I felt that the women who had to bring that topic up were the preachers who came this year, Susan Combs and Igna de Suarez. They are women who represent, they are excellent models of what a woman is who has believed what God has deposited in them and they have moved in faith based on that deposit of the Lord in their lives, and this morning Susan is going to preach Combs.
Susan is originally from Arkansas, Colorado so she is American and she herself says that she is an American branch grafted onto the vine of Colombia. And she received that call to be a missionary in Colombia, at 6 years old, which is a wake up call, a call to wake up us as parents that God still speaks to small children and already puts his seed of call there even in a 6 year old child, even when she I didn't even know what Colombia meant. She didn't even know it was the name of a country, but even so, God spoke to her and years passed before that call came true but it did come true and she has been ministering in Colombia for 30 years, 25 of which she has been working together with Igna They are a precious model of friendship. Please God that he sends into the life of each one of us, and each one of us, a friend like that, who carries our burdens to laugh, to cry together. How wonderful to have support like that.
Susan has traveled internationally to over 30 nations around the world, so we see a person who calls herself a naturally shy woman that God has uncovered to be a blessing to the nations. So welcome Susan and let's hear what God has through her today.
Thank you, good morning. It is a great joy to be here with you again. This church remained in our hearts and well, well into it. When Pastor Roberto was talking about the times when there were no microphones, and there wasn't all this technology, and that we didn't need it, it reminded me of something in Bogotá not long ago.
Our pastor passed away suddenly this year but a few years ago the young people were leading the praise and suddenly the sound went away, and they were completely uncontrolled because no instruments, nothing at all, no microphone, the church is big, so they didn't know what to do. And in that the pastor went to the pulpit and then he raised his voice and he began to say, "this generation is badly used to it", he said "because in my time what the pastor, the preacher, had to do was raise his voice and project it so that those farthest away could hear the word'.
'And this morning I can promise you that the furthest ones are hearing me,' and he pointed there to the Mesanini who is far away, and then he did so and he said, 'and I can assure you this morning that the from Mesanini are listening to me, aren't they from Mesanini? and all those from Mesanini did like this... He forgot that we are deaf. It is the deaf sector.
But we really are spoiled, please tell the person next to you, 'we are spoiled'. Thank goodness for technology, right? But when it doesn't work, we can move on, right?
We are going to open the word this morning in Luke Chapter 5 and we are going to read verse 17 through 19.
“...It happened one day that Jesus was teaching and they were sitting the Pharisees and doctors of the law who had come from all the villages of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and the power of the Lord was with him to heal...”
Please repeat that part after me, “...and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And it happened that some men who were carrying a man who was paralyzed on a bed tried to take him inside and set him before him, but not finding how to do it because of the crowd, they climbed on top of the house and lowered him with the bed through the roof. putting him in the middle, before Jesus....”
And as a matter of time I will tell you what is missing here. They took him down there and the Lord healed him, first he forgave him and healed him and it was a great testimony to many people. Now, this morning we want to see the faith of these men because they came out, they had their paralyzed friend. They knew that there is a place of miracles.
How many here know that there is a place of miracles? He says, '...the power of the Lord was with him to heal...' The power of God is still with him, he has not changed. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever and there is a place where there is power for the miracle that you may need today, that I may need today. There's a place.
Then they knew that Jesus was the answer, and they with a lot of faith went and with difficulty got their friend out of there. They had to carry him loaded, they had to take him out with a bed and everything incorporated, because he couldn't move. And they took him through the streets, looking for Jesus. But when they found the place where Jesus was, a very tremendous obstacle to their faith was presented to them, a very large crowd was blocking the way. There was no way to get inside that house to get to the place where they needed to go.
At that moment they could easily have said to their friend, 'sorry friend, we tried, but you see it's not possible, there's no way to do it', and they would have said, 'okay, more Well, we'll take you home because you're already tired, because you haven't left the house for a long time.'
But they didn't do that, they kept saying, 'but what do we do now, how can we get to the Lord, how can we take our friend where he needs to be? They acted with a determined faith that overcame the obstacle and suddenly someone remembered the roof.
