Sermon Transcript — July 22, 2006
A few years ago on the Day of Pentecost I asked a question in a sermon introduction that if God said to you, "I will let you choose the next fifty people that I will call, who would you choose?" Now the question was designed to lead into the discussion of God's calling and marveling at the way He calls, who He chooses, why He chooses, how He goes about that process of bringing people into His church.
I'd like to give a slightly different twist on the question today. If God said to you today, I will give you the power to choose fifty people that you would like to see healed, first of all, how would you feel about that? How many of you would like to have the ability to just name people ands say, "Be healed." Anybody? Show of hands? I really am interested in a show of hands on this one. I can't imagine that no hand would not go up. How many of you would like the power even if it was only a handful? How many of you can instantly think of somebody that you would like to see healed immediately, you can instantly think of somebody? Okay, that too is no surprise.
But now let's go on to consider some other things. If you could heal fifty people, who would you heal? Why? Why choose them? If you started to make a list, the mind would probably run quickly to various options. It would be logical to think, first of all, in terms of people that we know, family, friends, loved ones, fellow members in the church here. People who we know their circumstances, and we can tell that they're in pain or suffering. They carry with them maybe some chronic illness. Several of you could probably name in this room a handful of people that you know you would like to see healed. The problem, (chuckles) there are probably more people in this room that we don't know who need to be healed.
I won't ask you for a show of hands, but I think we might be surprised if I asked, "How many of you in this room have something you would like to be healed of?" There may be a number of hands go up. Things that we don't even know about that some are bearing with them.
But if you thought about it long enough, you might say, "Well, wait a minute. Yes, there are people here I'd like to see healed, but I only have fifty and there are a lot of people here, they're bearing up, you know, they're doing okay, they have support systems. So maybe I need to use my fifty choices on others who are in worse conditions. I only have fifty, how am I going to spend that?" And even if you thought about all the people in this room, (there are probably more than a hundred fifty people in here).
But if there were a hundred fifty people and we all had fifty choices, we could heal seven thousand five hundred people, but then you start to think, "Well, how far would that go?" Not very, that wouldn't go very far at all, so maybe you then start prioritizing, who needs this the most and so you might say, "Well, I'm going to deal with some of the worst case scenarios. I'll go down to the Shrine Burn Institute, take care of some of those people who have been burned horribly or I'll go down to the pediatric ward of the cancer institute here and deal with children because they really need it more than others do." But, you know, if you thought about it long enough you could also come to reason, "Well, yes they do, but so many of them here in this country. They have facilities to help them." We could go around the world and go to places where people have nothing. They have no help. They just, there's no medication, there's nobody to care for them. You might say, I will go to Africa or Central America or the Philippines as Mr. Welty was at, and believe me, I've been there three times and there are places you can go two blocks down the highway and use up all fifty of your healings, of people who have no safety net, no facilities, they're just in a dire way of life. And so you might say, "Well, at least I can go help somebody who has no hope." There are all different ways of looking at it.
Let's make it just a little bit more complicated, this scenario. Let's say you went there to somewhere and you began your process and while you were doing that people found out about this God-given ability that you had and people started streaming to you, more than fifty asking for help. How would you choose? How would you choose to react?
You see, this marvelous gift and talking about it just a little bit, just a brief, little time of thinking begins to take us into an understanding that this is an immense, immense undertaking. Healing is needed for so many people and there are many factors that we have to consider as we think about this.
What if God gave you unlimited ability to heal as many as you want. What kind of factors would come into your thinking? Would you begin considering, well, is there anything that I should require of somebody? Is there anything that I should expect before I just give this gift? Do you go around indiscriminately healing or would you think now let's maximize this opportunity in the best way possible, and if so, what would do that? It is an enormous topic. The enormity of the need is there. And the fact is, there are complexities in this issue as we consider healing.
I'm like all other elders who have been around for a few years. I've anointed many, many people over the thirty plus years in the ministry and I've anointed people with ailments ranging from the sniffles to people being racked in pain on their deathbeds. I've been there when people died. I've sat out in parking lots after visiting with people, crying before I could get the car started and leave over their situation. We've all done that, anybody who's been in the ministry for some degree of time.
I've seen enough to understand that there are many options. I hope that I have learned how to have faith through some of those options, because some situations are tough on your faith. They can really be a test of your faith. Your faith does have to be tested and a lot of times it is tested in health issues. I have seen dramatic healings right before my eyes. I've seen sudden and painful deaths. I've seen long suffering where there is neither healing nor death. Any minister who deals with these things at times sees them up close and very personally.
I've also seen along the way all sorts of reactions to this. I've seen people turn away from God because He did not answer their prayer in the timing and the way that they wanted Him to answer. On the other hand I've seen people draw closer to God even when He didn't answer their prayer in the timing and the way that they wanted Him to answer. I've seen people draw closer and have their faith build when their prayers weren't answered. It's an amazing thing. I've seen one member's suffering have profound effects on many other members. People who themselves weren't suffering but they were associated with the person, either very closely, or to a degree, and they were there with them and walking with them through this valley that they were through. And I've seen other people have profound effects on the person who was suffering the health problem. You begin to see all sorts of scenarios. I've been there with loved ones, and I've been there with strangers, people I've never met before, just called on often by family members to come and be with them and pray with them and offer whatever comfort that could be offered.
I've seen so many different scenarios that I've learned that God takes many factors into consideration when He is asked to respond to any given situation. I hope that I've learned not to demand of Him. I hope I've learned not to be angry with Him if He doesn't act on my timetable, but to simply lay requests before Him sincerely and fervently and with a trust that He knows what He is doing and He will always act with our best interest at heart. That's something you have to learn. It doesn't come easily and it can certainly be tested and at times I've found that I've forgotten it and I've had to learn it again as happens often with lessons in life.
I've also learned and believe that sometimes our approach to Him affects His approach to us and that can have a bearing in healing. I also hope that I've learned more of what it means to say, "Thy will be done," and then just leave it to God for His timing, and the way that He's going to handle things.
