Does God Still Heal? Part 1
|
|
Does God Still Heal? Part 2 |
|
Does God Still Heal? Part 3 |
|
Does God Still Heal? Part 4 |
|
Does God Still Heal? Part 5 |
|
Does God Heal?
The big question among Christians is; does God still heal?
Let me start by saying I don’t believe in faith healing, I believe in Divine healing.
Faith healing is up to man! Or some man.
Divine healing puts it on God and not us.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Our faith is a gift from God, it’s not our faith.
The preachers who say that it’s because of your lack of faith you’re not healed, what they are actually saying is its God fault, because he hasn’t given you the faith that you need?
James 5:14-18
14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
We pray in groups who are called prayer warriors or we pray as a whole in the church, but some churches don’t call the Elders and anoint with oil.
15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
Who’s praying the prayer of faith? The elders are, not the person who is sick.
So if it is true what they say, then it’s the preacher fault if there’s no healing.
“and if he have committed sins” It’s not speaking about our sinful ways, because there’s no if , we do have sins in our lives.
It’s speaking about a sickness that was cause by sin, I’ll explain on that later.
This is a divine healing because it was done “in the name of the Lord” not in the name of the elders.
They had the faith, that God gave them, but God did the healing.
The above verses speak about sick people and the elders anointing them with oil and praying in the name of Jesus.
These next verses are speaking about us the born again Christians.
16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
“Confess your faults one to another” the meaning of this is in:
Matt 18:15 “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.”
Also in:
Matt 6:14-15
14 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Once you confess your sins to your brother or sister, now you are healed to pray.
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” who is a righteous person? It tells us in:
2 Cor 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”.
Then in the next verse the Lord gave us an example of this kind fervent prayer
17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
We see that this is N.T. using O.T. as an example.
Yes the Old and the New is one bible, we need both.
You have some who preach that if you’re not healed it’s because you’re not walking with the Lord.
What did God say about Job? He said that Job was the greatest of all men and look what happen to him, Job was sick for good while before God healed him.
We’re going to see that in the bible the majority of the people weren’t saved that were heal.
This is called Gods grace, he healed the lost to show how good he is and hopefully they would get saved.
Look at Jesus perfect walk with God, and look what happens to him.
I’m sure they had some people saying how can God let this happen to him?
Matt 26:39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
Jesus as a man was saying Lord if there is any other way let this pass me.
But it’s not mine will, Lord, but yours I will do.
Remember he never said that Christian wouldn’t get sick or die.
Matt 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Also in:
Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
There are different kinds of suffering we’re going to experience.
One - is from man, but our glory comes from the Lord.
Second - some of our suffering will come from being on this earth, but our glory will be in heaven.
Thirdly – suffering will come from being in our corrupted dying bodies, but our glory will come when we get our perfect imperishable bodies.
So remember through this teaching that some of our sicknesses are just something we’re going to go through because of Adam and Eve sin.
I know that some of you aren’t going to believe this, but sometimes it’s good that we are sick.
I didn’t say this, the Lord did in:
Ps 119:71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
Remember what:
Rom 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God”
There’s reasons why God was healing all
We’re going to look at the reasons Jesus was healing everyone at this time.
Matt 4:23-24
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
“And his fame went throughout all Syria” meaning that he was being recognized widespread and that’s what he wanted.
Matt 8:16-17
16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:
All that were brought to him in this chapter were healed, A leper, a Roman soldier servant, Peter’s mother-in-law, and those who were possessed by devils.
Again he wanted the people to know who he was.
To show his divine mission while he was here.
Back in Matt 3 God wanted Jesus to be revealed to the people, to show them that he was the only way, the only one who could save them, and that he was the son of God,
Matt 3:16-17
16 “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”.
Who was God saying this to, well in verses 5-7 of this chapter it says; that John was preaching to people from Jerusalem, all Judaea, and the entire region around about Jordan, and to the religious leaders also.
Jesus healed all because he was on a mission from God, and it says in:
John 3:34 “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him”.
God didn’t limit Jesus we are limited because of our sinful falling nature.
Also in:
Col 2:9 “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
Again there were no limits to the Spirit’s power working through him.
Jesus was perfect while he was here, he was 100% man walking in the spirit with God, and he always knew what his father wanted.
In John chapter 2 Lazarus was sick and they sent for Jesus to heal him, but he delayed in his coming, and there is a reason for that.
What would have glorified the Lord more? Healing him from a sickness or raising him from the grave?
Luke 7:22 “Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached”.
Jesus wants the people to know who he is.
Another reason he did heal them is in:
Matt 14:14 “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick”.
Jesus was not a cold person with any feeling, that’s why he came to die for our sins, because he cared for us.
And he also showed it in:
Matt 14:19-21
19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.
20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.
21 And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.
Here he didn’t only show who he was performing this miracle, in front of the people, but he also showed his love for them.
Do we have men who can do that today? No, it was so people would see him as the Messiah.
Matt 9:36 “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.”
Again Jesus felt so sorry for the people because they were lost, he saw their hearts, and how they needed a savior.
Rom 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
It didn’t say that after we got born again, while we were still sinners, not only did he heal the people from their physical sickness, he also gave them a chance for spiritual healness.
He also healed, so people could be saved.
John 4:46-53
46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.
47 When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.
48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
The people weren’t listening to his message of salvation, they focused on the miracles he was doing for them.
That’s why he told them “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe”.
49 The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.
The man thought Jesus had to be in the presents of the child for Jesus to heal him, because he kept saying “come down to him”.
50 Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.
You could tell that Jesus was getting frustrated with the people, because of the way he told the man, about the signs and miracles and then he told the man “Go thy way, thy son liveth”.
51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.
52 Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.
53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.
The ministry of Jesus was not to just heal people, but to get them to turn to God.
Back to Matt 8:16-17
17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, (meaning disease, suffering, and sorrows) and bare our sicknesses.
It says the same thing in:
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Meaning he faced the same agonies we did.
We’ll find that in Isa 53:3-6 that this verse is fulfilled.
Isa 53:3-6
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows (Matt 8:17) yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
The living bible puts it were can understand it better: “And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins”
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
If you were to read these verses before reading the N.T. you would come to the conclusion that he was speaking about salvation, taking care of our sins, and not a physical healing.
Did he take on the sins of the world so we could have a physical healing, which doesn’t save us, or was it for a spiritual healing which does save us?
When you read these verses you’ll see that we weren’t healed until his death on the cross, when he took on our sins like it says here in verse 6.
This proves it when God said in:
Matt 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And the reason God had forsaken him was because in:
Hab 1:13 “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity”
Let’s look at it with other verse:
1 Peter 2:24
24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Same thing we just read in Isa 53:5 “with his stripes we are healed”
Peter is showing death to sin and becoming alive to righteousness as a healing.
The healing here is spiritual, not physical.
Isaiah nor Peter was showing that his suffering and death was for a physical healing.
Can sickness come without sin?
John 9:1-3
1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
He didn’t say that they were sinless.
Some say that God did this on purpose so he could use him later.
Just like in Job God allowed the devil to take Jobs health away, to prove a point.
God didn’t make Job sick.
Who knows why he was born blind, could be many reasons, remember because of Adam and Eve and their sin, we now have bodies that are dying.
Our sicknesses and our trails that we will go through, many times the Lord just uses these to show us that he is there with us, even if it’s to have peace while we are dying.
It could be that the reason the Lord doesn’t heal sometimes is because he knows that 1 or 2 are going to get saved from what has just happen.
Again look at Job his friends were lost and because of his bad health they got saved at the end of the story.
Can we bring sickness on ourselves?
When the Israelites left Egypt and they were in the wilderness for 40 years they came across deadly snakes that God had sent because they were speaking against him and Moses.
And in:
Num 21:6-9
6 And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
Was all of Israel? No.
But God healed very one who looked upon the pole.
The same today we all don’t look up at Jesus to save us.
2 Chron 16:7-12
7 And at that time Hanani the seer (prophet) came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand.
Asa the King did not turn to God, and because of that he was unable to defeat the army of King Syria.
Then the prophet reminded him about the time he had another battle in the next verse.
8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thine hand.
He saying; at that time he turned it over to the Lord, and look what happen, he had victory.
9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.
The prophet says that the Lord goes around looking for Christians whose heart is for the Lord.
And because he didn’t seek the Lord, he has become a foolish King, and because of that he will be facing many battles.
What battles are we putting ourselves in because we don’t go to him first?
Doesn’t it sound like us many times?
Do we go to the marriage counselor, or to financial adviser, or whatever man we’re putting our trust in before the Lord first?
Now if King Asa would have dropped to his knees and ask for forgiveness no telling what would have happen? But that’s not what he did.
