In the Bible we
learn that after Jesus rose from the dead HE performed so many signs and
wonders that there would not be enough room in all the world for the records of
them (Jn 21:25) In the gospel of Matthew there are over five references to
general physical healing, Mark there are over 12, Luke there are over 14, and
in John there are over 4. This was a
large part of Jesus’ ministry. There are
three out of many key characteristics that came with healing that I would like
to take a look at. The first
characteristic is FAITH. In the Bible healing
was either a result of faith or to foundationalize faith. In Scripture it tells us that people were
healed and they believed! Jesus recognized
that we are a people that unless our physical needs were met we would very
rarely be able to focus on anything else.
Now there were instances of people trying to get to Jesus because they
already believed that they would be healed if they could just get close enough;
the woman with the blood disorder (now believed to be hemophilia) thought if I
could only touch the hem of HIS garment I would be healed. And what was Jesus’ response? “Your
faith has made you well,” right there we need to believe that God can
physically restore us. We do not always
have to be the ones to reach out, often Christ would meet those in HIS travels
and heal them and their faith would be solidified or restored for example the
resurrection of Lazarus. So right there we see that healing was used as a tool
to show God’s love to human beings, to restore humans to a closer version of
the God-made image we were meant to be. The second characteristic in healing, not just
physical healing but this goes for internal and spiritual as well is
compassion, Matthew 14:14 says that “when
Jesus saw the multitude HE had compassion on them and healed their sick.” When we are healed, or we pray for others’
healing or we are the direct tool that God uses to facilitate healing there
must be compassion for the human condition. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the
second greatest commandment we are given; let compassion be that love! The third characteristic I would like to look
at is discernment. It is an
uncomfortable reality for those who pray for healing but are not healed and yet
all of the other factors are in place for a great miracle; it just may not be
God’s timing. In Scriptures there is a
man paralyzed on a mat and Jesus does not heal him right away but forgives him
of his sins. Did that mean that Jesus
did not have compassion on this man?
Certainly not! But at that moment
HIS discernment was for something greater to show that not only could the man
be forgiven of his sins but also healed which Jesus then did to astound those
speaking against HIM.
The next portion I
would like to look at is spiritual healing; the most important one in my
opinion because everything else stems from this; spiritual healing, the
reforming part of healing. This was
Christ’s primary mission that we might have a way to be reformed and restored
under God. This is also the type of
healing we are to preach, because while bodily healing is important; spiritual
healing is top priority. In Matthew
10:28 Jesus said, do not fear those who kill the body but fear he that can kill
the body and the soul. I firmly believe
and have seen evidence both personal and in others that sin is the most degenerative
disease there is. I read an account of a
young man once who started as a young boy with lustful endeavors; an
inappropriate magazine peak here, a lustful thought there- and as the years
went by the sin began to degenerate him, little things began to turn into big
things, what some would think inconsequential eventually turned into the
criminal to the point where the now middle aged man was suffering from the
effects of sexual sin that had destroyed everything in his life, like an
addiction to heroin or another drug.
Addictions are considered diseases why not sin? Spiritual healing is the
only way to treat that illness; and when Christ comes again that disease will
be made extinct. A theologian by the
name of John Piper said this “Christ is
walking among us. Not because we are so much fun to be with but because he
loves to make house calls on patients who glory in his medical expertise. He is
not partial to the healthy. But he has a special fondness for the homeliest,
weakest, sickliest patients whose eyes sparkle when he enters the room.” Jesus said it is not the healthy that
need a doctor but the ill. He was not
talking about physical healing at that point but spiritual healing. And like the physical healing section of this
sermon I have three characteristics I want to address that come with spiritual
healing. The first is true repentance. You have to be at your wits end and know that
you cannot do it; you are not the great person all your friends think and that
you need to face the darkest shadows of your heart and let God deal with
it. The second characteristic is
readiness. We need to be ready to change,
to receive that spiritual healing. A
child will scream when you try to remove a band-aid to clean a wound but what
they don’t understand is that it needs to be cleaned, purified, and exposed to
the air to heal. Psalm 23 says “HE
restores my soul.” Matthew 8 says “That evening they brought to him many who
were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed
all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
“He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” Christ is willing, ready,
and able to do all this and more but we must be ready to change. Repentance literally means to intend to
change; the disease of sin cannot be treated without a change in lifestyle. The third characteristic of spiritual healing
is dependence. Once we are saved, it is
not a one time deal; we need daily treatments, hourly treatments, and minute
treatments until Christ comes again or we go to Glory. A pastor in Australia, once told me when I
was quite disheartened about the condition of my own spiritual healing that we
will never get rid of all the garbage inside of us until Christ comes but as
long as it is a little less each day and a little more of the light; then we
are on the right path. In a Christian
magazine I read once a saved drug user was asked about how he dealt with withdrawal
symptoms, how he beat his addiction. He
chuckled and responded, I just simply replaced one addiction that leads to
death with another that leads to life. And
from that dependence comes the internal healing and our third topic. In the KJV
Bible there are over 400 places where the word peace is mentioned. It is included in the Fruits of the Spirit
and it is a by-product of internal healing.
It may be immediate, it may be over a long period of time, but you and I
will feel that peace, that internal healing.
The famous WWII theologian, pastor, and underground freedom fighter
Dietrich Bonheoffer wrote that he felt only peace as his execution approached
because it was not the end but the beginning.
This life in the grand spectrum of eternity will be only a faded memory
of suffering if we make the right choices in Christ. In Psalm 147 it says “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” What are the characteristics that go
along with this internal healing? First
of all, spiritual healing must come first.
You cannot know the healing power of emotions permanently until you have
been saved by Jesus Christ. You may find
things that can fill the void or your brain may overload to the point you feel
numb and you think that is peace but it isn’t.