Though you try to learn these things, I don't think there's ever been a situation where I did not have a wish to go along with the statement, "Thy will be done." And the wish is simply I hope Your will is to what I want too. I hope Your will is to step in and intervene and heal this person right now in such and such a way. For we all carry wishes of what we hope God's will is, but we learn to put those wishes in second place behind, "Thy will be done." When you say, "Thy will be done," it brings other factors into the equation besides just the person's physical circumstance. You start then bringing elements into the scenario such as faith, confidence, trust, patience. All of these things go into the scenario that is involving healing.
But I will tell you this, when what you want to see done is actually what God does at that time it is so inspiring, it is so encouraging, it's just so awesome, it never gets old, and it really does wonders for you to see miraculous healings. But I've also learned that the story doesn't end with the healing. What happens after the healing is also very, very important, maybe more important, because what happens after the healing should lead us to other arenas of life.
There's a scripture relating to this topic. It speaks to something Jesus Christ will do when He returns. It's a marvelous prophecy. It's maybe a little bit, oh, how would you say - you have to ponder it. It doesn't go into great detail but it's just a phrase, a statement in Malachi 4 and I've pondered this meaning many times and it often springs to mind when we read a prayer request where we see people, when we see a video or hear a sermon relating to, say members in other countries both in the world and in the church. It's a prophecy of one of the things that personally I anticipate and look forward to seeing fulfilled perhaps more than any other when Jesus Christ returns to govern this world. We all think of things that will happen when He returns and there are things we look forward to. This is one of my favorites. In Malachi 4:1 we read:
Malachi 4:1 - "'For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day (which) is coming which shall burn them up,'" says the Lord of hosts, 'That will leave them neither root nor branch.
Verse 2 - "'But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves." The Hebrew word translated Sun is chemash, which in fact clearly means the sun, not capital Son, some have tried to word it that way, but it's simply a Hebrew word that means the sun. It's like other words and phrases in the BIBLE that try to capture a certain quality of God and it's a metaphor of the healing properties of the sun and therefore a reference to part of the work of Jesus Christ when he returns to this earth.
The return of Christ will usher in a time of healing and it must be beyond dispute that God longs for this Himself and I think the reason is very simple. When I asked you to raise your hands if you would love to see somebody healed why did you raise your hands? It's because you don't like to see suffering. You don't like to see pain. You don't like to see people going through that. There's an element of compassion that we as humans are moved with and if we in our human state can have that, how much more does God feel that toward all of His children, toward all of His creation?
That said, though, I believe that God sees this from a much broader perspective than we tend to at first glance when we think of the word healing. And I hope that we can leave here today with our eyes on a larger picture and understand a bit more about the process and where it is supposed to lead and maybe more about where we're going to fit into this at some point in the future. A lot of this revolves around the phrase here "...you who fear My name..." That's an important element. There are a few people on earth today who fear God's name, relatively few.
When Christ returns and under His governance one of the key areas of focus is going to be to try to help people come to understand and fear God's name so that they will turn their hearts in the direction God wants them to go. They will be healed. I would submit to you that in many cases the healing of people when Christ returns is also going to be a part of helping them learn to fear his name too. To those who fear His name He will come with healing in His wings.
Well, we're going to see maybe a little broader expanse of this that healing itself may be a part of people learning to fear God and what that means. We'll consider this as we go through the sermon, but first let me ask a question of you. What does healing mean to you? What do you think of when we say healing? I looked it up in Webster's dictionary and it shows that realistically there are several meanings of the word healing. It could mean to make sound or to make whole, such as to heal a wound. It can mean to restore to health. It can mean to cause an undesirable condition to be overcome. It could mean to patch up a breach or division. It could mean to restore to original purity or integrity. There are a number of meanings and they all have various shades of application, but it does illustrate that we have to think in a broad term to understand and to grasp all of the dynamic that's going to be taking place as God works with people in the future and as he's working with us right now as well.
There's an interesting statement, and actually we'll start by looking at a few occurrences in Jesus Christ's ministry and there is an interesting statement in Luke 10:9 as we see one of these statements. And I ask what does healing mean to you, now let me ask you as well as you're turning here. Who needs to be healed? And what do they need to be healed of? What all does this encompass?
Luke 10:9 - In the context, He had sent the seventy disciples out to go out into the way and to warn cities and to preach His word and He said, He makes the statement:
Verse 9 - "... heal the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'" Now that's an interesting statement , "...heal the sick (there), and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'"
Now Jesus Christ's focus was on the coming kingdom. It wasn't on what he was just doing in His three and one half years of ministry. He was pointing continuously to the kingdom of God, to the ultimate solution. And it's interesting, though that He linked healing with this message and with pointing them to the kingdom.
Now undoubtedly they did that. We don't have the whole record here, but there's no reason to think they didn't do what He's just told them to do. And for the people that they healed, what happened to those people? We're not told anywhere. The story doesn't follow them, but something happened to them. It was remarkable. Did it save their spiritual lives? No. Maybe some of them came into the church later. You can surmise that, perhaps that that was the beginning of their following Christ, maybe. Perhaps they did, but the physical healing that they received was not salvation, but it was a sign. It was a symbol of God's ability to do miraculous things and it pointed them to the kingdom of God. He was pointing them to something that would happen. He said, it "has come near to you." That means it is approaching.
The kingdom of God is coming; it is approaching. It's all about the kingdom and this healing was to be a foretaste of something. Now the context here is interesting as well. I won't go through it, but basically He told them, "If you go to a city and they accept you in peace, those who accept you in peace, heal them and tell them about the kingdom." He went on to say, "If they do not accept you in peace, wipe the dust off your feet and you know what you tell them? The kingdom of God has come near to you." You tell them the exact same thing. Some will receive you and some won't, but those who do receive you, heal them. Heal them and tell them, "The kingdom of God is coming."