10 Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.
King Asa did what many do, he blame it on someone else for what he did.
He took out on the prophet and some other people for his mess up.
11 And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
12 And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
Asa after being told what the problem was still didn’t listen.
Even when came to his health, and he died from this disease.
Ex 15:26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.
Why did the Lord bring these diseases to Egypt, because they didn’t do what the Lord asks?
What I’m trying to show is that sometimes we bring our sicknesses on ourselves?
Did you get a sexual disease because you were unfaithful to your spouse or you not even married?
Are you like some of these Christians who let deadly snakes bite them because of what it says in:
Mark 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
And end up being very sick or dying.
This is putting the Lord to a test, there’s only one place in the bible were God said to put him to a test and that’s in:
Mal 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Do you eat nothing but junk food and you in up clogging your arteries and having a stroke or even a heart attack and then you blame God for letting it happen to you?
Do you smoke and you got cancer, then you want God to heal you?
Are you worry about tomorrow and now your depress or you have an ulcer.
Have you not read what it says in?
Matt 6:30-34
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Worrying is inconsistent with our faith in God; in fact it’s even sinful.
Worrying is characteristic of unbelief.
Those who have no hope in God are the ones who should worry.
There is a reasonable way of thinking about tomorrow, for example a man wanting to move up in his job, but still is content with where he is at.
Luke 3:14, Phil 4:11, Heb 13:5, all say “be content with what you have”
I know you’re not going to like this one, but putting up for retirement, is not of the Lord, and I’ll read scriptures on that in a minute.
When we think like the world we will worry like the world, and our heart is not centered on God.
Jesus says to focus your attention and hopes on him and He will take care of all your needs.
Instead of worrying about the things of this world, we should hunger and thirst for the things of the world to come.
Phil 4:7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
There is so much we don’t understand on why things happen, but we can have peace in our hearts and mind if we depend of the Lord.
Phil 4:11-14
11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. 14 Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.
God promises His grace for today and tomorrow, but He doesn’t give us grace for tomorrow now.
Are you putting up for tomorrow? What does James say:
James 4:13-5:1-3
13 Look here, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it's here a little while, then it's gone. 15 What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." 16 Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. 17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
Continue to next chapter:
1 Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. 2 Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. 3 Your gold and silver have become worthless. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment.
Prov 27:1 Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
The wealth you were counting on will bring you nothing but worrying, and not only that it will show God where you heart was at, your plans are for you to take care of yourself instead of depending on God.
Are we expecting to stay in good health, when we are doing the exact opposite from what God told us to do or not to do?
Again in:
Phil 4:6-7
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
He saying, don’t worry about anything, let your request be known and then leave it with Him.
Have faith that whatever happens, Gods way is the best, whether we understand it or not.
Ps 127:1-2 TLB
1 Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good. It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.
The Sabbath it’s not a day of worship, it’s a day of rest I can show you through the scriptures were that is true, when God created everything and he rested the 7th day, it wasn’t because he was tried, he was showing us that these bodies he made needed a day of rest.
The Lord made these bodies so he knows that they need a day of rest, but you have those who work 7 days a week, then you wonder why you got sick.
Another verse is:
Ex 23:25 And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
Is this getting to heavy for you? It’s the scriptures.
If you’re not walking with the Lord and serving him, then how do you want him to take your sickness away.
Again what I’m trying to show is that sometimes we bring our sicknesses on ourselves?
One more verse
Jer 17:5 Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
Be careful when you’re not doing it Gods way.
Put God before man.
Why some are not healed
Isa 59:1-2
1 Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
You can’t be in a place where the Lord can’t help you, and nothing can get in the way of him hearing you.
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
You’re in a place where you have left him; because of some sin, and you’re not walking with the Lord, and until you come to him with a repented heart, he doesn’t hear you.
Husbands the spiritual head of the house, if you’re not doing what it says in 1Peter 3:7 your prayers are not being heard for someone who needs healing, because it says:
1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
Let me say this; we are not to be like Job’s friends and judge, because we don’t know why a person is sick and not healed.
That’s why we pray for Gods will to be done, because we don’t know.
Does sin cause us to be sick? Yes.
Matt 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
1 Cor 5:1, 4-5
1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
Paul says that there is sex sin amongst the brethrens.
And he says that there is a son that is having his father’s wife, it didn’t say his mother; this is speaking about a stepmother.
If you don’t agree with me, it’s ok, because either way it’s sin.
He says that even the Gentiles didn’t do this, for one reason it was strictly against the Roman law.
Verse 4-5 Paul says:
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Paul says to kick him out of the church, break off the fellowship, just like it says in Matt 18:15-18
And in:
1 Cor 5:11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
The Lord didn’t say not to love him; we still love and pray for him.
“destruction of the flesh” just like satan did to Job.
So is there sin in your life, which you’re not repenting of?
Let’s look at another one, which a lot of you are not going to like.
Mal 3:8-11
8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
If I’m going to rob someone, the last one it will be is God.
The next verse will tell us why we shouldn’t rob God.
9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
He’s speaking to Christians here, lost people don’t tithe.
This curse isn’t your salvation, so what do you think it might be or could be?
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
Is it the doctors that are taking all your money?
When you tithe do it like it says in:
2 Cor 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
In Phil 3:19 Paul says; there are those who sickness comes from themselves, for they have made their belly, their god.
You can have many kinds of sickness from the belly.
Another is in:
1 Cor 11:29-30
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
Another is in Numbers chapter 12 Miriam spoke against Moses and the Lord gave her leprosy.
Sin of a parent
2 Sam 12:13-14
13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
David didn’t try to justify his sin, he stood up to it.
David confesses to the Lord, because in:
Ps 51:4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.
Back in that time the Jewish laws said “if a person is caught in adultery they are to be stoned to death”, but God said you will not be put to death.
14 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
What is harder than a parent dying? Is seeing his own child die.
But you child will, you might think, man that’s hard.
David got off easy if you look at it closely, David was not put to death, and his son went straight to heaven when he died!
Sometimes heals and sometimes not.
Luke 4:27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
They had many who were sick and only one was healed.
Naaman was 900 years before Jesus, and he was lost at the time, got saved later.
Let’s look at Elisha who was one of the greatness prophets, and one of the greatness men of God that has ever lived.
2 Kings 13:14 “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died.”
Paul sent Epaphoditus a brother in the Lord back home to his family, because he was ill.
Phil 2:27,30
27 For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
30 Because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.
Because the Philippians couldn’t help Paul for being far from him, Epaphoditus was risking his life to help do Gods work.
Paul is speaking about being a faithful servant to a faithful God in this chapter of 2 Tim and in his final greetings, he says:
2 Tim 4:20 but Trophimus (so-fer-mis) have I left at Miletum (mil-le-yum) sick.
Paul a man of God with great faith left this brother sick; Paul did not get a word from God to heal him.
I’m showing you that in the bible that not everyone got healed all the time.
He did heal every one while he was here in the flesh, but I have already given you the reason why.
God is speaking to a rebellious Israel here
Ps 107:17-20
17 Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.
18 Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.
Because they were not walking with the Lord they got sick.
19 Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses.
20 He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
So there are times when God will still heal even when you’re not right with him?????
There are many reasons why God sometimes doesn’t heal; it might be for the several scriptures that I showed you earlier in this teaching.
Whatever the reason it’s not because he can’t.
If you allow the devil to put that in your mind, that he can’t heal, that will weaken your walk with the Lord and maybe even turn from him, and if that happens it’s because you came to him to get what you can out of him and it wasn’t because you gave him all your heart, soul, and mind likes he wants.
Let’s look at:
Ps 103:1-3
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
This is a weakness that Christians have; we forget all the good things the Lord has done for us, especially when things are going good.
3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
This includes suicide, which some people think that you go to hell for it.
God heals all of our sicknesses, whether it comes from medicines or doctors, or home remedies, it’s God that heals.
What’s the first thing we do when you are someone gets sick or a cut, when go straight for the medicine or a doctor.
We go to imperfect before we go to perfect.
We don’t give God a chance of showing us his miracle powers and instead we are robbing him from doing this.
James 4:2 says; “You have not, because you ask not.”
Pray first,
2 Chron 26:16-21
16 But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
“his heart was lifted up to his destruction” that means the sin of pride.
He also was sinning, because the only ones who could burn incense at the altar was the priest of Levite.
17 And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore (80) priests of the Lord, that were valiant men:
18 And they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honour from the Lord God.
God always gives us warning, just like here, the priest told Uzziah what he was doing.
19 Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, from beside the incense altar.
Because the king got mad at the priest leprosy fell on him right then and there.
Be careful when God sends you a warning and you get mad at him.
