Presenter's Notes
Do you ever become discouraged by the fact that God does not always heal us in this life? Or that, though we may experience the miracle of healing, the illness could return or another illness could beset us?
Let’s turn to Psalm 103 and see what has been claimed of God and what we should be able to claim also.
Psalm 103: 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
So, what does this, “heals all your diseases,” mean? Was the statement all-inclusive? Did it mean that God will heal or that God can heal every kind of disease? Is it poetic hyperbole? Is it a platitude? After all, God is claimed not to be a liar (Titus 1:2).
You and I have probably witnessed a healing or two in our lives, whether related to the common cold, or maybe even as exemplified in the Bible with the unexplainable.
Christ healed instantaneously those who would never have recovered from leprosy, lameness, deafness, muteness, and even death. The apostles and prophets also called upon the name of the Lord to perform such healings. These healings were unexplainable and unable to be reasoned.
Even when Naaman asked Elisha to call on God to heal him; even though he went through a process of jumping in the river seven times, the healing was instant and miraculous.
But how many more times has healing seemed either a long, drawn out process or simply unfulfilled?
After all, we BELIEVED God can heal! We RELIED ON God to heal! We followed the example of ANOINTING! So, why does it not appear that we receive nearly as often the miraculous, instantaneous healings as are exclusively exemplified in the Bible?
Well, as one Christian speaking to fellow saints, let me suggest we MIGHT be missing an opportunity to see just how much healing we do experience.
Expositor’s Bible Commentary
The forgiveness of “sins” (‘awon lit., “guilt”) is God’s gracious act of removing the consequences of sin as well as the sin itself (cf. 32:1; 51:2; 90:8). It is synonymous with “heals all your diseases.” The “diseases” may be forms of sickness (cf. Mark 2:7); but more likely it is a metaphor for adversities or setbacks (cf. Deut 29:22; Jer 14:19; 16:4), similar to punishment (“sins”). For “healing” as an act of restoration, see 147:3 and Jeremiah 30:12-17; 51:8-9.
Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
who healeth all thy diseases; not bodily ones, though the Lord is the physician of the bodies as well as of the souls of men, and sometimes heals the diseases of soul and body at once, as in the case of the paralytic man in the Gospel; but spiritual diseases, or soul maladies, are here meant; the same with "iniquities" in the preceding clause: sin is a natural, hereditary, epidemical, nauseous, and mortal disease; and there are many of them, a complication of them, in men, which God only can cure… ; and he heals them by his word, by means of his Gospel, preaching peace, pardon, and righteousness by Christ; by the blood, wounds, and stripes of his Son; by the application of pardoning grace and mercy; for healing diseases, and forgiving iniquities, are one and the same thing; see Isaiah 33:24, and this the Lord does freely, fully, and infallibly, and for which thanks are due unto him; and it would be very ungrateful, and justly resented, should they not be returned to him; see Luke 17:15.
Jeremiah 17: 9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
605 'anash aw-nash' a primitive root; to be frail, feeble, or (figuratively) melancholy:--desperate(-ly wicked), incurable, sick, woeful.
So, I will now make a statement and would like to convince you of the truth of that statement with the time I have remaining. When we were baptized we started a lifelong journey by which we are offered miraculous DAILY healings. To start to support this statement let’s first read how Jesus Christ tied healing to hearts and minds. Turn to…
John 12
John 12: 39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
40 He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them.
2 Corinthians 4: 13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed, and so I spoke, we also believe, and so we also speak,
14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.
Psalm 51: 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Lamentations 3: 21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
Healing does require our participation in the deepest sense of immersion. With King David it can be simply expressed where he writes:
Psalm 119: 97 Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
David thought on God’s way constantly, and so we must also think and do according to God’s way.
Ephesians 4: 17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.
20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!—
21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus,
22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Titus 3: 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
When it comes to physical healing, the converted must realize that it is not always God’s will to provide physical healing, but it is ALWAYS God’s will to provide spiritual healing.
And we can be certain that what happens to our health physically is related to that spiritual healing.
So, our sick hearts are the singular issue of God’s love and concern. Our sick bodies are healed according to a combination of our faith and God’s will as He focuses on our spiritual healing.
This is why Jesus said in Matthew 19, With man this is impossible, but with God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! God offers us healing power every day of our lives as we call upon that power in faith to heal our hearts so that we can run our race to its fulfillment; so that our sick hearts can be made whole.
And, as we look forward to the ultimate, and otherwise impossible healing, the fulfillment of being changed from flesh to spirit, if we can believe on that and have hope in that, then let us look for the spiritual healing God offers us every day and know He will heal concerning any decision, action, and habit! Why?
BECAUSE GOD IS ALWAYS AT THE READY TO FORGIVE ALL OF OUR INIQUITIES AND HEAL ALL OF OUR DISEASES.
