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Sickness Is An Enemy Of The Will Of God
In our first lesson we saw that God continues to do today what He did in the Bible. And in the bible, there were many times where God healed people.. bodies were made well. In fact, sickness is the exception and God's general rule is HEALING. The Bible shows HEALING for all.
Believers need to get rid of guilty fear, when they come to the subject of healing. They should do this through faith in a loving Father, rather than fear of One who puts cancer on them to discipline them!
Two of our friends have a child who has difficulties in obedience. One day when he refused to eat prunes with his dessert, Mum and Dad sent him up to his bedroom in disgrace for not eating the fruit, with the threat, "God will punish naughty boys." Imagine their dismay, when a short time later, a terrible electric storm hit the house. They crept up stairs, only to find their son in front of the window, gazing up at the flashing thunder and lightening. He was heard to remark aloud: " God, such a fuss about two prunes!"
This story illustrates that our orientation effects how we perceive things. If we see sickness, we can often find a sin to "link" it back to, even though that link exists only in our imagination. In the vast majority of the cases, God does not want to make you sick to punish you, He wants you to be well and healthy.
In this lesson, we show that God positively is concerned in fighting sickness in order to set His people free and merely using it to threaten the disobedient!
Let us first establish the emphasis that:
SICKNESS IS AN ENEMY OF GOD'S WILL TO MAKE PEOPLE WHOLE
His will in the Garden of Eden was to have them healthy and happy, and Heaven will not contain sickness!
1 Thes 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (KJV)
God wants us to remain whole (1 Thess 5:24-25).
Jesus died not only to save your soul, but to redeem your body from the power of the devil. (Acts 10:38 and 1 John 3:8).
The Lord Jesus Himself stated:
John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (KJV)
Sickness is not "abundant life "! God offers us abundant life to us in both the Old and New Covenants. God offers "material prosperity" to his obedient servants (Joshua 1:5-9). In this connection however, we need to make a few observations..
Job 42:10 And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. (KJV) Job 42:12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. (KJV) Job 42:16 After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations. (KJV) Job 42:17 So Job died, being old and full of days. (KJV)
Psalms 1:1,3 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful ... he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. (KJV)
Matt 7:11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (KJV)
Matt 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (KJV)
God promises 'bodily healing' for the obedient. God desires to give us the gift of health.
It is God's nature to bring healing and to be one who takes care of his servants:
Exodus 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. (KJV)God promises healing also to the repentant sinnerPsalms 91:2,3,5-7,9-11,15 (KJV) I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
Psalms 103:3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; (KJV)
We had a man who had trouble in his eyesight. When he confessed a wrong attitude to his wife, and we prayed, he was able to see several miles across the Belfast Lough from our front door in Holywood, Northern Ireland! His sickness did not come back and we still have the white stick he used, when he was short of sight! How often we need a space for confession of sin before the prayer of faith is offered for healing !! (James 5:15 - 16) The basis for this fact, is that the Lord Jesus carried both sin and sickness on Calvary
Isaiah 53:4-5 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 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. (KJV)
"Soul salvation" often follows divine healing and for this reason unbelievers appear to often be healed quicker than Christians. This is because God wants to lead them deeper with himself ! This does not reflect on His promises to heal believers. But it may reflect the lack of knowledge and trust in God which demands a more immediate miracle to help their faith.
There is a place of covenant relationship with God that brings health as well as healing.
St. Paul shows that trust in God, shown in obedience, releases god's power (Romans 4:3-8)
Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (KJV)
Abraham had to trust God against the evidence of his own body, in having a son after he was "too old". Believers must see that their relationship with God can go beyond the limits of their natural age or experience. This must be the attitude of faith for forgiveness and healing. It is based on faith, not feeling. It shows up in the birth of Isaac when Abraham and Sarah were both elderly !
Romans 4:18-20 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, 'So shall thy seed be.' And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; (KJV)
Remember that the same principles work for forgiveness of sin as for healing miracles. The Greek word (sozo) to "save" is the same as "to heal".
Those sent by God to bring salvation (from Abraham onwards) had miracle healings ministry. Abraham had a healing ministry as a prophet, when his own lies and sin and led the heathen into sickness !
Gen 20:7 Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine. (KJV)
The early Christian teachers relied on miracles to bring converts, not on a man-made program !
Romans 15:17-19 I have therefore whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. (KJV)1 Cor 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: (KJV)
Gal 3:5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (KJV)
Heb 2:3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; (KJV)
Heb 2:4 God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will? (KJV)
Prophetic ministry is meant to apply to both BODY and soul!
But others may object, saying "Sickness can prove a blessing." Why not simply accept it as the 'Chastening of the Lord'?"
The Bible does not teach that folk become better because of sickness, but in spite of it! Sickness is named "captivity" by God (not "blessing").
Job 42:10 And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. (KJV)
Job was a "saint" in spite of his sickness, not because of it!!
Christ called his own healing ministry "deliverance":
Luke 4:18 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, (KJV)
Jesus saw sickness is a bondage, not as a merit!
Luke 13:16 And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath BOUND, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? (KJV)
Christ directly attacked sickness by his words. He did not pray for grace for the person to carry it!
Luke 4:39 And he stood over her, and REBUKED the fever; and it left her: and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.(KJV)
Divine Healing must be DONE WITH AUTHORITY through the prophetic word! There must be an expectation of something immediately happening as a result. Usually I ask folk to do on the spot, what they have not been able to do before, if I discern the power of God is working in that way. (Unfortunately the faith is often lacking in many churches, that anything at all will happen!) Expect the healing process to begin now!
There is a mindset or theology about suffering that goes like this:
There is a merit can only come through voluntary suffering (e.g., suffering which can be avoided.)
Logically, there is no merit in carrying something (like sickness) which you cannot get rid of! Christ carried the cross voluntarily on behalf of others, but He was in charge of the process from beginning to end !
If you carry what Christ carried for you, this does not honour what God has done when He died for your sickness!! (cf. 1 Pet 2:24)
"Taking up our Cross" in scripture is not referring to choosing sickness. It covers severing of ties with worldly connections and lusts by the disciples of Christ
Gal 5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (KJV)
In fact, the Scriptures teach that sickness is the curse and chastening of the law, carried by Christ. (The Curse is detailed in Deut 15:15-45) Christ took all these curses on the cross so that you could be free !! This is clearly stated in Galatians 3:13!
In fact, the details of the crucifixion are significant ! he carried every known effect of disease by:
Christ crucified by romans also shows the curse of the "defeat of Jews" while His "body stripped of all" showed the curse of poverty! Stand in this liberty and be made whole !
Let me summarize why sickness is an enemy of God's will..
GOD'S WILL FOR US IS WHOLENESS
GOD PROMISES BODILY HEALING FOR THE OBEDIENT. Exodus 15:26
SOUL & BODY SALVATION COME AFTER REPENTANCE & FAITH
SICKNESS IS CALLED "CAPTIVITY" NOT "BLESSING." Job 42:10
Some prophetic people like John G Lake, were actually so full of the power of God, that germs died as they touched their hands !
Is it ever possible to live in the Spirit, under the anointing of God in such a way as not to be sick? We will see that in our next lesson !!