20 And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him.
Who made him sick? The Lord.
21 “And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death”
The sin of pride is what made him sick.
Because he was king he thought he could do whatever he wanted.
2 Kings 5:1,8-15
1 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.
He was a very great man, but he was a leper
8 And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. (that there is a God in Israel)
9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
So Naaman went on his way to the prophet.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
Elisha didn’t have to go to him to get him healed.
11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.
Naaman was angry because he thought it was to be done a certain way.
Remember God said “My ways are not your ways; My thoughts are not your thoughts.
All he needed was a word from God.
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.
Naaman was very much in the flesh, full of pride.
Naaman got very angry because it wasn’t done his way.
13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
The officers under him said; example; If he would have told you to fast, or get anointed with oil wouldn’t you have done it.
There’s times when we feel we have to do something to earn something from God.
Isn’t better just to do it Gods way, simple.
14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
Was Naaman healed because of his great faith? No, all he did was fuss about the whole thing.
Remember Naaman is lost, until the next verse.
15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.
Does the Lord answer prayer
The Lord always answers all prayer in 1 of 4 ways:
First way:
The answer is yes and he answers it right away, for example:
In Matt 14:28-29 when Peter asked Jesus if he could walk on the water, and Jesus said yes.
Second way:
Yes but the answer is delayed.
In John 11:1-43 Mary and her sister Martha sent to tell Jesus that Lazarus was sick, so he could heal him, but Jesus stayed in the town where he was at for 2 more days, before he even left.
Then he travel to where Lazarus was and raised him from the dead.
Third way is:
Yes, but he didn’t do it the way you had it figure out, for example:
You prayed for patience, you thought it would be instant, but instead it took a while before you got it through trials and tribulations.
Rom 5:3 “knowing that tribulation worketh patience”
Fourth way is: No
There’s preaching going around who speak about positive confession.
You think or you have been told just to repeat it over and over, “I’m healed I’m healed etc. and it will happen, I’m sorry that falls under what it says in:
Matt 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
I’m not saying that you can only pray once for something.
Paul prayed 3 times for the Lord to remove the thorn from his side, but he didn’t
David prayed several times that the Lord wouldn’t take his baby, but when the Lord did he stop and carried on with God’s will.
Reasons God doesn’t answer prayer
Mark 6:4-5, 22, 28-29
4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
Because they didn’t receive the preaching of Jesus, because in verse
22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?
Even dough he was reading the scriptures and they were impress, they couldn’t accept his teaching or preaching because he was just a carpenter son. (kind of like today).
28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
And because of this it kept him from doing miracles there, like it said in verse 5 “he could there do no mighty work”
Mark 11:25-26
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
For example:
The friends of Job kept telling Job it was his fault for what he was going through, but it wasn’t, Job had bitterest against them, and in verse:
Job 42:10 And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, (meaning he healed Job) when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Not only did the Lord heal him, but his friends got saved.
Look at what happens when you do it Gods way. Amen.
Let me say this when we pray for someone who is a Christian, and God physically heals them, Praise God, but if he doesn’t, Praise God because they are totally heal, Amen.
Formulas
Acts 5:14-15
14 And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)
15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
It didn’t say it did heal them, they were hoping that the shadow would do it.
Acts 19:11-12
11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
This was not an ordinary healing, it was special.
If this was a way of being healed than in:
Matt 9:20-22
20 And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment:
21 For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.
22 But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.
He didn’t say because you touch my clothes you are made whole, it was because she believed in Jesus.
Also at that time they didn’t have the written N.T. yet, which we have now to see if the one doing the preaching is a man of God.
So back then God used signs and wonders to show that these men like Paul were from him.
The reason Jesus did this because in:
John 4:48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
Today it’s not that way because the bible says:
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 5:1-9, 14
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, (but-dez-da) having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
The angel wasn’t the one doing the healing; the angel was just stirring the water.
I believe the certain season was the Passover, because in verse 1 it says that it was the feast of the Jews.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
How did Jesus know that this man had been there a long time? God gave him just like many other times a word of knowledge like it says in:
1 Cor 12:8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
Jesus says onto this man, do you want to be heal? Notice he didn’t ask the multitude that was there.
7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
Don’t you think that this man would have yelled yes?
But he says ba ba ba ba.
We do the same thing?
God says; give 10% of your money and I will open the windows of heaven and pour out blessing on you, that you won’t even have enough room to receive it, believe me his blessing are a whole lot more than 10% of what you give.
He tells us not to worry about tomorrow he has it under control, but we come up with excuses why we can’t believe that.
8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
Notice that Jesus just completely ignored what he just said, and told him get up and walk.
The Lord doesn’t want to hear all these excuses we give him when we don’t have enough faith to believe what his word says.
Jesus tells us to do things that we can’t do without his power.
Now this guy could have said I can’t and he would have lost a blessing.
Jesus didn’t ask him to get up and walk it was a command.
Just like these others:
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse”
“Take therefore no though for tomorrow”
When he gives us these commands and we disobey him we are sinning.
Now did you notice that Jesus didn’t use the water to heal him?
We need to learn from this that Jesus is the one who heals not formulas.
We no longer have to wait on something to happen before we can get healed.
This was happening at that time, we don’t celebrate Jewish feast.
This is N.T. and in verse 13 it says that the man didn’t even know who Jesus was.
It was grace that healed this man, not faith.
And he was a jerk at that, the reason I say that is because in 38 years no one not even family would help him to get in the water.
What I’m showing here is that we ought not to think we deserve a healing because we are Christians and have faith.
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath. Divine healing.
Verse 14 shows us that the man also got saved, because it says:
14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
There are really no formulas to guarantee healing, because if any of these were, then we should go into all the hospitals and heal very one, because I have showed you that are people with no faith at all who were healed.
There’s faith, no faith, anointing with oil, there’s a pool, there’s handkerchiefs, there’s shadow of Peter.
There is only one who can heal, and that is the Lord, and he doesn’t need all of this to heal.
Deut 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
God can just let you die, or he can keep you alive.
He can allow sickness to come on you, and he can heal sickness also.
Is healing still for today?
I’m reading out of the N.T.
Jesus has just read from the prophet Esaias in the scriptures where it says;
Luke 4:18-21
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Yes healing is still for today and because of what it says in:
John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
He had to go to the Father first like it says in;
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
Now I’m reading out of Acts which we are still living in today.
Acts 3:2-8, 12-16
2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;
3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.
4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
God had Peter stop and notice this man, because God gave Peter a word of knowledge and it was that God was going to heal this man, as we’ll see in verse 6
5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
This man was expecting to get something from them, but he didn’t know it was going to the healing that he needed.
Sometimes we’re asking for the wrong thing that we need in our lives.
Sometimes we think we didn’t get what we ask for, God didn’t answer our prayer, but he did and we got something better and we didn’t even realize it.
6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
I want us to see here that these men of God these preachers had no money.
These preachers who have 1000 dollar suits on and drive Mercedes, I have to ask myself are they in it for the money or to do the real ministry of God.
I’m not saying preachers have to be poor; living comfortably is different from having a whole lot more than you really need.
This man wasn’t asking for a healing, he was asking for money.
This healing has nothing to do with faith.
And there was no formulas done to get him healed.
Notice Peter didn’t pray for the healing, because he had gotten a word from God to do it, he didn’t have to pray.
When you hear from God to do something, you do it with authority, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And there is no if ands or buts.
7 And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
When you get a divine healing it’s done right then and there.
8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
Remember verse 1 shows that they were in the temple the church and what did he do?
Jumping and praising God, question, was he out of order?
There are times in the church when the pastor is telling us from the scriptures better things than this, speaking about a spiritual healing and we sit there like he hadn’t said anything at all?
Let’s drop down to verse:
12 And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
We have people who look at the preacher like it was him who did the healing and give him the glory.
And we have men who accept the praise and glory that belongs to God.
They didn’t have the power it came from God.
And it wasn’t because they were so holy, God says in:
Isa 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”
The holiness came from God, because he doesn’t have to do these things for us.
We are holy when we let God live in us and we obey his words, that’s walking in the Spirit.
Real men of God will not take the credit for what God did.
13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.
14 But ye denied (speaking about the religious leaders) the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.
Is Peter doing any positive preaching here?
He is letting the people know the sin they have committed, there’s no icing on this preaching.
16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him (Jesus) hath given him (this man) this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
N.T. gift of healing is done by the faith of the healer, not the one getting healed, which I’ve showed that already in the anointing of oil in James.
Remember in verse 12 Peter has very strong faith in Jesus, but he refuses to take credit for the healing.
“the faith which is by him” (Jesus) Our faith comes from Jesus; he’s the one who gives us our faith.
