The Gift of Healing

I'm going to pick up here with the sermon where Mr. Foster left off. He was talking about trials and the trials that we go through and the things all of us face from time to time. But I want to talk about a particular specific kind of trial. I want to talk about sickness and healing. Now, how many times have you been sick and you've prayed? Maybe you've been anointed and yet you aren't healed right away? And you say, well, God, I had faith. You said I had to have faith and I believe. Heartfelt prayer or faith and yet you weren't healed. And it goes on and on. And you wonder why. Then your faith, you start to waver in your faith because, but I have the faith. I read an article one time by a man who said that the only reason people aren't healed is because they lack faith. So any time a healing doesn't take place, it's because that person lacks faith. Is that true? Is that God just, if you have enough faith, I'll heal you no matter what? Well, let's look at healing and faith and sickness and what we go through in sickness. And let's look at that today in the bigger picture of our lives and what God is doing. Specifically, when and why and how does God heal? And what does it mean sometimes when it seems He isn't healing us? Like I said, in one way we're picking up where Mr. Foster left off. It was a perfect introduction of what we want to talk about today. Let's go to Exodus 15. Let's see if this is our starting point. Exodus 15 verse 26. Exodus 15. Here, Moses writes what dotted told them about a privilege he was giving to them as his people, the ancient Israelites.

He says in verse 26, If you diligently hear the voice, for he is the voice of the Lord and your God, and do what is right in his sight, give ear to his commandments, and keep his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. Now, obviously this means that God had given certain diseases to the Egyptians. He'd cursed them with certain diseases. He says, For I am the Lord who heals you.

Now, that's very interesting in Hebrew because it literally can, those words can be put together as a name. In other words, I am God your healer. So he literally declares himself as the God who heals. And we see here that he's speaking specifically of physical healing. And so he said, Well, if he's the God who heals, and I worship the right God, the true God, why is it that sometimes I'm not being healed?

Now, I've seen a lot of great healings in the church. I have seen remarkable healings. And I've also anointed somebody and had all of us praying for that person and watched them die, or watched them struggle for years with an illness. There's one healing. I've told this story before, but I can bring out dozens of healings I've seen in my lifetime. But this one I'm going to bring out because I'll tie it in later in what I want to talk about.

I was in Jamesville, Wisconsin. I was the pastor there, and I got a call. And someone who lived out in Rockford, Illinois, that was the other end of the circuit. And that person said, I have a person I know. They're not in our church. They attended one of the mega churches in Chicago. But for some reason, I don't remember why their baby, the baby was sick. The baby had been brought to Rockford. And they had called the mega church where they went to, which had dozens of ministers, and nobody would drive from Chicago to Rockford to pray for this baby.

I lived just as far away up into Wisconsin. I said, well, yeah, I'll go. I mean, there's a person... She said the person actually believes in anointing, and that's why she's so frustrated that none of her ministers from her big mega church will come anoint this baby. And I said, well, then I'll come. What I got there, what it was, was this woman and her husband had adopted two crack babies.

Now, these babies had been born addicted to crack. Now, this baby's now two years old. You know, I walk up and I look at this little guy, and, you know, they've got him on a ventilator. They've got him hooked up to all different kinds of things. You know, you look into those lifeless eyes, and I looked around and I thought, well, this boy's dead. And she said, well, they said tomorrow they're just going to unhook him and that'll be it. So I anointed the little guy and got my car drove home.

And I just remember driving home. I just cried in the car. I thought, how can they do this to this little guy? I mean, the boy's dead. He never had a chance. His mother was addicted to crack. He never had a chance. He's only two years old. Well, a couple of days went by. I don't know what, you know, I said, well, I guess that was it.

And then the woman calls me and she says, my friend wanted to thank you. The next day when they unhooked him, he just woke up and he's fine. You know, he was dead. I looked into his eyes, okay? They're fixed and dilated and he's dead. But he's fine. I never know what happened to that woman or that baby. As far as I know, they never left the mega church that they were in in Chicago.

They never gave up Christmas or Easter or all those things. But God gave them a blessing. And I want to talk about that blessing and I'm going to tie that in at the end. So we say, wow, if God did that for that person, why doesn't God do that to all of us all the time? I mean, that was a great miracle. There was a reason for that. I believe there's a reason for that for that woman because of her face. Was it my face? I'm driving home in the car thinking, why doesn't the unhook the guy?