Now, when I read this Scripture before, I had questions about this Scripture, because I imagined the disciples climbing on the roof and breaking the roof. But being on top of a roof and breaking it and full of people below, someone was going to get hurt from there. Maybe the Lord was going to have to do a resurrection or something because pieces were falling. But when we were in North Africa we saw the style of these houses. These houses were built with a hole in the roof and over that hole, in cold weather a tile was moved to keep the house warm. And when it was hot, the tile was moved to open and let air and light in there.
Then someone remembered the roof. And I don't know if perhaps he ran home to bring a rope because how they lowered him later to the place where he needed to go. In any case, they made every effort, they got up there and you can imagine the scene inside that house. People like this..... Jesus preaching and suddenly the roof falls off and a paralyzed man with a built-in bed comes down and arrives exactly at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. It falls exactly in the place of miracles.
We have a very similar story, three Chapters on. We're not going to read it because of the weather this morning, but the woman with the issue of blood. Do you remember that story? He needed to get to Jesus, but a tremendous obstacle appeared, which was also the crowd. She was a woman considered unclean by the people because of her illness. She was not a woman for whom she was going to make her way, the people did not respect her, they rather rejected her, but she managed to get to Jesus. And he says that when he arrived, the part he could touch was the edge of his cloak.
Now, the hem of the cloak stays down and in a crowd that was so tight that when Jesus said 'who touched me?', the disciples said 'he's kidding, basically, he's kidding, Lord. . Look, the whole crowd is oppressing you, they are squeezing you and you say that someone has touched you.
But he knew that the moment this woman touched him, power left him and she had been healed. And I ask myself this question, I don't know, I want to ask it when we got to heaven but I think it may have been possible that an idol was crawling in the middle of people's feet to be able to reach and touch the edge, because in a crowd you don't you can do this, very difficult you bend over, very difficult.
In Bogotá, on certain occasions, now there are more laws, but at the time I arrived there almost 30 years ago, especially at Easter when there were few buses, few drivers wanted to work, those buses the drivers take the opportunity to earn money and put people in, and put people in, and put people in and we turned out like that. I am convinced that someone could die and remain standing because there was a crowd of people and I imagine that there had been something like that that day with this crowd. You hardly do like that, but the woman came.
Now, for your faith, for my faith there have been obstacles and we have to see how we are going to deal with these obstacles. There are things in our lives that we got up and began to believe in the Lord but with the passage of time and the miracle has not arrived, and the miracle has not arrived, and the miracle has not arrived, and the miracle has not arrived, what happened to our faith? And many of us subconsciously said, I tried, it was not possible.
Now this morning we want to look at 5 common obstacles to our faith, because we need to overcome them in order to move forward. The first obstacle we want to see is precisely with the woman with the issue of blood, in Luke 8.
She came, she touched the Lord, she was healed. In Chapter 8, 48, the Lord tells her, “... daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace."
And then while he was still speaking when someone came from the synagogue principal's house to tell him, 'your daughter has died...', he is speaking to Jairus that Jesus was on his way to heal the daughter of Jairo when this happened with the woman. And now one of his house comes there to tell him that his daughter has already died, he says:
“... Do not bother the Master, hearing him Jesus answered him, 'Don't be afraid, just believe and you will be saved...”
Please tell the person next to you 'Don't be afraid, just believe and you will be saved.' Do not fear, just believe and you will be saved.
And the first tremendous obstacle to our faith is fear. Fear is the enemy of faith. Fear paralyzes faith and does not let you act. Last year I came here to the United States to minister at an event in Pennsylvania and a missionary friend of mine in Colombia has been translating the New Testament into a dialect of the indigenous people of Amazonas for 40 years and she is living there, she has already retired.
