Interferences To Healing

Giving Up Too Soon

Sometimes a person is not healed because they gave up or didn't continue to resist the enemy. Some people just give up too soon, and I don't think you should give up too soon. As long as you have breath you ought to hang in there. We should continually pursue healing. Some of the people I ministered to at that healing conference I mentioned had just given up, they'd quit, and they'd resigned themselves to die.

I said to them, "How do you know it's your time?" and they would reply, "Well, it just looks bad for me." I said "Well, you might die, but you might not, so don't give up!" Some people had a new resolve, to hang in there and not give up and to not quit, and they're going to stay with it. We need to learn how to hang in there and continue to resist.

If you think it's hopeless and you think you're about to be taken out, then keep asking God; that's what Hezekiah did. Starting at Isaiah 38:1, it says, "About that time Hezekiah became deathly ill and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amos, went to visit him. He gave the king this message, 'This is what the Lord says. Set your affairs in order for you are going to die and you will not recover from this illness.' When Hezekiah heard this he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 'Remember, O Lord, how I have always tried to be faithful to You and to do what is pleasing in your sight.' And he broke down and wept bitterly. Then this message came to Isaiah from the Lord, 'Go back to Hezekiah and tell him this is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor David says, "I have heard your prayers and seen your tears, I will add fifteen years to your life."'"

What if he had just given up? What if he had said, "Oh, this is it, set the affairs in order, let me go kiss all the babies and the grandkids, and say goodbye to everybody, it's been a great life." He could have just resigned himself die, but he did not do that. He hung in there and said, "I want to live longer than this," and he got fifteen more years. So don't give up, just hang in there. You've got to learn how to fight.

In 1 Peter 5:8-9 it says this: "Be careful and watch out for the attacks from the devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour. Take a stand, take a firm stand against him and be strong in your faith. Remember that Christians all across the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are." And then in James 4, "Humble yourselves before God, resist the devil and he will flee from you."

Those verses talk about resisting, taking a firm stand, don't give up and don't quit. A lot of healing is spiritual warfare and we need to learn how to stay in there and not give up. Don't quit. One of the reasons we quit is because we don't realize what is available to us to claim.

God doesn't allow sickness, we allow it, God doesn't permit it, we permit it. If Jesus died on the cross for our sin, and sin will not be our master, is God going to bring us into sin so He can teach us something? Of course not. However, God can use those situations where we do sin. Have you ever learned from your failures? I bet you have. God's not limited by your failures. God can use it when we mess up, blow it and sin. And ultimately, God did permit us to do that. But, is that the way God prefers to teach us? Do you believe God says, "I can't wait for them to sin, I've got something else to show them." Can you imagine Him saying, "I'm just waiting for them to blow it because I have all these lessons I just waiting to impart to them." No, of course not!

When it comes to sin, we know the victory has been won. God may permit it, but God doesn't condone it, that isn't His way of teaching and instructing us. It's the same way with sickness.

Matthew 8:17 says, "He took our sickness and removed our diseases." Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24 tell us that by His wounds or by His stripes, we were healed. We look at the purpose of the blood and see it was for the remission of sins. We looked at how with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, with the blood, was the remission of sin and that covers it. In Hebrews 9:22 it indicates without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. But what's the purpose of the body? Look not only at the passage in 1 Peter 2, but also in 1 Corinthians 11, where it talks about the body of Christ and not judging the body rightly. We look at the role of the body and basically, it's the place where He suffered on our behalf and He took our sickness and removed our diseases.

Now, if that's true and it is true because it's in the Word, then in reality, we can say if sickness or affliction comes at us, we're going to fight it, we're not going to let it stay. If we have worked to get sin out of our lives, why wouldn't we work to get sickness out of our lives? A lot of us have double standards, we will work to get sin out of our lives, but we won't work to get sickness out of our lives. Why not work to get them both out?