So if it’s the faith that heals, who gives the faith? Jesus.
Gift of Healing
To get the gift of healing you have to have faith that God can heal.
Also the gift comes by hearing from God to heal someone.
Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
1 Cor 12:6-9, 28, 30
6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?
The answer to that is “no”
Just like it says in 1Cor 12 we are one body, but many parts.
The foot needs the hand, the ear needs the eye.
Not everyone can be the ear, because then we couldn’t see.
Not everyone can be the hand, because then we couldn’t walk.
These gifts are for the church, remember that.
Some are apostles, prophets and so on, but in the church no one has all of them.
No one has just one of these gifts; it says gifts because we never know when he might have to use one of them to help someone.
Let me say something about prophecies from a prophet.
They have some who say; we don’t need prophets anymore because we have the word of God now, which is true, we know about who Jesus is.
As far as the foretelling the future we have that already also.
But a prophet not only speaks about the future which God tells or shows him.
A prophet is also someone that God uses to tell us something about now which is still the word of God.
1 Cor 14:3 But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.
Prophets are now used to help others to grow and become strong in the Lord, to speak the truths of God.
Now back to the verse.
Verse 28 God says these gifts are for the church.
Who is the church? We are, the Christians.
When we are outside the church and not in a group of Christians, and God wants to use whatever gift he has for us he can, because:
If you are some were in another country and God wanted to use you to witness to someone then he would give you the gift of tongues, which is to speak in that language.
If someone was sick and God wanted to heal them he would give you the gift of healing.
But that does not mean you now have that gift, it was just for that moment.
These gifts are given for that moment and then it’s not yours until the next time the Lord might want to use you again for another healing.
If it was yours to keep then you would be able to go around healing everyone.
The gift of healing is when God uses a Christian to speak or to lay hands on someone or whatever way he says to do it.
This healing comes without no medicine or doctors or any mans help, it is a healing totally done by God.
In the book of Acts, Luke the physican and Paul were traveling together and they had a ship wreck and in Chapter 28 it says:
Acts 28:1-10
1 Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta. 2 The people of the island were very kind to us. It was cold and rainy, so they built a fire on the shore to welcome us. 3 As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. 4 The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, "A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live." 5 But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. 6 The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn't harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god. 7 Near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, (pool-blee-us) the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days. 8 As it happened, Publius's (pool-blee-us) father was ill with fever and dysentery. Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, he healed him. 9 Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed. 10 As a result we were showered with honors, and when the time came to sail, people supplied us with everything we would need for the trip.
The reason I read this to you is that Paul laid hands on them and they were healed.
Dr. Luke was there and it says nothing about him treating them with medicine.
God gave Paul the gift of healing these people and by the way they treated them when they left by giving them everything they needed for the trip, I would say they came to believe in the God of Paul.
Let me say real quickly that the book of Acts has not ended, we are living the book of Acts and it will be that way until the rapture, this is the church the way it should be.
Another place of the gift of healing was given, in:
Matt 10:5-8
5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.
He first sent his disciples to the Jews to preach about the kingdom of heaven.
If they would have told a gentile or Samaritans this they wouldn’t of had a clue what they were talking about.
He sent them with the gift of prophesy, and the gift of healing, the reason I say gift, because it didn’t say to pray for healing it said to “heal the sick”
There are people who say that God healed them, but then it came back.
Well if it came back it wasn’t from God because it says in:
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
If someone lays hands on you or however they do it, and it comes back, the healing wasn’t from God, because his healing is perfect.
It says His gift never changes.
And when he does it doesn’t get unhealed.
There is healing that is not from God, but the devil.
In John chapter 10 the people are arguing some say he is Jesus the Messiah others are saying no he not.
In verses 11- 17 Jesus is saying that he is the true Shepherd and watches over his sheep.
But there is a false shepherd who leaves when one of the sheep are in trouble.
And because of this it says in:
John 10:19-21
19 There was division therefore again among the Jews for these saying.
20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?
21 Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
The devil is being called a shepherd, he looks like and talks like acts like Jesus, even does miracles, but he’s not Jesus.
Remember when Moses went before Pharaoh and his staff turned into a snake, and so did the sorcerers too. But what happen? Counterfeit.
Verse 21 doesn’t say “these are not the miracles of Him”
It says the “words”
Jesus said “I and my father are one” the devil can’t say that.
Like I said before signs and wonders will lead you astray.
Give example of Cruz and her eyes.
I’m not saying that if you have the flu and God heals you from it.
It doesn’t mean you’ll never catch the flu again.
Or like Lazarus when Jesus raised him from the dead, that didn’t mean he was never going to die.
I’m talking about if you have bone cancer and God heals you, you’re not going to get bone cancer back, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get lung cancer.
John 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
We’re not going to get a complete healing of our bodies until we go to be with the Lord or at the rapture.
Remember that God does the healing and it’s perfect.
Man makes a drug to help, and a lot of times it does, but sometimes it’s not.
Because man has made it, it has side effects that are sometimes worst than what you had, and also you can get addicted to them.
In closing
We don’t have our perfect bodies yet, these bodies are dying little by little every day.
We should praise God for when he takes them of home, because they are in a better place, and we will miss them, but don’t let us be selfish.
He has given the greatness healing of life, salvation.
When we don’t get our way we get mad with God?
Here is the bottom line if you want to be a true born again Christian.
Prov 3:5-12
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
We always seem to think that we know better than the Lord, and when you think that way, you can’t be totally dependent on him.
If things are happening in your life that you don’t understand, just depend on the Lord and he will have everything under control even if you don’t see it, remember what it says in:
Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
He will direct your path.
Ps 37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
God is saying, don’t think you know what you’re doing in your own understanding, he says in:
Prov 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Idiots reject the wisdom of our Lord.
“Depart from evil” he says, which means quit trying to do it your way.
Now if you follow the Lords ways, then this is what’s going to happen!
8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
He will give you rest and peace, your nerves will be under control, and it could also mean it can help with your arthritis.
9 Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:
10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
Just like it says in Malachi, tithe and see watch the blessing that will come upon you.
11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:
He is saying don’t get mad with the him, when he’s trying to correct you.
12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.
Who in here doesn’t correct his child?
Heb 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
One of the reasons for God not healing is that we’re all going to die, we live in those kinds of bodies, and they weren’t made to live forever since the fall of man.
Heb 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die”
Even in the rapture it’s going to happen, because we will put away our old bodies and receive our new one.
Be careful when you are listening to someone and they’re using different scriptures to show how name and claim it is the word of God.
Let me explained one of them to you:
It’s in Mark 11 starting with verse 12
Jesus says he hungry and he sees a fig tree it had leaves but no figs, and he curse it.
Then in verses 15-19
He goes into the Temple and clears it out from them that were called money changers.
Now in verses 20-22
He goes back to the fig tree, why is he pointing out this fig tree so much.
It’s because he’s using this as an illustration of Israel.
The fig tree represents spiritually dead Israel.
The Temple is still there like the leaves on the fig tree, but there is no righteousness in the Temple just like there is no fruit on the tree.
God cursed Israel destroying both the nation and its religion, because they had not produce and spiritual fruit, even to this day.
22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
23 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 saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
What Jesus was saying here is that you have great power available to you through your faith in him.
At the last supper Jesus said to his twelve disciples in:
John 14:13-14
13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
When he said “whatsoever ye shall ask in my name” what he is saying is when you’re asking in the name of Jesus it is according to his purpose and will, not your will.
He wasn’t speaking about faith in your own dreams or ideas of what you think it should be.
Like it says in:
James 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
James is warning us that we shouldn’t ask with wrong motives, so we can get our own pleasures out of it.
It plainly tells us how to do it in:
1 John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
Mountain moving faith is not our will but his, so the Father can be glorified in the son.
When God’s commands are obeyed he will honor that obedience, and when any request is asked in faith according to his will he will provide.
The believer who wants what God wants can ask from God and receive.
Isa 45:11 Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.
Isa 45:11 (TLB) This is what the Lord says, the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: "Do you question what I do for my children? Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?
Instead of questioning, we should just humble ourselves and ask for his will on his children.
God did what he wanted in
Gal 1:1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)
Paul wasn’t nominated by a group of people nor by a person, he was picked by God because that’s what God wanted.
We do things the wrong way most the time like in
Acts chapter 1:21-26 the apostles got together to see who would replace Judas, and they picked two men and then told God to pick one of the two.
God wanted neither one of them; it was Paul that God wanted.
Same thing with the Promise Land look what happen.
We need to learn how to pray like in
Matt 6:10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
There is nothing wrong with asking the Lord for things we want, but we need to remember at the end of the prayer, we close it with saying and meaning it, “let thy will be done”
The big question among Christians is; does God still heal?
