Pastor Robert Morris – Breath – More Than Words

all right i want you to turn your bibles to ezekiel 37 and i'm going to get there in a moment but this message is going to be a little bit different on the timing of it and let me explain what i mean i i preach i normally try to preach in about 32 minutes i know about how long i need to spend on the intro how long on each point normally i have three points how long on the conclusion things like that i actually have four points this message but i'm not going to get to those points until about halfway through the message even though they're four and then i'm going to go through them very quickly because they don't need much explanation i'm going to take at least the first half of this message to explain some things theologically to you that need to be said today and they need to be said in our world today um so we talked about we're in a series called more than words talking about that the bible is more than words it's more than just good literature or poetry it is the word of god let me say that again because i think you should say amen the bible is the word of god this is the word of god and there's an attack against scripture today to make this like any other book and if you can do that if people can successfully say the bible is just another great work of literature let me tell you what that does that means then that you get to be god because you don't have a standard anymore the bible's like any other book that is the next wave of attack of the enemy that is coming there's no reason for him to debate any issue if he can just simply uh disqualify the bible as the word of god so that's what the enemy is trying to do right now and he's doing it very craftily he knows exactly what he's doing and how he's doing it so uh we're in this series called more than words we talked about bread that the bible is our nourishing sustaining daily food from god that's what nourishes us we've talked about it as water last weekend and this week we're on the title of the message is breath the bible is the very breath of god and i'm going to show you that so it's like air it's like food water and air things we need to be sustained we said how long can you go without food most experts say 40 to 80 days how long can you go without water most experts say i said 7 to 14. i reread that study they say actually 4 to 14 days so that's why many do a three-day water fast if they were to do a full fast holding three days because on the fourth day you could start having difficulty um okay so i said how long can you go without food well maybe a couple of months how long can you go without water a few days how long can you go with that air not very long few minutes maybe right okay i think we have malnourished dehydrated and oxygen depleted christians they're not eating their bread they're not drinking their water and they're not breathing in the air or the breath of god right so let me show you why we call it the breath of god second timothy chapter three now i'll get to ezekiel 37 in a minute okay ii timothy chapter 3 verse 16 says all scripture now before we go on i want you to notice the word all not some of it all of it all scripture and i un underline these five words because all these next five words are one greek word they're one greek word the next five english words all scripture is given by inspiration of god those five words are one greek word given by inspiration of god and it's profitable for doctrine that's how what we build our doctrine on is not what's been told to us by other people or what someone says on the internet but what the bible says for reproof for correction for instruction righteousness now that greek word that those five english words are that greek word is thea nustos it's like many english words and i've told you before many greek words it's made up of two greek words but it is one greek word theo coming from the greek word theos which means god nustos coming from the greek word numa which means to breathe and this which will actually pardon me number means breath and then nustas means breathed so this word theo nustos means god breathe as a matter of fact one of the versions actually translates it literally it's the niv version it says all scripture is god breathed that's those five ends given by inspiration god breathed and again pneuma think about that greek word breath um air uh you you we have words today in our english language that come from that pneumonia means you have a problem with your breathing pneumatic means your power drill or whatever if you have a pneumatic um nailed gun it runs on air pneuma okay air so so that's where we get it from so all scripture is given by inspiration of god but here's what we need to know it's breathed by god now that's what we call the inspiration of scripture inspiration the word inspire literally means to breathe in now it has a secondary meaning that we know and that is to breathe an idea or motivation to do something into a person such as i was inspired when i went to church or i got inspired with this idea you see what i'm saying but the literal word inspire means to breathe in so we talk about the exploration of scripture it means that god breathed in his word into men as they wrote but i like to add a word that maybe you've never even thought of about scripture and that's expiration that to expire means to breathe out now again it has secondary meanings but it literally the primary meaning is exhale inspire is inhale ex-fire is exhale again it has prime it has secondary means to expire uh if you say someone expired it means he breathed out the laugh for the last time and now we have a there's a definition that it's coming something's coming to the end like it expired uh for instance like an expiration date on own food or something now i got to say something about this oh well i was i when i grew up we didn't have expiration dates and i made it just fine i'm the i'm the generation that we grew up um without seat belts and without bicycle helmets is that right we're we were a tough generation a bunch of sissies are coming along behind us and listen my dad's generation was tougher than we were my my dad literally they said you're going to you're you're going to know some of your dads are like this my dad could stop every person in the car from going through the windshield with one arm [Applause] is that true yeah i grew up well you hit the brakes my dad he put that arm up i could