In Luke 9, just turn the page to verses 1-2 if you will. There's a previous time, it said,
Luke 9:1 - "Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases.
Verse 2 - "He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick." There are all sorts of things they could have done. He didn't send them out to raise up churches; He didn't send them out to have social events; He didn't send them out to organize educational facilities. He said, "Go out, preach the kingdom and heal the sick." I don't think it's accidental those two thoughts are related.
Verse 6 - And "so they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere." I mean, this type of thing, when you go around healing people left and right, that has to grab attention. It has to have a profound effect on those who receive that blessing.
Verse 10 - "And the apostles, when they (had) returned, told Him all that they had done. Then He took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city called Bethsaida.
Verse 11 - "But when the multitudes knew it, they followed Him; and He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing." What's more, this links, these concepts, He was speaking about the kingdom and He was healing people. I don't think it's accidental again these two thoughts are linked, but it is an interesting phrase. "He ... healed those who had need of healing."
We come back to the question. Who needs to be healed? And what is it that we need to be healed of? Who needs to be healed? Let's go back one more page. Luke 8, this adds an element that's quite interesting.
Luke 8:1 - "Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him,
Verse 2 - "And certain women who had been healed," What had they been healed of? Well, "(Of) evil spirits and infirmities (sicknesses.) Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons."
Verse 3 - "and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance." There were followers with them. It wasn't just the twelve, but it was others and it's notable that some of them had been healed. Now if you were one of those that had been healed, if you had been so afflicted with infirmities or if you were Mary Magdalene and had been possessed by seven demons do you think that might have had an influence on what would have happened after the healing?
After the healing they were following Him, they were going with, they were providing Him substance. You know, it's just a no-brainer to think that if something like this happens to you, that's a pretty good reason to start paying attention to the one who healed you, and to start following Him. It has to be powerful. It's not the only influence on people, but healing has to be powerful. Now in this case it added something interesting. They were healed of their infirmities, sicknesses and evil spirits.
Now in the case of something like Mary Magdalene, demon possession is a terrible condition. That type of condition though is dramatic and it's obvious and it's just an unusual, remarkable case. What is less obvious and far more widespread in life is Satan's influence and the influence of evil spirits throughout the whole world, not possession, but attitudes, frames of mind, the instigating of thoughts. Creating an atmosphere that is Satan's world that is dominated by evil spirits, by the god of this world. It's not possession but it is an influence on people that we wrestle with continually. This is Satan's world.
When the kingdom of God comes, part of the good news that is included in this is that the evil spirits will be bound straight away. One of the first acts of God is to bind and remove the evil influence, which will allow a type of healing to begin in many ways. Now Peter recognized this too and when he was speaking to Cornelius in Acts 10, he worded this in an interesting way.
Acts 10:36 - And again breaking into the thought, speaking to Cornelius and his household: He said, "The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all—
Verse 37 - "that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached:
Verse 38 - "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him." Well, those who were oppressed by the devil, what does that mean? How do you see that oppression manifested in the world today? In what arenas of life do you see this? The oppression of the devil began at the Garden of Eden when it goes to affect human beings. And because of Satan's hatred for God and His creation of humanity, Satan has always been creating an atmosphere of oppression but he made the statement here that Jesus Christ "went about ... healing all who were oppressed by the devil." Well, what all does that include? Satan's way has manifested itself in many ways, but it always results in what we can call sickness, whether it's physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. The afflictions, the oppressions that oppress human beings are laid at his doorstep.
When you consider the extent of how the world has been oppressed by the work of Satan and the evil spirits you can begin to see the extent of sickness in the world. And when you look at the sickness in the world you begin to ask, "How did this all get here?" This wasn't created. God didn't make it like that. What God made was good, but here we are at our day and age after thousands of years of human existence, and we have come to a point where the world is literally sick in many ways and this is why the Day of Atonement pictures that one of the first actions that will effect healing is when the Sun of righteousness arises and Satan is removed and taken out of the equation. That's part of what is pictured at atonement.
II Corinthians 4 says that the god of this world has blinded this world. Blindness is a sickness, whether it's physical or spiritual. It's a sickness and there are many types of sicknesses in the world today. Now Satan's oppression that began in the Garden of Eden has had so many far ranging effects I don't know that we can fully comprehend it. I'm going to try to help you comprehend it in a certain way. It's a way that I tried to start thinking about it some time ago.
