This sermon emphasizes the importance of faith in God and the need to address the hindrance of unbelief, which is likened to a mountain that must be removed through prayer and surrender to God's will. The speaker highlights the significance of pouring out one's heart to God, acknowledging His love, and ultimately trusting in His promises despite challenges and doubts.

I want to talk to you about moving your mountain, moving your mountain. Mark the 11th chapter please, beginning to read in verse 20. Mark the 11th chapter. Verse 20, and in the morning as they passed by they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots and Peter calling to remembrance said unto him master behold the fig tree which you cursed is withered away and Jesus answering saith unto him have faith in God. That's an amazing answer because it doesn't answer his question, he doesn't answer his question, he just says have faith in God. For verily I say unto you that whosoever shall say unto this mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass he shall receive whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you what things whoever you desire when you pray believe that you receive them and you shall have them. Lord will you add to this your grace and your mercy and your anointing and speak to all of us now through your precious word in Jesus name. Amen. This is a passage I've read many times for many years, I've been preaching for 55 years and how many times I've read this I could not count. But this time reading it this past few weeks the Lord wouldn't let me skip over it. We've seen it, you've read about it and we don't see the deeper truths in it, we just pass on well something about a mountain and it can be removed and but there is something very marvelous in the way of a revelation of the heart of Jesus Christ and what he's trying to accomplish. See in the 11th chapter of Mark previous to this account Jesus has cleansed the temple, he's driven out the money changers and he came upon a fig tree that was bearing no fruit and he said bear no more fruit he cursed it and it's the next day and Peter and disciples walk past this tree and Peter says to Jesus look the tree is withered from its roots. Now this is an illustrated sermon, one of many of Christ's ways of pursuing the truth and revealing his heart through parables and all kinds of illustrations, this is an illustrated sermon. The Lord's wanting to say something. First of all the cross is right before Jesus, these are his final days and he knows what is being birthed, there's a death of something old, the old church, that fig tree represents the dead carnal religion, religion of works, the Jewish religion of trying to gain God's favor by human effort and keeping laws and regulations and the Lord says I'm finished with that, it's dead to the roots and he's illustrating that and he said my house is not going to be a house a den of thieves anymore, being birthed now is the church of Jesus Christ which lives by faith alone, salvation by faith, eternal life by faith, everything comes by faith and he's standing before his disciples who are going to be the foundation stones, these are the stones upon which he's going to build his church and they do not have faith, Jesus said of them they were slow to believe, oh you slow to believe, he abraded them at times and he said why can't you see, why can't you believe and he's going to say something profound and he knows that he has to get something, there's a hindrance, they're never going to come into the fullness of revelation, they're not going to be able to make it through the hard times of the cross and the persecution and the bloodshed and everything that's ahead of them, he's not, they're not going to make it because there's something in the way, there's a mountain and when Peter says look at this, this tree has withered to the roots, Jesus says have faith in God, doesn't answer his question at all, so he's putting his message in context, now this, we know that what follows has to be about faith and he takes them in their minds and and puts them face to face before a mountain, this mountain, he doesn't name it, scholars for years have tried to name that mountain, they say it's a mountain of discouragement, it's a mountain of sickness, it's a poverty mountain, all kinds of, if you look in your commentaries you'll find all kinds of sermons about that mountain, Jesus said this mountain, this mountain is unbelief, it's the mother of all sin, every bit of discouragement, every bit of hopelessness, all of these things, fear, all are birthed out of the sin of unbelief and God, the Lord Jesus Christ is saying something very profound to his people, he's saying I can't work with you, you have a great work ahead and I have called you and upon your confession I'm going to build my church, but you see there's something hindering, there's something hindering and folks the scripture is clear, all through the new testament, all through the life of Jesus and the gospels, he could do nothing where there was unbelief, he couldn't do it then, he can't do it now, where there is unbelief his hands are tied, he goes to his hometown and the scripture says