be sleeping in the back window i was safe i was okay okay so this thing about expiration dates it's a huge deal to my kids i have no clue why i think i i personally think that it's a conspiracy to just get us to buy something quicker because it says best buy best buy it's best by this day okay they ought to have another date says okay bye i mean it's not gonna be the best but it's okay our kids they go in our pantry all the time they pull something out to give the to the grand cause they say dad this expired three years ago and i go smells fine to me i'll eat it give it to me i'm fine okay all right so expire does mean come the end but but in the please hear me inspire and expire the reason i say this is god not only inspired the scripture which means he breathed it into the man who wrote it but he expired it because he breathed it out to breathe it into them because the bible says look at this scripture ii peter 1 21 says knowing this first well i wish christians would understand if you put this first that this books will be first in your life it'll change a lot in your life knowing this first that no prophecy of scripture no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation for prophecy and he's talking out of scripture now for prophecy of scripture never never came by the will of man but holy men of god spoke as they were moved by the holy spirit in other words god the holy spirit god breathed out expired breathed out the word of god and he breathed it into men and they wrote as they were inspired or filled with the breath of god and you have to know that because listen to me we're gonna we're gonna because the big deal now is the inerrancy of scripture you know how can you say the bible you know contains no errors i can tell you why if it came from the mouth of god it can't have errors in it if you deny the inerrancy of scripture you will also have to deny the inspiration of scripture because you can't have it both ways you can't say that it came out of the mouth of god and has errors because god's perfect and he can't error so you have to deny both and here's the thing if you can deny that if it has if it has errors then you can pick and choose which parts you think are right which makes you god and you're not and can y'all mind if i say a little something a little more about this i i can't even believe the sheer arrogance of a person that thinks they can judge the word of god as a matter of fact you need to be fearful for your life because you don't judge this book but you will be judged by this book one day this book is going to judge you and you better be careful what you say because this book apparently according to scripture holy man of god spoke as they were moved by the holy spirit and here's one saying something that jesus said anyone who speaks against the holy spirit it will never be forgiven him not in this lifetime or in the age to come i'm telling you there are some people that need to shut up about the bible you better be careful now about three weeks ago when i hit this i addressed the inerrancy of scripture and i know it's a hot topic but i don't care it needs to be addressed but i got some emails about it you know and one of them a lady was sincere i'm not making fun of her please hear me but she she said uh when she said you know pastor how can pastor believe in the in the errands of scripture so she said what version is he using okay plea please please be careful learning theology on the internet there are not only liberal theologians writing articles but they're smart and they can make it sound smart but there are also actually atheists writing theological articles on the internet trying to disprove the bible and i'm telling you you wouldn't want to have surgery by a guy that got his degree on the internet so you need to be careful reading these things and so she she said this statement which version is he reading well it doesn't matter which version because inerrancy doesn't refer to translations inerrancy refers to the original language and then we translate it and we and many now some of you are watching in other countries but many of us we think english is what's going to be spoken in heaven you know we're just so arrogant about that but what about when it's translated into japanese or what about when it's translated into german or mandarin or you know some language so those are translations so inerrancy never refers to the language it's translated until it refers to the original documents when the man wrote it in hebrew and in greek that's what he refers to but again this letter went on to say which version is he using and then this would bother me because there is no doubt that there are some versions that contain errors okay what bothered me was is this is probably a wonderful lady maybe a school teacher maybe a nurse studied in some field but not theology but she read it on the internet but she didn't say because i read that there's no doubt she said because there's no doubt and yet she really doesn't even know what she's talking about and what happens is unfortunately is that we read something like this that we don't understand so let me help you with this all right so the big thing is that there are contradictions in the bible well in order to have a contradiction you need to understand the laws of logic the second law of logic is the law of non-contradiction lnc the law of non-contradiction what the law of non-contradiction says is that there could there can be two expressions of the same event and as long as one does not exclude the possibility of the other then it is not a contradiction now you want me to say that again help you okay yes that's what my wife said too when i said it to her she said would you can you say that again slower please and use english all right so the law of non-contradiction means that you can have two statements about the same event from two different people that are different statements you have different statements about the same thing and as one as long as one version or one statement does not prove the other to be false then you have no contradiction as long as there is the possibility that the two can be cohesive you it only can only be a contradiction when one statement proves the other false okay so i'm going to take the two scriptures that that are being used all right now hugely that that say oh you see there's just no doubt there's contradiction in the bible matthew says that judas went out