Faith and Dependence on God

Well, as we bless this one child here this morning, there's one quality that I'd like to focus on to introduce my sermon here this morning. As I mentioned, a child is completely dependent upon its parents for everything.

They have to be fed, they have to be changed, cleaned, clothed, and the parent is the one that provides all of that. So there is a dependency that is obvious between the adult, the parent, and the child in the relationship. And the instruction, the spiritual instruction, seems clear as well that we are completely dependent on God for everything in our life.

And our lives upon baptism are placed in His hands. We say, Christ, You are our Lord and Master. Father, we are sorry for the sins we've committed. Live us, live your life within us and teach me and guide me through the remainder of the days of my life on this earth and help me. And we recognize our total complete dependency upon God for everything good and perfect within our life.

Today I'd like to look at what area of our life that we have to learn about in terms of faith and dependence on God. It's in the area of our physical life and our health and looking to God's promises regarding anointing and divine healing when our bodies get sick, when we encounter illness, either a illness unto death or an illness that may seriously debilitate us, put us in bed, take over our body and basically put us down.

And we know that we are sick. And look at the instruction in the scriptures and look to God's promises and understand what they tell us and understand what our responsibility is. I want to look at this subject from the perspective of involving God in our life when we experience a health crisis that needs His involvement, that needs His direction, according to all of the instruction that we have in the Bible on the subject of healing, what we might call divine healing.

This is a subject that is, from time to time, we need to examine from the scriptures and understand what we are told. It is a subject that at times we may find a variety of opinion in terms of actual faith and practice among ourselves within the church and how we handle the subject or handle it ourselves.

And so my approach here is not going to answer all of the questions this morning, but hopefully it will be a good review, but also a pointed instruction for every one of us to understand the fact that when it comes to our life, we are dependent upon God. And this area of God's promises in regard to healing has a great deal for us to learn and to understand and for us to examine in terms of whether or not we are dependent upon God in placing our life completely in His hands.

Let's look at just a few examples here at the beginning. I just want to refresh some of the examples we have from the scriptures regarding the example that we have. First, let's turn over to Mark 7. I want to look at one example of Christ healing. There are multiple examples in the Gospels of Christ healing people. We recognize that was a major part of His ministry. But in Mark 7, beginning in verse 31, we'll just read one example that is representative. Again, in verse 31 of Mark 7, again departing from the region of Tyre in Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.

Then 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. And so, just as we saw with the blessing of the children, Christ took them up, put His hands upon them. We put our hands upon them. The laying on of hands is a fundamental doctrine from Hebrews chapter 6 we understand, and we know that in regard to healing, there is this aspect of an elder putting their hand on someone and following the example of Christ in doing so.

And He took them aside from the multitude and put His fingers in His ears. And He spat and touched His tongue. So this was a unique example Christ was making here for this one occasion. When I as a minister, I don't spit on my hands and put my fingers in your ear whenever I anoint you.

I've never done that. We don't follow it in this way because this was a unique example. But anyway, Christ looked up to 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 loosed 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 it. 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. So Christ performed a number of miracles, even raised people from the dead during His ministry. There are many examples of that. In the book of Acts, there are also multiple examples of healing by Peter and Paul. Let's just go over to Acts 3 and look here at verse 1, where Peter and John went together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a certain man, lain from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they lay daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple.

Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms, and fixing his eyes on him in verse 4 with John, Peter said, Look at us. And he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. And Peter said, We don't have any money. Silver and gold, I don't have. But what I do have, I give you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And so a dramatic healing took place. The man leapt and stood and walked and entered the temple with him, walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. And they knew it was he who had been begging alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

So there was no doubt that this man was indeed a sick man and had been an invalid, and a dramatic miracle had taken place. So there are a number of other examples, and we don't have the time to go all through all of those. But we look at those, and we certainly gain comfort, and we gain encouragement from those. We also wonder and ask a logical question, why don't we have some of those in the church today? And I have to admit to you, I ask the same question. That's a subject for another time to perhaps go into and look at.