Let me start by saying I don’t believe in faith healing, I believe in Divine healing.
Faith healing is up to man! Or some man.
Divine healing puts it on God and not us.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Our faith is a gift from God, it’s not our faith.
The preachers who say that it’s because of your lack of faith you’re not healed, what they are actually saying is its God fault, because he hasn’t given you the faith that you need?
James 5:14-18
14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
We pray in groups who are called prayer warriors or we pray as a whole in the church, but some churches don’t call the Elders and anoint with oil.
15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
Who’s praying the prayer of faith? The elders are, not the person who is sick.
So if it is true what they say, then it’s the preacher fault if there’s no healing.
“and if he have committed sins” It’s not speaking about our sinful ways, because there’s no if , we do have sins in our lives.
It’s speaking about a sickness that was cause by sin, I’ll explain on that later.
This is a divine healing because it was done “in the name of the Lord” not in the name of the elders.
They had the faith, that God gave them, but God did the healing.
The above verses speak about sick people and the elders anointing them with oil and praying in the name of Jesus.
These next verses are speaking about us the born again Christians.
16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
“Confess your faults one to another” the meaning of this is in:
Matt 18:15 “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.”
Also in:
Matt 6:14-15
14 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Once you confess your sins to your brother or sister, now you are healed to pray.
“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” who is a righteous person? It tells us in:
2 Cor 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”.
Then in the next verse the Lord gave us an example of this kind fervent prayer
17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
We see that this is N.T. using O.T. as an example.
Yes the Old and the New is one bible, we need both.
You have some who preach that if you’re not healed it’s because you’re not walking with the Lord.
What did God say about Job? He said that Job was the greatest of all men and look what happen to him, Job was sick for good while before God healed him.
We’re going to see that in the bible the majority of the people weren’t saved that were heal.
This is called Gods grace, he healed the lost to show how good he is and hopefully they would get saved.
Look at Jesus perfect walk with God, and look what happens to him.
I’m sure they had some people saying how can God let this happen to him?
Matt 26:39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
Jesus as a man was saying Lord if there is any other way let this pass me.
But it’s not mine will, Lord, but yours I will do.
Remember he never said that Christian wouldn’t get sick or die.
Matt 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Also in:
Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
There are different kinds of suffering we’re going to experience.
One - is from man, but our glory comes from the Lord.
Second - some of our suffering will come from being on this earth, but our glory will be in heaven.
Thirdly – suffering will come from being in our corrupted dying bodies, but our glory will come when we get our perfect imperishable bodies.
So remember through this teaching that some of our sicknesses are just something we’re going to go through because of Adam and Eve sin.
I know that some of you aren’t going to believe this, but sometimes it’s good that we are sick.
I didn’t say this, the Lord did in:
Ps 119:71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
Remember what:
Rom 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God”
There’s reasons why God was healing all
We’re going to look at the reasons Jesus was healing everyone at this time.
Matt 4:23-24
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
“And his fame went throughout all Syria” meaning that he was being recognized widespread and that’s what he wanted.
Matt 8:16-17
16 When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:
All that were brought to him in this chapter were healed, A leper, a Roman soldier servant, Peter’s mother-in-law, and those who were possessed by devils.
Again he wanted the people to know who he was.
To show his divine mission while he was here.
Back in Matt 3 God wanted Jesus to be revealed to the people, to show them that he was the only way, the only one who could save them, and that he was the son of God,
Matt 3:16-17
16 “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”.
Who was God saying this to, well in verses 5-7 of this chapter it says; that John was preaching to people from Jerusalem, all Judaea, and the entire region around about Jordan, and to the religious leaders also.
Jesus healed all because he was on a mission from God, and it says in:
John 3:34 “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him”.
God didn’t limit Jesus we are limited because of our sinful falling nature.
Also in:
Col 2:9 “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
Again there were no limits to the Spirit’s power working through him.
Jesus was perfect while he was here, he was 100% man walking in the spirit with God, and he always knew what his father wanted.
In John chapter 2 Lazarus was sick and they sent for Jesus to heal him, but he delayed in his coming, and there is a reason for that.
What would have glorified the Lord more? Healing him from a sickness or raising him from the grave?
Luke 7:22 “Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached”.
Jesus wants the people to know who he is.
Another reason he did heal them is in:
Matt 14:14 “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick”.
Jesus was not a cold person with any feeling, that’s why he came to die for our sins, because he cared for us.
And he also showed it in:
Matt 14:19-21
19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.
20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.
21 And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.
Here he didn’t only show who he was performing this miracle, in front of the people, but he also showed his love for them.
Do we have men who can do that today? No, it was so people would see him as the Messiah.
Matt 9:36 “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.”
Again Jesus felt so sorry for the people because they were lost, he saw their hearts, and how they needed a savior.
Rom 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
It didn’t say that after we got born again, while we were still sinners, not only did he heal the people from their physical sickness, he also gave them a chance for spiritual healness.
He also healed, so people could be saved.
John 4:46-53
46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum.
47 When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.
48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
The people weren’t listening to his message of salvation, they focused on the miracles he was doing for them.
That’s why he told them “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe”.
49 The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.
The man thought Jesus had to be in the presents of the child for Jesus to heal him, because he kept saying “come down to him”.
50 Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.
You could tell that Jesus was getting frustrated with the people, because of the way he told the man, about the signs and miracles and then he told the man “Go thy way, thy son liveth”.
51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth.
52 Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.
53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.
The ministry of Jesus was not to just heal people, but to get them to turn to God.
Back to Matt 8:16-17
17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, (meaning disease, suffering, and sorrows) and bare our sicknesses.
It says the same thing in:
Heb 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Meaning he faced the same agonies we did.
We’ll find that in Isa 53:3-6 that this verse is fulfilled.
Isa 53:3-6
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows (Matt 8:17) yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
The living bible puts it were can understand it better: “And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins”
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
If you were to read these verses before reading the N.T. you would come to the conclusion that he was speaking about salvation, taking care of our sins, and not a physical healing.
Did he take on the sins of the world so we could have a physical healing, which doesn’t save us, or was it for a spiritual healing which does save us?
When you read these verses you’ll see that we weren’t healed until his death on the cross, when he took on our sins like it says here in verse 6.
This proves it when God said in:
Matt 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And the reason God had forsaken him was because in:
Hab 1:13 “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity”
Let’s look at it with other verse:
1 Peter 2:24
24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Same thing we just read in Isa 53:5 “with his stripes we are healed”
Peter is showing death to sin and becoming alive to righteousness as a healing.
The healing here is spiritual, not physical.
Isaiah nor Peter was showing that his suffering and death was for a physical healing.
Can sickness come without sin?
John 9:1-3
1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
He didn’t say that they were sinless.
Some say that God did this on purpose so he could use him later.
Just like in Job God allowed the devil to take Jobs health away, to prove a point.
God didn’t make Job sick.
Who knows why he was born blind, could be many reasons, remember because of Adam and Eve and their sin, we now have bodies that are dying.
Our sicknesses and our trails that we will go through, many times the Lord just uses these to show us that he is there with us, even if it’s to have peace while we are dying.
It could be that the reason the Lord doesn’t heal sometimes is because he knows that 1 or 2 are going to get saved from what has just happen.
Again look at Job his friends were lost and because of his bad health they got saved at the end of the story.
Can we bring sickness on ourselves?
When the Israelites left Egypt and they were in the wilderness for 40 years they came across deadly snakes that God had sent because they were speaking against him and Moses.
And in:
Num 21:6-9
6 And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
8 And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
Was all of Israel? No.
But God healed very one who looked upon the pole.
The same today we all don’t look up at Jesus to save us.
2 Chron 16:7-12
7 And at that time Hanani the seer (prophet) came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand.
Asa the King did not turn to God, and because of that he was unable to defeat the army of King Syria.
Then the prophet reminded him about the time he had another battle in the next verse.
8 Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thine hand.
He saying; at that time he turned it over to the Lord, and look what happen, he had victory.
9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.
The prophet says that the Lord goes around looking for Christians whose heart is for the Lord.
And because he didn’t seek the Lord, he has become a foolish King, and because of that he will be facing many battles.
What battles are we putting ourselves in because we don’t go to him first?
Doesn’t it sound like us many times?
Do we go to the marriage counselor, or to financial adviser, or whatever man we’re putting our trust in before the Lord first?
Now if King Asa would have dropped to his knees and ask for forgiveness no telling what would have happen? But that’s not what he did.
10 Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.
King Asa did what many do, he blame it on someone else for what he did.
He took out on the prophet and some other people for his mess up.
11 And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.
12 And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
Asa after being told what the problem was still didn’t listen.