and hung himself by the way remember matthew was a tax collector i just spoke to my accountant this week getting my taxes ready they just get to the bottom line yeah but did you use your car for business or pleasure i mean they just go right to the tax collectors they just go right to the you know what i'm saying okay matthew went right to the bottom line judas went out and hung himself it just goes right bottom line luke writing in acts chapter one because luke wrote luke in acts says that he fell headlong into a field and his entrails burst open or spilled out his in his stomach burst open and his intestines were spilled out so they say well see one says he hung himself one says he fell headlong into a thing okay those don't contradict and let me tell you how they don't contradict judas did go hang himself he hung himself after he threw the 30 piece of silver some say well it says that judas bought the field he did by the field because of this he threw it back to the priest the priest said we can't put this in the treasury so they went and bought a field this is historic this is history in the name of judas they didn't want to buy it in the name of the temple they bought it in judas's name so and it says he fell ahead long okay so he went and hung himself but you remember when he hung himself was the day before the sabbath it would have been worth to cut him down on the sabbath so he hung there in the hot sun and for all day when a person dies or when a body dies gases begin to build up in that body no one no one has ever simply fallen if i fell off the platform and fell head first my intestines wouldn't spill out it's never happened never the only way that that happens is if the body is bloated and decomposition has already started and the stomach lining speak to any medical doctor you won't and the med the stomach line he's already begun to decompose and the gases build up and a body gets bloated some of you hunters have seen this before that a body begins to get bloated okay as a matter of fact um there was a whale that died a few years ago on a beach they found it on a beach they wanted to find out why it died to see what was going on if there was something you know they should be aware of took them a while to get a crane out there took several days got the 18-wheeler they put the well they're taking it you know uh to the laboratory and so people lined up on the streets to watch it while they're driving down the streets some of you read the article the stomach burst and the people were covered with the whales in uh intestines now what's great is all the women right now all the men are like oh what a cool story that's a cool story you know but the explanation was simple the gases that's why the stomach lining broke down and it burst that's the only reason it does it so judas goes out and hangs himself he hangs on the but he hangs there the whole next day in the sun the body's decomposing the body's getting bloated because they can't take his body out on the sabbath because that's work they cut it down the next day he falls head long now let me tell you why he fell ahead long it's very simple debbie and i were on vacation one time and we rented some paddle boards have y'all seen those paddle boards you stand on them like this they're like a great big surfboard and you paddle okay while we're renting them the guy that we're renting from says to my wife you will be better at this than he is i was extremely offended by that i said to him you don't even know me you don't know my athletic ability why did you say my wife would be better this is what he said because the woman's center of gravity is from her waist down a man's center of gravity is from his waist up many men have skinny legs i have legs that every woman envies personally every woman would love my legs i have beautiful skinny legs i have no s they're not beautiful but you have no cellulite on my legs okay none but i have a lot of it right here more my weight is from the waist more my it's from the waist up more of a woman's weight wait hold on but don't ever talk sorry okay so ever preach this again never mention a woman's weight from the pulpit okay a woman's center of gravity is from the waist down so what he was and by the way he was right debbie stood on the board like that and she just paddled all over the place and it was great and i just fell off about every eight seconds i finally sat down on the board and followed my wife around the harbor so if a man or woman falls from a cliff or a tree branch the woman will land feet down a man will land head them so matthew a tax collector says he went out and hung himself luke the physician says the physician says and this man fed health fail he's just he's not even discounting that he hugged himself he's just saying let me tell you about the gruesome end to this man's life he fell ahead long and his entrails burst out it'd be the very same thing if you had two people describing a car wreck and one guy's just walking down the street and the police says what happened so that car hit that guy and he and he and killed him and then there's a physician there that went and checked on him he says well he hit him but it knocked him through the air when he landed he landed on the left side of his head and he had an aneurysm and he died and he bled the death from the brain are y'all following me you better keep your mouth off the word of god let me tell you something about the word of god we are born again by the word of god not a corruptible seed but of incorruptible seed that lives and abides forever heaven and earth will pass away but the word will never pass away the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of god will stand forever the angels mighting strength watch over the word to perform it the word will always return and will never return void but will always accomplish what god wants it to it's life to those who find it and it's health to their whole body it's sweeter than honey it's purer than gold it's sharp with any treasured story to divide between sword and soul and spirit and the word of god stands forever this book stands forever now listen to me i can't make you believe in god matter of fact the only way you can be saved is by grace through what faith you're going to have to have faith to believe in god i can't make you believe in god you have to choose i can't make you believe the bible is the word of god but i'll tell you one thing once you