This morning I would like to talk again about Divine healing. God can heal our physical body of disease and sickness. Now most all of you know that I have had a total healing this month of fourth stage melanoma cancer. I had 10 different sites on my body where cancer was growing. The radiologist said there was complete resolution of every one of these sites. Obviously, I am very happy and very grateful about that.
But my beliefs about divine healing must not be formed from my experience. It is a bad idea to make doctrine from our experience. But because of the cancer I had and the struggle and battle I had against it, it forced me back to a study of the Word of God, and as a result, I have become more bold about prayer. It’s no coincidence that I have gotten a healing from cancer. I think God is telling me something! I believe He is saying in His Word and also in my experience, that we can have “Great Expectations” of Him to heal us when we are sick or have a disease.
-Why we can expect God to heal us:
1) Physical Healing is provided for in the substitutionary death of Christ (Isaiah 53; Matt 8:14-17).
– Isaiah 53:4-5 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.
-Now realize that some people say this passage refers to a spiritual healing only and not to physical healing. Of course, spiritual healing is a huge part of this verse. It speaks of forgiveness of sin and we should receive that forgiveness. But in the New Testament in Matthew 8:14-17 – Matthew strongly and undeniably connects this verse to physical healing. “14 When Jesus came into Peter’s home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever.
15 He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him.
16 When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.
17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: "HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES."
-So both forgiveness of sin and healing of the body are provided for when Christ died for us.
-Personally during my battle with cancer, I experienced such low points that I became particularly motivated to be healed. I will tell you that instead of focusing on the pain or on my plight, I focused on this Bible verse and on the rest of the passage in Isaiah 53 which Matthew quotes. I repeated to myself and God and anyone who would listen, “By His stripes I am healed”. I believe that this stance formed the basis for part of my healing.
2) Healing sickness is part of the blessings of the Law (Exodus 15:26) – “And He said, ‘If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer’."
-Now some people believe this is not a very strong argument to support divine healing today because it is from the Old Covenant arrangement between God and Israel. We don’t sacrifice sheep in the temple because of this bedrock distinction between Israel’s covenant with God and the New Covenant in Christ. But this verse does establish this principle: that physical health and healing was not just to be used to get people’s attention as a “sign gift”. A sign gift means God performs miracles to attract attention to new revelation that He is presenting to man. Some say there were basically only three time periods when God used signs and miracles for new revelation – To introduce the Law during Moses time, to introduce the prophets during Elijah’s time and the introduction of the Messiah Jesus.
-But I believe this verse totally discredits that argument because the promise of physical health and healing was held out from Moses until Jesus. Physical health in the OT was a longstanding promise; not an exception. And this passage in Exodus shows God’s heart to His children – that ideally and in general, He wants them not to suffer and He wants them to be in health. There is also a New Testament passage that states the same thing and carries forward into our time God’s positive attitude towards our health. We will study that in our fifth point this morning.
Now I want to be balanced here. God does use the hardship of the trials of sickness to draw us to Himself. But we need to know that this is not His ideal intent for us.
3) Jesus and His disciples had a huge ministry to the sick.
-The #1 motivating factor for Jesus to heal people was that people would believe in Him as Savior. But deep compassion and love for humanity was not far behind – So do we think that all that compassion is gone now?
- Matthew 14:14 – “When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick”. In Matthew 20:34 –( the healing of the blind men) “Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him”.
The Greek word for compassion is splagchnon – which refers to a persons “bowels”. The people of Jesus’ day placed the seat of emotions in the bowels. Today we might refer to the seat of emotions as the heart. We would say the sight of this needy crowd with their sick friends and relatives “broke Jesus’ heart”.
-Jesus feels our pain when we suffer. He is not cold and stoic.
4) Jesus said distant followers would heal sickness (Mark 16:17-18).
Mark 16:17 - "These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
-This passage is part of what we call “the Great Commission” in Mark’s gospel. Now most Bibles have some sort of note in the margin that says that verses 9-20 are not in two of the oldest and best Greek manuscripts of the New Testament – “Aleph” and “B” don’t include this section. And, some biblical scholars believe this passage was added later by some scribe. Obviously if this passage is genuine, it is a powerful evidence that God wishes us to participate in miracles regularly.
First, before I comment on the genuineness of this passage, I want to give you a little background on what is called the “transmission” of the Bible – the process of getting it from Mark’s pen to the Bible pages in front of us. We need to know that the New Testament has far more manuscripts and copies than any other ancient book. Some critics of the Bible say “The Bible was copied so many times” –but what they don’t realize is that fact strengthens our confidence in the Bible because we see how close the copies are to each other. Now we also need to know that there are some variations in the copies so we are left to determine which copy has the original writing of Mark in this case. This study of the many copies is called “Textual Criticism”.
-Now the monk who copied the “B” manuscript which leaves these verses out, left a huge blank opening where these verses would have been copied as if to make the statement that he was aware of their existence and that he knew they perhaps should be included.
-Also, a huge number of ancient manuscripts and commentaries include these verses and regard them as genuine.
-And if these verses are left out, since they are the closing verses of the book, that would mean that the gospel of Mark ends with Mark 16:8 – “They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” – that is, at least to me, extremely unlikely.
-I think these verses should be included and we should believe that Jesus promised that signs – including laying hands on the sick will accompany His Word until His coming. These verses are a once for all statement about the abilities of Jesus followers since this is His Great Commission which are His instructions, not just to the apostles but to all His followers until He returns.
5) God has declared His desire for our physical health (3 John 2).
- 3 John 1-2 – “The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.”
-I believe there is an unhealthy Christian body vs. soul duality – Some people believe that God is not concerned about our physical health, He is only concerned about our spiritual health. But this verse teaches that God has equal concern – the pendulum has swung too far.
Now God can accomplish a lot through our suffering, keeping us weak in ourselves and dependent on Him, making us a testimony to His power but He can also do a lot through healing – let’s expect more from God. As James 5 says clearly, “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much”.
-Let’s pray boldly and expect God to move to heal our sicknesses.
