Healing From God

When people come to be anointed or ask for prayer when they're sick, there's a lot of questions that come up. I mean, the same questions that are asked over and over again, they're the same questions I have at times when I've been sick.

If God loves me so much, why is He letting me be sick? Why is He letting me suffer this? If He loves me, why would He do this? This is especially hard when it's a child that's sick. Why would God let a child be sick? There's no reason for a child to be sick. What's the purpose? So why is God doing this? If healing, it's just a matter of faith, then how come there aren't any more healings?

And I've heard ministers or people say, well, I think there's no more healings in the church today because we don't have enough faith. Well, there are healings in the church today, by the way. We see them. But, you know, this sort of pat answer, well, there's not enough faith. There's no faith. That's why there's no more healings. So we all need to somehow work up more faith. And then someone will say, okay, I have faith, but I don't know what God's will is. I don't know how to have faith when I don't know what His will is. And so we struggle with these kinds of things.

Under what circumstances should I ask to be anointed? When should I get anointed? And maybe shouldn't I get anointed? Should I get anointed before the operation or after the operation? I've had people ask those questions. How about this one? A person is suffering, and they're saying that my sin is the direct result, or my illness is the direct result of sin. My illness is... So what sin have I committed? And I've actually had people ask, would you tell me what my sin is? Because if you would tell me what my sin is, then I know I could be healed, but I don't know what to repent of. And then the big one, why does it seem that God just doesn't answer our prayer sometimes about healing? I mean, why does God sometimes let people go on and on and on when they're sick? Why doesn't the God allow people to die?

These are the kind of questions we get all the time. We ask these questions all the time. Well, today we're going to talk about divine healing. We're going to talk about what the Bible says about sickness and illness. And we're going to look at a few scriptures to try to put healing in the greater context of God's involvement in our lives. We always start... We need to start when we talk about healing in Exodus 15. So let's go to Exodus 15. The reason I say that is because we look at how God reveals Himself in the scripture. He reveals Himself through different names, different titles. These names and these titles tell us something about who He is. And in Exodus 15... Let me get to here. Exodus 15.

And let's go to verse 26. It's in the middle of something that God's telling ancient Israel.

He says, but in verse 26, God says, If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. And then there's a sentence. For I am the Lord who heals you. Now we look at that as a noun and a verb, right? Lord heals. But in Hebrew, it's a name that God has to give you. If you translate it into English, just really literally, it would be, I am the Lord healer. Yahweh, I am the God. I am the Lord healer. So it's a name.

So we know from this that in our relationship with God, that healing is part of this relationship. Physical healing is part of this relationship. So we start there. We understand that healing is part of our relationship with God. David talks about it. And you can ask the elders here, many of you have experienced healing, remarkable healings in your lifetime.

Or you know of people that were healed. Of course, you know, anointing people all the time, I've seen people go through dramatic healings. And I have seen people that had great faith, and I laid hands on them and they died. And I can tell you one thing, Mr. John Paul will say the same thing. I have never healed a person in my life. No, I've watched God heal people.

I've watched God heal people. But I've never healed anybody. Because it's God who does this. Now, I've witnessed a lot of healings, and I'm going to share one. I know I've told some of you this before. I'm going to tell a couple of stories, and some of you know these, but there's a few things I pass on on somewhat a regular basis, because we are told in the scripture to be a witness.

And I witness things that should be passed on. And one was, it was many years ago, I was living in Janesville, Wisconsin, was pastoring a church there and in Rockford, Illinois. And I got a call from one of the women that lived down in Rockford, and she said, I'm over at the hospital, a friend of mine from Chicago. She's not part of our church. In fact, she was a member of one of the big mega churches in Chicago.

Seven, nine thousand people on a Sunday. And she has a baby that's sick and possibly dying, and wanted to know if you would come anoint the baby. And so I talked to the woman on the phone, and she said, well, she says, I adopted this baby because the mother, the biological mother, was addicted to crack.

And the baby, his brain is just all messed up because of crack. It was born addicted to crack, if you can imagine that. So he goes into seizures, seizures, and he went into a seizure, and they can't get him out of it. And he's in a coma. And she said, would you come pray with him? And I said, well, do you understand? I mean, do you believe in God? You know, the God of the Bible?