Okay. Was it my face? It was her face. They also believed that in the course of time, as they looked back, it was something God was teaching me. So there was a lot of lessons going on for a lot of people in that room that day. Why do we get sick? Let's go back to that question.

Because sometimes we will give a simplistic answer to that. Why do we get sick? Why do we have injuries? Well, the first reason, and the reason we think of the most is it's a direct result of sin. You know, if you abuse alcohol, you're going to get sick. But, you know, there's people who abuse alcohol, and their liver, therefore, goes bad. Right? There's people who abuse alcohol, and they die of liver cancer.

There's people who smoke and don't get lung cancer. There are people who smoke and die of lung cancer. There are people who sleep around and get herpes. And there's people who sleep around and don't get herpes. But we know that the people who get those direct sicknesses, it's a direct result of sin. In a way, all... well, in reality, all sickness is a result of sin. But it's not always the direct result of that person's sin.

Remember when we talked about depression a couple weeks ago? It said that we can simplify depression and make it the person's fault, and sometimes it's not. Some people are depressed simply because of brain chemistry. Now, the issue is it goes closer back to the Garden of Eden. If there had been no sin there, you wouldn't have that problem now. But it's not a result of that person's sin. And a save is true for any sickness.

Sometimes it's a direct result of sin. Sometimes it's not. It can be a punishment from God. I mean, we just read in Exodus where He said, I will not put upon you any of these diseases that I put upon them. Sometimes God will use sickness to teach us a lesson. We have to understand that sometimes. You want to see a direct... I mean, there's certain places in the Bible where certain things are direct and obvious.

Okay? Let's look at Numbers 12. Numbers 12. We know the story here. The Mary of an Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman who he had married, who had married an Ethiopian woman. So they said, has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also? I mean, Aaron, he functions as Moses' mouthpiece at times. Miriam, you read through where she was a leader among the women in Israel. The Song of Miriam. She led all the women of Israel in singing and praising God. So you're looking at two people who are very important leaders, and what they're doing now is they're undermining Moses. I mean, God spoke through us, and He married an Ethiopian woman.

And what this probably goes back to... We don't know. The Bible doesn't give us an indication of this. What Josephus says is he married an Ethiopian princess when he was one of the princes of Egypt. So that could be true, that that's where this comes from, and this woman was probably still with him. Verse 3, I love this little parenthetical statement, Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.

I really don't believe Moses wrote that. I think that's an edit. I'm the most humble man on the face of the earth. But the point's well made. And suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, come out, you three, to the tabernacle of the meeting. So the three came. And then God talks to them, and He says, you know, Aaron, I've worked through you, and Miriam, I've worked through you, but you really are taking upon yourself something. Something you do not have. You're taking upon yourself. You know, I'm using Moses in a specific way, an Aaron of you, you in a specific way, and Miriam, I'm using you in a specific way, and right now what you're doing is wrong.

And I'm going to really make my point. Verse 9, So the anger of the Lord was aroused against them, and he departed. And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam, and she was a leper. You know, I always think of how horrified Miriam must be, but I really think what Aaron must be thinking to this point, like, whoa, if he did that to her, what is he going to do to me?

And God said, I'm just getting your attention here. But what happens is, you see, that of course Moses pleads to God, he intercedes, which is part of what God was teaching Moses. He intercedes and says, God, forgive her for this. It was against me, forgive her for this. Forgive Aaron for this. And God did, and she was healed. She received healing. But what we see here is a case where a person was made sick so that God could get that person's attention.

We also see healing in this case. We see healing. So that can't happen. Now, many times we're simply sick because we've broken physical health laws. Right? I mean, one of the hardest things I've had to accept in the last five years... I know this sounds arrogant, but I guess we ought to confess our sins. And you all do this, and I wish you would have said, I'm not Superman. I'm not Superman. I can't work 70 hours a week on five hours of sleep and six cups of coffee.

I did it for 30 years, and I can't do it anymore. Can't do that. It breaks down our health. So we have to realize, sometimes we get sick because we've just broken health laws. And we bring that on ourselves.

We have to take responsibility for that. We can ask for healing. But if you start to reason through this, sometimes God's going to say, wait a minute, you've got to fix what you broke. You can't keep living the same lifestyle and be healed. So you start to realize that healing or sickness itself has various reasons. Even healing, God's response to our sickness is going to be different at times. Fourth is just injury from accidents. Some of you might have played sports when you were younger. Maybe you blow out a knee sliding in a second base, and you limp a little bit the rest of your life.