But I'm not unconvinced that there will not be a time in the future where that dramatic miracle in one sense would not happen in that way, as a means of drawing attention to the gospel and to the work of the gospel. But that is completely in God's hands. It's not in my hands or any other minister's hands, nor does it preclude us from believing God's promises and looking at what God says regarding this subject and placing our life completely in His hands. We go back to the Old Testament. I want to take you back to Psalm 103 and look at a scripture.

Psalm 103 that helps us to understand a principle as well. There are many examples of healing in the Old Testament as well, where prophets and servants of God were healed. Psalm 103, beginning in verse 1, says, "'Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.'" Benefits is plural, and there are multiple benefits we receive from God. Healing, His intervention in our life, His even concern and care through the anointing process and as we place our life in His hands. That is all part of the benefit, a benefits package that we have from God.

When you hire on to a new company, one of the things you want to know is what kind of benefits do you have? You've got a 401? What kind of health benefits do you have? What's your vacation plans? Those are important items. When we sign on to God, we have benefits as well.

There's a benefits package that comes with the job description that God gives to us. This is one of the matters of God involved in our life, concerned about our physical life. Verse 3, He says, "...who forgives all of your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, spiritual understanding, spiritual knowledge, answers to the big questions of life, all of this so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed." So just from these few verses, we get the idea that God's benefits are multiple, and healing is one of them. It's only one. There are many others. And that's important to understand in the questions that we sometimes look to and ask in regard to the matter of healing and the questions that often come up in regard to healing.

One of the questions that is often asked and we labor with and we need to understand is whether or not illness when it comes, is it connected to sin? What is the connection of illness to sin? Are we sick because we sin? We have to be very careful with that. That is an area that has caused some people to stumble and to labor under layers of massive guilt in the past and a misunderstanding. The bottom line answer is that we cannot really conclude from Scripture that all illness results from sin.

There's no reference in the Bible to this idea that there is something called physical sin as opposed to spiritual sin. Sin is something that is spiritual and that is what is in the Bible. You don't find the phrase physical sin within the Bible. So we have to be careful when we approach the matter of whether illness is connected to sin completely to understand what the Bible says and what it doesn't say.

We can't conclude that all illness is the result of some physical sin, although in some cases there is a definite relationship. If a person, let's say, for instance, gets involved in immorality, sexual promiscuity, and picks up a sexually transmitted disease because of promiscuity with others who are promiscuous and the vast pool of pathogens that are latent in that problem of the area of morality. A person picks up what we call an STD, a sexually transmitted disease. Without going into all the details of the normal ones, most of us should be familiar with that. That's a sickness. Now, that can be contracted because of sin.

No question about it. Can the person repent of the sin that caused their contracting of an STD? Yes. Spiritually be forgiven. Will they still bear in their body at times the mark of the physical illness that has contracted because of the spiritual sin? Yes. Yes. It can happen. It does happen. And so there's a relationship to being a physical illness or disease and a spiritual sin.

But again, we don't conclude that there's such a thing as physical sin and that all illness is a result of sin. Because I think all of us realize as well, we can come down with a disease that we have nothing to do with. It's genetic. It is environmentally created. And that happens all the time as well. Did a child do something wrong? Did you or any other adult do something wrong to cause that? No. We just are a part of a matter of our life.

There is a scripture in James 5, verse 15, that does give us a statement in regard to this that we should look at. Let's look at James 5. Verse 15, we'll come back to the first part of this later on in the sermon. But in the instruction to have an elder anoint a person, look to God in faith. James goes on and says in verse 15, the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So in the matter of praying for and anointing for a physical illness, there is mention here that if a person is committed sins, he will be forgiven. It's important to note what that says, what it doesn't say. The little word if there is a very important one. It is a qualification. It qualifies this statement, which means that it's not always the case. Not all cases of illness can we attribute to sin. And so again, we have to understand that and be very, very careful and certainly never ever judge ourselves or judge someone else who may be laboring with various sicknesses, a disease that lingers and just does not go away despite being anointed, despite other things that might be done.