She, here in Pennsylvania, rented a house and I don't know when was the last time you saw a horror movie, but that house is like that. Built in 1825 with sealed corridors, hidden stairs, several floors, closed parts to save heat and energy and that was it, I don't know what was wrong with that house, but one night I stayed up late ministering to a woman. We were staying there, 5 people, the two elderly missionaries were there, I was there too and there were two indigenous shepherds from the Amazon jungle, very close friends of mine, Emí and Samuel. So I stayed up ministering to a woman until late, everyone else went to bed and when I started to pray for this woman, I thought it was going to be something very simple of inner healing and I started to pray and the size of a demon manifested. And the woman stood upright and fell like a board against the wall, pinned by her head there. And I looked, it was late and I was so tired, I said, 'Oh, Lord, I could do this alone, but I'm late and I'm tired and if a thousand flee before one, and ten thousand flee before two, who knows before 3 how many flee I'm going for Emí and Samuel.
And I went to look for them and they came down quickly and we began to pray for the woman, she was free quickly. They went up again, I continued ministering to him for a little while longer. When I went up there was no one awake on the second floor, everyone was asleep and I went into my bedroom alone, there was nothing strange. I closed the door, when I went to bed and turned off the light I start to hear...uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... and I thought, 'Lord, a demon stayed here , It had never happened to me.'.
And in the name of Jesus..uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... get out of here,... uuuuuuuuuuu..... I thought now I'm going for Emí and Samuel again to free my room because this doesn't work out . So, when I put on the lifter there and then I went to open the door to go into the hallway and call them, and there I heard the missionary..... uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, snoring. Uuuuuuuuuuuu.....
And I was paralyzed. The great woman of faith, paralyzed. I couldn't even move for fear at that moment. How many has something similar happened to? But, you know the experts say that's the way fears are, that 99 percent of them never come true, never come true.
Please turn around and say to the person next to you, say, 'Be careful, with the fears because the vast majority are spirits of uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu with spirits. Tell him 'you have to overcome fear to act in faith'. Ok, the first obstacle is fear.
The second obstacle is the idea that God has favorites, that God will do it for others but not for me. How many have ever struggled with that? But I want to give you these Scriptures, just please write down: Acts 10:34, they all say the same thing in different contexts; Romans 2:11; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3: 25.
Everyone says the same thing, God is no respecter of persons. Oh hallelujah! Please tell the person next to you 'good news, God is no respecter of persons'.
But then why do we see that there are people who receive a lot from the Lord, that there is a lot of blessing and they are always testifying and the Lord responds and sometimes not us. The Lord taught me something very precious about this with my 4 nephews.
I have 4 nephews, I have 2 here in the United States who are of my blood, they are my sister's children, Christopher is now 21 years old, he is preparing for the ministry; Liza is 18 years old and is preparing to conquer the whole world for Christ. It's something very cute and I'm super proud of them. And in Colombia I have two more, who are Igna's grandchildren, Jonathan who is now 12 years old and Stephy who is 10 years old.
I live on the first floor, I rent an apartment that belongs to Igna, and her daughter, son-in-law, and her two grandchildren live on the second floor. So, there's a special family recipe of ours for bacon, and there's a staircase that goes up to the second floor. And when they were younger, then it was just that I put the bacon to fry, and the fragrance began to rise, the aroma of the blessing to the second floor, I turned around and there were two little children sitting there. Patiently, quietly, waiting for his portion of blessing. Then the style of the apartment was changed and they can't do that anymore. They already have to go down and knock on the door. But at that time, they appeared there and there the Lord spoke to me about something so beautiful.
When they came, far from their mind to think that I would be able to have that blessing and that I was not going to give them. When they came, they came with all the confidence that I was going to give them and there the Lord spoke to me and showed me the following: I love all 4 of them equally, Christopher, Liza, Jonathan, Stephany, but Christopher and Liza, it's not their fault, they can't get close to me, they don't come, they can't... they don't look for me. So, I love them but the other two who come to look for me, come to my feet, come to look for the blessing, it has been very easy for me all their lives to pour out a blessing, to pour out a blessing, to pour out a blessing, because I turn around and there they are, I move around here and there they are. So I turned out giving them, blessing them and the Lord told me that he is like that with us.
He loves us all equally, but it is much easier for him to pour out a big blessing on those of us who seek him, than we approach him. When you go looking for him and you go with that Jonathan and Stephany attitude that you're going to get the bacon, then a blessing is going to come. How many want their bacon today? Amen, amen.
