Divine Healing

What I'd like to talk with you about this morning is a topic that is a very intimate topic in terms of our relationship with God. Cody was talking about approaching God as a friend, having a relationship with God. I can think of no more intimate aspect of that relationship than what it is we call upon God to do when we come down with a sickness. We ask a minister to come and to anoint us for our illness, and we place it in our desire to have God heal us.

We obey the command and teaching in Scripture to call for an elder of the church, and we place our life in God's hands. That is an extremely important area of our life. We are dependent upon God for everything. There is not a breath we draw. There is not a meal we eat or anything that happens to us that we cannot—nor should we—neglect to give thanks and to acknowledge that God is the giver of all, and it is in Him that we live and move and have our being, as the apostle Paul said in Acts 17. Literally, we do. There's not a day we cannot go through without giving God thanks for the day, for the experience, for the breath of life.

We are completely dependent upon God. That is a matter of faith. We believe that, and we approach our life in that way. When it comes to our physical well-being, the mechanics that operate within us on this physical life, we are certainly fearfully and wonderfully made. We recognize that, and we also know, though, that things happen through injury, through the contraction of an illness or disease, sometimes temporary, sometimes long-term and debilitating. We look to God for our healing. At least we should. We are told in Scripture to do that.

I'd like to review a few basics on this morning and look at this topic from the subject of involving God in our life when we do face a health crisis that does need God's involvement. When we do call for the elder of a church and ask him to anoint us in prayer and in faith and asking God to heal us. It is a big topic of the Scriptures. It is one throughout the years in the church that I've been involved in a number of decades in the church, starting out at age 12 as a young man, then in the ministry, through the years working with many, many people in God's church who face issues of health and ask me to anoint them.

We pray for them. We have an ongoing prayer list for healing of people and prayers going up for individuals that we hear about on a regular basis. It seems like we are always involved in this, and so we should be. Let's turn over to Mark 7. I want to look at a few examples here to begin with and see and remind ourselves just how large this is, a topic. We will look at a couple of examples here in the New Testament.

First of Christ's healing, and Mark 7. Let's begin in verse 31 and let's just use these scriptures to note that healing of individuals was a major component of Christ's ministry on this earth. In verse 31, he said again, departing from the region of Tyre in sight, and he came through the midst of the region of the Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee, back into his home area there.

They brought to him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged him to put his hand on him. He took him aside from the multitude, and he put his fingers in his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up into heaven, he sighed and he said to him, Ephatha, that is, be opened. Immediately, his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosened, and he spoke plainly.

Then he commanded them that they should tell no one, but the more he commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed him. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. And so, this is a typical example of many that we will read about in the Gospels of Christ's healing people. He did that quite frequently. People were brought to him.

There was a lot of sickness in the first century. I think we can recognize that the healing arts were not as well-developed then as they are today, in terms of medical science is concerned. They did no medicine. They did no certain things about the human body. But there was a great deal of sickness because of the nature of life at that time, and much just went untreated, or ineffectively treated.

And so, Christ's healing as part of his ministry was a very important part of just showing compassion upon people, those that he came in contact with. It was also magnified his ministry and who he was, the power of God. And so, it did that as well. And he raised people from the dead. We know the story of Lazarus, and he healed many in that regard. But it served a multitude of purposes, and not the least of which was just his compassion upon people who were suffering, who didn't have a Walgreens to run down to and get some over-the-counter topical treatment to deal with a malady nor a doctor that was readily there, didn't have Medicare, didn't have Blue Cross Blue Shield, and all of the wonderful, frankly, things that we do have access to in our modern society.

So, God had compassion upon them. Let's look over in Acts chapter 3, and let's look at this being a feature of the church after Christ's resurrection and dissension and the early church. You read through the book of Acts, and there are examples, many examples of individuals being healed in verse 1 of chapter 3 of Acts. Peter and John, it says, went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.