Yes. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God, who has lived eternally with the father and has come here and died for us and returned? Yes. Do you believe in divine healing? Yes. Do you believe in the laying on of hands for the anointing of the sick? And she said, yes, but none of my ministers will come from Chicago. He was 70, 80 miles to Chicago.

Nobody would come. She says, they just won't drive this far. Of course, it was like 45 miles for me. I thought, well, that's, you know, okay, but, and I said, well, I'll come. So I went to the hospital, then I went in, and there's this little guy. Some of you know what I mean. I mean, his eyes are lifeless. They get him on a machine, you know, pumping him in full over there.

He's dead. I'm looking at him, and they said, well, they're going to unhook him tomorrow morning. He said they were going to unhook him. So I anointed him, and I prayed for him. And we talked for about an hour about anointing and about faith and, you know, God's intervention in our lives. And she was preparing. What if God said, no, you know, what she was going to do? And I remember on the way home, I literally cried, driving home and thinking, this is so cruel. Why don't they just unhook this little guy?

He's dead. A couple of days later, I get a phone call. The woman says, you know, we got so excited, no one remembered to tell you. They unhooked him the next day. And not long afterwards, he's running all over the hospital. They're having a hard time crowning him. And he says, he's fine.

Now I tell that story because it's part of a greater story. There's a bigger story that's attached to this. But that's just one healing that I've seen. And I can tell you, it wasn't because of my faith. I didn't think God was going to raise this old boy from the dead. And it wasn't because they were Sabbath keepers. And I've heard people say, God will only heal people who are converted. And I've actually heard that, and it shocks me. I want you to go through the Gospels and find one converted person that Jesus Christ healed.

One. Since the Holy Spirit hadn't been poured out yet.

I mean, there were a few converted people. I think the way the Bible describes John the Baptist's mother and father were converted. I would assume Mary and Joseph were converted, but you never see Jesus healing them. You see Jesus healing converted people.

So, you know, you learn a lesson when you, over the years I've seen God heal a lot of people I anointed just because I went in to anoint somebody in the hospital and the person in the next bed said, would you do that with me? And you say, sure. So we're going to talk about anointing in a minute. Let me talk about causes for sickness, because this is a misunderstanding too. Why do we get sick? And there is sometimes an assumption, you're sick because you sinned. Now, sin can be a cause of sickness. We'll talk about that in a minute. But let me tell you why there is sickness in the world. There is sickness in the world because Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden and the environment deteriorated. Remember Adam and Eve were told, once they got, you're going to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden and you will die.

You will die. Every human being since Adam and Eve has died because you and I can't live in this world. It is an environment that has deteriorated. It is a corrupt environment. And there is disease and we get old and we die. So that is the starting point for understanding. So that means if Adam and Eve were to stay with God, well, we can say what if, what if. But the reality is they were kicked out and we get older, right? We have problems. Our bodies wear out. So when we look at reason for sickness, sometimes we have biological reasons for sickness that have nothing to do with us. Hereditary reasons. Everybody in this room has some hereditary weakness that you got from your parents or grandparents or great grandparents, right? People are just born with bad eyesight. People are born with all kinds of problems. People are born with all kinds of susceptibilities. Some people are born with, you know, unless they guard everything they eat as a child, they're going to grow up and become a diabetic because it's in their DNA.

Now some people are made diabetics. Some people are born diabetics.

It's in their DNA. Why is it in their DNA? Because we live in a corrupted environment and you and I are products, biological products of that. There could be organic reasons that have nothing to do with sin. Now let me give you an example. A new mother, nursing mother, and the baby is sick all the time. The baby is just a tummy cake all the time, throwing up all the time, and she goes to an older woman who's had children and says, what's wrong with my baby? And you know what every woman who's had babies are going to say? What are you eating?

Well, I love Mexican food. Ah, let's cut the Mexican food out and see what happens. They stop eating Mexican food and the baby suddenly the problems go away. Now the baby wasn't sitting and I can guarantee you Mexican food isn't sitting.

Since I've never had a baby, I don't have to worry about that.

