Does God will heal today?
This has been a debatable question down through the years among theologians and religious teachers. Some say “YES” and others say “NO”. But my follow-up question is simple, what guides our understanding of healing to lead us to believe that God is still healing today? Is it experience? Is it biblical study, personal or public? Is it trust in faith healers? What is it that guides our understanding of healing today and/or all other questions surrounding this topic?
Questions like:
- Is it God’s will to heal everyone?
- Is sickness, disabilities, and deformities a result of some un-confessed sin?
- Does a human possess the ability to heal?
- How does God choose to heal people?
- Why isn’t everybody healed?
- Is it a sign of a lack of faith to acknowledge sickness?
- What’s more important physical or spiritual healing?
- Is physical healing a temporary blessing or permanent blessing?
- If men (and women) possess the power to heal, why is the hospital filled with sick people and cemeteries full of dead people?
- How do you handle the death of someone who was not healed after you’ve prayed for their healing?
- Does God allow people to get sick because He’s mad at them for being disobedient?
Questions, questions, questions! I believe this text, Exodus 15 of God’s revelation to Israel as the Lord that heals you, begins to shape our understanding of healing. The longer Israel journeyed with God, the more He revealed to them His character and ways. What this means is that as believers, we cannot allow one experience to guide our faith and practice in any area of Christian living. Experience(s) of faith is not a good measuring stick in proving our faith. Ok, you received healing this time but what about the next time? Ok, you were brought back to life this time but what about the next time? Ok, you received an unexpected financial blessing in the mail this time, but what about next time? Ok, you were delivered out of a terrible situation this time, but what about next time?
Each day we walk with God, God reveals more and more of Himself to us to help us face tomorrow while living in faith today.
So, as we’ve been studying the names of God, God has revealed Himself to us in the following ways thus far:
In Genesis 1 as Elohim - Creator, He created all things for His glory including you and me.
In Genesis 14 as El Elyon- God Most High meaning God is in control. He is actively participating in our lives daily, good and bad.
In Genesis 15 we see God as Adonai – Master, Owner meaning God owns everything including you.
In Genesis 16 we see God as El Roi – God who sees what you’re going through.
In Genesis 17 we see God as El Shaddai – God Almighty and sufficient meaning our God is powerful to never run dry of resources.
In Genesis 22 we see God as Jehovah-Jireh – God will provide.
In Exodus 3, we see God as Jehovah, the Great I Am that I Am meaning He is anything and everything you will ever need Him to be in life.
God has shown us enough of Himself so that we may trust Him to handle all things, anytime, and anywhere. Therefore, God’s next revelation is as Jehovah-Raphe, the Lord who heals. This revelation of God should not be in question. God has created all things, knows all things, sees all things, and provides all things. Surely, He can heal all things.
The focus of this text is on God’s revelation as the Great Physician. And here’s the point of my sermon:
God Can Heal You!
God is the source of all healing and He chooses how divine healing takes place.
Let’s look into this text to see what truths we can learn about how God chooses to heal. This text provides four (4) principles to help guide our understanding of healing.
i. God heals by Revealing to Us the Reality of Life – v. 22-25
To fully understand God’s revelation in Exodus 15 we need to read chapters 13-14. In summary, Moses decrees that in remembrance of God sparring Israel’s firstborn, all firstborn persons and animals are to be considered his. The Israelites avoid the shorter but fortified route to Canaan along the Mediterranean coast and instead travel toward Sinai. God’s guides them by a cloudy-fiery pillar a visible sign of God’s presence and Moses is told that Pharaoh has sent a chariot army to recapture the children of Israel. The approach of the Egyptian army creates panic until God parts the Red Sea so they can cross. The pursuing Egyptian army pursues after them but when they get into the middle of the Sea God clothes the mouth of the water and the army drowns.
Moses leads a worship service after their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. But just three days later they find themselves in a desperate, dry, and depressed situation. There’s no water to drink. And the water they did find was bitter and undrinkable.
Here they are just got through worshipping God for their deliverance but now finds themselves in a bitter situation.
Have found yourself in situations that you can’t seem to get yourself out of? God just lead them out of bondage by parting the Red Sea and killing Pharaoh’s army with the mouth of the Red Sea. Now they approach another desperate situation where they begin to complain about not having nothing to drink. How soon do we forget the presence, power, and participation of God during hard times?
Here’s what we need to understand about God’s healing, God can heal you emotionally. They panicked at the Red Sea as the army approached and now they panic again because there’s no water. There’s no quenching of their thirst. There are two (2) realities of life that affect us emotionally:
1. Life’s Suffering – Reality: Life will be hard sometimes.
There is a unique cross-reference to Exodus 15:22-27 found in James 5:13-18. Verses 13 and 14 starts with a series of questions, the first being in verse 13; “Is anyone among you suffering?”
Hard times is a part of life and just because we are Christians doesn’t mean we won’t experience trouble.
2. Bodily Sickness - The third question is found in verse 14; “Is anyone among you sick?” You will get sick in life, be it life threatening or non-life threatening.
Suffering and sickness has a way of toying with our emotions. Nobody likes being sick and nobody likes to suffer. Yet, the reality of life is that we will have hard times and we will get sick. But the question is how do you respond to these two (2) realities?
The text offers two (2) responses, where do you fall in your response to suffering and sickness:
a. Complain – v. 24 says; “And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’”
b. Pray – v. 25 says; “And he (Moses) cried out to the Lord…”
What we need to understand about the reality of life is that sickness and suffering will come to try us in the area of our trust in God. Do you trust God in sickness and health, for richer or poorer? Do you trust Him on the mountaintop or the valley low?
Do you trust God when the reality of life hits your door? If you trust God there’s only one true and accurate response, go to God in prayer.
God can heal you emotionally!