Even when came to his health, and he died from this disease.
Ex 15:26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.
Why did the Lord bring these diseases to Egypt, because they didn’t do what the Lord asks?
What I’m trying to show is that sometimes we bring our sicknesses on ourselves?
Did you get a sexual disease because you were unfaithful to your spouse or you not even married?
Are you like some of these Christians who let deadly snakes bite them because of what it says in:
Mark 16:18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
And end up being very sick or dying.
This is putting the Lord to a test, there’s only one place in the bible were God said to put him to a test and that’s in:
Mal 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Do you eat nothing but junk food and you in up clogging your arteries and having a stroke or even a heart attack and then you blame God for letting it happen to you?
Do you smoke and you got cancer, then you want God to heal you?
Are you worry about tomorrow and now your depress or you have an ulcer.
Have you not read what it says in?
Matt 6:30-34
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Worrying is inconsistent with our faith in God; in fact it’s even sinful.
Worrying is characteristic of unbelief.
Those who have no hope in God are the ones who should worry.
There is a reasonable way of thinking about tomorrow, for example a man wanting to move up in his job, but still is content with where he is at.
Luke 3:14, Phil 4:11, Heb 13:5, all say “be content with what you have”
I know you’re not going to like this one, but putting up for retirement, is not of the Lord, and I’ll read scriptures on that in a minute.
When we think like the world we will worry like the world, and our heart is not centered on God.
Jesus says to focus your attention and hopes on him and He will take care of all your needs.
Instead of worrying about the things of this world, we should hunger and thirst for the things of the world to come.
Phil 4:7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
There is so much we don’t understand on why things happen, but we can have peace in our hearts and mind if we depend of the Lord.
Phil 4:11-14
11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. 14 Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.
God promises His grace for today and tomorrow, but He doesn’t give us grace for tomorrow now.
Are you putting up for tomorrow? What does James say:
James 4:13-5:1-3
13 Look here, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it's here a little while, then it's gone. 15 What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." 16 Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. 17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
Continue to next chapter:
1 Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. 2 Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. 3 Your gold and silver have become worthless. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment.
Prov 27:1 Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
The wealth you were counting on will bring you nothing but worrying, and not only that it will show God where you heart was at, your plans are for you to take care of yourself instead of depending on God.
Are we expecting to stay in good health, when we are doing the exact opposite from what God told us to do or not to do?
Again in:
Phil 4:6-7
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
He saying, don’t worry about anything, let your request be known and then leave it with Him.
Have faith that whatever happens, Gods way is the best, whether we understand it or not.
Ps 127:1-2 TLB
1 Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good. It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.
The Sabbath it’s not a day of worship, it’s a day of rest I can show you through the scriptures were that is true, when God created everything and he rested the 7th day, it wasn’t because he was tried, he was showing us that these bodies he made needed a day of rest.
The Lord made these bodies so he knows that they need a day of rest, but you have those who work 7 days a week, then you wonder why you got sick.
Another verse is:
Ex 23:25 And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
Is this getting to heavy for you? It’s the scriptures.
If you’re not walking with the Lord and serving him, then how do you want him to take your sickness away.
Again what I’m trying to show is that sometimes we bring our sicknesses on ourselves?
One more verse
Jer 17:5 Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
Be careful when you’re not doing it Gods way.
Put God before man.
Why some are not healed
Isa 59:1-2
1 Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
You can’t be in a place where the Lord can’t help you, and nothing can get in the way of him hearing you.
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
You’re in a place where you have left him; because of some sin, and you’re not walking with the Lord, and until you come to him with a repented heart, he doesn’t hear you.
Husbands the spiritual head of the house, if you’re not doing what it says in 1Peter 3:7 your prayers are not being heard for someone who needs healing, because it says:
1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
Let me say this; we are not to be like Job’s friends and judge, because we don’t know why a person is sick and not healed.
That’s why we pray for Gods will to be done, because we don’t know.
Does sin cause us to be sick? Yes.
Matt 9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
1 Cor 5:1, 4-5
1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
Paul says that there is sex sin amongst the brethrens.
And he says that there is a son that is having his father’s wife, it didn’t say his mother; this is speaking about a stepmother.
If you don’t agree with me, it’s ok, because either way it’s sin.
He says that even the Gentiles didn’t do this, for one reason it was strictly against the Roman law.
Verse 4-5 Paul says:
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Paul says to kick him out of the church, break off the fellowship, just like it says in Matt 18:15-18
And in:
1 Cor 5:11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
The Lord didn’t say not to love him; we still love and pray for him.
“destruction of the flesh” just like satan did to Job.
So is there sin in your life, which you’re not repenting of?
Let’s look at another one, which a lot of you are not going to like.
Mal 3:8-11
8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
If I’m going to rob someone, the last one it will be is God.
The next verse will tell us why we shouldn’t rob God.
9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
He’s speaking to Christians here, lost people don’t tithe.
This curse isn’t your salvation, so what do you think it might be or could be?
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.
Is it the doctors that are taking all your money?
When you tithe do it like it says in:
2 Cor 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
In Phil 3:19 Paul says; there are those who sickness comes from themselves, for they have made their belly, their god.
You can have many kinds of sickness from the belly.
Another is in:
1 Cor 11:29-30
29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
Another is in Numbers chapter 12 Miriam spoke against Moses and the Lord gave her leprosy.
Sin of a parent
2 Sam 12:13-14
13 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
David didn’t try to justify his sin, he stood up to it.
David confesses to the Lord, because in:
Ps 51:4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.
Back in that time the Jewish laws said “if a person is caught in adultery they are to be stoned to death”, but God said you will not be put to death.
14 Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.
What is harder than a parent dying? Is seeing his own child die.
But you child will, you might think, man that’s hard.
David got off easy if you look at it closely, David was not put to death, and his son went straight to heaven when he died!
Sometimes heals and sometimes not.
Luke 4:27 And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
They had many who were sick and only one was healed.
Naaman was 900 years before Jesus, and he was lost at the time, got saved later.
Let’s look at Elisha who was one of the greatness prophets, and one of the greatness men of God that has ever lived.
2 Kings 13:14 “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died.”
Paul sent Epaphoditus a brother in the Lord back home to his family, because he was ill.
Phil 2:27,30
27 For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
30 Because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.
Because the Philippians couldn’t help Paul for being far from him, Epaphoditus was risking his life to help do Gods work.
Paul is speaking about being a faithful servant to a faithful God in this chapter of 2 Tim and in his final greetings, he says:
2 Tim 4:20 but Trophimus (so-fer-mis) have I left at Miletum (mil-le-yum) sick.
Paul a man of God with great faith left this brother sick; Paul did not get a word from God to heal him.
I’m showing you that in the bible that not everyone got healed all the time.
He did heal every one while he was here in the flesh, but I have already given you the reason why.
God is speaking to a rebellious Israel here
Ps 107:17-20
17 Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.
18 Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death.
Because they were not walking with the Lord they got sick.
19 Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses.
20 He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.
So there are times when God will still heal even when you’re not right with him?????
There are many reasons why God sometimes doesn’t heal; it might be for the several scriptures that I showed you earlier in this teaching.
Whatever the reason it’s not because he can’t.
If you allow the devil to put that in your mind, that he can’t heal, that will weaken your walk with the Lord and maybe even turn from him, and if that happens it’s because you came to him to get what you can out of him and it wasn’t because you gave him all your heart, soul, and mind likes he wants.
Let’s look at:
Ps 103:1-3
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
This is a weakness that Christians have; we forget all the good things the Lord has done for us, especially when things are going good.
3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
This includes suicide, which some people think that you go to hell for it.
God heals all of our sicknesses, whether it comes from medicines or doctors, or home remedies, it’s God that heals.
What’s the first thing we do when you are someone gets sick or a cut, when go straight for the medicine or a doctor.
We go to imperfect before we go to perfect.
We don’t give God a chance of showing us his miracle powers and instead we are robbing him from doing this.
James 4:2 says; “You have not, because you ask not.”
Pray first,
2 Chron 26:16-21
16 But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
“his heart was lifted up to his destruction” that means the sin of pride.
He also was sinning, because the only ones who could burn incense at the altar was the priest of Levite.
17 And Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him fourscore (80) priests of the Lord, that were valiant men:
18 And they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be for thine honour from the Lord God.
God always gives us warning, just like here, the priest told Uzziah what he was doing.
19 Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, from beside the incense altar.
Because the king got mad at the priest leprosy fell on him right then and there.
Be careful when God sends you a warning and you get mad at him.
20 And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him.
Who made him sick? The Lord.
21 “And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death”
The sin of pride is what made him sick.
Because he was king he thought he could do whatever he wanted.