So where was the sin? But the baby was sick. There's no sin involved. It's a biological reason because we live in a biologically corrupt world. Okay, so we have to accept that. We're all going to get older and all of us are going to have sicknesses from time to time and some of that we have no control over. We also get sick sometimes because we break physical health walls. And when we talk about healing in a minute, we need to really think about this. You know, because we're like a biological machine and if you don't maintain this machine, it breaks down. I mean, every once in a while, Mr. Kellers will call me and say, I notice you look really tired. And then he chews me out for working too hard and not exercising enough. And so then I do it for a while. And then he notices, I guess I'm tired. Then I call and he gets chewed out again.

And the point is, if you don't do certain things, you have health problems. And that includes mentally and emotionally too. We make ourselves sick through our emotions. The body can't stand what we're doing emotionally and it breaks it down. It actually breaks down the body.

Stress breaks down the body. And so we can break physical health walls. You can not drink enough water. Not drink enough clean water and end up sick. It's just a physical health wall. So we have to think about that. Now illness can be the result of direct sin. I mean, if you get an STD because you're living a promiscuous lifestyle, then it's a direct result of sin.

Sometimes an alcoholic can destroy their liver. Now that doesn't mean God can't heal the liver, but we know what the direct cause is, right? The abuse of alcohol destroyed the liver. Sometimes, as we start through these reasons, it gets more and more complicated. Sometimes God punishes people with sickness. Now we have to be very careful about that. As we go through this, you can't just say, oh, you're a problem because you're being punished. But you will see where God told ancient Israel, well, if you obey me, you won't have any of these diseases. And if you don't obey me, you'll get them just like everybody else. In other words, God can protect us from disease. Or He can say, no, I'm not going to protect you from disease as a punishment. You're too far from me. I mean, I think every elder has gone into a highly contagious situation. And as you put on the mask and the gloves and you're praying, God, please help me not get this. But you're going into anoint somebody and you go in time and time again, and God protects us. Now that doesn't mean if the elder gets the disease, God was punishing them. I'm just saying, you know, we're all faced with things all the time. And God sometimes says, no, I'm not going to protect you this time. And then there is Job chapter 2. We have to look at this because this is often misunderstood, and I've seen people live in fear or come to wrong conclusions about this. Job chapter 2. Verse 1. Now remember, this is after Satan went to God and said, of course Job obeys you. He's rich. He's got a nice family. Let me take away his wealth. Let me take away his family, and he will turn against you. So again there was a day, verse 1, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, for where do you come? And Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it. I'm just, I'm down here on the earth. You know, I'm the God of this world, and I'm messing things up as much as I can. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? This is amazing.

God brings up the subject because God has a plan here. Satan doesn't come before God and say, I've come here to report that, yeah, I really, really hurt Job, and he didn't turn against you. But I got somebody else I want to go after. God introduces this conversation, which means God has a purpose for this. And the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? That there's none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shines evil. And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord and said, skin for skin, yea, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone in his flesh, and he will surely curse you to your face. And here's the hard part now. And the Lord said to Satan, behold, he is in your hand, but you can't take his life. You can make him sick, but you can't take his life. God turned somebody over to Satan to become ill? Yes. And there's a reason. And when you read through the entire book of Job, you discover the reason at the end.

Job had some issues he needed to deal with, and it was only by the loss of his wealth and the illness that he dealt with his issues between him and God.

But the issue here is that we really have to come to grips with, and this point, God let him get sick by telling Satan you can make him sick. Now, believe me, most of our illnesses are because either they're a biological reason, or we're just not taking care of ourselves. But it is possible that if you and I are in rebellion against God, we're living lifestyles that aren't right with Him, or we've drifted so far, or in Job's case, there were just issues that made him not respond to God the way he should. God may let Satan give us an illness in order to bring us back to Him. Now, remember, God healed him. Job is actually a story of healing. God healed him. Healed him completely. But the issue is how he got sick. And in this case, it was because he was not right with God. And of course, all Satan wants to do is get to you, and if you get, man, you mean I can make him sick? Wow! I'll really go make him sick. So that is, it can be a cause for illness. One more cause for illness that sometimes is a little difficult to understand also is in John 9. John 9 in the New Testament.

Now, when I go through all these, by the way, you don't have to go around worrying, oh, I'm sick, I got the stifles today. Probably Satan's making me sick. I'm saying that's a cause. This was a catastrophic sickness. But look what happened in the end. It actually brought Job to a better relationship with God, and he was healed.