believe in god your life's changed and once you believe that this is his word your life's changed it's changed forever because you have a standard now and you also have life this is life this is what i'm trying to tell you so ezekiel chapter 37 all right i did about right on that introduction all right i thought that was a good introduction to a message all right ezekiel 37 we're going to read 10 verses so there are 10 verses here and then we'll just quickly go through four points about them all right verse one the hand of the lord came upon me and brought me out in the spirit of the lord and set me down in the midst of the valley and it was full of bones please notice not skeletons the bones are unattached bones then he came then he calls me to pass by them all around and behold there were very many in the open valley and indeed they were very dry and he said to me son of man could these bones live so i answered said oh lord god you know again he said me prophesy to these bones and say to them o dry bones hear the word of the lord thus says the lord god to these bones notice there's power when god speaks it surely i will cause breath to enter you and you shall live i will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live then you shall know that i am the lord so i prophesied as i was commanded and as i prophesied there was a noise and suddenly a rattling and the bones came together bone to bone this is when they become skeletons indeed as i looked the sinews and the flesh came upon them and skin covered over them now they look like human beings but there was no breath in them also he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy son of man and say to the breath thus says the lord god come up from the four winds o breath and breathe on these slain that they may live so i prophesied as he commanded me and breath came into them and they lived and stood upon their feet an exceedingly great army so here's four points about the breath of god number one the breath of god brings understanding understanding verse three he said all of them will come out of verse chapter 37 verse three he said to me son of man can these bones live so i answered oh lord god you know here's what i'm saying if you're going to if you're going to judge by the bible whether you can understand it or not i feel very sorry for you because there are things you're not going to understand but you believe by faith in other words here's what he said is this logically possible ezekiel ezekiel said i don't have a clue but you do you know how about this one what if god said can a man walk on water i don't know but you know or how about this how can a man walk on water i don't know that either but i know if you want to walk on water you can walk on water and you can cause another human being to walk on water job 37 verse 9 verse 8 but there's a spirit in man and the breath of the almighty gives him understanding how many times have you made this statement you know if i could just understand what i was going through if i could just understand what god's trying to teach me right now you ever said that if i could just understand this is what gives you understanding this is what gives you understanding um the bible says in first peter 3 live with your wives with understanding listen to me you will never be able to understand women until you read this book and let me just say it back to the ladies because you're thinking listen he's weirder than i am and it's true it's true you'll never be able to understand the man until you read this book let me say it this way read the owner's manual from the manufacturer that's how you understand this is what gives understanding here's number two the breath of god brings order if you need order brought to any part of your life it's the breath of god remember all scripture is god breathe so what i'm saying is scripture brings order scripture brings understanding verse seven so i prophesied that i was commanded and as i prophesied there was a noise and suddenly rattling and the bones came together bone to bone the bones became skeletons from the breath of god from the prophecy from the word of god i spoke god's word and order came to the chaos psalm 33 verse 6 by the word of the lord the heavens were made and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth genesis 1 verses 2 and 3 the earth was without form and void darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of god was hurting on the face of the waters then god said let there be light and there was light why was there why did something come into order when god spoke because when you speak you breathe the breath of god brought order to the chaos here's number three the breath of god brings strength i told you i could go through them quickly the breath of god brings strength ezekiel 37 verse 6. i will put sin use on you verse 8 indeed as i look the sinews and the flesh came upon them a sinew is the tendon that connects the muscle to the bone so let's say god's brought structure and order in your life but you need something to connect you to the power of god to the muscle it's the word of god that connects you listen to this verse the father is looking for those who will worship him in spirit and in truth when you cannot combine reading this word with receiving the holy spirit you're going to walk in the power of god you're going to have to that was really good by the way you're going to have okay so let me show you another another one about the breath of god how it the breath of god is powerful uh in exodus 15 it's right after they crossed the red sea and they sang this song by the way it's called the song of moses even though it was probably written by miriam we don't know for sure it's called the song of moses revelation says we're going to sing it in heaven so you might brush up on it now because otherwise you're going to have to watch the the screens in heaven okay exodus 15 verse 8 and with the blast of your nostrils the waters were gathered together the flood stood upright like a heat the depths congealed became like a wall is what that means in the heart became firm the actual hebrew effort became firm in the heart of the sea the enemy said i will pursue that's he always says this i will overtake i will divide the spoil my desire shall be satisfied on him i will draw my sword my hand shall destroy them watch this you blew with your wind and the sea covered them and they sank like lead in the mighty