he could do nothing there because of their unbelief, this is the mountain, it's always been that mountain, it always was, it is and will always be the mountain that hinders the fullness of God, the blessing of God and the revelation of Jesus Christ in his fullness, it is unbelief. I had a young pastor asked to have a session with me and he said Pastor Dave, I have a problem, I'm into pornography and he said the strange thing is I have a good marriage, I love my wife, I pray, I love the Lord and yet I got into this and I got hooked and I can't seem to get out of it, this thing's grown so big in my life and it's robbing me now of my spiritual strength and upon further counseling and investigation I found out that you see he thinks that's his mountain, that this this impassable thing that stands in front of him, but I began to question him, I found out that a number of years ago God made him, he felt very strongly it was a promise that was was made and he really believed it was the voice of God and a wonderful promise for his life and he's he's telling me now it didn't happen and I don't think it's ever going to happen and out came a bitterness, a kind of resentment against God because God didn't answer prayer. I hear this from young people, you see it wasn't his mountain, it was unbelief, the whole problem is unbelief, he really doesn't believe God answers prayer, he's waited so long and he's prayed so hard and he said I have believed so hard and I can't get free and so the promise hasn't come and so in his bitterness and his despair, you see when you have unbelief it opens you up to every conceivable kind of sin and I hear it from young people everywhere I go, even Christian young from Christian homes and I hear it from pastor's sons and daughters and when I ask why did you lose the fire, why don't you have a passion for Christ, born and raised in Christian homes and all these things, why don't you have a passion for Christ and what I hear is especially if I could only see one prayer answered I would believe. I hear that over and over again and that's why many in this generation, a church survey recently showed that a great majority of even those in the church don't believe God answers prayer anymore. There are some of you listening to me right now, you wouldn't say that aloud but you have this nagging fear and you have this nagging thought in your heart that even though you prayed and fasted things are getting worse, the promise is not coming true and you say how long do I wait? I had a pastor's wife tell me, Gwen and I'd been praying with that family for quite a while under great suffering and with children and finances and everything else and everything is getting darker and darker as far as she was concerned. She says, Pastor Dave, I feel sometimes that I have the right to disbelieve. I have a right not to have faith anymore because I have done everything according to the word of God. I have done everything, I have prayed and I have fasted, I've paid my tithes, I have walked righteously before God and I have pleaded and begged and I don't see any evidence of God answering prayer and right now, she said, I'm not reading the scriptures because nothing seems to come to life and she said, I honestly feel that I have a right. But she's saying I have a right to unbelief. Now I want you to know that both of these individuals I've talked to have endured their storm, they've come out to a wonderful place in faith. God's done a great work since. But you see, there's an issue the Lord is trying to get through. You see, he's, God is not amused by unbelief because it's satanic. It has ruined whole generations. God doesn't wink at unbelief in the hearts of his children. Do you remember the story of Zacharias the priest? He's been told clearly that he's going to have a child in his old age and his name is going to be John. He's going to be a forerunner of the Messiah. Now that's a heavy, that's a heavy promise. That is a reckless, incredible promise because he and his wife were stricken with AIDS and passed the time of being able to give birth to a child. An angel by the name of Gabriel appears in the temple while he's presenting incense and Gabriel identifies himself. Now you'd think that a man of God been seeking God for years and a man who'd been waiting for the Messiah for so long and given himself full time to the heart of God would believe an angel. Would not, may not believe another priest, even the high priest, but certainly he would believe an angel, not just an ordinary angel, but an archangel, Gabriel himself. And he said, I've been sent to tell you that the time has come and you're going to have a child soon. And his name is going to be John and outline this, what the history of this child is going to be, such incredible history. And Zacharias says that you see this mountain, this is front of his eyes. He said, how can it be impossible? Impossible. Now, God doesn't cut him any slack. He doesn't say to Gabriel, well, look, he's an old man. He's been faithful. Let's just overlook it. Let's just give him the child and let's go on. No, no, no. The angel, the Lord said, because you didn't believe, I'm going to lock your