We all have injuries from accidents, and God doesn't promise us to heal us every time we have an injury. He just doesn't. There are biological, what I call biological malfunctions. This is what we're talking about a little bit when we're talking about depression. It just happens because we live in a biological world. I'll give you an example. How many times has a woman come to my wife and said, my baby doesn't sleep at night.

They cry. They're sick. I don't know what it is. Nobody can figure out what it is. The doctor can't figure it out what it is. The first thing I hear my wife say is, tell me what you're eating. Well, you know, regular stuff. Every night we either have chili or enchiladas smothered in onions or okay, stop. You're probably causing stress in your baby with all that food that those things are causing, you know, because you're nursing. You're nursing, and it's causing the babies. The babies, I guess the system can't handle that.

Then they come back a week later saying, my baby's healed. Right? They just find logical things that happened to us. This is why we canceled services in Austin today. You know, 30 years ago I would have said, no, we have faith. Go into the place of illness and sickness and have services. And now I've realized God might be saying, that's the dumbest thing you ever did. So we did have services today because we weren't going to take and put 30 people, some of them with children, into an environment where they could get sick. It was a lack of faith.

It was understanding the reality of the world we live in. Sometimes, and this one's a little tough, and I don't think this happens all the time, but it obviously happens sometimes. Sometimes God will cause an illness in order to reveal His power. Look at John 9. It's a very interesting conversation that's going on here. John 9. Now, 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, but he was born blind. Now, they knew, okay, all illness, all problems, you know, physical problems, eventually come from sin. So, okay, whose sin caused this? Wait a minute. He couldn't have sinned.

And why are we assuming His parents sinned? Once again, it may be a genetic defect from something that happened a thousand years ago and was passed on through families. I mean, how many times do we realize we all have genetic defects? People say, yeah, I have weak eyes. Yeah, my mom has weak eyes. On her side, you know, my grandfather had weak eyes. They said that his grandfather went blind by the age of fifty and they go, weak eyes.

There's a genetic thing that's passed on. Well, who sinned? It may happen a thousand years ago when somehow got genetically passed on. Some weakness. Some people who is now nourished because they live in the Middle Ages. And three or four generations living in the Middle Ages, where people were dying by age thirty-five, and genetically they became weak.

And that genetic weakness got passed on. That happens. But here, they're asking the question. Did He sin? Did His parents sin? They didn't go any farther than that. Jesus answered, neither this man or His parents sinned. But that the works of God should be revealed in Him. He says, no, actually, this is a very special man. God, let Him be blind from birth for this moment. This man suffered all his life so that the Son of God could walk up to Him at that point and heal Him so that He and everybody would know this is the Messiah.

That's a pretty special privilege. Now, if you're the blind man, you wouldn't understand that until probably after you were healed. And you would look back on your life and have a totally different viewpoint than He had at this point. Think about it. I was created blind so God could show people through me. That's quite an amazing thing to think about.

All the years He was blind, He wouldn't have felt that thankful. Verse 4, I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day, that I is coming when no one can work. And Jesus said, as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. It's interesting. A blind man, He says, I am the light of the world. I am bringing spiritual light and I am going to give this man, who lives in darkness, physical light.

When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated and sent. So He went and washed, and He came back, and seen. The rest of John 9 is the story of the impact this man's healing had on his community.

The whole rest of the chapter is about the impact of what Jesus did with this man, the impact on the community. There are times when God causes something in order to reveal His power. It doesn't appear He does it very often, but He does it.

And a last cause of illness, and eventually we trace everything back to this, is that it's Satan. Satan is the God of this world. Everything He does leads to our detriment. Everything He does leads to our destruction. And so His whole approach to how life works is going to cause us to be spiritually sick, mentally sick, emotionally sick, and physically sick.

I mean, all you have to do is look at the book of Job and look at that. He actually went to God and said, let me make Job sick. And God gave him permission. And He made him sick. There we have a case where it's a direct cause. There's a direct relation here between Satan saying, let me make this man sick, and God saying, okay. Now God healed Job, by the way.

You notice that? See, in some of these cases we see healing, aren't we? We're seeing God heal in these cases. Some of the other cases we don't see healing as dramatic, and there's reasons why as we go through this. We'll explain. Luke 13. Luke 13. Verse 10. Talk about Jesus Christ here. Now He was teaching one of the synagogues of the Sabbath. Behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years, was bent over, and in no way raised herself up.

