The Healing Word

Announcer: Friend, what are you living for? Maybe I ought to put it this way. What are you dying for? Let's live for Jesus and live the abundant life in Christ. On the program today, Pastor Jack Morris is going to bring you a message about abiding in Christ and how that's directly connected to a life of peace and contentment. Now, let's go hear today's message of hope, A Hiding Place.

Pastor Jack Morris: I have on my notes my hiding place, and that's what I want to talk to you about today, my hiding place. I do have a hiding place, a secret place, and that place is available to all who will believe on Jesus, receive him as Savior, and follow him. A hiding place. Let me just brief you on last week's message, because I believe last week's message was foundational to this week's message. Last week's message was entitled Praising Our God, and surely he's worthy of all praise and thanksgiving. But the message had to do mainly with keeping that praise going, praising our God, because so many believers are losing their praise.

Life has inundated people with busyness, and I mean good things. I'm not talking about anything evil or bad. We need to take care of our family. We need to take care of our business. We need to take care of our avocations. We need to take care of our church. But we can become so busy serving God that we fail to worship God. Oh, I believe in God. Everybody here, I'm sure we all believe in God. But I'm part of you, you're part of me. I've lived long enough to know that I can lose my praise doing good things. May God help me to know the Lord Jesus and serve him and do everything that I'm called upon by him to do and do it as unto the Lord.

Now, in Psalm 63 that I spoke from last week, losing our praise through a lot of activity, a lot of doing things. I mean, we work hard all day at work. We come home, we're exhausted. We got to fix a meal. We got to get our clothes ready to go back to work the next day. We're just exhausted. Remember how we used to read the Bible and pray, but today we're just exhausted. And we don't lose our praise overnight. It almost imperceptibly slips away, and we begin to think, hey, I don't enjoy singing. I don't enjoy going to church. I don't enjoy hearing the message like I used to. What's happened? You've lost your praise.

Hey, we're going to get it back. Amen? We're going to get it back because God is worthy of all praise. And we say, well, God understands. I don't know that he does. I don't know that he does. God loves us. He wants to be near us. He wants to bless us. I thought about it this week after I preached that sermon. I thought about it. I thought, Lord, when I praise you, I'm not making you better, bigger, greater, richer, more powerful. No, I can't add to God anything. But when I praise the Lord, that praise redounds to bless me. I praise him to get the blessing. I don't praise him to enhance him. My praise enhances me.

So, friend, if you really, really want to do something good for yourself, praise the Lord and watch the blessing of God come upon you. In Psalm 63, the psalmist said, I have seen you in the sanctuary, in that secret place, in that place where I come apart, not only here on Sunday morning, but when I come apart into my sanctuary by my bed at night or wherever I am before the Lord. I have seen you in the sanctuary. In this particular place, in Psalm 63, he was talking about assembling with God's people. I have seen you in church the today. I've experienced God. Now we talked about Moses in the backside of the desert, the burning bush.

He turned aside to see. A voice came out of that bush. It was the voice of God. And Moses heard the voice of God, like you're hearing the voice of God this morning, but he looked beyond the voice and he experienced God. He saw God. Quickly now. We sing. Why do we sing? So we can look beyond the song, beyond the hymn, beyond the praise course, and see God. Friend, have you seen God in your singing today? When the word is being preached, we hear the word, we hear the sermon, we see Pastor Morris, but we have to look beyond Pastor Morris, the sermon that is being spoken, the words. Moses heard the words, but he saw God.

I want you to hear the sermon, but I want you to meet God, see God, experience God. There was a young man, Airman John Gillespie McGee Jr., a Canadian. He was a pilot during World War II. He was flying over Germany in combat. He lost his life. But as a young man, he was only 19, but as a young man flying in the heavens, he wrote a beautiful poem because he had an experience with God. When's the last time you really had an experience with God? I mean with God, not excited over a sermon or a song, but you're excited because you've been touched by God. And this young man, 19, lost his life. But before he lost his life, he wrote a poem, and it's in hangars and Air Force offices all over the world today.

I'm only going to read the last part. He said, I have skipped the surly bonds of earth, and I put out my hand and touched the face of God. That's what church is about, reaching out and touching the face of God. Friend, if you don't reach out, you're not going to touch God. But by faith, through confession, through repentance, through coming to the Lord, through a Holy Spirit sanctification, you can touch God. But the world has been wearing you out. No wonder God's people are feeling insecure and fearful, a lot of anxiety. I'm talking about born-again Christians, because we're just taken up with all these vicissitudes of living and life.

Psalm 63:2, I have seen you in the sanctuary, and I have experienced your glory and your power. Now that's, that's why God manifests his glory and power, and that's why we're not experiencing the glory and power of God, because we have not seen God in the sanctuary. See God in the playing of the organ, in the preaching of the word, the piano, in the choir, in the ensemble. Friend, by now you should have seen God, and if you haven't, I'm praying for you that before this message is finished, you will see God in the sanctuary, and when you do, you will experience his power and his glory. Hallelujah.

