Speaking Words that Bring Healing.

Have I got a class for you today. I am so excited to bring this to you. This is a five week series. And today I'm teaching on the word of God and the words that you speak. Believing for the miracles of Jesus Christ to come alive in you. Now, this series, this class series is called Healing. Experience it. Live it. Share it. And one of the most important methods of healing is our words. What we speak is so critically important, especially in the times in which we are living. Now, you may have received some crazy news. I don't know. Maybe you found out that you're about to lose your job. Your business is downsizing or whatever. Maybe you received a report from your doctor with a diagnosis that's not good. Maybe it's hit you like a ton of bricks. Well, what are you saying about it? What words are coming out of your mouth? Maybe your finances have taken a hit and you just don't know what to do. Well, I'll tell you today, your words and your faith have power to bring change into the situation you're facing. I'm telling you the truth. You know, God spoke this world into existence with his words. And we are to be like him. But we can't just be like what other people are. We can't just say what the world says. We have to get our words in line with the word of God if we want to get in position to receive a miracle. And that's what this class is all about. I want to start this class today by saying something that my father, Oral Roberts, said a great deal. And that's this. Something good is going to happen to you. Wouldn't you rather hear someone say that rather than hear someone say something bad is about to happen to you? No, something good is going to happen to you. My father said it so much on television that people began to call him the something good man because his words aligned with the word of God. And that's what this entire class is about today. And I have something very special that I want to offer you from the very beginning. It is a PDF that can be downloaded by simply going to Richard Roberts dot org slash bookstore. It's called covering your family with God's word, covering your family with God's word. I have mine printed on two sides. You can download it and print it. And it has a number of scriptures and ways for you to cover your family with God's words. The word that you speak is so critically important. And are you saying what you have or are you having what you say? Well, the Bible says in Matthew 18 verses 18 and 19. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven again. Now, these are the words of Jesus. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree, listen to that. If two of you agree on earth concerning anything that you ask, it will be done for them by my father. Oh, the words that you say are so important. Words don't just fall out of your mouth and hit the ground. They hang like that perfume. She was talking about like the cologne I was talking about. They hang in the atmosphere. And sometimes you can walk in those negative words all day long. And you don't want to do that. You know, there's a study done by Yale University. Saying that women speak approximately 20,000 words a day while men speak an average or approximately 7000 words a day. Words are a part of our life. Words are critically important, especially if you want people to understand what you're saying and your words do have meaning. And when put in a a sentence in a properly constructed grammatical sentence, they they make they make sense and they can carry a message, but they also can bring terrible destruction. Yeah, we used to say as we were kids, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Well, my experience is words can and often do hurt you. The Bible says in Psalm 19, verse 14, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh, Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Oh, let the words of my mouth. Let the words that I say, let them. And what the meditations of my heart, because when I speak those words, I hear them and those things get down in my heart and out of the abundance of my heart, my mouth speaks. That's why the words are so critical. And the Bible says in Psalm 119, and this is a three step formula. You might want to get something to write on and take down these these particular points is a three point formula that I want to give you. Number one, how do you do this? And that's that's what I'm going to share with you. How you do it. Number one is you hide God's word in your heart. You hide God's word in your heart. That's what Psalm 119 says. You hide God's word in your heart. And then number two, out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth speaks. That's what I was talking about a moment ago. And that's from Matthew chapter 12. And then the third principle is death and life are in the power of the tongue. That's why the tongue is so critical. You have to use your tongue to speak. And that's from Proverbs 18. You know, every pilot who flies an airplane, whether they are pilot on a 747 or some other type of aircraft, jet engines, or whether they're flying a single engine Cessna 172, they have a checklist. They have a checklist and they go through that checklist every time they get in that airplane. Doesn't matter how many times they've flown the same route before. Doesn't matter how many takeoffs and landings they've done that day. No, they go through a checklist before they start the engines. They go through a checklist. And you and I need to have a checklist in our life. And that's what this is about today. Healing, experiencing it, living it and sharing it, sharing it with your words. Because the words that you speak have power. Ephesians chapter four, verse twenty nine says, don't let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth. In other words, make sure that your words line up with the word of God. Make sure that what you say is in harmony with what God says. It is so critical in our lives. Now, here's another scripture from Proverbs chapter four, beginning at verse 20. My son, my daughter, pay attention to what I say. Turn your ears to my words. Do not let them depart out of your sight. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and help to one's whole body. Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. You see those words that you say, your ears hear them. And then those words get down into your heart. And then, as I gave you the scripture a moment ago, out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth begins to speak. There is a circle that goes round and round and round. That's why what you say is so critically important. You know, from the moment that we learn how to talk as children. We influence our community. We influence our environment. We influence the surroundings where we live, where we are. And there's a story in the Bible in Judges about a man by the name of Gideon. Gideon was a fearful young man. And the Bible says that he was hiding in the wine press, trying to thrash out some wheat. And the reason is because the Midianite army would come in every year and steal the crops of the Israelites and the Israelites would have nothing to eat. They could not prosper in their land because their crops were stolen. And the Midianites were warlike people, and they came with their army and they took all their foods and their other supplies. Well, Gideon was hiding out when one day an angel came to him and the angel said, Gideon, you are a mighty man of valor. Well, you know what? Gideon was not a mighty man of valor. He was hiding in the wine press, trying to thrash out some wheat, probably to get some food for his family and himself. You are a mighty man of valor. He wasn't a mighty man of valor, not in the natural. He was hiding out. And he said, I'm the least of my family. I'm the I'm the run of the litter, we might say. The angel said, you are a mighty man of valor. And suddenly his words changed and he began to say, well, if I'm a mighty man of valor, then where are the miracles? What a great question to ask. Where are the miracles, God? Where are the miracles? This angel saying to me, I'm a mighty man of valor. Then where are the miracles for our nation? And the angel understood what he was saying. And the angel said, go in your strength. In other words, the Lord will show you what to do. And God led Gideon to build an army. And each time he built the army, there were too many. And God said, no, you have too many men. God wanted to get the glory out of this great battle that was coming. You have too many men. And once again, you have too many men. And finally, he took them down to to where there was water and said, now watch them drink. And the ones the ones who who who who take the water with their hand and look around while they drink, those are the ones I want you to use in your army. Three hundred of them that did that, the others just plunged their mouths in and drank like like an animal would drink without looking around. And God said, that's the army. Three hundred men against an army of 10,000 Midianites. But the word of the Lord was with Gideon and Gideon understood that word, and he locked in with what God said to him. And it was the 300 men of Gideon that defeated the entire 10,000 person army of the Midianites. Oh, friend, your words, the words that you say, they are so important. Watch your words. Your words have power. Your words are a powerhouse. Your words have so much to say about your life and and what you're heading for in your life. Proverbs. Chapter 12, verse 18 says, Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Healing. And that's why we're calling this class. Experience it, live it and share it. Not only to experience what God is doing, not only a living it, but sharing it with people. Remember, the Bible says Jesus said as he was about to ascend to heaven, you shall receive power. After that, the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you'll be witnesses. Now that's sharing it. Witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the outermost parts of the earth. Well, Jerusalem represents your home and your family. And Judea represents the places that you go. And Samaria represents the difficult places where it's not easy to share the gospel and the whole world. Experience it, live it, share it. That's what the disciples did. They experienced it being with Jesus for those three and a half years. They were living it as they walked the dusty roads of Judea with him. And then they shared it. And that's what the book of Acts is all about. The book of Acts, the fifth book of the Bible, shares the stories of the disciples. It's quite called the Acts of the disciples. You see what God is doing through their lives. And if you notice, when you read Acts, it has no logical ending. And the reason is because it's not over. What do Yogi Berra say? It's not over till it's over and it's not over yet. Now, someone might say, Richard, this is old thinking. This is not progressive at all. Oh, friend, this is the most progressive word you have ever heard. This is power. The Bible says in Matthew 1720, truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, that is a seed that you will sow and your words have faith. And if you say them and you speak them, that Jesus said you can speak to your mountain of difficulty and you can command it to be removed and go to a different place. That's power, my friend. And then the Bible says in Second Timothy four, seven, I have fought the good fight. I have fought the good fight of faith. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Well, it's hard to keep the faith when your words are splattering out like wildfire and they're not in harmony with what the word of God says. Romans 10, 17 says, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. What you're hearing today in this class is the word of God. You're not hearing my words. You're hearing the word of God. You notice how many scriptures I'm giving you today. I'm giving you those scriptures so that word will get down inside of you and then up out of the abundance of your heart. Your mouth will begin to say those things instead of saying what the world says and what the news says. Now, here's a powerful one in Mark 11, chapter 11, verses 23 and 24. For I say unto you, 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 the things which he says shall come to pass. He shall have whatsoever he says. Now, this word of Jesus was spoken to his disciples after an experience they had. They had gone into a certain city and Jesus was hungry and he saw a fig tree off in the distance and he went to it expecting to pull figs down, but it was not yet fig season. And Jesus was about to give an object lesson. He said to the fig tree, you're not going to bear fruit again. You're not going to bear fruit again. Well, on the outside, it looked like nothing happened. I'm sure the disciples noticed that when Jesus said that, nothing happened. And and up until then, I imagine that whenever Jesus said something, something happened that didn't look like anything was happening. And sometimes when you say things, it looks like something's not happening on the outside while something is beginning to happen on the inside. Jesus literally cursed that fig tree, commanded it not to bear fruit again, and the disciples saw it. Nothing looked like it was changing. They went on into the city. And the next day, as they came out of the city, Peter looked up and saw that the tree had withered up from the roots. And he said, Jesus, Master, look, the tree that you cursed yesterday has withered up from the roots. And Jesus replied, Peter, and to the others, have faith in God. For the scripture I just read, Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, this problem, this need, whatever it is that you're facing, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that the things which he says shall come to pass. He shall have whatever he says. Oh, it is so critically important that what you say is lined up with the word of God and that you don't go into an agreement with someone else who's saying what the world is saying. It's not what the what the world is saying. It's what the word is saying. It's so critically important. Your words, what you say is so critically important in our lives. Oh, praise God. Romans 417 speaks of calling things that be not as though they are. Calling that which is not as though it is. Now, that's how Lindsay and I entered into the healing ministry. We have been married for several months. This was back in 1980, and I was preaching one night and I heard this come out of my mouth in the service. By the way, someone who has had lost hearing in your right ear, you're receiving healing right now in Jesus name. Let me know who you are. You can call the Abundant Life Prayer Group at 918-495-7777. Always got time to stop when God gives a word of knowledge. That was a word of knowledge. So we're in this service, and all of a sudden I heard myself say, Lord, heal that man's big toe. Then I wondered why I said it. I had known that there was a prophetic word given over me when I was younger, that I was to have a healing ministry, but I didn't know when the time would come. And I didn't think a whole lot about it, but when I got back home a few days later, I received a letter from a man who had been in that service. And he said, what did you do when you spoke about that toe? He said, my toe had been broken, and I'd been to the doctor. It had been x-rayed, showed a perfect break in the toe. He said, I couldn't move it. But when you spoke that word, Lord, heal that man's big toe, suddenly my toe just kind of snapped and popped. Suddenly I could move it. I could put my weight on it. I went back to the doctor and had it reexamined. It showed a perfectly normal toe with no break. And he wanted to know what I did. I wrote back and said, sir, I didn't do anything. And I went to bed that night, and I, when I went to sleep, I dreamed of a man's toe. Unusual dream, wasn't it? And I had that dream several nights. Finally, I said to Lindsay, I'm having this dream about this toe being healed. And Lindsay said, this is the beginning of your healing ministry. I said, Lindsay, a toe? She said, yes. And she said something very important. She said, do not despise a small beginning. And she and I got our Bibles out, and we began studying every healing scripture we could find from Genesis all the way to Revelation. And we came across the scripture that I read a moment ago. Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, this problem, this need, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his or her heart, but shall believe things which they say shall come to pass. They shall have whatsoever they say. And then we got to the next verse. What things soever you desire. When you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them. We looked at each other and said, Father, in the name of Jesus, our desire is for a healing ministry. You've prophesied it over us. It happened, it had been prophesied over me a number of times in my younger years. And we got our faith and our words in harmony and in agreement with what God's word said and what the prophetic word said. And we said, Father, in the name of Jesus, we receive a healing ministry. Now, nothing seemed to happen immediately. The days passed and each day we said, Father, we thank you for the healing ministry. We didn't announce it on television. We didn't tell our families. We