2 Kings 5:1,8-15
1 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.
He was a very great man, but he was a leper
8 And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. (that there is a God in Israel)
9 So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.
So Naaman went on his way to the prophet.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
Elisha didn’t have to go to him to get him healed.
11 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.
Naaman was angry because he thought it was to be done a certain way.
Remember God said “My ways are not your ways; My thoughts are not your thoughts.
All he needed was a word from God.
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.
Naaman was very much in the flesh, full of pride.
Naaman got very angry because it wasn’t done his way.
13 And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?
The officers under him said; example; If he would have told you to fast, or get anointed with oil wouldn’t you have done it.
There’s times when we feel we have to do something to earn something from God.
Isn’t better just to do it Gods way, simple.
14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
Was Naaman healed because of his great faith? No, all he did was fuss about the whole thing.
Remember Naaman is lost, until the next verse.
15 And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant.
Does the Lord answer prayer
The Lord always answers all prayer in 1 of 4 ways:
First way:
The answer is yes and he answers it right away, for example:
In Matt 14:28-29 when Peter asked Jesus if he could walk on the water, and Jesus said yes.
Second way:
Yes but the answer is delayed.
In John 11:1-43 Mary and her sister Martha sent to tell Jesus that Lazarus was sick, so he could heal him, but Jesus stayed in the town where he was at for 2 more days, before he even left.
Then he travel to where Lazarus was and raised him from the dead.
Third way is:
Yes, but he didn’t do it the way you had it figure out, for example:
You prayed for patience, you thought it would be instant, but instead it took a while before you got it through trials and tribulations.
Rom 5:3 “knowing that tribulation worketh patience”
Fourth way is: No
There’s preaching going around who speak about positive confession.
You think or you have been told just to repeat it over and over, “I’m healed I’m healed etc. and it will happen, I’m sorry that falls under what it says in:
Matt 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
I’m not saying that you can only pray once for something.
Paul prayed 3 times for the Lord to remove the thorn from his side, but he didn’t
David prayed several times that the Lord wouldn’t take his baby, but when the Lord did he stop and carried on with God’s will.
Reasons God doesn’t answer prayer
Mark 6:4-5, 22, 28-29
4 But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
5 And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
Because they didn’t receive the preaching of Jesus, because in verse
22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?
Even dough he was reading the scriptures and they were impress, they couldn’t accept his teaching or preaching because he was just a carpenter son. (kind of like today).
28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
And because of this it kept him from doing miracles there, like it said in verse 5 “he could there do no mighty work”
Mark 11:25-26
25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.
For example:
The friends of Job kept telling Job it was his fault for what he was going through, but it wasn’t, Job had bitterest against them, and in verse:
Job 42:10 And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, (meaning he healed Job) when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Not only did the Lord heal him, but his friends got saved.
Look at what happens when you do it Gods way. Amen.
Let me say this when we pray for someone who is a Christian, and God physically heals them, Praise God, but if he doesn’t, Praise God because they are totally heal, Amen.
Formulas
Acts 5:14-15
14 And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)
15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
It didn’t say it did heal them, they were hoping that the shadow would do it.
Acts 19:11-12
11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
This was not an ordinary healing, it was special.
If this was a way of being healed than in:
Matt 9:20-22
20 And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment:
21 For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.
22 But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.
He didn’t say because you touch my clothes you are made whole, it was because she believed in Jesus.
Also at that time they didn’t have the written N.T. yet, which we have now to see if the one doing the preaching is a man of God.
So back then God used signs and wonders to show that these men like Paul were from him.
The reason Jesus did this because in:
John 4:48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
Today it’s not that way because the bible says:
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 5:1-9, 14
1 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, (but-dez-da) having five porches.
3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
The angel wasn’t the one doing the healing; the angel was just stirring the water.
I believe the certain season was the Passover, because in verse 1 it says that it was the feast of the Jews.
5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
How did Jesus know that this man had been there a long time? God gave him just like many other times a word of knowledge like it says in:
1 Cor 12:8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
Jesus says onto this man, do you want to be heal? Notice he didn’t ask the multitude that was there.
7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
Don’t you think that this man would have yelled yes?
But he says ba ba ba ba.
We do the same thing?
God says; give 10% of your money and I will open the windows of heaven and pour out blessing on you, that you won’t even have enough room to receive it, believe me his blessing are a whole lot more than 10% of what you give.
He tells us not to worry about tomorrow he has it under control, but we come up with excuses why we can’t believe that.
8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
Notice that Jesus just completely ignored what he just said, and told him get up and walk.
The Lord doesn’t want to hear all these excuses we give him when we don’t have enough faith to believe what his word says.
Jesus tells us to do things that we can’t do without his power.
Now this guy could have said I can’t and he would have lost a blessing.
Jesus didn’t ask him to get up and walk it was a command.
Just like these others:
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse”
“Take therefore no though for tomorrow”
When he gives us these commands and we disobey him we are sinning.
Now did you notice that Jesus didn’t use the water to heal him?
We need to learn from this that Jesus is the one who heals not formulas.
We no longer have to wait on something to happen before we can get healed.
This was happening at that time, we don’t celebrate Jewish feast.
This is N.T. and in verse 13 it says that the man didn’t even know who Jesus was.
It was grace that healed this man, not faith.
And he was a jerk at that, the reason I say that is because in 38 years no one not even family would help him to get in the water.
What I’m showing here is that we ought not to think we deserve a healing because we are Christians and have faith.
9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath. Divine healing.
Verse 14 shows us that the man also got saved, because it says:
14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
There are really no formulas to guarantee healing, because if any of these were, then we should go into all the hospitals and heal very one, because I have showed you that are people with no faith at all who were healed.
There’s faith, no faith, anointing with oil, there’s a pool, there’s handkerchiefs, there’s shadow of Peter.
There is only one who can heal, and that is the Lord, and he doesn’t need all of this to heal.
Deut 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
God can just let you die, or he can keep you alive.
He can allow sickness to come on you, and he can heal sickness also.
Is healing still for today?
I’m reading out of the N.T.
Jesus has just read from the prophet Esaias in the scriptures where it says;
Luke 4:18-21
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Yes healing is still for today and because of what it says in:
John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
He had to go to the Father first like it says in;
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
Now I’m reading out of Acts which we are still living in today.
Acts 3:2-8, 12-16
2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;
3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.
4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
God had Peter stop and notice this man, because God gave Peter a word of knowledge and it was that God was going to heal this man, as we’ll see in verse 6
5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
This man was expecting to get something from them, but he didn’t know it was going to the healing that he needed.
Sometimes we’re asking for the wrong thing that we need in our lives.
Sometimes we think we didn’t get what we ask for, God didn’t answer our prayer, but he did and we got something better and we didn’t even realize it.
6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
I want us to see here that these men of God these preachers had no money.
These preachers who have 1000 dollar suits on and drive Mercedes, I have to ask myself are they in it for the money or to do the real ministry of God.
I’m not saying preachers have to be poor; living comfortably is different from having a whole lot more than you really need.
This man wasn’t asking for a healing, he was asking for money.
This healing has nothing to do with faith.
And there was no formulas done to get him healed.
Notice Peter didn’t pray for the healing, because he had gotten a word from God to do it, he didn’t have to pray.
When you hear from God to do something, you do it with authority, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And there is no if ands or buts.
7 And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.
When you get a divine healing it’s done right then and there.
8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
Remember verse 1 shows that they were in the temple the church and what did he do?
Jumping and praising God, question, was he out of order?
There are times in the church when the pastor is telling us from the scriptures better things than this, speaking about a spiritual healing and we sit there like he hadn’t said anything at all?
Let’s drop down to verse:
12 And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
We have people who look at the preacher like it was him who did the healing and give him the glory.
And we have men who accept the praise and glory that belongs to God.
They didn’t have the power it came from God.
And it wasn’t because they were so holy, God says in:
Isa 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”
The holiness came from God, because he doesn’t have to do these things for us.
We are holy when we let God live in us and we obey his words, that’s walking in the Spirit.
Real men of God will not take the credit for what God did.
13 The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.
14 But ye denied (speaking about the religious leaders) the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you;
15 And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.
Is Peter doing any positive preaching here?
He is letting the people know the sin they have committed, there’s no icing on this preaching.
16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him (Jesus) hath given him (this man) this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
N.T. gift of healing is done by the faith of the healer, not the one getting healed, which I’ve showed that already in the anointing of oil in James.
Remember in verse 12 Peter has very strong faith in Jesus, but he refuses to take credit for the healing.
“the faith which is by him” (Jesus) Our faith comes from Jesus; he’s the one who gives us our faith.
So if it’s the faith that heals, who gives the faith? Jesus.