And he was healed. Verse 1 of 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 that he was born blind? We have a theological problem. Since sickness wasn't intended by God and sickness is a product of sin, the baby couldn't have sinned. He was born blind. I mean, did he sin in the womb somehow? Or was his parents such sinners that God blinded this man? Where did the sin come from? They have no understanding, for one thing, that blindness can be a biological problem that took a thousand years to go through a genetic change for it to happen. You know, it gets passed down somehow in this gene, and it ends up here.

But they just knew sin someplace. They didn't tie it back into Adam and Eve, getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden. They're just trying to figure out how did it happen. Now, notice what Jesus said. And Jesus answered, and he said, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. And Jesus says, oh no, God made this man blind. So at this moment in history, right now, I'm going to heal him to show everybody who I am. It's fascinating to look at the story of what happened after the man was healed. Because it's all kind of controversy throughout the community. And all he kept saying is, God healed me. God healed me. Now, there's part of us that says, how cruel is God? Right? To blindness man. And then there's another answer. How amazing is it to receive sight because God says, I'm blinded you because I'm going to heal you to show you and the whole world who I am. And it goes from being a curse to a blessing.

Wow. God is using me to teach the world who his son is. Well, that's a pretty big blessing.

We're going to have to start looking at healing a little differently than just, if I can work up enough faith, God will heal me. Because it is more than that.

It doesn't even say this man had faith. It just says, God healed me. In this case, because he was blinded by God's purpose, or for God's purpose.

Okay. So we have all these different reasons we can be sick. It's much more complicated than we like to make it. All, you sinned, you're sick. Well, sometimes. Sometimes there's a different reason. So let's talk about healing in the church today. Is there healing in the church today? Yes. Well, why was there so much more healing in the New Testament? Well, there's lots of public healings in the New Testament. That's true.

There's lots of people who died in the New Testament.

You know, everybody who knew Jesus eventually died of either sickness or just old age. And old age is just a type of sickness. It's a wearing out of the body. Every one of them died.

So, yes, there were a lot of healings.

I don't see a lot of public healings today. I've seen a lot of private healings. But let's go to James, chapter 5. James 5.

James 5 and verse 14. We know this. James 5.14. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church. Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil and in the name of the Lord. 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, notice as if he has committed sins, it doesn't say because he has committed sins, because it maybe isn't a sin that caused him to be sick. But if he has, they will be forgiven as part of the healing process.

So we go to the elders to be anointed. Now, I've talked to people over the years who have trouble with this because it's like, I don't need an intercessor between me and Jesus—I mean, between me and God, except Jesus Christ. And that's true. So why would God do this?

Two reasons. Remember, we went through the basic doctrines of Hebrews 6. Laying on of hands. The laying on of hands is showing our subjection to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the head of the church, and He says, this is the way this shall be done. If someone is ordained, hands will be laid on Him by other elders to be ordained. If someone is baptized in order to receive the Holy Spirit, hands will be laid upon them. Because baptism has a totally different symbol of what's happening than the laying on of hands. There are actually two baptisms. One is of water, one is of the Holy Spirit. And so the laying on of hands is essential to understanding how Christ says, this will be done in my church. And it's the same way with anointing. You go to the elders to be anointed because you're showing your subjection to Jesus Christ, not because the elders are magic.

That's why we take this—we take anointing very serious. Because in anointing, we are coming with you before God because we're showing Jesus Christ that we're subjecting ourselves to Him.

And remember, it's not our faith that heals you. It sure wasn't my faith that healed a little boy that was dead because I didn't think God was going to do anything. So you bring your faith before God. And there's this personal relationship, but there is this subjection to Christ as the head of the church. And all through the New Testament, it is emphasized we must recognize who He is as the head of the church. A second reason for anointing is because we do it as a group. Even sometimes, if it's just one elder and one person. You know, a lot of times, if there's more than one elder, we grab as many elders as we can to come anoint somebody. And sometimes they bring their family in. There will be a whole bunch of people in a room. Why? Because the whole point about anointing is we're not alone.

We're part of something greater than ourselves.

We're all part of each other. We're going here together. The word elder, once again, is very interesting. Overseer is used for ministers, but elder is used more than anything else. And elder means older brother. I mean, it means older. Ordained older, that's what we are.

