When Christians Get Sick

At the conclusion of the service today, we are going to act upon the Word of God. Therefore, I appeal to you to listen and engage with me completely. In a few minutes, we are going to be part of God doing many miracles here today. We are going to be a part of many people:

*Being healed emotionally.

*Being healed physically.

*Being healed relationally.

*Being healed spiritually.

I want to appeal to you: do not miss your miracle.

Last week, I talked in great detail about the subject:

“Why Christians Get Sick.” Through deep study of

God’s Word and some key words in the Bible, we concluded the following about why Christians get sick:

(1) Imperfect world

(World is fallen, sinful, death, sickness)

(2) Poor choices

(Disobey God, Sinful Choices, Reap-Sow)

(3) Satanic attack

(CROSS has reversed the curse—Take authority)

(4) Demonstrate God’s glory

(Blind man healed—Through suffering-sickness)

Unquestionably, we elevated two guiding influences from God’s Word:

(1) God ALONE is our Healer.

(2) God can heal miraculously or medicinally

or through a combination of the two.

Now, with this background and with us having reviewed some of what we talked about, I want to speak to you today about: When Christians Get Sick.

People, including spiritual leaders and men and women with spiritual gifts of healing, can say all day long: “Christians don’t have to be sick.” Yet, everyone gets sick and dies, including those people. Hopefully, our lifestyles and convictions may result in “less” sickness and suffering that we bring on ourselves, but ultimately Christians do get sick. Therefore, let’s look at God’s Word, the Bible, says about, “When Christians Get Sick.”

Have you ever heard of a man named, “Trophimus”?

Paul writes these words in 2 Timothy 4:20, “Erastus has remained at Corinth; Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.”

Evidently, Erastus and Trophimus were Christ-followers and partners in ministry with the Apostle Paul. While this man Erastus remained in Corinth, one of his partners was Trophimus. God was using Paul to pray for and see many people healed physically. Yet, he had to leave one of his close associates in Miletus because he was sick. Why didn’t Paul heal him? Did Paul not have enough faith? Could he not heal whom he wanted?

Biblical Insight: Paul could only heal people according to the will of God; he could not heal whomever he wanted.

(Nor can anyone else - we are all subject to the will of God and His purpose.)

T.S.: This morning I want us to evaluate three passages of Scripture. The first one may not be familiar; the second one we talked about in great detail last week; and the third one most of you are familiar with. Once we look at these passages, we are going to lift up three commonalities in each of them. These three commonalities that will become glaring to us will become the three actions that all Christians need to take when we get sick.

For simplicity, let’s identify it this way:

Passage #1: Isaiah 38:1-5, 16, 21

*When Hezekiah found out he was going to die, the first thing he did was pray! By going to God, he exhibited faith in God alone—He knew who could heal and restore him.

THEN, in verse 21 Isaiah told him that they were going to take a lump of figs (FIGS have a healing influence—their nutrients are believed to have a healing power.) Isaiah understood this and scholars believe they took a lump of figs, which have a medicinal value, mixed them with olive oil, also used for healing, and applied it to the infected areas of Hezekiah’s body, making a soft mass and made some kind of medical dressing to keep it in place. They applied this medicinal influence to the inflamed areas of Hezekiah’s body. In time, Hezekiah was healed and then in verse 22, he asked Isaiah when he could go to the Temple to worship.

Passage #2: Acts 28:8-9

We talked about this passage in great detail last week.

Paul prayed to God and demonstrated faith in the Lord. Here is what I want us to lift out of this passage:

*We see in v. 8 that God used Paul to heal some people supernaturally and instantaneously. (Healed: “iaomai”)

God used the instantaneous miracle to draw others.

*We see in v. 9 that when the islanders heard of the miraculous healing, those who had diseases and were sick came to Paul and Luke and they cured.

(Cured: therapeuo) different Greek word used which means to serve, to do service, to treat, to care for, and restore to health. {Medicinal Value}

*Both resulted in healing: One was instantaneous, while the other was through treating people, probably since Luke was with Paul, with some kind of medicinal process. Luke was a physician.