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ii. God heals by Redeeming Life – v. 25
These verses in Exodus 15:22-27 speaks of two (2) healings, spiritual and physical. Verse 25 speaks of spiritual healing and verse 26 speaks of physical healing. Let’s deal with spiritual healing.
Moses cries out to God in response to the children of Israel’s complaint of not having anything to drink. God answers Moses prayer by showing him a log (tree). Moses takes the tree and throws it in the bitter water. Here’s the miracle, the water was made sweet.
The purpose of bitter waters is to test us, I believe, spiritually.
1 Peter 1:6-7 says: “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, [7] that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ”.
Tests and trial in life will do one of two (2) things; draw you closer to God or push you further away from God. We need to understand that trials, test, and tribulations come to show us how much we need God. While I believe God is able to heal us physical, I believe our spiritual healing is much more important than physical healing. When you and I trust God for life eternal it provides for us hopeful living beyond the suffering and sickness we face in this life.
There is little doubt that the healing of bitter waters by a tree is a foreshadowing of another tree, the tree of Calvary. 1 Peter 2:24 says; “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed”.
Here Peter quotes Isaiah 53:5-6;
“But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
[6] All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
This passage of scripture is so misquoted and misused by so many in the church. These verses are often quoted as a defense for physical healing when in fact it refers to spiritual healing through salvation.
What good is pursuing physical healing when your soul is destined for eternal damnation?
When you’ve been healed spiritually through the receiving of Christ, you have victory over sin, death, and the grave. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:56-57; “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
God heals us by saving us!
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iii. God heals with the Requirements of Life – v. 26
Verse 26 poses some issues for me due to the fact that the verse seems to imply, “If we disobey God’s word we will receive a disease as punishment?” Hmmmm, is this really true?
Read the text again:
"If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you."
The word “If” suggest that maybe you will or may be you won’t. But, if you do, I will preserve and if you don’t, I will poison you.
Is our God vengeful like that? Of course not! In this text, I believe, God is setting boundaries for the Israelite people to insure that they don’t get out of hand. Let me remind us that while God loves the sinner, sin has consequences that can include sickness, disease, and ultimately death. Here’s what I mean, having sex is in direct violation to God’s standard for marriage relationship. The sexual act is sin. The consequence is STD (A Sexual Transmitted Disease), HIV/AIDS, etc. What about drinking, smoking, and eating? Are they sinful acts of sin that cause sickness, disease, and death in the body? The Bible speaks of drinking and eating in moderation. It doesn’t speak of smoking? However, how much is too much, I don’t know? However, when moderation becomes excessive then you have a problem. Too much drinking can cause liver problems, smoking can cause lung cancer, eating can cause diabetes. God calls us to be holy for our body is His temple. All impurities that affect our ability to be holy is in violation of God’s expectation and is sin.
The point of focus is that God has set boundaries for us in His Word to help assist us in a spiritually healthy balanced life that ultimately protects us from bodily sickness and disease.
God is not a vengeful God. Instead, God is a gracious God. That’s why many of have been kept from a number of sicknesses in life. Not because you were so good and moderate (in your mind). God was gracious to you and kept some serious sicknesses from you.
This text teaches us that God heals us with His Word. Three (3) principles are given:
- The Perseverance of God’s Word In healing – v. 26a
Many Christians have been healed not by some laying on the hands, oil placed on the forehead, healing clothe, someone blowing on them or whatever scam we can come up these days. We’ve been healed because of our endurance in the Word of God before, after, and during our sickness. I don’t need a prayer healing service to be healed, give me His Word. God can speak healing from His Word and I can be healed right in the morning worship service during the preaching moment. Genuine healing is found in the Word of God which extends far beyond physical healing. The Word provides spiritual healing. I can rejoice in God in my sickness, healed or not, because “It is well with my soul!”
- The Priority of God’s In Healing v. 26b
We’re not only to persevere in the Word of God but we should also make the Word of God a priority in everything we do. The text says; “…do what is right in His sight.” One of the major issues I see as believers (and with non-believers) is that we love talking about the blessings of God but we ignore our responsibility in receiving blessings. There are some blessings that I like to call inadvertent blessings. It’s called grace! Blessings come because God is good like that. Then there are intentional blessings. These are blessings that come because we’ve lined ourselves up with God’s expectations to be blessed. Deuteronomy 28:1-5 says: "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: "Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. "Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
Here’s my point; make the Word of God a priority in your life and your blessing is sure to come.
- The Promise of God’s Word For Healing – v. 26c
God says in the “C” clause of verse 26: “I will put none of these diseases on you…” Praise God! Here’s my point and I’m moving on: God never runs out of healing power!
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iv. God’s healing is Refreshing – v. 27
Then they came to Elim, where there [were] twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters.
This final verse encourages us in a tremendous way in regards to God’s healing power.
When God heals it’s SATISFYING. Notice something extremely important as I close this message, verse 22-23 shows that the children of Israel had not water. But in verse 27 they have 12 wells of water. Verses 22-23 show their disappointment but verse 27 shows their delight. God moves them from a dry, thirsty, frustrating, stressful place of panic to place of satisfaction. That’s what God’s healing will do for you, satisfy you.
When God heals it’s STABLIZING. There are twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees. The palm trees at Elim was a source for more water. They didn’t have one tree but seventy palm trees. Isa 12:3 says: “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation”. Psalms 23 says; “He leads me beside still waters.” Here’s my point; when God heals you, your faith is strengthened so that the next time you face the realities of life, suffering and sickness, you won’t panic because you source of spiritual water to draw from that will hold you together during hard times.
When God heals it’s SECURED! Read the text, verse 27, “…they camped by the river.” Here is the final analysis on healing; “Stay with God, you can’t go wrong!”