So she had some kind of spinal deformity, and she just bent over. She can't even straighten up. Maybe some kind of arthritis or something. Verse 13. And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed the Sabbath.

And he said to the crowd, there are six days in which they may not have to work. Therefore, come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day. Amazing thing about the pharisaical viewpoint. They always zero in on the letter of the law, and then they make the letter of the law even more exacting than what God says it should be. And in doing so, they miss the spirit of the law. So they take the letter of the law, they make it more exact, and what they actually do is they take God's way and turn it into the traditions of men.

So here He is saying, Jesus is the Sabbath breaker. And one thing that Jesus was accused of all the time was being a Sabbath breaker. Jesus is a Sabbath breaker because He healed on the Sabbath. There were other things too. He would walk on the Sabbath, go different places on the Sabbath. His disciples were eating, picking food off the plants, off the grain. They were picking either the grain or the Sabbath. They accused Him of breaking the Sabbath. His explanation, He never says, don't keep the Sabbath. His explanation is, don't you understand the Sabbath is supposed to be a day of good. And they didn't understand it.

In their traditions, they go into the letter of the law and beyond it. And so hear Jesus Christ for healing a woman who had been sick and crippled for 18 years is accused of being a Sabbath breaker. The Lord then answered Him and said, hypocrite, does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it to water? He said, you go and you take your donkey out of the stall and let it drink on the Sabbath day.

You feed your animals. You know, they walk out and give a bag of grains and the animals. You don't let them starve on the Sabbath day. Nobody says that's breaking the Sabbath. He says, so ought not this woman being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound. Think of it. I think that's interesting.

He's so dramatic here that he's telling this man or these men, just think about this. 18 years. Can you imagine what it would be like to be all bent over in pain, looking at the ground for 18 years? You just think of it. For 18 years, be loosed from this bond of the Sabbath. But he says Satan has bound. Now, we don't know if he's referring to that Satan was directly involved or that she's just a victim of living in Satan's world.

Either way, he makes the connection. This woman isn't sick because she isn't all bent over because she did something wrong. She's all bent over because of Satan. So you and I are not going to ever have perfect physical health living in this world. I don't care how perfect you eat. I don't care if you exercise an hour every day. I don't care what you do. You will never have perfect physical health because we don't live in a world conducive to physical health.

Because Satan's world. So we do the best we can. We do the best we can. Now, people then will say, okay, why does it seem like there was so much more healing in the New Testament? Well, for one thing, if you look through the New Testament, you have all these healings, but this book covers almost a 70-year period. I hope there were more healings than that. Most of them were just dramatic because they were done publicly. Most healings I've seen were not done publicly. They were just, God healed the person. I brought about healing in that person's life.

So what is it? I mean, people say, well, there used to be more healings in the church 40 years ago than there are now. I'm not sure that's true either. Although I do fear sometimes that I'm always amazed how someone will call me and say, I wish to be anointed. I'm in the hospital and just got an operation.

And I'm thinking, why did you get anointed before the operation? It is possible you would not have needed the operation. We forget sometimes that anointing is a New Testament teaching. So let's just look at that again in James 5.

James 5. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call from the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Now, I guess it was about two and a half months ago or so, or two months ago, when I gave the sermon on the teaching of the New Testament church on elders and deacons. Looking at those qualifications and what it is to be an ordained elder, not just an older person.

And this goes clear back to the time of Moses when he said, take from the elders of Israel and bring 70 to thee, and they were ordained. So there were 70 elders. From that point on, there were special elders, tribal elders, and all the tribes who basically were the administrators of God's way in each village. That's why they sat in the gates. When the New Testament church started, that didn't change at all.

And we went through all the scriptures where Paul and Barnabas and others, every place they went, wherever they started churches, it says they ordained elders. And there were specific qualifications that these elders had to have. So we're to go to the elders and be anointed. Now, it's still your faith. Now, I haven't gone through the scriptures, but there's many places in the New Testament where Jesus said, unto your faith. It is not, by the way, the faith of the elder. The elder has faith, hopefully, but you know it's not even the faith of the elder.

There is, I say that, I know of elders who turned against God's way. Turned against God's way. Left the faith, left the scripture, became agnostics. But while they were elders, people were healed. Because they were followed in God's instructions. And the people who had faith, God was part of that healing. So we're to go to the elders and be anointed. But, you know, how many of you will know when I anoint you? I will say there's no magic in my hands.