And certainly say, well, you've sinned. There's some secret sin, you know, like Job's friends came to him and said, you know, there's something you must have done and to experience all of these curses and including the boils on your body. That's something we always want to avoid. If we go back to John 9, there's an example in John 9 of a statement that Christ makes that again helps us to have understanding of this.

Verse 1, there was a man blind from birth as Jesus passed by and his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind. Christ answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. Now, we're not going to stop right there because Christ says this man didn't sin, nor his parents sinned. He was blind from birth, a genetically caused illness. So we came from the statement of Christ that obviously that this matter of illness being caused by some sin is not always the case and probably in most cases is not the case. So again, we need to be careful. Certainly, any time there is an illness, there's going to be a trial connected with it. There's going to be suffering. There's going to be inconvenience. And those who are sick, those who are near them, family, even friends, are going to be going through a trial. We're going to be laboring with people as well. We need to be very careful not to judge that in all cases of illness that the illness is the result of some sin in a person's life. We can always learn lessons through trials. We will learn. But the fact that we've committed some particular sin that produced the trial is not, frankly, brethren, a place that in most cases we need to go to. God's people can expect trials. We know from scriptures that we're going to be persecuted. We are going to have trials. That's part of life. Many scriptures tell us that.

But they're not all related to disobedience. Sometimes we just have a trial because of things beyond our control. And sometimes we have sicknesses because of things beyond our control as well. There's a number of examples within scripture where we see no relationship with the illness and sin. You go back in the Old Testament, 2 Kings 13. We're not going to turn there, but I'll just mention a few places. You can look at those later. Elisha, one of God's prophets, was sick.

Did he commit a sin? We don't find it there, but he had a sickness.

What about King Hezekiah, one of the kings of Judah, who was a righteous king? He cleaned out the temple throughout all the pagan idolatry, restored the worship of God, the services, the holy days, and is called a righteous king. And God prospered him because of the good things that he did. God blessed him. And yet we know that Hezekiah came down sick. You know, look at the story of Hezekiah. And he turned his head to the wall that we're told, and he asked God for mercy, and God gave him 15 more years. But he eventually died of age and some other debilitation. But did he contract either the first or the concluding illness of his life because of sin? Well, we're not told that. In fact, we're told he was a righteous person. We look at the New Testament.

The book of Philippians, Paul talks about one of his co-workers, Epaphroditus, who was sick near to death. Did he sin? We're not told that. In fact, we're told he's a pretty good guy. And again, the idea of him being sick to the point of death is not necessarily told there. Paul himself even refers to a physical ailment that he seems to have in 2 Corinthians 12. A physical ailment.

And he asked God to heal him of it and he wasn't. He had to suffer with it, deal with it. Was it the result of sin? Well, we can't conclude from Scripture that it was. In fact, we can't conclude from Scripture that all illness results from sin. So again, we have to be careful how we handle that. Now, we can show that many people who commit horrible sins never get sick.

You know them and I know them. People who live a pretty randy style of life don't get sick, somehow dodge all the bullets and live to be 90 years of age. They eat pork every day, abuse their bodies with alcohol, maybe even drugs, overweight all their life or whatever and live to a ripe old age.

They haven't been called of God. They don't obey His laws. I always used to laugh with Todd Carey, one of our ministers who worked with me down in Indianapolis a number of years ago. One of our united ministers. Todd had his grandfather lived to be like 103 or 104 years of age and just strong right up to the end. But he smoked a cigar every day of his life, at least of his adult life. And we used to joke about that. Well, you know, I said, Todd, maybe you and I need to light up a cigar every day just to ensure that we live to be 100. Sometimes I'm not sure I want to live to be 100 years of age. But we used to joke about that. But you know people, and I've known people, that they commit horrible sins in a spiritual sense. And even physically, they don't live a good lifestyle, but they don't get sick or they live to a little longer age than others. And the Bible record and our life experiences demonstrate that reality.