tongue. You're not going to be able to speak until the child is born. You see, he wasn't able to come out that day and bless the congregation as was customary. He could not shout. He could not rejoice among the family, but he could not be a part of the worship, the open worship. Now he can do this in his heart, of course, but the Lord, the Lord is saying, he's not winking at it. He said, this is, I'm not going to overlook this. Now, folks, this past week, as I was thinking about this message, the Holy Spirit moved on my heart and spoke to me. I said, Lord, what are you saying this message? I can get up and talk about unbelief and other people. The Lord said, no, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you about your mountain. He said, you'll never understand this message until you know how much unbelief grieves my heart, until you understand my grief and my pain and my hurt. If you just think it's something that I can pass over lightly and you'll never know how to cast out your mountain, David, you'll never know until you begin to feel and understand the pain that I go through when those who claim to love me most hurt me the worst. They can testify that they believe God. They have seen God work. They've seen me work and you've seen that. And the Lord said, how many miracles have you seen in your past? I can't even remember how many miracles. It would fill pages literally where God has answered prayer and I have believed him and I have trusted him. And then a crisis comes and the big crisis comes and then suddenly we wipe out that whole history and we say things and grieve him. Now, I'm not talking about an eclipse of faith that comes and goes and we say and do things under that eclipse. It's more than that. Until you understand the pain of God's heart when he told you he's touched with the feelings, his own son, who is God in flesh, touched with the feelings of your infirmities and to say things and believe is and entertain the pain in your mind that somehow I have failed you. Somehow I ignored your prayers. Somehow I passed you by. And your pain gets deeper and worse. Your conditions get worse and you become like Peter. Peter said, Lord, if it's you, if it's you, let me walk on water. And the Lord, Lord, if you're really God, give me a miracle. Give it to me now. Because you see, unbelief is very selfish and it thinks only of itself. Peter didn't think of the others that are left in the boat. He thought of himself. Deliver me out of this and he, the Lord says, come. And that's the whole gospel. The Lord's saying in your pain, every trial you're going to come, just come to me. You say you want a miracle, you come to me. You don't go to somebody with unbelief and talk it, talk unbelief. You don't get on the phone and just call somebody else and spill your spiritual guts to somebody where it all comes out, the language of unbelief. And Peter looks at the condition. He begins to sink and Jesus takes him by the hand and he says, why didn't you believe? Why did you doubt me? And he wasn't winking at him. He wasn't saying, hey, man, why did, no, no, no, no. God was grieved. It was a grief in God's heart. Why did you doubt me? Am I not God almighty? You tell people that you believe that your God is the God of the impossible, that there is nothing impossible with God. You know, there are people that have gone on for a long, long time trusting God. They've had wonderful evidences and testimonies of faith, and yet there'll come a crisis, the crisis of all or the mother of all crisis will come where everything, humanly speaking, is totally hopeless. King Asa is our example. King Asa was a very godly king of Judah. He wiped out sodomy. He wiped out idolatry, tore down heathen temples, and brought revival to Judah. And right in the midst of a revival, a million-man army came out of Ethiopia, allied with the Lubims, and they came against Judah to destroy Jerusalem and wipe out the nation. And the Bible says that Asa turned to the Lord and relied on him. He humbled himself before God and called the people to prayer. And God, through his faith, by his faith, the Ethiopian army, far stronger and mightier than his army, has a great victory. They came home singing the praises of God and on the way home, a prophet intercepts him. And the prophet says, you see, God didn't come and congratulate him. This is one of the greatest miracles of faith, true, unwavering faith, probably in the modern times or those specific times in the history of Israel, would be talked about all over the known world at the time. And the prophet comes to him and says, now I have a word for you. As long as you walk this way, in other words, as long as you walk this kind of faith, as long as you rely on the Lord, as long as you fully trust him and never give up your confidence in God, I'll walk with you and you'll have other victories. But if you turn away from me, you're going to have wars. You're going to have wars. You're going to have disorder. He goes on. He takes that message to heart. And for 36 years, Asa walks in faith, great victories. He builds the house of God to its splendor. And he turns the nation around and wonderful things. It would have been