In the arena of physical and mental and emotional sickness that we see around us I want you to see what we face today. I want you to see the enormity of what we face and consider the extent of sickness in the world. We have to deal with the following: Acne, Addison's Disease, African Trypanosomiasis, some of these I won't even be able to pronounce. AIDS, Allergies, Alzheimer's, Anaphylactic Shock, Anemia, Aneurysms, Angina, Anorexia, Antisocial Behaviors, Apnea, Appendicitis, Arrhythmia, Arteriosclerosis, Arthritis, Aspergers Disorder, Asthma, Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia, Bi-polar Disease, Birth Defects, Black Lung, Blindness, Botulism, Brain Diseases, Breast Diseases, Bronchitis, Bubonic Plague, Bulimia, Burns, Bursitis, Buruli Ulcers, Cancer (which I will come back to momentarily,) Candidiasis, Canker Sores, Cardiac Arrest, Carpal Tunnel, Cervical Disease, Chagus Disease, Chickenpox, Chlamydia, Chronic Fatigue, Cirrhosis, Colic, Colon Disease, Concussions, Congestive Heart Failure, Convulsions, Croup, Cystic Fibrosis, Cystitis, Deafness, Delirium, Dementia, Dengue (Fever), Dermatitis, Diabetes, Diarrheal Diseases, Diphtheria, Downs Syndrome, Earaches, Ebola, Eczema, Emphysema, Encephalitis, Endometriosis, Epilepsy, Epstein-Barr, fever blisters, Fibrillations, Fibromyalgia, Fifth Disease, Flu, Food Poisoning, Fractures, Frostbite, Fungal Infections, Gallbladder Disease, Gardnerella, Gastric Ulcers, Gastroenteritis, Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease, Genital Herpes, Genital Warts, Giardia, Gingivitis, Glaucoma, Gonorrhea, Gout, Heart Murmurs, Heartburn, Heat Stroke, Hemophilia, Hemophilus Influenza B, Hemorrhagic Fevers, Hemorrhaging, Hemorrhoids, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Hernias, Herniated Disc, Herpes Complex, Herpes Simplex, High Blood Pressure, Histoplasmosis, HIV, Hives, Hot Flashes, Hydrocephalus, Hyperplasia, Hypochondria, Hypothermia, Impetigo, Incontinence, Indigestion, Insect Stings, Insomnia, Intestinal Nematodes, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Ischemic Heart Disease, Japanese Encephalitis, Jaundice, Joint Disease, Juvenile Diabetes, Labyrinthitis, Lactose Intolerance, Laryngitis, Lead Poisoning, Leashmaniasis, Leprosy, Lethargy, Leukemia, Lice, Lockjaw, Lung Disease, Lupus, Lyme Disease, Lymph System Disease, Lymphatic Filiarasis, Malaria, Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus, Melanoma, Meningitis, Mental Disease - under these let me list: Asperger Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Autistic Disorder, Bi-polar Disorder, Personality Disorders, Capras Syndrome, Child Behavior Disorders, Combat Disorders, Psychogenic Disorders, Personality Disorder, Disassociative Disorders, Dysthymic Disorders, Eating Disorders, Fire-setting Behavior, Hypochrondiasis, Impulse Control Disorder, Kleine-Levin Syndrome, Multiple Personality Disorder, Munchausen's Syndrome, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Narcolepsy, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Parethelias, Phobic Disorders, Psychotic Disorders, Restless Leg Syndrome, Schizophrenia, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Self-mutilation, Sexual and Gender Disorders, Sleep Disorders, Somatoform Disorders, Stress Disorders, Substance Related Disorders, Sociopathic Diseases, Suicidal Tendencies, Tryptotiliomania, that's the mental area.
Back to the physical: Migraines, Molluskum Contagiosom, Mononucleosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Mumps, Muscular Dystrophy, Mutinous, Myocardial Infarction, Non-Gonococcal Urethritis, Obesity, Osteoarthritis, Osteoporosis, Parkinson's, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, Periodontal Disease, Pertussis, Phlebitis, Pinkeye, Pinworms, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, Poisoning, Poisonous Animal Bites, Polio, Premature Deliveries, Prostatitis, Psoriasis, Psoriatic Arthritis, Rabies, Rectal Diseases, Reyes Syndrome, Rheumatic Fever, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Rickets, Ringworm, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Roseola, Roto Virus, Rubella, Scabies, Scarlet fever, Schizophrenia, Sciatica, Scoliosis, Shigellosis, Shingles, Sickle Cell Anemia, Sinusitis, Skin Diseases, Spinal Injuries, Spondolosis, Still Birth, Stomach Flu, Stress Factors, Syphilis, Tachycardia, Testicular Disease, Thrombosis, Thrush, Tick Bites, Tinnitus, TMJ, Tonsillitis, Tooth Decay, Tourret's Disease, Toxoplasmosis, Trichomoniasis, Tuberculosis, Typhoid Fever, Ulcers, Urinary Tract Infections, Varicella, Vertigo, Vitamin Deficiency, Warts, West Nile Virus, Whooping Cough, Yellow Fever, Xenoses, and that's not all of them. That's around two hundred sixty sicknesses that I listed on the research.
I got tired reading the list and I suspect you might have got a little tired hearing it. Some of you might have been sitting there saying, "Okay, you can quit, I've got the picture." No, that's not right. I wanted to read the whole thing to really try to drive the picture home.
Speaking about the cancers, I did not list the one hundred eighty-six identifiable types of cancer that exist, one hundred eighty-six types of cancer. You look at this and say, "Where did these things come from? How did we get to this state? How did it come to be this way? And furthermore, what will it do to the quality of life when Christ begins to heal these things?"
When we step into the millennium and the Son of righteousness arises with healing on His wings and begins to heal these things, what will it do to the quality of life? We can imagine all sorts of wonderful things when people have these taken away from them. But you know what? Christ is not interested just in improving the quality of life for people physically in the millennium. I believe strongly that healing will be a major function; not only about the quality of life, but something more important is going to be linked to this.
Why is the kingdom coming? What is the ultimate purpose of the kingdom of God? What is the reason for Christ's return and instituting His governance? Let's continue to think.
When Jesus walked the earth preaching the good news about the coming kingdom of God, we've already seen a few of the many accounts of Him healing people. It's very interesting that He even defined the gospel message in terms of its healing facets. In Luke 4 we have a marvelous account of Him coming into Nazareth, going into the synagogue, and standing up to read. And when this happened, He was handed the book of Isaiah and He defined the gospel message by this:
Luke 4:17 - "... And (when) He had opened the Book, He found the place where it was written:
Verse 18 - "'The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, and to preach (proclaim) deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed;
Verse 19 - "To preach (proclaim) the acceptable year of the LORD." This was His work. Now how all encompassing was this statement? How broad does this reach and what does it involve and where does it lead eventually? Well what is interesting here is where He stopped reading. It's not only what He read but where He stopped because when you go back to Isaiah 61 , that He quoted from, He stopped in the middle of a sentence. He was reading along in Isaiah 61 and it says in:
Luke 4:20 - "... He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down..."