didn't tell anyone. But we just thank God every day for a healing ministry. And the days passed and the weeks passed and the months passed. But the night came when I was preaching in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And suddenly, for the first time in my life, the word of knowledge began to flow through me. It came up out of my chest, into my throat, into my voice. And when I spoke, people began to be healed. And the word that was prophesied and the word that Lindsay and I went into agreement with on that scripture, Matthew 11, 23, and 24, actually happened. And it's been happening ever since. And that's over 43 years ago. We got our words in harmony with the word of God. And it changed everything. And it's still happening today. There's a powerful scripture in Matthew Chapter 8. Tells the story of a Roman army captain. And that army captain had a military aide who was grievously tormented with paralysis. History teaches us that it happened in Capernaum and the Roman garrison was stationed up the seacoast near Tiberias. And he came to Jesus and bowed on his knees and said, Master, my military aide is grievously tormented with the palsy or paralysis. Jesus said, I will come and heal him. Apparently, Jesus was willing to travel and to go where the man's aide was and to pray for him. The man, but the centurion said, sir, it's not necessary for you to come. For I am also a man with authority. My authority has been given to me by Caesar. And I speak to my soldiers and tell them to go and they go. I tell them to come and they come or do this and they do it. But I recognize, Jesus, that you have authority above all authority and you don't have to come and lay your hands on my military aide. You just speak the word, the word, and my man will be healed. And Jesus marveled. He said to the crowd, I've not seen such great faith. And he turned to the Roman centurion and said, go your way and as you have believed, so shall it be done. And the Bible says that as he was going back to the barracks, he found that the man had been totally healed. That happened because of Jesus' word and because the centurion got into agreement with the word of God. It's so critically important that your words line up with the word of God. And the Bible says in Psalm 107, verse 20, he sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions. And that's what Jesus was doing. Literally, he sent the word of God to that Roman army captain's military aide and he was healed. What words are you saying, my friend? Are you saying words of doubt or words of unbelief or words of criticism? Or are you saying words that hurt someone else? Or are you saying the word of God? You know, words have such a powerful, powerful effect upon our lives. Back in the early 1950s, there were two young men, two young boys in Australia, who were tennis prodigies. They had great prospects. One was named Rod Laver and the other was named Ken Rosewall. And each had their own coach. Rosewall had a coach who was his doubles partner. Rod Laver had another well-known coach who was known in tennis circles around the world. His name was Harry Hopman. And Hopman saw something about Laver. Laver, in his own autobiography, described how he was not fast, he couldn't run fast, he didn't have a powerful serve. He was left-handed and he didn't have a powerful serve. But Hopman saw something great in him. And Hopman started calling him Rocket. And those words that Hopman said to him, when he began to call Rod Laver the Rocket, stuck inside of Rod's heart. And something happened on the inside of him. He began to develop his body, and especially his left arm, where he served. He developed one of the most powerful serves in the history of tennis. He won some 200 events around the world, and was the number one player in the world from 1964 until 1970. And the big arena in Melbourne, Australia, where the Australian Open is played every year, is named, there you see it now, that's the Rod Laver Arena. It's named after him. And when he walks in, they don't call him Rod Laver, they call him the Rocket has arrived. Even in his late 80s, they still call him the Rocket. And the story of Ken Rosewall is not that much different. He had another coach, it was his doubles partner. His name was Lou Hode. He saw something in Ken Rosewall. Now, Hode was a man who was muscled, and Ken was not. Ken was of a slight built. But he began calling Ken Muscles. Even though Ken had no muscles, it looked like, he called him Muscles. And somehow that word got inside the spirit of Ken, and he began to develop himself. And as time grew, the muscles grew. He won some 140 plus tournaments around the world. He's also in the Tennis Hall of Fame, along with Rod Laver. And in Sydney, there is another arena. In Sydney, Australia, there's another arena. That's it right there. That arena is named after Ken Rosewall. And when he comes into a room, even now in his 80s, they call him Muscles. When Rod Laver comes in, they call him the Rocket. And when Ken Rosewall walks in, they call him Muscles. It was because of those two coaches. Those two coaches instill something in those two young men. Words, words, the words you say, they can instill something inside of you. Be careful what you're listening to. Be careful what you're watching. Be careful what you're allowing to ingest in you. Because words, words are so critically important. As this class draws to a close, I'm praying over you right now that the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart will be acceptable in the sight of the Lord, that every word that you say will be a positive word, a word for healing, a word for victory, a word for miracle in your life. You take those negative words out, you spit them out of your mouth, and say the positive word of God. I'm praying and believing God for you.