour is going to strike and we're going out of here. We're not going to be in this situation forever and ever indefinitely."

God's going to take you out, if it's in my lifetime fine, if my body decomposes that's fine too, my bones won't, but you take me out of here. This is not my land, Egypt is not my home, the land of milk and honey, the land of Canaan, you take me out of here when you go. I came from Canaan, that's God's promise to my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather way back there, Abraham, Isaac, and to my father Jacob. That's my home, you take me out of here when you go.

So where did they take him? It says in Genesis 50, "Up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Friend, do you know God is the original promise keeper? You've heard of promise keepers, how many of you have heard of promise keepers? Oh my, yes, you've heard of promise keepers. Listen to this one, I don't know whether we have this one or not on the screen, Numbers chapter 23, verse 19. If we don't have it I'm going to read it to you.

God's the original promise keeper. God is not a man that he should lie, he is not a human that he should change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? Oh, there it is on the screen, we're going to get it two times now. Let's read it together: "God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?"

Okay, you answer that question. That's a question that he wants you to answer. How has it been in your life? Has God been telling you things and not fulfilling them? Have you been praying prayers that he promised to answer and then he didn't answer them? What do you say about that? That's a question. Can you answer it? God is not a man that he should lie. He's not the son of man, he's not like us.

God doesn't change his mind. God makes a promise and he sticks to it. Did you hear that? We sometimes make promises to God and make vows to God, or we make promises to God: "If God, if you do this..." We try to bargain with him. You can't bargain with God. God is the Almighty. He does everything perfect, he does everything correct. When we submit to him and trust him and let him have his way, daily I'm praying, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done," because I know that he always does it best.

Joseph knew that God was going to bring them out, and he put the whole situation, the whole future of that whole nation in God's hands, and he says, "Someday we're going to be free, someday we're leaving Egypt. We're only pilgrims and aliens here, we're only passing through. Egypt is not our home." Now I want to talk about your Egypt and my Egypt. Our Egypt is not a place on the map, it's a place in our hearts.

Our Egypt is that that would keep us from God, keep us enslaved into the things of this world, and that's where God wants to bring deliverance to us and cause us to be free, liberated people. In our hearts, that's where it starts, and then even in this world with all of the problems that this world has, and I'll tell you friend, if you don't know it by now I don't think you ever will: the United States of America and all the other nations of the world are imperfect. We're all imperfect because we're human.

It says with a mighty hand God saves us. In verse 14 I'm going to read it to you, there it is on the screen: "In days to come, when your son has asked you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.'" So many I have talked to, and you may be one of the people I have talked to or I haven't talked to, but you know that there are things in your life that you cannot control.

You want to control them, they are controlling you, you don't like them to control you. Certain desires that you have, you don't want to be desiring those things. Certain urges that come and you don't want to yield to those urges, but you find yourself yielding to them, and even when you don't yield to them, the urges are still there, the desires are still there, and certain behaviors you find yourself giving in to it. That's your Egypt right now.

Joseph had the promise that God is going to take us out of here, and you have that same promise today. God has fulfilled his promise through Jesus Christ, through his body broken, through his blood shed, to deliver us. We could not deliver ourselves, but Christ came and he has had the victory, he still has the victory over all of our temptations, urges, and behaviors that we don't like. We can bring them to him today and be free from that.

Friend, you can be happier than you are. You can have more peace than you have if you'll turn to the Lord, trust in him and believe in him, he will do those great things for you. He took all of those urges, all of those temptations to the cross, all of those behaviors, all of that negative living, all of that sin, he took it to the cross and he died there and overcame it that you and I might now have victory over it.

When he cried out, "It is finished," it was done. Now friend, listen to me closely. Those problems, those negative emotions, those urges, those desires, those temptations, you will never, listen to me friend, you will never be finished with them until you hear the cry of Jesus, "It is finished." Now he is calling out to you today, letting you know that he's finished with that sin in your life. If you'll give it to him, you can be finished with it also.

He'll take it away, he'll deliver your soul from evil, he'll put a new song in your life, he'll plant your feet on a solid rock, you will live in victory. Can you say praise the Lord? You will live in victory. There's a Jesus who cares for you and he died and he rose again to deliver you and me from every sin and every evil and everything that is negative in our life and to cause our lives to be positive and to rejoice in him.

So you have but to ask him for help. When the people of Israel, those Hebrews in bondage, when they cried out for help, God heard them. Why did they wait 400 years to pray? Friend, listen, what are you waiting on? Why haven't you prayed? Oh, you said I have, but I mean coming down before God in all seriousness, looking to the Lord, seeking God's help, getting the church to back you up and to support you.

I mean getting serious with God in prayer, not a goodnight prayer, "Lord help me to be a good person tomorrow," but getting down before God and saying, "God, I've got some problems, my children have some problems, my marriage has some problems." Until you are so concerned, until you pray, until you wait before God, until the perspiration comes out, until you lose your desire for food. I mean you now are serious before God, and when God sees that kind of praying, that intentional praying, then God's going to do something very intentional to come to your aid and to help you. Say amen.