That's what the psalmist tells us in spirit. Now, let's get on with today's sermon, and I've got to go fast because we've got a lot of things to do. But that's life. Here it is. Hurry up in the sanctuary. We've got to go fast in the service. We're running a 55 mile speed limit, but we're going 75 miles an hour. We're only supposed to go 55 in the sanctuary, but we're going about 85 this morning. That's how life is. It even gets in the church, and it has gotten into the church. Not this church only, but God's people all over the world. We're part of life and living. There's a passage of scripture.

It says in Psalm 91, let me read it to you. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Now you can say, verse 5, you will not fear. I have seen you in the sanctuary. There's a covering, and here the psalmist is using the analogy of a hen, a chicken, and the little chicks that it puts out and it brings them all in. You see, God wants to pull you into himself. That's what the singing is about, the praying, God pulling us into himself, and that's what the message is about. I want to tell you a little story, my favorite stories.

It's about me, and I really like to talk about me. It's when I was 12 years old or thereabouts, my grandparents had a little 15-acre farm in West Virginia. I lived near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and two weeks out of every summer, I would go up and visit them. That was my Disney World. I loved it. I just loved it. Well, my grandmother, there was a little bantam hen. You know what a bantam hen is? It's a smaller than a bigger hen. And it had nine little chicks. Now I'm a little boy, just 12 years old, and those nine little chicks followed that hen around, and I was just captivated, mesmerized by it.

That was the cutest thing I ever saw in my life. My life had only been in existence about 12 years. And when it would cluck, the little chickens would run little, I call them peepees, they go peep, peep, peep. They run under the mother's wings and she would protect them, that little hen would. So I asked my grandmother, I said, may I have that chicken, that little bantam and those little chicks? And she gave them to me. But you see, I had to ride a Greyhound bus to get back to Pittsburgh. But she fixed a little cardboard box and punched holes in it so they could breathe. She put little cups of water and put food, and she put a nice little handle.

It looked like a little suitcase. And I had a bantam hen and nine little chicks, and I thought, how am I going to get on that bus? But I came up with a scheme. I told my cousin, I said, look, when I come up to get on the bus, you stand behind the bus, the door, the door is open, he's punching the tickets, and when I he punches my ticket and I walk by, he'll become occupied with the person behind me. You be behind the door, and you swing that around, and I'll grab. Now he was a year younger, a year and a half younger, and he just thought I was a grown person and he did everything I asked him to do.

Sure enough, it worked beautifully, but I knew I was doing something I shouldn't do. I felt bad about it, but at the same time I felt pretty good too. So I got on the bus and I went back two seats behind the driver and there was an opening where we'd put people would put their suitcases in all down. So I took that and I pushed it all the way in, then I went to the back of the bus and I sat down. So I thought if I get caught, they find that chicken, they won't think it's mine, you know. So we got on the bus and started down the highway over those mountains, headed for Pittsburgh, headed for Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and where I would get off.

Well, a little bit down the highway, for some unknown reason, he pulled over to the side of the road, got out, and went across the street to a store. Well, that was before there were air conditions in these big Greyhound buses. It was a long time ago when I was 12 years old. So we had the windows all pulled back. It was a hot summer day. Well, it was so quiet, and then all of a sudden, all over the bus. And everybody was looking and wondering, so I got involved. I thought, what, where's that coming from? I mean, I'm not, my mother didn't raise a fool. And so here he comes, and I thought, this is it.

But he just ran up the steps and swung into the seat and started that big motor. Everything quieted down. We were going down the highway just about 3 minutes after that. He looked up in the mirror and he looked back and there was a boy had his head partially out the window. And the bus driver said, Hey boy, get your head out of the window. I thought for sure he said, Hey boy, throw your hen out the window. Well, I come up out of my seat. I was scared. Well, he didn't say any more, and I settled down. Finally, we got into Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where I was going to catch the streetcar and go on home.

And the bus driver, I had a handbag, a big straw hat. I was, I had my best vacation ever. And he said, here, son, he said, let me help you. And he reached under and grabbed that hen. And he pulled that thing out. He said, what is this? Very meekly I said, a band of hen and nine little chicks. Well, he just smiled and handed it to me. What can he do? I was home. He, Jesus, will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. There was a spiritual lesson in that little band of hen, and I took it home, and my dad built me a little chicken coop. They all called me the city boy, but I didn't live in a city, it was a small village, and I started selling eggs at that time.

But that was a quite an experience. But when I read Psalm 91, I think of Jesus, and I think of that hen. Often, Jesus said, speaking of Jerusalem, often would I have gathered you together as a hen gathers its chick. I want you near me, but you're so busy, taken up with so many good things. You're not bad, not at all, not bad people, good people, wonderful people, great citizens. But friends, we need Jesus, as I said, great citizens, good people, but Christians coming, making appointments from other churches. This one lady came years ago from some other church. She and her husband, she was having panic attacks.