glorious to live in Jude at the time. But now, 36 years later, a tragedy, another crisis. The backstabbing king of Israel had attacked town just five miles from Jerusalem and cut off all the trade routes. This meant if that blockade continued and Israel's army was encamped five miles on their border, that this would bring economic collapse to Judah. It would bring famine. There would be no food. There would not be the fuel. There would not be the things that they needed to survive. This was a crisis. And this came to them when the Bible said they were seeking God. The nation was seeking God. But in this crisis, the crisis before didn't bother him. He's walking in faith. And now this comes after 36 years and he panics. He gathers his counselors together. What are we going to do? And the thought is planted in his mind, ask the Syrians to get you out. So he strips the temple of the gold and silver. He goes into the palaces. He strips all the gold and the silver, amasses it, and sends emissaries to Syria, a nation that was their archenemy. That's like going to the devil for counseling. And in plain words, he says, here's my wealth. Here's everything I own. Now I'm asking you to deliver me, deliver my people. Absolute unbelief. You see, God had planned. God already had plans underway to deliver Syria into his hands. I've often said the hardest part of faith is the last half hour. And a lot of people in that last half hour, well, God's making plans to give the most glorious deliverance you could ever imagine. And now you sit in this, before this mountain of unbelief, helpless and powerless and fearing and in panic. And some of you hearing me now, you're in panic. A God who's heard you a thousand times. And I say it with brokenness because I see it in my own heart. I've seen it and I despise it. So we come to this, and this won't be a long message, but I have to get this off my heart. You see, I ask God not to give me some detailed theological answer to this problem of a mountain of unbelief. How do I cast it out? How do I get this thing out of my life that hinders everything that God would do? Hinders ministry, marriage, hinders everything in life. Because you see, a prophet came to Asa after Syria. He got his deliverance, but the word of the Lord came to him and said, because you did not believe, from now on you will have wars. Everything's going to be out of order. Everything's going to go awry. Everything is going to turn into flesh. You're going to get all your directions from the flesh now. I have been there. When you get out of God's will and you get out of faith and you begin to panic, first of all, it's the grief of God's heart. Secondly, you're going to turn to your own answers, your own thoughts, and your own fears are going to become a way of life. And I ask God, Lord, how do I get, how do I cast this thing out of me? Because you see, he's made it our responsibility. He said, you speak to the mountain and say, be gone, and it shall go. And then when this mountain is gone, then whatever you ask or whatever you say, everything you want and desire, you shall have it. And a lot of people stop right there and say, wait a minute, I've been there, it doesn't work. Everything I ask, you see, he's saying, after you remove the mountain. So I asked God, and last night he really spoke to my heart. Do you really want to walk that life? Because I'm going to have you, I'm going to show you something that's going to cost you and has no merit to it, but it's the only way to get rid of the mountain. There's no other way. Or some would say, oh, well, no, no, no, you just have faith. It says, speak the word, just speak the word, mountain, go. Folks, you try that without what I'm about to tell you, and the devils will laugh at you, just as they did the disciples when they tried to cast out a demon, a devil, and they laughed at him. Because you see, Jesus said, this comes by prayer and fasting. No merit, but if you want authority over this mountain, if you want authority over demon powers, if you want authority over those hounding fears and doubts, there's a place you have to go. And there's a prayer you have to pray when you get there, in that place of Gethsemane. This is the garden where Jesus went when his cup became so overwhelming and his trial so crushing. He goes into this garden. You see, people say, no, no, this is not a generation of tears. We don't cry anymore. We just celebrate. But I celebrate Jesus Christ. I love songs on celebration. But you see, in our modern church in this time of gold and riches and fun and pleasure and backslidden cold prayers, we don't want to cry. We don't want to put our face on the ground and plead. We don't want to intercede. But you see, Jesus goes into the garden. Now, he's never experienced unbelief. That's a sin. And this is not a matter of his unbelief, but he's got a mountain. And it's the cross. He goes in and he said, I am sorrowful unto death. Have you ever prayed that? Have you ever told your husband or your wife or have you told anybody or have you ever had an encounter with God? What you're saying, if not in words, is this is too much. It's beyond my understanding. If this goes on, it's