We're following a commanded procedure. And in doing so, we're acknowledging that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. That's why it's so important. We're acknowledging that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. And He appoints elders to do this. So don't go to an elder saying the elder can heal me. I have watched scores of people be healed. And I haven't healed a person in my life.

Not one. I've watched God do it. It's pretty amazing.

I didn't heal that little boy. He was dead. I didn't think God was going to heal him. I grieved.

That God healed him.

We do what God says in the way that God says it, because we are honoring Christ as the head of the church.

But notice verse 15.

And 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. Now, those were an if. In other words, if this is a direct... If this sickness is a direct result of his sin, his sin will be forgiven.

But by the very construct of that sentence, construct of that sentence, you have to now realize that not all sickness comes from that person's sin.

The sentence won't let you go there. If it is. If not, then God will heal the person, and it comes from somebody else's sin, or from Satan, or it just comes from a genetic defect, or it comes from the fact that he had to walk in some room and somebody sneezed on him.

Okay? The person sneezing on him, he didn't say anything. He just had to walk in. The person sneezed at that time, and we are biological beings, and we get sick.

But if there's a sin, then that sin will be forgiven too. When Paul was unable to anoint a person, he sent out anointed cloths, Acts 19. So we do this. With the distance between people today and the church, it's not always possible to get to anoint somebody. We try to when we can, but it's not always possible. Acts 19 verse 11.

Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs, or aprons, were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out from them. So we do that today. We'll take a little piece of cloth, doesn't matter how big it is, or what it's made of. We usually use a linen, and we anoint that cloth, and we send a letter telling you what to do with it, how to apply it. The cloth is not a relic. It is not sacred.

It is not something containing magical powers. It is a symbol of that oil that's put on it. It's a symbol of God's Spirit that is God's Spirit that heals you. The cloth does not. I've known people where we've sent cloths to, and they got lost in the mail, and they were healed anyways.

They were healed anyways. It's not the cloth that's magic, because this is superstition. It is the power of the Almighty God through His Spirit that heals us.

Now, once again, remember, it is not a magic formula. Let's look at Luke 7.

Luke 7. Just to reiterate what I've talked about here, to drive the point home a little bit.

Luke 7.1. When Jesus concluded all His sayings in the hearing of the people, He entered Capernaum.

The certain centurion's servant who was dear to Him was sick and ready to die. So when He heard about Jesus, He sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal His servant.

When they came to Jesus, they begged Him earnestly, saying that the one for whom He should do this was deserving. This man's slaves come and says, this man who is a centurion, he's an officer in the Roman army, but he believes that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He believes He's from God. He believes He can heal. And even his slaves say, this is a good man, for He loves our nation and has built us a synagogue. So he probably had converted, and he was what they would call the God-fear.

In other words, he built a synagogue that he couldn't even go join the same way as everybody else. When he went to the synagogue he had built, he had to sit in a different room than the Jews. But he considered them God's people, so he built a synagogue.

Then Jesus went with them, and when He was already not far from the house, the centurion said, friends to Him, saying to Him, Lord, now think about this, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. He says, I have faith in God, and I have faith that you are from God. Don't come into my house. I mean, for one thing, you'll get in trouble. I'm a Gentile. People will condemn you for it. There's no use going through this. I'm not worthy of this. And it would have been an issue. Jesus would have walked into the house of a Gentile. There are certain Pharisees that would have accused Him of doing something wrong. Now, notice Jesus didn't think it was wrong. He was going to walk right into his house.

And He sent some servants out. He says, tell Him not to come here. It's okay.

I understand who He is. I understand where the power is. This was a superstition. It was a belief that God would heal. He says, therefore, I do not even think myself worthy to come to you, but say the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. I say to one go and He goes to another comment, He comes, and to my servant do this and do that. He says, I understand you have authority. You have spiritual authority. You say that He is healed, and He will be healed. That's all you have to do.

Just say it. I understand that you command spiritual power. He says, I command a little bit of physical power here on earth. You can be a great spiritual power.

Verse 9, when Jesus heard these things, He marveled at Him.

They turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. He said, this man gets it.

He gets it. This is from the power of God's Spirit that this is done. And He has faith in them.

And those who were sent returning to the home found the servant well, who had been sick.

Another healing. Jesus said, that would have to show up. It's done. The man was healed.