Verse 21 - "And then He (began to say) said to them, 'Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.'" But He stopped right in the middle of the quote. Go back to Isaiah 61 if you will and see what the rest of the story is. In Isaiah 61 He quoted verse 1 and the first part of verse 2:
Isaiah 61:2 - "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," and that's where He stopped. But then the rest of the verse says, "and the day of vengeance of our God." He wasn't coming at that first coming to institute the day of the Lord, the day of God's vengeance. But then He said, "... to comfort all who mourn,
Verse 3 - "To console those who mourn in Zion." We'll talk a little bit later in the sermon about how mourning is such a part of the sickness that we have. "... To give them beauty for ashes,"that symbol of sadness," The oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;..." Sickness causes heaviness, mourning, difficulty. "That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." Interestingly, the prophecy goes on to say:
Verse 4 - "...they'll (shall) rebuild the old waste places (ruins)," they're going to rebuild the cities and the desolations and repair them. It's telling us that even the environment is going to be healed, if you will.
Just as an aside, it's interesting; Ezekiel 47 gives us a prophecy of the healing waters. You know where he saw these waters flowing out of the temple and they started at his ankles and it gets up to his knees and then his waist and finally it's too deep to even swim through. That is a picture of both the environmental and spiritual healing that will restore life to the earth.
If you ever have a chance to be in Sacramento, California, and you're going on Interstate five north, just on the other side of downtown right before you cross the American River, look on your right and there's a water plant. It's an old water plant and at the top of the building inscribed in big letters on the top of the building is a quote from Ezekiel 47:9. You know it's an old building because they'd never allow you to put that quote out of the BIBLE on a new building today. But that's a quote and it's on a water plant of all places, but they quote Ezekiel 47:9 and what is etched in that stone is:
Ezekiel 47:9 - "...Every living thing ...shall (will) live whither the river cometh...." It's a great quote for a water plant, but you know it's a symbol of the healing waters that God is going to bring to the earth and to humanity. This is what He promises and it's going to come.
So Christ likened His first coming, what He was bringing, He said, "This is what I am called to do. Luke 4:18 - "The spirit of the Lord is on (upon) me... heal the broken hearted, ... give the recovery of sight to the blind." What's He talking about here? He's talking about healing, but what is He speaking about? And then the rest of the prophecy that He quoted tells us it's going to come in the future as well.
God considers healing in a broader context than we do and it's something that we begin to see the physical should lead to a spiritual connection. Let's go to Mark 2, again at the beginning of the chapter. He wants us to connect what happens physically to us to a greater spiritual matter.
Mark 2:1 - "...again He entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house.
Verse 2 - "Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them.
Verse 3 - "Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.
Verse 4 - "And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. And (so) when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
Verse 5 - "When Jesus saw their faith..." it wasn't just the faith of the sick man, the paralytic. He saw their faith. His friends were there with him. They all believed, but "He said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven you.'" He did not heal him at this point, but He made a profound statement, "'... your sins are forgiven you.'"
Back to your fifty choices, I ask you, "Would you require anything of people? Would you be sitting here saying, okay, I want to see your faith. Before I heal you, I want to see your faith." This was part of what moved Christ. But the first thing He said was, "'... Son, your sins are forgiven you.'" He started with the biggest issue of all. His being crippled was an issue, an important issue, but it wasn't his biggest issue. He began with the biggest issue of all, a spiritual matter.
Who needs this said to them in life, "'... Son, your sins are forgiven you'" Who needs this said to them? Well, it's sort of a no-brainer, isn't it? We all need this said to us. We all need this expression and this thought and this extension of grace given to us whether we're physically sick or at the prime of our lives physically speaking. Whether you are sick or not we need this said to us because without this you're dead. Without this being said to us, you're dead. It's just a matter of time, so this was critically important.
Verse 6 - "(And) some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts,
Verse 7 - "Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
Verse 8 - "(But) immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, 'Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?
Verse 9 - 'Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise, take up your bed and walk?'" I might add to that, which is most important, too? Which is most important, to heal somebody physically or to begin healing them spiritually? What's the most important? Which is easier to say? But then He went on and said to them:
Verse 10 - "'But so (that) you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins' —He turned and said to the paralytic,
Verse 11 - "'I say to you, arise up , take up your bed, and go on your way to your house.'" And then He healed the man. The man was healed. He rises up; a miraculous demonstration of supernatural power, but He was telling them, "Make a connection here." Make a connection.
The ultimate point that we need to get to is the healing of sin, our sinful condition. The spiritual state is the most important area of healing. Who needs it? Every single human. It was easy to see the paralyzed fellow sitting there on the bed. What was difficult to see was that they had heart problems. He had paralysis, they had heart problems, because you will see in verse 6 - they were "reasoning in their hearts," and their hearts were sick, not physically, but even in a more important way than the physical their heart was sick. They were products of a sick world too. They were products of an oppressive world, a world oppressed by the devil that by this time in their lives they couldn't even think straight. They were spiritually blinded. They could not recognize Christ and He was standing in front of them. They were blind and He said, "You need to make a connection. Here, I'll demonstrate something for you in a physical way that shows you that I have power." And so He healed the man.
There are a lot of paralyzed people in life. There were a lot of them there that day; one was obvious. The rest of them were paralyzed in their spiritual thinking. What they did not realize is that they were all sick. And that's a point that the world has to come to.
In verse 12, something remarkable takes place. "Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, 'We never saw anything like this!'" Now isn't that the point that you want to see humanity come to? Where they all come to glorify God? And when people begin to say, "We've never seen anything like this." What is this?
It's not easy to get people to turn to glorify God. In this case a healing did it. You want to see the dots connected. Okay, here's somebody who can be healed. What does this mean? This person can also forgive sin who was sick. And when people begin to see, "I'm just as sick as that fellow on the bed over there, just in a different way is all. I need to be healed just as much," and we begin to look toward God in amazement, the heart begins to turn.
I have no doubt this will be part of what takes place in the kingdom of God as we start dealing with individual human beings. In some cases take miraculous actions that are performed out of love and it will turn hearts to God and not just the heart of the one who's sick, but other people who are witnessing this. It has a profound impact, but the healing physically should lead to a greater miracle.