waters okay so would you like to know how god parted the red sea look at me all right look at me so you'll know this is how god part of the red sea that's why that's what we just read in the bible a blast from your nostrils and the sea party you won't talk about the breath of god's powerful and then it says he blew again and it covered him over personally i think he did something like this my bad my bad my bad my bad my bad sorry my bad my bad i heard about a professor that was always trying to discredit the bible basically and minimize the miracles let you know how natural things could have happened that occurred that caused this and and there was one student that just argued within the whole semester because he believed the bible he believed that literally if the bible says god did it then god did it so he was going through this stuff so he said you need to know when the israelites cross the red sea there's one part where it's a little shallower this is actually part of this is on the internet where people say this and and there had been a drought at that time in egypt and so where the israelites crossed the red sea was only about six inches deep and when he said this this student just burst out laughing and the professor said that's it i mean i'm i just can't even believe it i'm giving you a scientifical scientific logical explanation and now you burst out laughing he said i don't mean to be disrespectful but he said that makes it even more of a miracle to me because the entire egyptian army drowned in only six inches of water [Applause] and here's number four the breath of god brings life the breath of god brings life ezekiel 37 10 so i prophesied as he commanded me and breath came into them and they lived they lived now we've been we read all scripture is god breathed listen when you read this book you get understanding your life comes into order you get the power of god in your life and you get life itself you're filled with life fill with the breath of god job 33 verse 4 the spirit of god has made me and the breath of the almighty gives me life and we read all scripture is breathed by god breath gives me life here's one that everybody knows genesis 2 7 and the lord god for man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being all right so let me finish with this uh when i started gateway church 18 years ago i started it differently than i'd ever heard a church started not that we're better nothing like that it's just that i decided the main thing that i could do as the senior pastor was feed people the word of god and so i spend one day in the office that one day is leading the leaders and we have extremely competent leaders here i lead the leaders and the leaders leave the church i spend four days preparing the message for the weekend every week you can't imagine how many scriptures i cut out of my notes because i don't have time in 32 to 35 minutes i don't have time to do it but i just i go through scripture after scripture scripture and here's what i'm doing this is what you need to know okay because this is the breath of god here's what i do tuesdays is or the day in the office wednesday thursday friday saturday all morning i did this i'm getting ready for you just bring you the word but here's what i do four days out of five every week and then i walk around like this i used to do this for a different reason but then i got saved don't clap too long i can't hold my breath that long but then i come to church on the weekend and i share with you what god shared with you me and i breathe out what he breathed in to me and you receive the life of god but one breath a week for you is not enough last week we talked about water and i ended by saying for god's sake this week take a bath right well for god's sake and for your sake this week eat some bread take a bath and breathe breathe the word of god it'll change your life i want you to bow your heads and close your eyes and like we do every weekend just ask the holy spirit holy spirit what he's saying to me and i think god is saying to all of us he is refreshing and renewing our love for the word of god he's making us hungry and thirsty for the word of god so you might just tell him lord please don't let me forget this help me god to remember this this week help me to schedule time to read your word help me lord help me we want to pray for you we end every service at every campus the same way and that is we have one more worship song we ask that no one leave unless you have an emergency and we understand everyone you could have a plane to catch or an appointment to meet someone we understand that but this is part of our service it's very important and that is we have one more worship song during that worship song if you need prayer for any area of your life we have leaders at the front of every campus every overflow room you just come the front we'll pray for you we're only going to take we don't take long on the worship psalm because we allow people to come forward and then we release the service but then we stay here for about 20 more minutes praying to people so so it won't take long so don't don't leave unless you have to okay but if you need prayer don't ever go to church and not get prayer that'd be one of the worst things you could do why if you need somewhat prayer why not get someone to agree with you so if you need prayer for your finances for your health for your family for your children for your marriage for your job maybe for your relationship with god they're going to be a lot of people coming for prayer so don't ever feel guilty or ashamed if you blew it this last week or if you have some habits you can't overcome or you just feel like i i need to come back to god i've been away from god i need to come back don't ever feel embarrassed to come for prayer so if you need prayer for any area of your life no matter which campus you're attending as soon as we stand up as soon as we stand up is the best time then you just stand up and step out just head to the aisle come to the front and we'll we'll pray with you you're going to see other people coming if you're on the ministry team you come as quickly as you can so you'll be ready to minister holy spirit i pray you'll draw every person at every campus that needs prayer in jesus name amen

Channel: gatewaychurchtv

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Length: 39min 17sec (2357 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 31 2018