Sin, Sickness, and Healing
Notes
Transcript
Last week:
Sickness and Healing
Sickness
Primary word - astheneo / asthenes / astheneia
Metaphysical Weakness - any kind of weakness of mind, heart, or soul.
Physical Infirmity / Disease
Spiritual Weakness - caused by an evil spirit, weakness of faith, temptations
Secondary word - kamno
The effects of the sickness on our mental, spiritual, and bodily state which can hinder physical recovery.
I’m just run down...
So the sicknesses being brought forward for prayer is varied and diverse.
It’s not just for bodily illness or disease.
Healing
1. Strengthened/Established - vs 8
2. Restored/Saved - vs 15
3. Raised Up - vs 15
4. Forgiven - vs 15
5. Healed - vs 16
So, even though bodily healing is the primary thrust of this text, it includes more types of healing than just from diseases and illnesses.
That being said, it also means that sometimes God does not heal bodily diseases and illnesses.
What King Of Healing Does God Want To Do?
The Deepest Kind Of Healing.
What We Need Most At The Moment.
That Which Will Mature Us Spiritually.
That Which Will Strengthen Our Relationship With Him.
I also said that the most important healing that He wants done is our spiritual healing because this affects our relationship to Him.
This is why this section on effective prayer deals so much with confession of sins and forgiveness.
Today will be some hard truths that I share, in no way judgmentally, but humbly speaking the truth in love.
We’re going to look at 3 things:
The connection between sin and sickness.
Why God would use sickness as a punishment for sin.
How healing comes through confession.
Read James 5:14-16; 19-20
Preliminary Observations:
You can’t get around what the text says here.
You can ignore it, deny it, or reject it.
But you have to deal with what it says.
I for one for a long time just kinda ignored and glossed over it.
But in doing this deep dive I’ve been forced to wrestle with it.
In some ways because I wanted the blessing and favor of God without dealing with the underlying root issue that may be keeping me from experiencing His blessing and favor.
Partly because I’m afraid of becoming legalistic, intolerant, or judgmental and I push back on the Lordship salvation theology of John McArthur.
Because I believe in the free grace of God that covers all my sin.
I believe in the cleansing grace of God that purifies me of my sin.
I believe in the healing grace of God that wants to bring wholeness to my broken life.
And I believe in the power of the grace of God that sets me free from the curse of sin.
But, I can’t ignore Scriptures that speak specifically to those who profess to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or to the church who may be allowing sin in their midst.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
sensuality - an excessive, uncontrolled, and insatiable desire for pleasure.
Excessive - beyond what is normal and accepted. Skydiving is not a sin, but skydiving every day might be.
Uncontrolled - can’t stop doing it. Eating is not a sin, but excessive eating is gluttony, which is a sin.
Insatiable - brings no satisfaction or the initial normal satisfaction no longer satisfies and so I need greater doses of it, or need it more frequently. Obviously, drugs come to mind in the negative way.
We actually have another word for this: addiction.
And I think sometimes we are more addicted to things than we realize.
How do we pervert the grace of God in this?
Oh, God understands my weakness (astheneia) in this area, and so He’ll overlook it.
God knows how much I struggle in this area, I’m so glad He forgives me, without having any desire to turn from it.
It’s any way that you use the grace of God to justify your sin.
There is a standard of righteous living that is expected by God, and He makes it possible to live that way through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The question always is, “Will we submit to the conviction of the Holy Spirit in our lives?”
The Connection Between Sin And Sickness
The Connection Between Sin And Sickness
In one example of Jesus, Jesus implies that after being made well, if one continues in sin, something worse may happen.
In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters;
A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”
“Well” here in Greek means to be healthy / sound, and is the antonym to astheneo and carries both physical and spiritual connotations to becoming healthy.
Bringing this issue forward to James.
This is why in Chapter 4 James says:
You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
So, this becomes our fifth contextual constraint in effective praying, and the question simply is:
Is there active sin in our lives that is hindering what God wants to accomplish in and through us?