So we conclude that healing is not always the result of the forgiveness of sin, spiritual sin, in that sense. And in cases where sin may be involved, repentance is necessary. And upon repentance, we know that God will forgive us. But this does not mean that God will heal us immediately, even though he forgives our sins, our spiritual sins. We know that people who deeply repented of their sins, who have deeply repented of their sins, yet they were not healed. I've often referred to one situation of a man that I knew when I was a teenager in the church. He came into the church, got baptized, on fire for the truth, was zealous. And within a short time after being baptized, he came down with a, I believe it was cancer, and within a few months, he was dead. He was dead. He wasn't healed. He suffered painfully. And he died. Didn't live very long in the faith, as we would say. But he was forgiven of his sins, and I expect that he'll be in the first resurrection. I have no question of that. And so again, we can see God forgive spiritual sin, but for his purposes and in his ways, he doesn't always heal at the time that we would like to see it and in the manner that we would like to see it. We should also understand that if all healing is the forgiveness of sin, then you would not be made physically, why wouldn't a person be made physically whole at the moment of baptism? Otherwise, we'd have to conclude that their baptism would be invalid. So we have to follow the logic on a lot of things and understand this very important matter. Faith, anointing, and healing are intimately tied to Christ's sacrifice and our relationship with God as a result of that. We've got to understand that.

That is very important. There are many scriptures that help us to understand that. Let's look over in Matthew 8. Matthew 8 and verse 16.

Here is another example of healing. Matthew 8 and verse 16. It says, When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed.

And He cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.

And so we see that some were mentally bothered by demons. They were cast out. Others had sicknesses.

And all of it was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.

And so here in this account in Matthew, the example of healing is tied directly to a scripture back in Isaiah 53. Now, let's go back to Isaiah 53 and look at that. Isaiah 53.

9. 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 the prophecy of Christ, the servant. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. We read this as we prepare for the Passover every year.

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. Very important verse statement in regard to Christ's sacrifice and the stripes that He was to bear and the healing that we receive. Now, this is speaking of a spiritual healing that we understand. It goes on to say, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted. And He opened not His mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. For this prophecy to be cited in connection with physical healing is very important. While there's no doubt that there's a spiritual connection in this case, and spiritual healing is the primary focus in the prophecy here in Isaiah, we cannot ignore the physical implication of what Isaiah prophesied and what Christ Himself fulfilled as this was used to refer to a healing by Christ. Remember back there in that Matthew 8 example, there was the casting out of demons, which is that's a mental healing that takes place, and in a sense it's spiritual. There's a physical component to that as well, but certainly the possession of one by a demon is a very critical situation. Christ paid the price for our sins that we might be made whole in every sense of the word. Whole spiritually, whole mentally, and whole even physically, because this verse is applied to the matter of our own healing as we saw there. There is another place in the New Testament where this Isaiah 53 scripture is pulled in, and that is in 1 Peter 2. Let's go back and let's read that.

1 Peter 2.

1 Peter 2.

Beginning in verse 21, 1 Peter 2, verse 21.

For to this he says, 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 rightly. So Peter's also quoting from this Isaiah 53 example. Who himself bore our sins in his own body, on the tree that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed, for you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. And so again, Peter draws this into the Scripture in Isaiah 53. The spiritual application of Christ's sacrifice is very clearly understood here. Our sins are forgiven, but this does not preclude, does not do away with the physical, that is the healing of our illnesses. So when we do anoint people, we do ask that the sacrifice of Christ be applied to a person's physical injury, their illness. And we do invoke this understanding that we are told from these Scriptures whenever we anoint people. And we, from time to time, will mention that we understand that it is by his stripes and that physical beating that we are healed. Now we don't divide the sacrifice of Christ into something physical and into something spiritual. There is one sacrifice, and it is a complete sacrifice. And it is for our spiritual healing, and it does have application to the healing of our illnesses that we understand here in this way. While we look to God, and while we wait patiently, we develop faith. This is, as we know from practice and from Scriptural example, brethren, is something that we must do. God does not always heal immediately, and God does not promise us eternal life in the flesh.