Thank you, Lord. Tell the person next to you one more time, God is no respecter of persons. Very good. The second obstacle is that: thinking that God has favorites.
Number 3, the third obstacle, a lack of understanding of the heart of Father God. We are going to see this, Hebrews 11:6. Everyone together please:
“...But without faith it is impossible to please God because it is necessary for those who approach God to believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him... .”
Once again: “...But without faith it is impossible to please God because it is necessary for those who approach God to believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.. ..”
How many believe it? Amen. Now, we all believe that there is. We all believe that God exists, but the second part, believing that he rewards those who seek him, also means that we need to believe that God wants to answer us. The Lord wants to answer you. The Lord longs to answer your prayers, but many times our own attitude when we approach him to seek cuts off the blessing and does not let him give us, because we approach to say, 'Lord, I want to', but inside we are saying....
I've noticed many times when we pray for people to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, one or the other, not that it's a crowd either, but when one goes to put their hand up they're saying 'Lord, fill me up, fill me up', and you put your hand on it and they start...... with their mouths saying, yes, but with their hearts, what are they saying? I will not receive
And many times that can happen to us. We do not understand that the Lord delights in answering us. The Lord delights in being able to give you what you are asking for. The Lord delights in giving us surprises. The Lord delights in answering the details of our lives. Not only in matters of life and death, but also in the desires of the heart.
Let's go to Psalm 38, verse 9. Everyone together please:
“... Lord, before you are all my desires and my sigh is not hidden from you... .”
Once more “... Lord, before you are all my desires and my sigh is not hidden from you....”
Please do this with me, ........ahhhhh... yummy, let's do it again.... ahhhhh..... The Lord saw you. This says it, I don't say it. The Lord saw you. My sigh is not hidden from you. And not only did God see you at this moment, he has seen you every time in your life that you have sighed and he has also known the reason for the sigh. Because there are sighs of...ahhhhhh.... and there are sighs of...ahhhhhh..... But he knows, he sees every detail in your life.
Let me put it this way and hold onto this because it will change your life. God is watching over you, he is watching over you. He listens to your thoughts every moment, he feels the beating of your heart every time it beats. He sees your sighs and knows why, he knows what you are feeling in every moment of your life. Not only in big crises, every moment of your life he is watching over you. There's no one like him. There's no one like him.
And we get out of control and we go looking for answers, we get sick and we look for the best doctor in Boston. We need it, there is an economic crisis and we are going to look for a relative who can lend us, or we are going to look for a bank that can lend us. A crisis arises in the family and we look for someone who can solve the problem and all the time the Lord is there behind us saying, 'Turn around, look at me, here I am. Turn around, look at me. Just look at me, here I go, I am the one who wants to solve your problem, I am the one who can solve your problem, I am the one who has everything you may need, but look at me, turn around, look at me, the Lord tells you.
Change the way you look. Take your eyes off the problem and turn around and look at me says the Lord. And this Scripture doesn't just say that all my needs are before him. They are not talking about needs, they are talking about wants, desires. How many have wishes? They are not necessary things but they are something that you long for and this word says that the Lord, the Creator of the universe cares about your desires, he is interested in your desires, your desires.
I remember a few years ago that we were ministering with Igna in a place in Colombia called Cúcuta. It is a hot land like itself and we were in a church where there was no air conditioning, not even a fan and a heat, and we slept in one of the Sunday school classrooms, they put two cots there and that was it, that was our bedroom. So we finished a long day of work, work and they already took us there to sleep and told us, 'sisters, we want to pamper you, so we are going to take the food there to the bedroom, put on your pajamas and rest. And the shepherd's wife prepared more beautiful things, the shepherdess, well, she prepared a delicious meal but the drink was a fruit sorbet, the sorbet is very thick, very thick, and we were so thirsty and in that heat. And then, when she brought us that, we said 'oh, sister, thank you really, the food is delicious', and she closed the door and we looked at the straw and our throats that were burning because we had been preaching and couldn't drink the water of the key there.