Now, here where the problem comes. We say, okay, if I have enough faith, God will heal me.

Is your faith in that if I say the right things and do the right things and get anointed, God is required to heal me? Or is our faith in God's goodness that I can trust His decision is good for me?

This is hard. I really wish in my own human nature, I could go to God sometimes and say, ah, you got to do this. You got to heal me. Sorry, I believe it, so you got to do it. But you know, it doesn't work that way. Because sometimes the answer is yes, and He heals us. And sometimes the answer is okay after you do, and then fill in the blank, after you learn that you're not going to heal your diabetes, it's until you stop eating 10 snicker bars a day. Sometimes the answer is delayed for reasons, or I'll heal you after you learn a certain lesson I was talking about in the sermon. So sometimes the answer is yes, but there's going to be a time lapse here.

You may have to learn something. You may have to learn something physically. You may have to may learn something spiritually. So sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's delayed, and then sometimes it's no. It's not that God didn't answer. The answer is no. And I've dealt with cases where the person came to the realization and said, you know, the answer is no, and it's okay.

In fact, I've seen cases where people accepted the answer better than I did.

Sometimes the answer is no.

Mr. Foster, read from 2 Corinthians. Let's go back there a minute, because I'm going to zero into one little phrase here. 2 Corinthians 12, because why would the answer be no? Well, there could be a number of reasons. And that doesn't mean you have a lack of faith. It doesn't mean that God doesn't heal. And it doesn't mean we're trying to sidestep the fact that God says He's our healer. He is our healer. And we're not sidestepping the fact that God does heal.

But why would He sometimes say no?

Well, just as there are cases in the Bible where God healed, there's cases where He delayed it, and there are cases where He said no. In a case here with Paul, he said no. He says in verse 7, this was read, but I'm going to zero in on just one phrase here.

Unless I should be exalted, Paul says, above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan who buffeted me, lest I be exalted above measure. Now, there are dozens and dozens of attempts to explain that verse.

Thorn in the flesh. Some say that he was blinded, going back to almost blind. He had poor eyesight, because remember when he was struck down by Christ, he was actually blind. Some say he had poor eyesight, because we know later he did, because he talks about he's writing in a big hand. Okay? And we had poor eyesight. Well, that was the thorn in the flesh. Others say no, and they tie in some scriptures. They think he got malaria or some serious illness when he was going through the sloppy areas of Galatia. Others think it's the fact that he was stoned.

Remember how many times it was talked about in the sermon and he was beaten?

I mean, this poem wasn't like a really handsome, good-looking guy. If he was earlier in his life, he sure wasn't by this point. Stoned, left for dead, beaten. I don't know what. When people pile, a bunch of people throw giant rocks at you until they beat you down and cover you with rocks, it's got to leave some scars. When they beat you over and over again, people beat you with their fists. They were talking about that at times. This man, you know, some think it was just the fact that he was all marbled up, all marbled up from all those beatings. I don't know what it was.

I don't know what it was. Some say this messenger of Satan means that he had some demon following him around all the time. I'm not sure that's what it says either. It means what it is either.

Whatever it is, because it's a thorn in the flesh. Something was hurting him physically.

And the word thorn there is very interesting because it implies pain. I have this thing, it's painful. So he has a fleshly problem that is Satan's using.

You know, have you ever been sick for very long and then you get angry with God because he's not healed you? Or what's the problem here? Or why did you carry out your promises? Okay, Satan will use physical illnesses to try to turn us against God.

Okay. So let's just look at this at face value, not trying to get too technical.

He had a physical problem that Satan was using.

He asked God to heal him three different times. Three times he went to God.

And verse 9, here's what God answered.

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

My grace is enough.

There's times in our lives when God is going to say to you, my grace is enough. His favor. You being my chosen child is enough. But no, it's not.

Let me think about it. We can apply this to every trial we go through. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. Takes my husband and that's enough.

Heal me of my bronchitis, gout, cancer. Heal me of my dysphelia, arthritis.