Internal healing is peace and only peace comes from the Lord! The second characteristic of internal healing
is acceptance. We must accept that there
are things that are out of our control; we must accept and give all things to
God. “Trials, testing, and tribulation are part of life. But all of it
God uses for good to those who love God and are called according to His
purposes” (Romans 8:28). The sooner
we stop fighting and give it all up to God we learn to feel that peace because
we know that our problems and our past are in the hands of HIM who is greater
than he who is in the world. The third
and final characteristic of internal healing and overall healing in general is
the evidence. We all have our Christian
salvation stories; The Bible said faith without works (proof) is dead, meaning
that if God has healed you then you are the living evidence in your thoughts,
words, deeds, and interactions and you cannot help but shout it from the
rooftops how grateful you are to God-I know I couldn’t; but it took me a long
time to really see what God had done for me, and it took me a couple of really
close calls to realize that even when I fail HE does not. This brings me to my next part;
evangelism.
It is sometimes
called the Great Commission, go out and preach the Gospel to all the nations of
the world, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is called the Good News and too often as
Christians we hold the good news and knowledge of our healing, whether it is
physical, internal, or spiritual to ourselves.
In the Bible it says, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that
is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it
under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in
the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Mt. 5:14-16)
Now I am the guiltiest one of all; for years I was apathetic about my
faith, too afraid I was going to offend someone in this PC world; but the thing
is, truth is uncomfortable because it convicts us of something that we know we
are missing. One of the best articles I
read on the importance of evangelism was written by a famous atheist. Penn Jillett an avid atheist and magician
wrote an article chastising religious people that don’t evangelize. He said “How
much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and
not tell them that?” “I’ve always said
that I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all.
If you believe that there’s a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to
hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not really worth
telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. “I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of
a doubt, that a truck was coming at you, and you didn’t believe that truck was
bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is
more important than that.” Now that
being said I have more issues with atheism than hairs on my balding head but if
a person who believes in literally nothing gets this frustrated then how much
more should we be frustrated when we don’t tell that coworker, that friend,
that person crying on the street because of the sheer hopelessness of their
life?
We don’t do it
because Christians are better than people; we are still sinners, we will still
sin until the end of days. We evangelize
because we are the living evidence of hope in this world. When a young Christian chooses Godly living
over the world that’s proof; when coworkers shun someone because they are
different and we go out of our way to love them that’s proof. And when we say I had this physical illness,
mental disease, or crippling emotional void and it is gone because of the love
of Christ Jesus that is proof! But why
don’t we see these mass conversions and revival meetings of old? Where are the days of Pentecost, if we have
been healed mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually should we not be
going at all costs to the lost? When I
was living in China
I heard of an underground house church that had the most interesting of
locations to meet, it wasn’t in some hidden attic. It was not in some backroom of a shop. It was out on the streets. They would sing, pray together, and then go
to serve the poor and destitute and while serving them whisper the Gospel to
these lost souls. Why are we not seeing
more situations like that? I believe it
is for a few reasons; the first reason is we are afraid of offending
people. We have become nervous of
preaching in a nation founded upon Christian ideals when there are Christians
disappearing in Iran. What is the counter measure? Don’t care, I would rather have someone
dislike me for my faith than like me for the lie I was living and when you are
not living as the same person in private, in public, at work, and at church you
are living a lie. The second reason is that
as Christians we believe evangelizing is something mystical, set aside as a
gift of the Holy Spirit; and yet it is simply inviting your friend, or as we
say in Aus your mate to church; you tell them you believe they’ll like it; if
they respond that it’s not really their thing, you reply that they have not
tried all the churches and don’t know all the Christians, give it a shot! I know I am making it simpler than it often
is but that is how we should view it, simple, we are told that to inherit the
Kingdom we must be like children, simple!
The final two reasons I believe that we are not evangelizing is that we
expect mass and immediate results, and we often worry about not expressing
ourselves properly. Often times we go
out on a limb to witness to someone only to be shot down, even though Christ
told us that this would happen; “many are
called but few are chosen”; HE said that very few could walk the straight
and narrow path. Often times when we
witness we are sowing seeds for others to harvest but don’t worry for the
harvest is ripe, we have crops to harvest whom other believers have planted;
but they may take seasons; lastly I
believe we do not evangelize as a spiritual people because we are afraid we
will not express our message clearly.
This is why we are told to live the proof; I am reminded of Moses; by
his own admission he was not a very good speaker, modern historians and
theologians theorize he may have had some sort of speech impediment; but the
Lord God gave Moses his brother Aaron as a speaker and miracles to show as
evidence. See God is not limited by our circumstances;
HE is only limited by our choices. When
will we as a people become so excited about the healing work of the Cross that
we cannot sit idly while others announce to the world that Jesus Christ is
Lord, and we have risen with HIM to new life.
And if you are worried about your past don’t be God’s purposes are not
limited by your past HE is only concerned about your future.
I am going to
finish off with a paraphrased quote by the famous evangelist and healer Smith
Wigglesworth. Smith was a minister who
in the later half of the 19th century, early half of the 20th
toured around the world, as far as New Zealand evangelizing and
healing. He was a crude speaker with a
thick British accent, he was uneducated, a simple plumber, a man of meager
denominational training; and yet he healed hundreds by direct contact, mass
healings, and even anointed handkerchiefs.
He used it as a blessing to show the love of God demonstrated through
the sacrifice of HIS Son Jesus Christ.
Smith said “The Lord has saved me to do ‘is work, I ‘annot sleep until I
have lead at least one person to the Lord.”
Smith at times would often be found wandering the streets witnessing
until he found that one; the Lord healed him mentally, emotionally, physically,
and he wanted no, he had to pay it forward by spreading the Good News, let’s
pray.