And the temple there in Jerusalem, there at a time of prayer. And there they saw a certain man laying from his mother's womb who was carried, and they lay daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple. So, another example of a man who was born with a lameness in his leg by no fault of his own, nor likely of his mother, and yet no treatment for that. And so, he was reduced to begging for alms of those who came back and forth in the temple. On this case, he's called Peter and John, about to go into the temple, and he asked for an offering. And fixing his eyes on him with John, Peter said, look at us. And he gave him his attention expecting to receive something. Peter said, silver and gold, I do not have, but what I do have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Peter here, through this example, we see then that any healing done by any of the men in the church here in Acts and other examples, is done in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And that is the name they invoked in faith and in confidence. The man had to take, reach out his right hand and connect with Peter's. They lifted him up, and immediately, his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he leaped, stood, and walked, and entered into the temple, walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising him. Then they knew that it was he who sat bagging alms of the beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to them.

Just as Jesus used healing, not only to have compassion upon people, but also to draw attention to the power of the word, the ministry that he was giving. So now do we see Peter and John, two of the original apostles, and you can see many other examples in the book of Acts, of healing being used to give a benefit to people, but also to draw attention to the power of God. This is not drawing attention to the men, to any human being. Healing should never be used in that way, nor should we ever look at individuals with more faith, or because they might be a favorite, or whatever. When we ask to be anointed, when we look to look to God, indeed we are looking to God.

And a minister is only an instrument that we look to and see through in that sense to God, and recognize that we are really asking God to intervene in our life, and relying upon the power of God to intervene by his will. And we are also going and should be understanding that what we are doing is far deeper than that. When we look at anointing, and we look at healing, and lives, and even deaths in the church today, we should understand something, because quite frequently we will at times come across situations where there are untimely deaths of individuals. Just recently in Cincinnati, we had the death of a two-year-old little girl in one of the congregations there. And it would be just a situation like that just flattened everyone, to be real blunt about it. And at a time like that, you wonder why. And how does that somehow, did God not hear our prayers? Was there something wrong somewhere spiritually?

Why God? And certain parents, and family, and all of us will always, we will do that at a situation like that. For an older individual who's lived out of full life, even we will understand that time comes to all of us. While at the same time, if it's our mother, father, or husband, or brother, or sister, someone close to us, we will enjoy that time of life with one another. And we don't want to see people suffer, and we don't want to let go. None of us do. And we may anoint and pray, and yet death will come. There are times that people will be healed as well. And sometimes I find that we may not always hear, we don't always hear about it, in situations where God does choose to heal the person when a prayer of faith has been made, and their lives are extended, or the particular sickness disappears. We don't always hear about that. We focus on a lot of the others, and I know sometimes we say, well, is God not healing people today? Because there's always a lot of people on the prayer list, and there are people who do die from that. But I've been in the Church of God for about 55 years, and I can say that we have always had deaths in the Church. We have always had people sick. We've always had those situations of people who may have died. You wonder why? They're too young. I remember a case in my youth. A gentleman came into church, and I thought he was old. I'm sure he probably wasn't more than 10 to 15 years older than I was at that time. But he got baptized, came into church, zealous, on fire for the truth. And almost immediately after being baptized, he was diagnosed with cancer. And within a year, a year and a half, he died. A babe in the Church.

And so I use that as an example of, we've always had that. And we've always had old people in the Church. I'm talking buss up. I'm a medic here, folks. So don't die. No one take offense about any of this. But we had older, dear elderly members 50 years ago that I well remember in the Church. And now I'm one of them. All right? So the life goes on. And so we have to look at this subject, not from any guilt-induced fear or wondering or lack of faith. But we need to look at this subject for what the Scriptures tell us in our relationship with God and in confidence and in living faith that God is the God of the living, not of the dead. And that when we elect to put our injured life in God's hands, we can expect that promise to be filled and know that it can be filled here in this life or in the life to come. And we have to view that life, and that relationship with God is something that transcends the here and now. This is one of the lessons that I have learned about faith and healing and this pilgrimage we have in this physical life and learning to sort it all out. It doesn't answer all my questions, nor yours, but we have to recognize that God is working with us. And that is one of the key things that we should understand about faith and healing. Let's look at Psalm 103. Psalm 103 In the beginning of verse 1, let's read verses 1 through 5 here. It says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forgive not all his benefits. It's a key phrase right there. We receive from God a lot of benefits. God's got the best benefits package of any employer you could ever imagine. I understand that, and then we can fit everything into that.