And then Igna says, 'Oh, but slowly, she said, right now I would like an ice cold Coca Cola, a cold Coca Cola, and I said, oh, me too, me too. And you know, not even a minute passed, someone knocked on the door, it was the guard, a brother with very few resources, very few resources, and he came with something in his hands. And he said, 'Oh, sisters, please forgive me for being audacious, but you can have two ice-cold Coca Colitas that I bring you.'
Our God, tell me, our God, our Father is thoughtful , is detailed. He is interested in wishes. Today we need to change our point of view, turn our gaze, look at him because he wants to do great things.
Well, that's the third obstacle, a lack of understanding of the heart of Father God. It is a Father to be able to bless us, he loves to be able to give.
The fourth obstacle is the wrong use of our mouth, the wrong use of our mouth. Please write down proverbs 6:2, it says:
“... you have become entwined with the words of your mouth and you have been imprisoned in the sayings of your lips...”
you have linked yourself with the words of your mouth and you have been imprisoned in the sayings of your lips, it is proverbs 6:2.
We bind ourselves and bind the blessings that God wants to bring. When they are praying for you who have been sick and they come and ask how you are. I'm wrong. Wrong. And the next day, and how are you today? Worse, worserrrrrrrrrrrr. You bond with the words of your mouth. And the next day, and how are you today? From bad to worse, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, you link up and don't let those blessings that God wants to bring to your life come.
Please just write down, Proverbs 18:21, “......death and life are in the power of the tongue and he who loves it shall eat its fruit..... ”
Numbers 14:28, “.... tell them, as I live, says the Lord, as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you....”
What did you say, what words did you say? The Lord said that when the spies returned from the Promised Land, and two said 'it can' and ten said 'it can't'. Two said, 'God is with us' and the others said 'You can't, you can't', and those who said 'you can't' never happened.
The people had to wait there for them and all those who said 'you can't beat them' to die. Please, tell someone next to you, tell him, 'be careful with him, you can't do it'. Tell him, 'be careful,' tell him, 'because everything is possible in Christ Jesus, everything is possible in Christ Jesus, there is nothing impossible in the Lord, he can do everything.'
And in him everything is possible. I can. In it you can. Say with me, in it yes you can, yes you can, yes you can, say it again, yes you can, yes you can, yes you can and once again very hard, yes you can. Amen, in the Lord. Amen.
Now, how can I handle this, because it's not about lying, it's not about saying 'I'm great' when I feel bad. But we find the answer in Second Corinthians, 4:13, please look this up and yes we are going to read it.
And all together please “... but having the same spirit of faith according to what is written I believed for which I spoke. We also believe for which we also speak....”
“... but having the same spirit of faith according to what is written I believed for which I spoke. We also believe for which reason we also speak....”
According to what is written, I believed for which reason I spoke. I need to learn to speak according to this. So when someone asks me how are you? I can say, 'I am struggling, but I have a God who is going to help me. I am struggling but there is a God in heaven who is going to reach out and do something about this situation.' I can say, 'I am struggling financially but the Lord in Heaven is going to provide', I can say, 'I am sick but the Lord of Heaven is going to heal me.” I can say, “my family is struggling in their relationships but the Lord of Heaven is going to heal my family.” It is believing and speaking, believing and speaking.
According to what is written..... When Igna developed kidney cancer 4 years ago, they had to remove her kidney and during that time we went through anguish, you can imagine. She is healthy, Hallelujah! She is healthy, but at that time we heard the testimony of a woman who received news that her grandson was deformed. They had done studies on the baby and it came with some deformity in the body. The woman was a preacher here in the United States. So, she, the daughter lived in another state, the one who was going to have the baby, the woman, the preacher flew there to where the daughter was and on the plane she began to cry out, 'Lord, heal my grandson', and it was just beginning to pray, 'Lord, heal my grandson', she saw in a vision an old preacher that she had not seen for many years, he had been dead for years, but she saw him and he always when someone asked her how is he ? And knowing that he was in trouble, he did this with his arm, everything is fine.
And then she, 'Lord, heal my grandson,' and she saw the old preacher, everything is fine. And she, 'Lord, why am I watching this preacher? Lord, heal my grandson. Everything's fine. And when he got there and the next day they did more in-depth exams there on the baby and suddenly in the exam, with the exam focusing on the baby the baby did...... and he was born perfect. Amen, thank you Lord.