It's a great miracle when people begin to make the connection. "My sins has caused my problems. Sin has caused my problems, all my problems. And when we are motivated to address the cause of the problem and to stop sinning, if it was healing that got our attention, if it was healing that really helped it register and begin to make us think, what a marvelous tool it is. God can heal physically, but more importantly, He's the only one who can help us be healed spiritually.
Mr. Evans gave a sermonette this morning quoting James 5:14-16. The famous section, if you're sick,
Verse 14 - "... call for the elders of the church..."
Verse 15 - "And the prayer of faith will save the sick...." They should be anointed. It says, "the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, they (he) will be forgiven." Well there's a lot in that that we have to consider.
See, that's why this physical request for healing takes us into thinking about all sorts of things beyond healing. We have to think about faith. We have to examine, "Okay, I'm making a request. Where is my faith? What's my level of faith? What is it in? How do I get to where I need to be in this non-physical area? I am sick physically, but I'm having to consider spiritual issues here. This takes me into issues of my relationship with God. If there have been sins committed, then they will be forgiven." That's a spiritual matter that coincides with a physical problem, but these things can work together to bring us to a deeper understanding of life and the way God is and what He expects of us, how we're supposed to deal. It's a greater issue.
If sin is involved in creating a situation that now demands physical healing, that healing can do wonders in our relationship with God. That's why it's important what happens after the healing, maybe as much as what happens before the healing, because the healing is supposed to be a tool to help us go deeper in our understanding and relationship with God.
We can't treat God like a doctor where we go to Him when we're sick and say, "Hey, I need a treatment here." He gives us a treatment and we go and say, "Ah, I feel a lot better, thanks. See you later. See you next time I have a need." That's not it. He is that healing physician, but anything that happens like that is supposed to take us into a deep understanding of how He works and what He is doing with our lives and many other ways as well.
I wonder sometimes if we minimize these instructions too much or go through the routine but don't really stop to think about, "What does this healing symbolize as well as actually do in my life. It's very important.
Now the scripture puts us on another thought. It says, "If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." But not all sickness is caused by sin. Not all injury, health problems, ailments are caused by sin and so that leads us to another level of understanding the work of healing when Christ returns with healing in His wings. Let's go to:
John 9:1 - "(Now) as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth.
Verse 2 - "And His disciples" jumped to a conclusion, like we normally do (laughing,) and they figured, this has to be a black and white answer and they said, "'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'" It has to be one or the other, has to be sin there somewhere.
Verse 3 - "Jesus answered, and He said, "'neither this man nor his parents sinned....'" This is a situation that exists so "'that the works of God should be revealed in him.'" Nobody sinned in this situation, but I'm going to show you something about the working of God.
In the kingdom when Christ returns and when He heals, it's going to be impressive. It's going to reveal something about God.
Verse 4 - "'I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.
Verse 5 - "'As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.'" Now when He returns, He's still going to be the light of the world, but that doesn't mean that everybody will instantly see the light. He's coming back to a blind world and not everybody will see the light at the same time in the same way. There will be some things that will help them see the light. They will be blind. Healing can be a powerful tool in that as it was in this particular case, the works of God being revealed. Can healing help people turn to God? I think it's illustrated in this account. I won't read the whole story here, but let's progress through -
Verse 6 - "When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.
Verse 7 - "And He said to him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam' (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing." And that was a big rock thrown into a small pond. It sent off a tremendous ripple effect, not just for this person but for a whole lot of people and the rest of the day some very interesting reactions took place. People didn't believe that it was him, and so people came to him and said,
Verse 10 - "'...How were your eyes opened?'" And what we're going to see here is a very interesting progression in this man's understanding. He is healed, but he doesn't have understanding at first, but we're going to see a progression that is so interesting; how his eyes were being opened in more than one way.
Verse 11 - "He answered and said, 'A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and...'" he tells the story. And they said,
Verse 12 - "...'Where is He?' He said, 'I do not know.'" This is where he started in his understanding. "How did this happen?"
"This man named Jesus did this." Well then they, poor guy, they - one trial ends and another begins. They drag him to the Pharisees and the Pharisees leap on an issue. You see this was the Sabbath when it took place. And so he tells the story and they jump to a conclusion as well.
"This can't be a man of God, He did this on the Sabbath. How can a man who is a sinner do such things?" Verse 16 is interesting. There is a division among them; big squabbles taking place and so, he tells the story, they drag his parents in. His parents were quite intimidated by the whole process. It says,
Verse 22 - "... they feared the Jews, because if anybody (anyone) confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue."
Verse 23 - So the parents put it back on him, saying, "He's twenty-one years old (of age), ask him."
Verse 24 - "So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, "Give God the glory! Because this guy who healed you is a sinner, " We know (that this Man) He is a sinner."
Verse 25 - "He answered them and said, 'Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know.'" All I know is yesterday I was blind, today I see.
Verse 26 - "Then they said to him (again,) 'What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?"
Verse 27 - "He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?" I think he had a bit of a cynical attitude by now. He said, "Do you also want to become His disciples?" Well, that got them stirred up.
Verse 28 - "... they reviled him and said, 'You are His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples.
Verse 29 - "'We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we don't (do not) know where He is from.'
Verse 30 - "The man answered and said to them, 'Why, this is a marvelous thing, (that) you don't (do not) know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes!
Verse 31 - "'Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.'" And then he makes a profound statement in verse 32 that was probably way more profound than he even realized at the time.
Verse 32 - "'Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind.'" Now he was thinking of this physically, but brethren, think of it spiritually in addition. Nobody is able to open the eyes of a spiritually blind world except who? There's a miracle of healing that comes in opening the spiritual eyes. What this man didn't realize, he was part of a process here. I forgot to mention one thing - when they brought him in the first time in verse 17 -
Verse 17 - "They said to the blind man again, 'What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?'" That's the second time he'd been asked the question. This time the man said, " 'He is a prophet.'" The first time he said, "This man named Jesus healed me." Second time he said, "This is a prophet." There's a third time.