He gives us many benefits, and when it comes to life and health and, yes, even healing, that's one of them. He forgives our iniquities. That's a big benefit right there. Have our to know that our sins are forgiven. Who heals all your diseases. Who redeems your life from destruction. He can help us to come back out of a bad situation as we obey, as we pray, as we have faith, and we do what is right. We can see ourselves work through a time of calamity, destruction. You know, divorce can be a time of destruction. Failed marriage, failed relationships at any level, can be a time of destruction, but we can heal emotionally from those and move forward.

The loss of a job or some other disrupting aspect of our life that touches us, we can come back from that. God can redeem our life from that. That's a benefit as well. Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. God gives us that. That too is a benefit. Who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. So this is an important point here to begin to understand that God provides us with many benefits. And as he mentions this listing of them here, healing is one of those. And there will be so many factors that are contingent upon that and connected with that for us to get a full understanding even as we come to understand that. Let me ask a question and then answer it here. Sometimes this comes up as we approach the topic and we look at it and we seek to have understanding of healing. Is illness connected to sin? Is illness connected to sin? We can ask that question because of what we read over in John chapter 9. Let's turn to John 9. And this topic we need to be very careful here because sometimes people will look at sickness, prolonged sickness. I've heard people say, well, there must be a lot of sin going on in your life.

Or there must be a lot of sin in that house, that family. And I've heard those things and I've had to counsel people who have had illnesses go on for a prolonged period of time where they may wonder, have I sinned and done something to bring this on and God is punishing me or God is not hearing this or I need to yet do something. And these are typically human reactions and we should understand how this is working here. But in John chapter 9, and let's begin in verse 1, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him saying, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents? That he was born blind. Who sinned? Who sinned that this caused? Was he talking about a spiritual sin or sometimes it called a physical sin? Who sinned? And Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned. But that the works of God should be revealed in him. He said, nobody sinned.

The man was born blind from born blind. But nobody caused that by a sin, by a spiritual sin.

And I think we will read this. We might conclude, well, is there something like spiritual sin and physical sin? And this is one of those things that through the years in the church we've had kind of thinking, well, there's physical and spiritual sin. We kind of connect that into the body of Christ and all. But we have to be very, very careful because when we read through scripture, there is no reference in the Bible to what could be physical sin. Sin is spiritual.

Sin is spiritual. Now, we can break certain physical laws of health and of life, and they can bring repercussions. But that's not the same. That is not to equate that with spiritual sin.

Of the story when we say that as we read in Psalm 103, that God forgives all of our iniquities and the spiritual sins for which Christ was crucified so that we might be reconciled before God. And there is no reference in scripture again to physical sin. We cannot conclude that all illness is the result of even some physical sin like that, although in some cases there's a definite relationship. We have to be very, very careful. The body is so intricately tied together that we understand that there are going to be repercussions of things. Let me give you an example. A person is promiscuous morally. There is a very good chance that that person can contract a sexually transmitted disease. There are other types of diseases, AIDS and things that we will well know about, that can be contracted because of certain types of behavior that are sins. But we have to be very, very careful about that in the equating of all of that. There's a relationship to behavior, but adultery, fornication, immorality is a spiritual sin. It can have physical complications and consequences that can be, and in that a person can repent and yet still may have the remnants of that physical action that they may live with for the rest of their life. But the spiritual penalty can be quite easily forgiven. Understand that as all of this works out. In John chapter 5, we have another statement that we should note. I'm sorry, James chapter 5, the epistle of James.

This is a well-known verse, passage, where that, if anyone is sick, in verse 14, let him call for the elders of the church. If anyone among you is sick, let him call for the elders of church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And this very clearly lays this out as our practice in how we do this.

The prayer of faith will save a sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. The word if there puts in a qualification. Not all cases of illness can be attributed to some type of sin. And so, my point is we need to be very, very careful to distinguish between spiritual sin and physical sin, and not to rush to some type of conclusion that, well, I've done something wrong. Or somebody else has done something wrong there, and sin can be forgiven, but the illnesses that will come upon us, for the most part, are not there because of anything that anyone, the individual, or in some cases others have done. While in all cases, illness certainly is a trial, and it's something that we suffer through and work out, we must not judge that all cases of illness are the result of some type of sin in the person's life.

And that needs to be very, very careful. We will always learn lessons from all sorts of trials.