And so when we are anointed and we continue to suffer with an illness, and at times when that healing does not take place right away or in time, and even when a person will die from that healing, what do we conclude? That God doesn't heal? That would be a mistake.

There are examples, and I have heard of many, even in our own day and time, of situations where it seems fairly clear to me that God has intervened in a person's life. There are also many people who die. I think we recognize that as well. You know, it sometimes comes up and presents a bit of a misunderstanding, sometimes to the point of a stumbling block for us when we have so many requests for prayers for people who are sick. And every week there are a lot of cards back on that table for us to sign, for people, our brethren around the world that come in with prayer requests.

And sometimes we think, well, God isn't healing. Or we think, you know, why doesn't God end all of this suffering? And for us to conclude that and have a lack of faith would be wrong.

Let's just be honest. We are an older church. We are an aging church. Those of us that were in northern Kentucky for the feast site this year, you looked around that room and it was a sea of white and gray hair. And not just that, but there were a lot of wheelchairs, electric buggies, and canes, and walkers. And many of our sites and many of our congregations are like that. We are an aging congregation as a whole. And so just the numbers, you know, the actuarial numbers themselves, any insurance company would run and say they're going to have a higher percentage of your people who are suffering from heart disease and from cancers and other problems of age and the body just wearing down. It doesn't take any of it away. It doesn't minimize any of it.

And nor should we say that we should not pray for them. And we do and we will. And there's still many, many lessons to learn. While we look to God, we wait patiently and in the process, we develop faith. But we've also got to properly understand all of the scriptures in regard to this subject and understand the connection to Christ's sacrifice and our relationship with God.

When we come to take the Passover every year, we read a scripture in 1 Corinthians 11 that again draws us to this matter of the physical healing of the body and our taking of the Passover service. 1 Corinthians 11. Paul is discussing judgment and illness in the church here and he relates this to an improper understanding of the symbols of the Passover and the fact of some taking the Passover in an unworthy manner, which verse 27 talks about.

If a person eats or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, he'll be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. And so again, we are to examine ourselves so that we do not eat or drink in an unworthy manner, verse 29 says, not discerning the Lord's body. Verse 30, for this reason many are sick and we can sick among you and many sleep. And so again, this verse doesn't divide the sacrifice of Christ into two parts, but it does connect the body of Christ with the physical healing of our bodies. And that is very, very important. And we've got to understand and see that connection between the body of Christ and the sacrifice that Christ made. And frankly, through that, we want to understand the full meaning of that sacrifice. And we do.

You know, it's one thing to come and take the Passover service year by year, year in, year out, when we are in good health, when we're strong and vigorous, able to get up and go to work every day, have a perfect attendance year after year, and sail on through the days of our lives and come every year. We've examined ourselves. We take the Passover service. We feel, you know, before God, you know, again, mercifully forgiven. We continue living our lives. And then it's another thing to come when we are limping in, when we may be dealing with a very, very severe illness.

And to take the Passover service as a result of sometimes months, perhaps even years, of physical debilitating illness. I say that those of you that do that have discerned and come to another dimension of understanding of the body of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, His sacrifice, His relationship to us, and through tears, through agony, through prayers, through hours and days and weeks of suffering. So when you come and take that Passover on one year or two years or whatever, it's going to mean more, perhaps, to you than it did 10 years earlier when you were in the prime of life for, you know, in good health. You're going to have another dimension to that.

A very good friend of mine in the ministry is facing an illness, dealing with it right now.

And he's been told that it could take his life in four to 10 years, depends upon how it progresses.