Verse 33 - "'If this Man were not of (from) God, He could do nothing." They cast him out of the synagogue.
Verse 35 - " Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and..." He went looking for him. It shows His concern. "...when He had found him, He said to him, 'Do you believe in the Son of God?'
Verse 36 - "He answered and said, 'Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?'" He was progressing, but he still lacked an understanding.
Verse 37 - "And Jesus said to him, 'You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking to (with) you.'
Verse 38 - "Then he said, 'Lord, I believe!' And he worshiped Him" This man had a personal progression from rejoicing over his healing to saying, "This man healed me, He's a prophet"; coming to the point, "This is the Son of God." And he turned to worship Him. He became a believer, a true believer of something that was much deeper than where he'd been just a short time previously. This is where he needed to get to.
This was far more important than him being healed of his blindness physically. But being healed of his blindness physically opened the door to where he really needed to go. This is where he needed to be. Where does the world need to come to in its understanding? The same place.
Verse 39 - "And Jesus said, 'For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see (which you might put in quote marks 'those who think they see') may be made blind.'
Verse 40 - "Some of the Pharisees who were with Him (heard these words, and) said to Him, 'Are you talking about us? Are we blind also?'
Verse 41 - "Jesus said to them, 'If you were blind, you would have no sin;'" Now wait a minute, this man started out, he was blind and he had no sin, right? ' If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains." You're talking about things; you're stubbornly staying where you are. You don't even see the Son of man. You don't understand. Your sin is remaining. You're stuck in your sickness was what He was telling them.
Sin is the ultimate crippler. Sin is what kills people eternally. Sin blinds, but in this case you can see how a physical healing helped to lead people to a deeper understanding. It's a challenge for some. It was a challenge for people here and it's going to be a challenge in the millennium. We should not be under any illusion that a few healings will turn the whole world to follow God right off the bat. It was when Christ walked among them and not everybody's going to have their hearts softened immediately when Christ returns.
He said this in chapter 12; you can read many, many accounts along that line of explaining how the heart works.
John 12:37 it said, "But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him." It's just the way it is.
Verse 38 - "That the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke:' Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'
Verse 39 - "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah had said again:
Verse 40 - "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, lest they should turn, (and so that) I should heal them.
Verse 41 - "These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him." That's a spiritual condition. There's no greater sickness than a willful, spiritual blindness. This is heart trouble. This is heart trouble at its worse and it's a condition that humans have. It's interesting,
Verse 42 - "Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue;
Verse 43 - "for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." That's a sickness; that's ill thinking; that's spiritual mental illness, to think that way. But that's the way humans think. Thinking more about the praise of men than the praise of God is a common, human sickness. It has to be healed. He said,
Verse 46 - "I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness." This will be true when He returns a second time as well to a world that needs to be healed of all their problems: heart problems, spiritual problems, physical healing may help some people along the way. It may help a lot of people. It may help them begin a path, a journey of understanding the authority, and the power, and the love of God. It may help them begin to walk out of their darkness. It's going to be a wonderful thing to see.
I'd like to talk about one other angle on this that we haven't talked about so far and it's very important. It's back to the concept of what Christ focused on in Luke 4.
Luke 4:18 - He said, "... He has sent Me to heal..." a group of people or a condition, I would say, a condition among virtually all people that is one of the most important areas of healing that exists. "He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted," not people who fit on that list of two hundred sixty physical problems, the people who have been brokenhearted.
How many of us have ever been in mourning? Have ever been in heaviness? For whatever reason, do you not need healing when you're in a time of broken heartedness? All of us have been physically sick at some point in life. I've been through one or two times I was really wrestling with, you know, the spirit of heaviness and I would trade physical sickness any day. I'd take food poisoning any day over going through those times of broken heartedness. One's physical, the other is much more difficult. You need to be healed.
Some of you who are my generation might remember a song by the Bee Gees back in the late 60's, early 70's, "How Can You Heal a Broken Heart?" It was sort of a depressing song because in the song there's no real answer. How does God heal a broken heart? This is going to be one of the greatest influences when the Son of righteousness comes with healing in His wings. I'll tell you one-way how.
I'm going to tell you a story, a short story now. But I'm going to warn you ahead of time this is going to hit some emotions. It's going to expose some raw nerves and the reason is, it's because it's something that most of us will identify with in one way or another. I'm not doing it for the purpose of making anybody feel badly, but rather for an opposite purpose. It is oftentimes the things that are; it's the things that touch us deeply that make us comprehend deeply what God is doing. It makes us appreciate more deeply the plan of God. This thing of healing the brokenhearted is illustrated in so many ways, it can be illustrated - But I'll tell you a story.
A few years ago my wife was at work. She worked for the human resources department of a hospital and she worked in the department that dealt with hospice and the visiting nurses. One of the staff was a therapist; a grief therapist and she worked with people after the fact of losing a loved one, oftentimes with children and teenagers. And she specialized in art therapy. You know, they would draw pictures and she would interpret the pictures and get understanding into the way they thought and my wife was quite skeptical of the whole thing. She and another worker there had discussed this before and one day they were talking with this lady and she said, "Tell me about this art therapy. You know, how does this stuff work?"
The lady said, "Well, I'll tell you what. Let me try to illustrate it to you." Gave them a piece of paper and she said, "Draw a picture of a house, just a house." She gave them a few minutes, walked away and came back about five minutes later. Took the pictures, took my wife's - it was a picture of how you draw as a kid, a little stick house and the roof and the chimney, and the smoke and the windows and the curtains and the sidewalk and a tree and the flowers.
She studied the picture for a few seconds and then she said, "You lost a child" and Dee burst out in tears. Totally unexpected, she burst out in tears. And the lady said, "And the fact that you are crying shows that you have not gotten over your grief."
And Dee said, "How did you know that?"
She said, "Well, you drew in your tree here, you had a picture of a bird's nest without any birds in it. It's empty." She said, "Invariably when somebody draws that they've lost a child."