There are other types of trials that will come upon us in our life where there's not any sin that's been committed to produce the trial. You get touched by someone else's actions, and your family, perhaps, and work, or even in the church, and can create some problems and difficulties that we have to sort through and work through, but it's not because of what may be necessarily what you've done, but we will learn those lessons as we work through those.

We can't expect trials, we can expect persecution, but not all even trials and persecution that we go through are necessarily related to disobedience on our part. That's my point. They will come to we can be living pretty good lives. Sometimes somebody else's situation dramatically impacts us, and the chain effect creates difficulties and lessons for us to learn, matters to work through, in regard to that. There are numerous examples in Scripture where we see illness, but we don't see a relationship between that illness and sin. Let's look at a couple of examples. Turn back to 2 Kings 13. 2 Kings 13.

This is dealing with the prophet Elisha.

In chapter 13 and verse 14, it says, Elisha became sick with the illness of which he would die.

Joash, the king of Israel, came down to him, wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen.

And so he's mourning. He recognizes Elisha is mortally gravely ill, and unless he recovers, he's going to die. And so he's mourning over him. Elisha gives him various instructions and things to do, but he dies down in verse 20. Then Elisha died, and they buried him. And then it goes into interesting story of how a man was actually thrown into the tomb of Elisha at a later time, and when he was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, this man survived.

I mean, it just was one of those fascinating stories. But the point of it all is, Elisha was a dedicated, faithful, sovereign of God, used in a very powerful way in his day. But he became sick. Did he commit a sin? We wouldn't say that. Time and life came to him at this particular time.

Another example would be that of King Hezekiah in 2 Kings chapter 20. 2 Kings chapter 20. The illness of Hezekiah that begins to be told in verse 1.

In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, came to him and said, Thus says the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die and not live. He turned his face toward the wall, prayed to God, and said, Remember now, O Lord, I pray how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart and have done what was good in your sight. And he went bitterly.

He had done a good king. He had reformed the nation's religious practices, cleaned up the temple, reinstated sacrifices in the holy days. He was an exemplary king. Hezekiah was not a wicked king. And this is why he could say, Remember me. Remember what I have done. And God, as you know, in the story, he granted another 15 years extension to his life in this case.

So, again, we don't see the result of Hezekiah's sin that has brought this on. He was a righteous king and was used of God. And in this case, God extended his life. Then he did die.

So, there are a number of examples of this. We could go to the New Testament and just look at 1 in 2 Corinthians 12. The Apostle Paul. 2 Corinthians 12. Verse 7. Paul recounts what was taking place in his own life, in his own body. And verse 7, he said, Unless I should be exalted above measure because of his position and all the work that he had done and this and that, he said, by the abundance of the revelations, in this case, he was referring to this actual revelation God had given him of the throne of God. And he said, he figured out later on that he said, A thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would depart from me. This one of those examples, we don't know exactly what the nature of the thorn that he had, the physical problem. He asked God three times that it would depart from him. This was not a demon or anything like that. This is not how that should be understood. But Paul recognized that it was something that he should go to God for, that even Satan was involved in some way. And again, we could only speculate on that. But he said to me, God's reply in verse nine was, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Some speculated it was an eye problem that Paul had, that he was plagued with.

But we don't know that. But Paul comes to the conclusion by what God revealed to him, that God's strength was made perfect in Paul having the thorn of weakness in the flesh, and that that magnified God. He said, Therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast to my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. And in the context of this physical problem that he had, called a thorn in the flesh, Paul turns finally, after three times over a minute, we don't know how long a period, three months, longer, less, we don't know. But he came to realize, this I will live with, and I will praise God, I will deepen my relationship with God, I will take a pleasure in this.

Think about that one for a moment. There's not too many maladies that I don't know that we would want to take pleasure in. He was able to continue to function and do his job. But he came to the conclusion that in this I am strong. Looking at this, thinking about it in the terms of the life of one man of God, and applying it perhaps even into some of our own modern situations.

I think one lesson we can and should take from this is that when we have to face the mortality of those we love, or our own at a particular time, we are certainly drawn close to God. We are drawn up against and must look at our own lives. And we have the opportunity to go through an examination, a reflection, a sobriety check on our own lives of the deepest aspects of our life. Who we are, how we have lived, what we truly do believe about God, and what is the depth and the strength of the relationship that we have built. Or if we see through that, that there are some flaws, there are some weak points in that relationship with God that we may have thought was large, and God is now giving us an opportunity to deal with it. We have to accept that.