And there are very few things that can be done, effectively done for him. He has the illness that he has. I was talking with him before the feast. He's a pastor. And he has, you know, he has faith in God. He's put it in God's hands. He's taking various treatments for it as well. But we were talking about what he's learning. And he, you know, I just stand in awe when people are in those situations. And I just said to him, I said, look, you've entered a different, the way I put it, you've entered a different room than the rest of us right now in your life. And you're dealing with something that you, you know, you're facing your mortality in a way that right now I'm not. And I said, you know, I've certainly encouraged him with my thoughts and words and told him that he's in my prayers. And, but he has to live with it every day. I don't. I said, you've kind of gone into another room and you're experiencing things at a different level, if you will. And that doesn't mean he's any better than me or you or anybody else. It's just that what he's going through. And I think that he's discerning the body of Christ better than he did five years ago.

And that's, that's the point that it comes down to. We've got to look at these scriptures and not ask questions that debilitate our faith and wonder, well, why doesn't God do this or why this and why so and so? We've got to look at these scriptures and say, then, what do we learn about our relationship with God? What does it teach us about Christ and the body of Christ? The relationship with Him, our Lord and Maker? What does it teach us about our relationship with the church in itself? To ignore that is to create a large disconnect between us and God. In other words, brethren, when we get sick, when we need God, when we come to the point we are dependent on Him to be involved in our life at a time when we need His help, then we have certain things that we are instructed to do in the scriptures and we should not ignore them. We cannot ignore them. Let's look at one, which is right at the heart of the issue. That's in James. Go back to James 5. James 5 and verse 14.

Is anyone among you suffering? Verse 13. Is anyone suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful?

Let him sing songs. Those are kind of general. We can be suffering because we lost our job. We're going to get laid off next month or whatever. We can suffer for a lot of mental issues.

Verse 14. Is anyone among you sick? Well, yes, and that happens. Now, what is sickness? Well, sickness can be anything from a runny nose to a malignant tumor that's eating away the life within our body in some part.

Now, are they two different kinds of sicknesses? Yes, obviously. Can you go to work with a runny nose? Yes. Can you function with a runny nose? If you've got a sickness, if you've got something a little bit more serious and your stomach is retching, or you've got a pounding headache, or your body aches all over, and the only solution is to go to bed, is that a little different sickness than excessive sneezing or whatever? Well, I think we recognize that, yeah, there are different levels, different degrees, if you will, of sickness.

My point in bringing that up is, look, we have to use our judgment as to when we call for an elder.

Because the instruction in this verse is, if you're sick, let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over them, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Now, this is the prime verse and instruction for us behind our practice in the church of anointing with oil, and it is olive oil that we use. We don't use canola, Crisco, melted down tallow, or anything else. It's olive oil, because that's what Christ used.

How do we know? Well, you go to Israel today and you've got a lot of olive trees in there, and that's the primary oil. And it's closer to anything holy, I suppose. But in and by itself, it doesn't have any magical, curative qualities over any other type of oil. Trust, we don't use 10W40 motor oil when we anoint you, nothing like that. It is olive oil, and that is the custom or the tradition. So we anoint with oil, and we do it in the name of the Lord. Okay, so we're told, if you're sick, let him call. Now, that's an instruction for us. We have to do that.

Why? Because God tells us, and it involves God in the process. It's a sign on our part that we are dependent on God, and we want Him involved in our life at that point. Should you anoint for you anoint you for a runny nose, or wait until you've got chest pains emanating all the way down through your body? Well, one time I had basically a runny nose. I remember I was at college, ambassador, and I called for an elder to come up to my dorm and anoint me, and he wouldn't do it.

And he told me, he said, that's not serious enough. And I could go to work, and I could go to class.

