177 Speak to your Mountain!

 

Let me begin today by reading you what I consider to be one of the most remarkable things that Jesus ever said: it’s found in Mark 11:v23   “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith”.

In my Sermon today entitled SPEAK TO YOUR MOUNTAIN

I want to look at this remarkable statement and ponder on,

or focus on its meaning for your Christian walk and mine.

We all have “mountains” in our lives. A mountain is something that blocks our way, that hinders our progress, that slows us down, that hides our view, that over-shadows our destiny.

In my youth, I loved to walk the mountains and climb the mountains and I still love the mountains, especially when they are bathed in the warm evening sunshine, it is then I recon that they look at their best. But as I’ve grown older, my climbing and conquering mountains has become less possible and less likely. No wonder then that Jesus likened our Problems to Mountains, for they often do “stand in our way”.

Are you facing a mountain today?   Is there something that is slowing you down, hindering your journey, blocking your vision, becoming a barrier to your blessing. Then what I want to share with you today can potentially remove all of your mountains and speed your journey, if you can believe in it,

and then act on it!   The Bible says in

Heb 11:3 ” Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen

were not made of things which do appear”.

 

God framed the worlds, the very things that you and I see in this world and the universe beyond it, he framed with his words … and the Bible says by faith he framed the worlds by his word! Do you need to frame or reframe your world today? Do you need to frame your physical world, are you hurting physically and

in need of change, do you need to reframe your financial circumstances, do you need to reshape your relationships? Whatever the condition of your world right now, you can change it!   Proverbs 18:21 says   “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof”.  God gave us a tongue to speak his word, to speak out what we know are his eternal promises to us .. and the Bible calls it (very simply) the gift of prophesy.   Yes you can prophesy to your mountains to be removed. You can prophesy to your body to be restored and to be well. Everything in life must line up with your vocal confession.

In the Church, we have for a long time assumed that the word of prophesy or the gift of prophetically speaking into someone’s life was simply to encourage them, to edify or build them up in the faith – and while that is true, it is not the whole truth.

God wants you to speak or prophesy over your own life also.

In Ezekiel 37:v4 God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of

the LORD.” and the bones came to life.

( as we saw from our reading earlier in today’s Service)

It is time for us to prophesy into our lives, time to speak to our mountains, our dry bones, our parched lands, our broken homes our sick bodies, our impossible circumstances and so on.

Are you ready to frame your world, the picture of your circumstances, frame or reframe it with your words?

You can change your life now by how you speak. God says so!

 

I like what the Bible says in Romans Chapter 8:v19   “For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God”.  The whole world is waiting for us, to take our rightful place in this world.   Too many of us are living below our inheritance, below what God has for us, below the life that God has called us to, below our privileges and we have to stop it.

 

We must learn to live in accordance with what we were created for. No longer should we allow ourselves to be pushed around by the devil, the world, our temptations, our habits or addiction’s pushed around by guilt, sickness or disease, or the economy, or our financial needs, we need to start being the pushers and not the pushed!   The Bible says we are to “take the kingdom by force” Matthew 11:12.   We may have become too civilised,

and too easy on the Devil.

This walk of Faith is not a walk in the park: this is a fight!

we are to “Fight the Good fight of faith!”

 

We have got to get into a military mind-set, we must speak of victory and never of defeat. We are to forget, leave behind that passive non aggressive attitude and get out there and fight for our rights and for the souls of men and women.   We have allowed successive governments to eat away at the things we Christians hold dear. They have taken the Commandments from our rule books, the Bible from our Court-rooms, the Prayers from our School-rooms and the cross from off our buildings,

and most of us never said a word about it!   Now we are reaping the whirlwind. The civil unrest in recent days is the out-pouring of the fear that lives in the hearts of many, simply because they have never experienced real love, or the love of God.   It is time for the Church to stand up and be counted.