Please turn over there and please tell the person, 'I don't know your struggles,' tell them, 'I don't know your struggles,' tell them, 'but everything is fine.' And now tell him, 'I know my struggles and everything is fine'.
How many can believe it? Amen. Thank my Lord. Thank you Lord
And the last obstacle here very quickly is called wounded faith, wounded faith. Now, many of us have grabbed onto Scripture, proclaimed Scripture, tried our best to believe God in a given situation, and God's response was not what we expected. And when that happens we have two options, or blind faith, without understanding why; or we will end up with a wounded faith, questioning, doubting and it is something dangerous for us.
In my life, the Lord has given a gift to heal cancers, he has used me to heal many people from cancer, but 7 years ago I lost my mother to cancer. We did everything we knew how to do, we fasted, we prayed, we believed, we proclaimed, but the Lord took her away, he took her away and my father remained. And the truth is, all of us children longed for my mother's last years alone with her because my father had been a very violent alcoholic. My mother, a very loving woman of God with her children. She really stood in front of the family because my dad, because of alcoholism, he didn't, he didn't.
And suddenly, my mom died and my dad stayed, and we confessed, I am confessing this, this was not correct, but I confess it before you today: we all thought, and I include myself, Lord , you took the one that was not. You took the one that wasn't. And now what are we going to do with my father? Nobody wanted to live with him, bad-tempered, cruel with his words. You can already imagine, but you know... the Lord has purposes that we do not understand and God knew very well, very well what he was doing. I let my faith hurt, and for a while after that I didn't want to pray for anyone who had cancer, I prayed for others but I didn't want to pray for anyone who had cancer, saying 'Lord, why, why so many others? healthy? But God had a greater purpose and the Lord knew that the only thing in this world that was capable of breaking the layers of hardness in my father's heart was the death of my mother. And when my mom died, my dad collapsed and those layers of hardness came undone and he easily fell into the arms of his children who had never let us hug him and he easily fell at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ as well. He was born again and today sometimes I look at him, and I think, Lord, is he the same or did you change him for another?
Seven years later, there is fruit in his life. Seven years later you can... me the other night, I hung up after talking to him and I said to Igna, 'that's awesome, 5 minutes of talking to my dad, he didn't yell at me once and he told me he loved me '. And his aunt, the one closest to him, his sister, she calls me from time to time and crying and tells me, 'I call your dad just to hear him say that he loves me and I can't believe what he's telling me. saying'.
Transformed, transformed. There are situations where we have cried, we have believed and God had something better but perhaps it has not been understood, what is best has not been seen until now. There is a time to fight, there is a time to not understand, but obviously it is much more important to have my father with us in heaven than it would have been to have my mother here on earth for a few more years, much more important.
This morning I want to end by praying for you. If you have gone through something that hurt your faith then quickly stand up. If you can look at your Christian life and you can see that at any given moment you stopped believing to see miracles, why did x or ye happen, why didn't God grant what you longed for so much, and today you want to go back and tell him 'Lord, forgive me because After all, you are the one who knows everything, after all, God, you are the great, the perfect one', and there you simply raise your hands and say, 'Lord, I need this healing in my life today, I need you to heal my faith, Lord, I let it hurt.'.
Tell him, 'until this day I don't understand the reason for what happened, but Lord, I don't want to continue as I have come and today I want, Lord, to take the path of blind faith, a faith who believes you without being able to see, without being able to understand.'
Tell him, 'Lord, forgive me because I thought you had failed me,' tell him 'Lord, forgive me because I doubted your character, I doubted your goodness, I doubted of your motivation Forgive me, wash me with your blood, wash me with your blood.'
And tell him, 'Lord, I renounce all disbelief and doubt and now I place my hand in your hand to tell you that I believe you again, I I believe again, Lord. I place my life, my family, my past, present and future back in your hands and I trust you God, I trust you God.'
Tell him, 'and Lord, by faith, I thank you for such a wonderful experience. It lasts that I lived because I believe that you will use it for good in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.'