But I was wanting to be obedient and do what I thought I should do. And I learned from that, and I don't get anointed if I've just got a runny nose and if I can kind of keep on going. Now, if I'm laid up in bed and I can't work, go out, and it's something more serious, then I would be anointed. I don't make it a habit of normally refusing people a request to be anointed and try to get too picky or judgmental about that. But I think also that we have to recognize individually that there are some things we can kind of work through, and 24 hours we're going to be okay. And I do personally feel that when it comes to me, and as I discern the body of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, that I don't want to do it for something that's small or, you know, the body's going to work its way through in time. But if you will, save it for the time when it's a little bit more serious and I know that I need God involved in my life at this time for this illness and I need His help. We all have to make those judgments and those decisions. I don't want that to take away, brethren, from the instruction here for you and I to involve God. And yes, through a minister who comes and or sends a cloth, as in some cases the example is as well, but a minister who anoints. We have to do what God tells us to do. Sometimes, I've noticed in recent years, people don't do that. And I don't know why, but we, you know, I'm not judging their faith, but I do know that in the element, the mechanics of faith and our relationship with God, we have an instruction here we can't get around. And we do need to involve God in our life and to be anointed. So be judicious about that, but don't neglect it when it is needed. Now, can we be anointed and go to a doctor? Can you do both? Absolutely. Unequivocally, absolutely, positively, yes. You can be anointed. You can go to a doctor that is not a lack of faith, that is not something that we should feel guilty about, that is not violation of the Scriptures, that is something that we can do and should do as necessary and as needed, and in the right way, depends on how much insurance we've got. No, I speak facetiously there.

We can do both without guilt, without feeling that we can't do it. Let me say something here about doctors, medicine, treatments, and this whole realm. I want you to understand, brethren, something that we go back to 1 Corinthians 2. And Paul back there says that what things knows man, but by the spirit of man. 1 Corinthians 2. This is a basic Scripture that helps us to understand the vast difference between the human creation and the animal creation, and also between an unconverted mind and a converted mind with God's Spirit. Because we have here revealed the fact that there is the Spirit of God and there is a human, the Spirit of man in verse 11. 1 Corinthians 2. What man knows the things of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him?

Even so, no one knows the things of God except by the Spirit of God. Now, to just cut to the heart of this, this verse with others is telling us that there is a Spirit of man that allows humans to understand the things of man. Medicine, the body, the workings of the body fall under the category of the things of man. And the Spirit God has given man, the Spirit of man, that which makes us human, the ability to write a symphony, to dissect the human body and to understand its parts and how one part interacts with the other, and the systems all work together within the body to create the human body and the life that we have. That's of man. Man has made tremendous strides in modern medicine to understand the body, the workings of the systems, and to do some pretty interesting things as we all realize. To take a heart out of the body, rework the bypasses, put it back in, jolt it, put it back to life, that's amazing. That's amazing. To figure out how it all works, to even put an artificial heart in is amazing. To do a transplant of a kidney, to figure out the brain, and to do various things. Those are the things of man. God gave the spirit in man to do those things. If we avail ourselves of that knowledge, we are not violating some vast spiritual principle of faith that negates any faith that we have that God can heal us, that limits God in what He can do to us in terms of divine healing. We are not limiting God. And, brethren, we have to expunge that from our thinking if there's still any remnant of that. And to understand this in terms of guilt and matters, you should never feel guilty for taking an aspirin. You should never feel guilty for taking a stronger painkiller. You should never feel guilty for going to a doctor to set your bones, to manipulate your back, to do a heart bypass, to give you treatment for cancer, chemo, radiation, whatever the treatment may be. You should never feel guilty for that. Can you ask to be anointed before you go into the operating room? Absolutely. Should you be? Absolutely. Does that negate your faith? Does that limit God in some way? No.

We should never feel guilty for consulting a doctor, a specialist, for whatever it might be.

You should feel guilty if you neglect God. You should feel guilty if you don't ask for an elder to anoint you when there is a need when you are sick, as the Scripture says. You should feel guilty, and I should feel guilty, if we do not involve the resurrected Jesus Christ and God the Father in our lives, at any point in our life, when we are dependent on Him for our very life, both spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Follow through on the processes and instruction and lay our life completely in His hands, yes, even to the point through the anointing process, saying, God, I need Your help. I can only do so much myself with my vitamins, with my excedrin, with my homeopathic medicines, with my powerful chemo drugs that are dripping into my skin.

