There is a Healer in the house
Matthew 8:1-8:17 Rev. Reinhard Bonnke In the morning of November 30th 2001, Daniel Ekechukwu,, the pastor of the Power Chapel Evangelical Church in Onitsha, with his friend Kingsley took a Christmas present of a goat to his father in a village near the town of Owerri. Daniel drove his 20-year-old Mercedes. On the way back home, traveling down a steep road, the Mercedes’ brakes failed. Daniel could do nothing. Gathering speed the vehicle hurtled downhill and smashed into a stone pillar.
Without a seat belt Daniel was catapulted violently forward. His head hit the windscreen and the steering wheel and knob punched into his body. Daniel’s friend Kingsley shocked though not badly hurt, turned to Daniel, hoping all was well. But the sight appalled him. Blood was pouring from Daniel’s nose from a head injury, and then he began vomiting blood from heavy internal hemorrhage.
Daniel was taken to the local clinic but they decided he needed to be transferred to a larger facility 1 ½ hours away on a bumpy road. As they carried him to the ambulance, Daniel felt his life ebb away. At the hospital he was declared dead and transferred to the mortuary back in his father’s hometown.
The mortuary having no cold storage facilities, the mortician administered the usual chemical injection and prepared the body for embalming on the following morning. With a staff member he laid the body out on a mortuary slab between two other dead people. Everyone then retired for the night.
Meanwhile Daniel’s wife convinced her husband would live again, wanted his body taken to the church in Onitsha where Reinhard Bonnke was to speak at a dedication ceremony. On Sunday December 2nd (two days after he had been declared dead, over the protests of Daniel’s father, the mortuary officials and just about everyone else, Nneka dressed the corpse and loaded him in the coffin to the church—another 1 ½ hour drive.
At the church, officials initially refused to allow the body to be brought in but finally allowed it to be taken to the children’s area. The corpse brought in the upper room and laid out on a table. The head pastor’s son, Pastor Paul, Jr., and another pastor on the church staff, attended to this and found rigor mortis had stiffened the limbs.
Two other staff pastors, Lawrence and Luke joined them to guard the body. Meanwhile Reinhard Bonnke knew nothing of this and was preaching and praying upstairs in the main auditorium. After a while the pastors noticed a slight twitching of the stomach of the corpse.
Then the corpse drew a breath, and presently irregular breathing took place in “short bursts” as they reported. Encouraged, the pastors threw themselves into powerful petitionary prayer, They asked for fans to be brought in to give Daniel more air to breathe. As this news broke out in the sanctuary above it created hysterical pandemonium. Then, said Pastor Lawrence, at 5:15 on the Sunday afternoon, nearly two days after death had taken place, Daniel opened his eyes, sat up and leaned on Pastor Lawrence.
The once-dead man not only rose from the dead but the serious injuries, which had brought about his death, were also healed without the slightest trace.
Isa 53:5 5But 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.
A. Does God still perform miracles? You bet He does. And I believe He If you are willing you can
make me clean."
1.There are some who say that we can insist that God provide us with these benefits because
they are our due.
B. Everywhere I look in the Scripture, those people came to the master in a reverant, subservant
position and asked the Lord for healing – in may cases begged the Lord to heal them.
Mark 1:40-41- 40Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying
to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” v-41“I am willing; be cleansed.”
Matt 9:27 two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, “Son of David, have does it
today in the same way and according to the same standards, if you will, that he did in
Matthew.
So I’d like to look at this passage today and consider together How does Jesus heal--and there are four things I’d like to note in particular. The first is that Jesus heals according to His own...
1. The Prerogative is the Lord’s
vv. 2-3 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.
What must we understand here? That the choice to heal is his,
" Matt 9:27-30 27 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and
saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. 28 And when he was come into the house, the
blind men came to him: And Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
They said unto him, Yea, Lord. 29Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith
be it unto you. 30 And their eyes were opened;
1. In every instance in the Word those who come to Jesus for healing, came asking, hoping,
praying, believing, sometimes even begging but never demanding.
2. I think this man with Leprosy displays the perfect attitude in coming to Jesus--Lord I know
you’re able to do this--will you?
C.I don’t always understand God’s purposes, I don’t understand how works but that never means
I doubt his power, or his love for me.
1. Yet I understand the prerogative to heal is his alone. But note with me also Jesus’ response, he says basically "You’re right, it is my choice--I choose to heal you."
