Mark 11:22-26(NKJV) 22So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. 23For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. 25“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
This week we are expanding on our study of Mark 11:23 to include verses 24-26. To do so we must put this whole passage in context, so we must look at verses 22 and 23 briefly. Yesterday we focused on the shortest verse of this whole section, verse 22. Jesus says we must have faith in God. This seems obvious. If we did not have faith in God, we would not be born again. However, I believe he is speaking of focusing that faith on what we need specifically at the moment.
There is a very important question we must ask when we face difficulties. That question is, “What do I really believe.” I find it is important to remind myself of the basic truths of my faith in the context of the challenge. No matter what area of life the challenge may be in, I remind myself that God is really there and involved with my life. I remind myself that God has met my needs many times before. He said he would never leave me nor forsake me. These are basic, but I need to see the current challenge through these eternal truths.
Once I have focused on the basics of my faith, I am free to look at the promises that apply to the challenge and do the same thing with them. I really believe that God is good for his word. Like Abraham, I am “fully convinced” that what God has promised he is well able to do. (Romans 4:21)
Let us take one more look at verse 23. What Jesus says here seems almost like something from a fantasy story. If we speak to the mountain and do not doubt in our heart, the mountain will obey our words. I remind you that he had spoken to a real physical fig tree and it had become what he told it to become. It had obeyed him. The mountain he is speaking of is a real mountain. He points to a mountain they could see and says, “If you say unto this mountain…..” Therefore, his statement is not figurative. It is not allegorical. He means every word of what he said to his disciples.
I know we have already spent quite a bit of space on this statement, but bear with me. Jesus is talking about spiritual, faith filled words, spoken to the natural world. In our study, we have determined that this is how the dominion God gave Adam in the Garden of Eden must have worked. Since Jesus is called the last Adam, he had the same dominion. We see it in how the fig tree responded to him. We see it when he spoke to the storm, the wind stopped blowing, and the rain stopped raining.
We see it in other ways. He spoke to people and they were healed. He spoke to demons and they came out. He manipulated water and it became wine. Although we may not always see words used specifically, the principle is there. In verse 23, Jesus tells us the basis of how this dominion works. “If you say to this mountain be removed and cast into the sea and do not doubt in your heart but believe that your words will come to pass, you can have whatever you say.” That is the principle and the process. These are not my words; they are the words of Jesus.
This statement is, of course, ridiculous. “Surely Jesus, you cannot really be saying that we could cause a mountain to take wings and fly to the sea!” Just because this statement is extreme does not make it untrue. I have never seen anything like this. I have spoken to rain and seen it reverse direction. I have spoken to bodies and seen them healed. I have spoken to finances and seen provision where there could be none. I have never spoken to a mountain and seen it move. I have never heard of that happening even to Jesus. Why?
The answer is in the rest of his statement. If we do not doubt in our heart that the words we say will come to pass, we will have what we say. For the life of me, I cannot see a mountain getting up and flying away. One factor that determines what we really believe is what we really need. I have no doubt that if Jesus, for some reason, needed a physical mountain to move it would move. He never needed a mountain to fly away and neither have I. Therefore, I doubt in my heart that those words will come to pass. Does this mean that such an extreme thing cannot happen? No, it does not.
There is an Old Testament story that shows us the extent of the dominion of man and the power of faith words to affect the natural.
Joshua 10:12-14(NKJV) 12Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, And the moon stopped, Till the people had revenge Upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. 14And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.
Verse 12 says that Joshua spoke to the Lord, but he also spoke to the creation. His command was to the sun and moon. He told them to stand still until they were done killing the enemy. I have had some good days I did not want to see end, but Joshua actually needed this day to continue and he believed in his heart that his words would happen. Verse 14 says that God “heeded the voice of a man.” The creation obeyed the words Joshua spoke. That day lasted more than 24 hours. Joshua affected the natural world with his words and in an extreme way.
This story tells us that what Jesus spoke is really possible. God does nothing just to “show off” or make a point. The most common type of miracle in the Bible is the physical healing of a person. Why is this the case? God does this kind of miracle more than any other because it is a manifestation of his love. God cares about people. The fact that healings and miracles open the door for the preaching of the Gospel is a welcome effect of the process, but it is the love of God that releases miraculous faith. (Galatians 5:6)
Why am I spending so much time going over ground we have already covered? There are two reasons. First, because we need to hear truth until we understand it, receive it and ultimately walk in it. Then we need to hear it again. Second, because all of this leads us to verse 24.
Verse 24 begins with a very important word. The word is “therefore.” “Therefore” is a connecting word. When we see that word, it is telling us to look at what came before, because the next statement is contingent upon the last statement. So let us look at the transition once again.
Mark 11:23-24(NKJV) 23For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. 24Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
Jesus connects prayer to the principle he revealed to his disciples in verse 23. That is the truth we want to grasp this week. We will begin to connect the dots tomorrow.
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