With sin, some of it goes quickly, as soon as we confront it, it's gone. The temptation is gone, it's completely removed and we'll never struggle with that area again. Sometimes sin is completely removed and not a part of our life immediately; that happens with sickness. Sometimes, sin is something we really have to work on, we have to unravel it, we have to strive for it, and even though it's powerless, (Jesus won that for us on the cross), we still work and struggle to unravel the areas of sin in our life. The truth of it is that all of us will die with some areas of sin that are not completely unraveled. But, that doesn't mean it isn't covered by the blood, it doesn't mean Jesus didn't already pay for it on the cross.

We look at sickness the same way. Sometimes it's quick, sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's immediate, sometimes we have to work to unravel why it got there and we should strive to do it.

What I found out in working with some of the people at that confernece was they had given up, they had just quit. I had at least three people that had cancer and they were ready to through in the towel and die. They were ready to give up, but after that conference, they have renewed life. They realized they could fight this and I told them they could fight it. And they said, "What if I die from this?" and I said, "Well, then you die from this, but you don't give up fighting."

Let me share my personal thinking on this issue. The devil or sickness doesn't have any right to me. If I die from sickness, I want my blood to go up into heaven and be in the cup of martyrs that's crying out for injustice. There's the blood of the martyrs, filling up the cup mentioned in the book of Revelation, and it's the blood of the martyrs going up in there because of an injustice that has been done. They didn't deserve to be killed, they didn't do anything to be killed, they were taken out unjustly. And because of that, the judgment is being built up for the latter days. And if I get taken out because of sickness, I want my blood in that cup, because the devil has no right to it because Jesus has already paid for it.

God may permit or allow something that is not in His will, but God doesn't condone it. He doesn't say, "Let me strike somebody down with sickness or disease so I can really teach them something." Things happen and God can use them. No matter what happens, God can use it. And every inroad that is there, the enemy will try to take advantage of it. What I'm saying is for you not to give up, don't quit, and don't stop pursuing your healing. Don't resign yourself that you're always going to be that way. Hang in there and fight.

Time To Die

Another reason people aren't healed is because maybe it's just time to die. I know that seems obvious. Ecclesiastes 3:2 says that there is a time to be born and a time to die. The book of Psalms 90:10 says that the length of our years is seventy or eighty if we have strength. I don't know about you, but I'm going for at least this much. I think anything over eighty is grace. If you hit over eighty, you are definitely in a grace period, so just receive it, hang on to it and enjoy it.

I think we can claim this because it's in the Word. As I've mentioned before, dying is one of those things that is of the grace of God. When the curse was put upon man that he would die, in Genesis 3:19 it says, "All your life you will sweat to produce food, until your dying day and then you will return to the ground from which you came. For you were made from dust and into the dust you will return."

That is so man doesn't live forever in sin. God looks for the day when we will go to be with Him. The ultimate healing of anybody is to go and be in the presence of the Lord. One of our older church members died recently. Last week he was on this earth suffering and right now he's in the presence of the Lord. So he's healed, you can't get any better than that -- no more suffering, nothing else on this earth. He's right in the presence of the Lord and that's a good thing. Death is not a bad thing when it happens.

I don't want to go until God has done everything in me and through me that He wants to do. That's why I tell you not to put a limitation on your age, even if you go past seventy or eighty years. When you're done, you're done; but until then we cry out to God to use us.

Wrap Up

Now, let's bow our heads and pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are Jehovah Raffa the One who heals. First Lord you heal our souls, you heal our wounded souls and heal us from the affects of sin. Lord, you are our healer and you restore our soul. Father, we thank you for that because that's the greatest healing. The healing of having our eternal destiny changed. Lord there is nothing greater than that, to remove the wounds and the hurts in our hearts. God you are a healer for that. Lord, we call on You to touch our bodies as well for the sake of advancing Your Kingdom, that we may proclaim that Jesus is Lord and He rules on this earth. Lord Jesus, we just want Your name to be lifted high and we want Your name to be made famous. Amen

If there are some sins in your life that are hindering your praying, or maybe there's some sin that you've been covering over, like you've been in denial trying to hide it from God. He already knows everything, so right now would be a good time to just begin confessing that to God. Get right with Him and assure that you are not hindered from receiving your healing in this area.