Gift of Healing
To get the gift of healing you have to have faith that God can heal.
Also the gift comes by hearing from God to heal someone.
Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
1 Cor 12:6-9, 28, 30
6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;
28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret?
The answer to that is “no”
Just like it says in 1Cor 12 we are one body, but many parts.
The foot needs the hand, the ear needs the eye.
Not everyone can be the ear, because then we couldn’t see.
Not everyone can be the hand, because then we couldn’t walk.
These gifts are for the church, remember that.
Some are apostles, prophets and so on, but in the church no one has all of them.
No one has just one of these gifts; it says gifts because we never know when he might have to use one of them to help someone.
Let me say something about prophecies from a prophet.
They have some who say; we don’t need prophets anymore because we have the word of God now, which is true, we know about who Jesus is.
As far as the foretelling the future we have that already also.
But a prophet not only speaks about the future which God tells or shows him.
A prophet is also someone that God uses to tell us something about now which is still the word of God.
1 Cor 14:3 But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.
Prophets are now used to help others to grow and become strong in the Lord, to speak the truths of God.
Now back to the verse.
Verse 28 God says these gifts are for the church.
Who is the church? We are, the Christians.
When we are outside the church and not in a group of Christians, and God wants to use whatever gift he has for us he can, because:
If you are some were in another country and God wanted to use you to witness to someone then he would give you the gift of tongues, which is to speak in that language.
If someone was sick and God wanted to heal them he would give you the gift of healing.
But that does not mean you now have that gift, it was just for that moment.
These gifts are given for that moment and then it’s not yours until the next time the Lord might want to use you again for another healing.
If it was yours to keep then you would be able to go around healing everyone.
The gift of healing is when God uses a Christian to speak or to lay hands on someone or whatever way he says to do it.
This healing comes without no medicine or doctors or any mans help, it is a healing totally done by God.
In the book of Acts, Luke the physican and Paul were traveling together and they had a ship wreck and in Chapter 28 it says:
Acts 28:1-10
1 Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta. 2 The people of the island were very kind to us. It was cold and rainy, so they built a fire on the shore to welcome us. 3 As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. 4 The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, "A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live." 5 But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. 6 The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn't harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god. 7 Near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, (pool-blee-us) the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days. 8 As it happened, Publius's (pool-blee-us) father was ill with fever and dysentery. Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, he healed him. 9 Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed. 10 As a result we were showered with honors, and when the time came to sail, people supplied us with everything we would need for the trip.
The reason I read this to you is that Paul laid hands on them and they were healed.
Dr. Luke was there and it says nothing about him treating them with medicine.
God gave Paul the gift of healing these people and by the way they treated them when they left by giving them everything they needed for the trip, I would say they came to believe in the God of Paul.
Let me say real quickly that the book of Acts has not ended, we are living the book of Acts and it will be that way until the rapture, this is the church the way it should be.
Another place of the gift of healing was given, in:
Matt 10:5-8
5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.
He first sent his disciples to the Jews to preach about the kingdom of heaven.
If they would have told a gentile or Samaritans this they wouldn’t of had a clue what they were talking about.
He sent them with the gift of prophesy, and the gift of healing, the reason I say gift, because it didn’t say to pray for healing it said to “heal the sick”
There are people who say that God healed them, but then it came back.
Well if it came back it wasn’t from God because it says in:
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
If someone lays hands on you or however they do it, and it comes back, the healing wasn’t from God, because his healing is perfect.
It says His gift never changes.
And when he does it doesn’t get unhealed.
There is healing that is not from God, but the devil.
In John chapter 10 the people are arguing some say he is Jesus the Messiah others are saying no he not.
In verses 11- 17 Jesus is saying that he is the true Shepherd and watches over his sheep.
But there is a false shepherd who leaves when one of the sheep are in trouble.
And because of this it says in:
John 10:19-21
19 There was division therefore again among the Jews for these saying.
20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him?
21 Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
The devil is being called a shepherd, he looks like and talks like acts like Jesus, even does miracles, but he’s not Jesus.
Remember when Moses went before Pharaoh and his staff turned into a snake, and so did the sorcerers too. But what happen? Counterfeit.
Verse 21 doesn’t say “these are not the miracles of Him”
It says the “words”
Jesus said “I and my father are one” the devil can’t say that.
Like I said before signs and wonders will lead you astray.
Give example of Cruz and her eyes.
I’m not saying that if you have the flu and God heals you from it.
It doesn’t mean you’ll never catch the flu again.
Or like Lazarus when Jesus raised him from the dead, that didn’t mean he was never going to die.
I’m talking about if you have bone cancer and God heals you, you’re not going to get bone cancer back, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get lung cancer.
John 5:14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.
We’re not going to get a complete healing of our bodies until we go to be with the Lord or at the rapture.
Remember that God does the healing and it’s perfect.
Man makes a drug to help, and a lot of times it does, but sometimes it’s not.
Because man has made it, it has side effects that are sometimes worst than what you had, and also you can get addicted to them.
In closing
We don’t have our perfect bodies yet, these bodies are dying little by little every day.
We should praise God for when he takes them of home, because they are in a better place, and we will miss them, but don’t let us be selfish.
He has given the greatness healing of life, salvation.
When we don’t get our way we get mad with God?
Here is the bottom line if you want to be a true born again Christian.
Prov 3:5-12
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
We always seem to think that we know better than the Lord, and when you think that way, you can’t be totally dependent on him.
If things are happening in your life that you don’t understand, just depend on the Lord and he will have everything under control even if you don’t see it, remember what it says in:
Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
He will direct your path.
Ps 37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
God is saying, don’t think you know what you’re doing in your own understanding, he says in:
Prov 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Idiots reject the wisdom of our Lord.
“Depart from evil” he says, which means quit trying to do it your way.
Now if you follow the Lords ways, then this is what’s going to happen!
8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
He will give you rest and peace, your nerves will be under control, and it could also mean it can help with your arthritis.
9 Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:
10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
Just like it says in Malachi, tithe and see watch the blessing that will come upon you.
11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:
He is saying don’t get mad with the him, when he’s trying to correct you.
12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.
Who in here doesn’t correct his child?
Heb 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
One of the reasons for God not healing is that we’re all going to die, we live in those kinds of bodies, and they weren’t made to live forever since the fall of man.
Heb 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die”
Even in the rapture it’s going to happen, because we will put away our old bodies and receive our new one.
Be careful when you are listening to someone and they’re using different scriptures to show how name and claim it is the word of God.
Let me explained one of them to you:
It’s in Mark 11 starting with verse 12
Jesus says he hungry and he sees a fig tree it had leaves but no figs, and he curse it.
Then in verses 15-19
He goes into the Temple and clears it out from them that were called money changers.
Now in verses 20-22
He goes back to the fig tree, why is he pointing out this fig tree so much.
It’s because he’s using this as an illustration of Israel.
The fig tree represents spiritually dead Israel.
The Temple is still there like the leaves on the fig tree, but there is no righteousness in the Temple just like there is no fruit on the tree.
God cursed Israel destroying both the nation and its religion, because they had not produce and spiritual fruit, even to this day.
22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
23 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 saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
What Jesus was saying here is that you have great power available to you through your faith in him.
At the last supper Jesus said to his twelve disciples in:
John 14:13-14
13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
When he said “whatsoever ye shall ask in my name” what he is saying is when you’re asking in the name of Jesus it is according to his purpose and will, not your will.
He wasn’t speaking about faith in your own dreams or ideas of what you think it should be.
Like it says in:
James 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
James is warning us that we shouldn’t ask with wrong motives, so we can get our own pleasures out of it.
It plainly tells us how to do it in:
1 John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
Mountain moving faith is not our will but his, so the Father can be glorified in the son.
When God’s commands are obeyed he will honor that obedience, and when any request is asked in faith according to his will he will provide.
The believer who wants what God wants can ask from God and receive.
Isa 45:11 Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.
Isa 45:11 (TLB) This is what the Lord says, the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: "Do you question what I do for my children? Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?
Instead of questioning, we should just humble ourselves and ask for his will on his children.
God did what he wanted in
Gal 1:1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)
Paul wasn’t nominated by a group of people nor by a person, he was picked by God because that’s what God wanted.
We do things the wrong way most the time like in
Acts chapter 1:21-26 the apostles got together to see who would replace Judas, and they picked two men and then told God to pick one of the two.
God wanted neither one of them; it was Paul that God wanted.
Same thing with the Promise Land look what happen.
We need to learn how to pray like in
Matt 6:10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
There is nothing wrong with asking the Lord for things we want, but we need to remember at the end of the prayer, we close it with saying and meaning it, “let thy will be done”