Heal me of and then it'll be enough. And he says, no, there's times in life for being my favorite, receiving my favor is enough, because I will do great things in you because you're weak. And then we remember, we are examples of God's greatness. We are examples of God's greatness. And there are times when the physical ailments we go through and we still obey Him, we become an example to others of what? The greatness of God. How many times have you seen somebody suffer and suffer and suffer and their faith grows and grows and grows? How many times have you been to a funeral where you've said, this guy, this person suffered for years and this made them a stronger Christian? Yes, it did. And yes, God allowed it so that you and I could stand there and see that. The greatness of God is revealed sometimes. Yes, it was in Paul. And therefore, Paul's reaction is, second part of verse 9, therefore most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. He says, you know what? I'm not even going to ask God to heal me anymore. I'm going to tell people, look at me. I am malaria, or I'm blind, or I'm all gnarled up, whatever it was. Look at me. And if God could do this through me and you're healthy, it'll be a lot easier for you. That's amazing. I can honestly say I'm never there again, or I'm not there yet, because every time I stub my toe, it's God, please heal me. Right?

I'm not ready to say, look, everybody, I'm sick and this is great. Paul was. Paul was.

Paul said, the greatness of God has shown in me, because if he can work through this mess, you should be encouraged by that. So that's why God said no to him. And he accepted, my grace is sufficient. I have to tell you, that term, my grace is sufficient, has bothered me for a long, long time. Because I've wondered how many times in life I'm going to have to face a point where the answer is going to be, Gary, my favor that I've given to you, that you don't deserve, it's enough. It's enough.

Sometimes God uses physical ailments to produce spiritual character.

In our suffering, we learn to be patient. In our suffering, we learn to have deeper faith. Sometimes in our suffering, we learn what priorities are. Right? One of the hardest things about being sick is that you're in a room, the whole world gets smaller and smaller and smaller, to your whole life, is in that room with your sickness. That's all you have. And that's a bad place to be, but we've all been there. Nothing else matters. You're too sick to care.

You know, it's like the old saying, you're so sick that you're afraid you're going to die, but you're so sick you almost wish you would. You're afraid you're not going to die.

And at that point, everything else is gone. You really don't care about who won the Super Bowl.

Right? You really don't care about the economy. You really don't care about politics.

You know, there's all these things that don't matter anymore because you're so sick and you're in this little room. Well, God uses that to produce character in us.

To learn certain character traits we would not learn otherwise.

There's another reason. So if we say, okay, sometimes God answers no, because He wants us to understand that His favor is enough. It's sufficient. Sometimes He uses these things to produce character. And I'll tell you why. He's interested in your eternal spiritual health. He's going to give you a body something that never gets sick. He promises that. He says, I'll fix you. I'm going to heal you someday.

It's not that God doesn't heal. Sometimes the problem is it's when.

In the resurrection, you get a body that never gets sick, that doesn't experience pain, and doesn't get old. And He says, so between now and then, if I have to use some physical things to get you there, I'll do it for our sake. And when we get that body, we won't care about all this stuff. We don't care.

Another reason is in Matthew 25. I want you to think about this. This is part of the Olivet Prophecy. He's talking about the church and the state of the church at the end time.

And in this prophecy, He gives this parable. We all know it. Verse 31, When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them, one from another, as the shepherd divides the sheep from His goats.

And He will set the sheep on one side, or the right to the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, Come, you blessed are my Father, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me.

And I was sick, and you visited me. And I was in prison, and you came to me.

Now the righteous will answer, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirsty, or give you a drink? And He says, When did we see you a stranger, and take you in, or naked, and clothe you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?

The King will answer and say to them, But surely I say to you, It is much, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.

This is one of the reasons for congregation.

There are a lot of things about Christianity you cannot learn unless you're with other people.

The problem is that with other people, it creates trials, and tribulations, and tests. That's right, because it's through those trials, tribulations, and tests that we learn how to be a Christian. And the only way you're going to have those trials, tribulations, and tests is to be thrown together. You can't get out of it. We're thrown together to learn, together.

And if there is never any sick among us, how will we ever go visit the sick?

You see, there are levels of empathy that we learn because our brothers and sisters suffer.

Until you've suffered with somebody else, you don't know how God suffers with you.

We cannot learn empathy unless we're willing to suffer with those who are sick. Guess what that means? There's going to be sick among us. He's not going to heal everything. Right?

If he healed all of us exactly, all the time, this would be nothing.

Sometimes we're going to learn from other people's sickness.

I've seen a sickness and a congregation change an entire congregation, one person being sick, because of what it did to people, binding them together, bringing them together.

So, understand, we have to take care of each other and love each other when we're sick.

And then, one last point here why he would say no. Sometimes the answer is no, because we won't change the physical things that caused us to be sick to begin with. We continue a behavior that's making us sick. God can heal us if we wouldn't even know it. I actually think this happens. I think there are times when we're healed or we're sick again. A week later, we never knew we were healed because we just went back to the same behavior.