God will get intentional when you and I become intentional before the Lord. Now I'm going to turn to point B in the outline: with a mighty hand not only did God save us, but with a mighty hand God keeps us. Say that, "With a mighty hand God keeps us." He doesn't deliver you and me so that we can just fall back into those old habits and old ways again, but when God does a work in you and me, he does it for keeps. It'll last. It's not temporal.

Everything God does is eternal. The scripture says he has put eternity in our hearts. Now notice what it says in Psalm chapter 40. Let me read it very quickly. It says, "I waited patiently for the Lord, he turned to me and heard my cry." Now here the three things he did: he lifted me out of my slimy pit and out of the mud and mire. That's how God describes our condition before Jesus, that's the first thing he did, he lifted me. The second thing he did, he set my feet on a rock. The third thing he did, he put a new song in my heart, in my life.

Now that's what God does, that's his promise. God is not a man that he should lie. Say that, "God is not a man that he should lie." That's what he has promised us, to keep us. He lifted me up. Say it, "He lifted me." See, these struggles that come knock us down. These temptations, these problems, these negative things, they knock us down, and then we'll get back up again and we'll walk straight for a while, only to go down again. That temptation will come again.

You see the devil knows that weak spot and when he touches that button, down you go because you and I don't have the strength to keep going in the direction that we want to go in. See, God wants basically what you want: a good, happy, victorious life. You want exactly basically what God wants: a glorious, happy, victorious life. In that you and God are together. But now you come together in prayer and believing and entrust in him.

Now it says he lifted me up. I didn't do it, the problems keep knocking me down. How many times has that situation knocked you down? You got up, you tried again, and it knocked you down again. I mean I'm talking about that thing that just takes the joy out of you. You say, "Oh, every time that happens, I just lose it, every time." Well, how many times has it happened?

It says that he lifted me up. The psalmist said in Psalm 18:16, "He reached down. Number two, he took hold of me. Number three, he drew me out of many waters." Now notice: he reached down, he took hold of me, he drew me out. He, he, he. The Trinity: he reached down, he took hold of me, he drew me out. Come on say, "He reached down, he took hold of me, he drew me out."

He reached down, he took hold of me, he drew me out of many waters, and he did it. Now I can't do it. I can try to lift myself by my own collar to a new life, a new level, but I can't do that. It may work for just a little while but soon down I go again. But when he reaches down and I was way down there, and some of us were way down there in our problems, they took us way down, but he reached down and he took hold and he drew us out of many waters.

What is he talking about, many waters? The things in your life that are literally suffocating you. You're drowning in those sorrows and those misgivings and in those hurts. You're drowning in that. Many waters. There are many things that are negative that are going to come against you, but friends, you're not built for Egypt. You're built for victory and for heaven and for a new life in Christ and for the solid rock standing. That's what you're built for.

Then it says he lifted me out and then he set my feet. He set my feet. I stumbled too many times. I'd always get out and step right back in the quicksand of some negative problem again, but it was the same thing that kept repeating itself, kept coming back, and down I go. Now I talked to a person and this man almost gave up and he said to me, "You know, I've been down so many times, I'm just tired of being down. I'm just going to stay down. Why try anymore?"

Just resigned himself to negative living, resigned himself to that habit that he told me that he had. "I've tried so many times to break that habit, why try anymore? It's taken so much of my life and my time and my energy, I've just gotta resign, give in to it, do it, why fight it anymore?" Friend, only in Jesus can you overcome, but you can overcome. You can be lifted up.

And then he said, the scripture says, "He put a new song in my life." I tried to write a song once but it didn't go over, but I got the title of a song, I wrote the title of a song. You want to hear the title of the song? I have to write the lyrics to it now, but here's the title of it: "I stumbled and fell, got up and stumbled again." You know I believe somebody in Nashville could do a good job on that one with a mandolin.

I'll send that down there. "I stumbled and fell and got up and stumbled again." You know that song really has about a thousand verses and that's it, that's not only the title, that's the verses. A thousand times I stumbled and fell and got up and stumbled again. The same words, one verse, one title, the same words a thousand times.

You know I have a feeling you people know what I'm talking about today. We all live in the same world don't we? We all have the same human nature, but I'll tell you something else: we can have the same Savior, the same victor, the same deliverer, and he comes today to take us out of Egypt and he won the victory and he said it is finished, and when he said it is finished I want you to in a moment come to this altar and say with him and hear him say whatever it is that's bothering you, troubling you, listen in your heart: it is finished.

You agree with him, will you? You say it with him, you and Jesus be a duet: it is finished. And then I'm going to pick up next week and oh the message has to do with with a mighty hand he leads us, so I don't have time to talk about that. I was going to but I want to come to the altar and I don't want to rush this at all. I want you to come and know that the Lord has won the battle. He reached down, he took hold of me, he drew me up. He, he, he. You stop trying, let him do his thing. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Can you say amen? Amen. Praise be to God. Praise be to God.

Guest (Male): Father, we thank you for your holy word and your promises and the fulfillment of every promise of God. You fulfill your promises, you don't just make irrational promises that sound good at the time, but you fulfill every one of them and today there's going to be victory in the camp. This is the new Israel, this is the new Jerusalem people and you're going to bless us. Here are coming to the altar of victory, the altar that finished it all and gave us new life in Jesus. In his name and for his glory, let us all say amen. Amen.

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