I think that that is what Paul was saying about what he had to deal with, and the others that he had come in touch with and worked with along the way in dealing with the death of people in the church, in his travels and all. We have to come to that as well.

God is working with us in this life, in these matters, and he's working with us through everything that happens to us. As we turn to him and ask his help, in the case of sickness, when we do ask for the elder of the church to come, we are turning to God and claiming that promise, and we are asking him to intervene in our life.

That then sets in motion something very, very deep and profound that we must consider.

We can't just walk casually away from what we have asked for. We have spoken to the God of creation.

We have asked for him to send one of his servants, his ministers, that we recognize, and to lay hands upon us with oil. The oil represents the Spirit of God. It's merely a symbol. It also represents God's compassion. We find oil being a symbol of many things in Scripture, the Holy Spirit, God's power. It is an agent of... when a priest was anointed, that oil flowed down completely over the priest, like the oil that flowed over there. We sing that in one of our hymns, you recall. That represents many aspects of God and his characteristics with us. That oil can heal. It's an emollient. It can soften tissue. It can soften decaying tissue as well and be used even in a physical aspect of helping our bodies.

When used in a proper way, we grow all kinds of oils over us to keep moisturized, to help with healing chap skin or whatever. Think about that in terms of that relationship, but what that oil represents. We were also asking God's intervention into our life to not only heal us, but to work with us. We're saying, Father, please pay attention to me.

And teach me and help me at this time and as I go forward, help me to number my days and those matters. I think God gives us that instruction to be anointed, and the benefit of healing our diseases, and the benefit of even placing that injured life in his hands as an opportunity for us to kind of turn and or to be turned through that and to be look and to look at God and to see God in a deeper, more profound way than we did to that point in our life. Those of us that have raised children, did you ever or were raised by your parents, whatever, wherever you find yourself here, when we were raising our two boys, from time to time, their behavior would not be what we would expect. And we might tell them to do something, and they just continue on. And we might kind of, you know, give them a little pat on the back or, you know, Ryan, Chris, we would say, go and do this. And at times, that still wasn't enough. And at times, we would literally take our sons and turn them and say, listen to me. Did you ever do that or have that done to you?

Look at me, you know, listen to me. Look me in the eye. And at times, you know, as only maybe the father can do with a child, oh, they get their, that got their attention.

All right. And then they realized, oh, yeah, he's serious, isn't he?

Or mom, mom's serious about my behavior and about this. And that would be what it would take at times to finally stop this behavior or listen to me or look at me, understand what I'm saying.

I'm your father. I'm your mother. And then we can continue that relationship and with a better understanding of what is there. I think sometimes God does that with us. I think we have to understand sickness, illness, and even death. As God continuing to work with us, we should never think that God isn't hearing us, that God has abandoned us or anyone. And if an illness ends in death, no matter the age of the individual, no matter who it is, God knows. And God has a purpose for that individual in his plan and for his collective people, a family, a congregation, whatever it might be, God knows. And I've never lost my faith that God doesn't know what he's doing.

I believe that he does. I do not profess to understand what that always is.

But in recent times, I've come to realize that at times God is using something, sometimes he will use these tragedies, maybe for us to kind of be, he's wanting to say, turn and look at me. I'm talking to you.

And there are certain, only certain moments and certain situations that he knows for each one of us that will get us to the point where then he can work with us in his perfecting of our spiritual lives before him for eternity. And he's saying, look at me. I'm talking to you. I'm working with you.

I'm working with this church. You are a part of the spiritual body of Jesus Christ.

Now, understand something. Now, each of us has to find what that understanding is based on our relationship with him, based on our faith, based on how we read the Bible.

Never let anger, never let bitterness, never let doubt overcome, push out that opportunity that is there in that moment. And sometimes that moment may be at the edge of the grave. When we have to consider those deepest, most profound parts of life. And I wonder, is God saying, look at me. I'm talking to you.

We serve a great God. We serve a merciful and a loving God. But we also serve a very powerful and serious God. And he is conforming us and working us into his image.