 

Governments do not have the answers, look around you and see the evidence.   Newspapers have no answers either.   Philosophy and Science fall far short of meeting human need, but we Christians Know, and have proved that Christ has the answer…. whatever the question!   And it is time we started shouting about it instead of whispering it. Jesus had both the characteristics of a lamb and a lion, its time to let the LION out!

We need to declare to the world the flesh and the Devil that “This is my Body and no devil of sickness can have it, This is my mind and he cant have it either. This is my family, and these are my children, I get to decide what they should and should not know, I don’t want them feeding and feasting on the garbage you churn out in the classroom, and on the internet…

… give me back my stuff, give me back my life!

Take it back today, take it back from the Devil and claim what is yours in Christ. We are going to have to give the Devil a headache. Move up and move out for what is yours.

Don’t allow others to walk all over you.

Do you remember the story of the healing at the Pool of Bethesda in Johns Gospel in Chapter 5.   For 38 years one man had lain there and allowed others to step over him year after year when Gods Angel troubled those waters. Is it any wonder that when Jesus came on the scene he asked him “Do you want to get well?” I believe that his problem was that he was too nice, too civilized, too well mannered.   Now don’t misunderstand me, good manners make the man, but sometimes we can be too polite and too compromising for our own good.   Year after year, he probably said, “Oh after you” or “Go ahead…you first” and repeatedly let his chances of betterment and healing go.   Not like that woman with the issue of blood for 12 years, in Matthew chapter 9, who pushed her way through the crowd with the

attitude “move out of my way I have a healing to get”: and unlike Blind Bartimaeus who was told to Shut up and Stay quiet but shouted louder “Jesus son of David have mercy on me” Luke 18:38.   He was on a mission to get what he wanted. Are you going to get what you want, and are you wanting it enough? Don’t allow the power and blessings of God to pass you by,

take them and walk in them and enjoy it all.

 

Upon reflection, the Ministry of Jesus to our world consisted of FIVE things. In other words he came for FIVE reasons and he tells us so himself.

He came To destroy the works of the Devil: 1 John 3:v8

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

He Came To restore us to a relationship with God as our Father: John 14:v6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

He came To give life abundant John 10:10

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

He came To seek and to save that which was lost

Luke 19:10

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost

And He came To Fulfil Prophesy Matt 5:17

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets:

I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

 

It is on this fact that I want to focus for a moment

He came to bring to pass what was spoken and prophesied of

him.   Old Testament prophesies speak …

In Genesis – of the seed that would bruise Satan’s head:

In Exodus – of the deliverer that would bring deliverance and rescue the people of God:

In Leviticus – of a High Priest who would shed his own blood for us, and

In Numbers – of a Captain of the Lords host that would lead us into the promised land.

In Isaiah – we read of an intercessor who would bear our grief’s and carry our sorrows and bear away all our diseases.

He came to fulfil that which had been spoken of him.

 

Then consider what Jesus says of John the Baptist in Matt 11:11

“Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven

is greater than he”.

Now why would Jesus say that? Here He is saying that John was the last prophet and the greatest of all the prophets, yet he adds that the least of those born again into the Kingdom of heaven are “greater” than John. And we are forced to ask: Did Jesus fulfil Johns prophesies? Yes He Did!   So then if Jesus can fulfil his, why not yours, because he hasn’t changed. he is still fulfilling Prophesy, one of the reasons why he came.

Jesus has promised, in fact it is more than a promise, it is a statement of fact that “if we shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith”

BUT there is a condition … there must be NO DOUBT!

And therein lies the dilemma that most of us face. For DOUBT

I believe may be the highest mountain of any, in my life?

Notice that Jesus says “shall not doubt in his heart” and I thought that doubt was in the mind?   I thought that it was in the thoughts of the mind that doubts crept in?   And yes they do

creep in there, but there are doubts of the mind and doubts of the heart, and these are not the same.

 

Let me illustrate this for you. I know that I am a Christian, I have no doubt whatever that I have a place in Heaven, that my sins, all of my sins past present and future have all been forgiven, taken care of, washed away by the blood of Gods lamb the Lord Jesus Christ.   I know that I have eternal life, and that that life is in Jesus Christ who by the Holy Spirit living in me and walking with me and anointing on me proves that relationship to me, every single day.   In my heart of hearts,

to the very core of my being and existence

I have no doubt about it whatever!