Ordained older, spiritually older. So, we're all going as family. We're all part of something, and we're going together. That is part of the experience of anointing.

So anointing is important in the church. That's why if you get anointed before the operation, it is possible you won't need the operation.

You know, sometimes people will wait and, well, I've been in an operation. I guess I should get anointed. Okay, but boy, you may have saved yourself a lot of trouble.

You did it at first. And of course, we do continue to do what Paul did is we take pieces of cloth. It says he took pieces of cloth and send them out, and put oil on them. Oil is the symbol of God's Spirit and sent them out because you can't be every place. You have to send them out. But it's not magic. Oh, I got this magic cloth. It's a piece of cloth with some oil on it that was prayed over. It's not magic.

It symbolizes what God is doing. I have had people call me and, you know, I made anointed a cloth, put it in the box to be sent to the mailman, and went down a day later and said, oh no, it's still sitting in the box. You get it out and you say, oh no, it's going to be two days late. You think, oh God, I'm sorry. And the people I talked to, I'm like, oh yes, soon as I hung up the phone, my stomach got fine, I stopped throwing up, I was fine, I went to work. Oh, that's right. God is not contained by me or the U.S. Postal Service.

I know a minister one time who forgot to send a cloth. He was going to send a cloth and the phone rang and he didn't send it. And I remember him telling that the person, oh, I forgot to send that. And then he said, but I will send it because we're commanded to anyway. It was like two weeks later, the person said, man, I was healed, but the cloth must have got lost. And the look in his face, oh, I never sent that, but I will send it. The person said, well, I'm already healed. He said, it doesn't matter. You asked, I'm commanded to send it. You will get a cloth.

At the conference last month in Atlanta, Chuck Smith, we were talking about, there was a discussion about anointing. And Chuck said he had gone into a church area one time and people thought that when you're anointed, the minister had to put his hands on the place that where you were sick. He said that was really uncomfortable. He kept saying, no, no, no, I just lay, I put it on your head. That's what we do.

People taking their shoes off, you know, it's just no, no, no, no, we don't do this. It's just, I lay on your head. But there's nothing magical about it. But there's nothing magical about this.

So we come down to a couple of issues then. Sometimes we receive immediate healing. Sometimes it's delayed healing.

And sometimes the answer is no.

I want you to listen to this because I've seen people struggle and struggle with, I am spiritually nothing. I'm weak because I just don't have the faith.

God never promised any of us in this room, eternal physical health or eternal physical life. He didn't promise that to us at all. He promised us something better. What he promised us was enough health and enough life to get prepared for the better life. That's what he promised us. That's why we receive healing.

I wish I could be 35 again. Forget 25, just maybe 35. God, I would take 45.

It's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen. That's not the promise.

Right? And more and more things go wrong.

I had two screws put in my knee. I blew it out playing basketball at 38. I had to put the screws in so I could play basketball to about, I don't know, I think I played 52-53. At 53, I really wasn't playing basketball. I'm running up and down the court going, that's all I did.

But those screws, one of them, I think, the tendon around it has gotten a little weak. So it's sort of like poking me. You know, it's a little painful.

I don't know whether I could, I may be able to rehab and just build it back up, but you know, it's like you see me walk along every once in a while and you see me sort of wince. Well, yeah, I'm getting stabbed. Okay. Now that's what it's like to be 62.

Right? That's what it's like. Because you can't stop. You can slow down the deterioration. You can take care of yourself, but you can't stop it. I can't live to be 150 in this life unless there's a miracle by Almighty God.

Right?

So we can't look for eternal physical health and eternal physical life because we were never promised that. We are promised help. Look at 2 Corinthians 12. 2 Corinthians 12.

Verse 7.

I don't think anybody doubts the faith of the apostle Paul. Here's a man of one of the greatest examples of faith in Scripture. They beat him. They stoned him. They stuck him in prison. They spit on him. They threw him out of the synagogue. And you know what? It never slowed him down one bit.

So we can't doubt his faith. Unless I should be... Now this... Here's... He says, this happened to me for a reason. Unless I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations... You see, God has done a lot of things for me. One point he says he was trained by Jesus Christ personally in the desert for three years.