Genesis 1, verses 26 and 27 tell us that God created man in his image. And we are to be conformed to that image. And that image was given to us in his Son, in the flesh, to show us what he is, what he's like. And when we come to the Passover, and when we come to consider that sacrifice, as we do every year, and we think deeply about all of these scriptures that also speak to the suffering of Christ, we have to put it all into a very, very large package. Let's turn over to Isaiah 53 and just look again at that. You read this on the Passover, and there's a there is a deep meaning here in Isaiah chapter 53.

Beginning in verse 4, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. This is a Psalm foretelling of Christ's suffering. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and that is the the peace of reconciliation, the peace that comes with being made just before God. All of that was put upon him so that it could be done. And by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's the spiritual sin that is laid upon him. He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before it sheers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. And so this prophecy is then cited and connected with our own physical healing here because it says by his stripes we are healed, and we could say that that is a spiritual healing as well, but it can also mean a physical healing. There's no doubt that the spiritual connection and healing is the primary focus, but we do not nor should not ignore the physical implication of what Isaiah prophesied and what Christ did fulfill. Christ paid the price for sin and that we might be made whole in every sense of the word. And that is important to understand when it comes to that. In 1 Peter 2 and verses 21-25, Peter quotes Isaiah 53 here, and he says this, 1 Peter 2, beginning in verse 21, For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, who when he was reviled did not revile in return, when he suffered he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by who strikes you were healed, for you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. So the spiritual application of this sacrifice, Christ's sacrifice, is very clearly shown here. Our sins are forgiven, but that does not preclude the physical and even the healing of our illnesses. There is one sacrifice that was made, and that is that one complete sacrifice that Christ made, and it was for sin, and it was for a healing, a complete healing. We cannot separate out the sacrifice for sin into physical or spiritual. It is one sacrifice, and we emphasize the suffering and the death of Christ constituting one's sacrifice. We should discern it and understand it completely. Paul discusses this in 1 Corinthians 11 when it comes to the proper discernment of the body and the blood of Christ being an essential part of what we do as we consider that sacrifice, and especially every year before we take the Passover, that we do not take it in an unworthy manner. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 27 speaks to that. That statement doesn't divide the sacrifice into two parts, but what Paul is saying there is that it does connect the body of Christ with the physical healing of our bodies. We have to understand that just as the total spiritual work that is done in our bodies will not be accomplished until the resurrection, and we will not see the end result of that until the resurrection of the dead. We may often not see ultimately the even physical healing that is there and a part of that promise as well until we see that in the resurrection as well.

And we have to understand that that promise is not negated by the cessation of life at age 2, 20, or 85 in the lives of those that are people of faith and to look to God. We have to understand it in that way. We have to understand that there is a connection between the body and the sacrifice of Christ and want Him to be involved in our life spiritually and physically, and that when an illness hits, we do as the Scriptures command, we call for the elders of the church to have oil and prayer and laying on His hands because that symbolizes our connection to God through a human instrument, yes. But it is what God tells us to do, and we don't want anything to disconnect us with God in that way. The understanding of God's healing is so important to us in that way that we connect all of it together. We don't see, you know, when we're baptized, we receive God's Holy Spirit. We don't receive all of the benefits spiritually then. Those benefits come with growth and grace and knowledge through years of our walk, faith, and obedience to God. And so, as we look at the physical benefits, even of healing at times, we have to place that in the context of God working with us in a whole package according to His will, His way, and His truth throughout our life. We are under a new covenant relationship with God, and we rely on God's spiritual power to complete the process that is there. And that involves a spiritual work of character for our salvation. Sometimes the question will come up that needs to always be understood and answered in the context of all of this as well, that when we do ask for God's healing, we ask for an anointing, and we, through prayer and that, submit ourselves to God. If we then go to a doctor or employ the medical sciences, is that a lack of faith? And my answer is always no, absolutely not.

We should never feel guilty for going to a doctor. I've told people at times, and I've had, occasionally, I've had people who will not ask to be anointed.

And I've had to talk about that in sermons in years past, that they will get sick or take a treatment or whatever, that's fine, but they don't ask to be anointed. Now, nobody's chastised for that, but we are Christians, and we do look to God, and we do have a specific instruction if you are sick, call for the elder of the church and to anoint. And what I found is that through the years, a lot of people just kind of grew up in the church and didn't know that scripture, or didn't understand that. So, I've seen both extremes. I've seen people who would be anointed never seek medical help, and then I've seen people who would seek medical help and not be anointed.

