Divine Healing

Good morning! Isn’t God good. He is all the time there. He is all sufficient. All knowing. He is everywhere at the same time. He can be in a hospital room and in this room. His power is made perfect in our weakness and He is the God that heals us. We are currently in a series about the core doctrines of the Assemblies of God. These are 4 core doctrines we believe in. These are the guide to what we build on. They are the pillars that keep us grounded. We have dealt with salvation and the urgency for the lost. We have stepped into the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the push to live in the natural and supernatural at all times. Today we are diving into one of the pillars that has been abused by some and some in the world of hyper faith moments have hurt others. We are today talking about Divine Healing. I want to first look at a breakdown of Healing and then 3 main areas that I want to cover. 1.) God is our healer. 2.) We must have faith but more than that faith in God 3.) There is a biblical mandate to Pray for the sick. Lets watch this testimony of Benny Mcdowell. Check this out. God is our healer. We often times have a hard time to understand this but there are tons of scripture that point the fact that God is our healer both in the OT and the NT.

English Standard Version Chapter 15

26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”

This was a call to God’s people that if they trust Him, he will take care of thier physical bodies. A promise of God is found is Exodus 23

English Standard Version Chapter 23

You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you

Ps 103:3 says it like this

English Standard Version Psalm 103

3  who forgives all your iniquity,

who heals all your diseases,

Ps 147:3

English Standard Version Psalm 147

3  He heals the brokenhearted

and binds up their wounds.

All of these are promises of God to heal us. He is the great physician and the healing balm of Gilead. He healed diseases both physical and emotional. We find that God healed. He heals skin diseases and He sets free from sins. You see to understand Divine healing we must first understand that God is the healer. This is not a formula that if you say the right things or do the right things God will have favor and heal you. Divine healing says that we believe that God is the healer the rest is up to him There comes a point in each of our lives when we are faced with the idea of God as healer. We must understand something that God is sovereign. We must trust Him to do it. Sometimes that means that your healing is part of something bigger or that God will use your healing or lack thereof to bring someone to faith. We don’t understand why some get healed instantly others through medical and some die. We cant control the outcome but we have to trust. We trust that He is our healer and that He created the body. He can heal it he can mend it. Deuteronomy says it like this

English Standard Version Chapter 32

39  “ ‘See now that I, even I, am he,

and there is no god beside me;

I kill and I make alive;

I wound and I heal;

and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

This scripture speaks of God as the One who heals. The context in Deuteronomy implies that this healing power derives from the fact that God is God. This concept of God as the healer is echoed throughout the OT by the psalmists and prophets.

One area that is vital to understanding God as healer is not only is he sovereign but that God is the one responsible to do the healing. Not us.

Thomas E. Trask said it like this

The power of prayer and of divine healing is marvelous. As a pastor I regularly had prayer for the sick. At times, people came who did not even belong to our church, but people do not need to be members to be prayed for. Give people opportunity to be prayed for. Pray the prayer of faith and the Lord will raise them up. That is His responsibility.-Thomas E. Trask

We do play a part into all of it that is our faith. James instructs us

English Standard Version Chapter 5

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Let me break this down for a moment that Faith is a key to our healing. Not just our faith to be healed but our faith that God can do it in his time. Some have said that it shakes my faith when God doesn't heal and in our flesh we cant make sense of it but what should really be taking place is a trust in God’s hand to lead and direct as he understands it not in my understanding. Isaiah tells me that  “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). This is a direct picture of the fact that God is one in control not me.

Cancer Video

Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible Heal, Healing

James indicates that a believer who is ill should request the church to pray for his healing. The clear implication is that God is willing and able to minister to his people for healing today.

We see that in Luke 5 there is a story we have talked about before The lame man is lowered through the roof and Jesus said because of your friends faith and your faith your sins are forgiven and the pharasies have a conniption and decide that Jesus cant save but only God can and Jesus said is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or get up and walk and He gets up and walks. The point according to Thomas Trask is this

 The point is: There are not two kinds of faith; there is one faith. The faith a person needs to be saved is the same faith a person needs to be healed.-Thomas E. Trask

Anthony D. Palma biblical teacher and bible scholar says it like this

Christ died for the whole man, not only for man’s soul.-Anthony D. Palma

The Point is that faith is not just for salvation we have faith that God saves we also must have faith that God heals and its in His timing. We see a biblical mandate play out in Jesus. he is our example. He is the one we follow. Jesus laid hands on the sick and they recovered.

Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible Heal, Healing

The NT significantly emphasizes Jesus as the healer. Mark portrays him as a teacher and healer in his opening account of Jesus’ ministry in Capernaum with the healing of the demoniac, Peter’s mother-in-law, the sick brought to him in the evening, and the leper (1:21–45).

Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible Heal, Healing

Indeed, healing sickness and casting out demons characterize Jesus’ ministry as Mark presents in rapid succession his healing of the paralytic (2:1–12), the man with the withered hand (3:1–6), the multitudes by the sea (vv 7–12), the Gerasene demoniac (5:1–20), the woman with a hemorrhage, and Jairus’ daughter (vv 21–43). Jesus then commissioned the 12 to proclaim repentance, to cast out demons, and to heal the sick (6:7–13); and he himself continued with healings (vv 53–56), casting out the unclean spirit from the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (7:24–30), healing the deaf and dumb man (vv 31–37), the blind man of Bethsaida (8:22–26), the boy possessed with a dumb spirit (9:14–29), and blind Bartimaeus (10:46–52).

The biblical mandate of God as our healer is so clearly stated that there is no question that God is the one who heals at his time and his ability. Our job is not to heal our job is to pray for healing. So today I believe that God is asking us if we are going to operate in the gifts that He has given the church. So we are going to have altar in 2 parts. Part one anyone who believe thats God can use them to pray for someon else and then we are going to commission them to go and be used. Just as Jesus commissioned the 70 and then those who need healed on the other side. We are going to pray for those to be healed who are sick. It is the mandate of scripture to pray for the sick and see them recover. We have some real needs in our body. We have a former pastor who has cancer, we have cancer and seizures. We have anxiety and brokenheartedness. God is hear to heal those. He is here to heal our sickness and diseases. We are going to operate in body ministry today.