Another point he talks about how he was taken in a vision to heaven, to God's throne. You know what's amazing? You know what he writes at once?

We think every book would talk about that.

I mean, he was given all this personal discussion with Jesus Christ... Jesus Christ. A resurrected Jesus Christ. And yet, here he says, you know, God doesn't want me to be too vain about all this. A thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan. He says, this is... It's like it's from Satan because it just drives me down. But as a thorn in the flesh, it's a physical thing. To buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure, concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart for me. And he said to me, he got an exact answer from God. My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Paul said, you know, he's right. We're going to see that read in a minute. He said, I'm stronger when I'm sick, whatever this problem was. Some people think it's his eyesight. Others from others. He says that he might have had malaria that kept reoccurring. We don't know what it is. Just age after a while with him would have been... Because he got... You know, he wasn't as young as some of the other apostles.

But here he says, God said, my favor and what I have for you in the future is enough. So you're going to keep this physical problem for the rest of your days on this earth. Healing is an act of grace. If I just had enough faith, I could force God to heal me. How much faith would you have to have to force God to do anything?

Now, faith is a response. We are required to have faith.

I encourage all of you to go reread Mr. Armstrong's booklet, just What Do You Mean Salvation? He mentions in there, God requires us to repent and be baptized. He says, now, when we are repent and baptized, does that mean God now must give us His spirit? He said, no, that would mean that we control God. God just says, before I give it to you, in other words, initiated by God, before I give it to you, you must repent and be baptized. And He makes this remarkable statement. I would just rereading it this week. God gives us His Holy Spirit because it's His nature to do so. Not because we can force Him. I got baptized. You have to give me your Holy Spirit now.

I repent it. It's like here. I have faith. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. It is His nature to heal us. And it is His nature at times not to heal us for a better purpose. And here's where it becomes difficult. Sometimes there's a bigger purpose, just like with Job.

And the people I have seen that I think have the greatest faith is sometimes when they're not healed and they're absolutely okay with it. That, to me, sends me home to my wife to say, I have no faith at all. Let me tell you what I saw today.

I think I have faith. I don't have any faith. It's okay. I trust in God's decision here.

Now, I want healing. You want healing, and God heals. I'm not taking away from healing. I'm taking away from the fact, why do we all struggle with when He doesn't heal? Well, there could be a lot of reasons. Sometimes we don't have faith, so He's not going to heal us without faith. But you can have the faith to not be healed. And when you have the faith and you're not healed, the result is, okay, I accept it.

I don't like it. God didn't say you have to like it, by the way. He says you have to trust Him.

That's not very easy. And Paul goes on and says, therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my sicknesses. So I'm going to tell you about my sicknesses, because when I'm sick, God does really good work in me, because all the other stuff goes away.

He says, in my infirmities, that the power of Christ might rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. You know, I've come to the conclusion, and I don't like the fact that God doesn't always heal me. I just got to be honest here. I don't like the answers that sometimes we get. I don't like them. But I have also come to a conclusion. I think total complete perfect physical health is not a good thing, because knowing me, it would mean I would drift from God.

Now, you need a little bit of physical infirmities to keep you going back. You pray more.

Right? A little selfish, but you pray more. You know? It's every time that screw jabs me.

Well, that's right. I'm not 35.

You know? And this body doesn't last forever.

And so we have to realize this.

Eternal physical health isn't the promise. The promise is something else. You know, I told you the story about the young crack baby. That is part of a bigger story. And once again, I know I've said I've told this before, but when I was 12 years old, I remember my dad waking me up. I'm sitting, I think it was about 12, 11, 12, somewhere in there, and I'm sitting on the bed and he sat down beside me and he explained to me that my brother had died.

He was a baby. And, you know, he was grieving and he was trying to explain to me this, what had happened. He said, Gary, we've been praying over and over again that God would heal him.

And he said, last night, I said to your mother, we've been praying the wrong prayer.

He said, so I asked, God, your will be done. And I had faith in that. He said, I picked up your brother and he died. The doctors said, he just died. I mean, there was no reason that they could really find.

I mean, he'd been sick. They knew something was wrong with him. They couldn't diagnose it. You know, those little country doctors back then didn't know a lot. Sometimes they didn't know. He just died.