Now let me deal with this difficult question:
Why Would God Afflict Me With An Illness Because Of My Sin? Seems a little extreme.
Why Would God Afflict Me With An Illness Because Of My Sin? Seems a little extreme.
Sometimes it takes extreme measures to get our attention.
“The Lord will smite you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. “The Lord will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart;
The implication is that no medical intervention or prayers for healing will work.
The only prayer that would work in this situation is a prayer of confession and repentance.
“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, if there is locust or grasshopper, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer or supplication is made by any man or by all Your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own pain, and spreading his hands toward this house, then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and render to each according to all his ways, whose heart You know for You alone know the hearts of the sons of men, that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You have given to our fathers.
“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Again, because God is trying to get our attention.
But, I just want to keep emphasizing, just because there is no rain, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a sin issue.
Just because grasshoppers ate our garden, doesn’t mean it’s absolutely because of a sin issue.
Just because we have an illness, doesn’t always mean sin was the reason for it.
But it might be.
This is the point. God uses these as punishment for sin, but you also need to understand the underlying heart of God. Why does He do this?
Look at what Solomon in 2 Chronicles reveals to us.
God knows our heart, our hearts are prone to stray from Him, and He is jealous for our relationship with Him.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.
No different than a husband or wife being jealous of other things taking time from their relationship.
And usually those “sins” are things that we have idolized and put in the place of God in our lives.
So, yes, it may be a disciplinary tactic on God’s end, but it’s for the purpose of restoring our relationship to Him.
It’s why James references in vs. 19 - the one who has strayed from the truth...and vs 20 - turn a sinner from the error of his way.
It’s why Hebrews 12 talks about
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
There’s another reason God may use an illness as a tool. Preventative medicine.
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
He did the same thing in the Garden of Eden.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
God was preventing them from living forever in their fallen state.
This was the mercy and kindness of God on display, even in the midst of the punishment.
It’s like how we might take away the device from our kids when they break the rules for using it.
We’re removing the thing that caused them to sin, so that they will not sin again or make things worse.
James is alluding to that when he says in verse 20:
Save his soul from death.
the thought probably meant to save him from the path of a destructive lifestyle that he has currently put himself on.
will cover a multitude of sins -
(it is future tense) Could also mean to help suppress or prevent sins yet to be committed
as in accountability and discipleship as part of the disciplinary process.
But there’s possibly an even deeper saving that James is alluding to.
Someone who claims to be a believer and yet is living in unconfessed sin and not open to repenting when confronted.
I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Of which Jesus gives a similar take.
“If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
The implication from Paul is that, if this person who claims to believe truly believes, it is better to let Satan kill him now so that he will still go to heaven rather than let him continue in his sin and potentially reject Christ and lose his salvation.
This, too, ends up being a kindness of God.
He’s not going to let you go to hell.
Especially since He already redeemed you.
The price of your redemption was too high to let you get away from me.
How Healing Comes Through Confession
How Healing Comes Through Confession
vs 15 - If he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.
vs 15 - If he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.
Notice the big word “IF” here.
First of all, last week I said, some sickness is caused because of our sin, but not always.
So don’t think that since I’m sick, I must have sinned.
But it is an opportunity to evaluate my relationship with God.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.
This is where the elders come in.
The elders pray over them and anoint them with oil and we see at the end, IF he has committed sins, they will be forgiven.
The elders who are required to have some spiritual maturity, and coming before the elders gives opportunity to pause, reflect, and confess, if needed.
Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
In the process of being prayed over, we simply ask the question, “God am I missing something?”
Jesus’ Half-Brothers Speak: James and Jude Word and Phrase Study
In the spiritual battle for purity and wholeness, confession and prayer are the believer’s major weapons along with a knowledge of the gospel and the Word of God (cf.
Jesus’ Half-Brothers Speak: James and Jude Word and Phrase Study
Confession was and is an important part in the healing process (cf.