So, why would God keep healing us and then we make ourselves sick and he finally says, wait a minute, stop it. Stop doing this, this, and this, and this, and you'll get better.

So, we have to realize we can't just physically live however we want, break all the physical health laws, and then expect God to heal us all the time. He's not going to do it.

So, we do have a responsibility to take care of our health the best we can.

None of us can entirely. We've all damaged our health. The world we live in damages our health. We all have genetic problems. That's part of it. But we have to be at least aware of our health.

So that we don't, you know, can you imagine? We're actually dishonoring God when He heals us. We turn around and do the same thing all over Him. We're dishonoring God and the healing that He did.

So, we learn a lot of things through sickness. We learn a lot of things through healing.

At the beginning of the sermon, I told you a story about that little boy. And I know you've heard that before. There's a few stories I tell over and over again because I think they're important.

Because, you know, we are to be a witness. It's just a witness for God. Sometimes we have to witness what has happened in our own lives. I tell that story because it was a gift of God to me.

I watched that little boy, that dead little boy, I didn't see him come back to life. I was told that couple days later. I don't know what happened to him. I hope he's okay. It was a gift.

It wasn't until I started thinking about it later that I realized what the gift was.

When I was 12 years old, I'll never forget my dad waking me up, sitting down beside me and saying, your brother died last night.

My brother had been sick. He's a little guy. He's only four months old.

The whole church was praying for God to heal him. We prayed, we prayed, we prayed.

Maybe the whole church was brought together. I've never seen a whole group of people, 100 people praying so much for one thing. He was anointed.

And yet, here my dad was telling me he died, but I thought God was going to heal him.

He said, we asked the wrong question.

He said, last night I asked God. He said, I went to God. I said, I prayed and prayed and prayed that you would heal David. He says, what I'm praying now is your will be done. And he picked up David, and he died. They called the doctor, and they took him in and looked at him. And the doctor said, I don't know why your baby died. He just died. He died because he'd been sick from birth. They couldn't figure out what it was.

And he made the prayer, and he picked him up, put him on his shoulder, and he died.

A few months later, my dad, who was an elder in the church, got a call about a situation down in West Virginia. We lived up in Pennsylvania, and he drove hours to get there. A woman was having a baby at home with a midwife, and the baby had got stuck in the birth canal.

So he went in, and he anointed the woman and prayed that the birth would happen.

And a little later, the baby was born. But you see, the baby had been stuck in the birth canal for 20 hours. She was born dead. She was, and they were an Anglo couple. The baby's skin was totally black. It wasn't purple, it was black. She was born dead. But the woman had suddenly given birth, and she didn't even care. And the midwife said, don't get that man.

So here's a scene from my mother, who had just lost her baby, was holding a baby. And my dad anointed the baby.

And he said, give this child the breath of life. She's alive today with her own children. I think she's a grandmother now.

My dad and her mom were never bitter over the death of their son.

They always talk about the gift.

They had prayed, thy will be done.

And the gift was, she was holding a dead baby. And he prayed and laid hands on that baby.

And she started to breathe. At 12, it didn't make a lot of sense to me. It wasn't until I was in my 40s, and laid hands on a little dead crack, maybe, that I understood. That I understood.

That was my gift.

I will see my brother in the kingdom. It's no big deal. His death.

You know, it's funny, and it's a very emotional thing, but my dad and I have talked about it numerous times. We don't even grieve for that boy.

I didn't grieve for it. What's so emotional is the gift.

The gift that both of us received.

But healing is a different light, doesn't it?

How boy's death was God's will. And those who accepted his gift, unto the second generation, received a gift for it. Because they simply accepted God's will.

You and I are going to suffer illness, and that's an intensely personal experience.

That's why you can't judge other people on how they handle sickness.

You can't judge other people on what medicines they do take or don't take, or what doctors they do see or don't see. You can't judge people on that. It's too personal, and a lot of that has nothing to do with right and wrong. It's just personal decisions. It is where our faith is that matters. It is where our faith is that counts. It's who we have faith in. Realizing that God is our healer, and God has a great plan, and that anything we go through today is temporary. Because the number one thing in his mind, and what drives him, is, my grace is sufficient, because there comes a time when you receive all the healing, all the healing, a perfect body, a perfect mind, when we are actually become the children of God.