Only so much can be done. And I know that if I'm going to get through this one, you're going to have to help me. You're going to have to intervene, even to the point of guiding a doctor's hands, if necessary. And I do ask, as I anoint people at times, prior to an operation that He will guide the hands of the surgeon. I have no problems doing that, nor should you. We should only feel guilty if we do not involve God in the process, and ask His intervention, His healing, and ask that the stripes of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice be applied to us according to the Scriptures.

That's when we should feel guilty, that we don't involve God, that we should not feel guilty for the others. Now, I recognize, brethren, we could talk all day about medical mistakes that are made. And doctors are not foolproof. They're not perfect. They make mistakes. We've had a rash of mistakes done in Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis recently. I think I was in Riley Hospital, wasn't it, where some kids were over-medicated and died at Riley Children's Hospital. Medical people make mistakes. They're human. You know, put the wrong drug in. Or a doctor may make a mistake as he's sewing up or closing.

It happens every day. And nothing is perfect there, either. What are we left with? Well, we have to make the best decisions for ourselves at that particular time. Get the best help that we can or can afford or is available to us. Get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. Maybe sometimes wait. Maybe sometimes choose not to have the elective surgery. We have to make those decisions. God gives us all that ability to do that. We just have to be sure that we need to be sure we are making the right decision based on faith.

Stubbornness is not faith. My dad would never go to doctors. He never has to be anointed, either. He was just stubborn. He grew up at a time when medical care was not available. They couldn't have afforded it anyway, and it wasn't anywhere near the available degree that we have today with 24-hour medical service on every corner and satellite hospitals all over the city and EMTs and everything else, WebMD and all of this, and yes, even Walgreens.

But he was stubborn. One of his employees found him on the floor at work one day. He probably had had an angina attack, and it did knock him out. He went home and rested up for the afternoon and was back at work the next day. He didn't go to Dr. Campbell, our family doctor. He had to go to work. He had a business to run. He wasn't reared that way in his world. He died of something else later on, died of cancer. But I can't say that because he didn't go to a doctor that my dad had faith. No, he was just stubborn and had his own ways about him.

A lot of people are like that. So you can't equate stubbornness with faith. You can't equate ignorance with faith. You have to be very careful about that. And so, on the other hand, let's not equate seeking help, operations, medicine of whatever kind, as a lack of faith. I think we've moved a long way beyond that in the church, but sometimes we still labor with that. We know that as Christians we are under the New Covenant.

We must rely on the spiritual power of God to complete the whole process. And the completion ultimately involves the spiritual work of character for salvation. That is what God is doing. Now, divine healing is a promise from God. It's not the only promise that God gives us in His Word.

We go back to the Psalm we started with at the beginning. They're in Psalm 103, and we see that it is among one of the benefits. Psalm 103 again. It is among one of the benefits. And God loads us daily with benefits when other Psalms says.

And so we have to keep it all in a proper perspective. The ultimate promise from God is that of salvation. And the trials and suffering we go through are to help us be perfected in that way, ultimately. God promises eternal life as spirit beings. It's not eternal life as physical beings. None of us really want to live forever as physical beings. It's just, you know, that's where science is taking us. I read a quote recently that this generation, this was from a biotech scientist, his prediction.

This generation will be the last generation that will not live to be 150. Because science, biotechnology is getting to the point where they will be able to replace all of the parts that wear out and keep people alive to 150 or beyond. That's the goal of the biotech field. So they say, this is the last generation. Well, I don't know. I'm not going to say never. I mean, some things, you know, in the hand of man can create a great deal. But do we really want to live that long in the flesh? God doesn't promise us eternal life in the flesh.

He promises us eternal life in the kingdom. And that is the gift of God. And that's the ultimate benefit. So keep all of this in a proper perspective. And hopefully that will help us to understand our dependency upon God and how that all fits.