2. We must God is sovereign should never mean that we doubt his willingness to heal, More on
that in the last point.
We understand then that the healer heals by his own prerogative, secondly we should know that he heals by his own...
2. Power
8-9 "...Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ’Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ’Come,’ and he comes..." and he does it.”
A. What does the Centurion understand?
1. He understands Jesus authority,
2. His power over disease.
B. He can heal at a distance as well as he healed the Leper with a touch.
1. But let there be no illusions on our part that we somehow hold the power of healing. We
don’t . Jesus and Jesus alone is the healer.
2. We must understand that even though faith is an important part, it’s not faith in our faith
but faith in the power of Jesus, for he heals by his own infinite power.
He who heals by His own Prerogative heals also by His own Power and thirdly that it is
he who establishes the...
3. Prerequisite-FAITH
Matt 8:10, 13 10When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. 13And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
A. Jesus honors the man’s faith
Now when I say faith is a prerequisite I must remember God’s sovereignty. But overwhelmingly
the testimony of scripture is that faith is somehow tied in with healing.
a. Why? I don’t know
1. I do know that faith is the only thing that the scriptures honors among men
Perhaps it’s because FAITH serves as a foundation for any relationship and our Faith in Him and his power gives him a foundation to build a bridge between us, I’m not sure but I know he asks for faith from us.
B. And where healing is concerned faith is repeatedly shown to be important.
Illust: Doctors Have Faith in FaithA survey conducted by the American Academy of Family
Physicians shows that ninety-nine percent of doctors believe a relationship exists between
faith and physical healing. Recently, more than one thousand health-care professionals
met at Harvard Medical School to examine the connection between spirituality and healing.
Doctors’ faith in faith was bolstered by a California study of the effect of prayer on recovery
from heart problems. About two hundred heart patients were assigned to Christians who
prayed for them, while an equal number, a control group, received no known prayers.
Neither group knew about the prayers, yet those who received prayer developed half the
complications that were experienced by those in the control group A similar study by the
Dartmouth Medical School examined the effect of prayer on healing when the patients
prayed for themselves. The death rate six months after bypass surgery was 9 percent for
the general population but 5 percent for those who prayed for their own healing. And none o
f the deeply religious patients died during the period of the study.
So then the Healer’s prerequisite from us is Faith. Finally, let’s get to my favorite here and that is that God heals according to his...
Prerogative-The Lord’s
Power –From the Lord
Prerequisite-Faith
4. Plan of God
v.17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: "He took up our infirmities
(physical weakness or ailment) and carried our diseases." (Isa 53-By his stripes we are
healed!!)
A. This particular passage in it’s context makes it clear that healing is a part not only of his
earthly ministry but a part of what he accomplished for us at the cross.
1. But the prophets make clear that healing is a central part of what Messiah would
accomplish.
a. Why is that important? Well for two reasons I can think of.
b. 1--Sickness is a part of the curse of the fall, and Jesus came to undo the curse of
the fall so that applies to us spiritually undoubtedly, but physically as well.
c. 2--We need to understand that God has a plan for healing and wholeness, yes He
heals by his prerogative but His plan is for wholeness.
B. Yes we live in a fallen world,
C. Yes the curse affects our bodies,
D. Yes the last enemy, death is yet to be fully defeated,
E. BUT God has a plan for healing and wholeness.
F Healing is a part of the kingdom that Christ established by His work on the cross. .
G. I believe that God intends to work healing regularly and systematically giving us a glimpse of
the future complete fulfillment of His kingdom.
H. I come as the Leper saying "Lord if you are willing you can"
1. By your own Prerogative, You are the Healer
2. By Your own Power, You are the Healer
3. By Your Prerequisite, I come in Faith, to You the Healer
4. Because I believe it is Your plan to be the Healer.
Mark 6:4- 6 Jesus said to them, Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.
HE COULD NOT DO ANY MIRICLES THERE, not he would not or He didn’t because they treated Him bad. Their lack of faith prevented Him from doing it!
Luke 8:46-8 But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."
47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."
- You are the healed enforcing the victory Jesus won for you. Not the sick trying to get healed.
- In North America we are raised not to believe. I am a skeptic myself. From diet pills and exercise devices to the ads for the price of a new car we are conditioned to know if it sounds to good to be true - it is. We carry that skeptical cynicism into our faith life. Unfortunately:
- Skepticism does not unlock the supernatural – faith does.
JEHOVAH-ROPHI
“I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Ex. 15:26)