It was an amazing thing and, you know, the circumstance of that was a miscarriage years before. Probably twenty-five years before or more and the mention of it that catches you off guard made her break into tears instantly and it was just a phenomenal thing. Now she had not lived twenty-five years walking around under the heavy rain cloud of the spirit of heaviness, but as it pointed out and they went on to talk about it. The lady said, "You always carry grief around at that type of loss, always."
Now, again, it doesn't mean that your life is ruined, but there's a part of the heart that was broken and it was irreparable. It was broken. Now when you have an understanding of what God is going to do there's a salve that we have with understanding the truth that helps the wound, but it's not completely healed.
But you know what's going to heal? Now I'm going to say something here, but I want you to understand before I say it, I'm not talking about our specific situation and I'm not making a statement about whether miscarried or aborted children will be resurrected or not. I've heard arguments both ways about it. That's not the point. The focus is on loss. The focus is on loss.
Do you realize the power of the resurrection and its healing effect on people? What that will be like? See, you know we had planned this baby. We were early in our marriage and our little lives were going along in marriage just right and we reached the time that we said, "This is now the right time." And we prayed about it and we got pregnant. We even had a name for that baby. I mean, that was our baby, it just wasn't born yet, that's all. And then all of a sudden you wake up one morning and something is going wrong and a little while later you've lost that child. And you know you have to wrestle through a lot of things.
We wrestled with, there was the physical, but then we wrestled with some faith issues. We had to really grapple with some of those things. We had to wrestle with some rather unkind things that some well-meaning people tried to pass on to us. There were all sorts of things that were involved in the whole circumstance that took a long time to sort through and it was a tough go and yet you always come back to that.
You can think of many other circumstances. I lost a brother, who lived fourteen hours and didn't make it. I lost a mom at age forty-eight. All of us have had losses in life.
The broken heart part of us that remains is going to go a giant step toward being healed in the resurrection. Those in the first resurrection are going to get a taste of it and then when the great resurrection comes, that second resurrection, the resurrection itself is going to be such a healing factor for the broken hearted. And then other things can take place after that whether it's the healings of relationships or whatever needs to take place. You see there's a kind of broken heartedness that will be healed when we are changed. There's another type that will come in the second resurrection and there's yet another type of broken heartedness that will be healed when you see people repent, turn to God, follow Him, and learn how to live.
God is going to resurrect people in order to heal them in all of these ways. And it's just thinking of that gives us comfort. It gives us hope, but the healing will come when it actually occurs, when it actually occurs. In Isaiah 57:15 - we read,
Isaiah 57:15 - "(For) thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: 'I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, (and) to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
Verse 16 - "'For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made.' " There is a time when God is angry, but He says, "I'm not, that's not my nature. I'm not going to be angry forever." There are things that anger God.
Verse 17 - "'For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry and struck him; I hid and was angry, and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart.
Verse 18 - "'I have seen his ways,'" and brother, I'm going to really get him later. "No," He says, "'I have seen his ways, and will heal him.'" I want to heal. "'I will also lead him, and restore comforts to him, and to his mourners.
Verse 19 - "'I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near,'" Says the Lord, "'and I will heal him.'" Now whether it's physical, or whether it's the broken heart, or whether it's lifting the spirit of heaviness there's so many things that have caused all these conditions and God's healing is just going to be phenomenal. But the greatest healing will be the healing of the heart. That heart that Jeremiah said was "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." You know, there's a Hebrew phrase that some interpret that desperately wicked that says it's mortally sick. It's just a sick heart. It needs to be healed.
Jeremiah 33:6 - "Behold, I will bring it health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth." That's the real reason for healing people and for some people; being physically healed will open the door, maybe a lot of people, because God will use healing to do what He says here. "I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth." Through turning a heart to him in amazement, to glorify God, to be open to Him as we saw the blind man and then to begin to understand what peace and truth is all about.
Verse 7 - "... I will cause the captives of Judah and the captives of Israel to return, and will rebuild those places as at the first.
Verse 8 - "I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.
Verse 9 - "Then it shall be to Me a name of joy, a praise, and an honor before all nations of the earth, who shall hear all the good that I do to them; and they shall fear." You remember Malachi where we started? To those who fear my name, the Son of righteousness will arise with healing in His wings. This is why I say I think healing will also help some people learn to fear. It will be part of the process that works in the human mind. "...and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and (all) the prosperity that I provide for it.'"
I think we've seen examples through life, through what Jesus did and others. We see it today as well, how healing can help people do that. Remember the story in Acts 3 where Peter and John saw the man begging and they said, "I'll give you what we have in the name of Christ. Rise up and walk." And he did. You know what that led to? Throngs of people coming, and then that opened a door for Him to preach to them and as the preaching took place their minds began to be opened.
And at the very end of Acts 3, the last verse said that I will bless you by turning everyone away from their iniquities. Physical healing can be an open door to spiritual healing.
One last thought, Matthew 10:1 - "(And) when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease." When Christ was on the earth, He shared His power with His disciples to heal. Can you envision anything less than Him doing the same in the kingdom? When He returns, we are resurrected with Him; the saints are with Him to rule the earth. Can you imagine anything less than Him sharing the same authority with the resurrected saints? All for the same purpose of bringing people to this understanding of the truth. I love to anoint people now, but I can't wait to heal people. What a remarkable thing that will be. In the meantime, I and you, we all need to be working on asking God to help us be healed in the areas in which we need healing.
The Son of righteousness is going to come with healing in His wings. For those of you who fear His name, already, you have access to Him and to His healing power, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. If we seek Him fervently, He will heal us in every way and that healing is a foretaste, it's not just for our lives now, it's a foretaste of what He's going to do in His rulership on this earth and what we will be doing with Him.
The Son of righteousness will arise with healing in His wings. Just understanding that should make us pray with fervency, "Thy kingdom come."