going to kill me. Have you ever wept tears that were so hot? Like blood running out of your face. You know, so we don't want to touch that anymore. Because it's all, why can't we just say, well, God's a God of love. I have preached so much love recently and from this pulpit, we preach grace, we preach love. But we also cannot do away with this Gethsemane experience. Jesus wept, he prayed, he interceded, he called on God, he sought the Lord. Lord, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Don't let me have to take any more of this. Now, forget trying to explain what's in the cup. But folks, if he is touched with things of our infirmities, it's got to be things that are in our cup. The same kind of cup. I don't want to get into the theological framework of this, but I do know this. He said, I'm in a situation, Father, I would plead with you and I beseech you enough, enough. That's where you are right now. You said, God, that's enough. And you have got to believe like Jesus did, that his father loved him. And his father is about to reveal something marvelous to his heart. You see, we are, there was a series of agonies that Jesus went through, series. This is the fasting, the prayer, the weeping, the tears, the prostration. That's a series of spiritual episodes that are leading to a place. And then after the tears have stopped flowing, and you know the father bottled every tear. And after the tears can no longer flow, and after all that has been said and done, Jesus prays the ultimate prayer. Now that word ultimate, one of the explanations, explanations, one of the definitions of ultimate is the end of a series, the far out end. In other words, everything has been tried. The ultimate is there. And he gets up and looks God in the face. He said, and this is what he's saying, I've prayed, I've wept, I've fasted, I've done everything to unload my soul to you, Father. But I've come to this place. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. Your will be done. And you can't move that mountain till you pray that ultimate faith and that prayer, and you can't pray that until you have unloaded everything that's in your soul to where you go to the heavenly Father. Yes, go. It's not a way of living. It's not a daily walk, but it's a confrontation where you come to the place where you say, I'm at the end. And you pour your soul out to God. And you quit looking at the circumstances and believe that God loves you, and he will not allow anything in your life except that which is good, which is right, which is according to his will, according to his will and his mind. So you give up trying to figure it out, and you cast yourself in the arms of the heavenly Father and say, Lord, this is not what I want. I don't think I can handle much of it, but I know your God almighty, and I cast everything into your hands, and now I pray the ultimate prayer. Your will be done. And when you do that, God gives to you, starts opening your eyes to a revelation. You're going to, you see, a lot of people have cried and wept for God to use them and to God to give them patience and God to do something in their families, and God knows what he has to do. And so God begins to allow afflictions. David said, if I had been afflicted, I would have sought the Lord. And God knows the path. He knows the cost of that. And the moment you prayed that, he went into action. And the next day, the next week, things started happening in your life, and you missed the answer. You're going around despising the answer. This is God at work. I'm going to close in just a moment, but to illustrate this, and right to the point, I remember, I thought of again last night, my youngest son, Greg, back in the pastor's office a number of years ago, he asked me to come back with him, and he threw himself on the floor and began to weep and cry and wail before God. He said, Dad, such a burden for young people, and I don't know how to reach out and get hold of this thing, but God has to do something. We're losing the generation. And I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to do. I just sat there and said, oh God, whatever it takes, answer his prayer. And so he goes into the greatest trial of his life, four years of incredible pain, his faith and very life being tested. But you see, I'd made an ultimate prayer. I said, God, whatever it takes, because I trust you, you will only do what's right. And this past few months, God has been bringing him out in a glorious way. And he called me last week. He said, Dad, thank you for not giving up on me, and thanks for not giving up on your faith. I put everything, I never once doubted that God was at work. None of this is going to work unless you are convinced, totally convinced that God loves you. It's not going to work if you focus on your sins and won't believe. You start right there. I commit to keeping of my soul. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life trying to make things up to God. I'm not going to try to be God anymore and try to answer everybody's prayer. Oh, the joy of God then when we cast ourselves into his care. Will you stand? You know, there was a time that when Gwen and I would walk home from the service, I'd say, Honey, how'd I do? And the Lord showed me that that was a sign of a kind of hardness in my heart. I should have been asking the Lord and myself. See, I don't do that anymore, but I should have been asking, did I preach that in love? What was my point? What was I trying to accomplish? When this church was established, it took, in my estimation, four years for God to make me even a low-class kind of pastor. Because I used to see people in multitudes, and they were all faces, and I never got to talk to people, and so it was just faces. And then when you come face-to-face with people in trial and hardship and all of this, you can't just say, Well, I'm going to love. You have to work these things out in your own heart first. And I know that you know that you have pastors and elders here that love you. We're not into race issues in this church, because every one of these men, black, white, Hispanic, whatever it is, there's something God has done by His Spirit that is supernatural. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say, that God in His love has spoken to my heart and yours. And this is what He's trying to accomplish, that you now pour your soul out to God. And I'm not going to re-preach my sermon. You don't have to come to the altar to do that. In the annex, you can do it right where you're at. I don't want you to pray ultimately, but I want you to pray. I don't want you to just flippantly say, All right, not my will, Lord, but Yours be done. But get all the other stuff out first. Tell Him. Tell Him like it is. Talk to Him. Get alone and say, I'm not leaving this room. I'm not leaving this place until my soul is at rest. And you'll know the mountain's gone when you have this rest. I'm not trying to do it anymore on your own or questioning God's work, but resting on His promises and His Word. Heavenly Father, would you show us your heart? Show us where we are in our walk with you now. Are we resting on your side? Are we accusing you, Father, of child abuse? Lord, is there anything in our hearts that would hinder us now? Remove it by your grace. Take it out of our hearts. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Would you lift your hands to the Lord? Both hands. Put your Bible down, wherever it is. Just lift your hands before the Lord. And would you begin to thank Him for His love for you? Just begin. That's where you start. Thank you for loving me. See, God's not mad at anybody here. He's not mad at you. Let's thank Him for His love. Lord, we thank you that no matter what we're going through, you have given us evidence that you truly love us. We are under the love of God. We're under the covenant of God. We're under the grace and mercy of God. But oh, Lord, we're also friends with God. And Lord, we can approach you as a friend and say, I have an issue in my heart. Now, Lord Jesus, give me the Holy Spirit in greater measure so that I can pray from my heart and surrender to the perfect will of God, wherever that takes us, wherever it ends, that we will go your way in full surrender. Now, one thing before we close this service, up in the balcony in here, in the main floor, if you're not where you know you should be with Christ, if you know in your heart you've grown cold or indifferent to Him, I want you to step out of your seat. If you feel the tug and pull of the Holy Spirit, I want you to get out of your seat and come and I will pray with you and we'll believe the Lord to bring you back to his heart. If you have strayed any way at all or if you've been living in dreaded fear, absolute dread fear. Now, I'm not just talking about something that happened last night, but it's a way of life. Now, you live day by day under a spirit of fear. I want to pray against that spirit. I want you to get out of your seat, up in the balcony, down either side, and here on the main floor, come this way, and those in the annex, you can move between the screens and I'll pray. You'll be able to see and hear in just a moment. While our instruments are playing, get out of your seat. I don't care if there are 10 people. God wants to do something in your heart before this service is history. There's only one thing you can give to God now. You can't give him any righteousness because you and I don't have any of our own. We're saved by his righteousness. You can't give him any money because he owns it all. You don't have to give him tears. That doesn't merit anything. As followers of Christ, we don't merit anything by our Bible reading and by our prayer and by our tears and prostrations. We don't merit anything, but there's one thing you can give him, the one thing he wants, and that you have the power and ability to give him, and that's your faith. Your faith. Will you pray this prayer with me? Lord Jesus, forgive my unbelief. I trust you. I love you. And I do the best I can to give you my small faith. Jesus, I receive your love. I receive your forgiveness. Touch my heart. Take all the questions out of my mind. Teach me how, by the Holy Spirit, to trust you every single day. Not to worry, not to fear, but to rest on the promises Jesus made. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I'll give him thanks.