I don't know what you, whether you know what a panic attack is or not. It doesn't last long. It feels like you're dying or you're having a heart attack, but you're not. And we prayed and we counseled for week after week. And then I think the last time they were here, she felt ready to go back with her home with her husband. I walked him out to the door and I said, how do you feel? And she used one word. She said, safe. Friend, there's too many insecure Christians. If there's one insecure, that's one too many. But God wants to take all fear out of your life, put safety and trust in your life, and make you his dear children, warming you to his precious heart.

John Gillespie Maccabee, he had a vision in the heavens flying. He left this surly earth like you have left it today to come together in this spiritual oasis to drink at the fount of living water, to feast at the table of God's holy bread. I've seen you in the sanctuary. I've got to see something. I've got to see something. I not only feel something, but I've got to see. And Jesus appeared and he said, John, here I am. Look at my hands, look at my feet. Now John, now Thomas can say, my Lord and my God. Friend, you can only really say my Lord and my God when you've seen my Lord and my God. Have I seen him in the sanctuary?

Now I'm going to say something that may shock you. These promises of rest, salvation, covering, refuge, deliverance from fear, these promises are not for every child of God. Promises that are not. Now, these promises are conditional. Now, God's love is unconditional. God loves sinner and saint. He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and we were all sinners at that time. That's why we're saved today, because he first loved us. These promises are for him who dwells in the house of the Lord. Like the lady I said, she's a born-again Christian, she and her husband, but she was having panic attacks until she got back to the house of God, to the people of God, till she knew which community, which society, which was her family.

Now she can say, I feel safe. And she never came back. She went back to her church, wherever that church was. That was so, so very long ago. Dwell means not an occasional approach. You don't just dart in and out like you do the corner grocery store. But if you dwell in the shelter, the secret place of the Most High, it's his dwelling place. You will find rest. You will find peace. You will find saving. You will find deliverance from fear. You will find everything you've been living your life darting around seeking to get. My dear cousin I told you about last week. He, they're having his funeral at 2 o'clock this afternoon, and now and Tuesday they're bringing his body to Laurel, Maryland to bury him.

88 years old, accepted Christ only 3 months ago, but thank God he accepted Christ. I got him on the phone, I said, Bill, you've got to go to church. You've got to get to God. He knew the way all his life. His parents were Christians. He had a little daughter, about 6 months old, died many, well over 50 years ago. They're bringing him to be buried by that daughter. It's a sad situation. Wait all your life long. Now, Bill became very wealthy, I must say that. Of all, he's my first cousin, of all in the family, Bill made it big. But today, Bill is dead. He's buried with the clothes that he has on him.

Friend, you can have a life, an abundant life in Jesus, and you don't have to leave it all behind. Not this life. You don't have to leave any of it behind. You can take it with you when you go, and the Lord will take you. And some of these days, the trump of God's going to sound, and when that trumpet sounds, that reverberation will reverberate into the earth and touch the saints that died to the Lord, and there's going to be a great resurrection. Friend, what are you living for? Maybe I ought to put it this way, what are you dying for? Let's live for Jesus and live the abundant life in Christ.

Dwell in the house of the Lord. Let the house of the Lord dwell in you, even at work. Dwell in the His Word, dwell in fellowship with His people, worship Him continually. You will be dwelling, and the promises of God will be fulfilled. There's too many people, God's people, born-again people, who are not experiencing the promises of God, and they have shortchanged themselves. Not the devil. No, the devil didn't do this. We just got too busy to be the saint that God has called us and ordained us to be. Today we need to talk to the Lord, because God gave me this message for me and for you. Has God spoken to your heart?

Have you seen God? Have you reached out your hand and touched the face of God? Let's bow before the Lord. Thank you for that hiding place. Thank you for that shelter. Father, I pray for all of us today. These were your people. We're in your house, in your presence. The Holy Spirit has spoken to us. The Holy Spirit has called us. We have heard the voice of God. We're touching the face of God as God reaches out and touches us. Help us, Lord, forgive us of our waywardness, of our apathy, forgiving too many good things that have kept us from our prayer closet. God, help us to turn our eyes upon Jesus, to worship him.

Lord, you're calling us, even as you called Jerusalem. God, too many Christians are breaking your heart. You called, Jerusalem didn't respond, and the Bible says Jesus wept. God, you've done too many good things for us, for us to break your heart.

Announcer: As we learn from today's message, God's eternal love for all humanity will never cease, but his promises of peace and joy in living are not for everyone. Those who seek and maintain an abiding relationship in him will receive blessings that can only come from a close walk with God. If you're feeling left out today, I encourage you to reach out to him in prayer and read the Bible on a daily basis, and watch how God will draw close to you. 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. Until then, blessings on you.