 

Yet there are times in my life, particularly after I have failed the Lord in some way; maybe I have uttered an angry response to someone, or have lost my grace or patience with another, or have been economical with the truth, or have wandered from the straight and narrow.   In those times, doubts may creep into my mind and the Devil asks “What sort of Christian are you”.

And if you are as honest with me as I am being with you,

you are no different!

This does not mean we have lost our faith, nor lost our Salvation, the assurance within the heart remains, while the assurance within the head was shaken.   So, speak and prophesy from the heart and not from the head, then you are less likely

to doubt that what you say will change your life.

Then this is not about speaking willy-nilly about whatever, or speaking with some ulterior motive for selfish ends.

God will always test our motives before He responds to our words, and that test may take time, so we ought not to place a time limit on God. Our Words must always line up with Gods Words.

 

This is about effecting change for Good and for God in our lives. It is about speaking to what is dead in our lives, that new life or resurrection, might come to it. Or it may be (as Jesus did)

speaking to the fig tree, (that it bear no more fruit) or to the storm (that it make no more noise) or to the pain (that it cause no more hurt) Get into the habit of speaking to those evils in your life that you know are not from God.   Remember the promise: “that if you shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith”

God gives you His word that you can have it!

It is guaranteed from the Mouth of God.

 

The tragedy is that so few truly believe God? We try to always qualify or quantify the promises of God, when God says that

he wants us to simply accept by faith as a little child would.

Why don’t you Ask God to increase your child-like faith?

 

You will recall when Elijah said to King Ahab, “there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word”.

I Kings 17:v1 that God honoured those words and no rain fell until Elijah said so 3Ω years later. Yet the apostle James says that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and therefore “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James 5:16

Because we have been made the “Righteousness of God in Christ

Jesus”, we too can pray and speak like Elijah.   Instead of saying Lord stop the rain, we can speak to the rain, whatever the rain symbolizes in our lives. This is not about cornering someone in the Church hall and telling them that you have a “word” for them?   If you do have what you consider to be a word of prophesy for someone, then bring that word to the leadership, the elders of the church, so that it can be properly judged and tested, so that the sheep can be protected.

 

 

NOW THIS FINAL WORD

 

In Acts Chapter 2, we read:

But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out

in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

Acts 2:16-18

Now who are we? Yes we are the Sons and Daughters; and

what are we supposed to be doing? Prophesying! – But we are not, we are not speaking into our lives, into our world, into our troubles, into our circumstances, into our family relationships, we are not speaking and thus we are not effecting change.   We have become too civilized, too well mannered, imagining that we should just let God do it all. God will fight for us, we don’t need to engage in the battle ourselves. But as I have said over these air-waves on many occasions, we are not waiting on God, God is waiting on us.   What we need, everything we will ever need, has already been given, but we must declare it and call it ours.

 

Now you cannot prophesy something that is unscriptural,

it only works within the frame of Gods word, in the context of what God says. But get out there and Fight the fight, run the race, fix your eyes on Jesus, and speak the word only. Say with David “The Lord is my Refuge and My Strength, a very present help in time of Trouble.” Say with Paul “…if God be for us who can be against us” and notice that Paul says “What shall we say to these things?” He didn’t say “What shall we say of these things or about these things”… say with Moses “The Lord shall keep my going out and my coming in.” Say it in the face of the impossible. “My God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly,

above all that I can ask or think” Say to that mountain “Be thou removed” and do not doubt, then take your place as a Son or Daughter of the King, and reign and rule in life with Him.

 

Don’t wait and sit around for change to call you, you must do something about your circumstances, speak into them and change them. Remarkably, the power to change it all,

is in your mouth!

 

“For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass;

… he shall have whatsoever he saith”.

 

Jesus said it. Amen.