I think you can do both, and you should do both, and not feel guilty that if you are anointed and you go to a doctor, don't do that. Guilt is not good. I've worked with a lot of people through the years, and I've seen some people who would not go to a doctor. And as I would talk with them in counseling, I've never put pressure on people to either be anointed or to stay away from the doctors or whatever, but I would sometimes see people who would not, they were not going to go to a doctor. And as I would talk with them, I recognize that I probably was not, that what they're dealing with is not so much faith as stubbornness. And there's a difference between faith and stubbornness. My father would not go to a doctor. He was never in the church. It was a pure stubbornness. He didn't do it until he got down nearly dead with cancer, and they literally drug him out the front door of the house to the doctor. The doctor pumped him full of enough drugs and chemo and all to extend his life for two more years. But I can, you know, I don't ever really remember my dad going to a doctor. And he was popping his nieces pain pills for about a year before he finally got down and they diagnosed that it was a cancer.

And I loved my dad, but it wasn't a matter of faith with him. It was just pure stubbornness.

I've seen that among people in the church as well. But I don't say it that way. I don't, I let people live their lives and I've seen sometimes people suffer unnecessarily.

I remember one dear lady who I would visit, Senator Bedside in the upper bedroom of her small white frame house downtown, a major city. And I would anoint her. I would talk with her, be and visited her many times, but she would not go to the doctor for the respiratory problem because of her feeling about faith and healing based on a sermon a long, long time ago and whatever. And she was suffering and she could have had some relief. And but she, one trip I noticed that she had a handle of cheap bourbon whiskey under the bed.

And she reached out and take a nip of that and that gave her some relief.

And but she was doing it because so and so minister, so and so number of years ago, take a little nip of bourbon. And that's how she worked out her pharmaceutical prescriptions.

And but people have their own, obviously choice over their own bodies and lives. And but I felt, you know, you could get a little bit of relief from this and try to encourage that. But she lived her life on her own terms and God gives us that right to do so as well. I make no judgment on that. God knows her heart. God knows her attitude. I would say, though, that we should not feel guilty for going to a doctor at any time. Feel guilty. I would say feel guilty, though, if you don't ask for an elder to anoint and involve God in your life.

All right. I would say that. And that's the only guilt we should have. I think God has given the spirit of man to understand the things of this life and of the human body. And men and science has gained a great deal of knowledge of the body, how it works and how medicine works on it. But then they can only go so far. And in some cases, things happen still to this day that they cannot diagnose. They don't know what's going on. That is not, you know, criticism is just the fact. And we all know that as well. We all know that we have a relationship with God that we must rely on Him and the spiritual power, His power, to complete the full spiritual work that He's doing. And that work involves a spiritual work of character, spiritual character for our ultimate spiritual salvation. We are called to eternal life in the spirit, not eternal life in the flesh.

But let's be wise. Let's be faithful. And let's also recognize that we must involve God in every aspect of our life spiritually and physically and lay it there and recognize that He is working with us in profound ways. Healing is a promise from God. It's not the only promise that God gives us in His Word. We find that there are many benefits, as Psalm 103 talks about. In Psalm 68 and verse 19, Psalm 68 and verse 19, it says, Blessed be the Lord, who daily loathes us with benefits. The God of our salvation, Selah. Our God is the God of salvation, and to God the Lord, the Lord, it escapes from death. We have to thank God every day that He's willing to fulfill that promise and provide us with the benefits. And then remember, of course, that the ultimate promise from God is that of salvation. And God does promise us that, and He is working toward us. In Romans 6 and verse 23, Romans 6 and verse 23, says this familiar Scripture, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

One of the benefits of God's promise, eternal life, that's the ultimate promise for God of salvation. And all that we go through in this physical life is preparing us and training us and working with us in preparation for that ultimate reality of spiritual life, eternal life, that is the ultimate gift of God. And that we must understand and completely realize as we look at the matter of God's promises of healing and His intervention in our life. And we live our lives with that knowledge and understanding that in Him we live and move and have our whole being as we look to Him for those benefits and His guidance.