And he said, it was God's will. He said, why would we pray day after day? And that a moment I say, you will be done. I pick him up and he dies. And he was fully convinced of that. And then he said, but I understand something now. I understand what Paul means.

When he says, nothing can separate me from the love of God or the love of Christ. I didn't know what he meant. As this little boy, I'm thinking, I actually got angry in my mind. I'm thinking, that doesn't help me. I don't know what it means not to be separated from the love of Christ. I have no idea what you mean. I don't even know about my brother died. And God let him die because you prayed, his will be done. And it was his will. And I found that confusing. I found it confusing.

A few months later, my mom and dad come home. My mom had been a registered nurse. So in West Virginia in those days, and we lived on the West Virginia border in Pennsylvania, there were a lot of hospitals. And a lot of women had babies at home, especially in the church. And my mom and dad would, and he was an elder, they would drive two hours, three hours at someone's house, to be there when they had a baby. She would help the midwife. And they came home, and the next day, they were excited, and they had to tell us a story. So they told me, now I get another story. How this baby got stuck in the birth canal, and was stuck for hours and hours and hours. It was born dead. My mom said that the skin had become so purple that they looked black. She'd been dead for hours. So the midwife tried for 20 minutes. And of course, there was nothing the midwife could do. And then the midwife said, get that man to pray for her. So he came in and laid hands on him, for her. And my mom happens to be holding the baby.

And she said that was the longest prayer. He just wouldn't finish. He kept asking, telling God, reminding God his promises, going through the scriptures. And then he said, and God, please let this baby have the breath of life. And they both said the baby went, they felt it. Skin turned color, pink, she started crying, and she was alive.

Now, it was, you know, my dad tells me this story. And he's like, it was God's will that my son die. And the gift he gave me was being involved in this. In other words, he didn't give life to this baby. God did, but he got to be involved in it. Didn't answer all my questions as a little kid.

Why does God let this one die and this one not? But I accepted it. I accepted, okay, that happens, but I couldn't figure out why. And then one day...

I noted a crack, baby.

And he breathed.

And I got it.

It is God's greater purpose. And it's so hard for us to see it.

And I realized then, decades later, as I struggled at 12 years old to deal with the death of my brother, God rewarded me decades later by praying for a little crack back.

It's a little bigger than us, folks.

It's a little bigger. It's a little bigger.

Suffering from serious illness is an intensely personal experience. And that's why you and I can never, ever, judge another person for what they do or don't do.

Person is anointed. They go to God. They pray to God. One person decides to have chemotherapy. Another person decides not to. We can't judge each other on that because they went to God. And now they have to make personal choices.

We sometimes were so hard on people.

We can't go to people and say, well, the reason you're sick is because you have sinned, because maybe it wasn't. And if we do that, you may wake up the next day very sick.

And there may be a divine reason you're very sick. And we can't judge each other's faith as we go through these trials. Because remember something. Jesus said that there will be people when He comes back, He'll reward. And He says, because you visited the sick, if every one of us has no sickness, how in the world do we, as the children of God— Now, we're supposed to take care of people that aren't part of us, too. But I mean, how much more should we take care of our own congregation? There's no sick among us. How are we going to fulfill Christ's command to take care of the sick? And there's actually commands to take care of sick in the church, by the way.

Well, yeah, I guess we have to take care of all the sick in the church. They're the weak ones that don't have any faith.

It doesn't work, does it?

How do we learn love if we don't take care of the sick? And how do we learn love if we aren't sometimes sick ourselves?

It's all part of the process. And if we think we're owed divine healing or missing something, we're missing something.

Remember, God is our healer. Go to Him first. Pray to Him first. Then obey the command to be anointed. And pray for wisdom and seek good counsel on what you do physically for yourself. And then pray for each other and visit each other and send each other cards. Call each other because that's part of what this process is.

It's part of what this is, is how we deal with each other. And remember that the suffering we go through now is hard, it is remembered as temporary. There is an ultimate healing in the future. God promises us that when Jesus Christ returns, we will be changed. And it says we will receive a body that never gets tired, it never gets sick, a mind that never sins. We will receive perfect spiritual health.

That is what's promised. We're not promised eternal physical health. We're promised eternal health and eternal life.